I'm Baaaccckkk!!!

Hi everyone!! I am back!! I thought I was done with blogging, but it turns out I really missed it. I miss being able to record memories for my kids, I miss the interaction with other bloggers, I missed it all. SO, I am back, and hopefully better than ever :)

I hope anyone reading this still wants to follow our adventures. This summer is shaping up to be a busy one for us. We have a few small trips planned and then in September we are moving! Woo hoo!!! It's not a new house yet, but we are moving to a MUCH nicer apartment than what we have now. We are all very excited! The new apartment has gorgeous grounds with a pond, walking trails, picnic areas, etc. and it has a huge pool, fitness center, rec room w/pool table, library, etc. So pretty, I really can't wait to get there! The girls will be moving to a new school, but they are both ok with that and looking forward to all the great things coming up. Diva will be starting 3rd grade and Princess is starting Kindergarten in September! OMG, no more babies for me!!

Anyway, just a quick note to say I am back for now. We off for some adventures this weekend so I will probably be back on Monday with pictures galore!

Have a great 4th of July weekend!!!

PUT YOURSELF BACK ON YOUR PRIORITY LIST...

from Chic Galleria by Christine Spencer

Give yourself permission...

I'm pent up. Pressure, pressure, pressure. I need to vent, cut loose. I'm always on my best behavior. I can't remember the last time I did something silly or fun, laugh out loud...Sound familiar? What does it mean to have fun? What does it mean to have a good time?

"The proper function of man is to live - not to exist." -- Jack London

Do you ever feel like the energizer bunny?

Too often we go through life on autopilot, going through the motions and having each day pass like the one before it. Going, going and going.

That's fine, and comfortable, until you have gone through another year without having done anything, without having really lived life.

That's fine, until you have reached old age and look back on life with regrets.

That's fine; until you see your kids go off to college and realize that you missed their childhoods.

It's not fine. If you want to truly live life, to really experience it, to enjoy it to the fullest, instead of barely scraping by and only living a life of existence, then you need to find ways to break free from the mold and drink from life.

What follows is just a list of ideas suggested by Leo Babauta, obvious ones mostly that you could have thought of yourself, but that I hope are useful reminders. .

Love

Perhaps the most important. Fall in love, if you aren't already. If you have, fall in love with your partner all over again. Abandon caution and let your heart be broken. Or love family members, friends, anyone -- it doesn't have to be romantic love. Love all of humanity, one person at a time.

Get outside

Don't let yourself be shut indoors. Go out when it's raining. Walk on the beach. Hike through the woods. Swim in a freezing lake. Bask in the sun. Play sports, or walk barefoot through grass. Pay close attention to nature.

Savor food

Don't just eat your food, but really enjoy it. Feel the texture, the bursts of flavors. Savor every bite. If you limit your intake of sweets, it will make the small treats you give yourself (berries or dark chocolate are my favorites) even more enjoyable. And when you do have them, really, really savor them. Slowly.

Create a morning ritual.

Wake early and greet the day. Watch the sun rise. Out loud, tell yourself that you will not waste this day, which is a gift. You will be compassionate to your fellow human beings, and live every moment to its fullest. Stretch or meditate or exercise as part of your ritual. Enjoy some coffee.

Follow excitement

Try to find the things in life that excite you, and then go after them. Make life one exciting adventure. Find your passionMake your living by doing the thing you love to do. First, think about what you really love to do. There may be many things. Find out how you can make a living doing it. It may be difficult, but you only live once. .

Get out of your cubicle

Do you sit all day in front of computer, shuffling papers and taking phone calls and chatting on the Internet? Don't waste your days like this. Break free from the cubicle environment, and do your work on a laptop, in a coffee shop, or on a boat, or in a log cabin. This may require a change of jobs, or becoming a freelancer. It's worth it. .

Travel

Sure, you want to travel some day. When you have vacation time, or when you're older. Well, what are you waiting for? Find a way to take a trip, if not this month, then sometime soon. You may need to sell your car or stop your cable bill and stop eating out to do it, but make it happen. You are too young to not see the world. If need be, find a way to make a living by freelancing, then work while you travel. Only work an hour or two a day. Don't check email but once a week. Then use the rest of the time to see the world.

Rediscover what's important

Take an hour and make a list of everything that's important to you. Add to it everything that you want to do in life. Now cut that list down to 4-5 things. Just the most important things in your life. This is your core list. This is what matters. Focus your life on these things. Make time for them.

Exercise

Get off the couch and go for a walk. Eventually try running. Or do some pushups and crunches. Or swim or bike or row. Or go for a hike. Whatever you do, get active, and you'll love it. And life will be more alive.

Be positive

Learn to recognize the negative thoughts you have. These are the self-doubts, the criticisms of others, the complaints, the reasons you can't do something. Then stop yourself when you have these thoughts, and replace them with positive thoughts. Solutions. You can do this! .

Kiss in the rain

Seize the moment and be romantic. Raining outside? Grab your lover and give her a passionate kiss. Driving home, Stop the car and pick some wildflowers. Send a love note. Dress sexy.

Slow down

Life moves along at such a rapid pace these days. It's not healthy, and it's not conducive to living. Practice doing everything slowly -- everything, from eating to walking to driving to working to reading. Enjoy what you do.

Play with children

Children, more than anyone else, know how to live. They experience everything in the moment, fully. When they get hurt, they really cry. When they play, they really have fun. Learn from them, instead of thinking you know so much more than them. Play with them, and learn to be joyful like them.

Take mini-retirements

Don't leave the joy of retirement until you are too old to enjoy it. Do it now, while you're young. It makes working that much more worth it. Find ways to take a year off every few years. Save up; sell your home, your possessions, and travel. Live simply, but live, without having to work. Enjoy life, then go back to work and save up enough money to do it again in a couple of years.

Do nothing.

Despite the tip above that we should find excitement, there is value in doing nothing as well. Not doing nothing as in reading, or taking a nap, or watching TV, or meditating. Doing nothing as in sitting there, doing nothing. Just learning to be still, in silence, to hear our inner voice, to be in tune with life. Do this daily if possible.

Watch sunsets, daily

One of the most beautiful times of day. Make it a daily ritual to find a good spot to watch the sunset, perhaps having a light dinner while you do so.

Break out from ruts

Do you do things the same way every day? Change it up. Try something new. Take a different route to work. Start your day out differently. Approach work from a new angle. Look at things from new perspectives.

Laugh till you cry

Laughing is one of the best ways to live. Tell jokes and laugh your head off. Watch an awesome comedy. Learn to laugh at anything. Roll on the ground laughing. You'll love it.

Make an awesome dessert

I like to make warm, soft chocolate cake. But even berries dipped in chocolate, or crepes with ice cream and fruit, or fresh apple pie, or homemade chocolate chip cookies or brownies, are great. This isn't an everyday thing, but an occasional treat thing. But it's wonderful.

Try something new, every week

Ask yourself: "What new thing shall I try this week?" Then be sure to do it. You don't have to learn a new language in one week, but seek new experiences. Give it a try. You might decide you want to keep it in your life.

Be in the moment

Instead of thinking about things you need to do, or things that have happened to you, or worrying or planning or regretting, think about what you are doing, right now. What is around you? What smells and sounds and sights and feelings are you experiencing? Learn to do this as much as possible through meditation, but also through bringing your focus back to the present as much as you can in everything you do.

Going Private

Just a note to let everyone know that I am planning to make this blog private in the next few days. It has nothing to do with all of you lovely people I know and love, it has more to do with the crazy people out in this world that make it so I don't feel comfortable putting my kids lives out on the web anymore. I would love to have people I know continue to read though, so if you would like an invite just shoot me an email at glickgirls@gmail.com.

Thanks!

Update

So after 2 Walk In Centers, 2 Emergency Rooms, 2 visits to our Primary Care doc and now 2 visits to the Ear Nose and Throat Specialist all in the last 6 days, I think they FINALLY know what is going on with me and how to treat it.

After all this, they are calling it Swimmer's Ear. That's IT I said? Swimmer's Ear? That sounds......so.......BORING, lol. OK, it's a very severe case of Swimmer's Ear they said..........*sigh*. I really think they need a better name for this. Swimmer's Ear just doesn't seem enough to describe me writhing in pain for 4 days and nights straight, needing narcotic level pain meds every 4 hours via an IV or oral meds, loss of hearing on my right side (hopefully temporary) and even the inability to eat or drink for 5 days because the swelling spread to the rest of my face and I couldn't even chew without pain. Honestly, I have never felt pain like this in my entire life. I would go through child birth 4 times over without drugs rather than go through this again, that's how excruciating it's been. No, I am sorry, SWIMMER'S EAR does not even begin to come close to describing this for me!

Anyway, the long story short is that I am on about 5 different meds right now and I am supposed to go back to the ENT on Thursday afternoon for a follow up. Hopefully at that point the arsenal they are pounding me with right now will help even more, but I think I am finally starting to feel some relief. The fact that I only took 2 pain meds since 6am this morning is progress for me for sure.

Between Larry's stomach issues late last week and all of this, I am starting to feel like I would be happy to never see the inside of a hospital or medical facility again! It's probably going to take me quite a while to recover emotionally as well as psychologically from this whole thing and I would be lying if I didn't say that WLS was definitely rethought about a couple of times in all this!!! Still on the fence on that one..........

Anyway, I hope everyone else is doing well and sorry for being MIA for so long now. Hopefully as I continue to recover I will be able to spend some quality couch time catching up on everyone since I am out of work the rest of the week as it stands right now. You know I MUST be really sick if I didn't touch my computer for 5 days straight by choice! :)

Where do I even begin?

I know I have been quiet lately. Part of it was because I having dealing with the "after effects" of having my surgery put off, with no real answer as to when it will happen. I have experienced a lot of emotions around that and found them hard to put into words and/or talk about.

Then last night, my husband ended up in the hospital Emergency Room and in the 12 hours or so that we were there we heard every theory from constipation to cancer. I am totally freaked now to say the least. The long story short is this. He was having bad stomach pains. They eventually did a CT scan and saw some inflammation of the pancreas. So then they were trying to figure out what caused the inflammation. Again, we heard everything from constipation to gallstones to a mass/tumor. I love how doctors speculate out loud with people's lives.......especially at 3am........We saw 5 different ER doc's last night and every one of them kept using the words "concerned" when it came to the CT scan. We went from a Resident to the highest level doc in the ER last night and they all seriously FREAKED me the heck out with what they were saying.

Anyway, we went home around 4am and ended up at our Primary Care at 10am this morning. She seemed less alarmed and was leaning towards the fact that he might have passed a gallstone since the pain is about 80% gone now, but they never actually did anything for him. She thinks it's possible that is what caused the inflammation. I started to feel better after we saw her. Over the next week he is going to have an Ultrasound, MRI, and bloodwork and then we have an appointment a week from today to follow up with her and go over the results of everything.

*sigh* Cautiously optimistic that everything is ok, but the internet is bad thing to have......I have started to read about pancreatic cancer and now I have convinced myself that is what's going on and I am freaking out again. I tend to do that, jump to worst case scenario - but I can't help it. The REALLY freaky thing is that if my surgery had not been postponed, I would be in the hospital myself right now and he would be alone with the kids and having this go on.......They say everything happens for a reason and I guess it's true...........

So, with all these conflicting emotions right now, I am a basket case to say the least. A day at a time right now and I will keep everyone posted as I hear anything new......

We Are Stronger Than We Give Ourselves Credit For

We all have things that keep us from moving forward with our lives, and it takes strength and courage to move through these experiences. The challenges come in different forms, and arrive in our lives at different stages of our personal development. "How do I find my place?" "How do I develop a support system of friends that accept and support me for who I am today?" "How do I balance work and family?" "How do I find time for myself?" "Am I strong enough to run 2 miles?" "Am I strong enough to face what is ahead of me?" Avoiding our challenges is easy, keeping our heads down and continuing on our current paths. Yet, when we do, we keep from moving forward with our lives. We miss out on all of the wonderful things that happen to us on our journey toward our goals. It is often the experiences along the way are often more valuable than our intended endpoint. (from the Beautiful Women Project)

“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” Henry Ford

Moving Forward......

Thank you to everyone that responded to my rantings and ravings yesterday. As you can imagine, it was a very tough & emotional day for me.

I spoke to my PC doc last night and basically the long story short is this: Surgery is on hold until we can get my thyroid levels where they need to be. This could honestly take anywhere from 6 week to 6 months if not more depending on how long it takes to find the right dosage of meds for me.

I am moving ahead, doing what I need to do. I have already had another round of bloodwork done and I am picking up my first round of meds today to try. 6 weeks from now I will do new bloodwork and see what the new meds show. If they don't do it, he will need to increase the dosage, and then I will again need to wait 6 weeks to take new bloodwork to check the levels. This will go on as long as it takes to get my TSH under 5. So you see how it could potentially take 6 months or more to get this all figured out.

In the meantime, I have decided to use this time as a continued learning experience. It's AMAZING how much I have learned in getting ready for this surgery as far as healthy eating, the importance of protein, the effect carbs has on us, etc. I have lost 7lbs in the last week just on the pre-op diet alone, and I don't plan to give that up. While I won't continue on only 600 calories a day now, I do plan to continue eating more healthy with smaller portions and see if I can make a difference in my weight "the old fashioned way" while I wait for this to all be straightened out. And who knows? By the time I am ready to reschedule, maybe I will have lost so much weight that I won't need the surgery anymore :) Wishful thinking I know, but I am and will always be a glass 1/2 full kind of gal!

Again, thank you for everyone's support!!!

My Soap Opera of a Life

Sorry I haven't posted in a while.........What a mess things are right now!!

As a lot of you probably know, I was scheduled to have Gastric Bypass surgery next week. (I have been blogging about that experience on my other blog Bariatric Babe if you want more info). Well, I got a call from my surgeon today and my procedure is apparently being put off for anywhere from 2-6 months right now. Mind you, I found this out today, 6 days before I was scheduled to have the surgery.

The long story short is this: my TSH (thyroid level) is supposed to be somewhere between 0.5 and 5. Right now, mine is 22. This is apparently considered very high and the surgeon JUST found this out when she saw the bloodwork I had done at my pre-admission testing at the hospital last week. She feels it would not be a good idea to do surgery until my thyroid imbalance is addressed. Especially since an imbalanced thyroid can cause weight gain and it would be counter-productive to do the procedure now under those conditions.

OK, fine, I get that, I really do. But I've been under the care of my PC doc for months now for my thyroid and I was never told this before. He always told me that my numbers were "a little off" and it could "possibly affect weight loss" so we might as well treat it and get to where it should be, but basically, no big deal. Nothing he ever told me prepared me for the urgency that my surgeon felt in the situation. Obviously my first question to the Dr. was "how could we have not caught this before?"(and yes, by WE, I did mean HE, but I was trying to be nice). He said he never caught it because it was never an issue. Strangely enough, after my surgeon called, he went back to look at my old labs and my TSH number was never off. This reading is the first time it's happened. VERY STRANGE if you ask me.

Anyway, he agreed with the surgeon's assessment that surgery needs to be put off until this is under control. He said it would have been irresponsible of her to do the surgery knowing this and she did the absolute right thing in putting the brakes on things. And I get this, I really do. It's just SO disappointing.........I was looking forward to so many things: the surgery, losing the weight, having 5 weeks off of work, showing up at my cousin's wedding in 6 months looking skinny and hot :) It's just that it's all different now........My PC had me redo my bloodwork tonight after work, and assuming it's the same as what the surgeon had, he will increase my meds and we will have to wait 6 weeks before testing my levels again. Chances are slim that one dosage increase will do it though, and it's pretty likely that they levels will have to be adjusted a few times before we find the right one, having to wait 6 weeks in between each dosage change to retest. So realistically, 6 weeks is the absolute minimum I will have to wait to get on the surgery schedule again, and it's probably more like 12-18 weeks. *sigh*

And here's the other thing.......When I started this process, I was on the low end of who is a candidate for surgery. My weight was within 5-10lbs of me not qualifying at all. Most people as a matter of fact, when I tell them I am having this done say that they are surprised, that I don't even seem like I would qualify.........But I moved ahead, basically ate what I wanted for a while knowing that for the first time in my life, I actually needed to try NOT to lose weight. I went to the initial visit with the surgeon, weighed in, and did qualify, barely. But because I have Sleep Apnea, the insurance approved me and we moved forward.

Now I have been on a liquid diet for a week, expecting to be in surgery next week. In this last week, I have lost 7 lbs. With surgery being put of anywhere from 2 - 6 months, I have a choice to make. Do I blow all the work I have done up until now and start eating unhealthy again? Or do I continue on the "right" path and make all the choices I have been making up until now to have lost 7lbs in one week? And if I do continue that, and I keep losing, do I even pursue surgery anymore since if I lose much more, I won't even be eligible anymore??????

See, it's never cut and dry or an easy answer........My husband thinks I should just continue on the protein shakes and small meals and try in this timeframe of the delay to lose it "naturally" one more time. Part of me agrees with him, but part of me is unsure. I don't want to go back to the way I was eating before. I feel better in these last couple of weeks than I have in a long time. Part of me is saying just live "as if" you HAVE had the surgery. Eat small meals, low carb, no sugar, etc. and live the life that you would have to after surgery anyway. I'm bound to lose that way....right? But then what if? What if I can't do it? What if I fail - AGAIN - and I do something like lose 20lbs and get stalled and then I have lost too much weight to have the surgery anymore, but not enough to be happy with where I am - then what???

OMG, this is all just way too much for me to figure out.


Girls? Advice?????????

Brain Dump Friday

I have a ton of unrelated things running around in my head today, so lucky you - you get the brain dump of them all! :)

1) Just got the portrait back from the Father/Daughter dance that Juliana and Larry went to a few weeks ago. Don't they look awesome? I think the photo came out great!!

2) Also got the Spring portrait from school. Is it me or does she look way older than a 2nd grader here?! Again, a great picture I think!

3) I feel much better today than I did yesterday. The family and I had a much better evening and I am starting to feel a little back to normal. Thanks for all your kind words!!!

4) Swine Flu - This is crazy! My company just instituted a policy that if anyone travels in any of the affected areas of swine flu (i.e. New York, California, Mexico, etc.) that we can't come back to work for 7 days. DAMN! Why didn't I have to go to NY this weekend instead of last weekend?! I'd be out of work for 6 weeks if I were out next week (since it's my last week in before my medical leave)!! Everyone here at the office is yelling "I have to go to NY this weekend" all of a sudden :)

5) I have the greatest best friend in the entire world. She heard what a terrible week I was having and offered to take both kids to sleep over her house this weekend and to take them out on Sunday. I LOVE YOU NAT!!!

I think that's it for now - TGIF!!

I am a horrible person......

I have to own up to my behavior here. I am feeling like total crap right now because I have been in a really bad mood the last few days and I have totally been taking it out on my husband and kids. *sigh*.

Not to make excuses for my behavior, but my life feels totally nuts right now too and I hate it. I need to get a little more calm in my world really quick before I explode. It's not helping that I am on this 2 week liquid diet plus not having any caffeine (in prep for after surgery). It is totally kicking my ass between the two and I am miserable. I almost ripped my husband's head off last night and I just may send the kids into therapy if I'm not careful. Hopefully it won't be as bad as the days go on, but this totally sucks right now.

Anyway, I don't know what I am trying to accomplish by writing all this, but I had to get it off my chest. The kids and I had a bad night last night and I feel terrible about it. I SO need to be a better mom today :(

Hope everyone is having a better day than I am.