*picture mad face here*

Two things in the last two days have made me mad enough to cry -

As I was leaving Charleston to head back to Richmond (saying good-bye to that sweet baby was, in itself, enough to make me cry) I realized that while I was in in Lynchburg someone BROKE INTO MY CAR AND STOLE MY IPOD. My very expensive iPod that my very generous sister just got me for Christmas. My iPod that I love and use every day. Someone broke into one of my parents' cars around Christmas and took my dad's wallet, so it looks like 2408 has turned into a regular hot bed of crime. I have secret suspects, but none that I'm willing to say out loud. Dad called the police the last time, just to let them know. He's going to call them again and maybe they can keep an eye out or something. I don't really expect anything to be done. I'm so incredibly angry about it and there's not a thing I can do. SO FRUSTRATING!

Today I was excited to finally get to wear my heart rate monitor and watch while I went swimming (I did walk with it several times in Lynchburg and Charleston over the break). Guess what? IT DIDN'T WORK. It works in water just fine - it worked while I was in the shower. But something about the chemicals in that nasty pool made it not worked. I read over the manual carefully when I got home and sure enough hidden deep in there somewhere was the statement that some chemicals in pools may interfere with transmission. I could literally pull myself up on the side of the pool so the thing was out of the water and it would start working, then lower myself back in and it would stop. I had it time my workout anyway, but it's just not the same. Swimming is the only exercise that I actually enjoy. I occasionally enjoy going for a walk - but only because I enjoy having the time to listen to my music on my iPod.

I'm still reading the documentation on the NutriPoints system that they want me to follow for my eating plan, and it's completely impossible for me. They also keep sending me emails wanting me to come to some other nutrition class that , even in their promotional materials, sounds like nothing but a long sales pitch for this Juice Plus pill they have. So I'm tired and angry and frustrated right now. At least my Heels won last night - 3 more games and we're national champions :)

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone!

The title of the sermon at my parents' church today was simply "He Is Risen!" And that's it - because Jesus rose from the dead, he affirms that he IS God and that he has come to die for us and make us right with God. It's an overwhelming, mind-blowing concept. The chorus of one of my favorite praise and worship songs sums it up for me:

Because he lives I can face tomorrow
Because he lives all fear is gone
Because I know he holds the future
And life is worth the living just because he lives


I've spent the day hanging with the cutest baby in all the world. We went on an Easter egg hunt yesterday at Amazement Square and today we went to church and opened her Easter basket. She's so cute - she loves to play outside and will go stand at the top of a step and hold her little hand up, just waiting for you to come help her down. In the morning, I'm heading home with her and her mom (my sister) for the first part of the week since I'm on Spring Break.

Her parents have asked me not to put any more pictures of her up, so since they're her parents :), I'm taking them down. So just imagine the cutest baby you've ever seen, and that will be her!

Creepy

My sister is watching everything I'm doing on the computer. It's creepy....

Fancy new gadgetry...

So today I had two "boot camp firsts". This morning I met with the "Life Coach" - like a counselor. I really liked her. She was very sweet and non-judgemental, very much unlike the pyschologist that I met with for my first evaluation. I do not know that I will ever actually enjoy going and talking to a counselor about myself...but I think I'll be ok with going to see this one. One weird thing, though - she didn't have a normal psychologist-type office. It was smaller than a doctor's exam room, with a little counter across the back and just enough room for a table and two chairs for us to sit in. I haven't decided if this is a good thing or not yet!

While I was there, I saw Brian (and let him know that I hold him responsible for how sore my legs are today - he said, "You know what? They're going to hurt tomorrow too." Thanks, guy!) and got my fancy heart rate monitor watch. It had my exercise schedule programmed into it, so tonight I went walking on the path around my apartment complex. This was my "short" workout - I was supposed to do 25 minutes in my moderate heart rate zone. This little watch doohicky kept track of my heart rate, time spent in the proper zone, calories burned, everything. If I went above or below my heart rate it beeped at me. Constantly. Not just one little "you're not in the right spot" beep. A beep beep beep beep beep beep beep until you fix it beep. I may turn that little feature off.

Of course, you don't grow up in Brian Nash's house and think that good enough is good enough. So I decided to try and do just 5 minutes of my workout in my high heart rate zone. Would you know - it records that I did it, but doesn't count the time towards my 25 minute goal! So my total exercise time was about 45 minutes, which was good. I like having this fancy little thing!

I'm off to Wal-Mart to buy fitness equipment - one of the big balls and stretchy cords for strength training, and some decent tennis shoes!

OW!

So today (after a parent made me madder than mad - I was so mad I almost cried. I don't know how we are going to co-exist the rest of the year) I had my first personal training session as part of my pre-op "Boot Camp" Brain, my PT, is very nice and has started me out pretty easy - just 3 30-minute workouts for the first week. My heart rate monitor wasn't in yet but I should be able to pick it up tomorrow when I go back (AGAIN), this time to meet with the "Life Coach". It will have all of my supposed-to-do exercise programmed into it and if I meet my goal I get a little trophy on the watch ;) But we did a few minutes on the treadmill today and then some weights and I am already hurtin'. I can only imagine how I'll feel tomorrow....

Last night was St. Patrick's and I actually went out. I think that was my first ever St. Patty's outing. I went with da Palmas to a restaurant that had a big tent set up out back with beer n bands. We hung out there a while until our table was ready and then had dinner. Some other people joined us, too. It was fun! Plus, I ran into a guy who attends the same Sunday School class as I do which was my first official seeing-someone-I-know-that-I-wasn't-planning-on-meeting-there-in-public incident in Richmond! So I'm starting to feel like a real Richmonder!

ACC Champions!!!!!!

So my Tarheels did what was expected of them this weekend - they won the ACC tournament and got the overall #1 seed (and the #1 seed in the East) in the NCAA tournament. Aren't they great? The next 3 weeks are going to be killer for me....

The 'Heels had to overcome some pretty major nonsense to become champions - and there were some close games. They turned the ball over like it was their job and in the championship game I think I could have hit more free throws than they did. But the biggest thing was the officiating. With the exception of the first half of the championship game, it was some of the worst I've seen. They were letting my boys get beat up and then calling phantom fouls on them! I understand that when a team is as dominant as UNC has been :), there is some natural antagonism and a desire to "even things out" or "bring them down" a little bit. That, however, is NOT THE REF'S PLACE. So suck it up and call the game like you're supposed to, guys!

Dook didn't even make it to the championship game - they lost on Saturday to Clemson (who UNC beat 3 times this year). So sad. NOT.

I am very sad to note that Va. Tech was left out of the NCAA tournament. Couldn't care less about Maryland, though. And I will be cheering hard for Belmont in the first round!

VSRA, Day 1

So I headed off the VSRA conference this morning (that's Virginia State Reading Association, for those of you who....well, you know who you are) completely confident that I was going to OWN this conference. Sure, I had had a little misunderstanding about the registration forms and discovered last night that I couldn't go to any of them morning sessions. no big. I slept in, watched some Regis and Kelly, and headed off for the afteroon. I have a MASTERS degree in Reading. I went to UVA to get it. I have taught in Henrico AND Albemarle. I know more than anyone else ever has on the subject. Here's how I envisioned it: I would get there, quickly see several people I know (mainly important reading people who are presenting about important things), pick one of them to tag along with, skim over the program - recognizing all the presenters while being knowledgeable on their topics - and pick someone fabulous to go listen to. I would get some great ideas that I could then go pass on to anyone who would listen. Here's what really happened:

I got lost. Multiple tolls and a phone call to Katie who is on Google maps later, I finally get there halfway through the first session. The next 40 minutes are a lot of aimless wandering - some of it lost, some of it just trying to look like I had somewhere to go. Did not see people I knew. Finally made it to a session, and it was a dud. All about what kind of training teachers need - not something I was particularly interested in. After fighting to stay awake, I wait in a looong line to buy a soda only to discover my wallet is in my car. The session that I wanted to go to next was cancelled, and the other two that were remotely interesting were backed beyond all reason. There was a general session at 3:30, but I'd had enough. I went home.

Hopefully tomorrow will go better. Although UNC plays at noon, so I'm still debating which one would be better to blow off...the conference or the game.

God does teach us about humility in funny ways, doesn't he?

My job is literally killing me...

I had a regular dr. appointment today (I'm becoming a doctor pro - I have two more next week) and my blood pressure was back down to normal. Which is good news, but it also means that the kindergarteners drove it up that high, so my job is actually killing me. *sigh* I do have a hard life, don't I?

In good news, though I'm attending the VSRA conference Thursday and Friday (and possibly Saturday if I feel like it) which means I'm done teaching for the week!

Now I'm off to baby-sit that sweet little Zack....

"Body Age"

So, today was rough. My class was AWFUL today. Completely, totally AWFUL. I am so frustrated with this class and this school in general, but today they were especially bad. It seems that no one has ever taught this children basic manners! They constantly talk while I'm talking, and choose to do their own thing instead of listening to me. It's sooooooooo frustrating. So today, after a fairly long whole-class time out they all silently cleaned out their chair pockets and then I had them write in their journals two things that they were going to do tomorrow to make it a better day. One child wrote "I don't like transformers".

So then we had to electronic report card training - yes, this is the middle of the year and they are springing this on us. Yes, we have to back and enter the last TWO nine weeks worth of grades and comments just to "catch up" before we enter this nine weeks grades. No, that's not fair or fun but that's just the way it is. So I scooted out of there pretty fast b/c I had to get to the Center of Integrative Medicine for my Body Age Analysis - the first step in this pre-op nutrition and exercise program. I got lost. Twice. I was ten minutes late.

So, here I am - ready to assess my health and fitness which, let's be honest, has no chance of being anything remotely good. And since it's not something that I especially like to discuss, I'm game to do this but I'm not really excited about it. Plus, after my awful experience with the psychologist I'm worried that he is going to be just as disapproving and critical. Add that to my day and me being late and I'm a mess. Completely stressed and ready to burst into tears at the least provocation. So what's the first thing they do? Take my blood pressure. I have NEVER had high blood pressure at all and today it was 141/104. I freaked. Brian (the guy doing the assessment) said it was probably because I was so upset and stressed and they would do it again the next time I was there. There was also a cardiac portion where they measured your resting heart rate and they couldn't get mine to go below 100. I tried so hard to relax - he would leave the room so I could calm down and I just started crying. Luckily, he pretended not to notice :)

So Brian was nothing like the psychologist - he was very positive and encouraging, despite the fact that my results were (predictably) not so good. He didn't try and sugar coat it, but he did recognize that I knew they weren't good and that's why I was doing all of this to improve on it. In addition to the blood pressure and the heart rate, I had to answer a lot of questions on the computer, stand on a body mass scale, do a bicep curl to measure strength, a flexibility test, push-ups and sit ups. Actually on the strength and push ups I scored in the average range for my age. Brian said that if they do my blood pressure again and it's back to normal that will take my body age down significantly, but as it was it came out that my body was like a 56 year old!!!! Woah. That's freaky old. I go back tomorrow for a regular doctor's appointment, then next week I start with the nutrition an exercise program.

I was so tired I almost fell asleep driving home. Needless to say, I crashed and took a nap when I got home. I didn't get a nap yesterday (crazy busy day) and with that, all the stress and daylight savings time, I was zonked. Unfortunately, I had a ton of work to do to get ready for my subs on Thursday and Friday (I'm going the Virginia State Reading Association conference here in Richmond) and I had Game Club. So I got up, did a little bit of work, and went off to Game Club. We played old-school Trivial Pursuit and had a good time, as usual.

After GC, everyone had left except my four Richmond friends, and no one was tired (and Katie was drinking) so I went home, got my school work, and took it back over to the Palmers. They helped color the leprechauns on our St. Patrick's Day poems while I got the rest of my work done. It was fun AND my work got done a lot sooner than it would have otherwise.

That being said, it's 11:45 and here I am typing on my blog instead of going to bed. Tomorrow's another busy day - I have to leave school immediately for my dr. appt. and then tomorrow night I'm baby-sitting for Katie and Jon's 10-month old (who is SO super cute). But then I have off Thursday and Friday for the conference so I'm totally stoked about that! (That's right. I said totally stocked. It's a wicked awesome thing to say)

Ok, long post. Going to bed. Be cute and have a good night anyone reading this!

Canasta!

In case you were wondering, the best canasta hand to have is a natural Kings canasta. And the best poker hand is pocket queens.

Now you know...and knowing is half the battle!

I had a great time playing cards with some girlfriends tonight. My friends here have been really great about including me with their Richmond friends, and it's fun to meet new people. Daylight savings time is kicking my butt, though. Time for bed!

UNC 76, puke 68!!!!

Once again, we have spoiled Senior Night in Durham!!!!!!!!!!!!! And we did it without Tyler Hansborough taking a single free throw. Amazing. Ty Lawson was back in fighting form, and Danny Green came through again.

This means that we have wrapped up the regular-season ACC Championship and probably the #1 seed in the East for the NCAA tournament! We will finish the season at #1 in the polls which makes sense since we are, obviously, the best. (That might not be quite right. They might do another poll a week from Monday, in which case we would probably have to win the ACC tournament to stay #1. But since I have complete confidence in our ability to do just that, I'll stand by my statement)

Some notes from the night - I really, really, really, really can't stand Dookie V (Dick Vitale, for those of you uninitiated) I have to just turn the sound off so I can't hear him cheering for dook.

And, something I thought I would never, ever say....they profiled a Cameron Crazy from a few years back and I liked him. I'm embarrassed to admit this. They called him "Speedo Guy" and he jumped up out of the crowd wearing nothing but a Speedo and did the funniest dance. And now he's a preacher with this cute little blonde wife (she was in the segment, too - she was dating his brother at the time) And it made me laugh I couldn't help it. But, naturally, just when I thought they had done something actually funny Coach K told them it was unacceptable and not to do it again. That man really just does not have any redeeming qualities that I can find. I'll keep looking, though. Ok, that's not quite true. I'll keep trying to want to look. That's all I can do.

Here was my favorite non-basketball moment of the night: dookie V is raving about DeMarcus Nelson, Duke's senior star (since it was Senior Night) and showing his mom and going on and on about what a great job she did raising him and what a great kid he was. While he's talking, the camera is close up on Nelson's face, and he clearly says f#@%. The very next shot is of some guy trying to be "Speedo Guy" but he's not nearly as good and he flicks off the camera, for which the ESPN announcers have to apologize. Yep, dook sure is a classy place.

Halftime: UNC 42, dook 31

To say more would jinx it. Stay tuned....

Me, the Domestic Diva

I have had a pretty laid-back Saturday, since all four of my Richmond friends are out of town :) The good news, though, is that in addition to doing Sarah-like things- reading, napping, and watching basketball - I have also done some grown-up things - running errands (including FINALLY getting my pants hemmed and my glasses fixed), doing laundry, vacuuming, etc.

If I had something more exciting to report you know I would. Can you believe that nasty Coach K man had the NERVE to go on PTI yesterday and deny making the "unlike other teams, we don't publicize our injuries" comment?!?!?! I can find no shred of liking or compassion in my soul anywhere for that man. I'm trying, though...

GO HEELS!

Just so you know...

I'm not always a total b*@%!, although it may appear so from my posts yesterday. Today was better, and I do NOT feel the need to rant and rave so much.

Unfortunately, though, I may be getting sick which sucks.....

Psychologically UNstable

So I just went and had my pre-op "psychological evaluation". The stupid woman was SO disapproving and critical of me! I hated hated hated it!! She's probably going to tell my surgeon that I am an unfit candidate for surgery - despite the fact that he told me that had never happened before. I'll be the first.

I mean, really woman. I'm so fat I have to have surgery. Did you EXPECT my eating habits to be healthy? Thank you for telling me things that I already know, but making me feel about 3 inches tall in the process.

I hate my job!

Today at school (where I can't post because every good site is blocked), this is how I felt:

There are no words that can accurately capture the feeling of telling a child 10 times to turn the ruler around, only to have them unable to do it; asking a child to do something simple like “Go find a piece of tape you want to measure” and having them begin playing with their friends; asking a room full or children to clean up and having them totally ignore you; telling kids over and over and over and over and over again not to touch each other only to have them hit and push as soon as you finish talking or telling them to be quiet only to have them immediately start talking again. And when this is your day, constantly, all day, the kids are every single minute either asking you what you’re about to say or what you’ve just said, or tattling on someone else, or flat out running around doing whatever they darn well please.

I can’t even begin to explain how this class makes me feel. I want to cry every single day. I am completely at the end of my rope. They win. I quit.

UNC 90, Florida State 77

Typically, Florida St. hung with them for most of the first half before Carolina pulled away.

Ty Lawson's going to have to be better for us to keep winning. You can definitely tell - even without Billy-The-Idiot-Packer telling us - that he was not back up to 100%. We can overcome that when playing Florida St., but it's March, baby! Tournament time!

I LOVE winning on Senior Night. Surrey Wood got in and scored 4 points on 2/2 shooting! His parents were tearing up and SO cute! And Q definitely deserved all of his credit - I know that Tyler has been phenomenal, but we would not have survived the loss of Ty Lawson without Q stepping up from third string point guard to starter. And I love that Roy put them in again at the end and then pulled them out so they could get their standing ovations!

Off to watch The Office - that show rocks!!!



P.S. - Check out the top video of Abby on the right. It's only two seconds long and she says "uh-oh" - her first phrase! It's so incredibly cute!

I'm going granola!

So I went to the Center of Integrative Medicine today. They were the people referred to me (by my surgeon's office) for my pre-op nutritional counseling. I wasn't really sure what to expect. It turns out that it was a 3-month program that includes meeting with the doctor, a psychological exam, meetings with a "Life Coach", individual sessions and large group meetings with a nutritionist, an eating plan (NOT a diet!), and an exercise plan with personal training sessions each week.
Here are the positives:

• I get to work with all of those professionals together to help me figure out a plan that works for me.
• I'm getting a jump start on weight loss and lifestyle changes.
• They give you this heart rate monitor and special watch that monitors and records your heart rate - they download your personal training program into the watch and then when you come back they hook the watch back up to the computer to find out how you did. (Some have referred to it as a "tattletale watch") Really, that's just a cool little technology thing.
• My motivation for chosing the RNY surgery was, "If I'm going to do this, I'm going all the way" If I truly believe that, getting started with extra help now makes sense.
• I can stay with them after the surgery, even have the doctor there become my primary care doctor if I want to.
• The nutritionist I would be working with had gastric bypass surgery and has been very successful, so she's a great resource.
  

Here are the negatives:

• Money. Insurance pays for some of it, but it will end up costing around $1,000. I am NOT taking money from my parents for this - they have already paid for my gym membership and are paying for the surgery. It will take a full third of my savings (I know, my savings are pitiful) but I can do it. I can make it cost a little bit less by not doing the full exercise program, but really when we're already paying tens of thousands of dollars, is a few hundred worth worrying over?
• It requires a big-time commitment. Can I do it? Well, I better be able to b/c once I have the surgery I'm committed for sure!
• The whole practice is very yoga-natural remedy kind of crunchy and that's not really me. Give me artificial sweeteners and antibiotics any day! This will be more of an issue if I end up using them as my PCP, since I don't have one in Richmond yet.
• There's an issue with my psychological evaluation. I have one scheduled for tomorrow with someone else that has been pre-approved already, but the center would prefer that I do it with their psychologist, which makes sense. So I have to see if I can get my approval switched, blah blah blah.

So I came home, thought about it, looked into it a little bit more, prayed about it, and talked to my mom. I've decided to do it. I'm going to call in the morning and ask them what to do about the insurance thing for the psychological evaluation. I may have to pay a penalty for canceling at the last minute. I may tell them to reschedule it for a later date and then call to cancel several days out so I'm not canceling within 24 hours and incurring a possible penalty ;) So we'll see how that goes.

Watching the 'Heels right now. They're not looking good, but they're leading and they'll be able to pull this one out over Florida St. I'll update after the game. Something to look forward to!

Ah, beautiful baby headbands...

If you're one of those people who think that babies look cute with those elastic headbands with a bow, I apologize. But Kay put some on Abby and her baby doll today - wow. Is this a look or what? (She did not buy them, by the way - someone gave them to her when she was pregnant)




In other exciting news, Kay felt the new baby move today!

Communion

I attended Third Pres here in Richmond today - I haven't settled on a church to attend regularly yet. I really enjoyed the sermon today. It was about the Last Supper. Here's something I learned that I never knew before:

Traditionally at Passover (when the LS took place), the leader - usually the father - took the bread, broke it, and said some ceremonial words to the effect that it represented God's goodness and faithfulness in leading them out of the desert. He did the same thing with the cup of wine, talking about it being the fruit of the vine, and good gifts coming from God. So when Christ took it up and said, "This is my body, broken for you" and "This is my blood" he was really making a statement about the new covenant. The disciples would have been expecting to hear the traditional words, and instead Jesus talked about himself as the sacrifice. We no longer have the covenant that God had with Moses when he sent them manna in the wilderness, which involved keeping a lot of laws and animal sacrifice. The new covenant is that Christ was the one great sacrifice for all our sins, and his brokenness and death have covered us forever.

I loved that the pastor also tied it in to the fact that Jesus can not seriously be considered a "good man" or a "good teacher" - here he was clearly claiming divinity and his own power.

Nor sure if I will continue to go to Third or not - this finding a church thing is so hard! - but I did particularly enjoy that sermon. For communion, though, we had to tear off a bit of bread and dunk it in grape juice and that was gross. Not the point, I know but ugh! It also made me wonder - right after I have my WLS, will I be able to take communion? I know that bread is a big no-no because it gets stuck in the pouch. Hmmmmmm....

UNC 90, Boston College 80

It took my lucky hair ribbon and a phone call to my lucky sister for my TarHeels to come back from 18-points down. They had to overcome an amazing 46 points from Tyrese Rice (34 in the first half!) I am sure that Roy putting the blue team in and letting the starters have it - at the same time I put the hair ribbon in - had much less to do with it than the hair ribbon itself.

Also - welcome back, Ty Lawson!

We remain #1 in the conference and should be #1 in the country come Monday....one last home game against Fl. State on Tuesday and at Duke on Saturday and it's tournament time!

Welcome to my life!

I'm a little unsure about this whole blogging thing, so here's the plan - I'm going to start one and not tell anyone about it. Makes good sense, right? Well, maybe I'll end up telling people. We'll see.

To start with a scary fact about me - I am THIRTY years old. Yes, 30. That is a freakin' scary huge number for a fat single girl in a tiny apartment. Not so scary for a married woman with a house and a baby or two. But for me, yes. By the way, while I'm on the subject of my age, let me say this: I am really tired of people telling me that I'm still young and have plenty of time to have babies and most people are waiting until they're older now anyway. That's fine and dandy. I am happy for those people. I am fine with them deciding that they wanted to wait. It's just not how I wanted MY life to go. Oh, well. I suppose God has his own plan out there for me...I'm just working on finding it.

So speaking of God's plans for me...I've made a lot of major life changes recently. I up and quit my job teaching Kindergarten in Charlottesville and moved to Richmond, where I got another job teaching Kindergarten. So far, I love living in Richmond. Mostly because my best gal pal, Julie (yes, I know she would love being referred to that way), lives here along with her husband Jeff and my two other good friends Katie and Jon. So we hang out a lot and that's exciting. I love Richmond. Never thought I was such a city girl, but I love all the shops and restaurants and stuff. Maybe not all the traffic...

My job has not turned out to be quite as exciting as I hoped. I have definitely learned the Kindergarten is not the place I want to be. But luckily, I just finished my M.Ed. in reading so I have gotten a new job. Next year I will be a Title 1 reading teacher. I don't know where I'll be, but it won't be at my current school. (To be a Title 1 school, you have to qualify by having a large percentage of free and reduced lunch kids, and my school doesn't qualify) I will probably spend part of my time working with small groups of kids that are struggling with reading and the other part of my time helping teachers with ideas for teaching reading. I am SOOOOOOOO excited about this!!! It means I get to do my favorite part of my job - teaching reading - but not all the other stuff - behavior notes and looking for lost coats and lunch money and collecting field trip forms and conferences and the list goes on and on and on. It's REALLY hard to get through the rest of this year, but I'm spending a lot of time praying for a positive attitude about it.

Here's another major decision that I have recently made - I'm going to have RNY gastric bypass surgery this summer. This is a weight loss surgery that staples a small portion of my stomach off and bypasses some of my intestines to that even the small amount of food I'm able to eat doesn't all get absorbed. It's completely scary, mostly because I'm going to completely have to change the way I eat and be more serious about exercise. And if I cheat I get really sick. Here's where the whole process stands right now:

- My insurance does not have the necessary rider to cover the surgery, so I'm doing this self-pay. And by self-pay, I mean that my wonderful parents are paying for it. Deciding to accept this money from them was a HUGE obstacle in making this decision.

- I have gone to an orientation meeting, and met with my surgeon - Dr. Elliot of the Richmond Surgical Group. Another doctor in that group was actually recommended to me, but I ended up meeting with Dr. Elliot. He moved here recently from CA, but he performed WLS there as well and I have heard lots of good things. He's not particularly gregarious (big word!), but I think that he will be a good choice for me.

- On Tuesday, I'm going to another doctor to begin a nutrition program for the next 4 months leading up to the surgery. (I'm waiting until summer because you have to be out of work for up to 6 weeks, and as a teacher summer made more sense) They were recommended by Dr. Elliot's office and they said that they may be willing to take me on as my primary care doctor as well. That would be good, since they obviously work with WLS patients. However, in addition to being medical doctors they practice "holistic medicine" and I'm not sure how I feel about that so we'll see how it goes...

- On Wednesday, I'm having my psychological evaluation. *gulp* Who knows what they will say about me? ;)

I promise future posts will not be this long. I'm not even sure that my life will turn out to be interesting enough for a blog ;) OH WAIT.

I forgot to tell you the most important and exciting thing about me - I'm an aunt!!!! My sister, Kay (who rocks a lot) is Mom to this perfect, adorable, wonderful 13-month old girl named Abigail. Abby is absolutely my favorite person in the whole world. I love her SO MUCH! Unfortunately, my sister moved all the way to Charleston, SC which is really far away. I usually end up seeing her about once a month though b/c Kay is really good about coming here and letting us go there. AND Kay is having another baby in September! Abby is absolutely the focus of my whole family. You should see my parent's refrigerator - solid Abby pictures. She's been walking for a while now (I know, she's so gifted) and she just is on the move constantly. She's started saying "uh-oh!" when she drops things and imitating things that people do. She's amazing :) I'm including some current pictures because I can and I KNOW that everyone wants to see her!







And, for good measure I'll add one of my whole family as well, from this past Christmas



If you want to see videos of this cute baby, check out my youtube page: www.youtube.com/sarahruth23