You know you're becoming a spinster when...

I just watched the 30 Rock from last week (yea, DVR-o-Vision!), where Liz has broken up with her boyfriend (played by Matt Damon...no wonder she's so depressed) and decided she doesn't have it in her anymore and is just going to give up.  She arrives at work in a sweatshirt/jammie-pants combo, with a chip-clip holding her hair back, a fanny pack, and a new pet cat she named "Emily Dickenson."  Sounds crazy, right?  But hitting a little too close to home.  I am wavering on the line into spinsterhood and I need someone to pull me back onto solid ground.  How do I know?

Top 10 Reasons to believe I'm falling into Spinsterhood:

10.  I only own sensible shoes.  Yup, not a heel in sight.
9.  I caught myself telling a funny story about the cat the other day and ending it with the phrase, "She thinks she's people."
8.  I have food wrappers on my bedside table.  Granted, they are from sugar-free Popsicles...holy crap, I just realized it's WAY weirder to eat Popsicles in bed than junk food.
7.  I have a designated friend (shout out to D. Willy) who, in case of my untimely death, is in charge of going over to my house and tidying, i.e. removing any parental-inappropriate items.  If you are confused by what that might be, then you are probably my mother and should not concern your cute little mom-head about it.  Seriously, Alma.  Quit reading.  Now.  You may resume reading at #4.
6.  I do not have a single pair of adorable or sexy undies.  Granted, I did have them, but they got to be too big.  Nothing worse than a pair of lacy black undies working it's way towards your knees.  Except maybe a pair of granny undies in unappealing tan with a bit of elastic hanging off the top working down to your knees.  While wearing a skirt. 
5.  While I'm on the underwear theme, I just bought a new bra.  It is a workout bra, and it is battleship grey.  'Nuff said.
4.  The only items in my shopping cart are 3 bags of Soy Chips and a jar of peanut butter.
3.  I can count on one hand the number of men I have had a non-work-related conversation with in the last week
2.  I find myself eyeing babies with the intensity that only a single, childless woman has.
And the number one reason I know I'm sliding into Spinsterhood?
1.  The overwhelming desire to shake my fist and yell, "you darn kids!"

I actually am somewhat OK with this.  It's not completely glum--I can watch whatever I want on TV, I can eat peanut butter on a spoon as my dinner, I get the whole bed to myself, and I can set the thermostat to whatever is comfortable for me.  So while some days I feel like I am the saddest, lonliest woman on the planet, on other days I feel like I own the world.

But please, if I EVER wear a fanny pack, it's time for an intervention.

Calling all cooks....and post-ops too...

First of all, welcome to those of you who are new and joined me--thanks very much!

Now for the main event:  I need suggestions on how to handle Thanksgiving.  It is my first big "foodie" holiday since surgery, and I'm worried.  Here is how Thanksgiving normally transpires at my house:

1.  My parents come for an extended stay, which puts three adults in a condo for one.  Not only are there more people in a smaller space, but the people in question all have somewhat big personalities (I actually think I may top the list on this).  So while I love it when they come visit, it can also be overwhelming.
2.  We wake up and turn on the Thanksgiving parade and my mom and I cook.  My mom's job is to hold the turkey while I fill it with stuffing, and to amuse me by making the turkey dance while she's doing it.
3.  We eat the food.  What is it?  For me it's always a little bit of turkey on the side of a large plate of carbs--stuffing, mashed potatoes, and rolls.  We try to have salad and veggies to make it a slightly rounder meal, but I usually push those to the side.
4.  My mother cleans up.  Our deal is that I cook (with the exception of preparing the naked turkey for the oven), and she cleans up.  That, and she's somewhat compulsive about cleaning so even if we didn't have the agreement I would just leave it until it drove her so crazy that she cleaned it up anyway.  So the trade-off is actually a much better deal.  During clean up, there is usually a great deal of "stuffing-stealing" on my part, which consists of me deciding that there is no way for all the stuffing to fit into the tupperware and I should therefore eat it while standing in the kitchen.  And maybe another roll.  With butter.
5.  Then there is much laying around in a tryptophan-induced semi-comatose state while my father attempts to watch football with his eyes closed and my mother and I attempt to change the channel to something girly without waking him.
6.  We eventually make it over to a friend's house for a dessert buffet and to practice having more appropriate social skills than sneaking stuffing and slumping on the couch.
7.  We go home, we have a late-night snack (ie. a second Thanksgiving dinner), and we go to bed.

These are things that I cannot do this year.  I can't make it all about the food.  I can't eat the same type of food, nor can I eat it in the same quantity.  And I'm realizing that I'm going to have to re-design Thanksgiving.  Here's where I need your help.

How do I celebrate the holiday without making food the centerpiece?  How do I get some physical activity space for that day?  What food can I have that feels festive and holiday-like for all of us, but doesn't make me hate myself the next day?  How can I change our holiday without making my parents feel punished?

I don't know.  I've thought about going out to dinner (not a great option for us), ordering a "Turkey Dinner for 2" from Whole Foods, having yummy and festive nibbly things (since I have to eat small amounts several times a day) and avoid the one major holiday meal altogether, or invite ourselves to a friend's house.  I'm just not sure.

What are you guys all doing for Thanksgiving?  What do you do to stay on plan for the day (or do you just give yourself a free pass for the day)?  How do you make it feel like a holiday when you have to change everything?

Any and all suggestions are welcome--please leave them in the comments.

Sunshine, rainbows, and a leopard-print bra

Sure, of course they are related!

Weight loss is really hard.  I've stalled out, and I get frustrated.  I'm realizing how difficult it is for me to be by myself, and how lonely I feel without my friends pizza and garlic bread.  Somedays it is almost unbearable.

Even though I had an employee in a terrible Worker's Comp accident and another employee that I had to use my broken-record means of discipline (where I say the same thing over and over until they either get it or they are so sick of me they storm out of the room/hang up--isn't HR fun!?), I ended up with a super-fabulous day. 

1.  I got a surprise package from my parents--a new low-carb cookbook (by Dana Carpenter, who is supposed to be the low-carb recipe guru...I'll let you know), and an instant-read thermometer (so that I can stop overcooking my chicken to the point of inedible leathery strings of protein).  Why did I get a gift?  Don't know.  The message in the box simply said that the Parents are proud of me.  Aw, shucks.

2.  I got a really cool card from my friend, the Jabulish (she both Jewish and fabulous, so I think the name fits).  It was just a no reason, thanks for being my friend card.  I needed to hear that, and I love getting things with actual postage.

3.  I went to a Layne Bryant event to get workout wear that fits, and they were having an in-store drawing.  I heard them announce it from the dressing room, and I went flying out--clothing slightly asunder--to put my name in the hat just before she drew the winning ticket.  And, of course, it was my name.  Let me tell you there were some large and lovely ladies who were shooting me daggers with their eyes (although I can't blame them on this one).  So, I got a free bra, which I desperately need (and which all the Layne Bryant shoppers could figure out when I ran out of the dressing room still buttoning a shirt).  And I got to pick my own.  In leopard print.  Because there is just something fabulous about winning a practical item that is also just a little bit of fun.

So between having amazing parents, wonderful friends, and a new leopard-print bra, I figure that I am one lucky b*tch.  For a small fee, I'll let you rub my belly like a Buddha for luck.

Attitude of gratitude

This morning, I had my last pre-paid Pilates class, and I really do like it.  I'm trying to figure out a way to pay for more sessions, as I think it really helps get me in touch with my body as it's changing post-bariatric surgery. 

On the way home, I was overwhelmed by a sense of how grateful I am for so much in my life.  It's easy to get caught up in the number on the scale (which hasn't changed more than a pound or two in the last month and a half!), or a still-bulging belly, or how hard it is to eat differently.  I feel compelled to wear my "before" picture on my shirt so that people can see, saying, "Yeah, I'm still fat, but look how far I've come!"  I even find myself comparing how much I've lost to other people who have gone through gastric bypass--have I lost more than them, or more quickly, or am I on track?  I wonder if I could have started exercising earlier how much more I would have lost by now.  I worry that because I ate some croutons yesterday that I'm blowing my chance to lose more weight and get to my goal.

I've been doing a lot of beating myself up lately for all of this, and this morning I just took a breath and realized I need to concentrate more on the positives (I think the Pilates reminded me of this).  For me that starts with being grateful.  So it was time to check in with my center of gratitude and fill it up.

I am so grateful:
*That my parents support me, both in paying for the surgery and for the moral and physical support following it.  Yeah for Mom and Dad!  You guys rock!
*For my job.  I have wonderful people I work with, and they are very understanding.  How many bosses have you had that tell you to take time off?  And I also know that with this economy, I'm lucky to be employed.
*For Sophie the cat, aka. The Beast.  She keeps me company and reminds me to be less self-centered.
*For my friend Goldilocks, who reminds me to go to the gym, who keeps me company there, and who even slows herself to be patient with me and my physical limitations.
*For my body.  As much as I resent it, and tell it how ugly it is, it still gets me around.  It's easy to forget how wonderful your body is when you focus on how it looks and not how it feels.  And I need to continually remind myself how I couldn't walk without pain, or go to restaurants with booths, or go swimming.

I'm sure there's more, but I'm meeting with a friend to eat some low-cal Japanese food for lunch and then walk the mall, so I gots to go. 

What are you grateful for?

And the diagnosis is...

Belly Butt is trying to burst free!  (I just like the alliteration). 

I was very excited that I was getting 2 surgeries for the price of one:  gastric bypass and an umbilical hernia repair (I didn't even know I had a hernia until the surgeon said that he would fix it "while he was in there").   Well, the repair didn't take, and so my pain issues have all been traced back to the hernia, uh, re-heriating (?). 

So, like the story of my life, it's good news/bad news.  Good news:  Pouchie is fine and there is no infection.  Bad news:  the Belly Butt will need another surgery to fix it.  Could be worse, right?  It's a simple out-patient surgery and I should be home by evening, with just a couple days off work, thank goodness.

But I did have a fun trip to the ER last night to get the CAT scan (which, strangely enough, my own cat was not able to perform for me).  The admission nurse ended up being a friend of mine, so it was nice to see a familiar face.  He also gave me good advice..."build up your muscles to be successful with your surgery."  However, it looks like weight lifting will be on hold for a little while.  So my admission went well, the scan went well, and then there was the waiting.  And the multiple teams of Doogie Housers that stopped by on occasion to prod at my belly and nod their heads at one another.  Seriously, I think I have underwear that is older than these people (TMI?).

Finally the grown-up surgeon came and told me it was an umbilical hernia, but that I wasn't in danger and that I could go home as long as I followed up the next day to schedule surgery.  Hot damn!  She said that they would do my discharge paperwork and bring it in in a few minutes.  So I patiently waited.  Um, sort of.

(Now is a good time to explain that I am a polite, rule-following kind of girl.  If they tell me to wait behind the line, I will wait behind the line.  I might be right up on it, or let a toe cross, but I will stay behind the line.  That is, except when I haven't eaten in 24 hours.  Then I am a raving bitch, apparently.)

An hour later, I realize that I'm very thirsty, hungry, and still in a little pain.  In short, the recipe for disaster.  I finally went up, opened the door to my room and told the first person who passed wearing scrubs, "Either you take this damn IV out, or I will.  My surgeon released me, I haven't eaten in 24 hours, and I'm going home--with or without paperwork."  (I kinda kick ass, right?)  Her eyes went really wide and she told me that the surgeon hadn't released me in their computer and that she didn't know.  I might have responded with something like, "Well, now you do," and she scampered off to get the required stuff.  I went back in my little room for another 20 minutes and then figured, screw it, what are they going to do?  Call the principal?  Tell me I'm a bad patient?  Report me to my mother (OK, that one I'm a little worried about, but the others sounded ridiculous.).

So I pulled out my own IV, dropped it in one of those ugly little kidney-shaped dishes, got dressed, grabbed my shit, and opened the door.  I found the first doctor and told him I was leaving now.  Lo and behold, the paperwork materialized in front of my eyes and I signed my name and took off for home.  8 hours after getting there.

Now I know they were just doing their job, and that a little hernia is on the bottom of the priority list, but I was pretty proud of myself for standing up and taking care of business.  I don't know that I would have done that before losing weight, but I'm finding that I am the only one who has a truly vested interested in my wellness.  Nurses and doctors do their jobs, and god bless them for it, but if it all goes wrong they go home at the end of the day knowing that they do the best they can.  I'm the one who goes home with a new hernia, peripheral neuropathy, or perhaps doesn't go home at all.

And God help them if they have to call my mother on me.

The belly-butt conundrum

I know you were all (all 9 of you) dying to hear more about my plan for physical fitness, however I have been sidelined. Not long after my last post, in fact. Exercise has been temporarily shoved aside by the strange and wonderful "belly-butt."

You see, along with the gastric bypass, I had a hernia operation for a tear near my belly button (two surgeries in one!). When I came to, I felt like crap, but had a new scrambled gut and a new belly button. Of which The Mom took one look and said, "Oh, cute! It looks like a little butt." Had it not been for the drugs, she might have lost an eye for saying that, but the name "belly butt" for my belly button has stuck. Avert your eyes if you have a weak stomach...

As you can see, the tissue does have cheeks, and is rather butt-like, but still.  From your mother?  Anyhoo, the Belly Butt has been acting up. More than just the gurgully wergullys. As in doubled over in pain last night after my 1/2 cutie orange and 10 almonds.

So today I called the surgeon and I may be going for an MRI to see if it is scar tissue, or just general ornery-ness.   It's possible that there was just too much fiber for the BB (Belly Butt), or it could be much, much worse.  Wish me luck, because I only have 2 Oxycodones left and I'm saving them up for a real emergency.  I have a pretty high tolerance for pain, but when it does break through I'm down for the count.  And liquid Tylenol, frankly, does nothing for me.

Perhaps the Belly Butt is as desperate as I am to avoid serious exercise right now...

From the Mom

My mom just came into town, since she is going to be helping me after my surgery.  She just handed me a piece of paper with this on it, and asked me to read it before going to bed, and again when I woke up:

"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.  For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior."  from Isaiah 43:1-3 NRSV

I like the idea of walking through fire and not being burned.  Maybe singed a little is all.

I don't see this process as smooth sailing, but I (somewhat surprisingly) have faith that I will come through it.  With scars, yes.  But without being consumed.

Thank you for reminding me, Mom.