HO HO HO Back to work I go.

Well, today is my last day of Winter Break and with the surgery I have been off for 3 weeks. Dave has been off the entire month of December and will be going back to work tomorrow too. We have had the best time together, well at least I have. He might not be saying that since he is the one that did the entire honey do list over the break. We got so much done though. Notice I said "we". I tried to help a lot but probably was not worth a darn.

I have never been so ready to get back to working out in all my life. I feel like such a blob. I have one more week to go so I am really getting anxious. I know I will not be able to go in there and start back where I left off, no way. I still have some pain just vacuuming . We spent the evening with friends, there were 14 of us and they are all teacher friends. My friend Janet who had her gallbladder out last year says it was a piece of cake and she was back to work in a day or two. I was out 5 days with it and she has 15 yrs on me and a little over weight and out of shape so WTH? This has been harder for me than I ever thought it would be. I thought I would be back in the gym in a week or two, HA, no way!I feel like such a wuss.

I will let you know how the workouts turn out. I am suppose to be getting new workouts and diet from Mike this week. I go back to the doc this week and I have to get my tooth drilled on tomorrow and HO,HO,HO back to reality I go.

Sometimes I feel like such a scrooge!

I know I suck! I said NO to Mexico but you guys do not understand, I look like I was about 4 months pregnant at least! I am so much better now but still have bandages on my stomach. I so would not have had a good time but after this blizzard we got over the holidays I think I should have said YES! I was stuck in the house for 2 days straight. I cooked a ton of food for my family and they all had to cancel. Nobody could get out on the roads, all interstates were shut down and the airport. It was awful and we are not used to that here at all. We got 14" of snow which never happens. I walked outside and it was just about to my knees in some places, super high drifts from the 50 mph winds.




I have about 2 more weeks and then I can begin my workouts again, I can hardly wait! I feel like such a big blob but I have been hitting the cardio a little heavy. So far my plans are, a April show, a May show and a June show if I can talk hubs into all three with 2 of them being out of state so the expenses are pretty high and since this is just my hobby I have to put my lower lip out a little further so he will go for it.

Here is my island, not sure if you can tell but it is gigantic and I love it. I have room to do everything on it. We put a flat screen tv on the wall in front of it so when I am home alone and cooking at least I can watch tv while I do it. I can also watch my favorite cooking shows while I am in the kitchen. I spend a lot of time in this room so I wanted it to be perfect for me. I was in for a rude awakening when it came to buying the hardware for my drawers and cabinets. I am going to have to spend about $350 more just for the hardware. The drawers are so large that it will take at least a 12" drawer pull and those sucks are not cheap! UGH! I may have to just buy one at a time at that price. So, there is no hardware on it yet so it looks kind of plane but you get the idea.

Getting back to normal

Well it has been 12 days since surgery and it has been a slow process. Everyday is a little bit better with the first couple of days being the worst. At least now it does not hurt to sneeze. My weight is all over the place within 5-6 lbs depending on what day of the week it is. I am still really bloated and I have read a lot about this and it is due to them having to fill your abdominal cavity with gas to do the surgery. It has really messed with me mentally though because I am used to having a very flat tummy and now I look like I am about 4 mths pregnant. I cannot button any of my clothes, it is just too tight in the waist. I started back doing cardio yesterday and made it 35 minutes before starting to hurt a little so I called it quits. Today I made it to 40 min so I am slowly getting back into it but still have two weeks to go until a weight workout and then I am sure I will have to ease back into that.

Dave actually wanted to take a little weekend trip to Mexico over the holidays and I said, hell to the NO! I would never put on a swimsuit in this condition, I mean I still have bandages all over my tummy much less looking pregnant, I nearly fainted when he suggested it. He took the whole month of December off so he has been a great help around the house. He does a good part of the cleaning like vacuuming and stuff that I cannot do right now. He has done so much around the house and I am loving it.

My kitchen is done other than getting hardware for the cabinets and drawers,don't even get me started on that. It is not as easy as it sounds. I wanted to post pics but my battery is dead on my camera and I left my charger at school so either I go buy another charger or just wait until I go back after the first of the year but either way I will post pics soon. I love, love, love the kitchen!

Thanks to all of you for the cards and emails while I was recovering! It really did cheer me up on those long days:)

Recovery

Well, apparently that little thing called a gallbladder can really make you feel like poo. Who knew that little organ could do so much? It has been 3 days since surgery and I am slowly getting around. This was not as easy of a surgery that I thought it would be. I can tell you I sleep like a baby now, 12 hrs last night. I am ready to be 100% and get back into my routine. I am super bloated and can only eat soft things like egg whites. I am ready for some real food. I did not tell a lot of people about this surgery including my dad. Yes, I did not want him to worry so I just didn't tell him. I know that is bad but I just did not want all the fuss. My mom is not all fussy like that. Anyway, I am hoping that my life will be back to normal soon. The leg pain is gone. It was the worst bone pain I have ever felt in my life. It was kind of like growing pains but 100 x worse. My doctor said that was a first for her. She had never heard of leg pain with gallbladder disease. It even hurt down into my feet. I pretty much hurt all over. So I guess I can go down in history as having leg pain. I knew if I woke up and the leg pain was still there that there was something terribly wrong. I was so relieved for it to be gone!

My kitchen has been a wreck! They delivered the island and it is beautiful! The granite top is suppose to be here hopefully by the end of the week. I hope so since we are doing our annual cookie baking this weekend. The island is 4 x 8 and it even has a plate rack where you can slide all your dinner plates in and huge deep drawers and tons of cabinet space. Just the top alone is over 6oo lbs! I still have my old smaller island in the corner of the kitchen. I cannot lift anything so I have to wait until my brother can pick it up this weekend. I had to order new bar stools because the new island is taller. I ordered them off overstock.com and got a super deal. I love that place. I will post pics if I ever get my kitchen back to normal.

Surgery!

I have not had a chance to update but since my last post a lot has happened. I found out that my gallbladder is only working at 8% and has to come out. I have been miserable but still managed to get in 2 cardio sessions this week, HA,I will teach that gallbladder to mess with me, JK. I am really bummed because my workouts have suffered. I am a little concerned with the pain though, the leg pain is unbearable. It sometimes shoots down into my feet and I have even had a terrible pain in my left arm that radiates down into my hand. It is the worse pain ever. Behind my right knee feels like someone is stabbing me. I am assuming this is all gallbladder related. It has gone from bad to worse in just a few days. I met with the surgeon today and it is coming out first thing in the morning. Wish me luck! I will be back with a vengeance soon. Hopefully recovery will only be 2-3 weeks and I will be back at it.

Feeling the need to post

I have been so busy lately but thought I would at least post something so you guys will know I have not fallen off the face of the earth. I am off for the next 5 days and really in need of a break.

Workouts are great and my eating has been really good for off season. I am sticking to my plan and it makes a huge difference. I am having some issues with my stomach though, pretty sure it is gallbladder. I went to the doctor and he made me come back the next morning for an ultra-sound. It scared me a bit considering I had a big time gallbladder attack a few weeks back. It is not fun let me tell you. It brought me to my knees and I could not move. All this after eating a handful of mixed nuts. I so will not be touching those again for awhile. I should find out the results of the US on Friday, Monday at the latest.

By the time I get up at 4am and do my cardio then eat and then train, head to work, work all day and then come home, eat and go to bed at the same time most seniors are going to bed, I feel like I have no evening and no life. Oh well, I choose to do it and I am happy but sometimes I could use a break from it all.

Vacation was suppose to be over Winter Break but probably will not happen. I have had to dip into my vacation funds for some unexpected expenses like,$800 to fix my car, my island is still not finished but should be within a week and I have to pay for the other half of that bad boy (gulp!). To top it off I went to the dentist for my regular cleaning only to find out that I have a freaking cavity, how do you get a cavity by eating chicken and spinach? I mean really? I thought he was just joking because my tooth was not even hurting. I think he put a hex on me because low and behold that little sucker started hurting the next day. I will be getting that done in about a week. My part for that is $400 after insurance. I have had so many expenses this month! It is enough to make you scream, enough already! Tis the season to spend:)

Good times and Fitness

Hi to all my blog friends. I swear I always think I am gonna have time to sit and blog again and then I get busy and I mean really busy and never get to do it. I miss summer when time was so very unimportant. I really need a couple of extra hours in my day just to get it all done some days. Hope all of you are doing fantastic. Oh and things have changed since my last post. We ended up backing out of building the new house. It seems our house has gone down in value and we are just not willing to sell it for as little as it is worth right now. I do love my house that I am in but my step dad who is a builder had offered to build us a house on a little more property. My house is only 3 years old but I decided to change some things in my kitchen. I yanked the bar out and am having a big island custom made for my kitchen. I went and picked out the top for it this morning and whoa! that crap is dang expensive. Instead of granite we got Sile stone which is the next best thing but no maintenance like there is with granite and the color is beautiful. I will post picks when it is all finished.

Halloween was great! We always have Halloween Bunco and I have never laughed so hard in all my life. My abs and my jaws were so sore. My best friend who is super fit and young dressed up like a little old lady with blue hair a big butt and saggy boobs. When she walked in I lost it. Then the crazy one in our group dressed up as a Wal-Mart shopper who had bad teeth, dippling butt and had a baby pinned to her boob. I lost it after that. Here are a few pics. Sorry if you have already seen these on FB or Co-Diva team.




On the Fitness front. Lets just say I rock! I have done so well with my eating since my June comp. I have not gone over the 10 lb mark and I am feeling pretty darn lean these days. No missed workouts ever! I just don't miss them. I have stayed pretty healthy even being around all the kids too. I am sure it is the healthy diet and the glutamine helps too. I am still using Mike Davies as my trainer and probably always will. I so wish he lived in my area so I could train with him in person. I really feel like I have put on some good muscle but know that if he was standing over me I would probably dig a little deeper because that is just what we do when a trainer stands over us plus a spotter would be nice. Just so you know, I am so over food. I do not want to put bad food in my body and love how I feel when I don't. I think I am finally where I want to be mentally and I am very, very close to where I want to be physically other than some fine tuning. It has taken me a very, very long time to get to this point but it makes me smile to be able to say that. I am planning on competing again even though I have waffled on not doing it. I have pretty much made up my mind for the Liberty show again in April. It is all going to depend on our vacation which we will put on hold if I compete.