ObesityHelp

I am posting a picture today of Lake Marie, a beautiful natural conservation area left in trust by a very gracious benefactor, Ada Wolf.  The lake is pristine and rife with wild geese, the land filled with deer and small animals, I find it very relaxing to go there and walk around and take photographs.  It is a very special place and reminds me that there are good people that care so very much about our planet and makes me want to give something back.  I plan to join the Audubon Society as soon as I can afford it and hopefully go on some of their summer trips throughout Connecticut.

It's finally Easter Sunday and I spent the morning out taking photographs of all the signs of spring, it would have been great if I could of found a bunny to photograph but that didn't happen.  I did find a lot of flowers and tons of bees and it is very hot outside compared to yesterday, it feels like upper 70's but of course its going to rain again this afternoon.  The rain is really messing with my arthritis, this week absolutely everything hurts, I hate when that happens but hopefully it will pass and I will feel okay again.  I am adding a daffodil pic I happen to really like. 

I have been watching the Ten Commandments for the last several hours because with commercials its on for like 5 hours and I typically won't watch anything with commercials but of course I can't do one thing at a time so I multitask my web browsing with tv watching.  I have been hooked on Criminal Minds recently, my boss got me started, she told me I reminded her of some anyalyst on one of these crime shows so I started watching them just to see what she was talking about and got hooked on Criminal Minds, the best part they show 3 eisodes a night on ION tv so I can probably catch up on the last 6 years pretty quickly.  lol lol  I am really not a tv person by nature but I do love DWTS and now Criminal Minds because I love the analytical aspect of profiling a suspect for a crime.  Being an analsyt is in my nature, its what I do for a living and basically how my brain processes information.  Hence the reason I believe very little of what I read, always have to find out the source and how objective the source is or who is trying to sell me what.  I remember once when I was in high school we watched a movie created by a chemical company about how wonderful chemicals were to our everyday life, it was an obvious propaganda movie to me and when we were told to write about the movie I was the only person who had picked up on who created it and fact it was  propaganda.  Of course my teacher had to embarass me and tell the class that I was the only one worthy of being a real scientist that none of them had a chance.  Yeah he was a dick, he always said my name with a foreign accent, asked how my sheep were etc. but the point is being an analyst is part of me.  It is obviously why I watch the Ten Commandments as fiction, I guess if there was some proof about god and jesus and religion but it would have to be really really big proof for me to take that leap of faith.  Sometimes I feel bad that I cannot believe, that I would like to have the comfort of the imaginary friend, I totally understand why people need it, I just can't believe it or accept that its possible.  I study facts and figures, I know how old the earth is, how long the dinosaurs lived, the fact that evolution has caused us to get where we are.  I have nothing against the bible, for the most part I believe if people really read it and acted like Christians instead of paying it lip service we would all be better off.  I don't need anyone to scare me into doing the right thing, I do it because it is the right thing to do.  I think if we all lived with WWJD in mind we would be better off, no matter who you believe he is, you have to feel his power and importance in our world.  So many have died for the cause, so very sad, once the barbaric times have finally passed maybe we can move together in peace. 

Tuesday was my wls anniversary, a day that is very important to me, one where I decided to take control of my life, my health and my future.  I was 40 years old, MO, diabetic and had debilitating arthritis, I couldn't even sleep in my bed because I couldnt raise my arms up due to the pain and sleeping the way I normally would was impossible.  For a few years prior to wls I slept on the couch, every inch of my body hurt, I was dying slowly and painfully and I was at the end of my rope, I had absolutely no hope of having any quality of life into the future.  When a co-worker had a very successful wls with Dr Aranow I decided to go try his informational seminar and see if I could qualify for surgery.  I was so thrilled when I found out I would have no problem qualifying based on the fact I was diabetic and had a bmi of 45, what didn't make me so happy was the fact my weight had ballooned to a staggering 283.5lbs, I was mortified to see that number on the scale.  In my minds eye, in my dreams in any way I thought of myself I was never MO, I was just average, just like I had been as a teenager, my twenty years of MO never caught up with how I saw myself in my mind.  No one hated being fat more then me, everything about it repulsed me, that my body was covered in hideous stretch marks, that I felt deformed and freakish and I was completely embarassed to show my naked body to anyone.  I never let my ex husband see me naked, not completely and not ever.  I never took off a bra, I even slept in them, turns out that was a good thing since I think it saved my breasts from being really saggy once I lost weight.  I spent so many years in my own private hell, hiding myself from everyone, never going to the beach or wearing shorts.  I remember all the years we went to Florida when my son was little and I was sweating my ass off because I had on long stretch pants, because if I wore dresses my thighs would rub together so badly I would get a rash.  It was such a truly horrible existance, married to a man I didn't love, who mentally tried to keep me even when he knew I wanted to leave, with a small child and a body that embarassed me.  When I finally divorced I felt free to finally live my life, but I was trapped in this body, I started dating and went on the pill, in the first few months of being on the pill I developed chronic yeast infections which they said were not from the pill but from everything else including of course my excess weight.  For two years I suffered, until finally I stopped the pill myself because I couldnt take it anymore.  I wanted a life, not just an existance and I still didn't have it.  After my mother died I was diagnosed with diabetes and then I knew I had to do something or I was going to end up in the same boat she was taking 5 shots a day and still being out of control.  I watched the paramedics work on my mother so many times, I was afraid I would find her dead for years before it finally happened.  I knew she would never live to be very old, her goal was to make it until my son graduated from high school, and maybe if she had lived he might have graduated but sadly he quit.  My mother died nearly 9 years ago next week, my son was only 12 years old at the time.  When I finally got to the point I was ready for wls, I wanted it done and over with as quickly as possible but it took 6 months to make happen.  It was such a long draw out process and it seemed to take forever for the insurance approval, but once I had the surgery it was truly the beginning for me.  I swore that very day I came home from the hospital I wasn't going to fuck this up, I had pretty much fucked up everything else in my life and this was one thing I was going to succeed at.  I know that there are people just sitting back waiting for us to fail, to either never make goal or re-gain our weight and I for one refuse to give those people even one word to talk about me, if I never eat again I will do it just so I can keep them quiet.  I can only imagine what my ex husband would say if I got fat again, no fucking way on earth would I give him that satisfaction, never fucking ever.  So for me this date on the calender is one of the most important of the year, and yes I know that no one else really gets it, but to me its the day I celebrate my life.  Not the day I was born, to a father who didn't care, who never wanted me, and a mother who did everything she could to try to make my life better.  This anniversary is all about life and living and I am happy to report I had a terrific day.  I won't talk about the two days since.  lol  Happy Anniversary to Me!

My six year anniversary is almost here, and of course I got my Period so I am bloated and miserable, why wouldn't I be.  I really wanted to get dressed up and take a picture, but that might not happen this weekend.  Of course I hope to take some pictures tomorrow, its still early spring, right in the middle of breeding season for the swans and geese, and no babies yet.  But I can't resist going out anyway, I have been working on putting together my winter pictures for my book, I guess there is going to be one for every season since I have thousands of pictures from this past winter.  I looked at the counter on my camera and I have taken over 20,000 pictures since I got my camera a little over a year ago.  I am adding a swan picture that I turned into artwork.