Getting ready

You'd think that a one night trip out of town would be easy enough to plan for, but I haven't found that to be the case. Of course I'm referring to our niece's wedding that's coming up on Saturday. I feel like I've done nothing but get ready (and spend money) for the past two weeks.

First there was finding a decent hotel room, which was expensive considering it's wedding and graduation season in a college town. The one I reserved is nice, but nothing fancy, and it's expensive enough that we could only afford one night after all the other costs of the trip (clothes and shoes for me, gas for the 12 hours of driving we'll be doing, a check up on the car that ended up costing us for a minor repair on the tire alignment, dry cleaning for the suit Gregg will wear, a gift card for my friend Martina who will be pet sitting, and on and on).

Then there was the aggravation of finding a dress. The first day I went shopping I found an inexpensive navy blue dress with gray and white trim on the bottom that would do if all else failed. Since it was so cheap on clearance, I bought it as a backup, but I wasn't altogether happy about the sober colors for an outdoor wedding in June. I continued to look and ended up finding a cream colored, floral patterned summer dress that I like much, much better. Despite how much I like it, I did have a moment of disgust with myself while trying it on, though. I hate the lighting in dressing rooms; when you're overweight it shows every flaw in your figure and every single ounce of cellulite. I would so love to be slim and to have a pretty silhouette. Sigh...

I'm never going to have a graceful figure; even at my lowest adult weight I was still tall, with broad shoulders, large breasts, and thick, muscular legs and arms. And I'm far from my lowest weight, even after the 30 pounds I lost last summer. It makes trying on clothes a chore to be dreaded, not a fun activity. But the dress does show off my body's few good features (I have some curves, at least, and my weight is distributed evenly) and it looks as nice as anything is going to look on me, I think. So that's okay. I was also pretty disappointed with the appearance of the skin on my ankles. I have terrible eczema, and I've been working hard for weeks to get the skin as well as possible to avoid stares and comments. I've been slathering on steroid cream several times a day, and making a huge effort to not scratch. It's hard. Eczema is a miserable beast. Right now my ankles look the best they've looked in years, but in the dressing room lighting it was still obvious that the skin is scarred. Oh well. I've done my best to minimize it.

Do I sound terribly vain yet? Probably. I'm sorry. Moving on....

Speaking of ankles, I finally found shoes to wear this morning. I went out shopping without my dress and had a hell of a time deciding what shoes would look best with it. It took over an hour and I finally ended up buying two pairs in hopes that one of them would work. And I got lucky, because they both look great! Now that my outfit is complete, and everything is done except for packing, I can relax a bit until we leave (really early Saturday morning).

I'll try to take a few pictures at the wedding and of the mountains where we'll be staying to share here next week. I'm sure it's all going to be lovely and we'll have a good time. It will be nice to finally meet our niece's new husband, and to see Gregg's family, but I'll be glad to get back home on Sunday evening and have it all done. Then I'll feel like my summer break can really begin.

Have a good weekend, everyone.