It's a roll over!

In the weekend papers, I was gobsmacked to read about the escalating furore caused by this image. It was first published in Glamour magazine US edition.

This is model Lizzi Miller, she is a uk size 12. She is smaller than the average uk woman of a size 16, yet to the amazement seemingly of many journalists, fashion or otherwise, it has been necessary for them to write column miles about her little tummy roll, stretch marks and thighs! Most women don't have wash board tummy's nor do they cultivate muscle mass, but hey, I dare you lean forward and not have some bit of fat lean ahead of you. Be it tummy(s) or chin(s).

I recently went underwear shopping in M&S and took some lovely silk two pieces to the fitting room, I was so alarmed by my three rolls of tummy fat, I took a photo with my mobile camera to serve as an incentive to drop a few pounds in the next few months. Seeing this image reminded me to only drop one dress size and not go mad. After all Larry has never complained calling my curves, 'womanly' and 'real'! But it's about what I feel comfortable with and I would be comfortable with just the one roll!

I think Ms Miller looks Fab, womanly and gorgeous, who wants to get up close and personal with a bag of bones? Bring on the revolution. Bring on the real women.

A HORMONAL HAZE!

I'm so stressed, I cannot really believe it is me, but I almost always am these days.

So okay, I've had a busy week of evacuation exercises, work pattern changes, strikes and picket lines and busy, busy times on a busy reception, busy... do I really need to say busy again? My current routine, which as I've mentioned before involves juggling work, home, kids, animals during the week, whilst hubby works away. Not to mention the housework and the zillion other claims, which admittedly I put upon myself! This is something a world of other mums do and probably better than I. It isn't anything new, rare or indeed different. We women do joke that we can multi task, but actually I do hold up my hands and say that I do multi task but none of it do I do particularly well ... and it's all getting a wee bit tedious, actually.

Twenty years ago, we lived 'down south', we were you could say 'DINKY', double income no kids yet. Married for 6 years, together for 13 and enjoying 2-3 holidays a year, work, cars, eating out, living the Thatcher dream! (or so we thought then). I held an assortment of retail buying and management jobs, I was well paid, organised, (I was honest!) I was highly motivated and I enjoyed the responsibilities of buying and managing staff, of fashion trips, Fashion week, fairs and flying to conferences. I worked 10 and 12 hour days, sometimes on top of a 60 mile commute to London and beyond and back again daily! I was confident, successful and an achiever.

We made some choices that changed our lives and we had two children. When they were toddlers we upped sticks and moved from the sunny seaside of Kent, to the dark, dank and dreary climes of Cumbria. Great for walkers, climbers, ramblers, farmers and fish! I've had a variety of part time jobs here, which I've chosen so they worked well around the kids' school hours and hol's.

For a time I didnt work at all as I was busy setting up my onlone vintage clothing site (http://www.sarasattic.co.uk/). But I soon felt isolated alone all day on remote farm and so found another job that fit around the family.

So what the hell happened? How can a week of part time work, (granted over five full stressful days), two teenage kids that don't really need mollycoddling anymore, (even if I do fuss), a dog, a rabbit, the usual housework, keeping on top of the garden, some bill paying and a Tesco online shop, drive me to cotton wool wobbly despair? I have the coping skills and stamina to deal with most major domestic/emotional castrophes, l know this cos I have been there, when the shit hits, you can count on me. Please don't misunderstand, these are my choices and I stand by them. But the daily grind seems to be getting the better of me!

SO whats with the stress? the headaches? the angst? the miserable moods? I like to, no hope to think it's the mid life change and all this brings to bear. This too shall pass.

A menopausal mum in crisis with two teenagers in the house. This house is a hormonal haze. No wonder my husband only comes home at weekends! I can't blame him, I wouldn't come home at all!

...5 days off now, breathe deeply, smell the roses, tomorrow is a new day ... yeah well obviously, DUH!

What's with the inches v pounds?

Bloody hell! It really is true! I never would have believed it, if l hadn't seen it for myself! Holy crap. I can put on weight and get thin! DOH!

Here's the gig, I had gained some weight over the last 10 years. I can't blame the gain on giving up smoking cos l did that in '90. I can't blame pregnancy and babies cos I did that in '91 and '94. It obviously wasn't the breast feeding, cos l did that from '91 through to '96, please don't groan so loudly, l heard that! LOL! SO I guess it the Galaxy and bigger portions.

Two years ago wanting to approach my 50's healtier and thinnier, I decided to take my self in hand, (if you'll pardon the expression) and l gently dropped 3olbs, down from a voluptuous size 18/20 to a curvy size 14. So bit by bit I chucked out ALL the old clothes and as I shrunk down over 6 months I replaced old sizes with new.

After 12 months I bought MORE clothes and shoes (yes, if you drop that much your FEET get smaller too!) and since I have acquired a few more items to hide at the back of the wardrobe , under the bed (and if desperate the boot of the car) and then I gradually intoduce them as, 'What this? Oh I've had this for ages, just haven't had the place/time/event or indeed imagination to invent another barefaced lie to tell you!'

Before as my weight fluctuated over the years, it wasnt a bother to me. SO what's this all about then, its all gone on in the same bloody place! A drum roll for the belly roll! In February I joined Curves, the ladies only gym, that recommends 30 minutes workout x 3 times a week (in fact its less than that, I'm usually there and back in 40 minutes) and I've dropped about 15 inches in total, but get this I'm about 10lbs heavier than I was when I joined.

I do feel fitter, I'm more or less the same dress size, but I feel bigger. Apparently it's a fact that muscle weighs than fat in the same space. Go figure!

Maybe it'll all settle down when I'm through the other end of this hot space they call menopause.

Sigh...

Like I don't have enough to do!

Why do we do it? Why do we say yes when we mean no!? Why do we take on new projects or assume another role? Does it mean l'm too needy and so l want to be liked and please people sooo much that I will stuff my day to overflowing, until l reach that point where l say ENOUGH!!

Why do l do this often enough, that every six months or so I have sit down with a pen and paper and list my roles, jobs, projects and then I shave the list so I can breathe?

One of my 'roles' is as a part time Museum & Gallery assisitant on a 25 hour week, which is worked over a complicated eight week shift pattern, which changes over three seasons and that only the Ancient Bablylonians or Egyptians would understand!



I juggle this job around the family, which includes two teenage kids, one 13 year old boy and a 16 year old girl (I thank you for your sympathetic groans!) and a 12 year black lab called Pippa. My husband works away most weekdays and comes home for weekends, although as I type, we are in the middle of a three week 'work away' period, which is new to us all; more on that another time, depending how it all turns out!

So as l'm sure you can imagine the daily photofit, with me managing everyone and myself in some sort of tuneless syncopation which we call, our day!

So when l am asked and invariably this is a twice weekly event, to alter, extend or swap a shift to suit someone and anyone other than me, why do I say, 'yes that's fine!' ....even though I am given the, 'you don't have to do it!'... get out of jail free card!

I tell myself that it's cos l want an easy life, no hassle! But the bottom line is it gives me hassle! It doesnt make my life any easier!

Like I don't have enough to do!



So you heard it here first, the first point on my 'plan' is to say no! No changes, no new projects or at least until l finish the ones l've started (oh my!)and for gods sake Sara, as my daughter is always telling me, 'CHILL WOMAN!'

SOLACE TO MY EARS! (and waist)

I caught this snippet on the BBC website last night, the article is celebrating a 2001 exhibition at London's British Museum, 'Cleopatra unveiled'.



'Yet recent reports in a British newspaper suggested that Cleopatra was fat and frumpy, with a large hooked nose, bad teeth, sharp eyes, and a thick fat-folded neck.'




Peter Higgs, curator of the Museum's Greek and Roman Department explains,

"These statues carved in the Egyptian style, show this wonderful curvaceous body, but, if you look at the face, it's not what we call beautiful by modern standards, although she may have been considered beautiful at the time."

PAH!! only a man would say that!! I think she still looks pretty darn fine!

SO WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?

Did l really call this blog 'Fat, frumpy & fifty?' Yes, I did and why? Well because I was thinking of a suitable title for this blog, one that summed up my 'NOW' and rightly or wrongly that's how I feel NOW. l remembered my mum using the phrase often to describe herself and other women of a certain age. And low and behold I realise that now includes me!

Am I fat, frumpy & fifty? I guess l'm overweight a tad or two, but then who isn't? Am I frumpy? truthfully? yeah on a BAD day or when l'm just slouching around the house and garden, no makeup, just jeans and a tee. AM I fifty? Ah, now here we come to it, the crux of the matter.

I will reach this monumental state next month. Sigh! I'm all a twitter and I can hardly stop thinking about it!

However, l have decided not to sit and squirm and squeeze this offending spot on my immediate horizon, I have decided that this will be a great year, the year I start to put myself a little more ahead in the queue of wants and needs. Perhaps to pamper, to indulge and perhaps to enjoy!

I haven't a plan but I'm sure it will come together nicely over the next weeks and months and l shall try and stick to it, this plan I don't have!