Tuesday after an interesting day...

Well, I say it's been an interesting day, but don't get your hopes up too high, it was only a little bit interesting, a teeny tiny bit interesting in a very minimalistic way.

I woke up two minutes before 9 am when the alarm clock was set to go off, so that was good timing on my part and left me with an hour to wake up and make cigarettes while I drank coffee and smoked some. Then I got in a rush and got dressed and made up and walked the dog and medicated him and then, to make it really exciting, I had some more coffee, al the while looking at the clock to see how close I could cut it.

I got to therapy with five minutes to spare, but got me an espresso anyway and had that out on the deck where everybody else was congregating, because the weather was super nice. That made everybody late for their therapies, but what the heck, when the sun shines, it is hard to get us inside. Especially as I was standing in the dappled shade, which was very pleasant and is cast by a very tall birch tree.

I got my doodle out and some new paper and measured off an new rectangle with a border around it and lots of people kept saying how much they liked the one I did, making me feel a tiny bit bashful, but only a tiny bit. I like praise just as much as the next person.

This time I'm making my doodle right side up, I mean standing up on its short side and I'm letting some of the drawing stick out over the border, so it is not completely contained. It's going quickly this time, because I know what I'm doing, which is make a series of three similar doodles that I will hang up together over my bed.

I found a thicker black marker to fill in the darker areas, which is saving me some work. I was messing around with that thin black pen and it was very frustrating to color anything black.

Soon enough, it was time for our break and we spend our time either on the deck or in the break room, depending on what we have to discuss with each other. Sometimes we don't want the whole world to listen in and we separate ourselves from the crowd. We do that when we have serious discussions about what goes on in the group.

I asked to speak to the ergo therapist and was able to have a short discussion with her by ourselves. I unloaded myself about the past Wednesday and all the things that had bothered me about that one particular person in the group and I was the second person to do so, but we're not the only ones walking around with pent up feelings. Now we'll have to wait and see where the ship runs ashore.

The second half of creative therapy went fine. A huge amount of quiet always hangs in the room as everyone works on their project. We hardly speak and it is very pleasant to sit there in solitude and do your work. The time goes by very quickly, though, and before you know it, it is time to clean up.

When I got home, I called a florist in my home town to order a bouquet of flowers for my older sister whose birthday it is Friday. Then I walked the dog and payed a bill and saw that my bank balance is quickly dwindling, because my rent payment had been withdrawn. I am still waiting for my annual vacation money, because I have a big bill to pay and I can't pay it until the money gets here. I'll have to call about it tomorrow.

I also called for my gastric band. The obesitas specialist who has been taking care of me, has moved to a different hospital in another town and I tried to make an appointment with his replacement. It turns out that they don't really have a replacement for him yet, but that several surgeons are taking his place and since I'm calling about getting my gastric band filled, possibly, one of the surgeons is going to do a telephone consultation with me Thursday next week and set up an appointment to get the gastric band filled.

I've been drinking multi vitamin juice and warm low fat milk and eating raisin bread and I've lost two kilos since I've started complaining about my weight. That's something anyway. I want to loose a lot more before the phone call. I've got a good week left and a good goal. I think I can manage that. If I want to reach my end weight, I have to loose 12 kilos. That doesn't sound like such an unsurmountable task.

Which means that I will be talking about my weight a lot in this blog, like I did in the beginning when I first had my gastric band. I know that gets tedious, but it really helped me to make my progress public and I have been silent about it long enough out of shame. I now weigh 97.7 kilos and what I want to weigh is 85 kilos. At least, that's what the obesitas specialist said that I should realistically aim for. That would make me an American size 14, or a Dutch size 44, and I think that's not bad.

I was supposed to go grocery shopping today, but in the end I didn't have the energy or the wherewithal to go. I don't like to go shopping at the end of the day when I'm tired and not at my best. We'll have to make do with what's in the cupboards and the refrigerator. A little bit of imagination goes a long way.

It's amazing how quickly your stomach gets used to eating smaller amounts of food. Here I was stuffing myself with bowls of porridge and now I've done none of that for a number of days and I don't get that hungry feeling like I did before. A glass of juice or warm milk is very satisfying and gets me over that - 'wanting to have something good feeling.'

So, I've snapped out of the - 'stuffing my face period' and all because I went public with it on this blog. If you own up to things to your friends, you suddenly get a lot of common sense. It's when you do things secretly, that they hurt you the most.

It's been a warm sunny day with temperatures well into the 20's. You all know how to convert by now, don't you? Tomorrow it is going to be much colder and cloudy and I'll need to wear warmer clothes. I'll have to have a good look in my closet in a while to see what I can conjure up. I think I'll wear gray leggings and a black and white and gray summer dress with a long sleeved gray stretch T-shirt underneath and some interesting necklaces. I always count on my necklaces to finish the outfit. Boots or no boots? Mmm...

Well, that's all I wrote. I think it's enough. You can see my frame of mind is well enough today, so we'll compare it to tomorrow at 6 pm then. I'll probably be all beat up again, but I'll sleep well. Not that I'm not doing that now, of course.

Have a wonderful evening and I hope you all feel good inside your bodies, whatever shape they're in.

Ciao...