Thankful

I am so happy with how I feel most of the time these days. I have so much energy and actually look for things to do around here all the time. Jackie is amazed at how much better I am in getting things done.

But I do have a few problems that I have talked about before. I am continually having acid reflex. I have talked to my surgery team about it, and they gave me some medicines for it, but so far I still have an occasional problem. It normally happens while I am sleeping, I upchuck acid into my mouth and esophagus. It hurts like hell and most of the time I have to get out of bed to clear it. I will eat a couple of soda crackers or drink something and it seems to calm it down a little but I lose sleep over it and feel kind of weak the next day. I am going to be a little more aggressive with my doctors and see if I can find what is causing this problem.

Many of our friends, who are about our age, are having more health problems than either Jackie or I are having. Some very major problems and I sometimes feel guilty about complaining about my little problems when I have been lucky enough to not suffer any big ones myself.

Of course almost everyone these days will develop some problem they are going to work on before they finally die of something. I guess it comes down to quality of life and each day we are given to enjoy the things we do. Our health systems are good enough these days that people even with major problems are able to go on for years and still have a pretty good quality life.

Years ago many things people are living with would have meant almost immediate death of at least a pretty miserable life until they eventually died. But today medicine is advanced enough to extend our lives in better ways. And for that and the surgery I had, I am most grateful.

Phase one is done!!!!!

Boy am I tired but happy. I got the first part of our home remodel project completed and I am proud of how it turned out. We only spent about $1200 on the job and paid as we went so no credit cards were used. This is only about a third of the total project. Next is the kitchen and it is going to be a lot more money to say the least. Some new cabinets, new appliances, new floors, new paint and trim. So I am going to have to put away as much money as I can for the next few months so that I can afford the project. Jackie is still trying to decide on exactly what she wants for flooring and counter tops. That will go a long way in determining how much it is going to cost. Stay tuned.

I lost the little weight I gained over the holidays and am under my goal weight again which was 168 lbs. I had to cut my calories down quite a bit to lose the weight but now I am back on my normal schedule. If I should go up a little from time to time I intend on cutting back for a week or so to control it. The key is to weigh and measure everything very closely and to take actions if needed by cutting back for a time.

With Spring coming on I will also have to do a lot of work in my yard and home on the outside. So that coupled with my swimming that I still do 3 times a week will increase my exercise activities and burn a few more calories so my weight will probably stabilize more.

It is hard to believe but the anniversary of my RNY surgery for two years is coming up soon. Two years ago this time I weighed over 325lbs and thought I was doing good, as that was down form what I had weighed a few months before. What a difference in my life the surgery has made possible. 

Doing things I wanted to do for a long time.

I have been quite busy lately and that is one reason I have not updated this blog for a time. I have also been sick. Seems like I have been sick from just before Christmas until now and I am still a little under the weather in some respects. In fact I am a little discouraged because I was under the impression that after losing about 147lbs my health would be much better. In most respects it is, no more diabetes and high blood pressure for instance, but this past couple of months I have been sicker than I have been for years even when I was over 300 lbs.

Anyway lately Jackie and I have started the refurbishing of our home. We are going to paint most rooms and put new flooring in as well. We are starting in our laundry room and back bathroom as the floor in those rooms is very bad. We have not painted the walls for over 20 years at least. Well as of this date the rooms have been painted and the flooring is mostly in. We have elected to use vinyl tile called Ultra for the floors. It looks like wood but is resistant to water and other things you would expect to be on the floor in a laundry room. So far it looks very good, but a little harder to install than was advertised.

As many of you may know I am a Ham radio operator and that is my main hobby. I got a new radio for Christmas from Jackie. It was in a kit form and I had to build it. It turned out wonderful and I am enjoying using it. I was able to put it together without any problems and my old eyes and hands were able to get the job done.

My weight has stayed stable over the holidays. I was up about 4 to 5 pounds but I am on the way of losing that now. I am happy with my weight and even with a few pounds back from the normal regain you have in my kind of surgery, I am stabilizing and people are telling me I don’t look sick. I guess when I was still loosing and my face was very hollow I kind of looked like I had some terrible illness and now I look much better. I can tell you one thing and that is that if I had not lost the weight I did there would be no way I could do the work around here that I am doing. The surgery and all that goes with it is still one of the best things that I have done in my life for myself. I would for sure do it again. 

Happy Thin New Year

Well I made it through Christmas and New Years without gaining much weight. I think I am up about 4 pounds but will be taking that off soon. This year I could eat much more than last year, but still not what I used to eat like.

Because of the surgery, my stomach (now called pouch) is much smaller than most peoples stomachs, and last year I will still recovering from surgery so it was hard to eat more than a small amount of food at one time. This year I could eat more but was satisfied much sooner.

But I did not deprive myself of any of the holiday things that make life fun. We even baked a few cookies but have most of them to the grandkids an folks we had for our Christmas eve dinner we have each year.

Normally New Years is a time we would get bags of potato chips and pig out that day. We did not have one chip this year and in fact the only treat we had was a piece of cheesecake we had left over from the Christmas dinner. Even that was too much and I tossed half of the piece I had away.

We are just now starting on our big project for the year and that is to remodel the house. At least we are going to redo the laundry room, small bathroom off the laundry room, my ham shack, the family room and the kitchen. Mostly all we plan on doing is painting and putting in new flooring. We will be modifying the kitchen cabinets and getting some new appliances but basically like the other rooms it will be painting the walls and putting down new flooring.

We are going to use venial flooring in the laundry room because of having so many wet things in there we were afraid that wood would warp so we went with venial flooring. We are also thinking about replacing the ceramic tile in the kitchen with the same kind of flooring we plan on using in the laundry. The family room will probably have hardwood.

I have a lot of work to do and I hope I have the energy to do it all and get the house back in shape for another 40 years. 

Christmas Past

Grandma Bea

When I was a kid, I was very lucky in that I had wonderful loving parents and grandparents They all lived in the same town and in fact one set of grandparents lived just a few doors down on old 4^th Avenue.

Christmas time was always special and the family loved to gather together for all kinds of celebrations of the time. It was a magical time for us kids as our parents and grandparents did everything possible to make the holiday special for us. The family and extended family all got along very well and there was none of that kind of behavior where you could not invite some parts of the family as they did not like other parts etc. We all loved each other and that was very obvious.

Our Grandmothers and mom went out of their way to make things us boys loved for Christmas. We are talking about eatable things here like pie, cake, cookies etc you get the idea. Boys have a bottomless pit when in comes to things like that, and our grandma’s could bake like nobodies business.

My grandma Bea lived just down the street from our house. She was a lot like a second mom to us. She always made a special apple spice cake with creamy frosting each Christmas. Her house was filled with the smell of this wonderful creation each year and we looked forward to gorging ourselves on it. We had it every year.

One year however, grandma Bea was very sick and confined to bed during the Christmas season. No cake this year that was for sure. I was attending college and did not know my grandmother was that sick. We visited with her during Christmas as she could not make or come to any of the other dinners. We did all we could to make her Christmas as good as we could under the circumstances.

After Christmas as I was getting ready to go back to college on the train, my dad just before we left for the station suggested that I go say goodbye to Grandma Bea. When I got to her house she was in bed, but asked me to go to the kitchen to get a package for me. When I got there sure enough she had managed to get out of bed long enough to make me that wonderful apple spice cake. She had wrapped it all up in an old pillow case and it was still warm to the touch and of course the smell was heavenly. I thanked her and of course said, she should not have gotten out of bed just to do that but that I appreciated what she did and would enjoy the cake on my train trip back to college.

My mother had prepared a thermos of chocolate milk for me to have with the cake and off I went on the train. The train pulled away from the station and I could see my mom and dad waving goodbye to me as we chugged down the tracks. Somewhere along the way, I smelled that wonderful cake and took a little taste. That is when I had an epiphany. I really realized how loved I was. Unrestrained, unrestricted, unabashed love. I knew for sure that my parents and grandparents loved me. I knew for sure that I would never do anything in my life that would cause pain to my grandma’s or parents. How could I ever betray the love and sacrifice they had shown to me?

Those feelings and reassurance of that apple spice cake day have stayed with me for the rest of my life. It is not the big expensive gifts that we remember, it is the seemingly small gestures like this one that mean so much more as time goes by.

By the way grandma Bea did recover and lived many more years and helped raise my oldest daughter.

May we all remember and have much love for each other this Christmas season is my prayer for you all.  

Getting ready for Christmas

Well the Thanksgiving holiday is over now on to Christmas. Everything went real well at our dinner here at our home, at least nobody complained. I was able to eat a little more this year than I did last year, but still not what anyone would call a normal meal for a person. Very small portions and no seconds on anything.

I did not gain any weight but I did not lose either and that is my goal. I am at the weight I want to stay at. Between 161 and 164.

We have some of the food bought for the Christmas dinner but not all of it. We figured out what the food and other things cost for Thanksgiving and it was about $250.00. Kind of hit on the old budget but it was worth it to us to have our family here with the exception of those who live too far away.

Christmas shopping and such is taking a lot of our time these days. I am buying most of Jackie’s presents on line. I can not tell you what I got her here because she reads this blog and I do not want to spoil it for her. I know what she got me, and I will talk about it after Christmas. It was something technical and she could not have ordered it without my help. So it is here but Santa will not let me open the box until after Christmas. Most of Jackie’s presents are here but one and I am having a dickens of a time getting that one. The first place I ordered it on line I think was a scam. They were supposed to send me a update when it was shipped but nothing has been forwarded to me about the status. All they will say is that it will take 10 to 14 work days before it shows up. Next Thursday will be 14 days and if I don’t have it I am going to see if I can get the charges back from my credit card company and PayPal. In all the years of getting stuff on line I have never had the problem I am having now. If I don’t get it I will tell you the name of the online company so you can avoid it in the future. Just in case I ordered the same product from a more reputable company and it is scheduled to be here this coming Monday so Jackie will get what I ordered and I may have to send one back.

That is about it from here, except I am sick. Like a very bad cold or flu. Hope I feel better soon. 

Another Thanksgiving after WLS

Jackie will again be working her little tail off getting things in the house ready. She will be scrubbing and polishing everything to make it look nice in the house for our guests. She is always so concerned that there may be a piece of lint or something out of place. She will vacuum the floors at least 10 times before everyone get here. Well maybe that is an exaggeration, just 5 times.

I am more concerned about the food and making sure it is ready and cooked correctly. Jackie and I will work together as we always to get it all done. As we get older it is harder and harder to set up and prepare a big shindig like this each holiday season. We will be doing it again on Christmas and probably New Years as well. Buy we love having the family around and will hold the festivals here as long as we can. One year as I remember when the girls were all in school and nobody else was coming to our home for Thanksgiving, we went to a restaurant and had a buffet. It was good, but it was just not the same with the family all around laughing and having a good time, so we would just as soon continue with what we do for as long as we can.

This will be my second Thanksgiving after my WLS. I plan on having a little more this year than I did last year as far as volume of food. I can tolerate a little more these days but still will have a hard time eating more than would be on a small salad plate. But I am going to have more than a square inch of pie like I did last year. However I know what will happen if I over eat and I have to make sure I have nothing after about 7:30 in the evening or I will suffer with heartburn all night and I definitely do not want that.

Everyone have a great holiday and please remember those family members and friends who are not with us physically anymore and be thankful for the family and friends you will enjoy being with this year.