Attention Walmart shoppers: You are not getting bigger, the world is getting smaller!

So I finally got out for my clothes shopping spree. As it turns out, I’m not a size 10…. I’m a size 8. (!!!) My initial reaction was “NO FREAKING WAY!” and then I remembered… I’m being played. Big time. Do you remember hearing about that whole “vanity sizing” thing. Oh, yeah. Bummer! Well, the truth is I have *never* been a size 8. I remember when I was in college, and I went through a starvation diet phase – I managed to get myself down to a size 9. I bought a pair of jeans. Neither the diet or that size lasted very long.

So in the last few years, they’ve changed the size scale. But still – I’m sticking with the fact that the last time I had to buy a pair of jeans (which was in 2005 or 2006) I was buying size 16 jeans. I can’t believe the size scale changed since then (if it did, SHUSH! I don’t want to hear about it!) 😛 There is also the issue that I tried on jeans from Costco, Walmart (Levi brand), Old Navy, and in all cases the size 10 were too big – size 8 fit. So unless they’re all trying to play to my ego, could I have really gotten down to a size 8?? Being that I am still a size 16 in my head – as far as I’m concerned, this is all just a cruel joke the world is playing on me.

I’ll never know the truth. Either way, I have jeans that fit me, they’re not falling off. They’re flattering, and I feel good in them. That’s all that really matters.

Updated: Actually, I may need to bring these jeans back. :/ The stupid sizing is pissing me off. After wearing them for a few hours they feel too loose. I’m not sure if they’ll shrink or not… but with the vanity sizing these companies have done, and with the weight I’ve lost, I’m just totally confused what I should be wearing. I wish they had a simple chart that would tell you what size to buy based on what your measurements are. Screw generic sizes!!

Spaghetti Squash, You FAKE!

Maybe it’s not really Spaghetti Squash’s fault. We don’t normally give ourselves our own name. But to whoever gave Spaghetti Squash it’s name has misled an army of dieters.

I dare you to go on a diet forum and make a post that says something like “I know I could do a better job sticking to my diet if I could just eat more pasta!” You will, I can almost guarantee it, bring out some well-meaning but misinformed person who will happily give you this golden piece of advice “Have you tried Spaghetti Squash!” 😀

I have desperately tried to embrace Spaghetti Squash, and I have desperately tried to fool myself into believing that it could replace spaghetti, and coming to the cold hard conclusion that no matter how hard I try – Spaghetti Squash is as far from it’s pasta namesake as green beans is from chocolate. Really. When someone pipes in and says “Have you tried Spaghetti Squash?!” I feel like responding “No. I haven’t eaten poop yet either, but I’m pretty sure it’s not spaghetti either!” (No, I don’t say that but I think it really loud)

Maybe it’s my fault too. I’m such a horrible cook. If I could make delicious homemade healthy dinners, deiting and healthy living would be so much easier. Instead, I grab a recipe for Spaghetti Squash off the internet. And I dress up the VEGETABLE (It IS a vegetable. Vegetable != Pasta!!!! M’kay?) like it’s a drag queen pasta dish, and it tastes simply awful.

So my final conclusion. Spaghetti Squash: You only vaguely resemble spaghetti in shape, but you are nothing like the goodness that is carb-filled pasta. You don’t taste like spaghetti. You don’t smell like spaghetti. If you cook just a minute too long you become a mushy mess and then you don’t even come close to looking like spaghetti. YOU, my fine veggie friend, are an imposter of the worst kind. You make people think they can eat a spaghetti dish that has next to no calories. You fill my dinner with dreams and promises and then you don’t deliver. You are a charlatan. A fraud!!

I dare any of you to come up with a recipe using spaghetti squash that 1) I can make without screwing up, 2) I can make quickly because not only do I suck at cooking, I hate doing it too, so the sooner I’m out of the kitchen and into the dinning room the better, and 3) that doesn’t taste like poo. I dare you. Because I know it can’t be done. HA!

Space, Light, The Universe and Everything in Between

(Just a side note – I am still sick (feeling ok but apparently still have a fever) and still bedroom quarantined. So, because I’m thoroughly bored, here’s what I do for fun. I exercise my brain).

I’ve been having an email conversation with a friend of mine and my dad. My dad, before he retired, was a high school science teacher, he also taught astronomy and continues to be fascinated by it. He sends me emails every now and then with heads-up about various cosmological events: A meteor shower (like we had a few days ago), the visibility of a passing space station overhead, a comet, etc. I’ve been sharing these emails with a friend of mine. The latest email was a link to a video which was absolutely amazing. You have to watch this:

My Dad originally said that perhaps the narrator was wrong in saying that the galaxies were traveling away faster than the speed of light, as anything with mass could not travel faster than the speed of light. A friend of my father’s responded that actually, the narrator is correct because it is not just the fact the galaxies are traveling away – but that the distance in between is expanding, because the universe itself is expanding. (If your brain is starting to hurt – this is how I “picture” this to try and understand it: you know in those horror movies, where the person has to run down a hallway to get away, and as they start running, the hallway strangely gets stretched out and longer… it’s kind of like that)

So this started a long thread of why can’t something (or can something) travel faster than the speed of light and why? Still need to be confirmed on my understanding, but I think it has to do with the belief that as an object’s speed increases, so does it’s mass (still don’t understand why this is) and thus the energy to maintain/increase it’s speed – as you reach the speed of light, the mass increases infinitely as does the required energy – all of which are impossible to produce. But this only deals with objects with mass – Light does not have mass – so it can travel at lightspeed. And what about other things that do not have mass… What about radio waves? Sound waves travel slower than the speed of light.

Then the question of why sound travels so slowly – and that one I think I understand to be because sound is not it’s own “thing” – sound waves are patterns in the air and air particles (or other particles of material that can continue the wave pattern). Without the air or particles (for example like in a vaccuum) – there is no sound. So “sound” is dependent on these other particles for it’s “movement”. (And this movement is just slower than light’s movement) Also, just an added piece of information – as you get further away from the sound’s source, the waves get longer. Think of a pebble being dropped in water – the ripples it forms and how it dissipates the further out it gets.

Later when I was talking to my Dad he added a brief explanation of what “red shift” is (it’s mentioned in the video). Just like sound waves get longer the further away you are (remember that pebble in the water – how the ripples get stretched out the further away you are – or think about an ambulance siren as it passes you, when it’s up close, it’s a higher pitch. As it speeds away the pitch seems to get lower) Light waves also get stretched out the further away you are. With sound, you don’t have to be very far away before it shifts like that, but with light, it is a LONG LONG distance (think millions of light years away) before that shift happens. (Red light waves on the ROYGBV – red, orange, yellow, green blue, violet – spectrum are the longest wave – like that lower pitch in the siren.) So when light shifts over distance, it shifts to the red.

Anyway, you get the idea. So my dad sent over one link which had a great explanation of how the universe is expanding. Even I understood it! LOL! I love discussions like this. I feel like my BRAIN expands. But, there’s definitely a breaking point where I reach my limit of understanding and tune the rest out. That blog looks to be full of some great information. I’ll have to read through it in small chunks so my brain doesn’t expand to exploding. LOL!

Also if your brain is hungry for more: This has some more detailed information about that video above.