I've been sick all week with bronchitis. I went home early from work Monday and went to the doctor, who diagnosed me with bronchitis. She prescribed a new antibiotic for me (as the list of what doesn't bother me is whittling down all the time) Levofloxacin. So I'm too sick to go to work on Tuesday and Wednesday. Which didn't surprise me because this is the 4th time I've had bronchitis, last time was about 14 years ago. But I was so weak on Thursday and weak and lightheaded and barely able to stand on Friday. Each night it took hours to fall asleep, but then I'd sleep through the day. So Friday/early Saturday am about 1:45 am, I am laying in bed and have a anxiety attack. And the light bulb goes off in my head, --this is related to the medication! So I get up and Google "Levofloxacin" and search the kitchen until I find the prescription insert. Sure enough, there are all my extra symptoms: new or worsening anxiety, nervousness, restlessness, sleeplessness, light-headedness, tiredness, weakness, dizziness, rash (there was new rash on my forearm), loss of appetite, gas (I was wondering why, because I barely ate anything!) So I called the doctors office and they said just to discontinue taking it. I'd taken 5 doses (every day after dinner,) so I probably had enough antibiotic in my system to help the bronchitis and if not, we need to wait until this one is out of my system before they can prescribe another one anyway. So I figure the reason I could sleep during the daytime, was the drug dose was lessening, and I couldn't sleep at night because it was fresh dose.
On the plus side, my lack of appetite means I'm down to 211.8! Today I don't feel as weak as I did yesterday. I have to go to work tomorrow, I can't believe I missed 4 days in a row! I don't think I've ever done that in my life!
Poor Melanie, stayed home Thursday with a sore throat. I got up for a few moments twice and went back to bed and slept until 4:50 in the afternoon. She stayed home sick the next day and made me get up at 1:00ish and asked me to take her to the doctor. Sure enough, she had strep throat. I felt so bad I was too sick to take her the day before. I barely made it through the trip to the pharmacy and collapsed on the couch when I got back home. Totally wiped out. Today, Sunday, she feels good a new. I wish I did! LOL
Some of my favorite layouts
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Unfriended on Facebook
So today I noticed that my half-sister has unfriended me on facebook. I’ve never met her and I only spoke to her once, but I was surprised to see that she unfriended me. I don’t know why for certain either. It probably has to do with our father, but since I never had anything negative with her, I’m surprised that she did this. A little back story…
I was adopted at birth. When I tracked down my birth mother, she refused to name my birth father and she died without revealing his identity, so I thought I would never know anything about him or my paternal family. To my shock, on Feb. 12th 2011, I got a call out of the blue. He’d tracked me down. We took a paternity test to verify he was indeed my father and then made plans to meet up. I went to Washington DC with my daughter to meet him over Spring Break the 3rd week of March. Now, as a vacation, Melanie and I had a lot of fun. As a meeting with my father, it was bizarre, strange, unsettling and unpleasant. He was weird, strange, insulting, and often rude. I have no idea why he decided to find me because he made it clear he was uninterested in getting to know me or my daughter. He did love to talk about himself, repeating the same stories. Always referring to his father, his mother, his grandfather, his uncle, his family, not once relating it to me and how they fit into my history. (When I met them, my mother’s family immediately started to relate the people they talked about and how they were related to me. They made me feel like such a member of the family and so welcome. They were wonderful!) Maybe he has Alzheimer’s, maybe he was nervous, and maybe he is just that bizarre. I may never know. He flat out said he didn’t have any questions about us. He called me a big baby when I asked to turn back on a forced hike to a “park” that turned out to be a wooded trail, I was wearing a turtleneck and a sweater, because it was 44° when I got dressed, but then drove south and it was later afternoon and 78°; asked me why I named my daughter Melanie, swearing he’d never heard of that name before, then later telling me that Gone with the Wind was the 2nd movie he’d ever seen and one of his all-time favorites (gee, the 2nd lead female character is Melanie Wilkes!); he told an armed military sentry at Fort Bragg that my 12 year old daughter was “the one with the bombs!”; asked me why I was using “such big words”, this from a man who supposedly has 3 degrees (I was tempted to ask him if he needed me to give him a definition to anything.) He seemed to get really offended when we asked what his favorites were as if it was none of our business and how dare we ask him a question. This is part of how people get to know each other. They look for similarities, differences, and compatibilities. This was really disturbing me that he showed no real interest in hearing what we have to say. He criticized my spending habits (of which he knows nothing), commented twice that I must push my husband around (I certainly don’t) and told me I was a fool not to have become a government worker. This man is a total stranger, this is a man who abandoned his pregnant girlfriend and didn’t look back for 48 years. I couldn’t believe the nerve or alternately the weirdness of this man. After we got back from the trip, he called and told me all about his Easter, his health, his recent trip and not once AGAIN asking one single thing about me, my holiday or anything. I’d had enough and wrote him a letter that either he shape up or leave me alone. And yes, most of it was rude - right back at him. I haven’t heard a word since. I would have thought he would have wanted to try to make up for lost time. That maybe he’d try to make a good first impression. But I guess his ego was so huge he didn’t feel he needed to try or bother. To top it all off he has bi-polar disorder. Now my adopted mother, who raised me and abused me, had bi-polar disorder with borderline personality disorder. My husband’s ex-wife had bi-polar disorder with borderline personality disorder (not 100% confirmed, but there is a family history. Her behavior supports this belief,) she spent years trying to make us miserable. The last thing I need is another person who has bi-polar disorder (and probably with borderline personality disorder based on his narcissistic behavior exhibited.) I noticed that he and his 3rd wife unfriended me on facebook a couple months back. “Oh, no, the birth father I never had rejected me again.” Now don’t think I took the step to tell him to behave better lightly or quickly. We had about a dozen hour+ long phone calls and spend 3 days together. Melanie and I both came right out and flatly asked “Don’t you want to know anything about us?” and he said, “No, in due time. “ I asked what that meant on our phone call after returning from Washington DC and he explained that he was the moderator at a singles group and they believed you get to know people “in due time”. Well, I'm not someone he was looking to date. It would make more sense that he would try to make up for all the lost time. I’ve had enough with crazy people.
This is by no means the full details; there were a number of additional insults and strange behavior, and not to mention the cheapness. He told me he was cheap. I didn’t realize just how cheap he would get. After the paternity test came back positive, he offered to pay for us to fly to visit. This would have cost him over $1100. I declined, as we’d already made our travel arrangements. So rationally, you would think a person would spend a couple dollars, still saving over $1100. When we were there, I don’t think he spent over $60 the entire visit. We spent 3 hours riding the subway so he could save $10 on parking; he had us walk 9 blocks so he could save $10 on lunch. He took us out to eat the first night to a restaurant in a strip mall that I would not have gone to alone in the daylight, let alone as a first impression. We were the only people in the entire place, other than the owner and his card playing buddies. The 2nd night, it was a pizza-by-the-slice restaurant. The third night, Melanie asked if we could please eat on real plates, with real knives and forks, rather than plastic and paper plates like the first 2 nights. Honestly, a burger fried up in his own kitchen would have been better than the scary looking restaurant. At least it would have showed he cared enough to make us something. (To be fair, the first morning he did make us burnt waffles from a homemade concoction he was winging. We ate them and thanked him.) I also didn’t like that he kept changing the settings on my camera without asking (to match the photography assignment for a class he was taking - like he was going to turn in my photos!) and he didn’t seem to like that my camera was newer and had more features. He also seemed put out that my Lincoln was bigger than his Lincoln. Who cares about these things, I don't.
Now some positive things did come out of him finding me. I finally had answers and the missing pieces to me and my history. I finally feel whole. Then I found out I have 2 sisters and a brother. I’ve spoken to one of my sisters a few times now and she is awesome! I think we are a lot alike and I’m really looking forward to meeting her soon. She is closest in age to me at 44. (She has a daughter, a new niece!, I'm hoping to get to know her too!) The other sister, is the one who unfriended me, she is 36, with little in common that I could tell in our phone call. She and I spoke once and she was pleasant, but not too encouraging. I haven’t heard from her since. I left my brother, 40, a couple voice messages asking him to call my cell phone, which he returned by calling our land line during the afternoon at a time I would be at work. So I figured he isn’t ready to talk yet. I hope I’ll still be able to get to know my siblings.
Well, thanks for listening to my rant. Next post will be some of our Washington DC trip photos and some of the more fun details. I hope you all have a great day tomorrow!
Thursday, January 05, 2012
Walnut Room and Chicago Day - Part 2
Continuing from yesterday's post...
After lunch, we continued to explore Macy's, reading in one area the history of Marshall Field's which ironically talked about continuing the tradition (yeah, right up until Macy's buys you and wipes 100+ years of history out!) Then we see a sign leading to the "Narcissus Room". We walk on over and see this banquet room with a fountain in the middle (I'm guessing that is the source of the name Narcissus.) In the fountain are all these huge ornaments and behind the fountain is another "Santa setting", but with no Santa. Very cool! There were a couple families taking their own photos and I guess it was set up for people to take their own holiday photos. There was an employee wandering though at one point and they didn't chase anyone out, so I assume it was allowed. Anyway, we took some photos (again, click on the image to enlarge them):
After our impromptu photo shoot, we went on down through the floors, ending in the make-up section on the main floor. They tell us about stores across the street. Stores accessible by a top-secret passage down the stairs and through an underground walkway. OK, maybe not top-secret, because there is an "L" train station in the middle, more likely millions of people are aware of this, but it felt like a cool discovery to us. (It's called the "Pedway", I discovered after Googling tonight! LOL) So across the street on State Street is a new mall! It is still growing, at the moment it is almost 3 floors, it's called Block 37. There is a new Disney, Sephora, some restaurants, and more. We got some makeup at Sephora, visited the Disney Store and then headed back across the street to look at the windows at Macy's. Now when it was Marshall Fields, the windows were famous for the magical Christmas scenes and stories that they depicted. Sadly, Macy's did not keep up the tradition. It was only 2/3rds of the windows and they were ads for their Christmas ornaments (they passed it off as a fund raiser - a whopping 10% of the profits, were being donated to Make-a-Wish foundation. Oooohhhh... a whole 10%!!) There was ornaments by Rachel Ray, Jessica Simpson, Donald Trump, Emeril Lagasse, Marth Stewart, Tommy Hilfiger, Sean John, Michael Kor, Betsey Johnson and about 14 all together. Only Rachel Ray and Jessica Simpson had ornaments worth buying, maybe Emeril's chef hat. The rest were uninspired (their signatures on a glass ball! ohh, that's talent!), ugly or boring. (Seriously, Donald Trump? Whose brilliant idea was that?!?) The artwork in the windows was ugly and simplistic (these "elves" looked like a hand drawn face on a felt body that I could have made at my kitchen table.) The story strange and ultimately disappointing. There were others standing around, all expressing their disbelief at how bad it was and their disappointment at the windows. Here I found a photo of the ornaments (click on the image to go to an article about the ornaments):
Next, we grab a cab and go to Filene's Basement on Michigan Avenue across from the John Hancock and Water Tower Place. They are having yet another going-out-of-business sale (this time it looks real.) We stopped by Water Tower Place mall for a while, stopping for a quick snack at The American Girl Place (we'd seen the new store only the month prior, previously we'd gone to their former location a couple blocks over), then some shopping then we tried the steamed dumplings at WowBao. We'd never tried them so we got 2, 1 teriyaki chicken and 1 spicy kung pao chicken. Yummy, we'll try them again! :)
This is the view from the ground floor next to WowBao and right by the entrance to Macy's.
After this we stopped into the Disney Store on Michigan Avenue, then the Apple Store and the huge Forever 21. Then another cab ride to Little Italian Village for dinner. We ate upstairs in the 'village', very lovely! After dinner, another cab back to the train station, (we just made our train by less than 2 minutes!) and then on to home. We passed part of the time watching Monte Carlo that we had uploaded the digital copy onto my iPhone (Melanie's very smart idea!) and we snuggled, with each of us having one ear piece to listen to the movie. We rolled back into our town about 9:15 and were we ever tired. As I said, a very memorable day. :)
Thanks for reading! I'll try to get a scrapbook freebie ready to share for a new post.
After lunch, we continued to explore Macy's, reading in one area the history of Marshall Field's which ironically talked about continuing the tradition (yeah, right up until Macy's buys you and wipes 100+ years of history out!) Then we see a sign leading to the "Narcissus Room". We walk on over and see this banquet room with a fountain in the middle (I'm guessing that is the source of the name Narcissus.) In the fountain are all these huge ornaments and behind the fountain is another "Santa setting", but with no Santa. Very cool! There were a couple families taking their own photos and I guess it was set up for people to take their own holiday photos. There was an employee wandering though at one point and they didn't chase anyone out, so I assume it was allowed. Anyway, we took some photos (again, click on the image to enlarge them):
After our impromptu photo shoot, we went on down through the floors, ending in the make-up section on the main floor. They tell us about stores across the street. Stores accessible by a top-secret passage down the stairs and through an underground walkway. OK, maybe not top-secret, because there is an "L" train station in the middle, more likely millions of people are aware of this, but it felt like a cool discovery to us. (It's called the "Pedway", I discovered after Googling tonight! LOL) So across the street on State Street is a new mall! It is still growing, at the moment it is almost 3 floors, it's called Block 37. There is a new Disney, Sephora, some restaurants, and more. We got some makeup at Sephora, visited the Disney Store and then headed back across the street to look at the windows at Macy's. Now when it was Marshall Fields, the windows were famous for the magical Christmas scenes and stories that they depicted. Sadly, Macy's did not keep up the tradition. It was only 2/3rds of the windows and they were ads for their Christmas ornaments (they passed it off as a fund raiser - a whopping 10% of the profits, were being donated to Make-a-Wish foundation. Oooohhhh... a whole 10%!!) There was ornaments by Rachel Ray, Jessica Simpson, Donald Trump, Emeril Lagasse, Marth Stewart, Tommy Hilfiger, Sean John, Michael Kor, Betsey Johnson and about 14 all together. Only Rachel Ray and Jessica Simpson had ornaments worth buying, maybe Emeril's chef hat. The rest were uninspired (their signatures on a glass ball! ohh, that's talent!), ugly or boring. (Seriously, Donald Trump? Whose brilliant idea was that?!?) The artwork in the windows was ugly and simplistic (these "elves" looked like a hand drawn face on a felt body that I could have made at my kitchen table.) The story strange and ultimately disappointing. There were others standing around, all expressing their disbelief at how bad it was and their disappointment at the windows. Here I found a photo of the ornaments (click on the image to go to an article about the ornaments):Next, we grab a cab and go to Filene's Basement on Michigan Avenue across from the John Hancock and Water Tower Place. They are having yet another going-out-of-business sale (this time it looks real.) We stopped by Water Tower Place mall for a while, stopping for a quick snack at The American Girl Place (we'd seen the new store only the month prior, previously we'd gone to their former location a couple blocks over), then some shopping then we tried the steamed dumplings at WowBao. We'd never tried them so we got 2, 1 teriyaki chicken and 1 spicy kung pao chicken. Yummy, we'll try them again! :)This is the view from the ground floor next to WowBao and right by the entrance to Macy's.
After this we stopped into the Disney Store on Michigan Avenue, then the Apple Store and the huge Forever 21. Then another cab ride to Little Italian Village for dinner. We ate upstairs in the 'village', very lovely! After dinner, another cab back to the train station, (we just made our train by less than 2 minutes!) and then on to home. We passed part of the time watching Monte Carlo that we had uploaded the digital copy onto my iPhone (Melanie's very smart idea!) and we snuggled, with each of us having one ear piece to listen to the movie. We rolled back into our town about 9:15 and were we ever tired. As I said, a very memorable day. :)Thanks for reading! I'll try to get a scrapbook freebie ready to share for a new post.
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Walnut Room and Chicago Day - Part 1
On December 20th, Melanie and I went downtown for a mother/daughter day of elegant dining and a little shopping. We had an fun-filled day that was absolutely memorable. We got up early, took the train in. We bought our tickets in the station, Melanie was worried we wouldn't be able to buy them on the train. It was good we did, they had instituted a $3 per ticket surcharge for buying on the train! Who knew! At the downtown station, we stopped briefly into Bath and Body Works, one of our favorite stores! Then across the way to Jamba Juice to buy Melanie a little morning treat. Then a cab ride to Macy's and we rushed in and hurried up to the restaurant to wait in line for the pager to eat. Or so we thought. Last time we were there was in 2005, where we stood in line for nearly 2 hours and then got a pager for about 45 minutes after that before getting in the line to get seated, which was another 25 minutes. Well, things have changed and this year we walked right up. No line. No waiting. It was 9:30 am. We had expected to get lunch. So, we got a pager with a time to page us at 11:00. We went to explore the store and see Santa.
View from the escalator:
Now, Melanie thinks she is too old for that, but I disagreed, so off we went to the line for Santa.
Again, last time, this line was about an hour, this time, 2 minutes.
Here she is with Santa, looking a little uncomfortable:
So the pager went off and we went down to the restaurant, spent less than 5 minutes in the line and was seated. The tree is stunning:
I look at the time and it's only 10:50am. Oh, well, I figure by the time the food arrives, a good appetite will have worked up. We were seated right next to the tree! Here is Melanie at the table (read the last post for the picture with both of us.)
This is the ornament right next to me:
The fairy princess came around and sprinkled magic dust on us to make wishes:
Our lunch was fun. The food left much to be desired. I understand now why the long lines are gone. The setting was beautiful, we felt so special and it all looked so elegant. The food has gone downhill since it was Marshall Field's. That's too bad, but we decided that our tradition will be to go to a new elegant restaurant each year.
More tomorrow! I'm off to bed. Have a wonderful day everyone!
View from the escalator:
Now, Melanie thinks she is too old for that, but I disagreed, so off we went to the line for Santa.
Again, last time, this line was about an hour, this time, 2 minutes.Here she is with Santa, looking a little uncomfortable:
So the pager went off and we went down to the restaurant, spent less than 5 minutes in the line and was seated. The tree is stunning:
I look at the time and it's only 10:50am. Oh, well, I figure by the time the food arrives, a good appetite will have worked up. We were seated right next to the tree! Here is Melanie at the table (read the last post for the picture with both of us.)
This is the ornament right next to me:
The fairy princess came around and sprinkled magic dust on us to make wishes:
Our lunch was fun. The food left much to be desired. I understand now why the long lines are gone. The setting was beautiful, we felt so special and it all looked so elegant. The food has gone downhill since it was Marshall Field's. That's too bad, but we decided that our tradition will be to go to a new elegant restaurant each year.More tomorrow! I'm off to bed. Have a wonderful day everyone!
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
New Year and New Focus
Ok, well it has again been a very long time since I've blogged. I've had so many changes in the last couple years and I didn't share much of anything. I've been hesitant to blog about my honest feelings, what really happens in my life, my thoughts. This is something that is reflected in my personal life too. I keep so much inside and hidden, always afraid of being judged, disapproved of and ridiculed. Well, I've decided to put an end to the hiding of my true self and just let it all out. The good, the bad and the sometimes nutty! LOL
I'm going to try to post both current and go back in time for some catch up for any family or friends who might want to know more about me and my life. It may seem a little schizophrenic at times, but maybe not, maybe you too think in pieces and jump around cause your brain goes so fast sometimes!
So my daughter and I watched the Rose Parade on Monday, 1/2. It was a beautiful day, they commented that it was the best weather in 10 years and the rose this year was this yellow rose, called Sunshine Daydream. All I could think was "why is it all washed out?" It was all yellow and orange and looked like they had left the flowers out in the sun much too long! I wondered where all the vibrant and diverse colors went to, very disappointing. Speaking of vibrant colors. One of my favorite blogs is http://catchycolors.blogspot.com/ "Showcasing the BEST of COLORS on Flickr.Com" You should definitely check it out!
So, first truism about me: I am fat. Really fat. Not as fat as I used to be, but fat. Today I weighted 217.4, this is up 12 lbs from just a couple months ago. Stress and the holidays have taken their toll. About 3 years ago I hit an all time high at 292.4 lbs. So, I can look at the bright side and say: "Hey, you lost 75 lbs! Good for you!" But I weighed this much last year, well, maybe 10 lbs more, but still, I'm disappointed in myself. Why you may ask? Well, I worked my butt off to lose weight to qualify for bariatic surgery. I had surgery on 6/30/2010 weighing in that day at 258. I had lap band surgery. After 18 months, I had hoped to be near my goal, just just down 41 lbs. I can't entirely blame things on the surgery, I'll admit it, I'm an emotional eater. But I don't think I was given the full picture when I had surgery. I thought it was closer to gastric bypass. My surgeon is a skilled doctor, but his practice seems to be more sales related than medical. He said things like "lap band patients have similar results at the 5 year mark that gastric bypass patients experience." What I didn't realize was that is because the bypass people gain back a bunch of weight starting after year 3, so lap banders lose only a fraction of what bypass people lose. I was also disillusioned to learn a month after surgery of an entire other option that was never mentioned to me: gastric sleeve. My doctor started offering this the month after my surgery. When I asked why he didn't tell me about it, he said he was waiting for the 5 year statistics to come out to offer the surgery. Well, I still think he had a duty to tell me about it and let me decide if I wanted to wait for those statistics to arrive before I had my surgery. So the lap band is a tool, not a solution and I haven't been using that tool to it's full potential. I am going to try again. If I follow my portion sizes and don't snack, it works like a charm. It's sticking to the small portions when the food is so yummy and the snacks are so handy and I'm so stressed.
Next truism: I'm stressed! I told my husband in September, on Labor Day, I wanted a divorce. 4 days later he got laid off. :( It isn't antagonistic or nasty or anything bad, I've fallen out of love and grown away from him. So, in good conscious, I couldn't leave him in a financial lurch. He refinanced the house against my wishes in 10/2009, and my name isn't on the mortgage for the first time in 20 years. So while it wouldn't kill my credit, as a good person, I couldn't let him go into debt and ruin his credit. So I canceled my hold on an apartment (lost my deposit) and moved into the spare room. (Here is a prime example of why I've fallen out of love - a gentleman would have insisted on a) moving to the spare room or b) taking turns having the good bed, but not my guy, his sleep is more important than mine. He's told me this on more than one occasion. Yeah. OK. ) So for the last 4 months, things have been tense. He does not want a divorce, he says he loves me with all his heart, and I don't doubt that for a moment, he hasn't changed in 21 years. I have however changed and grown and little by little, fallen out of love so that now I feel more like a sister than a wife. So this also creates a dollop of guilt. Sigh...
I'm stress continued: I'm working a high pressure job with a ton of overtime. I'm a loan processor for a major bank with a LOT of rules. One rule, you aren't supposed to talk about where you work or post it on facebook or social networks for fear of financial impropriety or who knows what. So, I won't name them here. Anyway, they give us so much work, they are so busy with the refinances, they don't have enough people to handle the work flow. They are hiring like crazy, but not not keeping up with the demand. So, I work at least 8 hours to some weeks 22 hours of OT, that is just one week. I'm getting home at 8, 8:30, and 9:oo pm. My daughter misses me and I miss her. I have no time to myself. I eat to sooth myself. This is self-destructive. Until I started working here, I worked out doing Jazzercise at least 3 times a week. I miss Jazzercise. Awesome workout, you should all try a class, they can really kick your butt: www.jazzercise.com/ (and notI didn't get anything for writing this! LOL)
This is me and my beautiful daughter on Dec. 20th at the Walnut Room at what is now Macy's on State Street in Chicago. We had an awesome day! I'll blog about that next, but for now, I need to get to bed!
Thanks for reading! Have a fabulous day!
I'm going to try to post both current and go back in time for some catch up for any family or friends who might want to know more about me and my life. It may seem a little schizophrenic at times, but maybe not, maybe you too think in pieces and jump around cause your brain goes so fast sometimes!
So my daughter and I watched the Rose Parade on Monday, 1/2. It was a beautiful day, they commented that it was the best weather in 10 years and the rose this year was this yellow rose, called Sunshine Daydream. All I could think was "why is it all washed out?" It was all yellow and orange and looked like they had left the flowers out in the sun much too long! I wondered where all the vibrant and diverse colors went to, very disappointing. Speaking of vibrant colors. One of my favorite blogs is http://catchycolors.blogspot.com/ "Showcasing the BEST of COLORS on Flickr.Com" You should definitely check it out!
So, first truism about me: I am fat. Really fat. Not as fat as I used to be, but fat. Today I weighted 217.4, this is up 12 lbs from just a couple months ago. Stress and the holidays have taken their toll. About 3 years ago I hit an all time high at 292.4 lbs. So, I can look at the bright side and say: "Hey, you lost 75 lbs! Good for you!" But I weighed this much last year, well, maybe 10 lbs more, but still, I'm disappointed in myself. Why you may ask? Well, I worked my butt off to lose weight to qualify for bariatic surgery. I had surgery on 6/30/2010 weighing in that day at 258. I had lap band surgery. After 18 months, I had hoped to be near my goal, just just down 41 lbs. I can't entirely blame things on the surgery, I'll admit it, I'm an emotional eater. But I don't think I was given the full picture when I had surgery. I thought it was closer to gastric bypass. My surgeon is a skilled doctor, but his practice seems to be more sales related than medical. He said things like "lap band patients have similar results at the 5 year mark that gastric bypass patients experience." What I didn't realize was that is because the bypass people gain back a bunch of weight starting after year 3, so lap banders lose only a fraction of what bypass people lose. I was also disillusioned to learn a month after surgery of an entire other option that was never mentioned to me: gastric sleeve. My doctor started offering this the month after my surgery. When I asked why he didn't tell me about it, he said he was waiting for the 5 year statistics to come out to offer the surgery. Well, I still think he had a duty to tell me about it and let me decide if I wanted to wait for those statistics to arrive before I had my surgery. So the lap band is a tool, not a solution and I haven't been using that tool to it's full potential. I am going to try again. If I follow my portion sizes and don't snack, it works like a charm. It's sticking to the small portions when the food is so yummy and the snacks are so handy and I'm so stressed.
Next truism: I'm stressed! I told my husband in September, on Labor Day, I wanted a divorce. 4 days later he got laid off. :( It isn't antagonistic or nasty or anything bad, I've fallen out of love and grown away from him. So, in good conscious, I couldn't leave him in a financial lurch. He refinanced the house against my wishes in 10/2009, and my name isn't on the mortgage for the first time in 20 years. So while it wouldn't kill my credit, as a good person, I couldn't let him go into debt and ruin his credit. So I canceled my hold on an apartment (lost my deposit) and moved into the spare room. (Here is a prime example of why I've fallen out of love - a gentleman would have insisted on a) moving to the spare room or b) taking turns having the good bed, but not my guy, his sleep is more important than mine. He's told me this on more than one occasion. Yeah. OK. ) So for the last 4 months, things have been tense. He does not want a divorce, he says he loves me with all his heart, and I don't doubt that for a moment, he hasn't changed in 21 years. I have however changed and grown and little by little, fallen out of love so that now I feel more like a sister than a wife. So this also creates a dollop of guilt. Sigh...
I'm stress continued: I'm working a high pressure job with a ton of overtime. I'm a loan processor for a major bank with a LOT of rules. One rule, you aren't supposed to talk about where you work or post it on facebook or social networks for fear of financial impropriety or who knows what. So, I won't name them here. Anyway, they give us so much work, they are so busy with the refinances, they don't have enough people to handle the work flow. They are hiring like crazy, but not not keeping up with the demand. So, I work at least 8 hours to some weeks 22 hours of OT, that is just one week. I'm getting home at 8, 8:30, and 9:oo pm. My daughter misses me and I miss her. I have no time to myself. I eat to sooth myself. This is self-destructive. Until I started working here, I worked out doing Jazzercise at least 3 times a week. I miss Jazzercise. Awesome workout, you should all try a class, they can really kick your butt: www.jazzercise.com/ (and notI didn't get anything for writing this! LOL)
This is me and my beautiful daughter on Dec. 20th at the Walnut Room at what is now Macy's on State Street in Chicago. We had an awesome day! I'll blog about that next, but for now, I need to get to bed!Thanks for reading! Have a fabulous day!
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