Home from the Clothing Exchange....

Hi everybody, Just came in and taken a second look at my new goodies!!!Thanks to whoever brought the silky nighties, love em! Husband said he might like them more IF I modeled them, haha he is too funny! Anyway, had a blast, thanks Julie for hosting this one. Was so great to see everyone again! Connie, you looked amazing! Jodie, good luck to you in your journey for PS, and in your support meetings Donna, it was great to see ya again, love seeing some of my Dr.'s accomplishments, you look great and enjoy your new toy, I am sure you will!!! Sam, it was nice to meet ya, you are a hoot, the BEN & Jerry's funeral story was great, I too have had such funerals. Good Luck, you will be a loser soon. Scott it was nice to meet ya, post more often, we need to get some more men involved so they too have some new clothes to take home and enjoy!!! Darrah, you are doing awesome. Hope you found some new shirts to make your DAD happy, haha!!! Dan, you are a sweetie, will be there in KOKOMO on the 7th of October for your exchange. Good luck on your VA speech next week!! Deb, Angie, Linda and Sherri- I always love seeing you guys. You all 4 are such an inspiration to me, thanks so much for being so actively involed on this board and with the exchanges. Good luck to each of you on your journeys, you all have given us so many wow moments on your journeys, can't wait to be where you ladies are at and enjoying those same type of moments on my journey!!! Peggy- nice to see ya again, you look amazing as well, keep up the great journey!!! Bonnie, it was nice meeting, good luck to you, you are on your way! I am sorry, I know that I have left some out and once I hit send it will kick me in the butt- that hey I didn't mention so and so, so let me just say I enjoy meeting and seeing everyone, and am so proud to know each of you. We all have come a long way on our journeys and should be proud, it is a hard decision and each of us have our own reasons as to why we needed this, just don't forget where each of us came from and remember to stop and smell the flowers along our journey. Love you guys, Hugz Dawn Sorry so long!!!!

Gosh~ I've got to make a plan to attend the next one. I'm a good 2 1/2 hours from Indy but I would LOVE to attend. I'm desperately needing 12's and 14's and I would love to meet everyone! Jaimee

Jaimee Mark your calendar for Oct 7th in Kokomo. This is a bit closer to you and we would all like to meet you. I will have more info out later in Aug and Sept on particulars. Dan

This was my third time attending. I showed up early to help set up~~and met some really sweet people. I left with some nice things and a lot of inspiration. Thank you to the hostess for all the hard work. I enjoied myself. I can't wait until the next time. Rhonda

Thanks to all who donated your clothing and helped with the clothing exchange. This was my first time attending and I had a very nice time. I was able to find some clothes that would fill my now empty closet! Sorry if I missed saying hello to everyone. I tend to be on the shy side. Thanks Rhonda for helping me pick out some clothes. I am so use to covering my body that I forget that I CAN try new things. Oh yeah, share those wonderful recipes WLS Chefs! Until next time: Claudette

Hey girl! It was good to see you. It is difficult to realize that one no longer has to hide under all those clothes. It is an adjustment. You are young, and you can dress like it. Now you are smaller, and are able to wear more styles. I never shop alone..or rarely. When I do, I tend to look at plus size clothes. They seem to be cuter than they were when I had to wear them. I just don't see myself as a size 10. It is just weird. I guess in time we will see ourselves as we are. I always do my laundry, and when I see my jeans, I think "whose are these?". I just can't adjust to the smaller size in my mind. Anyway, I think that skirt will look cute on you. Put it on and take a pic and show us all! I bet your hubby will like it, once he gets over the shock! LOL Just enjoy the better health and smaller body. Have fun!!! I had a great time helping people pick out things. It is fun seeing people succeed. I hope to see you soon. Rhonda

Dawn...Oh hon! There is NO way I could ever begin to name off people and think I would name them all! Best I can say is that it was terrific seeing everyone! And I'm very sorry I wasn't able to meet everyone who was there! Maybe we need an all day thing! LOL! JulieB..thank you so much for hosting this one! Jodi (& son) and I took Donna up on her offer of pool. I couldn't swim because of my darn foot but it was such a nice day to sit around the pool& talk to those who were in it. Also had a fun time shooting pool. I think I have proven that owning a stick does NOT mean one knows how to use it! At least not with a high percentage of accuracy! LOL! Donna, thank you very much! I have been busy since I've been home! I got all the left-over food taken care of & hubby fed. Then I got pics downloaded & into my picturetrails (link is on my profile) and I got my no-pasta alfredo recipe in my profile (scroll to the last entry). Oh...even got my new stuff washed & in the drier! By the way Angie & Jodi....Bill LOVES the idea of me wearing "sleezy" clothes! LOL!! He's even intrigued by the idea of me in leather pants...and this is a man who can hardly see! So everyone...if you hear Jodi referring to me as 'Sleezy Sherri', she does mean it with love! I was considering changing my name on here to Sleezy Sherri but thought since I get on here at work, I better keep it as it is. Just a few special mentions.... Deb..It was so good to see you again. I wish I hadn't been late so we could have had a few more minutes to do more than just say 'hi'. Sam...I'll be thinking about you Tuesday. I'm glad you are doing the food funerals. I hope you find that they do you as much good as they did me. Scott...Finally! I am glad to have finally met you!! Dawn...could you email me that pic you took of us? I'd like to include it in my picture trails. I've wanted to meet Scott every since I became his so I was thrilled to have the cherry on top by having a pic done of us!! Hey east-siders.... Donna's hubby & son's race at the Speedrome on Kittley. Maybe next Saturday we could all go & sit in the front stretch by the finish line & cheer them on! Donna...send me their names & car #'s..k? My Bill loves to look up stats & stuff on Speedromes site. love ya's! Sherri

Oh hey...if those who don't live on the east side don't mind driving over to go to the Speedrome, we'd love for you to join the cheering section for Donna's men! If you want to go & need directions, let me know! It's very easy to get to! And this is coming from someone who didn't grow up in Indy! Besides...gotta see what sleezy outfit I decide to wear! Sherri

Sorry I had to leave so early... I grabbed some clothes for My DIL and left.. I guess meeting my sister there was a BAD idea.. I hurt her feelings by saying she could pick some clothes off the table for HER size... She said if you think Im jeralous for you your wrong.. I am happy the way I am.. I told her I would love her anyway she chose to be and it was not my intention to put her down.. Anyway she made me feel like I had been a real insensitive ***** which I wasn't intending on being.. she went home and I left and went to get my husband who was killing time at Marsh... I was so hurt for unintentionally hurting her...I wonder if I do that to everyone and just don/t know it... I am a real dense person...and some times talk without thinking.. but If I have ever said a sentance that hurt anyone of you.. I am sorry.. Since I have been large for so long it has always been my personality to kiss butt and to give and give just so someone would like me... now I am being told that I hurt people...just makes me want to crawl back into my shell... and not come out for anyreason.. for fear of unintentionally saying the wrong thing...again.. I did get me a real pretty pink blouse and a real pretty pink ring... I am getting into pink,,, thanks who ever brought it and it was nice seeing you all even for a second or two.. Linda

Linda, I do understand how you feel. My sister (the only one I see anyway) had WLS a year before me and we were talking and I had told her about me getting into those size 8 shorts at Fashion Bug and she said 'oh? Trying to get smaller than me?' I just replied 'No. Trying to get to my goal weight and whatever size that gets me into.' She's shorter than I am so she's at her goal of 145 with me being 30 lbs more and at the same size as her. She doesn't exercise at all so I think the difference is more due to muscle tone than height differences. But I wasn't trying to say 'haha..I'm smaller than you now'. Until now, we had always been able to call each other up and say 'guess what?!? I'm in a size XX' It's my friends/co-workers that I try to be even more careful of what I say in front of though. One friend is now the same size as I was when we had met 4 years ago (24) and she was a size 14 then. She'll email regularly but I think it makes her feel very bad to actually see me in person. Another friend, has gained ~40 lbs in the same 4 years and is struggling to get it off. She'll call me for advise on what veggies to eat, what carbs to avoid, how much water to get in. She, I probably feel the most comfortable discussing weight loss with because she comes to me with it. Co-workers will ask me what size I'm in and will make comments like 'oh, same size as me' (one co-worker said that for size 18, 16 and 14!) or 'I can't EVEN get into THAT size! But then, I don't like to wear my pants tight.' I really do think that one is trying to say that I am doing great but has a strange way of saying it...lol. I've explained how the extra skin pushes down on the pants and makes them slip down (can NOT stand that!) so I wear them tighter so they will stay put. I do have one co-worker who is constantly 'watching her weight'. We all know what that means pre-op. Watching the weight go up & up. She eats constantly and although I have asked her repeatedly if she'd like to walk or work-out at lunch time with me, she says no (but always says she'd like to sometime...which is why I ask). I have another co-worker that I would guess to be ~350 lbs. It took me about 3 months to offer him my old heavy insulated lab coat because I didn't want to be insensitive. When I had ordered a new one, it took 6 months for it to come in (and was/is so big on me that I wish I had ordered a size smaller!) so I had held on to my old 3X. I knew he had never ordered one at all. Finally, one day I was cleaning out the cabinets by my desk and he & some other co-workers had come over there to see what I was doing. I just tossed the jacket at him and said 'try this on. If it fits, it's yours'. It did, and I tossed some more lab-wear his way that I found in the cabinet. Here for 3 months I questioned as to what to say...do I say these are WAY too big on me now, they would probably fit you though? LOL! No. I didn't consider saying it that way. That would have been VERY insensitive. But the solution ended up being something so simple as tossing it at him and saying 'try this'. Linda, I guess I said all that to say this; as super/morbidly obese/obese people we all had our feelings hurt. And face it. The reason our feelings got hurt so easily was because we already felt bad enough about our weight so any slightest comment or even 'look' was enough to hurt our feelings. Yes, there are insensitive people out there..but I think for the most part, WE were the ones who were super sensitive to everything anyone said or did. When I was a child, my mother & oldest sister (not the one who is a post-op) would sit at the table and make fun of me for being over-weight. I, as a fat child, was hurt so I figured I would make a joke of it and eat another fried chicken leg! It hurt, so I tried to make it funny instead. And people wonder why fat people are so jovial! I have an uncle whose nick-name for me since I was ~6yrs old was/is 'fatso'. He hasn't seen me post-op. I'm thinking about going to the family reunion next May...after my ps...so he can see for himself that that nick is NOT appropriate. In both cases, insensitive people. Telling your sister to help herself to the tables that there's a table for darn near every size? Not insensitive of you...but very sensitive of her. Don't beat yourself up. My guess? She is starting to become unhappy with her weight and is striking out at someone who successfully is doing what she can't do...losing the weight. You apologized to her for anything you may have said that made her feel bad. Don't bring it up again to her. I would steer clear of any weight-related topics or activities. Let her come to you. She will. In the meantime....just keep being you Linda. I think we all are capable of making statements that if someone wanted to rip apart and make the speaker out to be a insensitive jerk, they could. All we can do is try to say/type things in a way that gets the point accross in the best way we can without trying to hurt the reciever/reader of what we said. You do fine! Sherri