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This past few days I’ve been bitching about being hungary, of course-liquid diets suck. But this morning when I hopped up on my scale it read 308 lbs…. that’s the lowest I’ve been in a few years. Its a long ways to go but I’m celebrating this little victory non-the-less.

I really feel that I should clarify that this is NOT EASY. And that people looking for an easy way out, should probably not consider gastric bypass. Its a hard lesson to refuse years of self abuse, carb cravings and sweet binges. Its hard to say that I want a nice meal out and not be able too because you’re not eating like that any more.

Its hard to look back and realize that while all of this time you’re hiding behind your weight, because of some reason or another… (fat people are harder to kidnap.) .. you’re missing out on life. Living is one of the hardest things to do in this world. (thank you Buffy.) I go by the fast food and restaurants around here and I sniff, pout and move on. I know that the food is bad for me, I know that its terrible and will go strait to my ass… but it tastes good and is generally cheaper than clean, healthy cooking. That’s sad. I can get a bag of doritos for $4 and a can of cheese salsa for $3 and have that for a meal rather then spend $5-10 on a healthy meal. I know you can do it, but its hard…

So I started this mantra that I learned while pledging AST. One of the sisters would ask you:

Are you motivated?

“MOTIVATED, MOTIVATED, DOWN RIGHT MOTIVATED, YOU CHECK ME OUT, YOU CHECK ME OUT HUUURAH!”

And this has been going through my head a lot since I’ve been feeling down about my strength in all of this. I seriously thought the other day that I would cancel the surgery continue with the gym, as long as I could get a fucking hoagie. I called my sister instead, [1.Ok I dialed my mother's phone number but she answered.] and talked to her and she’s told me flat out, “You’ve been wanting this for SO long, and you’re really going to throw it away for a hoagie? I know you’re afraid, but you’ve got this.”

Who says little sister’s don’t have some gems of encouragement? I went to the store and I bought a lot of sugar free pudding, rice pudding, cottage cheese in low fat, and came home and ate a small meal of cottage cheese and a pudding. (Boston Creme pie sugar free 60 cal ftw) and I read. I’ve been reading a lot and in fact while looking for 50 shades of grey everyone is rambling on about- I downloaded about 1000 books for my nook to read. Right now I’m reading the Sweep series, which is about a blood witch named Morgan who discovers she’s a witch, adopted and shenanigans ensue. The books aren’t long but they are good, and fast reads too. So I’ve been keeping busy. Hell I even broke out my Lego Pirates of the Caribbean game I bought but haven’t played yet.

I’ve also been playing W.o.W. going to Zumba and just generally enjoying life.

Oh and Happy Mother’s Day to all of you Mama’s, TTC, or Mama’s to be.

So its now counting down till surgery. I am on a liquid diet as of now. And its excellent timing. When its super hot outside. I don’t cook. Period. I got some milk for the shakes and some almond milk for the chocolate shakes, for some reason to me it tastes better.

I’m ready. I can’t wait. I’m ready to see more results. I’m done with having an unhealthy life. I’ve also made a few choices when it comes to my future children.

Pagan homeschooling is one. I want my children to live in nature, and with nature- in harmony.

No fast food, junk food, high sugar content anything. I’ll be reading labels for them like I do for me.

No TV. I’m thinking that by limiting the media’s influence might help them raise their self esteem.

Sports activity is a must. They will chose an activity that’s active and one that’s creative. If they want to take on hiking that’s fine. As long as they are active. I don’t want my future children to be bullied like I was.

Well its off here for me. My rambling is enough for one day!

Saying goodbye is hard, harder than you could imagine. My Grandfather died on Monday. I blogged about it, but what I didn’t blog about was how the grieving process isn’t exactly a process. There were moments I’d be in denial expecting it to be a joke-although I knew it wasn’t a joke. I would get into these rages where the world, God, and everything was unfair for letting my 86 year old Grandfather, the strong independent man grow old and die. Then I would have the numb. The incredible mind silencing numb. I’d come to points where I’d understand that I made my goodbyes a long time ago when my Grandfather began to slowly loose his mind, and forgot that we even existed.

The funeral was today, I’d never been to an in cemetery, grave site cemetery.  I was 4 years old when my Grandmother died, his wife and because of this I was allowed to go to the service-which was held at the community funeral home. This was my first death and my first experience seeing crosses. Being LDS and not believing in a symbol of death and a living God… this disturbed me and I’ve had a dislike for crosses ever since. To me crosses literally mean death. Anyway. I saw the casket-closed- and lost it. There were roses and gladiolus my Grandparent’s favorite flowers. Except the roses weren’t pink they were red. Grandma’s roses were pink. Various shades of pink but pink. Glads weren’t in season so they found beautiful silk flowers that the grandchildren got to keep. My cousin was a champ. She handled herself with a grace that I could not. I snot cried-hard. I saw the photo of my grandparents, in love and happy and lost it. My Grandfather was a World War II vet, worked on the Lackawana rail road and loved to cook. He helped to build the house my parents built when I was 11. In his 70′s he was chopping wood, and helping to build the house, dig the ditches. And giving my little sister wheel borrow rides. The running joke was that man could make magic with an ax, a pick and a wheel borrow.

While ever fiber of my body hurts from sobbing, I pulled myself together and went to the lunch. I had almost wanted to come home but my Aunty is kind of a scary woman (in a good way) and I dared not to skip it. So I went, and actually had a good time listening to the stories about my Dad and Uncle growing up and how my Grandfather was before he hurt his back on the rail road. I ate well and didn’t over eat, although I did have desert which I shared with my mother. (A Rockie road cake-better in theory.) My sister had her boyfriend there and he interacted well with everyone and comforted Sami.

Seeing my Grandparents like that old, happy and in love, made me want that for myself. I want to be able to get healthy and am doing so for my future children, and grand children and if luck would have it great grand children.  I am determined to do everything I can to make this happen.

Anyway, we went to the dinner and my sister looked lost, I told her to try the Chicken Monterrey, which is a grilled chicken with french dressing. She LOVED it. My cousin was cute, and boy is she smart. I drew a gladiolus in memory of my Grandfather and my Aunt had it printed out and we put it on one of the tables. My cousin also put together a time line of Grandpa’s life and my Grandmother and my little sister look so freaking much alike at that age I tried to get a side by side shot but it was blurry. I couldn’t believe the similarities. I also couldn’t believe some of the stories that I heard, and I will treasure them forever.

I’ve always been close to my family and I hope to reconnect with them better than I have in the past. I just hope I keep up the recovery and grieving and not bottle it up.

Next Tuesday is my birthday and I can’t even have a cake. How uncool is that? Oh well its for the greater good. I think the down side of this is I feel like shit. But that’s besides the point. I’m on two shakes a day diet and I feel so weak its not even funny. I wonder if its because I haven’t upped my water intake? I dunno I do know that my head is killing me.

27… wow I can’t believe I’m that old already or will be in a matter of days. 3 years and I’ll be 30. WTF. I feel like I’ve wasted my 20′s on bullshit. But that’s alright I’ve had some damn good memories.
As an early birthday present to myself I got a couch and chair set. Brand new! So comfortable.

So today I went out and bought all of the things I’ve needed, and stocked up on them with 2-3 of the same items because next month I am going to have to pay the global bariatric fee. I can do it, it’ll be hard. So today because school has started back up for me, I had to get some basic school supplies. Want to see what I bought?

Pretty cool huh? I got a blue pack of pencil/pen set and other things I needed for the house. Which is amazing because I went into the dollar store with a list, bills paid and no worries. Other than that it was a pretty amazing day. I had a lot of fun with my Mom, sister and her boyfriend. We went to lunch and he had my laughing so hard my stomach hurt. I’m warming up left overs for dinner and that’s really all that I’ve got going on tonight other than trying to get a good crack on my homework. Oh and watching Switched At Birth *excited*. It sucks because Glee, Secret Circle, and Switched at Birth are ALL the same night. *sigh*. Thank you Tivo!

Well gotta run its like 7:36 pm and I’ve got to get a move on finishing dinner, and this school work.

Today after I edit the video I’m working on, turn it in I will be done with school officially until Jan 3. My mind is pretty blown. I got a few Christmas cards from my ladies over at Veracity.nu and a very special Christmas card from my cousin. He got moved from the facility he was at and is now in NY, I’d still like to maim the horrid bitch that helped him down this particular path, but she’s long gone and is already pretty terrified of me. (I think this is hilarious considering that I’m a huge marshmallow and probably couldn’t fight anyone if I wanted to.)
The place he’s at is rather harsh on the rules, and he seems pretty miserable. However he’s a good guy and will find his way I’m sure of that. But his card and letter made my day. I can’t wait for him to come home. 6 months –4 if he’s good. I can’t wait.

I started to read the hunger games, its a pretty awesome book. I kept trying to not read it because of the fandom being hardcore but everyone said that it was such a good series, so I got it.  So far its pretty good. LOVE!

*sigh* Back to work I go!

Day 1: Post a picture of you and describe your day.

Well, my day started with me waking up very sick to my stomach and with my head spinning. I got up, got dressed ran a brush through my hair and caught a bus to the bank to deposit the money I needed to deposit into the account, saw a woman that lives in the building who gave me a ride home because it was too cold for me to wait over an hour outside in the cold… I can’t believe how thankful I am to her for that one. Anyways. I came back, walked the dog and let her go outside for a bit than came back in and passed out. Literally just laid down on my bed and was out. I slept until around noonish to try to get my shit together, and then began doing homework and watching TV for awhile while my nook was charging and promptly fell asleep to Charmed.  Today was my mommy’s birthday so I ran out to the bus to give her a birthday card and her Christmas card. And she wanted to make sure I was eating so she got me a subway hoagie. I love her! After I got woke up I ate dinner, drank a cup of coffee and began cleaning. Now I am going to pull an all nighter to get this homework done.

I didn’t post on Thanksgiving because I was busy. My sister cooked and I did whatever I could to help her. Right now I am taking a break from cleaning my own apartment because tomorrow I have another shoot to do. I’m nervous. Monday I have a doctor’s appointment in Danville and I’m so worried that I haven’t lost enough weight yet. Gotta start cracking down on those calories, even more so than what I am doing now.
So back to Thanksgiving. I spend the night at my sister’s house with the dog, and the next morning I just didn’t want to wake up. She finally woke me up with a Karbear? I need help. Ok! So I got up, did my morning stuff and took the dogs out. Made coffee, did the dishes several times over with what she needed me to do, and just generally tried to help. Well she forgot with the holiday to get her strait talk phone minutes so I handed over mine, because we had out of state visitors coming and she is so much better at giving directions than I am. (That and it was my ex girlfriend and her husband and it was just awkward for me to talk on the phone.) So dinner got done around like 5 or 6 and we ate. I stayed well with in my diet thankfully and even made sugar free pie for desert for myself.
Called my Dad to tell him ok I’m ready to go home and he was really pissed off, and I just felt like an inconvenience. I really hope that with my income tax check I get enough money to by a car for myself.
So now that I am getting the apartment cleaned up, and plan on keeping it cleaned up, what now? Oh yeah I have to read the book for gastric bypass, and do some of the workbook sheets. and GAH!

Well I just got a phone call that my Aunt is in the hospital for an infection and a kidney stone, so instead of celebrating a day of Thanks, with family, I’m probably going to be worried sick. Not like I wasn’t going to be worried anyway. My wifey, a very dear friend of mine has a son who is very, very sick. His name is Ian and he was born premature and he’s got a hole in his heart, and esophagus and because the food he was being fed was leaking his lungs now have an infection. Oh, that’s not at.. an 18 year old kid that used to hang around the apartment when I lived in another town 22 miles from here called a mutual friend of ours and he’s got stomach cancer. So please, please, please pray for them?
So with that being said, unless I get more bad news, I am thankful for my family, my friends, and for the opportunities that I’ve been able to experience. For music, for photography and for writing.