Up and down I went .... Snippets...

I started not to post my empowerment collage this morning but stopped myself short ... as I was stopped at the red light I got rear ended this morning ... and I thought wow ... just in the blink of an eye ones cir****tance can change ... thankfully there was no major damage neither to selves or vehicles ... so I decided that yes ... I will share my empowerment collage to encourage myself and maybe someone else on this journey of life ...that can be so fleeting and so unpredictable sometimes .... I decided to continue to grab and find joy in every life experience ... to live to my fullest potential today because I may not have tomorrow...

I thought I did not have a topic but I do .. besides being grateful ... I noticed that as I painted another mural over my busted wall with a painful history that I shared with you on Sunday ... as I continue to make changes and fine tune the little hummingbirds I was climbing onto my bench .. up and down and down and up I went ... never once calling DH or DS to reach something for me ... and I thought ... oh shoot ... check me out ... up and down I go ... this is fitness and fun .. and not only that ... I remembered the biggest shove towards my decision to having WLS was not being able to make it up a flight of stairs to assist my DD when she took a bad fall ... the paramedics and firemen got there while I was trying to drag my body up the stairs sitting and trying to pull myself up and moved me out of the way ... I knew then I must do something ... and I did ... I got my RNY ... the best thing I ever did for ME....

Not only am I having fun re-doing the mural over my busted wall ... I lost 2.5 pounds since Sunday and I am not even trying to lose any weight at all ... but I was like a jumping jack ... up and down and not stopping cause I had an itch on my fingertips to paint and a visual in my head that I was trying to put on the wall and kept failing and gesso-ing and changing and am still working on it...

So yes ... I encouraged myself and again am totally grateful for mobility that allows me to run ...to climb stairs... to walk... to jump ... gone is the impaired mobility and shortness of breath on exertion that hindered me during my morbidly obese state....

I am grateful for my busted wall that I am painting again ... for in revisiting it it too have given me a venue to be creative and to engage in a fun/fitness activity ... I always love making things ... in my before picture I share here I am making awesome bassinets to donate ... I love decorating them and still do ... 

 

I painted a wall at a church in the winter of 2007 when I was 9 months post op ... Pastor asked if I could to something with that broken wall that  was in an older building and had been plastered haphazardly on the rush and I welcomed the opportunity to be creative... and I painted a blue wall with white doves ... this was just a very rough draft...
 

 My wall is still not finished ... I added more hummingbirds to it and had the nerve today my snapshot this morning for my empowerment journal 'A picture a day keeps the pounds and the inches away" ... me standing in front of my mural this morning...
 

me tweaking my wall still ... I am thinking to get rid of the flowers and make a different one and add more hummingbirds...


 

I even took a closeup ... that is why I hate wearing my hair out ... I slept on it without wrapping it and unless I do that or wet and mousse it looks terrible and I hate it ... but my DD hid the keys to my chest of lacefronts and pieces no thanks to one of my OH friends suggestion I not use my lacefronts  LOL... I just forgot to get my keys from her .. I need some hair right about now LOL...

 

and I took a before and after collage sitting and tweaking my hummingbirds which I worked on a bit again this morning...
 

Thank you for allowing me to share another goofy thread ... snippets of my journey post weight loss surgery... I am not doing it all alone ... I find empowerment in almost everything... in the wonderful postings here on OH ... the awesome support and encouragement on this board and and others and mostly IRL and family ... in the awesome tools my sewing machine ... my canvas... my paintbrush ...my paints ... my dolls ... I am loving embracing joy one.day.at.a.time... one.choice.at.a.time on my never ending journey away from morbid obesity...

Phew.. a million breaks in between writing this... thanks for allowing me to share!!!

Thank you. I love your empowerment collage idea and look for your posts daily.  I seriously need to "get a life" and you are a tremendeous  inspiration to me.

 Thanks ... sometimes I get carried away with my goofiness LOL.... but I have been painting since for-ever ... here is the one I really wanted to share ... before I did the blue wall I painted the big wall behind the drums at my heaviest weight... I could not climb and I attached my brushes to a broomstick and used duct tape to hold them in place ... there was no way I could climb to reach...  these murals were done at a church and the two others were done at the churches daycare .. it is a ministry serving a very poor high risk community and I loved to volunteer my art and my service...

 

Have I mentioned lately I LOVE your daughter!  I love you with the short hair, did I mention LOVE it, if I didn't I won't say it, really, you know me.  I love the new mural and all your pics, you are amazingly beautiful, talented, kind, compassionate, and the essence of inspiration.  Now please go sit down, you are making us lazy folks look bad.  lol

 You would know I was talking about you in my thread LOL .. I shared with her what you said before about telling her about the lace-fronts ... and she HID my keys ... but she will give them back ... hmmmm she needs me to sew this dress for her over the weekend ... and I may just not be in the mood because my hair is not right LOL..... I wont want to get paint on them anyway or I could go help myself to a few pieces from the shop if the need is bad enough lawd I am so used to those things... and I don't have my contacts in either ... but that will change pretty soon ... had my eye exam and continuing the mono vision prescription .. I re-ordered sterling gray ...

Can't sit down ... have to run by the shop, go swimming and then come home to work on my mural ... trust ... I am not being boastful ... just hyper as always LOL