Humor In The Moment

I was thinking today about how easy it is to take life too seriously.  How I can worry about what others will think and fear making a mistake. The times that I remember the most are those moments when the guards were down and I was completely in the moment.

The next series of posts will have the label "humor in the moment", as I share these stories if you click on that label they will all come up for you.

How Can I Embarrass Myself, Let Me Count The Ways

It is said that the lowest form of humor is the pun.  However, I cannot help myself, I love word play.  There is one caveat though, you should think before you speak (that was directed at myself).

Today I was speaking with a customer (who fortunately knows me and knows my sense of humor), we were discussing a bill that he had and how to convert his consumption from hundred cubic feet to gallons.  He started to try and make the conversion verbally with great difficulty, (it was a very large consumption with a tiered rate).  I said "hold on, let me get the calculator or Ill have to take off more than my shoes to figure this out!"   As I thought about what I had said, the customer only replied "Oh?"  My face flushed I said, "I only have 10 fingers and 10 toes, anything over 20 gets figured out on the calculator is what I meant."

The Little Elevator That Wouldn't/The Person That Will

Yesterday was quite interesting, actually it started Sunday night when I found out the elevator in my apartment building wasn't working.  This is not a good thing as stairs and I are not friends.  If you didn't notice from the photo, I don't walk and having someone take me up or down stairs in my wheelchair is not an option.  First of all I am way too heavy and I would be afraid of hurting whoever was trying to help me and secondly I am terrified of falling and getting hurt myself.  I don't live on a ground floor because I like the ability to look out my window at any time of the day or night and be relatively sure that there won't be anyone staring back at me.

So, yesterday as I waited for the elevator repairman to complete the repairs, I called into work and took a vacation day.  All set to work on this blog, I pulled up to the computer and......fell asleep.  Sheesh!!!!
I think that learning all this new fangeld stuff is a bit daunting, so I may have to take some baby steps.  I hope you will hang in there with me and be inspired to start whatever project or journey you would like to take, no matter how huge it seems.

The first thing I will do with this blog is to make an entry a day, because  "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step".  I believe that, as with learning anything new, being consistent will be the key to success.  As I progress, the vision of my book will emerge, and I will be adding photos and content regarding the weight loss journey.  Thanks for joining me!

Oh yes, so what do the elevator and the person have to do with each other?  Both, with a little bit of care and encouragement will get going and get where they're going.

My Family and I

What an incredible day Mother's Day was, I got to spend time with my family.  It gives me great joy to be around them and to hear about their lives and to see them loving and respecting each other and the love and respect they show me.

Ok, so that is my mommy version.  I can see the eye balls "rollin" in the back of 5 little faces when they read this.  But all the teasing that goes on shows me that there is enough love and trust to do that.  By all that laughing that goes on when we're together shows me that we accept each other just as we are.  With all the stories that we have to share shows me that we are interesting people with interesting lives.  For all of this and more I am so grateful!!!

Thank you family!!!

A Weight Loss Story

Hayden House of Healing

I had been hiding behind my computer, playing "World of Warcraft", stuffing my face with fast food wondering "what difference will it make to anyone if my character makes level 80?"

Anyone who knows me at all knows that this is just not me. Prior to my incredibly fat life, I worked full time, enjoyed time with my family and friends, auditioned for local theater and performed on stage. While I was hiding I just worked and ate and played..7 days a week. It was getting to the point where I was having difficulties taking care of myself. Getting dressed was a challenge let alone personal care and activities of daily living. I was very scared, I was afraid that I would have to go to a nursing home.

I had tried dealing with my weight before. When I went to the doctor the best he could offer was, "you need a bigger wheelchair". A sense of false bravado came over me as I replied "no, I need a smaller ass and you need to help me." As cheeky and confident as that may sound, this response left me despondent. I had tried the health clubs (I will post the pictures and articles as soon as I get them scanned in). Yep, that was supposed to be me, "FULLY ALIVE IN 2005" the headline read. I had been working out at a local gym, nothing was really very wheelchair friendly so it took a bit of doing to get in and out of the pool and hot tub and transfer onto the work stations. So much so that I blew my shoulder out. This put me in a lot of pain so I had to stop working out for a bit.

Pain seems to be a big trigger for me to eat. Probably because I wasn't sleeping well, I would use food to wake me up and food to put me to sleep. The newspaper was supposed to follow me good, bad and ugly. The idea was to create "reality news entries" so therefore the outcome was not a given and if it didn't go as planned the original idea was to follow the journey, detours and all to a final successful outcome. After the first week when I didn't loose weight, the story was dropped. The editors wanted a success story and mine did not appear to be working out that way.

The Mom Song with lyrics

Mother's Day is a mere few hours away and I am sure my kids remember some of these however, no ipods when they were small and no texting either. I am so very lucky to have 3 grown children who have lived through all these momisims and some of mine, and they still seem to like me!

"You need 13 hugs a day to be healthy"
"I could not have possibly farted! Mom's don't pass gas, it is right here in the Official Mother's Manual"
"You got to stand for something or you will fall for anything"
"If you want to soar with eagles don't hang out with turkeys"
"I brought you into this world....."