Oh, man…

We just found out that my mother-in-law passed away quite unexpectedly and suddenly. That’s all we know at this time. 

I’m sorry if I have to step aside until we get this most awkward and sudden situation taken care of and grieve properly as a family.

Not Much…

There’s not much going on here. I work this weekend. It’s been so quiet that I’m occupying my time with crafts because I’m a nerd. The boys are doing well. The “diet” is going well. I still feel like a blob and any time I do anything physical, I feel like I’ll die, but it’s going to change eventually. I’m trying not to dwell on the whole time factor of weight loss. 

I’m trying to remain positive in spite of the fact that there feels like there’s no change in my jeans or shirts. The scale will come out on June 1 and we’ll see if the hard work and sacrifice is paying off or if my body has finally succumbed to its destroyed metabolism due to starts and stops for 27 years.  

Tomorrow, we’re all off work/school and I’m hoping to make it a super active day. We do have a BBQ planned for the four of us, but nothing over-the-top or gorge-a-licious. There will be dessert: cherry veggie gelatin with blueberries and cream. That’s the “big hurrah.” I’ll post pics to the Instagram and write it all down in my journal. Blah, blah, blah. 

Today, I’m working on typing up my 90-day-written notice to the crappy management company to let them know we will be moving and not renewing our lease in October. I’ve heard from former tenants that management has a history of saying “we never got your 90-day written notice so we’re taking you to court to get more money from you.” I’m sending two letters: one to the office here via certified mail and the other to the head office down the road via certified mail. I’m not an idiot. Oh, they also like to say to people who are moving out “you still owe us the last month’s rent because you didn’t pay it when you moved in.” I’m ordering our check from 2009 that proves that we paid first, last and the security deposit (which we paid AGAIN when they mysteriously raised it and had us pay the difference of last year…weird). Chubby ain’t playin’ games with these turds anymore. 

90 more days until we move. The packing commences next week, as does the priming of the apartment walls to prevent them from saying we didn’t take care of the place…which we did. Sneaky, sneaky farts.

Have a good day. Make it count. 

New House Project #1

I have a lot on tap today (ugh…Mondays) including an exercise with Mr. McGee as soon as he comes back from dropping the big kid off at the bus stop this morning. Then, it’s laundry, chores and errands with the little dude. Luckily, tonight, I get a chance to go out with just my hubby to see a movie in a theater. That’s something that hardly ever happens and I’m thrilled about it. Busy, busy, busy. Healthy, healthy, healthy. I’m making it a constant goal to maintain a balance between the stuff  I need to get done and the body that I want to reclaim. 

Today, I’ll also be procuring the items I’ll need to make the focal artwork for Jude’s bedroom in the new house. I’ll be able to set up the boys’ rooms before we move all the furniture into the house and I’m stoked that I’ll be able to get most of the painting out of the way prior to even packing anything up here. We already purchased Jude’s duvet cover which, in turn, gave us the color scheme: neutral grays and greens. (The entire house will be done in neutrals with a splash of one of these sea-green-blues in the kitchen.) He’s really into penguins and I figured the best thing would be to have a giant canvas with a giant penguin on it that basically screams “JUDE (THE OBSCURE)” on it hanging off his wall….

Alas, I bring to you, the first of many projects for the new place via this link. 

My goal is to recreate a custom sanctuary for Jude in the new house that has elements like the one featured by “The Company Store” which is where I got his duvet (pictured below) on clearance for about $40 (with free shipping) instead of $130…cuz I rock. The kid deserves his own escape since he’s been living with clingy-nosy Coco for four years and hating every second of it. Ha, ha! Each room in the new house will cost me less than $200 to do, too with the help of upscaling yard sale items and great, inexpensive Internet finds…and re-purposing furniture we already have (like our old dining room table that I’m going to be sawing and sanding down to make into our living room’s new coffee table (you’ll see that project too!). Did I mention that the new house has a tool bench and workroom next to the laundry room? Well, it does…praise the heavens!

So…I’ve gotta get moving because the exercise and the prepping for the new place won’t get done by itself.

Happy Monday! Make it count.

“I’m sorry for what I said when I was hangry”

While “hangry” isn’t an actual word, it’s been tossed around my house a lot over the last five days. I’m angry and I’m hungry. I’m hangry. My stomach is growling with the enthusiasm of a caged tornado and, I won’t lie, I’ve had to shield my eyes from certain commercials or TV shows and breathe through my nose around particular foods lately to stave off a ninja-jump attack into the kitchen. My husband, in particular, keeps calling me on my “hanger,” but he’s been so great with dealing with it, so understanding and supportive, that I can’t say I’ve been holding back from being grumpy over how all I can think about is raiding the damn fridge and cabinets. 

I’m in a doom and gloom mood that usually comes from what naturally happens when a human body is given health(ier) foods, lower calories, a bunch of water, no binge eating on sugary sweets (or anything, really) and physical activity. 

The good news…no…the GREAT news is that I’m on day five and, while I’m briefly miserable over my current and temporary situation, I am doing very well. 1400 cals a day. Activity every day. Water all day. Yadda, yadda, yadda. All good. No lapses. No binges. No desire to quit (which, ironically enough, stems from how hungry I am and how I don’t want to have to restart all over again). 

Tonight, the boys went out with dad to Moe’s and I stayed home because I don’t want to be around nacho chips or queso or fried tofu because I know my limits and I don’t want to mess things up. I’m about ready to go into the kitchen and prepare something that’ll fill up the remaining 465 cals I have left for the day. I’m going to stay up late this evening to watch “Game of Thrones” with the Mister and I’m sure we’ll both laugh the entire time over how loud my stomach is grumbling, but it’s okay. 

You see…I have two options to face on day five of resetting my entire system:

1.) I can choose to be obese, uncomfortable in my own skin and miserable

2.) I can choose to be hungry, comfortable in my own skin and miserable

Honestly…hunger isn’t that bad…and my body will reset naturally to the point where I’m not starving from only eating what I need to function on a daily basis (been there! It’s doable! I know it!). I’ll continue to be hangry for a little longer, yet I’ll start feeling less like a blob and more like a woman who is determined to get her health and stamina back. 

Gotta keep looking at the positives…even if it means I’ll be grumpy for a bit longer. The alternative is not really in my plans. 

 

Not Sure…

I’m not really sure how to do this second post back. I have a lot going on right now and I’m not sure which direction is best for me on this gloomy, achy-sore, kicking-the-habit-groggy-funk day. I think I’ll do a list to see if I can cover many of my bases since there’s too much happening in my life, too much to catch up on. I know many of you have asked me about the boys and the crazy neighbor situation we had…but there’s a lot of new things on top of the whole “I’m back up on my horse” thing. So…here goes nothing.

1.) Day three of this healthy eating stuff is rearing its ugly head. My body is kicking like a person detoxing from drugs (or so I guess from what the movies show me – LOL). I’m sore and I have a headache that just won’t quit, but it’s my TOM and my guts are bucking. Sorry if that’s TMI. I’m doing VERY well here though. Every morsel has been logged into my BodyMedia account. I did three miles yesterday and it was tougher than the first day’s two miles (plus a bike ride!), too for whatever reason, but I tackled it no matter what. I haven’t binged either and my husband is beyond supportive..even allowing me to bow out of a social gathering I was supposed to attend tonight at a Mexican restaurant. I know I can’t trust myself with those chips in front of me in the initial get-back-up-and-go phase of this and there is absolutely nothing healthy on that menu. Soooo…things are going well on the health front. I’m on Instagram if you want to see what I’m up to when I’m not sitting in front of the computer blogging. I’m trying to get all my food/activity in there in pics. Give me about a week to get back into that routine 100%. 

2.) The boys are great. They’re growing like weeds. I can’t stand it. I want to freeze them as they are now. Coco is still my pony-loving snuggle bug. Jude is still my bookworm. His birthday is coming up soon and we’re celebrating by doing “The Color Run” in Philadelphia again. We’re hitting up the pool all summer long, too. We all own bikes now and are waiting for our car hitch to arrive so we can travel and bike. There have been some awesome adventures for us lately, too, including a 36 hour car ride to and from Georgia to spend time with my sister. Oh, so many things we’ve seen and done in the wake of my dad’s passing…in an attempt to “live.” The boys have been having a blast.

3.) Our crazy neighbor “Puff” (the one we suspect put sugar in Tillie…our Pontiac) moved out before October 1, 2013. We occasionally see her driving around town, smoking in the car with her children…one who got and beat cancer (remember the chemo kit you guys helped me prepare of that poor boy? Well, he lost his leg due to the cancer, but he’s doing much better now…which is the good news…the bad news is: his mother sucks). We now have a new set of neighbors upstairs…about 10-12 of them crammed into a three-bedroom apartment who like their Mexican music loud and prefer to dump their cigarettes into the dry mulch under our living room windows, but they’re not as bad as the nut-job we had before…so we’ll take it. We’ve also had A LOT of SWAT activity and meth lab stuff happening here these passed few months. It’s been fun having to hunker down on the bedroom floor with the kids while we hear explosions of flash bombs going off…OH! Then there was the ricin incident we had…yea…Google it…it made national news. Last night, while outside after dinner with the kids, we are pretty sure we saw two heroin addicts walk into the building to buy drugs. Oh, and we have an arsonist on our street who recently set fire to the house behind our bedroom window. Yay! This place….this place…..

4.) Here’s some great news to follow up that apartment-life update: we’re moving out in August! We will have a townhouse about 20 minutes from us in a better, nicer town with a MUCH lower crime rate (we’re WAY too close to Philadelphia here). The place has three-bedrooms, a huge park right out the front door, great trails and a better school district. The neighbors there are all around our age, with kids…none of them smoke or do drugs. The countdown begins and the four of us are BEYOND excited and antsy to get the heck out of this apartment complex that is virtually turning into its own level of Hell. (below is a pic of our new living room…I’m painting it a nice, neutral gray, don’t worry, I’ll drive you guys nuts with tales of renovations and the projects I’m doing for it.)

5.) Speaking of last night, I learned that my biological mother died. How do I feel about all this? I don’t know. I’m completely numb…er…apathetic. I’m not relieved…I thought I would be relieved…like, “She finally got what she deserved,” but I don’t feel like that. I’m not sad either. I just feel…neutral. I don’t expect anything from her death either. She won’t have written me a letter explaining what she did to us when we were kids. There will never be an apology either. So…I feel “meh” about it all. I’ll let you guys know if things change. Please don’t feel the need to write any “I’m sorry for your loss” comments either. She was an awful human being and an even worse mother from what I can remember before she abandoned us. I’m happy my children never got to know her. 

I think that’s enough for one day. I have to now get up and moving because I feel like a sloth. My headache has subsided a bit and my exercise won’t complete itself. Here’s to a continuance of better, healthier days. Up and at ’em, guys and dolls! UP AND AT ‘EM! 

I am a fat fuck

I started my old blog with a similar title the same way back in December of 2010. At that point, I weighed in at a whopping 243 lbs at only 5’4.5″. I was a fat, blobbular Hobbit-like creature wearing nearly size 20 jeans. I was miserable in my own skin and my life sucked. No, seriously…I was in physical pain and unhappy in every aspect of my life. 

Then, I went and lost all kinds of weight with healthy eating and daily exercise (constant vigilance and the determination of the grandest optimist in the world). In 2013, I weighed in at my lowest in YEARS at 152 lbs. I looked great, felt wonderful and believed myself to be invincible…strong and definitely more confident. My world was great. I was blogging pretty much every day and I had a decent following of inspirational fellow bloggers who I looked up to and who fueled me on my healthy path. I loved the community I had around me of people fighting the same fight, losing weight and getting healthier themselves…feeling limitless and healthy. 

In September 2013, my beloved father became gravely ill, he ended up passing away in October. I quit blogging. I fell into a great depression. Meds were assigned to help me cope and cover up what I was feeling about the world. I thought I could easily hold everything together, especially since I had always spouted how no-matter-what-happens-in-your-life-you-must-never-lose-focus-of-your-own-health. I even used to rip on people in my old blog who gained back weight after a life trauma. I’d scoff at their inability to keep their shit together. Well, turns out, I fucking suck and I let life grab me by the throat and I fell into chubby despair. I ate junk and spent the longest, coldest winter on record sitting on my ever-growing fat ass not even thinking about consequences. 

For months, I let myself down. I let my deceased father down. I let my kids down. I let anyone who ever gave two shits about my weight-loss life down. 

I finally managed to get my fat ass on the scale this a.m. to take responsibility for what I’ve done to my own body in the last few months. I weighed in at a whopping 184.2 lbs. 

Am I really going to finally just do it this time? Will I lose the 30 pounds I’ve packed back on over the last few, depressing, miserable months? YES. How do I know this? Cuz I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again and I’ll use this blog as the fire under my lard-ass.

I also know this:

1.) I’m sitting here in my workout clothes (which are tight again – fuck) and I’m queuing up my Leslie Sansone DVDs for a good workout. 

2.) I tracked my breakfast for the day via my Bodbybugg (which I’m wearing again…as of this morning)

3.) I’m going to start blogging again, each and every day. 

4.) I don’t care what anyone says (negative or positive) here. You can hate me all you want for fucking up. I’m fully aware so your comments about how disappointed you are will be moot at this point. The level of self-deprecation I feel over letting myself go is insurmountable and I am my own worst critic. As a matter of fact, go at it for all I care and let me know in the comment section. Troll the shit out of me for all I care. I know what I’ve done and I’m here to correct it. If you don’t want to follow me: fine. If you want to come here just to gawk: fine. I’m not letting negative comments do what they did to me on my old blog. I don’t care anymore. I’ve seen the errors and I’m here to correct them and that’s good enough for me. Y’all got that? Good. There’s no sugar-coating for me here anymore (I’ve already sugar-coated my hips again…and the reality has set in and I’m here to fix it). 

5.) I’m doing this for myself and not for any other reason. Blogging is how I hold accountability best. This is how I got the results I got the last time. I’m not quitting. I’ve got much to prove to myself. 

 

 

Now…I’m off to exercise and get the fuck on with my life. 

So Very Sorry…

…but I’ve been very busy since my dad’s initial stroke around September 28. I had him moved up to a rehab facility closer to me and he was doing well in his therapies. He got back up to 50% of his ADLs, but was still having trouble walking and following instructions from the rehab staff. Coco and I were there every, single day by his side, cheering him on and spending time with him while he was in rehab and the hospital. He was doing great…he was confused sometimes, but he was doing great.

Then, last Wednesday, October 16, he had another small stroke and was sent to Einstein Hospital where he spent two days in the neurology wing. When he was stable again, he went back to the rehab center while I searched around for a skilled nursing facility for him as he would need round-the-clock care for the rest of his life. He was doing well in rehab again until…unfortunately, he suffered yet another, more serious stroke around 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, October 23, as I was en route to hang out with him.

When I went to Einstein Hospital, where he was moved, to spend the day with him on Thursday (as I stayed with him all day on Wednesday, too), I was told that the doctors and staff had exhausted their efforts and I was asked what he would like to do since he would never have a decent quality of life ever again. The doctors stated that it was really only a matter of time before another stroke, or cardiac arrest, would take him away from us. I made the difficult decision to make him DNR and put him on hospice care.

Shortly thereafter, I called his siblings and everyone came to sit with him, hold his hands, and get him to relax as he was aware of everything that was happening, but he could no longer communicate with us. My sister flew up from Georgia again Thursday night and we were going to head out early to sit with our dad on Friday morning and wait for the priest to come give him his Last Rites.

Around 5:51 a.m. on Friday, I woke up with to a racing heart and what felt like a panic attack. I laid there wondering if I’d made the correct decision for my dad’s life and I kept saying, “Daddy, tell me I made the right decision for you” over and over again. At 6:00 a.m., my alarm went off and I got up and looked at my emails on my phone. Then, there was a call from an unknown number and it was the hospital, calling to say that my dad passed away, peacefully, from brachycardia at 6:00 a.m.

These last few days have been a clustercuss of prepping his things for the funeral and trying, desperately, to find the funds to have his burial on Saturday. He didn’t have life insurance and his accounts were a mess. We suspect he may have had several mini-strokes prior to the first one on September 28 and his cognition must’ve been askew since bills were unpaid and he’d given a lot of money away to relatives.

I’ve bumped into all kinds of horrible things this last month and almost every one of them stems from my dad’s obesity. There are things you’d never even imagine could happen just because you’re obese and it’s terrifying me. I couldn’t find a nursing home that’d take him…or a hospice unit either…a regular wheelchair couldn’t support his weight…he required a bigger hospital bed…he couldn’t fit into an MRI machine…his cemetery plot was too narrow (we opted for cremation then)…and his cremation cost extra because it takes longer for an obese person to turn to ash…all because he let himself get to weigh over 400 pounds. My dad was an AMAZING man and his weight has screwed over a lot of his dignity and comfort and it’s taken him away from us and I hate that. The world is a lonelier, scarier place without him here and his death could have been delayed had he ate better and left his apartment for exercise…even a small walk outside. (Turns out, he wasn’t leaving to even get his mail anymore.)

I ask any of you who are over 300 pounds to get absolutely serious about your health. I have been through hell these past few weeks and it’s all obesity-related. I implore you all to eat healthier and get exercise and don’t do what my dad did. Get help from a professional if you must, but please…don’t just give up and give in. Someone you know loves you so much and doesn’t want to see you suffer and, most certainly, doesn’t want to have to go through what I’m going through and what I’ve gone through all month.

I don’t know when I’ll be back to blogging since there are more things I have to deal with over the next few weeks and I’m extremely busy juggling everything right now, but I promise that I’ll be back sooner or later. One of my new goals is to help at least one person or one family from going through this.