home sweet home part 1

i'm posting this late obviously as i'm never very timely - but i was home mar 15-20...

A few weeks ago, my mom told me she was feeling fat and not pretty and hated her clothes. She asked if I wanted to come home and help her shop. Ummm, let me think about this… a trip home, some shopping, and plenty of free time. Sounds good to me! So I headed home on the Sun, the 15th. I got in around lunch time and since we were all hungry, we went to this Italian place my parents found one time heading to the lake (from the airport – the lake is north, home is south). This place was definitely not on a dieter’s menu, but omg they had super hot, freshly baked garlic bread knots. Yum!! We then headed home to the Houston house.

That afternoon, my parents decided they wanted to go furniture shopping and so off to bassett we went. We were planning on just looking, but we got there and found exactly what we were looking for and it was all 30% off! We love a good deal… the catch was the sale ended that day! So started a very long boring trip to the furniture store. Oh geez… we looked all around the store displays first and then settled on a couch we liked. Then we had to figure out size and pick out: fabric, shape, size, arm style, leg style and I’m sure a few more styles and oh yes the type of cushions. Omg, my mom is terrible at visualizing stuff and I don’t think my dad is much better. We had to get the dimensions of the lake house great room which has all kinds of angles. We were totally unprepared and didn’t bring room measurements with us. But, as long as we put in the order that day we could come back the following day with the correct dimensions and verify everything. Our lake house living room will be lovely (and matching! Something my mom is not known for) and it will have : a sectional couch, coffee table, chair, ottoman, and back table. Is that it?? I think so. In any case, I’ll post pics of the stuff we bought b/c it won’t be delivered until may.

The next few days were a whirlwind of shopping! Mostly for my mom, but some for me too! Yay! I can’t even begin to remember all the places we went. But on Monday, before we got started with the shopping spree we went to my mom’s new gym for her first trainer session. The signature la fitness just opened a couple blocks from our house (literally it had opened that previous Friday) and so my mom decided that she was going to kick off her “de-fatting”. The new la fitness is really nice and I’m a little jealous, but that’s beside the point. I went along so I could get in a workout and mom went to discuss her training needs. She has a lot of those. She has arthritis as well as fibromyalgia (fm) and not many people understand what fm is. Basically fibro is all the fibrous tissue in the body (which is everywhere) and myalgia means something else but I can’t remember right now. So essentially everything hurts pretty much all the time – some days are better than others – but she can’t do very much b/c it can really hurt her. Most trainers don’t get this. They think more is better. But in her case it isn’t. so she has a super long road in front of her, but she is working with a trainer who has supposedly trained plenty of ‘special needs’ people. Oh yes, and she has osteoporosis. I sure hope I have my dad’s genes… anyways… so she does her first workout and she’s on her way… her slow way, but anything is a start and good.

After our workouts at the snazzy new club, we went to a boutique, etui, that my mom had been wanting to go, but felt too fat and not chic enough to go to. She had a vision of pretty woman syndrome where all the sales ladies ignore her. We walked in and started to look around. Right off the bat, I didn’t see anything at all that would be ok for mom and the first lady (who was tall and super thin) we saw totally ignored us! Uh oh… the fears were being realized! But then, that lady asked if we needed any help and we said, actually we do. Loads of it. Since mom hasn’t been working for over 10 years, she’s gained weight, and all kinds of things she really needed help pulling together outfits for church or weddings or other nicer types of things as opposed to her shorts and t-shirt general wardrobe. So another lady who was much more built like my mom who is thin in the arms and legs, but has huge boobs and a tummy and zero ass (which is exactly what I inherited. Thanks mom! Oh the sarcasm). This lady starts pulling all kinds of things: dresses, skirts, pants, jackets, tops, etc. I looked thru the sale section and found a pair of green cargo capris that are very lightweight and super cute – on sale for 29 bucks from 158, but they were a size too small. I tried them on anyways b/c what the heck, why not. And they actually fit! Not that I’ve gotten smaller, I just think this was an abnormally large size. Since I knew mom would be a while, I wanted to wear them for a bit to make sure I liked them. Mom started the trying on of things and it went really well! We liked a lot of it, not so much of some of it and the lady (whose name I forget, but it’s a weird one) was super helpful. Mom is also extremely particular about comfort and fit and very picky in terms of materials – if it is the least bit uncomfy when she first puts it on forget it. Luckily this lady completely understood the need for comfy and lightweight jewelry b/c she has a friend with fm and actually knows all about it. While mom was trying on, the owner told me I could go thru this desk’s drawers where there was a bunch of jewelry. While the clothes were not my taste, their jewelry sure was! So I had fun piling on necklaces and bracelets as my mom tried on a variety of outfits. We ended up getting her several jackets, a couple dresses, a skirt, some pants, and some tops as well as a bunch of jewelry and a lot of it was on sale! I even walked away with a cuff bracelet that I love. I was hoping for this great necklace too, but alas I was cut off except for the pants and bracelet. The lady was so nice – she even told my mom that if she forgot what to wear with what, she could bring it in and she’d help her put it all together again. Two thumbs up for etui.

That night I went to dinner with my childhood friend, cherry. We went for sushi and had a great time catching up. I’ve talked about her before but as a refresher she’s the one getting married to her match bf this summer and she lived across the street from me when I was little so I’ve known her since I was a year and a half.