To The Haters

Today I learned there are folks in Faro who are very unimpressed with my donation button for my reconstructive surgery here on my blog.

Really? 

So haters, did you know I was asked by over a dozen people to install it?  That I have friends who believe I am worth their donation?  That people are clicking it and donating!  There is now over $1300 going towards my surgery.

This should be a non-issue.  If you don't like it (or me for that matter), don't donate.  Easy peasy.  Move on.  Talk about something positive.  Go do something nice for someone else today instead of sitting around being lazy.

Thank you to my friends who have donated, done acts of kindness, or sent me encouraging messages.  You are the folks who are worth my time and thoughts, not the crankpots bitching while they drink their coffee.

Another perfect Yukon weekend

The weekend was a blast.  Straight up awesome.  Well, most every weekend here is awesome.  So are the week days.  Why?  Because we make them fun.  We don't make our lives busy to the point where we can't enjoy them.  We make time for family.  We make time for friends.  We make time for fun.  Heck, we even make time for facebook and are fine with that.

We baked and decorated lung cakes to help a friend hitting 100 days smoke free!

Zombie stickers were put up.

We played with friends outside every day!

We went on a little skidooing adventure!

Hubby got to have a relaxing weekend off call.

Kids were still kids.  Here is Cavan throwing a nice tantrum while I grin on.

Fearless.

Happy.

I love Yukon kids.

My rosy-cheeked boy.

And another happy note- I got back to squash and my running program on Saturday with no ill effects from my concussion!  So I am back into my exercise routine after the last week off.

Wanna Win Some Mukluks or Baby Booties?

Just over $21 000.

That is how much I need for my reconstructive skin surgery this fall.

Thanks to the extreme generosity of my friends, I now have a special savings account that already has $1150 ready to go towards my surgery!  Seriously, I cannot say it enough, I am blessed with the most amazing friends.

I want to make this fun now.

If you donate $10 or more towards my surgery, your name will be put in for a draw for a pair of mukluks.  If your donation is under $10, then I will put your name in for a pair of baby booties.  To donate, go and click the PayPal donate button over there on the top right hand side of my blog.

Snazzy eh?

Bonus entry for the baby booties- do a random act of kindness and tell me what you did.  Your name will go in the draw whether you donated money to my surgery or not.  Random acts of kindness make me happy.

These are the mukluks up for grabs!  Men's size 10 and over $200 value.  You know you want them.

Sample booties!  Winner will get to pick fur, ribbon and fleece colours.

Draw date will be May 31st for both items.  And then I think I will put something new up to win.

Thank you everyone!

Winter Planting

Earlier this week I cut up a butternut squash for soup and discovered the seeds inside were sprouting!  So the boys and I decided to plant them and see how they grow.  A nice fun activity to make us dream of the summer while we are still hibernating.

Sprouting!

Planting in pajamas.

Adding water.

Cavan planting.

Mini greenhouse!

Reconstructive Skin Surgery Booked!

I am nearing my weight loss goal and have moved onto the next step in my weight loss journey.  Today I paid my deposit and booked my appointment for reconstructive skin surgery.  AAAAHHHHH!!!!

 My surgery is booked for November 6th of this year and will be taking place all the way down in Los Angeles!  The surgeon, Dr. Katzen is a leader in this type of surgery and comes highly recommended.  There is a video there on the front page from a pilot done for TLC.  It is over 40 minutes long, but it follows two individuals as they go through surgery.  It is very informative for anyone else thinking about this type of surgery or those of your curious about what I am going to be experiencing.

I am over the moon, but scared absolutely shit-less about it too!  This is a huge surgery; it will be about nine hours long and then two nights in a recovery unit.  I will be out of commission for a month and not back to normal activity until 2 or 3 months post surgery.  We will need to stay in LA for 10-14 days post op to ensure I am healing well enough to fly home.

So what will I be having done?  Basically, the surgeon will slice right around my middle (front and back) and cut off a heap of skin, pull me tight, and then stitch me closed.  It is called a Circumferential Body Lift.  I will also be having a Medial Thigh Lift at the same time.  If you are brave and want to see before and after pictures of people who have had this surgery you can click here (beware- full frontal nudity once you click).

The cost?  Not as much as I thought, but still quite substantial.  For all costs associated with the surgery, it is $21 000.  Then there will also be travel and accommodation costs for Matt and I for the nearly three weeks we will be gone.  I feel very guilty that I am taking money away from my family so I can have this surgery.  It is the same guilt I felt when I had my weight loss surgery.  But again, this surgery is needed.  The loose skin is causing me a lot of grief.  I have worked really hard over the last year and a half to get this weight off and instead of feeling good, I feel embarrassed about the way my skin sags and droops.

A number of friends today asked me if they could donate to my surgery.  I was shocked when they asked, not thinking that my surgery is something people would want to contribute to.  But with their prodding, I have added a PayPal Donation button on the top right hand side of my blog.  If you would like to donate to my surgery, please go ahead and do so through there.  The kindness and extreme generosity of my friends continues to shock me.  I will also take kind words, prayers and random acts of kindness done in my name as contributions as well!

So now to get this last 25lbs off and work towards preparing myself mentally for this surgery!  Thank you everyone for your continued support!

My Poor Noggin!

It looks like I am being forced to slow down.  Not by my choice though!

On Thursday I took a pretty impressive hit to the face with a squash ball.  Now, to be fair, my opponent owed me a hit.  I had hit her in the boob just a few shots prior with my racquet.  Ouch!  I took my own hit with my left cheek bone, just under my eye.  It was an incredibly hard hit and my first though was that I had knocked all of my teeth out!  But I was able to laugh it off and finished the game, you know, cause I am tough like that.

Later that night though, I started to become extremely dizzy and nauseous.  I went to bed feeling like I had just drank two bottles of wine.  Friday I wasn't much better.  Loud noises hurt my head, if I moved to fast I would get dizzy, and I just wasn't able to function well!  Late afternoon I had to call my husband home from work because I was just too woozy to deal with the kids.

Saturday morning though I woke up feeling right back to my normal self!  I went down to the gym at noon to have a workout and oh did it ever suck.  The workout was hard and after maybe 20 minutes I was back to being dizzy and feeling like I was going to yak while doing the deadlift.  Not fun!  I headed for home, but not until after I yakked in the snow in the parking lot.  Good times.  The rest of the day I spent on the sofa.

Matt has now put me on veg-mode for the next week and says I have a mild concussion.  No strenuous exercise allowed!  So no squash, running or weights.  Blah.  I am going to try and get a long walk in every day though so I don't go completely nuts.  Hopefully by next weekend I can give it a try again with better results.

Who would have though one hit to the face from a squash ball could do this?  Not me!

Wood Stove Love

Our wood stove is up and running and we couldn't be happier!

It was tough to decide where to place the stove in our house.  This house is quite large, but not a very open concept.  If we put the stove in our basement, there just wasn't a good way to circulate the air.  We looked into putting in a new wood/oil furnace as well, but that was just out of our budget.  In the end, we decided to put a stove in our living area where we spend the majority of our time.

Our basement is still heated by oil through an oil monitor that is in our garage.  The basement is a little cool, but still fine to function in.  I have a small electric heater in my sewing room since I find I get cold when sitting down at my machine for too long.

We had put up 7 cords of wood this fall thanks to help from some friends after Matt broke his foot.  We will barely put a dent in that this year since the stove didn't get installed until the new year.  But this spring we will still head out and add to the pile.  There is no way that will be left to last minute or scrambling in the middle of winter to find someone to bring it for us. 

And I am especially excited about not having to pay massive oil bills now!

Perfect!

Through the plateau!

I had been stuck at the same weight since the end of November.  195lbs.  The first real plateau I have had since my weight loss surgery nearly 16 months ago.

Then it got worse.  I came home from holidays and I was up 9lbs.  I would like to put all of the blame on travel bloat, period bloat, etc but a big part of it was crappy eating on my part during my holiday.  I was eating a lot more sugar and processed carbs while I was gone.  There was no tracking of my calories and I was eating and drinking at the same time.  When I do that, it pushes the food right through my stomach and I can eat more because of it. 

So what did I do? 

I wanted to just eat more; exactly what I would have done in the past.  Wallow in self-pity.

Instead, I found control again. 

We came home on a Saturday and Sunday I started a four day stint of just liquid proteins.  I had protein shakes made with milk, muscle gel (another protein goo stuff), protein pudding, homemade soup high in protein and a heck of a lot of tea.  So no refined sugar and very low amounts of carbohydrates.  Okay, that isn't quite right- I still have a bit of sugar in my tea.  I just can't drop that one.

The next two days I moved into mushy proteins.  So still some protein drinks but then cottage cheese, greek yogurt, tuna, and a bit of pork that I put into my grinder.

That brings me to today.  For the next two days I will be eating soft proteins.  I have stopped grazing; my meals and snacks are at certain times of the day and inbetween there is a lot of tea and water.  I am back to employing my anti-eating tactics of keeping busy through reading, cleaning, and the never ending lego construction! 

And the results?  In the last six days I dropped 9.5lbs.  So I lost the 9lbs I was carrying after our holiday plus another half a pound, bringing me into new territory! The two month plateau is over and I am hoping to hit 189lbs by the end of this month (if not sooner).

I am still going through some withdrawal symptoms from cutting out the sugar and carbs.  Those symptoms combined with a sinus infection I have right now have made me rather miserable for the last week.  But I am on the mend both physically and mentally.  No self-pity here!  Next week I am looking forward to getting back to squash and running. 

Any one else fall off their own wagon lately?  How are you getting back on?

Maui: Random Bits

And now just the random left over pictures!

One dead crab = heaps of entertainment for two boys

Matt after getting caught outside for maybe 1 minute during a massive downpour!  We were all soaked just from running between our vehicle and this mall.  I have never seen rain like this!

Sunburn!

Cavan burnt too.  Ouchie!

Cuddling in their sleep!  About they only time they aren't fighting.

Better wear sunglasses if you are looking at my white skin!!  And I returned just as while as when I left.

Exhaustion!

Passed out.  Cavan couldn't make it past 7pm each night.

Just fun!

Is it any wonder we got asked five times a day if they are twins?

A picture for Grandpa!  Look at those Koi! 

We saw whales jumping everywhere, yet this is the best picture I got.  Honestly, it is a whale tail!

On our way home, the boys were mobbed by a gaggle of adorable Japanese girls!  They couldn't seem to get enough of our boys.  There were about 10 of them and they hung out with our boys for well over half an hour.  They got so excited when the boys would talk to them and tell them stories!  They took heaps of pictures of themselves with the boys!  ahahah  Our kids will be famous in Japan.  It was so much fun!

Maui: Outings

We didn't venture far from our condo at all during our vacation.  We really wanted this to be a laid-back, relaxing trip for all of us.  But we did hit up the aquarium, a set of waterfalls, a park, a mountain look off, and a glass bottom boat tour.  They were all perfect adventures for the boys!

Jellies!

ohhhh!  ahhhh!

Loving the shark tank walk through!

Monkey right at home in the park!

The trees were so much fun to climb!

If you click on this picture to make it bigger, you will see a wee boy peaking out at the very top of this tree!  I am sure this picture gives his Nanny a heart attack. 

Exploring waterfalls!

Awesome new family picture!

My little explorers.

Watching a diver show us fun finds from the coral reef during our glass bottom boat tour.

Hunter describing how he felt during the boat trip!  My face looked right about the same.  We are definitely land lovers.

Chasing chickens!

More chicken chasing!

Another good family shot!

Maui: Our Beach

Most of our days were spent just on the beach in front of our condo.  The beaches are all public, but unlike many other hot destinations, we were not harassed by vendors trying to sell us stuff.  The beach was very clean and quiet where we were.

The kids played in the surf for hours and it was quite shallow.  The waves would give the kids a good beating from time to time though!  And the sand.  Good god the sand.  It got in everything!!

The temperatures were around +24 each day and we had a number of overcast with sprinkles kind of days.  Those days were actually great since we could still play out but not have the fear of sunburns!  One day it went up to +28 and there was no wind;  we all burnt and felt pretty miserable by mid afternoon and spent the rest of the day in the condo hiding from the heat.

Bums (and wankers) full of sand!  They still have sand in their ears now.

You can only save one kid at a time from the waves.  Just gotta sacrifice the other and hope he pops back up!  ahahha

Watching the canoes.

Wave leaping!

Getting some great air!

Heading out for a swim!

Sand.  And more sand.  They looked like this all the time.  Well not the hugging part, but the dirty part!

The only way to keep boys in one spot- bury them!

Every day new sand castles were built and destroyed!

Hunter and I made an impressive one!

Go Cavan!

Warming up!

Tiny crabs were all over the beach.  The boys spent hours chasing them.  Eventually they gave up trying to catch them and were happy with just covering over their hiding holes with sand.

The poor bathtub full of sand!!