HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY, MOM!

Today’s post is about my mom. In 4 days she will be 81 years young. I thank God every single day that she is still here, because even at 48 I still need my mom… A LOT!!

She’s healthy, she eats well and she exercises. This is a picture taken in 1979. My mom was 48, the same age as me… Hot Momma!

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My older sis, Roni is on the far left and my little sis, Nannette, is on the right.

I could write a 10,000 word essay on my mom, but I’m simply going to say this… You’re a fantastic mom! Being the Girl Scout leader, softball coach, Rainbow Girl Mother Advisor, biggest supporter and cheerleader have framed my life. And I am thankful that of all the mothers that God could have placed me with… He placed me with you… Lucky ME!!

Love you, Momma… Happy Mother’s Day

Why I Love WordPress

Just a quick note about my account suspension on Thursday.

Just 2 hours before my surgery on Thursday I got a message from my friend Mary saying she got an error message when she tried to read my blog. I told her to reboot her computer, LOL 😀

Ten minutes later another midwife friend, Lynne, posted on my FB wall that there was a problem with my blog.
So I go to my home page and I’d been suspended for a terms of service violation. What!?! My heart sank, I can’t deal with this! I’m having surgery in 2 hours 😦

I press the link to send a message to find out what happened and how I violated the TOS. I told them I’d do whatever they asked to rectify the situation.

WordPress responded to me in LESS THAN 30 minutes! They apologized for the inconvenience and unsuspended account. They thought there was some type of spam.

I did my homework before starting a blog. I checked all of the options out. I have to say I am SO happy I chose WordPress for sharing my life journey!

Thanks for the excellent and fast customer service, WP!

Back in Hangzhou – Feeling like I’ve been beaten!

Got back around 11 p.m. last night. Feeling like I was hit by a Mack truck. Amazing how much elective surgery can hurt. I am loving my compression garments.. for the most part. I think the sorest part on me is the back… funny that, since that is where the LEAST amount of fat was!

I am still not quite up to a full post. I will work on that tonight! I hope all is well. I’m up, mobile and taking my pain meds every 4 hours.

Ciao!

Quick Update

Thursday was a fasting day because of surgery.

I survived. I wasn’t scared at all. Kitty was amazing! They sucked just over 2000 mL of fat out of me. My knees don’t touch anymore and that makes me happy.

I feel like I’ve been beaten with a baseball bat. I’m sore as hell! Checking out of hospital in 30 minutes for 4 hour train ride back to Hangzhou.

I will type up a full report, with some pics, tomorrow. Thanks for all the well wishes, you all are awesome!

One pic. Me at 4 am looking for a nurse to take the catheter out. Found a syringe and did it myself 🙂 Healthcare practitioners make the worse patients 🙂
Wearing my very sexy compression garment.

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Dukan – Day 265 – Nip and Tuck

Wednesday was a PV Day 🙂

Yesterday’s weight: 74.2 kg
Today’s weight: 73.6 kg/161.92 lb

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Wednesday started out with a 30 minute run at 5 am, then shower and then picked up by driver at 615 for the train station. 4 hour train ride to Wenzhou. I spent the time doing diet coaching via email, this is what Kitty did:

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Checked into hotel and went for final consult with the plastic surgery docs. Then an afternoon rest before dinner out with some interesting folks. I had duck tongue again. It’s actually quite tasty 🙂

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This was towards the end of the meal.

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I have no idea how I lost weight from yesterday. I ate and ate last night (Dukan approved, but a lot!) and I had a couple of glasses of wine (not Dukan approved!). Anyhoo, I did and that makes me happy. I’m less than 7 pounds from my goal of 155 and they’ll suck some of that out today in surgery 😀
So, wish me luck friends! Kitty will guest post later today with an update. Surgery T-2 hrs and counting!

Ciao!

You Have To Change It Up!

This quote from a fellow blogger MJ really stuck out to me this morning. I will blog more on this later. It’s funny, because I was thinking about this very thing on my walk to work this morning…

Dukan – Day 260 – West Lake Hike

Friday was a PP Day 🙂

Daily Weight Loss: +0.2 lb/0.10 kg
Total Weight Loss: 91.8 lb/41.71 kg
Stubborn last 10 pounds… LOL

I have Friday’s off and typically try to get out of the house early. I got out the door about 845, which is late for me, given that I’m up before 6. The sun is up very early here, around 530 a.m., and I’m a “be awake while the sun is up” kinda girl!

I took the city bus and finally found West Lake (by bus, that is… I’ve been there many times by taxi). My plan was to map out a running track for a guest blog post that I’m doing in July over at A Good Run.

I ended up meandering through some beautiful pathways, not really running safe, though. Which was fine. Because after the week I’ve had, I needed some serenity and I got it! You’ll see that in the pictures below.

After about a one hour walk, I found a Starbucks I didn’t know about, tucked in the trees next to the lake! I wasn’t planning on stopping there, my plan had been to hike about another 1/2 mile to the NE tip of the lake and have a coffee at that Starbucks. But I was drawn by the veranda overhanging the lake, so in I went.

Ordered a Venti Iced Latte w/Skim and headed up the winding stairs to the balcony. As I approached I noticed 3 local people sitting out there. As I opened the door an older man says, with a huge smile on his face, “We’ve been waiting for you all morning!”. At first I was surprised at his English, but managed to say immediately, “Well I’m glad you saved a seat for me!”.

It is challenging, dear readers, to live in a country where you do not know the language and a good deal of the people don’t know yours. I have what I call “China Moments”… not said in a positive light, LOL. But this was a wonderful China Moment. We sat and chatted, the 4 of us, for over an hour. The older man was quite a character, teasing us. What was amazing is that no one knew each other before walking on that balcony!

I needed that moment and God and the universe knew that. I really, really needed it. Funny how things work like that 🙂

Here’s a sampling of the beauty I saw along the way…

Sign at the head of the trail.

There are temples and gardens and even huts that you can rent for the night.

View over the “Little” lake. There are 2 lakes with walking causeway between them.

Stone bridge that crosses one of the many brooks that run through the park.

Cute little guy!

Gorgeous sculpture!

In her hands…

Quiet & easy to meditate in these gardens.

Been here 8 months… this is the first squirrel I’ve seen 🙂

Friends

Walking bridge over the connecting between the “little” lake and the “big” lake.

Path along the “big” lake… sorry for the finger in the shot… using my iPhone 🙂

View from the balcony at Starbucks.

One last pond as I exit the West Lake walk.

My route.

After finishing my walk, I took the bus to Kira’s to hang for a while… okay, well for a long time, LOL. But worth it. She’s moving back to the States on Wednesday and I’m going to miss her and Soren and Dan and Helena… a lot. I won’t miss their cat, Brooklyn, AKA “Tits”, because he’s moving in with me. I’ll have a wee piece of them here with me as a remembrance 🙂

Breakfast: 2 egg omelet with onions & garlic (I know, don’t fall off your chairs… ALERT! Sandi didn’t have tea eggs for brekkies!) Thanks for the idea Mel 🙂
Lunch: 2 tea eggs and 2 ounces of Edam
Dinner: 1/2 broiled chicken and grilled onions
Snack: pot of FF yogurt with bran and Splenda

Exercise:
2.76 mile walk along West Lake in morning
3.38 mile walk home from Kira’s in the evening

Ciao!

Dukan – Day 257 & Liebster Award

Tuesday was a PP Day 🙂

Daily Weight Loss: 0.4 lb/0.2 kg
Total Weight Loss: 91.8 lbs/41.71 kgs
**yesterday’s daily weight loss should have been 0.7 lbs, not 1 lb… I must have put transposed the numbers, so if anyone is following that, there has been an adjustment 🙂

Tuesday was May Day… May 1st and it is apparently a public holiday here, so I had the day off… paid. That was nice!

I woke up at 545 a.m. on my day off… UGH! Although I had been sleeping for nearly 8 hours I really, really wanted to see if I could stay asleep… yeah, no. So up I got, jumped in the shower, made a french press carafe of Peet’s Coffee… yum, and laced up my hiking boots with the intention of hiking up the mountain again. Then, while on the bus I decided I wanted to hike around West Lake. The lake is beautiful, it was early morning, shouldn’t be too much foot or bike traffic yet. So I got off the bus and according to my trusty GPS on my iPhone, waited for bus 81. And waited and waited. I finally figured out there was no such thing as Bus 81 😦

So I started walking towards West Lake. I got to a sweet little park and had a couple of tea eggs. I thought I’d need the energy for the 9 mile walk around the lake… while I sat there I got a text from Kira and decided I needed some Soren love, and headed her way, instead!

On the way, I stopped at Pacific Coffee and picked up an iced latte w/skim milk. And took this picture of myself…

Gotta work on that pooch!

I had a fantastic day hanging out with them… ALL DAY! Sat on the couch, cuddled with Soren, pet the cat, chatted with Kira, helped her pack up Soren’s bedroom and watched about 14 episodes (I’m not kidding) of Steven Seagal: Lawman. I actually enjoyed it! Dan brought us iced lattes in the afternoon and then we had Arabic food for dinner…. yum! An all around fun day!

I then walked the 3.41 miles home. That’s 5.48 kms 🙂 Nice walk. Here’s the results…

Nice walk home. The weather has been pretty decent the past few days, temp wise. After I got home I finished reading The Last Lecture and followed up on some emails… chatted with my daughter, Tiffany and off to bed at 10 p.m. I hope everyone is having a good week so far!

Ciao!

LOL… I forgot about the Liebster Award… 😀 My blogging friend Anna nominated me for this award and had this to say about it:

FIVE BLOGS THAT ARE ‘LIEBSTER’ TO ME… 

1-Flamidwyfe’s Blog https://flamidwyfe.wordpress.com/  Sandi blogs about her adventures and spectacular success on the Dukan Diet while living in China and being a midwyfe.  She is an awesome example of putting your dreams out there and living FULLY!!  Also, I wouldn’t even be a blogger if it weren’t for Sandi xo

Five facts:

1. Each of my kids thinks that I favor the others over them… and at various times through their life cycles I have favored them. They are all VERY unique individuals. Right now my favorite is my “baby”, Tiffany LeAnn. She is an amazing human being on many levels and I am most proud to be her mom.

2. I consider myself Evangelical AND and from the Christian Left… some think that’s an oxymoron 🙂 I also love the teachings of Buddha!

3. I’ve been divorced for nearly 19 years… he’s a friend on Facebook. He’s the 2nd husband, who wasn’t a jerk and is still alive, thank God!… LOL. It’s important for people who divorce to put their kids FIRST… I think we mostly did that (there will always be a screw up or three along that path!)

4. I miss living in the Middle East more than I ever could have imagined! Everything about it.

5. I’ve done quite well with removing toxic people from my life and keep them out. It makes for a much cleaner living 🙂

5 blogs I nominate:

1. http://inspiringandhealthyrunninginlondon.wordpress.com/ … her running all over the world inspires me to lace up my shoes!

2. Mel at http://wwangel.wordpress.com/ My first runner’s blog… she ROCKS and is so encouraging to me… thanks Mel!!!

3. Abbi at Lil Monkey’s Mama… today’s post was especially thought provoking!

4. http://lipomachia.wordpress.com/ … a woman who has taken control of her diet after being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. Not only has she gained control over her blood sugar, but has lost weight to boot! She’s amazing and I’m in awe of her transformation!

5. And http://notimetow8.com/ … his weight loss and his running of his first 5K are spurring me on to keep training for MY 5K… Well done!

If you have been nominated, here is what you do to keep it rolling:

Each Nominee Should:

  1. Choose five, up and coming blogs to give the Liebster award to.  Blogs must have less than 200 followers.
  2. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
  3. Post the award on your blog.
  4. List the bloggers you gave the award to with links to their sites.  Leave a comment on their blogs to let them know they’ve received the award.
  5. Share five random facts about yourself!