Weigh in: 85/187 (kg/lbs)

Well, I guess it had to happen sometime. Perhaps it was all the bugs I ate. I'm trying not to be superstitious about week thirteen being the first week I put on weight. I'm hoping that it's a girlie body chemistry thing because I was pretty good last week. Hmmm...

Last weekend had a definite theme. Out with the old and in with the new. Some of it was involuntary (damned bugs) but most of it was a gleeful celebration of change.

Time to get rid of some dead wood.

I started with a new haircut. A very girlie way to make a break from the old. Not radical, by any means, but cute and flippy (when the weather isn't really wet, in which case it's crap and floofy like right now.) Made me feel very pretty. Increased the amount of "You're looking well!" comments I've been getting of late.

It's funny, I don't know whether I've not yet lost enough weight for people to comment on it or whether they are too afraid to say anything in case I shout "What are you saying, that I was some sort of heifer from hell?!" at them if they ask me. Either way, I'm taking it as a compliment.

Every couple of months, charities leave big plastic bags in my mailbox for putting donations into. The idea is you leave the donations out for them on a particular day and they pick up the bags of stuff. Well, I had one and I had a wardrobe full of fat clothes.

Not anymore.

I threw stuff out with utter abandon. It felt good. I threw away dresses and shirts and skirts and all the things that I was never going to wear again because I'm never, ever going to fit into them again. I never want to fit into them again. Ever.

Three bags and a much-depleted wardrobe later, I looked upon my work and saw that it was good. Keeping those clothes was admitting defeat. Admitting that perhaps I might not keep the weight off and that I had better keep them to hide in.

No excuses.

The involuntary clear-out came as I was making dinner that night. I had poured rice into my rice cooker and added water when a small brown bug rose to the surface. I made a face and fished it out.

I had noticed the bugs around the place for the last couple of days, usually skittering across the kitchen bench. I thought it was one of those summer things and wasn't going to give it another thought.

Then I looked at my bag of rice.

It was CRAWLING with bugs. It was bug central. If the bugs were French, my rice was Paris.

Oh no...

I got up onto my trusty stepladder and checked the dry-goods shelf of my pantry.

If the bugs were Chinese, this shelf was Beijing.

Bugs as far as the eye could see. Bugs in my flour, my sugar, my cocoa, my pasta. Bugs in everything.

Bugs. Ewww.

I threw out everything in the cupboard. I fumigated. I fumed. I squished and swatted and cursed.

Read my lips: No more bugs!

And no more food in the cupboard. It was going to be an expensive trip to the supermarket next time.

But I made one fatal mistake. I didn't check the cereal box on the bench...

[ladymisstree silently adds cereal to her shopping list]