My Blog Is Trying to Guess My Surgery

I realize I haven't been completely clear about what kind of surgery I had in December. It was a feminine surgery so yes, I was vague on purpose. Meanwhile my blogger ads have been desperately trying to guess what it was.

http://www.annetaintor.com/

The ads you see on the right hand side show up according to key words in my blog. So you've seen ads for catheters, surgeries gone bad, laproscopic surgery, sleeve vs. LapGastric and so on. The ads have actually been cracking me up. I always like to see what's shown up next and I arrow through the different ones. It will be interesting to see what will show up after today's post.

Speaking of my blog and how it tracks activity. I've mentioned before that according to Sitemeter my most popular post ever was the one about my favorite Nike quotes. That page gets more visits than whatever current blog is up. For example today alone, from what I can tell, out of 38 visits that I've had, 19 of them were from a Nike quotes search. Go ahead, do it. Go to Google and type in "Nike quotes" and see if ShoeGirl Corner comes up towards the very top.

I decided to take advantage of all the traffic that I get from this one page so I added a little introduction asking readers to bookmark my page and to come by to visit often. I even added a link to my skirt blog. I figured that if that many people come in through that page that I should use it as an ad for my blogs. So yes, now I'm pimping my Nike quotes blog.

Just in case you're wondering, the second most popular blog is Every Princess Deserves a Tea Party!  and third is Super Cool Stationary. Apparently a lot of people are planning princess parties and buying stationary, after finding the best Nike quotes to motivate them.

So now speaking of favorite quotes, I'll end with one of my favorite quotes, from Sam Phillips in Walk the Line.

"Bring... bring it home? All right, let's bring it home. If you was hit by a truck and you was lying out there in that gutter dying, and you had time to sing *one* song. Huh? One song that people would remember before you're dirt. One song that would let God know how you felt about your time here on Earth. One song that would sum you up. You tellin' me that's the song you'd sing? That same Jimmy Davis tune we hear on the radio all day, about your peace within, and how it's real, and how you're gonna shout it? Or... would you sing somethin' different. Somethin' real. Somethin' *you* felt. Cause I'm telling you right now, that's the kind of song people want to hear. That's the kind of song that truly saves people. It ain't got nothin to do with believin' in God, Mr. Cash. It has to do with believin' in yourself."

That's what I think about sometimes. What "song" would I sing? Not a literal song, but what would be the song of my life? I leave you with that thought.

The State of My Life Address

We are coming to the end of the first month of the year. How have we done? Well if you're asking me my answer is, "slow start!" It's not that I didn't try to do better. It's that I had surgery at the end of the year so I started the year working out a lot less than planned. But that's okay. I'm here now and I have my health and it feels like the surgery was successful. At least that's what my body is telling me.

http://www.annetaintor.com/

In two and a half weeks I'll be turning FORTY-ONE! I am well into my forties now. It's that time again! Time to review my Vision Board and to see where I'm at on my goals thus far. I still have a lot of work to do. It's time for my own "State of My Life Address."

I feel like I did something proactive by going to see a dietician last week. Now to just follow her advice. I can also start working out harder now and I can even start lifting light weights so the work outs can get back on schedule.

As I get older I think of my mother and my sister who I lost 11 and 16 years ago. At my age my mom had a two year old, me. She was thirty-nine when she had me and she was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, just like I was when I had my kids. She wasn't diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes until I was thirteen but she probably had it for a long time. I think about that when I start gaining weight again. I think of the consequences and I ask myself why, if I have even more knowledge about this disease than my mother had, why is a healthy diet and exercise still such a challenge?

I've talked about my allergy to shell fish on here many times. I was just telling my two co-workers about it yesterday and how extremely allergic I am, to the point that I started having a reaction at the allergist's when I was tested. Here is a question I have posed before. I know I am very allergic to shellfish so I stay away from it completely. WHY don't I stay away from sugar and carbs with the same intensity? I need to add that to my vision board. A picture of a shrimp = to carbs. Both can kill me eventually.

The reason I think about my sister too is because she was 41 when she was diagnosed with cancer. I'm that age now and it's weird to think that. I can't even imagine what I would do if it happened to me. When I was younger I used to say I would never put myself through the treatment and prolong the inevitable. That was before I had kids. Now I realize I would do things completely different. Funny how your point of view can change like that when you have children.

I think about my sister and I wonder what was going through her mind all those months in a bed. She had neurolgical damage and she couldn't speak or walk for most of the time before she passed away. What was left unsaid? What was left undone? What dreams did she wish she had achieved?

What dreams do I still have? What do I want to achieve? I'm at a good point in my life to ask those questions and to figure out the answers.

So Then I Ripped Off My Stitches...

I started off the year pretty slow and I have only blogged once this year so far. Terrible! But in my defense I've had a lot going on. I've had a lot of personal and professional challenges going on at the exact same time and that always seems to happen. Yes, like two things at the same time. Life has a way of doing that and as much as I said that I was going to rebuke all the bad things from 2010 they've somehow tried to sneak their way into 2011.

http://www.annetaintor.com/

So once again, I refuse to have the same year that I had last year. I have a vision board and a vision this year and a plan! By the way, my vision board was featured on Rosie Molinary's blog. She's the author of Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self Acceptance. I haven't read the book yet but have been meaning to get it. I wonder if there's a Kindle version.

As many of you know from my previous blogs I had surgery on December 27. That went pretty well and I went in for my two week check up on January 10. I thought the doctor was going to do a thorough check up, if you get what I mean. In other words, I thought he was going to check where he did the surgery. As it turns out, all he wanted was a urine sample and to talk to me for five minutes. The more detailed check-up was in another month.

I took the opportunity to ask him, "What in the world did y'all do to me? My legs were so sore and I had these two weird welts on the inside of my legs with blood on them, like you all put tape there and it ripped my skin."

He looked at me perplexed and said, "Those were your stitches. It was glue!"

"What?!" I asked even more confused, "Oh...." 

He thought that he had explained that part but I swear I don't remember ever hearing him say that they were making any incisions on the inside of my thighs and that there would be glue stitches there. And I in turn didn't tell him that I promptly ripped that "glue" off either the day of surgery or the very next day. I mean, the nurse didn't even tell me to be careful or that when I showered I would have glue/stitches there. Great! I may have just detached what was connected on the other side of those incisions. Hopefully not...because I can't afford to have surgery all over again to fix it.

Then I got curious and I decided to You Tube the surgery I had and I almost wish I hadn't. OR I should have watched the animated version instead of the live person one. I just kept thinking, "Ugh! They did that to me!" Not a good idea. So my advice here is, never You Tube your surgery, before or after you have it. Especially not before because then you may not even have the surgery, any surgery, I'm not just talking about mine.

That was a great way to start off the year! Ripped stitches, less writing, and less exercise. Oh yeah, I forgot that part. I actually went back to exercising a week after the surgery like the doctor said I could, but I overdid it a bit, so I had to take the second week off. When I told the doctor about the pulling that I felt after I went to the gym he said I should take it easier and listen to my body.  I went back on the third week a couple of times but I feel like it was minimal compared to what I had been doing before the surgery.

Tomorrow I hit the four week mark so I can go back to running if I wanted to. However I probably can't because I'm going to have to build myself back up to it. I'll probably do the 60 seconds of running and 90 seconds (or more) of walking alternating back and forth. I'm actually looking forward to getting back on track.

I also took a big step and went to see a dietician at the True Results clinic. One thing that always surprised me when I got the lap band a few years ago was that they never scheduled an appointment with a dietician. I thought that was really weird and when I asked to speak to someone they had me speak to their patient liaison that I'm sorry to say doesn't seem to have any real training or licensing. When she told me that she never used weights to work out because she didn't want to "bulk up" it was hard for me to take anything she said seriously.

This time I met with a real dietician and we had a good little visit. I didn't think she was the best dietician visit I have ever had, but it was okay. She gave me some specific advice for a lap band patient and I am going to work on following all of her suggestions. In a nutshell I'm getting a kid's size plate that has the different sections for the different food groups. I have to eat the most protein and I have to eat it first. Then I eat my vegetables and my carbs last. I am cutting out vodka and cranberry juice first and I'm going to try to drink more wine. She said if I must drink I should drink wine so I'm going to try that. If I just make those small changes to my diet, there was a lot more detail of course, she said I will definitely see a difference in my weight loss.

Today I'm about to get a much needed massage. I had a really bad pain in my upper back early in the week and it isn't as bad any more, but I feel like I should address it any way before it comes back. I think it may be my lap top too. I need to get one of those rolling suitcases so I won't have to carry it. I'm already too short and too top heavy. I don't need that added weight.

Other than that I've had sick children for the past few days. My daughter was sick on Thursday evening and my son has been sick since he got back from school on Friday. He's still congested but he's been running fever at night. I need to keep on top of it today so he won't run fever tonight. The challenges of motherhood!

The first month of the year is over and we are really on our way into 2011. Let's see what this week will bring! I have my back-up plan ready.

A Whole New Meaning to the Term, Working Mom

I sell advertising. Basically that's what I do and when I come across an opportunity I will take it. Very rarely do I have my children with me and that's just what happened to me on Friday.

Image by http://www.thespeciallife.com/

I had promised my kids that we would check out the new ice cream shop across the street from their school. So Friday after work I picked them up we headed over to the shop to get some ice cream.

While ordering some ice cream for the kids I made conversation with the teenagers that worked there. I asked if the shop was corporate owned or a franchise. They told me it was a franchise and that the owner was local, even living nearby. I pulled out a business card and asked them if they could pass it along to him. When I did that they told me he was right there and pointed to a young looking guy. I introduced myself and gave him my card. I asked him if I could leave some information after I ordered my ice cream and he said sure.

After ordering my ice cream I went back out to my SUV to get the information I had promised. When I handed it to the owner he started asking me questions and I found myself explaining how our insert program works. Meanwhile my kids are eating their ice cream and they would interrupt me every so often. The owner would smile, because he knew of course that this wasn't your typical sales call, since I had kids with me and of course kids are his biggest customers.

Then my son had to be the biggest drama king of all. He dropped his ice cream in the trash before finishing it. All he had left was the cone with the ice cream up to the top of that. He'd already eaten both his scoops. Well he cried so hard, big tears and all, that the guy fell sorry for him and gave him a whole new ice cream, two new scoops and all.

Talk about working with children! It was all pretty hilarious. And no, I didn't get the sale there and then. He's doing something at the corporate level right now and won't be on his own for advertising until the spring. He told me to get back with him later so he's a good prospect for either me if I'm still selling then or for someone else.

This is my first blog post of the year. The year has started off really interesting so far. I decided over vacation that I was not going to have the same year I had in 2010. I am determined to make 2011 a better year and I am going to be very proactive to make sure it is. No more sitting on the sidelines waiting for good things to happen.

Or as Garth Brooks would say.

"So don't you sit upon the shoreline
And say you're satisfied
Choose to chance the rapids
And dare to dance that tide"

I rebuke all the bad things that have happened to me lately and 2011 is going to be a better year for me spiritually, financially, professionally, personally and in my writing life. I will dare to dance that tide.