I'm starting to think that jeans shopping is harder than shopping for a wedding dress. I've yet to have the opportunity to do the latter, but I hope that if I do it's not as painful and irritating as the former has always been for me.

When Citizens for Humanity and all the other more expensive yet stretchy and shapely jeans brands came into high fashion, I finally scored a pair that hugged my curves, accentuated my butt, and didn't pinch my thighs. However, this past summer (and many pairs of Citizens later), I went in search of jeans made by a different designer and could barely get a leg in. It seemed like each of the millions of pairs of jeans that I yanked on were either barely zippable and left indigo ink under my fingernails from my efforts, or they were a size larger than normal and too loose. Yes, my thighs had indeed grown since my last purchase, but they hadn't grown enough to warrant such a struggle!

A few months later, I tried again in vain to find jeans. Exhausted, I resolved to not shop again until this month, when I expected to be further on my way to getting fit. So, this past weekend I went back to the same stores (Henry Lehr, Scoop, and Barney's Coop). After all those attempts at trying new brands, I finally tried on a pair of Citizens. I got them on with a minimal amount of hopping and pulling, and zipped them right up, only to find that the style I was trying was too high cut. Thankfully the store is getting in a shipment of lower cut Citizens this week.

Do I wish the above paragraph went more like: not only did I find a new brand of jeans that was the perfect cut, color and length, but they are also two sizes smaller and make my thighs look like Jessica Biel's? Although that certainly doesn't sound bad, it also doesn't sound like me. I'm a curvy woman with a passion for food. I accept and like my curves, and I recognize that with my culinary yen sometimes comes a little extra weight, and a responsibility to always make gym-going a part of my weekly routine.

Thanks for reading this month, and I hope you'll continue to read about my exploits on my blog, SlicesofMe.Blogspot.com