It is Sunday here for sure! 

The Tempdropped 20 degrees here overnight! Maybe this baby will drop out tomorrow without a hitch! I think he or she likes it in the womb! 

Today we are going to a memorial for a friend of ours that passed in three weeks ago. 

Tomorrow we r going to the zoo!

Carl and Ihave Vinnie all to ourselves!

All is well at home down in Florida. My cat and the two dogs survived my brother being gone for four days. 

So life is good!

C

Hey Carla

Its evening here in Atlanta.  I am just getting some time to check in.  Today was birthday party day.  Kinsley is turning 5.  It was chaotic around here all morning.  Then it was get everything to the clubhouse to set up for her birthday pool party.  The subdivision has a pool and club house residents can use so that's what we did.  It was a madhouse.  I am too old for all these sheenanigins !!! So once everyone left, it was after 6 o'clock, the elders brought everything home and the parents and kids that were left stuck around.  It is now 8:00pm so I have had an hour or so of quiet.  I think this is what is meant by the calm after the storm.  There was no calm before the storm.

Carla, I so hope you get to see your new baby soon.

OOOOOKAY

Yes this is not the usual topic of our post but it does not offend me.  I am an adult and open minded. I do however keep my personal life personal, whatever the topic.  If I was seriously ill or having marital problems I would not be able to discuss it beyond the surface.  I have always been the one people came to to unload.  I am happy to listen but I can't seem to do the confiding. That's just me. 

On the topic of sexuality....I have never had a problem with libido. Even when I was not comfortable with my body image that did not affect my libido.  My body image was distorted in high school.  I felt huge.  My classmates were of Cajun French descent and very tiny.  I am of German descent and well...German.  By comparison I towered over everyone and could only see the number on the scale.  When 98 is typical my 135 was huge.  I truly didn't realize that my 25 inch waist was enviable.  If I had grown up elsewhere I wonder what my mindset would have been.  As a child I was gangly, by high school that had changed.  In today's world I would have been considered a knockout. In My world Twiggy reigned.  My size did and to some extent still does determine what I do and where I go.  In college I experienced the freshman weight gain and never did get rid of it.  That 30 pounds seemed like such a hurdle.  WHAT WAS MY PROBLEM.  I let the concern for the 30 pounds snowball into concern for so much more.  I was 185 when I married my first husband.  He was not from the land of Lilliputians and my 185 on a 5'8" frame was ok by him.  Not by me and we stilled LIVED in the land of Lilliputians.  I continued to gain through the years.  When I left my marriage I was even heavier.  By the time I remarried I was 100 pounds heavier than I was on my first wedding day.  Personal relationships were difficult for me.  I am social if someone else starts the conversation.  I am by nature rather shy.  I hate ****tail parties.  I feel awkward.  that goes for tea parties as well.  It not the ****tails that make me feel awkward.  I could never be a flirt. My relationships have started out as very good friendships.  By the time they turned into romances I was comfortable in my own skin. 

As far as changes with menopause my situation may be different.  I had a hysterectomy at the age of 35.  I did not experience any side effects.  Finally at the of 55 I asked my doctor if there was any way to determine if I had gone through menopause because I had no symptoms. without periods I had no way of knowing.  Bottom line...I had been there done that.  I did not start to have menopausal symptoms until after WLS.  Then came the night sweats, and hot flashes.  I am still always hot.  My libido was still not affected. I don't know if that is a blessing or a curse but it is what it is.

Julia,

I cry every time I get a massage and my friend who works for the dermatologists, does pressure point massage to my head and neck and omg, it feels good and I do cry too...it's a strange thing, like you say, how grief of our loved ones is so much a part of us that, over time, we even identify ourselves by the grief. My mother died when I was a little girl and I remember hurting so much in my heart and trying so hard not to cry that I developed stress related headaches from it. Even now, her memory will flood over me and I feel that lump in my throat and the tightness in my chest and I miss her so much. 

Like you and so many others, I've learned to deal with that grief or, in the least, to control it but it never leaves...it's right there in my heart and my mind and my body ready to remind me that I am the motherless little girl who was told by the Baptist preacher that cold December day that my mama had died...The orphan...the little girl that loved her friends because of their mothers and rated them according to how kind their mothers were to me...and I loved when they spoke to me or offered to braid my hair...but, at best, they were mothers on loan, always to be given back.  

Enough, my tears are going to spill.....

You do have a lovely smile but your bone structure in your face gives you the perfect symmetry and puts you up there with all the other beautiful ladies....

Yes, here it is again, FRIDAY...I am getting ready to leave for my monthly facial and massage. After several years my facial person is a good friend, so we talk and are therapeutic to each other also. I can tell her things I wouldn't tell another soul and she is right there with me. Sometimes as she massages I cry. I don't know why exactly but touch can release grief. It surprises me that I have so much sadness deep in my soul. I'm happy too...but I have learned something in my 62 years. Grief is inside of your body, and even though you change and go on and have a wonderful life, you forever carry the person you lost in your heart...and as you lose more and more they are all there. I believe in crying when you need to, and living like there is no tomorrow...laugh, laugh, laugh!

What a great idea to find something wonderful about yourself and crow about it Jeannie! My best feature is my smile...and laugh. It's kind of loud and boisterous, but I know how to enjoy whatever is happening. Laughing heals the soul for a while. I am so much like my Mom that I scare myself once in a while. She really knew how to laugh.

My food today will include my protein, yogurt for lunch, mixed fruit from the fruit stand yesterday for snacks, and something from the Happy Hour choices for dinner. I will also have a glass of wine. 

I will be moving like a crazy person because I need to clean house before our trip to Tahoe on Sunday. I want to come home to clean. Of course there will be dog hair when we get back, but the rest will be clean!