Gotcha

The Universe played a "gotcha" on me today.

Today was one of those days I had been planning for. One of those days I'd been thinking over in my head, one of those days that I would make perfect.

Meeting in the morning. Lunch at home. Then my biggie - go to town and buy cat food. Drop off donations. Pick up prescriptions. Go grocery shopping. All by myself. I haven't made a scooter-less multiple-stop trip by myself in a very, very long time. But I was prepared. I had my schedule of stops all planned out.

But then the meeting got moved to the afternoon, so a change of plans was in order. While first thing in the morning is a rough time for me, I committed to getting up and doing my biggie trip before the meeting.

But then, snow all morning. Being it was going to take every bit of strength and stamina and concentration to get through the multi-stop trip to town I decided it best I not go. Goodness knows there is no need for a driver who isn't at the tip top of her game on the highway on a day like today.

Gotcha! Said the Universe. Stop over planning things!

But wouldn't you know, by the time I headed to the meeting the roads started clearing up. 

And after the meeting they were clear even more. So onward to shopping. 

It all works out, doesn't it?

Antithesis

an·tith·e·sis. anˈtiTHəsis. noun: a person or thing that is the direct opposite of someone or something else.

As in, Debbie's new behaviors are the antithesis of the old Debbie.

During the life of this blog I believed in living one day at a time.

I believed I should look for the beauty in each day. (Hence the daily pictures.)

I believed that doing things for others made you lead a fuller and more blessed life. (Hence all the sewing projects for charity.)

I believed that, even while I wrote about my struggles and triumphs, life wasn't all about me.

But in the last month I've become obsessed.

Obsessed about the future, always thinking and planning for future times (when I might feel better) and no longer living for the moment.

Obsessed about not wanting to go into the sewing room. Why am I so scared of working on a new project?

Obsessed about not looking around for the beauty in the day. I can't even look beyond checking my school mail every five minutes, no matter what I'm doing. Can't even get through a movie without looking at the phone.

Obsessed about myself. What can I eat? When is my snack? Did I get all my fluids in for the day? How should I space out my vitamins? How much weight have I lost? (50 pounds, for the record.)

This is so not me. I've got to get back to the old me. First up, out to dinner at Alejandra's. Four bites of chicken fajitas - and a picture of the day- and I'm done.

Baby, baby steps.

Lessons Learned

After having a rough time of going to work a couple week back, I took this past week off. I used it to more-or-less drop off the face of the earth. I did no school work and replied to very few emails. I used the time to rest, relax, and learn some lessons.

In no particular order here are my Top 10 Lessons Learned:

• Despite my previous thoughts, I found out my health really does come before work. 
• A plastic fork can substitute when no hair brush is available.
• A couple bites of the moist, delicious white meat inside a KFC extra crispy chicken breast is quite tasty. However, if you've had weight loss surgery do not even think about taking a bite of the skin. Because what goes down must come up. And it ain't pretty and it ain't fun.
• A hairdryer works to warm up a leftover omelet when no microwave is available.
• The only way makeup can make it on my face for the first time in ages is to have a daughter take her wedding party (and invite her mommer) to a Mary Kay thing. (That's how out of the makeup loop I am - I don't even know what it was we went to!)
• Sometimes it's just nice to hang with your daughter, even though she keeps pushing you to walk more and more to get your exercise in for the day.
• If you spend some time in your Boise house to keep away from flu-ridden husband you just might come home to a changed man. All thanks to a book he's read while you were gone.
• When you are prepared to go grocery shopping by yourself, it is guaranteed that there will be no electric shopping carts available. You'll have to go it on your own. You'll have to take a break in the middle of the store, but you will make it.
• The pintos and cheese at Taco Bell is the tastiest meal on Earth.
• A slice of pepperoni and a slice of mozzarella rolled up and dipped in tomato sauce makes the tastiest snack on Earth.

Like a 3 Year Old

I've been feeling pretty icky these last couple weeks. I still have no energy, my dizziness and weakness and close-to-fainting episodes are pretty constant. My hands and feet regularly go numb. As I've been checking my blood pressure at home I suspected that was the issue, especially since the monitor keeps reading it as an error. I was waiting for the doctor and the nutritionist follow up visits to get an official reading.

The blood pressure of a 3 year old he tells me. What would that be?

90/62.

That explains a lot. No wonder I can't function! So a change of meds is in order. What other changes has the doctor and nutritionist ordered up?

I get to eat soft foods. I've been a good girl with my fluids and protein. I've been doing my best to exercise despite the lung (and the blood pressure). And it's obvious in my weight loss for the month. Here's the tricky part in reporting a number of pounds lost - the nutritionist is using a different starting weight than the doctor (my preop visits with the dr and nutritionist were on two different days and I weighed a different amount each time). So depending on who I go by...doctor 33 pounds; nutritionist 40 pounds. Hmm...which one to pick??

I did know what to pick for my first meal. Shredded chicken and refried beans. About four teaspoons of each. Only made it through two teaspoons of each before I was full. Gonna have to learn to love leftovers.

Most Embarrasing

Today's picture is the most embarrassing picture I've ever posted here. (Clothes.) And this topic is the most embarrassing topic I've ever written about. (Weight gained over the past years.)

Over the last 10 years I have gained and lost and gained and lost over 100 pounds. Each time I gained, I bought new clothes. Each time I lost, I bought new clothes. Each time I thought I was going to lose just a bit more weight I bought a bit smaller size. Just like anyone who struggles with weight fluctuations I held onto on those sizes (when you're talking 100 pounds you're talking a lot of sizes) in the hopes of being able to fit in them again someday.

That someday never came. But now that I'm "sleeved" I know those days will be fast approaching. I anxiously await my official weigh-in at the doctor's appointment at the end of this week, but according to my unofficial home scale I'm on track to be down 30 pounds in this first month.

What better time to go through those containers of clothes in the basement that are sizes - in some cases many, many sizes - too small? Time to take stock of what I have, what I don't have, what clothes I never even took the tags off of because I never fit into that size.

It turned out to be a horrible mess. All dumped on the bed for me to sort through.

Hi, my name is Deb and I hoard clothes of all different sizes.