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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.

Lately, ok for the past several months I’ve been trying to keep nail polish on my fingers and my fingers manicured. Why you ask? I have this terrible habit of picking at my nails, hang nails etc. SO I have 1100 hours of cosmetology right? So why not use it! My nails are not long and painted (for the moment.) in Renee the latest Julep Maven box color I got. I adore it, its a really soft, pretty lilac color.  So while my nails dry I am writing up this blog entry, then its back to cleaning.

I can’t believe its less than a month till my surgery! It kind of blows my mind. However, I ate something that disagreed with me today and it caused gas and instant bloat, not fun. Tomorrow I have a personal trainer sesson again since I had to miss last weeks. This one is at 9:30 (instead of the 7:30 am one on Wednesdays) so I hopefully will be able to get it taken care of then go to Zumba tomorrow night. I literally have to build myself back up to working out every single day. I was doing great until Grandpa died.

I’ve been reading this fantastic book by Sherri Shepard called ‘Permission Slips’ I highly recommend it to any women married, single, children or none. Its a good book about giving yourself a break and not being so hard on yourself.  I’ve taken a lot of what I’ve read into consideration since Grandpa’s passing. Instead of freaking out over my lack of going to the gym daily, I’ve given myself a break and forgiven that.

I also died my hair. Let me tell you about the new Garnier Frutise line of hair dye. They are all supposed to be on a minium of 10 min. My hair is resistant, even if its stripped, bleached and blond. (or in this case, blond, red, purple and one or two strips of hot pink) so I left it on for an hour. Hair dyes will not damage your hair if they are on that long, you probably will run into the dye looking black because it stopped processing. I thought my hair was black it was so dark. I had to touch up a few spots but other than that it’s all even now. But my hair was supposed to be a light auburn. Its a deep ruby red. I love it, I just have to laugh at the color change.

I’ve also been playing W.o.W. again. I got a three month card and made a blood elf hunter that’s now nearly a lvl 10.  What can I say? I love it!

One of the things that I am working on is getting my feelings out. To understand and accept them as they come. With that being said, its a lot harder than you’d think.   I’ve spent most of my life running from my feelings, running from people that care about me and love me and especially conflicts. I’ve realized that I have a lot to be thankful for, and a lot more to just let go of.

I’m handling things as they come and am doing rather well in handling the sorrow and anger that comes. I just hope I continue to be good with this, rather than bottle it up.

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.

I got a phone call this morning that my last living Grandparent died this morning.  I can’t stop crying. Its been 22 years since his wife died on 9-11-89 and he’s been alone all of these years. He was the Grandfather that had the huge garden, and wheeled my little sister around in his wheel barrow. He’d been struggling with Altimeters and Dementia for a while now, and had suffered a stroke and a broken hip from falling out of bed.

I can’t believe he’s gone.

I still can’t believe that my surgery date is a month away! It blows my mind. 6 months ago I was starting on this journey, 30 lbs bigger and was thinking that this date would take forever to get. And in reality that time blinked by. All of the fears that I’d had about not being strong enough to do this, to see this through is now a silly concept to me. I’ve been tested, a lot, in this past  6 months and I am getting to know my body, and what it could be in the future, and I can’t wait. Its like for the first time in my life, I have hope, and I have a drive for something smaller and better. I know that sounds so strange, but I feel like for the first time in my life, since I’ve always been a heavy child, that I can beat this. That maybe one day I’ll be able to fit into my sister’s cloths. That I’ll be able to shop in the normal section of the store.

I did Zumba last night again, and this time was harder for me for some reason, probably because of driving all day. But I did it, and it was awesome! I get to really think hard when I do Zumba, my mind clears and everything in my life just becomes so clear. And I am at peace with my life and the things that were bothering me don’t any longer.I’ve been thinking a lot lately, and while a lot of these thoughts are private, I do want to mention that being a strong and independent woman is never, ever a bad thing. EVER! I spent so much of my life being the ‘fat’ girl to the really fat girl, to the one that guys ‘take one for the team’ for. (Which I hate btw. Guys knock it off!) And with that trying to please everyone to make people like me, to the I’m going to be funny because its just how much the jokes hurt…. I didn’t really get to know the potential that I had as a woman. And now? Hell now I’m getting glimmers here and there and its beautiful!

Well I’m going to finish my breakfast and then get to cleaning and organizing. (ugh)

So I was going to do this photo a day thing on my blog, and while the pictures are taken, I haven been blogging as much as I should be.  I do have reasons! A guy friend of mine and I reconnected and I thought I was friend zoned, and come to find out I wasn’t and he asked me to be his girlfriend! So we spent the weekend together, and got to know each other all over again I must say that I was beyond pleased… until my uterus gave me a big eff you and my non existent period started. UGH. But it was a great weekend and I hope to have him visit again soon. I just have to get gas money around.

It was an unexpected and happy accident. Which I can’t help but to sqee about.  Other than that its been homework, gym, getting the cloths around for laundry, and trying rearrange the living room so I can clean it more effectively.  The dog shedding is getting rediculous so I am trying to get things taken care of now and keep them taken care of before my surgery.

I woke up today and decided, er, well, needed to do laundry. Which I did. Then I came back upstairs ate lunch and waiting for about an hour and a half then got dressed and headed to the gym. I was there for an hour and  hopped on the treadmill and did that for 45 minutes which was fun because I had my ipod and nook this time, then I did some strength training doing ab crunches, etc. I came home and I was so tired, because I pushed myself so much that I came home and passed out on the couch for 3 and a half hours. It was kind of bad for me to have done that because I do need to work on some homework but apparently I needed the sleep.

My dog even passed out with me. It was kind of bad. Now I’m torn as to what I want for dinner. Should I take the money and get a few things from the store? Or should I just whip up something here? Oh the choices… Hmmmm. I’m kind of craving Stromboli which is weird.

Today was a total success with going to the gym. I was able to get my paperwork done, the routine is being built for me, and guess what? I also did 45 minutes of cardio on the treadmill and then did 50 reps total on various strength training. I’ve been on the go most of the day, much to the dismay of my poor dog. She just can’t get enough of her mistress when the days are like this one, go, go … go. Well I am exhausted, and I’ve just done my homework for the moment that was due today, and now its time to take the dog for a walk, and go the eff to bed. I honestly feel so good right now, and I ate pretty well today too. It felt pretty amazing to be on a treadmill that works instead of one that is broken.

I stopped by Wal-Mart today and bought an Air-Wick fragrance thing with Apple Cinnamon refill and the house smells so good, but every time it goes off it kind of freaks me out. I forget its there. I also bought some nail art stuff that’s pretty cool. So yes today was a great day, spent with family, friends, and even Mom for a few minutes.

So remember when I was talking about how my tax refund was all wacky and I had to get an advocate? Well I provided the paperwork and they got on the IRS to give me back my refund. Which I got this morning. I am SO beyond happy. I paid some bills, got a few things I needed, and treated myself to a new laptop that was on sale at wal-mart. I couldn’t help myself it is such an amazing computer for window’s… anyways I also decided to join a local gym and work with a personal trainer 4x a month. I did the math yesterday and boy do I have a long way yet to go. But its worth it. I just have to keep telling myself that it is worth it and that one day when this is all said and done and I look back I’ll feel silly for worrying so much. right?

The site was down for awhile because I messed up the payment dates and when I thought it was paid it some how didn’t go through so as soon as I got the money in the account it was fixed. Then I had to spend like a half an hour on the phone with hostgator to get my domain straitened out because on their end it was a hot mess as well. Everything is now supposedly fixed on their end and mine so it shouldn’t be down again.