Category Archives: Motivation

Day 2, Liquid Diet!

Good evening!

Ok, so today is the end of day two of my liquid diet! I would love to tell you that I am doing great, but in reality today has been a really grumpy kind of evening! I think I am just hungry, and anxious, and having some serious withdrawals from sugar! Even though my sugar intake over the last few months has been, well, at least for the most part minimal, I am now withdrawing from everything else!!! I think my biggest side effects of this liquid diet so far is exhaustion, headache, and some serious moodiness!!! Last night I was uber-weepy, and this evening I have just been unreasonably grumpy (poor Jason!)!!! 😉

My saving graces, food-wise right now is pea soup, sugar free pudding, and fat-free plain Greek yogurt!! Ok, so now that I have written that last sentence, I have to amend that a bit – my saving grace has been my awesome sweetie, supporting me, holding my hand, encouraging me, and helping keeping me busy when I get really antsy, so I have to give a great BIG shout out to him! I have said it before and I will say it again! I would NEVER have gotten this far without his help!! 😉

Anyway, the night is late, and I am soooo tired, so I am going to keep this post really short, and head up to get a good nights rest!!

Here is to a FABULOUS evening! ;-)

 If you want to have a different life, you have to live differently!

Day 1, Liquid Diet!

Good evening!

It is so hard to believe that the time for my liquid diet to start has come, and I have almost made it all they way through my first day! WHEW!! The start of the liquid diet means, that I have only 2 weeks to go before my big day!! 😉

For those of you who may not know, since the middle of April, I have lost 40 pounds, and have been on a journey toward getting bariatric surgery! A laporoscopic gastric bypass roux en y, to be more exact! It has been a long and sometimes very difficult journey, but I am so close now I can almost touch it!!

I am on a liquid diet for the next two weeks, and on September 4th, at exactly 2:30 pm I will be going in for my procedure! I have done all that has been asked of me, and have received my approval letter from my insurance, so all is ready to go! Well, everything  except this two week liquid diet.

Now, I have been getting so many questions, so I thought I would take a moment to answer a few for you, that is if you are curious…

Why if you have already lost 40 pounds, would you still go through with the surgery?

  • Well, the answer to that is that with about 90 more pounds to go to, and if I were able to do it all on my own, I would have done it a loooong time to go, and I know that weight loss surgery is just going to be one tool in a whole arsenal of get fit and healthy tools. Just a sampling of some of the other tools being exercise, nutrition, meditation, faith, and personal support!

Isn’t bariatric surgery the easy way to get healthy?

  • The easy way out??? Anyone who thinks that weight loss surgery is the easy way, has NEVER TRIED IT THEMSELVES!!! It is a load of hard work, and is gonna take some more serious determination to succeed!!

I have friends who have had bariatric surgery, and they have gained their weight back. What makes you think you will succeed?

  • You know, I can only answer for myself, since everyone has their own stories, but I know that even with the surgery, I know that health and fitness is something I am going to have to always me mindful of, for the rest of my life. I know that his is the right step for me!

I am so nervous, and yet so excited at the same time! I saw my hubby have the same procedure exactly 4 weeks ago, and he made almost all parts of the process look like a piece of cake!! I really hope that I can make it look just as easy!!

Anyway, this liquid diet lasts for two weeks, and the purpose of it is to help shrink my liver so that when they move it out of the way for my surgery, it doesn’t get injured or damaged in any way!! AND the liquid diet really consists of some foods too: yogurt, skim milk, sugar-free pudding, j-ello, V-8 juice, smooth soups, decaffienated teas, Crystal Light, no-sugar-added cocoa. So, I do have quite a few options!!! 😉

Anyway, it is getting late, and I would like to spend some quality time with my sweetie before bed!! I will make sure to keep you posted of my progress!!

Here is to a FABULOUS evening! ;-)

 If you want to have a different life, you have to live differently!

Jason’s Post Surgery Update!

Good afternoon!

I apologize for the delay in getting this post out, but we have been a little busy! 🙂

Jason is doing extremely well! He is currently napping, but has been up walking, has had his imaging tests, and upper GI that we are assuming went well this morning, because he has been given the A-ok to start drinking sugar free, caffeine free, non-carbonated liquids! So he is a VERY happy man!!

We did have a bit of a rough night last night. You see, I am not sure what time it was, but we had some of our friends visiting; Dawn, Errin, BobbieJo, Mark, and Heather. The nurse had come in to get Jason ready for his first walk of the night. The goal was to get him to walk at least 200 feet. So, to give him his privacy, Dawn and Errin left for the evening, and the rest of us moved our conversation out into the hallway while Jason was prepped for his walk!

As we were all still laughing and talking, Jason, as well as his nurse, Heather (AWESOME NURSE, BTW!!!) came out of the room, and started their walk. Both BobbieJo and Heather commented that he was walking pretty fast, but I didn’t think anything of it – he seemed to be walking much slower than he normally does to me! So, we kept on chatting, as he says to us, “I’ll be back in a minute!”

I knew he was making the loop in hallway, and so I kept watching for him to come back from the other direction, and noticed that he still hadn’t made it back yet. I didn’t think anything of it, until a few moments later, and I realized he STILL hadn’t made it back. The next thing we know is that there is a bunch of people coming to his room really quickly looking for him, and that is when BobbieJo says, “I wonder what is the matter?” I really wasn’t too worried, until she said that, and it clicked, “DUH! There is a reason it is taking him so long to get back!” and I head in the direction that he initially had taken off.

Who knew that this tiny amount of Crystal Light could make a man so happy!?! 😉

Side note: this is the point that I almost started running to see if I could find him, but realized that running in a hospital might not be too safe, and freaking out really wouldn’t help him or the staff. 😉

So, I mozy’ed as quickly as I could and when I came around the corner I saw a large lump on the ground, and realized that it was Jason!!! GAHHHHH!!! Apparently he had gotten dizzy, and before they could get him a chair to sit down in, he had passed out and had fallen to the floor!!

Now, before I go further, I just have to really say thank you to both BobbieJo and Heather, because before I could really panic, they both reassured me that it was alright, this could sometimes happen, and that they both concurred that he really had been walking quickly when he left the room!! (That is my sweetie, the overachiever!!!) Anyway, I took a deep breath, and calmly (at least I thought it was calmly) went over to him, got down on all fours, and started petting his hair and asking him if he was alright! Thankfully he was, and even though I didn’t see him fall, it sounded like he fell on his bucket (AKA his behind – thank you, Miss Kay!!), and did not hit his head or anything!! He was pale as a ghost, and I think he had just scared himself more than anything, but with the help of some other staff members he was able to get up, and get back to his room, so that he could try walking again later after some more of his anesthesia wore off!!

They checked him out, did a couple of other tests, and placed a couple of more monitors on him, but he is good, and he did successfully complete his first walk at about 3:30 this morning. He not only walked the loop once, but twice, and had the nurses walking with us laughing hysterically! Apparently, the little hospital no-slip socks that they have you wear, Jason decided that he would call them his “pimpin’ socks”, because whenever anyone saw him walking in them all the women would come out to watch! It couldn’t have possibly been because they were all standing at the ready in case he was about to go down again, but who am I to burst his bubble?!!! 😉

The view from Jason’s room!

Anyway, as of right now, he has walked a few times today, without incident, they have removed his catheter, and a few of his monitors. He is a little antsy, going a bit stir-crazy having to be cooped up in his hospital room, but he is still charming the socks off of everyone, and trying to make the whole floor laugh!!! He really is the life of the party, and I almost feel like I should have brought some kind of h’orderves for the festivities!

He had just gotten some vegetable broth delivered before he decided to take a nap, so I expect that we are going to have a quiet afternoon here, which after the excitement of last night – I am TOTALLY cool with!! 😉

I really do thank God for that man of mine, and that he is guarding over him, every step of this journey!!! I have said it before, and I know it will not be the last time I say it, but I really am one lucky, lucky girl!! I love you, B’Spoon!! 😉

Here is to a quiet, uneventful, but FABULOUS afternoon! 🙂

 If you want to have a different life, you have to live differently!

Better Late Than Never!

Good afternoon!

This is Jason playing with his Sophie girl this morning before we headed off to the hospital!

So as for my updated…

WHEW! It has already been a looooong morning of waiting our turn, but Jason has finally gotten in to get his surgery started! He ended up going back about an hour after he was originally scheduled to.

They took Jason back to his pre-op room first and got his IV started and whatnot, more on that in just a minute, but this is Jason totally excited that he has complete control of the remote control to the television!!! LOL!! He is too funny!!

As for the “other prep” they did, unbeknownst to either of us beforehand, they shaved his stomach from chest to groin!! It kind of looked like they had shaved a bear of his sweater!! It is quite a look! 😉 and it makes me laugh thinking about how badly that is going to itch once it starts to grow back in!!! I am sorry love, beauty can be painful!!! LOL!! 😉

He is in great spirits, and was busy making myself and all of the staff he came into contact with laugh!! He is such a charmer!! Even with his surgical hat which makes me think of him having some kind of jiffy-popped head!!! LOL!! Do you remember those?? 😉

Oh, and I can not forget! Jason weighed in this morning as having lost a total of 67 pounds since he first started this journey in April!! Which means he has lost an additional 6 pounds since just yesterday – the stinker!! 😉 I am very proud of him, and I know he has definitely earned his success!!! 😉

Anyway, it sounds like the surgery is going to take between 3-3 1/2, so I will be busy trying to keep myself busy in the surgical waiting room – hoping that time doesn’t just draaaaag on!!! but we will see!!!

My next update might not be until later this evening, but I will make sure to keep everyone posted on how he is doing!!! 😉

Here is to a long, but hopefully a-atypically-patient-waiting-kind-of afternoon!! 😉

 If you want to have a different life, you have to live differently!

 

Off We Go!

Good morning!

Well, we are up and at-em this morning! Just about ready to head out to the hospital!! Jason is feeling “Great!”, but he is pretty antsy!! He even made me breakfast this morning!!!

WHO IS TAKING CARE OF WHOM HERE??? 😉

Anyway, his bag is packed, I have packed a bag for myself, and he is busy playing with his Sophie girl!! Our girls know that something is up – they know what it means when the suitcases come out, and I can tell that Sophie is just begging pappa to take her with him!! Not today little girl!!

Anyway, I am praying that all goes well this morning, and time seemingly flies, so that I can see my sweetie’s smiling face in his room this afternoon!!

God is good, all the time!!!

I will keep you posted!!

Until then….

Here is to a FABULOUS morning! 😉

 If you want to have a different life, you have to live differently!

Getting Ready for The Big Day!

Good evening!

So tomorrow is the big day; my sweetie is having his gastric bypass surgery in the morning at 11 am. He has worked so hard to get to where he is now. He has gone to every appointment, made every goal, documented and reported everything that was required of him, and lost the necessary amount of weight required of him to get this surgery scheduled, not to mention making it through the last two weeks of his liquid diet!! As of this morning, he has lost a total of 61 pounds within the last 4 months. I am just so dazzled by how easy he has made this whole process look!! If I could just perform half as well as he has done when it is my turn, that would be AMAZING!!! I really couldn’t be prouder of him!!! HE TRULY IS MY HERO!!! 😉

He is doing really well this evening; he is remarkably calm and just ready to get in there and just get the surgery done, so he can get onto the other side, and keep on keeping on with his journey to get fit and healthy!!

I will be making sure to keep posting updates over the next few days! I know he is going to do great. He is in very good hands, not only his surgical team that will be working on him, but also I know that God is going to be in that operating room guiding all of the hands that are going to be taking care of my love, as well as with him throughout his two-day hospital stay!! I know that everything is just going to go swimmingly, and I will make sure to keep all of you posted!!! We really do appreciate all of the prayers, and well wishes from all of our friends and family!!!

With that said, I will make sure to post again really soon!!

Here is to a FABULOUS evening!! ;-)

 If you want to have a different life, you have to live differently!

Hiking Silver Creek Falls!

Good evening!

I have some very exciting news that I am sooooo excited to share with you. Ok, so in all honesty, it is really exciting to my sweetie and I, and maybe not so much for you, but all the same, I am still going to share it with you!! LOL! 🙂

Wait for it…

My sweetie and I walked the 2 and a half mile hike at Silver Creek Falls yesterday morning!

WHOO! HOO!!! 😉

Ok, so 2 1/2 miles may not sound very impressive, but it is quite literally a hike that takes you steeply down into a giant bowl, and then you have to hike what feels like a constant straight up to get back to the top again!

Let me just give you a little back story! The last time a tried any hike at Silver Creek Falls, it was one of the smaller hikes, and let’s just say there was a point, on the way back up, I had the realization that I had let myself get extremely out of shape, and I had a bit of a breakdown, balling my eyes out, crying to Jason. “I am going to die here! *SOB!* I will never make it back to the top, let alone the car! *WHINE!* “Save yourself, and leave me! *DRAMA QUEEN! DRAMA QUEEN!*“
Ok, so admittedly not one of my finest moments!! 😉

So now maybe you understand why hiking the two and half mile hike at Silver Creek Falls is such exciting news??? There was no crying. No whining. No pleading with Jason to save himself.

IT WAS AWESOME!!!

There were some pauses. Some quiet time where I just had to concentrate – especially during the last stretch. There was even some praying for help, and prayers of gratitude when I realized that we were so close to the top! It really was an AMAZING experience!!! I even had the ability to take a TON of pictures, so I apologize for the possible overload of pictures that are to follow, but I want to remember this day for a long, long, LOOOOONG time!!! 😉 The day I realized that all of the healthy eating, and exercise is really paying off!! 😉

This is the South Falls.

Isn’t Jason looking great?? He has lost almost 50 pounds!! Way to go, Baby!! 😉

I am not doing too bad either! Even though I have such a long way yet to go, I have lost about 25 pounds! 😉

This is a water tube that Jason was fascinated with. I fear that he would have tried to climb in and of course get himself stuck if I weren’t there! So to his-would-have-been-rescue-team trying to get his booty unstuck from this water tube – YOU ARE WELCOME!!! 😉

Yes, this is what happy looks like!

Thanks to the very kind stranger who offered to take a picture of us together in front of these falls!! 😉

I think you would agree that just those views along were worth it!!! What an amazing day!!! Let’s just say, we will be doing that again soon!! 😉

Here is to a FABULOUS evening!! ;-)

 If you want to have a different life, you have to live differently!

We Found Our Church Home!!!

Good afternoon!

I am sooooo excited to write today’s post!! To say that my sweetie and I have had a good day is SUCH AN UNDERSTATEMENT!!! Just look at these two happy faces!!!!

It has been a FABULOUSLY BLESSED day!!! 😉

Many of you may not know, but my sweetie and I have been searching for our church home for a LONG time now!! Having, myself, grown up in the church, and having met my sweetie while in church, I have seriously felt that we needed to find a church home. A place where we can find other Christians to call friends, and to grow spiritually in the body of Christ. I am so happy to report that we think we have FINALLY FOUND it! OUR CHURCH HOME!! 😉

This church is called Relevant Life Church. It is a small church that I happened to stumble across while looking at one of my girlfriend’s pics on Facebook! Can you believe it??? I couldn’t either, matter-of-fact this church has been here FOREVER, and I practically drive by it every day to get to work!!! 😉

What impressed me right away was when we walked in, there was such an atmosphere of love and acceptance! It was very easy to feel God’s love in this building!! Everyone was so friendly and welcoming. They made sure that both my sweetie and I knew where everything was, to make sure to answer all of our questions, and to help us feel right at home!!!

My sweetie and I were both impressed with the pastor and the sermon. Pastor Kevin has a way of delivering the message which helps make the lesson feel personal to you, and very applicable to your everyday life! After the service, when one of our new friends, Bethany, asked us how we liked it, my sweetie quickly replied, “Did you hear me snoring?” “No,” she replied, looking at him a little oddly. Jason responded, “Then I didn’t fall asleep, it was a good sermon!” (I just love that crazy man!!) 😉

I also loved that after the service, almost everywhere you looked there were small groups of people praying for each other. The feeling in the building is so hard to describe, but the best way that I can describe it was a feeling of unconditional love, joy, and acceptance!! This is what I have been praying for!

It was also obvious to us that this is not be one of those churches where you either have to be really old, or married with young children to fit in, which Jason and I are neither!! The ages of everyone there really varied, and those that were there had an air of artsy-hipster-let’s-have-fun kind of -people AKA OUR KIND OF PEEPS!!! 😉

After the service, my sweetie and I were fortunate enough to be able to go out to lunch with a few people from the church. There were 7 of us in total, My sweetie, myself, BobbyJo and her husband, Mark (who we also happen to know from the bariatric support group we attend), our new friends, Bethany, and her husband (who happen to be the church’s youth pastors),  and another first time attendee visiting from out of town, J.B. We had so much fun just gabbing away!! We ended up there visiting for sooooo long! It was really like we have been friends forever, and just needed to sit down and catch up!! I am really excited that I will have some new friends to go antiquing, used book store shopping, discount bag/vintage shopping, or maybe even camping with!!!

God really is sooooo good, and I am truly feeling so happy, and sooooo very blessed that I happened to stumble upon this little gem of a church!! I can’t wait to go again next week, and make sure that I didn’t dream this place up during my sleep!! 😉

In the meantime, I am going to go enjoy the rest of this lovely sunny day with my sweetie!!!

Here is to a FABULOUS evening!! ;-)

 If you want to have a different life, you have to live differently!

Some Home Updates!

Good afternoon!

We are having a lovely four-day weekend here at the manse!! LOL! 😉

I thought I would share some new pics of some things going on around our place this weekend! 😉

Here are some pics of our garden! It is so fun to watch the plants grow and getting out there and weeding, pruning, and making everything look lovely!!

We are so jazzed to see how much lettuce we are going to have! They are growing so much faster then us newbie-farmers could even imagine!

Here are our snap-peas, and 3 strawberry plants! We already have one red strawberry!! We will have to flip a coin to see who gets to eat it!! 😉

Here are the two blueberry bushes! I can’t wait to see how much they produce! 😉

Here are a few of our herbs!

Here are a few more! We have 3 pots of herbs growing! 😉

Next, on to our living room!! As many of you know, my sweetie and I are getting ready for Bariatric surgery. One of my goals before surgery is to make sure that the house is clean, organized, purged, and no muss, no fuss ready for us to just concentrate on getting better!

One of the things we have been hearing from past patients is that a recliner is almost imperative to post-surgery resting! Well, I have been a long time naysayer of recliners. They are large, ugly, and I have just really never liked them! So, when I picked up two leather ones this weekend, I was sure that I was losing my mind, but my rationale behind doing that was twofold! 1. I know that we will both be having surgery, and I don’t want either one of us to have to sleep on the couch! 2. It has been really hard to have company over when there is just not enough seats in our place!

So after a ton of time spent cleaning, purging, and redecorating, and along with the help of my FABULOUS sweetie, we were able to take our living room from this:

To this:

Aaaaaaah…SO MUCH BETTER!!

The feeling in here is now so much more calming. We moved the large television out from in front of the window, so the room is now awash in sunlight! What a much more positive feeling, and way less drab and gloomy!!

 

Also, now that I have a bunch more of our favorite art work on the wall, the space feels sooo much more like us!!! I can’t wait to see what the rest of the house looks like once we are finished, but we are really so close!! I will make sure to share pictures with you as more progress is made!!

Here is to a FABULOUS evening!! ;-)

 If you want to have a different life, you have to live differently!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Good evening!

My sweetie spent today planting all of the vegetables into our new vegetable garden, and I am very happy to report that I have some new pictures to share with you!

I am soooo very impressed with what he was able to do in such a small space!

We now have growing:

  • Spinach
  • Green leaf lettuce
  • Red leaf lettuce
  • Green romaine lettuce
  • Red romaine lettuce (I didn’t even know that existed!!)
  • Butter crunch lettuce
  • Red bell peppers
  • Green bell peppers
  • Cherry tomatoes
  • Yellow grape tomatoes
  • Broccoli
  • Snap peas

All of these veggies will be a great and tasty foundations for some very healthy salads this Summer!! 😉

We also planted an herb garden in some large pots we had on hand! They now hold:

  • 4 kinds of basil
  • Thyme
  • 2 kinds of oregano
  • and 2 other herbs, that I am going blank on at the moment (sorry!!)

My sweetie also got us some strawberries for our hanging pots, and two blueberry bushes, which he is going to let grow in 2 different large pots. I am SOOOOO EXCITED to see what grows and how well we can incorporate these fresh goodies into our our new healthy life style!

This whole adventure has been so much fun! I haven’t actually gotten my hands dirty (thank you, Love, for doing all of the dirty-work, literally!). I will eventually get my hands in the dirt, weeding  and tending to the veggies’ care, it is a garden after all, but Jason and I have had so much fun planning it out, and seeing it come to fruition. I realize it is just a small garden, right now, but it means something so much larger to my husband and myself. This little garden is a small glimpse of what we envision for our future; owning our own little farm. It still makes me smile ear-to-ear when I think of it even now!!

We are so blessed, and life is so good!

Here is to a FABULOUS evening!! ;-)

 If you want to have a different life, you have to live differently!