As of yesterday, I had already lost 12.5 #s. One week out from surgery. I did have a slight rough spot yesterday though. I won't go into details, but let's just say I had gotten a little dehydrated. I went through a very weak, nauseated spell for a while. I finally just had to go to bed at 8:30 because I felt so bad. I know that is part of the recovery process, but, right then, I sure felt like maybe I had made a serious mistake by doing this to start with. I don't feel that way today though because physically I am somewhat stronger.


Some folks still do not quite understand what I had done, so here is the photo again of what they did. They actually cut away most of my stomach (internally) and removed it from my body. Think of me standing in front of you, facing you. If you look at the photo to the right, there is a large portion of the stomach (pictured here as the right side, although physically it's the left side) that is cut away. It says "Portion of stomach which is removed".

This does nothing to change what I look like on the outside until the weight comes off. As the weight comes off, I will post some progress photos, so all can see the results.

Everyone has been very supportive and concerned about me and lots of friends & family members have called, or emailed me to checkup on me. Thank you all for your love and support.

As soon as I can drive again, (next Wednesday) I will be out and about visiting all of you again. We can still meet for lunch, I will just eat less! LOL

See you all soon!

Hollydays is an annual shopping extravaganza for Christmas gifts or for yourself that I just love to go to. There are so many booths, It's hard to see them all. Well, it's this weekend and since tomorrow is surgery day, I won't be traveling anywhere except from my bed to the sofa this weekend. But that's ok. Next year, I will weigh a lot less and be able to really enjoy the shopping.

Yep, tomorrow is the day. Today is my preparatory day. I was allowed 2 eggs, 2 pcs. bacon, 2 pcs. toast and a small glass of skim milk. That was at 8:30 this morning. I can only have clear liquids for the rest of the day until midnight then nothing else to eat. I have had some sugar free jello late this afternoon and I will have soup broth for supper. Then that is it.



Tom took me out last night to a Chinese buffet for my 'last supper'. It was really good and the music was soft and relaxing, so I enjoyed it all. We came home after that and watched a movie together. We watched Evan Almighty. It was pretty cute. We enjoyed it.



I spent today wrapping up paper work for the month, so I won't have to worry about that for about four weeks. What a relief that was. I hate doing that kind of stuff, until it's all over, then I see the clean desk and I am glad I did it. It's just the idea of getting started. And that reminds me of something:

People are always saying that I advertise for products that I like, and I do. But I can tell you, NEVER do business with AAA Visa card. Those people are nuts. When I first opened the account they had offered a 5.9% interest rate. Ok, that's pretty good, so I went for it. Well things went along well for a little while and then they wrote me a letter saying they were raising their rates and would I approve my rate to be raised. Of course, I declined. What idiot would agree to raise their rate? So they told me I could no longer have the account unless I agreed to raise the rate. I saw red and I closed the account.

Meanwhile, I set it up to automatically be paid each month from my checking account. I paid out the account, had a zero balance. They continued to deduct money from my checking account ( I have never had this problem with anyone else. If you have a zero balance, there is nothing for them to deduct for). So last month I called them and they refunded my money and told me their apologies, and that it wouldn't happen again.

Well, they lied. This month I get another notice they have deducted ANOTHER payment from my checking account! I lost it. After I got through reaming the ass of the guy that answered the phone, I am getting another refund and they are zeroing out my zero balance account and he promised no more will be deducted. I got his name and badge number this time. If it happens again, I will go to the bank and put a stop to it there. Larkie, you will appreciate this......there are little indentions in the ceiling of my house where I just about went through the ceiling with this idiot. I was looking over the top of my glasses at the phone. I wanted to punch his lights out.

Okay everybody. It'll be a few days before I post again, so say prayers and when I get back home, I will start posting again as I loose weight! Yahooooooooo!

I got to see Ash today for the first time in 3 months. He looks so good. He has gained about 30 lbs. and has built muscles, has a great tan from working outside a lot. It was nice to sit and talk with him for a while. We had a 3 hour visit and it flew by so quick, I thought my watch was wrong. I won't be able to see him again for about 60 days, but it helped to see him today and I think it helped him too, just to know someone is out there pulling for him. He has gotten lots of mail and received lots of birthday cards, so everyone that sent one, he appreciated it a lot.

He was a little bit down inthe dumps today because one of his peers was evicted from the program and that upset Ash. He was also upset because he had been called down about something he said he didn't do. Well that means he will be working in the kitchen for 30 days and it takes him just that much longer to gain his visitation priviledges. But I just told him to live for today only and do what he has to do today and don't worry about tomorrow or 30 days all at once. I hope he listened. I love him so much and I just want him to be a healthy responsible man that can ultimately get married to a nice wife and have a family. This is a start.

Remember the other day when I tried to upload a video to show you guys the 'chair turtle' at the beach? Well, I am going to try it again. I compressed it, so maybe it will work now. We shall see:

Yay!!! It worked! Now you too, can see the chair turtle. I know, we have a weird sense of humor. What can I say?

FERN is my middle name. I have been tagged by FroggieMom to do this and I thought it might be fun. Thank God, I have a short middle name. :)

F - Friend, Friends, Friendly - Someone said just the other day that I meet no strangers. That is very true. I love people and meeting new people and I make friends easily. Maybe that comes from moving around so much when I was a kid and my Dad was transferred a lot. It was a very nice compliment to me anyway.

E - Energetic - I don't mean that I am energetic when it comes to exercise and stuff like that, but energetic about traveling and meeting new people and spending endless hours on my computer looking around at sites I have never seen before. I am also very energetic about things I believe in. I don't give up easily.

R - Real - That was something my husband said about me the first day he met me. He said I am real, like ice and fire. I am not quite sure what he meant by that, but I thought it was sweet and I have always loved him for it. He even put a ruby and a sapphire on my wedding band to represent that about me. I love it. And I love him. Thank you for loving me Tom.

N - New - I love to go to new places and learn new things about the places to which we travel. and I Never want to stop learning. So Never is another N word. I am also a little Nerdy because I love reading, and I was a programmer before I retired and I love word games.

I am not going to tag anyone, but it was interesting to do. Please do it too. Well, maybe I will tag Gerrygirl.

We arrived about 6:00 pm on Friday the 21st, and at first had a little trouble finding our rental condo, but once we found the right place, it turned out to be beautiful. The sand was vivid white and the water was clear green close to shore and then a beautiful blue further away. Awesome! All I could do was stand there and stare at the beauty of it all. How can anyone see all that and not believe there is a Higher Power?

There was a storm in the Gulf that came inland right over the top of us, but it was mild and just brought rain and large waves. Lots of folks enjoyed those waves for surfing, and it was fun for us to watch them try to actually ride those waves. We laughed a lot at the amount of work they did to ride a wave about 3 to 5 feet. Somehow it just didn't seem worth it. But hey, they were having a good time.

We enjoyed watching the 'chair turtle' come out every morning and every evening putting out and taking up the chairs and umbrellas. I took a video of it being done and you will see why we called him the 'chair turtle'. Check this out: Well, after trying for hours to upload this video, it would not happen. Damn blogspot. Sorry, I can't show you now how funny the chair turtle was.

Tom and I were alone until Wednesday when the kids started showing up. Allen and Heather arrived Wednesday night just in time to go out to eat dinner,yay! And then Kirk and Deirdre came in Thursday morning around 10:30 am. Kirk was like a kid in a candy store. He loved being in the water and trying to body surf. We all ended up buying boogie boards and spent endless hours boogying in the surf.

There I go with the advertisements again! LOL