Excuse The Dust

As anybody reading this can see, I've finally mastered the fine are of adding a third column. I had to make a few changes to make it happen, but it's here and not quite done. I just have to figure out how I want to place everything to make the ole' place look good.

Settled In

I wasn't sure what to title this. But truthfully we are settled into our new home. It is so peaceful. Mary has her own room. Hubbie and I have our own room. And the best thing of all, we all have privacy. No more, are the sisters going to just walk in whenever they feel like. No more, will the sisters come in with accusations or telling us what to do. Oh wait...I think the best thing (yeah, I know I have already amended something), is we get to cook. No more spending money eating out. We all feel so much better. I didn't realize how cook a homecooked meal tastes.

This is what we have left behind. We left behind an old, senile, angry at life, old man who talks to himself, wouldn't let us use the stove to cook, or when we did cook, sat in the other room and complained the whole time. We left behind the arguing on cold winter nights about him leaving the door and windows open, even though it was below freezing. We left behind no boundaries or respect from the rest of the family. Sad...sad..sad...being a part of a majorly dysfunctional family.

Now there's the anger and other issues we moved with. Hubbie didn't even say goodbye or tell his father anything. He got word that the house was ready, went and signed all the paperwork and started moving. He has not told the sisters anything either. When he told a nephew we had the house and where it was, he told him to not tell anybody. Can't say as I blame him. I've told him I wasn't going to tell anybody myself. I have told him that I think his family is crazy and I don't want that craziness around. I have also told him that I wouldn't deny them entry into the house, as long as he was there. I don't have to answer the door when I'm home alone. heh.

Before we left, I was having nightmares, almost nightly. Sometimes hubbie would have to wake me up. I have also been having anxiety attacks almost daily. Our daughter was having health issues. When hubbie took her to the doctor, his doctor caught him. Tested his blood sugar (hubbie is diabetic). He tested at 412 and was given an insulin shot right there in the doctor's office. I blame his family for all this. One of the things hubbie needed was to eat right and that was denied by his own father. Stress also factors into the health of anybody. I also blame his family for the health issues our daughter has been having. I have no health insurance, so I haven't been to the doctor for my anxiety. I have been dealing with that myself. Since moving, I haven't had any attacks. No huge surprise really.

But...

I have alot of anger. I don't want to feel bad for his father, but I do. The man can't live alone. Shouldn't live alone. He should be in a nursing home where he can get the care he so desperately needs. But, there he is at the family home, all alone. Just how he wants it, hubbie says. I do go by the house at night on my way to work. More nights than not, the front door is still open, even though it is late. I fear something is going to happen to him. I am almost as sure as a new day is coming that we will be blamed. But what can you do?

I think we have done what needs to be done. It's going to take time to heal. Lot's of time. So, for now, it's the best thing to stay away from the family.

Another thing that I'm hoping for. It's slim, but I still hope. I have a hope that maybe the family will get help.

I'm Still Around

It's not that I haven't forgotten that I had a blog.....it's just that we're in the middle of moving and getting settled into our new house. Once we're settled in, I'll be showing off photos of the place.

Mis-Adventures Of A Fat Chick: Time To Change

I woke up one day and discovered I was overweight. Not just a little overweight, but WAY overweight. I didn’t know how WAY overweight I was until I stepped up on the scale. I thought the scale was lying to me, so I got off and stepped on the thing again. Not just once, but several times. Then I wanted to throw the thing out the window. I was sure something was wrong with the scale, but then it wasn’t my scale and I don’t think mom would have appreciated finding her scale out in the middle of the backyard. I decided that perhaps the scale was at least halfway accurate. Even at the halfway accurate level, I needed to make some changes NOW. You see the scale told me I was carrying around a hundred extra pounds.

Dang. No wonder I’ve been feeling like crap lately. It was way time for a change.



We all know change doesn’t come easy, no matter how necessary that change is, but I knew this wasn’t a path I wanted to walk any further on, so I made the decision to change. Any lasting change begins with that all important decision. I decided I would shed those hundred extra pounds, primarily because I didn’t want to deal with the consequence of staying overweight. My husband has diabetes, so I know what that is like. It’s not fun spending months trying out different medication searching for a perfect fit to control his blood sugar levels, while stressing out over those blood sugar levels not dropping. I knew I was at risk of that same scenario.

I love to eat. Want to go out and eat, I’m standing at the door ready to go before it’s decided what restaurant to go to. The first lesson I learned is you can eat whatever you want, you just don’t have to eat it all. Just eat enough to fill you up and then walk away. I also learned that you don’t have to eat everything on your plate. Now that has been hard for me. I was taught to eat everything on your plate because there were starving children in China who would love to eat what I left on my plate. Now, I just eat smaller portions. So, I’m actually not on a diet, I’ve just changed how I eat. Another lesson learned here. One doesn’t have to go on a diet to loose weight. Just change how you eat.

My opinion on diets? They don’t work. Neither do the diet pills and the diet formulas like Slim Fast. Why don’t they work? The person losing the weight uses those tools until they have lost the weight and then go back to the habits that got them overweight to begin with. So, phooey on anything that has diet in its title.



My next obstacle was caffeinated sodas. This was a big thing for me. I had a huge, huge, caffeine addiction. I had being controlled by substances. That’s why I don’t drink, smoke, or anything like that. This addiction sort of snuck up on me. When, I couldn’t tell you. When I began, I had close to a six pack a day habit. I also had to have a chocolate bar or two every single day. Now that I look back, that’s a lot of Chocolate, Colas and Mountain Dew that I was dumping into me. I knew that this habit would be my downfall toward change, so I started cutting back. That change took me close to six months. As of today, I can say that I have kicked that habit. As of two weeks ago, I have come completely off of caffeine and have allowed myself one chocolate bar a week.



With that obstacle out of the way, I began to exercise. Being this overweight, I couldn’t just go out and start running marathons or anything like that. I’ve started off with walking. I walk two miles every other day. It may not seem much, but it’s what works for me.

And yes, I have lost weight. To date, I’ve lost six pounds. May not seem like it’s much, but I can feel the difference and that’s what matters. When you can feel the difference you are encouraged to keep at it. One word about change. The process I have just described didn’t happen overnight. This road to change and beginning my journey to weight loss took a year, but I’m for lasting change. So a final thought here, if you want lasting change, you need patience and perseverance.

Taking That First Step

I don't know what light houses have to do with what I'm fixing to write about here, but I was browsing through Thomas Kincaid images and found them, so I'm putting them here. I can remember when we visited San Diego, we went to a light house there. I remember how small and cramped the place was. And the stairs up to the top were very, very steep. The light house was set way out on a point that was stuck way out into the ocean. I guess it was as good as place as any to put up a light house, since back in the day they were used to help ships from crashing and what not.

I finally called the half brother who had wrote me a letter. I had carried the letter around and read the thing enough that I thought I had just do it and get it over. I figured that if he had taken that first step to contact me, I might as well call and see what he wanted. Beside I was curious as to how he found me.



So, last night I called. He's out in Kentucky, so there's a two hour time difference. The encounter went very well, which was nice. It seems that over the years he had been wondering about us, which could be said about me as well. He stated that three monthes ago when he got a computer, he started looking and found me by using Intellius and People Finder. I don't know if that should scare me or not, but I am out there on the internet and the last couple years had been putting my information out there for people to find me. I figured I could by a pistol for the psychos, if and when it came to that. LOL. I don't know if this half-brother is psycho or not, but who knows. He sounds sane over the phone, as we had a very long and nice conversation.



It seems that he had lived up in Colorado with us for about a year, then ran away. I asked him about that, asking if he had simply gotten to homesick to stay in Colorado. I wasn't surprised to hear that the answer was yes.

He told me things about the family, who was still around, who wasn't. The names don't mean a whole lot to me, as I didn't know anybody. But that's okay. I was hearing the answers to all the questions I couldn't think to ask.



I don't really know how we got on this, but I'm going to share it here. Maybe it'll help somebody else. Let them know they aren't the only ones. I told him I didn't remember anybody, but there were very vague images of people and places, but those images were always at the edge of my mind, just out of touch. He knew exactly what I was saying, as he has had the same experience. There was one thing, though, I didn't tell him. All my life, there have always been people that have stood at the edge of my mind, just out of sight and out of reach. Shadows of memories. I called them Shadow People. Funny thing about those shadow people. After the conversation with my half-brother, those shadow people have come out of the shadows.

I'm looking forward to our next conversation. We'll just have to see where this little adventure leads.