Not Sure

What to call this post since there is a lot of little stuff to make up the post.

BWLSSG has been going really well.  I am learning a lot of stuff from Tim, Marvin and HerderintheSunshine.  HerderintheSunshine had to go back into the hospital since she couldn't keep food down again.  At least this time she is able get water down so they figured that her stomach didn't close over from before.  This time it was a blockage.  The cause of the blockage?  Romaine lettuce from a caesar salad.  That made me inquire how big the opening of the stomach was and I found out that it is the diameter of a dime.  That made the most sense on what Tim advised of "chew 40 times then chew 20 more."  I now realise that the body doesn't lose weight from the head down, you are just burning muscles from all that chewing! LOL

The house hasn't sold yet.  As I type this we are on Day 12.  We have had 2 open houses that were busy but not takers yet.  The agent wants to have a 3rd open house the weekend coming.  The house on the main street that was selling less than ours sold for asking price.  #25 with the different layout hasn't been sold but they are on the market the same amount of days as we have been.  We have had a new contender crop up on the street at #3.  They have the layout on 2 floors but their kitchen and living room are switched compared to ours.  They have updated it and are asking a substantial amount more too.  So I guess it is a waiting game.

We have been out of the house more times than in and I was actually happy to cook supper and so laundry last week!   I would like to take a personal thank you to Mister NavyWife and NavyWife since I sent them a sob text asking if they were busy.  They happily to invited me and the girls over so that their dog could have a good run.  I am hoping that there aren't any viewings before the open house next week because we had an offer and also so that we don't have to impose on them again at the Dew Drop Inn.

Hoping....

We have the agent coming over tonight to give us the last bit of details before the home photographer comes in tomorrow.  I see me working on some stuff tomorrow morning after the DH heads off to work.  I hope that the agent comes back on Saturday and plunks the sign in the front flower bed.

I was hoping that we would be the only house on the block when it came time to put the sign up in but it turns out that we will be the 3rd one.

The house on the main road is the same floor plan as ours but they are asking $5,000 less than what we are planning.  Also if you looking on the realtor website they only have a picture of the front of the house.  I am thinking that if it was a newer listing that they won't have time to load them up.  But I have noticed the sign out front for almost 2 weeks so that makes me think that the place might need work and they don't want to post pictures.

The second house is further down our street and they are a different floor plan that is over 3 stories.  I sometimes an envious of these floor plans since their garage makes a wall to put the television up against where our stairs going up are on the garage wall.  They are asking the same price that we are offering.  They have been on the market for less than a week and they have an open house on Saturday. 

Then there is us. I am hoping that the Realtor can work quickly and perhaps have an open house on Saturday for us too.  I would like to let folks know that there is an option out there in case they don't like the 3 floors for a townhouse.

I guess I won't really know until he comes over tonight.

Meeting of the minds

And it was very interesting!

Last week I had 3 appointments that were all about me.  I felt a little selfish but hey, I took a fill day off from work for it.

 

When I saw Susanne last week she asked me to keep track of my eating again.  I am to see if I am eating because the clock tells me to or am I honestly hungry.  The reasoning for this is to see if I can keep to the schedule that the surgery will have me on.  Apparently RNY patients will lose the ability to feel hunger because of the loss of the peristaltic wave action in the tummy.  So since we are to "graze" and I am already eating like that throughout the week I am curious to see what the clock has it at.

Then I was off to see Dr. Sarah about changing up my meds.  With the surgery my tummy won't be able to absorb anything that needs to sit in the body for a while including meds.  So that means my happy pills that are XR (extended release) will be pretty much useless in my tummy.  So we talked about reducing the dose to the minimum levels and then eventually getting off of them entirely.  In all honesty this kind of scares me.  As the DH can tell you, for me to miss a dose causes a dramatic change that is noticeable. I know I have Nikki for this but I guess it something I have to think about.

Next up was getting to Toronto (just north of the CN Tower) for my meeting with the Social Worker for the surgery. She is to see if I have things in place to have the surgery and the preliminary history write up for the following doctors and specialists.  I was there for an hour and in the beginning she was very cookie cutter with questions that required a yes or a no.  By the time I needed to leave she was giving me hints and tips on how to proceed.  She gave me a suggestion for my happy pills that she is going to send to Dr. Sarah.  The SW suggested that I go to the half dosage I am on but taking it twice a day opened up over food.  I would have never thought of that!  She also noticed that the next step that I have to take is to see their nurse.  The reason for seeing this nurse in particular is to see if my body can handle the surgery.  I guess I will get blood work done and poked with a bit of prodding in there.  Anyway, the SW noticed that my appointment was in late May and she resonated what Tim and HerderInTheSunshine said about seeing if there was a cancellation coming up so I could get in sooner to see the nurse.  Well lo an behold, there was!  So now I am back to Toronto for 4 pm on the 7th of May!  Whee!  Now I just need to see if I can get a few hours off early or will I have to work a full day.

A piece of the past.....

I was out on the other job and ended up driving past my old skating arena, or what should have been the old skating arena.  It is now a flat, grated lot with a view right to the back of the row of houses that looked down on it.

I was shocked to see that it had been gone, that I don't remember reading anywhere in the paper that it was going to be gone and how fast it was taken down.

The reason that it hits so close to home is that this is where I learned how to skate all through public school right into high school.  When you couldn't find me at home I was at the arena either working on patch pattern, learning a waltz or was in a skating carnival with my little brother.  Mind you, my brother only survived one year but I was bitten by the bug.

Things that I will always remember about that place is:
-picked up sharpened skates with masking tape on the blades so we wouldn't cut ourselves
-the popcorn vending machine that had the stale, orange popcorn in it.  It was a treat after skating if we were there over the dinner hour.
-watching my brother being a terrorist in our version of Back to the Future skating carnival
-being able to sit after our skating lesson and watch the next level up power skate to warm up.  Once I made it to this level I used to wave at the on lookers just like someone did to me.
-and who could forget warming up to Donald Duck and the gang!

As the DH said "nothing is static and things change"  I guess the rink was supposed to be there forever.

This is my golden playing in the snow that was left by the Zamboni that had emptied its hold during the summer at a charity walk behind the arena.

Wow what whirl wind!

Orientation went well in my mind.  I took the DH as my +1 and we had to pay for parking downtown that worked out to the tune of $24.  I would have taken the subway but the levelled parking at the mall was under construction so I told the DH to drive straight down.

We got there early and I got into line to register and I could hear setting up the chairs for the seminar.  The DH and I grabbed the near to last row and on an end since I had Nikki and settled into the “plus sized” chairs and waited.

We had a nurse give us the orientation and pretty much verified everything that was in the booklet that I got from Tim at the support group.  What I took away from the session (besides a file folder of papers that I have to fill out) was the reasoning behind the yeasty bread products not being allowed and also that Guelph isn’t an option for my surgery.  If I was to take the orientation at Guelph, I would be having my surgery at Guelph. So since my orientation was at TWH, I will be at one of the three that is included in their group of hospitals.  As I left they had my next 2 appointments set up so I have the social worker on March the 20^th and the nurse in May.  I thought that I could skip the social worker since I am seeing Susanne, but since all the people that I see through this all get together and decide if I can handle the surgery.  So there is no fast tracking and I guess I just have to be patient and wait it all out.

Group was fun this month.  It was at the usual hang out but we had new face that just had surgery 6 weeks ago.  She was actually the same date as Marvin and she was there because he told her about the group.  It is amazing how something as simple as side effects from surgery could bring out such candid chatter.  The room was still full of ladies and there were topics that I never thought might be linked to the surgery.  Well that all ceased to exist as soon as Marvin arrived but that is okay since he took the conversation in a whole new direction.   I think I am going to have to set an alarm for next time since no one has a sense of time when start chatting and there isn’t a clock in the area we sit.  I am sure that if the DH didn’t text me ask if I was taking Mel out we still would be sitting there.

The house is painted from top to bottom, the repairs are all fixed up and we have had enough trips to the storage locker the house sounds empty.  Now the only thing left is to steam clean the carpets and have the pictures taken so that we can have the agent put it on the market.  I have had a nanosecond of a thought about staying and then I think about this summer and I don’t think it is fair to the girls not to have any grass to roll in or the fact I would love to sit outside to read and not deal with onlookers trying to park or the trains. 

We have an appraiser coming in to see if the house is really worth the new mortgage that we have to temporarily need to hold us over to the new house.  According to the DH she is a bit of flake so I am hoping that she doesn’t undercut the value.  At least in my mind this will let me know that all the painting and stuff will be worth it and it translated into a dollar amount.  So I am hoping that we can have the house up on the market in a few weeks so that I can plan my first bbq J

 

Keeping Busy

Well the parties are over and now it is time to get back to getting the house in order.  We are moving in the next little while so we have been packing and purging.  There has been a few things packed up that need to go to the charity shop and I think I will do that on Friday.

We have a home stager coming in tomorrow night to tell us to put the couch here, this picture there and paint that wall this colour.  Then hopefully we will be able to get it all done and the little sign on the front of the house.  There was a house further down the block that was on the market for roughly two weeks so there is hope for ours.

I have begun packing up my closet and I am sorting them as to that fits now, and what will fit after surgery is in the tub for storage.  There are a few items in the tub that are older, but they are things like jean shorts and dressy tops.  Don't worry the tops aren't old enough to have shoulder pads in them LOL.

My orientation is a week away and I am getting the tummy flutters when I think about it.  Not the kind when you dread going to the dentist, but the kind of excitement I get when I know the DH is going to call me.  I know I will be nervous but the DH is going as my +1 so he will know what we are in for in regards to recovery.

I have been going to BWLSSG (bariatric support group) and there is a wealth of knowledge there to be had.  Some folks are 2+ years post surgery right up to 2 weeks ago.  I love to hear the stories of how vast their recovery is and where they are now.  Some that are years out are still enjoying the journey of weight loss and love to mentor the new pre & post-ops.

Nikki starts her reading group sessions on Friday.  I think that she will be great at curling up to enjoy the little kids reading to her.  She is at that age now, the less she has to do the better.  She has been getting one day off a week and staying home with the DH.  I tried mid week but for some reason she will have a whole day off and the next day all her manners are out the window!  So we decided that her day off will be my last day of my work week. 

Mel has been shaping up nicely here at the office.  She hasn't been going on her own little walkabouts to find the big picture windows at the office. She has discovered that any table (include the conference table) she needs to go under.  I guess if we get a good sized dining table at the new house she will be under that one too LOL

I haven't been doing much with the ladies at the office, but I am happy to say the DoxyLover was able to get a job with the town!  So that is the reason for the next get together next week ;)

So I guess the next time I post I will have had dinner with the girls, had orientation and perhaps made it through Valentine's Day.

Turning four-tay over four days

Well what a birthday it was! It was supposed to be a big dinner on Friday but instead it ended up with various get togethers to work around schedules.

It started off on Thursday with supper at Swiss Chalet with my gang from work (past and present) that had DoxyLover, the Edge, ChiChi K, ChiChi L and GiGi. We had a good chin wag about what is going on at the office and was able to catch up on life.  I had their new honey grilled chicken and wasn’t that impressed with what was on my plate.  I ended up leaving the skin behind (the shock & horror I know) had a single bite of the bread, and only ate about half of the fries.  I accidentally worked it out that I got 2 desserts, so I ate a good portion of one and took the cheesecake home.  Had buckets to drink so I ended up sloshing out of the restaurant.

Friday was a double doozy day.  Since I have Fridays off for 4 weeks straight at the office job and since no one could make the Chinese buffet I made plans to have lunch with Maine and then head to Guelph to have supper with Curl at TurtleJack’s.  Well Maine and I originally had the plans for a light lunch then a movie until I was corrected by Maine and we just had a later lunch at another restaurant.  Well my main wasn’t that good so I sent it back and just ate the salad and the corn bread.  Then I ordered the fried cheesecake.  I told them right away when I ordered it to bring a container so I can put half of it away to take home.

For those of you keeping track, that is now 2 desserts in the fridge J

On my way back from the 2 hours lunch with Maine, I got a text from NavyWife saying that she and Mr. NavyWife can go for Chinese.  So I frantically texted Curl and we all headed out there.  Well we got there and I was still full from lunch that I took my time at the buffet.  We all sat and chatted until almost 9 and then Curl headed home and I headed to NavyWife’s place.  We then chatted some more and met their furkid that gives Mel run for the money on energy.

Saturday I was happy to be home to sleep and not eat a darn thing! I shared my fried cheesecake with the DH since I was looking forward to the quiet dinner that we were going to have.  I drive past a nice little restaurant that is on the corner of our street for years and never have gone in.  I thought that this was a great chance to try it out and see.  Boy I was not disappointed!  The food was great; the atmosphere was nice and quiet since there are only 10 tables in the whole place so the DH and I were able to have a good chat.  The food was worth the money that we spent but it won’t be a regular Saturday night thing.

Sunday was yet another fun day too with Nash and we headed for a lunch and a matinee movie.  I informed her of the news of the gastric and she was really interested.  We chatted so much that I didn’t notice the time and I had to take my complimentary dessert home.  I did splurge and grabbed some popcorn for a horror movie that was more horrible than a horror but I still think the first one was the best.  Nash has seen all the other for so she was happy to see that one with me.

I got back home to drop off Nik and thought that since others had cake on their birthday at the other job that there might have been one there for me.  Well it was a letdown when there wasn’t but I guess that just fuels the suspicion of people being secluded by others at the other job.  So I took it upon myself and got some DQ for me and no one else J

So after all that I wasn’t surprised to find that there wasn’t a card on my desk from the office since the DoO has cut back on office supplies to liquid correction fluid instead of the wheel of tape for budget reasons.  So why should I think that there will be a $3 on my desk?

Had a blast turning 40 and I am looking forward to a 40-ish/house warming party this summer too!