One step at a time

I have so many things going through my mind as I type this.

I want to share my weight loss journey. When I went back for my two week check on March 23, I had lost about 18 lbs. By my next visit about a month later on April 20th, I had lost 28lbs.

Yesterday, I had lost 33lbs. Clothes are fitting better, and the seatbelt in the van isn't quite so tight.

And my dh came home yesterday and looked at me and said.. I'm starting to see your weight loss.. you definitely look thinner. What a sweetheart. I love that man so much!! He has almost never said anything negative about my weight over the 28 years we've been married ( I can count on my one hand the times I've heard him say something hurtful.. and over 28 years, that's not a lot). And he's so very supportive of my efforts. He eats my new cooking efforts without complaint.

Yesterday I made white chili from the bariatriceating.com website.. it was pretty darn good. And under 200 calories/cup. I had 1 cup of soup and 1/2 cup of mixed veggies and I was full. I could not have eaten so small a portion before surgery and be full.

My one complaint so far.. beyond the inadequate post0p pain coverage...is that the Dr. I chose to do my WLS seems to be very very busy and I can't get in when I'm supposed to. I was supposed to return around May 20th and they can't get me in until June 2nd. Two weeks can be forever when you're hungry and trying to lose weight.

I'm also walking almost every day ( I took Monday and Tuesday off of this week because of huting feet and rain) and while I don't enjoy the walking, my dog sure does!! I can tell my stamina has increased.

More later, I need to go bring the dog in and take a shower.. I'm all stinky from walking.

More Bernat Felt goodies

The first pic is to show the colors of the yarn, the second is to show the whole bag (lousy flourescent lighting) hanging to dry. I don't usually hang bags, but I want the handles on this to stretch some.






This is a variation of I felt the earth move bag . I didn't follow her pattern exactly, I did the decrease rounds where they looked right to me. I also crocheted in FLO (or maybe it was BLO.. i don't recall.. i was consistent tho whichever stitch I used). I think the yarn I used was much bulkier than hers, so I'm glad I made the changes. Otherwise the bag would've been humongous!!

And when it came to the handles.. I didn't feel like flipping the thing back and forth to make the handle, so I dug out my tunisian hooks and did them in the tunisian knit stitch. And devised a way to hook the handle to the other side instead of stitching.

One more thing I did differently was that I did a round of reverse sc all along the edges of the handles and the top of the bag. I like that effect.. think it gives a project a "finished" look.

This is almost all of the Bernat Felt yarn.. I had 13 skeins. Two left which I made a purse organizer out of and it's in the machine right now felting. Pictures soon.

Time to get back to crochet

I've been felting quite a bit and now it's time to show some of the results.

Found a great buy on Bernat's Feltit in the color "Fresh Poppy" (i think they must be discontinuing this color) and bought TONS of it.. cleaned out the bin ..lol.

I made my own pattern for this.. it's not even written up yet. But I did post the diagram for my idea on my pattern blog. I will eventually write up the numbers, but for those who are confident to proceed on their own.. this should give you a starting point.





Here's a purse I made for one of the nurses who took care of me during my latest surgery. Her first name is Lisa too. She admired the bags I had with me preop, so I made this for her while I was recovering. I haven't given it to her yet.. I don't know when or if I will see her again.


Prefelting



Drying over a woven basket



Finished. But it's VERY floppy, in this picture it has a tupperware bowl inside to give it some stability. I will either need to find something to give it more structure.. or felt it again.





This is a bag I made from the pattern available here.



Prefelting



Drying over a Wine Box.. lol



Showing finished size with a magazine



Finished and needing a shave




This last one I'm very pleased with. It's one I made from a stitch pattern I found. It didn't turn out exactly like I had planned, but it's great anyways.

The stitch is very yarn intensive, but makes for a very sturdy bag when felted. I would've made it bigger, but ran out of the dark teal.



Finished, with magazine behind it to show the size (still drying).



Here it is stuffed with plastic bags, drying.



Prefelting with the magazine lying on top of it to show size.



Right side out



Wrong side out.. which I also think looks attractive.




I have two or three more bags in progress.. hope it won't take me as long to finish and post about them as it did these.

Socialism

ATHEIST HOLY DAY

Received this in email today and thought it was worth sharing.

FLORIDA COURT SETS ATHEIST HOLY DAY

In Florida, an atheist created a case against the upcoming Easter
and Passover holy days. He hired an attorney to bring a discrimination case
against Christians, Jews and observances of their holy days.

The argument was that it was unfair that atheists had no such
recognized days. The case was brought before a judge. After listening to
the passionate presentation by the lawyer, the judge banged his
gavel declaring, "Case dismissed!"

The lawyer immediately stood objecting to the ruling saying, "Your
honor, how can you possibly dismiss this case? The Christians have
Christmas, Easter and others. The Jews have Passover, Yom Kippur and
Hanukkah, yet my client and all other atheists have no such holidays."

The judge leaned forward in his chair saying, "But you do. Your
client, counsel, is woefully ignorant."

The lawyer said, "Your Honor, we are unaware of any special
observance or holiday for atheists."

The judge said, "The calendar says April 1st is April Fools Day.
Psalm 14:1 states, 'The fool says in his heart, there is no God.' Thus, it
is the opinion of this court, that if your client says there is no God,
then he is a fool. Therefore, April 1st is his day. Court is adjourned."

You gotta love a Judge that knows his scripture!

sometimes it doesn't pay to be frugal

i got a boo-boo yesterday. i was going to turn out the light and wasn't paying attention and slammed my left hand into a wall. owie owie owie. i had to go get the frozen bag of peas we keep for an icepack and put it on my pinkie.

well, by bedtime it was hurting pretty good.. and all swollen. so i took two motrin and went to bed.

this morning, not only the pinkie was swollen, but my hand was swollen too. so off i go to the doc/hospital to get irradiated.

i broke a bone in my hand..not my pinkie. fortunately, it's only a hairline crack and not displaced at all, so it doesn't need a splint. doc said just don't hit it on anything else. i don't plan on that!!!

next time i will leave the light on. oh.. and i can't reach the shift key w/o a lot of pain.. so i'm all lower case for awhile.

Update on Banding

This started as a post to one of the many Lapband support groups on yahoo, but as I typed I realized that this was really more of a blog post than a message to the group.. so here goes.

I am 4 weeks out from surgery (March 9) and I keep reading where everyone says the first 6 to 8 weeks are for healing.

I'm not "pushing" myself at all, but I feel SO much better than I did at 2 weeks out, it's like I'm a whole different person. At 2 weeks, I couldn't sit at my computer more than about 20 minutes before I started having lots of pain.. and would have to go lie down.

I remember thinking.. I need to walk, but I hurt so much.. how can I walk? Even taking the glorified tylenol I was sent home with (Darvocet) didn't work. Only thing that did work was Motrin and that was supposedly a no-no.

I finally got back at 2 weeks for my first post-op visit on March 23rd.. and they were very surprised that I was still hurting. I did take a couple of Motrin before driving over because I just couldn't see driving an hour while in pain. I'm soooo very glad the pain is over.

But NEVER AGAIN WILL I EVER HAVE SURGERY (ESP. ABDOMINAL SURGERY) WITH ONLY DARVOCET AS POST-OP PAIN MEDS. And I told the nurses and Dr. B's PA the same thing. If this thing ever has to be revised and all he will provide is Darvocet.. well, I'll go to a different doctor. That's all there is to it. There's no need to fear that I will get addicted to narcotics.. I wean myself off as soon as I start feeling better. I've done it before when I had my hysterectomy.

But the GOOD news is that of March 23rd I had lost 15 lbs. I believe I'm even lighter now.. probably on the order of 20lbs total. I hope it's more, but as my scales and the doctor's scales are way off from each other.. I have trouble telling.

What is significant is that my clothes are fitting better. Things that were too tight, are now loose. Not to the point of falling off.. lol dream on dh...but definitely looser.

I've also found that turnips (really.. ) make a decent lower carb substitute for potatoes. It's surprising, but they work. Haven't been able to get them to crisp up like (oven fried) potatoes yet.. but I'm still in the learning stage.