the pleasure was all mine

so my caseworker lady from my surgical group left that old group to start a new one nearer to me. (mine was over an hour away). i never had gone to any of the support group or post-op meetings because they were always on like a wednesday evening at 6 and there was no way i could get our of work exactly on time, fight the rush hour traffic and hope to get there even remotely on time. anyway... after i got back from the honeymoon, said case worker called me and told me about her new position and asked if i'd be willing to come and be a guest speaker at their first meeting. i was pretty flattered that she asked me and i of course readily agreed.

the meeting was last night. i took great pains to make sure i looked good, dragged out the makeup, did the hair, everything. debated on what to wear, knowing everyone would be checking out my body closely as I did to older pre-ops back then. i wore what i consider The Best Jeans Ever? (yes, i stole that from seeing Cecily's references to her dog. my apologies for the rip-off). ANYWAY, so the jeans. they are fabulous. and a red button down shirt. i was feeling great, of not a bit nervous.

so we get there and go up to the room that we were supposed to and find it locked. well, now i'm confused. we ended up traipsing all over the hospital trying to figure it out then finally found the information desk and they pointed us in the right direction. i was annoyed, since we were told the wrong room, but also since now it looked like i was 20 minutes late, which i HATE being late. but whatever.

we went over all of my pictures that my buddy keith and i had carefully taken and documented along the journey which i think was really helpful for everyone to see. i got to tell my story and even take a lot of q&a and i gotta tell you, i loved it. i loved being able to share my experiences and offer reassurance and as my case worker puts it "be an incredible role model." now, i'm not sure about that last part, but it still felt nice.

and how weird was it that for the first time in my life i was conscious og being the absolutely thinnest person in the room. very strange feeling.

I've come a long way baby.

thanksgiving

we really did have a lot to be thankful for this year as alex's dad came home thanksgiving morning and we were able ot have our dinner together as planned. everyone was quite relieved. it was a nice time and festive. i brought a few dishes over (that I could eat) and some pies that were no-sugar-added that i made. two pumpkin, two pecan. it's funny as generally no one wants to touch sugar-free stuff and we ended up not having any pie to take home as everyone divvied up the leftovers, even of my splenda cranberry sauce. that was the one everyone ate. go figure!

it's all good, although i was hoping i might get a little pumpkin pie! oh well.

we spent the rest of the weekend working on the house and beginning to look at furniture to put on top of our beautiful new floor. we're starting the next room after christmas, new tile around the fireplace and bamboo in there as well. and the bar. he wants to build a bar. like a breakfast bar type thing. god help me.

we keep this up and i'll be pretty attached to this house. it's already starting with him. and all of these improvements were only uspposed to be for resale. i'm starting to think that things might be changing. but that's ok. i think. for now.

must every major holiday have a cloud hanging over it?

last christmas was rough. very rough. i mean, having my beloved grampa's funeral on christmas eve, it doesn't' get much more brutal than that. having spend the previous month sitting at his bedside with my mom watching him die. it was very hard. i mean, for weeks i was the only one who could get him to eat or drink anything, and when he started praying, oh man. and christmas was always his thing. he wore the santa hat and handed out the gifts. needless to say, it wasn't very festive. and this year my parents are going to vegas for christmas and we're going because i know my mom needs me with her this year.

so, now alex's dad is in the hospital. he has all the same things my grampa had, chf, diabetes, etc etc. and he is roughly the same age. my grampa was 77. young. his dad is early 70s. so.... not all that dissimilar. he had the heart attach monday. as of yesterday they found some blockages. they are doing tests right now to determine if he needs a bypass. alex is a mess. i feel like an old pro. i know the hospital drill, we did it for years with gramps. so, i dare say tomorrow will be a hospital bedside day. and that's ok. we gotta do what we gotta do, right? as much as my FIL annoys me and frustrates me, i know how close they are and i'm behind that and will do whatever we need to do.

don't get me started on his mother. i never had a problem with her until now. and i don't know how to deal. that's a story for another time.

the floor

we have a floor people. i repeat, we have a floor. over 1.5 years of only having a subfloor and WE HAVE A FLOOR.

i can't even fathom it.



(did i mention we put it in all my ourselves?)

all my dreams shattered in less than an hour

my entire life i've secretly wanted to be a choreographer. i know, i know, silly. i never even took any sort of dance ever. i mean, come on, i was a really heavy and shy kid. dance wasn't happening.

so now that i'm all in shape (relatively) and we've become exercise freaks (who knew?) and i've run a 5K, i figure, well, it's time to be adventurous.

i see bally's has a hip hop class. i figure aerobics set to hip-hop right? i can do that. sounds fun. yeah, well, that wasn't the case. after the warm up which consisted of about 1000 different kinds of crunches and a gazillion lunges we launched into the choreography. choreography people!

at first a part of me, that little wanna be hip-hop dancer was excited. it was a disaster. i. cannot. dance. to. save. my. life.

no news is good news... right?

so i've heard nothing from the neoroligist about my mris. i think that's good, right? i mean if there was somethig horrible on it someone would have called me, i'd think. right? i suppose this means i need to call his office. soon. not yet. i'm enjoying thinking that everything is fine. give me a few days.

in other, more exciting news, my flatiron finally shipped. omg i can't wait. i have no idea how i've lived without one all my life.