Thankful Thursday

Well ladies,

I am very thankful Eileen is alive and will recover.  I thought thankfulness would be a good theme for Thursday.  

I am bagging up a huge load of clothes to donate.  I did find more things I can wear than I thought I had, which is good news.  I'm grateful again for all the bounty I enjoy in my life and feel no need to replace the clothes, shoes, and coats I am donating today.  

The he day is lovely here, sunny and spring like, so I am going to head out to do my donations and errands.  I will check back later.

prayers to all of you and your families, as always, but today my special prayers are for Eileen, her recovery, and her continued safety.  

With hugs and gratitude,

Christine 

Good Morning Christine, and all OFF Friends.  

Christine - good idea for a topic today.  Eileen is so lucky she was able to fight Richard off and call 911.  I'm praying she has the determination to follow through on taking the necessary steps to ensure her safety.  I'm sure she's a bundle of emotions - anger, fear, disappointment, etc. But I know she is a strong woman and will get the help she needs.

What am I grateful for?  Lots of things.  Glad to have my OFF Friends!    Thankful I had my surgery, and I have the knowledge that I can get back on track and get to my goal.  Grateful for my beautiful daughter and granddaughter.  Grateful for my brothers - although they do not live near me and we are not in constant touch, I know if I needed help, they would be here for me. Grateful I am getting physically better and more mobile and stronger, and better able to take care of myself.

Love you all Sisters! 

Hi Mary... yes we all are grateful for this wonderful OFF Family!! Where would we be without each other, I love you all!!

I am so happy things are going better for you and you are feeling better too. Take great care of you sista!!!

Loads of love and bunches of hugs....connie d

Good morning Christine and everyone.....

Thankfulness is a good theme for today. I am thankful for so many things in my life. I am thankful for all of you!

I am quite shaken over Eileen's horrible situation. I actually feel sick. It brought up so many memories of my rape. I pray she does get pictures and does all we have suggested. This needs to be taken very seriously. She is not safe with any kind of contact from him. I have been praying and will continue to do so.

I have to catch a bus in awhile. I need to go stock up on my vitamins again...never ending is it!!

I will stop in later and check in again.

Prayers to all our loving OFF Family and their families.

Lots of love and bunches of hugs to all....connie d

Oh Connie, I had no idea you were raped. I have no words. There aren't enough hugs to send to you. 

Good Morning Everyone!

'Thankful Thursday' is an excellent theme given Eileen's close call last night. How shocking & scary for her! I am so thankful she is okay and hopeful this will be the end of her problems with Richard.

Everyone offered such great, straightforward advice.

Christine, I read your earlier posts about packing up your clothes to donate, and it brought the question to mind to all post-ops: do you feel pretty confident you will never regain the weight? I have read on some of the forums where members have 'relapsed' and gained back 100 pounds or more. Seems most were lap-banders and/or younger than our group. while I have NO intention on regaining afterwards...THIS IS MY LIFE...I still worry about getting rid of my larger clothes. In the back of my mind I think I need to hold on to them b/c quality, plus size clothing is both expensive & hard to find!

I also need to look into the rental clothes store you mentioned. Never heard of such a thing, but what a great idea!

THE THINGS YOU LEARN ON THIS BOARD...lol!

I have to run out for my annual mammogram shortly...had echocardiogram this morning...so I am short on time. But I did want to check in & say I am thankful for all you ladies & how generous you are with your time and experience.

I'll also check in later.

I'm putting together some clothes to donate myself - actually did a load of laundry yesterday because I wanted to wash and iron some things before donating them.  I don't plan of ever "growing back" into them.  And I know how excited I was myself to find some "large" clothes when I went to the thrift shop for the first time - so I want to help someone else who might need them.  Usually there are racks and racks of "normal size" clothes, and not to many "x-large" items.

Kathy,  I fully understand your reluctance to get rid of any of your clothes.  At the time of my WLS, I had every size from 16 to 24X in my closet.  It was hard the first time I culled out the larger sizes.  But I can tell you that 4 years out, I am still within 1 dress size of my all time lowest weight after surgery.  Sometimes I wear a 14 and sometimes I wear a 16--it really depends on the cut of the clothes.

My biggest fear was having my rings resized!  Clothes can be easily replaced, but jewelry is another matter.  That step felt really permanent to me and I didn't dare try it until 3 years out.

So, just know that your fears are normal, but in all likelihood you will never need those big sizes again!    Do the purge!  You'll feel great about it!

Kathy,

I have to be confident that I will not regain this weight. This is my one and only chance -- my best chance -- to tame the beast that has held me prisoner for so many years.  As I packed up these clothes I kept thinking of how much money I spent on them, and decided to tally it up (roughly speaking). It made me a little sick to see the figure but I will remember it... And will use that as a deterrent for falling back into bad habits.  I'm very nervous about maintenance, as I've never done it before.  I've never been at a goal weight, ever in my life.  I expect I will need a lot of help, counseling, nutritionist support, and support from my friends (especially you ladies) when that time comes! But right now, I'm donating most of my too big clothes.  I do have 4 beautiful, expensive and barely worn items (a suit and 3 dresses) that I will try to sell on eBay.  I will use any money I make from that to buy a few new things when I need them.  

In the end you have to do what you're comfortable with, but I feel lighter without my size 24w's in my closet!  

Hugs

christine

I love today's theme, Christine.  And yes, so very thankful our Eileen wasn't badly hurt or killed.  It's funny how we could all sense something bad was coming.  Eileen, of course, was trying to hard to do good; she is such a sweet, dear lady!  But sometimes people are beyond our help.  Richard desperately needs professional help and intervention.  I hope and pray that he gets it.

And I pray for Eileen's recovery--both physical and emotional.

So what am I thankful for today?  Well, I'm thankful for my husband still being here with me.  I'm thankful for my family--my mom, my kids, my grandkids and my furbabies.  And I very thankful for my sistas here!  Family and friends are the most important things in life.

Today I am working on getting my yard mowed.  Mike is helping me.  (Mike is my "son-in-law"; he's Christie's SO and the father of my youngest grandson.)  I am giving them several pieces of furniture, so he's working on moving things piece by piece from our house to theirs.  It's only a mile, so he can go slowly through the neighborhoods.  

Butch is having a fairly good day.  He managed to conquer the nausea again this morning.  I tease him that he's pregnant with morning sickness.  LOL!  Then he asked for bacon, biscuits and gravy for breakfast.  Hooray!  Real food.  He only managed 1 biscuit and 1/2 slice of bacon, but that's progress.  

I am waiting for handyman Sam to show up this afternoon.  Grrr. He said he was coming, but it's after 1 p.m. and he's not here yet.  I'm ready for him to finish up!

Oh!  And I got my dishwasher to work!!!  Christie said, "Is your dishwasher on a switch like mine is?"  Well, gee, I never even thought of that!  Sure enough, I flipped a switch and the power came on.  I've never had a dishwasher on a switch before.  But I sure am glad to know it now.  Saved me a $65 service call on Monday!

So, I'll check back in later on.  I hope we hear back from Eileen soon.  Eileen, sweetie, we are all very concerned. And we all love you very much.