Old sweat(s).

Well, bust out some sparkly striped short shorts and call me Richard Simmons (and while I'm thinking of little Richard, what kind of extra-sweet, bad-ass Halloween costume would that be?), cuz I sweated off like 3 pounds last weekend.  No, I didn't actually work out.  I worked outside.  In my storage shed to be exact.  Yes, I selected Saturday, when it was a full-on sunny 110F, to remove EVERYTHING (well, almost everything) from my garden shed/enormous wooden oven, and replace my old crap-I-threw-together shelves with new, properly-constructed bull-nose composite shelving that won't buckle under the weight of all the stuff I can't throw away.  Fortunately, I had the assistance and additional sweat power of EXTRA-GOOD FRIEND (who deserves a serious merit badge of some kind for this) Patrick.  I could not have re-shelved the shed without him.  (Well, honestly, I probably COULD have, but it would have taken two weeks and involved lots of cussing, and I would have found an excuse to re-do it half-assed.)  It was seriously frickin' hot and exhausting and I wound up in bed at 9 pm.  But the good news is, that I was 3 pounds lighter on Sunday!!! Seriously, I lost THREE POUNDS just sweating in the shed one day (it was like 8 hours, but still, just one day).  I went from my 115.4-pound rut to 112.4!  I wish I'd known this trick earlier -- I could have met my 10-pound goal in half a week!  So now I'm thinking, I should turn the shed into my own personal sweat lodge/spa shed.  Some rocks, a little fire, and some water for steam, and I'm good to go.  I could probably charge admission.  Tracy's Sweet Sweat Shed Spa.  (Say that three times, real fast.)

If you see smoke and hear drums and chanting, come on back and sweat with me.  It'll be fun.  Really.  I've still got some organizing to do, so you might have to help sort through years of sprinkler heads, fertilizer, and pool hose, but that's fun, right?  Just ignore the lawn mower.

P.S.  I was already back up to 113.5 by Monday morning.  So sweat loss maybe not totally effective.  Perhaps I should combine it with a Pleasant Peppermint colon cleanse?

P.P.S.  Now that I think about it, I may have been too tired to eat dinner after slaving in the shed, so that might have contributed to the weight loss.

P.P.P.S.  And speaking of sweats, while cleaning out the shed, I made an amazing archeological find -- my old Shawnee Mission West Vikettes (yes, it's a female Viking or something) high school drill team sweats!  What a riot.  (Go Shawn-ee Miss-ion, fight for vic-tor-y....)  These vintage sweats are THIRTY-ONE YEARS OLD!!!  Yes, they are.  And still a vivid hideous yellow that was supposed to be "gold."  Mom must have used color-safe bleach and cold water, because these bad boys are still neon.  (This vintage-style photo doesn't do the old "gold" justice, so I'll have to take a regular photo of these [maybe even ON my person] and post that later.)  Why TH was I keeping them?  Who knows.  But I worked up the nerve to try them on Monday morning.  Thankfully, they were not only unnaturally yellow, they were also ENORMOUS on me when I was the littlest 90-pound Vikette (Julie Pearce, totally different story), so the top fits fine (still baggy, even after being narrowed back in 1979) and my ass just barely fits into the bottoms.  I'm so proud.  And now that I've dug them up again, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to throw them away.  Again.  Suggestions on what to do with the crazy yellow Vikettes sweats welcome.  (West is the BEST, so show all the rest!  Come on Vikings win to-ni-i-ight!)