Had my 1 year surgiversary/rebirthday last week. I've lost roughly 160 pounds and am holding steady at about 222(ish) down from 384. I updated my userpic too because I did a halloween make up runthrough yesterday and like the way my eyes came out.

Hello there all my peeps...yes, I have peeps dammit!

This is a PSA of sorts. If you check my info page, you'll notice that 2 sites have been added to my syndication list, 'aodwarped' and 'aodholybuckets'.

Warped is the hubby's blog and Holy Buckets is mine. I'm in the process of moving...yes...while there are many features of LJ which I enjoy, I feel that I'm sort of outgrowing the posting part of this site. So hubby has built me a page. I posted the link in an earlier post, http://www.arcofdescent.org/kathysblog, and for those of you who would like to, I would love for you to add my syndication to your own list. I've made a lot of good friends here, mostly through the wls community and I'd like to take you all with me. I'll be coming back here (hopefully) daily to check my friends page to keep up with your posts but I will more than likely not be posting on this journal anymore. So if you'd like, add my other site so we can stay in touch. I'll probably still post to the wls community whenever I have something of interest to share there, but for the most part, all my online posts will be going to HB from now on.

I do hope you'll join me :)

Well…a year has come and gone. I did the same thing last year too, where it took me forever to post about it and I didn’t even really finish last year. Even though we’ve been together for almost 8 years now, Monday was mine and hubby’s 1st wedding anniversary. As stated in another post, we started out the day at Denny’s for breakfast, where I fit in the booth :). Actually, we started the day running around trying to get our taxes filed :P but that’s a whole ‘nother issue. We got home from Denny’s and Gary took a nap until 2. Which turned into a nap until about 2:30/quarter to 3 until I threatened to go into the other room, dig out my Skid Row CD and play it until he got up… “I’m awake!”

Aheh.

While he was sleeping, I packed our bag and we were on the road at a little after 3pm. Traffic was horrible and we ended up arriving at the hotel about quarter after 4. On the drive there, I remembered all the things I had forgotten to bring, among them the $20 present from his mom and our digital camera. There were many other things but I don’t remember them now. How fitting :P. I think we went down into the casino on Monday between the time we got there and when Prison Bre- yah, we did because I remember we got burgers to take back up to the room.

I think it’s a testament to how much I like our new apartment (or else just the fact that we stayed in the same room last year), but I wasn’t as excited about the room this year as I was last year. Last year, I didn’t want to leave because the hotel room was so much nicer than our apartment at the time. This year, well this year, I LIKE our apartment that we’re in now. Nice hardwood floors, it’s clean…what’s not to like? The hotel room was still nice, don’t get me wrong, and there was one thing that I got to enjoy about it this year that I didn’t last year which made it better, but overall I was sort of fidgeting by Tuesday night waiting for it to be time to go home. But one thing I still like more than our apartment is the friggin bed. It’s a king (or maybe a California king) and is SO HUGE! We were both in the bed and there was room for at least one more person in there. I said as much and Gary told me not to get any ideas. Spoilsport :P I spent most of Tuesday in the room just sort of hanging out and watching TV. This however did not stop us from blowing through $300 in the course of the 2.something days we were there. Not counting the cost of the room. I guess it’s ok, we still have money in the bank and I had reasoned that $300 was the amount we could “comfortably” lose without putting unnecessary strain on our budget, but it would have been nice to at least break even.

And now…onto the big one…the grand daddy of all milestones (so far) on the road I began travelling in October of last year:

( splish splash )

Originally posted July 19, 2000 on my blogger.com account. That's right...I'm oldskool

It's just past dinnertime, and I'm just sittin' here, watchin t.v.(well not NOW, now I'm typing, silly) and I heard a familiar sound. A sound everyone knows, and everyone at one time or another in their lives has been associated with, be it from the inside or the outside. Coming down the street toward my apartment building I heard, as if on the breeze, a cheery little tinkling tune. And almost immediately after it, the sound of several neighborhood children screeching at the top of their lungs, "ICE CREAM!!! ICE CREAM!! ICE CREAM!!!" over and over again like some sort of idealic tribal chant. And it got me thinking (as so many things do nowadays). When the hell did my life go from that...to this? And where the hell was I? When did the point in my life disappear where just that one, tiny, insignificant sound made everything right in the world? For the one minute or so before I got my ice cream (usually a nutty buddy bar, or one of those multicolored rocket shaped pops) to the 10 minutes or so later when I finished it, life, the world, and everything in it made complete and total sense. If Santa Claus himself had shown up at that exact moment to offer me the one thing I asked for every year, but never received, I would have told him to hold on until I had eaten the last little bit of chocolate at the bottom of the cone, or licked the stick completely clean (whichever it happened to be that day). Maybe if we all ran out the next time the ice cream man drove down our streets, waited in line, and got that wonderful frozen treat...maybe..just maybe, the world would be a happier place...

Just a thought...

I was reading through my husband's blog (www.arcofdescent.org/warped it's not an actually link because, just as in 2000, I'm an HTMLtard. It is definately worth the read though so I suggest you bust out your mad typin' skillz and diddle on over there.) the other day and he posted all his archives to all his old blogs, back to 2000. I was annoyed because I didn't think I still had mine but low and behold, blogger still had me registered and I actually remembered my username and password. Someday I'll figure out how to bring all this shit together. In the meantime, if you're interested (or just want to stab yourself in the head for the pain but don't have a knife handy), the link is http://www.arcofdescent.org/kathysblog/

I'll warn you now before you jump in and smack your head on the bottom of my empty gene pool that I was seriously in need of a good smack upside the head back in the old days. I was a heavy user of virtual places chat and the blog posts from earlier on reflect that in spades. I had to stop reading myself after a dozen or so because it just hurt my head too bad to continue. The archive links work, but I never archived the last little bits of posts, so not all of them show up there. It also has a black background with light blue text which (so I'm told) is a bit hard on the eyes. But gimme a break...this shit is almost 6 years old. Holy fuck.

Anyway, the reason I posted the entry above is because I love moments like that. I had one tonight. Those moments that are triggered by a seemingly insignificant event, sight, sound, smell or whatever and it does all sorts of weird and happy stuff to your brain. On the way home from work tonight, I was sitting on the bus, The Beatles were telling me to Come Together (RIGHT NOW!) and I was staring out the window at the thunder heads off in the distance.

And then I saw a rainbow. It brought an instant smile to my face and I temporarily silenced Mr. Lennon and crew by removing my headphones and lifted my sunglasses off my face to try and get a better look.

I love rainbows. I don't know why. It might have something to do with my ALL TIME! favorite book, "The Rainbow Goblins". For those of you with children (or for those of you like me without children, but still young at heart aww) I highly recommend this book. If you can find it. It is incredible. The illustrations are absolutely wonderful and the story is really sweet. Basically, "Once Upon A Time" the rainbow touched the earth. There were the goblins who would lasso the colors of the rainbow and sort of "milk" it and drink the colors from it. One night, the flowers in this meadow overhear the goblins planning to kill the rainbow and the flowers devise a plan to save the rainbow and kill the goblins. It works and it's so cool!

Anyway, I love rainbows. They are so simple, and so pretty, and make me feel so happy whenever I see them.

I love the internet. I found pictures!! And amazon.com has the book for sale. Seriously...BUY IT!

Now I have to...ok nm...I can't copy it. Here's the link... http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0500277591/ref=sib_dp_pt/103-2681701-2579024#reader-page

Wow...that's a big link.

Anyway, just wanted to share my rainbow :)

One year ago today, I was on my way to get married. I’m not sure exactly of times, but I’m pretty sure we were at least getting ready to get in the car (my mom and I) and on our way to Mall Of America’s Chapel Of Love.

What a year it’s been. One year ago today, I was 120 pounds heavier. I was dreaming about what it would be like to have surgery. I was praying that, once I switched to my new husband’s insurance, that I would be approved and able to have it before the end of the year. And I prayed that it would work.

This morning, Gary and I went to Denny’s for breakfast. Although we didn’t go exactly when we planned on it because I was up until 4:30 this morning reading through his old blog archives. He has them all, all the way back to July 2000. It was very surreal reading things that he wrote from that long ago. I’m glad that he had them. When we first got together in 1998, we had a website. Well, he had a website and I squeezed my way into it. We had written pages to each other, and put up a screen capture of our VP “wedding”. It’s long since gone. On the computer that he had when I first moved here, he had all the icq conversations and all the emails that I had sent him saved. But we had to reformat that computer after it died one day and all of that was lost.

It was nice that some parts of our lives together have been saved. He surprised me this morning with a letter he had written me for our anniversary. I’m not going to say what it said, because even though I (obviously) have no problem sharing my personal life with the nameless, faceless 10’s that read this site, this is just for me. I want to keep it just for me. Plus it would probably embarrass him if I posted it and I don’t want to do that.

It was a surprise because I had told him that I didn’t want him to get/give me anything. Earlier this year, he agreed (finally!) to go on a cruise next year and I told him at the time that in exchange for that, I didn’t require any presents this year. And I meant it. But on my birthday he surprised me with flowers and then for him to write me something that was totally unexpected and so sweet. It meant more to me than anything that he could have bought in any store.

We may be “newlyweds”, but we’ve been together now for almost 8 years (7 ½ of those actually living together). Some of that time we spent as strangers, and most of the time we’ve spent loving each other more than either of us had thought possible. I find myself sometimes marveling at what a gift I was given that day in May of ’98 when he was brought into my life.

In about an hour and a half, we’ll be headed out to go and spend our 1st anniversary in the hotel where we spent our honeymoon. We’ll even be in the same room. I cannot wait for this time with him. Yes, we live together (alone) and spend every day together. We work the same shift so (aside from his Friday’s when he’s off and I have to work) we’re always home together. But there is something infinitely more wonderful about getting out of our usual surroundings to have that time really and truly alone together to have nothing to focus on but each other. I cherish those times with him and I hope he feels the same way.

As I mentioned earlier in this already too long post, we went to Denny’s for breakfast. Do we know how to partay or what?? Anyway, we haven’t been out to eat since before my surgery. I wanted to go there because I wanted to test the boundaries of another milestone in my post-op journey. The last time we went there, we had to sit at a table because I had long since outgrown the booths in most restaurants but especially Denny’s. The last time that I sat in a booth there, I left with a huge bruise right on my stomach above my bellybutton from the table because I was too big to really be able to sit there. Since then, I have dreaded going out anywhere for fear that there wouldn’t be a table available.

We walked into the restaurant and waited to be seated. I’ll admit, as the host walked us out to the dining room, I half hoped he’d put us at a table. I wanted to test it, but didn’t want to be upset, especially on this day, if it didn’t work out the way I had hoped. He sat us at a booth and I eyed the space in the seat as I sat down. I expected to at least be touching the table. What actually happened left me completely speechless, but giggling hysterically while I put my hands over my eyes and tried not to start bawling right there in the middle of people eating their grand slams and senior breakfasts.

Not only was I not touching the table, there was enough room that I could cross my arms in front of me in between my body and the table edge. I looked down and could see the seat. I slouched down in the seat like I’ve never been able to do before, at least not in my adult life. I couldn’t stop giggling. I’m still amazed at what has taken place today. A door in my life has been reopened and instead of being disappointed by what was on the other side, I’m enjoying the light that is flooding in because of that opening. There’s more doors in this room that need to be opened, but I think I’ll enjoy the newness and the brightness of this one for awhile.

And the best part was that I got to do this with the man I love, and who loved me enough to marry me 120 pounds ago. I got to share this experience with him and see that he was proud of me and was happy for me and loved me.

Time is indeed on my side and I cannot wait to see what is in store for me tomorrow and all the tomorrows after.

Oh, and p.s. I made my goal of 260 by this date. Go me :)

I have stayed quiet all night and into this morning. I have not said anything provocative since the last “big” post I made early yesterday afternoon. The obsessive “post counting” of how many times in the interim that I posted about you or your website can and is attributed to me choosing to respond to your inanity here instead of over in your den of iniquity. So basically they are glorified comments. And since you seem to be so fond of counting as a form of obsession, lets take a look at that count, shall we? Yesterday, I made 10 posts on my site about you. You posted 100+ times on your site about me. Obsession…yah…Calvin would be proud.

Last night, my husband decided to respond to you all about what had been going on during the day when he was unable to visit the site while at work. I asked him not to, and we talked about it at great length which is why it took him so long to make that response. And he tried to be nice about it. What he got for his efforts was having his account deleted by “someone” over there. He sent a message to the site’s owner, asking if, since he was having trouble logging in, he had been banned. The response was swift, but altogether unconvincing. I’m paraphrasing here: “Hmmm…not that I know of. Did you try the ‘forgot password’ thing?”

Huh…you know…I may be just a lowly LJ user, but the last time I checked, if you forget your password while trying to log in, your username doesn’t disappear from the database and your user icon doesn’t disappear from your posts. But I could be wrong…I don’t speak binary.

He then tried logging in my account to test a theory and sure enough, my account was deleted as well. So, even though I invited you all to say whatever you wanted to say with the knowledge that nothing would be blocked, filtered, or banned, you chose instead to stay in your little cubby hole and play “Let’s make fun of the fat girl with stupid, uncreative, and ultimately sad fat jokes that my 4 year old told me.” And then, instead of taking your lumps when the criticism started hitting a little too close to home, you banned the accounts. I bet you were the kids who kicked other kids in the shins on the playground when you were little and then took your ball and went home.

You said I “freaked out”, “went off my nut” and some other things that I’m just not interested enough in to find out exactly about after my “satiric review” was posted. (Oh, just as an aside… “satiric”…that doesn’t mean “Half Assed”. Just an FYI) Well, lets look at that for just a second. There were 2 initial posts made by me as a form of response to my “rev…” you know, I’m not even going to use that word anymore because it just doesn’t qualify. Instead I’ll use “peek”. That’s better. Ok…There were 2 initial posts made by me as a form of response to the “peek” at my journal. One was a review of my own. The other was a review of the “peek”. The only difference between what I wrote in those 2 initial posts and what you do every day to countless people was the length of mine. Mine was an actual review.

And hey…it was “satirical”. Get it? It shouldn’t be taken seriously. Get over it.

I posted these “satirical” reviews on my own site. Then, because I knew that if they were seen by a member of Team Bitchslap but were not “advertised” on their site, the response would be that I didn’t have the balls to come and post about it myself. Much in the same manner as Queen B tried to put down someone who made a comment on their own site about the PPGirls template but didn’t bother to inform them that it was there.) So instead, I moseyed on over there and told them that it was there if they felt the need to look. And they did. Never once did I say anything about anything (except to note that the color of the comment box was the same as the border around my page).

That is when the “freaking out” started, and not by me. So tell me this…how is what you are accusing me of doing any different than what you actually did? I mean come on! It was “satirical”. Get over it. It wasn’t to be taken seriously. And the majority of the responses that ensued came yesterday at well over 100 (probably closer to 150) and less than probably 2 were made by me. So who kept it going? You all did. You called me a baby, and said I was obsessed, but out of the 200+ comments that are attached to that “peek” report, how many of them are mine? How many times did you say that I needed to let it go? And how many times after one of those comments did one of you start it up again? Things were dead, or at the very least dying, until annie felt that it needed to be resuscitated because she didn’t have a chance at the feeding frenzy the night before. And because she couldn’t think of anything clever to say that hadn’t already been beaten to death, she pulled out her amazing Twinkie Gun and fired off a creamy-filled shot in my direction. So who kept it going?
I have not said anything since early yesterday afternoon, yet there are about 40 more comments on the page since that time. Who has kept it going?

I was supposedly off my nut and psycho and over the line….but never once did I even try to get personal with anyone. What does the fact that I’m fat have to do with whether or not my blog sucks? I mean seriously…what has that got to do with anything? Does my blog look fatter because I’m fat? (I’m sure the answer to that will be a resounding ‘yes!’ along with another offering of Twinkies). And I have to say to BB’s poor excuse for a human being husband: That was very clever there…using the numbers on the end of my name to do a sort of ‘word play’ and get a fat joke in there. Since you’re known as “Mr. BB”, does that mean that you are lacking a penis? Because any man who is known by his wife’s name obviously has some pecker issues.

See? Now what is the point of getting personal? That is not enjoyable…that is not clever…it just makes you look like a shmuck.

What does whether or not I have to wax my upper lip have to do with whether or not my blog sucks? Does my blog look hairier because you feel that I need to wax my upper lip?

Someone posted at some point since 12:30 last night that they couldn’t believe this was still going on. Um…dear….I haven’t said a word (here or there) since yesterday afternoon. Who is keeping it going??
You cannot handle it when your own drama is dished back out to you. Your “reviews” are “satirical”…I still haven’t gotten an answer to my question about whether or not the good ones should not be taken seriously as well. When someone stands up to you, or disagrees with you, you turn into a pack of wild dogs chewing on a week old carcass. When you run out of things to beat to death about the thing you’re supposed to be talking about, you turn it into a personal assault. Yet I’m the one being childish. You tell someone over and over again to let it go, yet half a dozen of you have managed to send the post count on this one review to over 200. My husband’s posts together with mine are probably less than 20. I’m the one who’s being obsessive. Yet after I stop commenting on your site and bring it over to my own, you continually surf your way over here to read what I’m writing and then go back into hiding to feed off of each other and keep it going. One of you actually managed to find the link to post a comment here but didn’t leave your name. Chicken shit is all that is. If you desire to leave a comment in the future, bring your balls (or your cunt) with you and post your fucking name. Don’t hide behind your anonymity and think you’re being cute and clever.

And the next time you want to tell a fat joke, try to be a little more clever than the kid I hit in the face with my lunchbox in kindergarten for pulling my hair. At least he left a lasting impression.

Oh, and it isn’t my fault if you cannot read or string together a complete set of coherent thoughts you ignorant pansies.

Posted by: Avitable

I've never seen someone who's not obsessed be so obsessed.

I could probably stop being "so obsessed" if you all would stop reading/commenting about me. You'll notice that since my last "big" post, I haven't said anything unless you all have said something first.

Posted by: annie

Woo-hoo! We rate SEVEN diatribes, I mean posts, (so far.)

I was worth MY OWN post!
Neener!

*does happy dance*

Better watch those *action* things there, annie...one of the bitches doesn't like them...or at least that's what she said in someone's review awhile back. It seems to be a bit rabid over there...you might get a leg bitten off if they decide to turn on you.

Posted by: madbull, Esq.

Ahum, I had to stalk... of course. Feedreaders aare nice aren't they.

I am glad she found a new pleasure in life and she doesn't stop amazing her
world. I mean what could be more creative than giving IT2M an own 'mood'
and tag.
But I am glad for her. Her main page looks a lot better already. The only
thing that captured me on her page was what her brain said. Most brainfarts
were 'crappy' and 'empty'. Now it all looks better. IT2M gave her
something to live for... and to post about. I wonder if she hears voices and
writes to them or just entertains herself.

Wow, bull...that's the first reasonably cognitive thing you've written. Did somebody write it for you?

Posted by: annie

Cat-
She can't afford to PAY for a real review, so she expects IT2M to do her
bidding for FREE!!!
She can't afford to pay, cuz that would dip into her twinkie fund!!!

oh..oha...ohahahahahahaha! That is so clever! "Let me see now...hmmm...I need to prove that I'm not an idiot like I demonstrated by not being able to spell her name right even though it's right in front of me...hmmm...how can I appear to be clever? I KNOW! SHE'S FAT! I'LL MAKE A TWINKIE JOKE!! YES!!"

score!

oh yeah...and since it's been established that I *did* let it go BB, exactly what was your point? My blog is my blog and nobody is holding a gun to your head to come on over here and read it. If that poor bastard Mr. BB would have told you by now to let it go, or get a grip or whatever maybe you should get him on the horn.


not only do you have your own tag!! You have your OWN MOOD ICON!!

This is probably going to turn into a series or something...

They are repeatedly bouncing over here to check on what I'm doing...I don't know whether to feel loved or stalked.

Bitter Bitch made a comment about how nobody is commenting here on my site about my posts...but there are plenty of comments going onto their site about my posts...hmmm...still no sign of that ballsac huh?

And I'm not sure what the whole point is of dissecting the word 'design'...but it was clearly stated that I said that Dave designed the template and what I actually said was that Dave made the graphics. I'd still like to see that quote please. But perhaps it isn't laziness after all...he's just too busy opening up dictionary.com to make a completely nonsensical point. Perhaps before you try to read an English language blog, you should first learn how to speak the language…and I’d like it noted for the record, oh hell fuck it. My character is dead anyway at this point I really could give 2 shits what people think of me, note nothing. Don’t talk about me until your fucking chopped up shit makes sense. K?

You know what I love? I love it when people call you names…like cunt and stupid bitch and the like, impugning your intelligence, all the while making it VERY clear that they themselves are devoid of any and all brain function. The fury continues over at it2m.com over my seemingly insignificant little area of the internet. Things were, read: WERE, pretty much over until somebody named ‘annie’ decided that since she didn’t get a chance to nip at my ankles, like one of those annoying little furballs that Paris Hilton carries around in her purse, last night that she would do it today. So she called me psycho, saying I use it as a screen name. In the 8+ years that I have been using this name, I have yet to meet one single solitary dickweed idiot that doesn’t notice, when trying to use my name to insult me, that there is no fucking ‘h’ in there. WTG! Are you going to be spelling bee champ next year? *thumbs up!* Anyway, she also said she found it amusing that I was complaining about the length of time it takes the site to load on dial-up. One thing that REALLY burns my ass is when people start attributing comments to me that I never made. It is also seemingly one of the cardinal rules/sins of the site as it appears on the “Idiot” disclaimer page about not flaming someone for a comment they made until you are sure they are actually the one that made it.

I pointed out to her (and anybody else reading) that I didn’t make the comment but that my husband did, and that maybe she should go back and read the Idiot page.

I got flamed. Apparently correcting someone by quoting what I originally said to show them their error is defined in Cattyland as ‘scapegoating’. Apparently I made my husband the scapegoat when I pointed out that someone doesn’t know how to read.

Do they have a Sylvan Learning Center anywhere near you? Because you might want to check it out.

Then I get called a cunt and a dumb bitch and told to have my brain tumor removed by someone who cannot even type the word ‘read’ without spelling it ‘erad’ for yet another comment that I never made. It says in my post that Dave made the graphics. Somehow that turned into me saying that Dave designed the template. I really wish someone…ANYONE!…would show me where I said that because I’d really like to see it. When I pointed out to this modern day sophisticate that I never said it, he said he was too lazy to go quoting my own words back to me and that’s probably a good thing because he would never find those words to quote.

Aside from the post I made here, which I made no attempt to hide and spoke directly to them since I know they are probably still reading it *waves*, I had let this go. Even though they were all up bright and early this morning saying I would be back to whine and calling me a troll, I didn’t say anything. Except to refute a troll accusation that is. But I did not attempt to stir the pot. I have dealt with entirely enough character assassination for today doled out by people too blinded by their own brilliance to actually see the words other people write to them clearly enough to make an intelligent conversation consisting of anything other than mud slinging and ill-conceived and incoherent diatribes. You all were amazed by me yesterday? I’m amazed by you today. I invited all of you to post your comments on my site, which is more than I can say for any of you. I told you I was waiting for any and everything that you had to say and didn’t care if you posted it on your own site as long as you posted it here as well. But when you’ve been hiding in the shelter of your close knit community for so long in relative safety, and become such big fishies in such a wittle bitty pond, I guess the ballsac just kinda shrivels up and heads north huh? I have no filters or limits on those who comment on my posts. Any and all comments are encourage, invited and welcome. I rarely filter any posts because I don’t feel I have anything to hide. I’m here and I’m me and this is what there is. I made some valid points, and in a more rational manner today, and I still got the same head-butting, “WE FEAR CHANGE!” attitude that I got last night. So you can have your site back. You can blame me for the drama that ensued today even though I never said a word to anybody until provoked. You can call me whiny, and a troll, and a cunt, and whatever else it is that your big fish in small pond brain tells you will be the most hurtful. But unfortunately for you, it isn’t. I’m sure that if any of you actually read this, you want have the sac to post here, but instead will slink back to your quiet, black little sanctuary and play a nice game of ‘Cut Up The Whiny LJ Chick’ and that’s fine because in all honesty, it’s just really really sad.

Good luck.

I guess some people are touchy…

( And then she called me an asswad… )

I got ass raped today!!*does snoopy dance of joy* I would say bitchslapped, but alas...that did not happen. All the bitch slaps were gray....And before I get the stock "You submitted, take your licks" schtick, let me just say that I KNOW THAT! I'm simply exorcising my free speech demons :P

So, submitted for your consideration, ( My review of your review )

As I mentioned awhile ago, I submitted this journal to a blog review site. The people that do reviews there are self-proclaimed Bitches. They have names like "Bitter Bitch", "Princess Pottymouth", "Bitch, Esq.", and my personal favorite..."MercilessMinx", who was kind enough to grace "My Little Slice Of Heaven" with her presence today.

( If I don’t put this behind a cut, everyone on my friends list is going to hunt me down and shoot me. )

I'm going to have to rethink my lunchtime smoothie. That 20 ounces of fruity goodness with a protein boost is throwing my calories all the fuck outta whack. Without it, I'll have had 683 calories and 33 grams carbs for the day. With it, I'm at 1109 calories and something over 100 carbs for the day...sweet jesus. 130 calories in the protein scoop they give you and it only has 7 grams of protein in it...wtf??
I was trying to think of something interesting to write about in the way of my post-op progress for the purposes of observation (both other people's and my own for later) and decided on the temperature things that have changed.
Pre-op, I was always hot. Always. Didn't matter what was going on, I was hot. The back of my neck and behind my ears would get all sweaty and ick and I was just miserable and so was my husband because he's the opposite and I was forever either opening windows when they didn't need to be opened or turning on the a/c when it had no business being on.
I had heard about this "transformation" as a pre-op and couldn't quite believe it could happen on such a drastic level, or at least not as quickly as others said it would. Sure, I hoped it would but I had serious doubts.
Holy Buckets! I am cold all the fucking time. Like right now. It is 65 degrees outside...the sun is shining brightly in the early spring sky and the heat is still on in the building. I work in the basement so we are in relatively close proximity to the heating system that has to work for all 33 floors of this building. Consequently, when it starts to warm up outside, it is always roasting down here. Everyone has been walking around for the last 3 or 4 (working) days saying how hot it is down here. When I went to cover the receptionist desk while the girl up there today went to lunch, I had to turn the fan off because she had it on because she said she was hot. My fan has not been on once since October. I'm cold right now. Not freezing cold, but I could use like a sweater or something, and everyone is walking around today talking about how they are so hot. It will be interesting to see what happens come summer. I cannot wait to see :)

The damn plateau broke over the weekend (as is what usually happens) and I lost 5 pounds so I'm down to 267.2. And that's according to the new scale which I hate but wanted to get because it was digital and easier to see the numbers while standing 5 feet 11 inches away from it and trying to look around my (slowly decreasing in size) belly.

I just wanted to share that so that pre-ops and newly post-ops can see that they don't last and that if you're feeling negative about it or whatever that it really is ok and that it will pass. Obviously I also wanted to share for the YAY! factor. :P So that's that. If I can keep losing this week, I might make my goal of 260 by next Monday. Either way, tomorrow is my 6 month anniversary and I'm down 110 pounds since surgery and 117 pounds since a year or so before that (from my highest). That's pretty fucking brilliant :)

I had big plans this year…



( Consider yourselves warned. I ended up getting VERY whiny! And sort of rambled but what is new? )

I threw my life away last week.

Well, not all of it but definitely a good-sized chunk. The last time that we moved, we put things off for so long that when the day finally came, we had no choice but to just throw literally everything into boxes, take it with us, and resort to going through it later. At the time, this was thought to not be a problem because we were going to have a garage for storage. We figured we’d put the boxes out in the garage and go through them when we had time.

Well, as has happened so often with this particular apartment complex/management company/owner thing, that garage never materialized. So we had 4 years worth of crap (plus some that I brought with me when I moved in with my husband in 1998) stuffed in boxes and squeezed into our tiny one bedroom apartment that had no closet or storage space to speak of. For the 3 years we lived in that apartment, we did not have use of the lovely walk-in closet in the bedroom, nor did we have the opportunity to view 2 of the 4 walls of the bedroom as they were lined with boxes. Granted most of our future problems would come from the fact that we never did go through those boxes, or most of them anyway.

When this move came along, we said things would be different. We had roughly 6 weeks notice that we would be moving and so we decided we would do it right this time. Sort though the crap and only bring what we actually wanted, what was actually necessary to have and not what would help turn us into the crazy cat couple at the end of the block during our golden years. You know, the ones who emergency services personnel have to dig out from under 20 years worth of newspapers stacked throughout the house when they die. Of course nobody knows they’re dead because they never talk to the neighbors and the only reason someone knows that something is amiss is from the smell that starts emanating from under the door 3 weeks after they die.

Well…being dicked around by your building management fq team /fq does not exactly facilitate expeditious packing. Neither of us wanted to be in a position of boxing everything up and being ready and then having everything fall through at the last minute. I think in those 6 weeks, I packed up one box and cleaned out one closet. The 25th of March hit us like a freight train and we scrambled for the next 4 days to try and get everything done. 4 years worth of crap had multiplied like so many Tribbles into 7 and a half years of crap and our bedroom closet practically attacked us when we finally opened the door to try and go through it. We did this on Tuesday night, the last night we had to be completely finished so they could come in and paint and shampoo the carpets and get the place ready for the new tenant who would be moving her stuff in on the 1st. (Yes, as stated in a previous post, I think they are idiots for wanting to have the place occupied that soon but what do I know? Aside from how to re-hang refrigerator doors that is)

It started out well enough. With my recent rapid weight loss, figuring out what clothes to throw out and what to keep was not an issue. Pretty much everything went. I had some old concert tshirts but that was about it. Then 5 white boxes made their way out of the closet and sat in the middle of the now empty and vacuumed bedroom floor, waiting to blind me with the flood of memories they would spew at me once I opened them. I had not opened these boxes in over 3 years. Before that, maybe once.

There were things in these boxes that have been with me since childhood. There were pictures I had forgotten I had taken. There were mementos of a life long since dead and buried. There were magazines and posters from the few years I spent absolutely obsessed with Def Leppard. There were letters from people that I don’t even remember anymore. There were 2 valentine’s day cards, you know…those cheap cartoon cards that you buy for your kids so they can bring them to school and exchange them in the ‘mailboxes’ that the teacher had them make the week before to hang on their desk during the Valentine’s Day class party. You would walk around the room, depositing your cards into your classmates receptacles, all the while praying that when you got back to your desk that your Valentine’s Day mailbox would not be empty. Along the way, you would sample Suzi’s cupcakes, and take one of Danny’s rice crispy treats.

But these cards were not from classmates. They were two Disney cards that my little sister had given to me when she was about 5. She’ll be 24 next month.

In 1993(ish), my mom had to travel to Mexico City quite frequently for her job. While there, she bought me many little odds and ends, street-wares if you will. Those were all in those boxes as well.

When I lived by myself in a small apartment from 1994-1997, the walls of my apartment were completely covered with Def Leppard posters. It looked like a 16 year old boy lived there. I still had all those posters, all the Metal Edge magazines, all the clippings, all the articles I had spent countless hours cutting out of magazines and newspapers and putting into scrapbooks.

All of these things went in the trash. It was easier than I thought it would be at the time but now, looking back, I’m being slightly overwhelmed by this heavy sadness that has settled on my shoulders. It may have just been junk, it may have just been papers, or a 50 cent little fabric finger doll with braids in her hair. It may have just been a 20 year old cheap Valentine’s Day card.

But these things were my life. These things filled my days with happiness. Some of these things found their way into various mailboxes over the years that would bring a light into my eyes and a smile to my lips when I saw them waiting for me. These things defined me, said who and what I was.

But those things aren’t me any more. I am more than my memories. I am more than a few old photos in a box, buried underneath a cut up copy of an old metal magazine. I am a different person today than I was 13 years ago. I like to think I’ve evolved in a positive way. I’d like to think I’m a good person and an honest person. The values I had then I still have now, except that maybe they are a little more important to me than they used to be and I don’t mind so much speaking my mind and having others not agree with me. It used to be that if I shared my thoughts or opinions on something that I would try to qualify it or negate it myself if someone didn’t sound like they agreed with me.

But somewhere, somehow, sometime in the last 10+ years, I grew up. I don’t know when it happened, or where, or how but it did just the same. Some of the things that were my whole life before are just not that important anymore. There was a time when I would have moved heaven and earth (and I did) to go to a Def Leppard concert if I knew one was coming. I know there’s one coming. They’ll be here in July, right down the street from where I work. I wouldn’t even have to go home first. Hell…I could probably even have a chance of meeting them if I was stubborn enough (which I am). But it just isn’t that important to me any more. It’s on a Tuesday, which means work the next day. It means staying up late, fighting traffic, missing my weekly poker tournament. In other words…I just really won’t miss it all that much if I don’t go.

It’s very strange. My 20’s were spent in a fog of no money, misspent youth, uncertainty, delusion and repression. Now squarely in my 30’s, I find myself much more concerned with whether or not I’ll get enough sleep tonight, whether or not my husband has a good day at work, getting home to see my kitties, making sure that I surf cnn.com at least once so I know at least a little bit about what’s going on in the world. No longer are my days fueled by trying to fit in a run to the store to buy alcohol, or going up the street to smoke with my friend.

I don’t know how it happened…and I’m a little sad to see it go…but I’m glad that it went.