Birthday parties and church meetings

Birthday parties and church meetings make for a busy weekend. We hosted a party for a very good friends 50th birthday this past Saturday night. It really went great and everyone had a good time. The kids played Wii and spent time in the hot tub. Some of the adults played cards (Texas Hold m) some just visited. Some of the adults were also able to have a chance to play with the Wii after the kids went home. It looks like the bowling game draws the biggest crowd.

Sunday morning was church and the annual meeting of the church where we elect officers and committee members and vote on the annual budget. That part went smoothly. Then came voting on some by-law changes and that didn’t go quite as smoothly. Seemed like a lot of bickering and that tends to make me uncomfortable. But with some minor amendments the changes were voted in.

I really have to get back on track with the weight loss thing. My paper work has been sent to the surgeon’s office and I really need to lose another 5 or 10 pounds before I see him. I should have the date by the end of this week and I’m guessing that the \appointment will be about a month out from now.

I did gain a few pounds this weekend with all the munching at the party and then we went out fore dinner yesterday after church. I should know better, I do so much better on my diet if I don’t go out to eat. Tonight we are staying home and I plan to be in bed early tonight. I was so tired this morning and getting up and to the mall to walk was really tough.

My DH had a big meeting this morning and I know that he was worried about making the right impression. It was with some of the “big shots”. He gets all worked up for nothing. He is good at what he does and he is an excellent employee. People respect him; it’s just something about him. I have all the confidence in the world in him to accomplish anything he sets his mind to.

I am waiting not so patiently by the phone for a call from the surgeon’s office with my appointment. I know that this process is moving right along but for me it feels like such a slow pace. I try not to complain, but I just want to be on the other side of the surgery. I look at this whole thing like a “do over”. I am going to learn how to eat all over again and this time I am going to do it with knowledge I didn’t have before. I know that it won’t be easy and that old habits are hard to break, but I did quit smoking 5 years ago and I was able to do that.

I do get worried though, if I am having such a hard time eating right now and losing the weight I need to lose before surgery how is it going to go after surgery? I hope that this is not an indication of the end results. I want to succeed at this.

More about me

It’s Thursday and tonight is the monthly post-op support group at the Weight Center. I have been going to these meeting since July even though I am not post-op yet. It helps keep me motivated and it’s nice to hear all the stories about what people are going through after surgery. Some people have had complications and others are doing great. It seems that most of them would do it again even with the complications. You really get to hear the good, the bad and the ugly at these meetings. Since June I have seen many people literally shrinking month to month. I am so ready to do this.

I had my appointment with the cardiologist on Tuesday and he gave me the clearance for surgery. I knew he would. It was in my health records that I had seen him a couple of years ago for some chest pain that turned out to be acid reflux. He ran me through a battery of tests two years ago from stress test to catherization. My arteries were clean as a whistle. So Tuesday he just asked me a few questions did an EKG and said “you are good to go”. I am just waiting for the Weight Center to get the word.

My son is still driving me nuts but I am trying hard not to take it so personally. For such a long time I have felt responsible for the way his life is going. Am I the only mother who wonders if I screwed up in some way?

Youngest daughter is sick this week, she has been in bed and feeling awful since Monday. Today she is going to the Dr.’s to get checked out. She is just miserable; I hope she feels better soon.

My husband is going to go to the meeting with me to night at the Weight Center. At first he was reluctant when I asked him to go. He didn’t understand that I wanted him to go so he would have some idea what things would be like for me after the surgery and not that I was saying he should consider surgery. Once I explained, he decided he would go with me.

I have a great husband and we have a wonderful relationship. I know that I am very lucky and not everyone has what we have. This is a second marriage for both of us. He was married for 19 years the first time around, they did not have any children but I know that they wanted them and both his first wife and him would have made great parents. I was married for 17 years the first time and when I met him I had 3 children. The kids were 10, 12 and 19 when we married. Three years later, my first husband and the father of the children died of brain cancer. My husband was so caring there are not words to describe how wonderful he was during that terrible time. My ex had moved from MA to SC so he wasn’t close by while he was sick. He lost health insurance and was not in a good place financially. My husband made sure that the kids got to SC several times to visit and that my ex never went without the medications he needed or the health care. He really stepped up to care for a man that he didn’t even really know just because he knew that it was the right thing to do. He really is quite a man. My children and I are lucky to have him in their life.

We have been married for 6 years now; our children are now 16, 18 and 25. We have a son-in-law and 2 beautiful grandchildren. Madison is 4 and Zachary is 4 months. We also have two dogs, shih Tzu’s, they are both boys and their names are Wicket and Teak. Below are a few pictures.

Friday again!

It’s already Friday again! I started this blog about a week ago with great hopes of writing everyday. I guess I lost some of the enthusiasm because I haven’t taken the time to write anything at all.

After all of the BS with son last week and over the weekend things are not much different. He is still home and has agreed to conditions for staying. I really need him to be more responsible. He needs to be able to get from one pay check to the next without asking me for money, he needs to get up on time and be on time for work. Those are the two main things I have issues with.

My 16 year old daughter is really enjoying have a car and driving herself to school everyday. She still hasn’t found a job but I’m sure she will soon.

Hubby and I are going to have the weekend pretty much to ourselves. That will be nice. We have a few appointments tomorrow, trip to the vet; hubby needs to get some blood drawn, haircut and grocery shopping to do. I think we may take a ride to CT and check out the new Cabala’s store in East Hartford. Big football game on Sunday the Patriots vs. Chargers. Hubby was supposed to go with a friend but a death in his friends’ family has changed the plans. We will watch the game from our comfy seats and warmth of our living room.

I went for a weight check at the Weight Center this morning, down about a pound from last week. I really could have done better but sort of lost control yesterday for a short time. Next week I will do better. I have an appointment with my cardiologist on Tuesday. I need him to clear me for surgery. The preparation time for this surgery has taken quite some time. I know I have put it all do good use. I am ready to meet with the surgeon and schedule the surgery. Hopefully I will know a bit more by next Friday.

I did get to the mall to walk 3 days this week, hoping for 4 days next week. I have been wearing the pedometer and I have seen a huge increase in the number of steps I am taking everyday. Walking at the mall certainly has helped with that.

It looks like another weekend is about to flash past us and I’ll be back to write more on Monday.

Do the clocks speed up on the weekends every where?

Do the clocks speed up on the weekends every where?

This past weekend just flew by in an instant. I did get a lot of things accomplished, but it was 8 o’clock on Sunday night before I knew it. My 16 year old daughter had friends over on Friday night so hubby and I were home to keep an eye on things. Luckily for us they all went home just before mid-night, which is way past our bedtime so I was glad to see them go. They really are a nice bunch of kids most of them are juniors and seniors in high school. They spent the evening playing Wii games, soaking in the hot tub and then watching a movie.

Saturday the same 16 year old daughter got her first car. It was a surprise of sorts from me and her step dad. We had been car shopping with her for the past couple weekends and ended up buying the one she liked the best during the week. We told her we were going out to do more car shopping but the plan was to actually go and pick up the car we bought for her. She was so excited once she figured out what was going on. Now she has to find a job!

One of the reasons for buying her the car is that we live in a very small rural town in western Massachusetts with no opportunity for employment. She will need to drive 20 to 30 minutes from our house to a community that has more job opportunities. My husband and I both work an hour away from home and there is no way we can get home in time to drive her to a job at a reasonable time. Up until now she has not been able to work.

We moved to this little town at the end of the summer. I grew up in a large city, actually the city we lived in until this past summer when we made the move. My husband and I were both unhappy living in the city, the education that our children were getting was not very good, noise, rising taxes and just plain old tired of city living. I will say it took some adjustment; I was used to driving 5 minutes to work, now its 50 minutes. It’s quiet!!! Very quiet. Our oldest daughter still lives in the “big city” with her husband and two children. I do not see them as often and I miss them. Our son still lives with us but spends most of his time in the city with friends or at work. He only sleeps at home two or three times a week and even then we don’t see him because he comes home so late and leaves so early in the morning.
Our 16 year old daughter hated it and when I say she hated it…. I mean HATED it. She cried for weeks begged us not to make her go to school, pleaded for us to move back to the city. It was a rough transition for her. I will say that it took about two weeks for her to make a few friends and get acclimated to the high school. If you ask her today she will tell you that it was the best move we ever made. She loves the school and she has many friends. She is mobile now and will be employed soon. All in all, things for her are good.

My husband and I are very happy in our new house. We love our yard, the neighborhood and the house is perfect for us. We didn’t have a lot of time in the house before the weather got colder and the snow came. I am so looking forward to the warm spring weather and working in the several perennial gardens around the house. It will be even better if I am able to have the weight loss surgery before then so I will find it easier to move around. My life is very good right now. It hasn’t always been so good, but I know that I am blessed to have good times along with the bad.

I guess I got a bit side tracked, I was supposed to be writing about how time goes so fast on the weekends. I think I got as far as Saturday morning then got off track. Saturday evening was a quiet evening at home watching a football game with hubby. Sunday we had planned on getting up and going to church, hubby had a meeting after church that he would stay for and I would get a chance to visit with daughter and grand babies. We got a late start and decided rather than walk into church late we would go and have breakfast on the way and he would just go to the meeting. I did have a chance to visit with my daughter and my granddaughter. She is 3, almost 4 and just the cutest little girl. We had a nice visit. After hubbies meeting we went to the grocery store, we were not alone! There is a snow storm predicted for Monday morning and it seems as though everyone is out to get milk, bread and a carriage full of junk food.

We got home and did some odds and ends then soaked in the hot tub for a while and another weekend was coming to an end.

Weight Loss Surgery

Today was my last visit with the Psychologist at the Weight Center. I have been going through the long process of preparing for gastric by pass surgery at the local Weight Loss Center. I began this process back in June with two mandatory orientation sessions, then off to see the Dr. for an initial consultation and physical in September. He requested records and past medical information from my Primary Dr., the sleep center (I have sleep apnea) and the cardiologist where I had some tests done recently. While he waited for all of those records I was told to see the Psychologist (Oct.) then the Nutritionist (November) and then to the Pre surgical skills classes that were held for four weeks during December. I enjoyed meeting both the psychologist and the nutritionist; they were wonderful in explaining how important being prepared for all of the changes would be. Everyone has been so encouraging and helpful; they really want you to succeed at this. The pre surgical classes were great. I met some of the nicest people who have struggled, like me, with weight issues for a long time. I think that some of us formed a bond that will keep us connected through the process. We still keep in touch via e-mail and will see each other at the monthly post surgery support group that meets once a month.

I began the exercise physiology classes (there are 5 of them) in December, the last one will be next week. That class has been informative and fun. It's not really an exercise class but more a class to teach you how to exercise and to help you stay motivated and to teach you how to begin a program and stick with it by making it as enjoyable as possible. I guess I had my doubts about this class but I did learn a great deal and have put lots of new things into practice. So I guess it is doing what it is intended to do.

Today was my last visit with the Psychologist and she has made the decision to send me on to the surgeon’s office for the initial consultation with him. I am on my way!!! I should know in a week or two when that appointment will be and I am hopeful that I will be able to have the surgery before the end of April. Keep your fingers crossed.

As I mentioned in my last post I am having some issues with a teenager at my house. I did have a discussion with him last night and laid it all out on the table. He knows what I expect of him and what the requirements are. I asked him to just listen to what I had to say and not to respond. I wanted him to go and think about what he was going to say. I didn’t want him to get real defensive and fly off the handle. He did listen, and he did tell me that nothing I was asking for was unreasonable. He did tell me that he would sit down with me over the weekend and talk about all of this again. So I am hopeful, but not very confident that he will make the changes I have requested. I love him and I want the best for him. It is such a hard thing when you want more for your child then they want for themselves. I have to have faith that someday this will all work itself out and he will be fine.

My very first post on my very first Blog

Well, this is it. My first post, on my first Blog. I have spent hours and hours reading the blogs of others and always thought I wouldn't know what to write. My other thoughts were "can I write, will my grammar be good enough, who would want to read what I write" and other stuff like that. Then I thought, who cares about grammar or how I write and do I really need others to read what I write? I had to ask myself several questions about why I wanted to start writing on this blog. The conclusions I came to were I need to start putting some things down on paper... (well you get the drift) to try and make sense of what is going on around me. I've never kept a journal or a diary filled with private thoughts or questions. I would like to share a bit of myself and my thoughts with others, even if they only exist in my mind. I'm 46 years old and I've lived through a lot, some great times, happy times, extreme grief, and more happy times. You might get the impression from that last sentence that my life has been like a Danielle Steel novel, hmmm... you might be right.

I am going to try not to ramble on and on for my first post but I am finding it difficult to figure out how to begin. I have some serious issues on my plate right now and I suppose I should write about those today, however, there is a lot of background information that may bore you to tears. The most pressing issue for me right at the moment is my son. He is 18 and basically a good kid, very personable and liked by most people. He decided at 16 that high school was not for him, "to much drama" for his liking. He wanted to quit, get his GED and go on to college early. There was no talking him out of it and he was over 16 which makes it legal for him to drop out of high school in Massachusetts. He did pass the GED test and went to the local community college to take a couple of courses to see how that would go. The money for the classes came from his savings account and I told him that I would give him half back if he got B's or better. He got F's. That one semester of college and two failing grades is as far as he's gone with his education at this point. My wish is that someday he will smarten up and return to school. Many do.

In the meantime he is working, he has had three jobs during 2007 and he has been asked to leave two of them. His main problem is punctuality. For some reason his internal clock or whatever it is that makes you conscious of time or lack there of, is broken. He can NOT be on time, not just for work, but for anything. This is nothing new and it has made me crazy for years. Try as I might I can't fix it. He is in danger of losing his current job for the same reason. There may be other reason too, but I know that he isn't getting up and out early enough to be on time most days.

Even though he is working full time and he has minimal expenses, he can't make it from one paycheck to the next without asking, begging, borrowing money from me or others. He often tells me he doesn't have enough gas to get to work or to get home from work and other reasons that have compelled me and others to give/loan him money. He works about an hours drive from where we live. I have had my suspicions about what he was doing with his money for some time now. I was just in denial and hoping that I was wrong. I wasn't. He is getting high, spending most of his income on pot and I have been enabling him for some time buy giving him my money for gas so he can spend his on other things. I also provide him with a free place to live and free food in the refrigerator.

Later today I have asked him to meet me so we can talk. He knows that I am upset about the pot. I confronted him with what I knew yesterday and he didn't even try to deny it, which is very unlike him, he just said "it's the only thing that keeps me sane". Why doesn't he understand that it is the "thing" that is ruining his life....? I am going to interject a little background info here... Nick is a child that has had difficulty his entire life with a learning disability, depression, low self esteem and he lost his father to brain cancer at the age of15. He has been numerous times to counseling has taken medication for ADD and depression. He currently refuses to take any medication and he isn't interested in counseling. He is 18 and I can’t' make him go. He is angry at God for taking his dad, he has a very short fuse but so far it hasn't gotten him into any real trouble. I worry about suicide, drugs, the people he hangs around with, his anger and the trouble that will get him into. I love him dearly, I want him to be content if not happy, and I want him to be on time!

I have asked him to meet me so we can talk later this afternoon. I have thought long and hard about what I need to say and how best to say it. I love him, but I can no longer enable him to buy drugs by giving him money for gas or anything else, I will no longer give him ANY cash. He must earn all of his own money. I am going to also tell him that I am going to buy drug test kits at the pharmacy and he will be asked randomly to provide a urine sample for a test. If at any time the test comes back positive or if he refuses to do the test he will not be allowed to live at my house. Today I will tell him that this all starts in two weeks because I think that is about how long the drugs will need to get out of his system. This is ripping my heart out and I am paralyzed with fear that he will do something stupid and end up in jail or worse but I can't let the fear stop me from doing what I believe is the right thing. I can no longer enable him and allow him to make bad choices because I made it easy for him to do so.

I expect that he will tell me that he won't live by those rules and he will move out over the next two weeks. I don't know where he will go but I do know that he probably will always find a warm place to sleep at night.

Besides my son I have two daughters, one is 16 and still lives at home. She is behind my decision and knows that this is the best thing to do, but like me she is afraid of where things could go from here. My oldest daughter is 25 and she also left home angry when she was 18, although for very different reasons. That was seven years ago and since that time we have become very close, she is married with two children, they own their own home. She works full time and goes to school. In her case it all worked out for the best. She will tell you (and has told her brother) what a mistake that was and how sorry she is now for the bad choices she made. He just doesn't see it. Can it work out twice? Will he be okay? Will we be able to have a relationship at some point down the road? He is no where near being adult enough to take care of himself. This parenting stuff doesn't get any easier.

Tomorrow I will fill you in on the big meeting. I also want to spend some time writing about my upcoming by-pass surgery. I have my last meeting with the psychologist in the morning. I have been going through the program for almost 7 months. Lots to write about.