Oh, Bella. Such very tough news. But somehow it seems as if you felt this coming sooner rather than later. So many tough decisions for your sister - with no guarantees which would be the better choice. I hope you are able to share some good moments with her. That seems the most important thing to focus one. Making every moment one worth living. She is lucky to have you in her corner. I get the feeling you will envelope her in positive energy and love. And that is the only thing of true value now, for both of you.

Bella, I'm so sorry! I'll be thinking of you and your sister.

Happy birthday, Yooly! I hope I'm having as much fun at 75 as you are!

I have slept a lot today. I'm not sure why I'm so tired, but I am. Went out to pick up the meds and got the cheese sauce so that I could make the arroz con pollo for lunch freezer meals for Girlfriend and I. I had the rice made, I had the chicken grilled, but no cheese sauce. So I have four meals (weighed and measured out) in the freezer, and she has five, as she often has a weird sleep schedule and has a need for a lunch at midnight. So now I can choose between the arroz con pollo and chicken stirfry for my lunches on the days he works, and that works for me. I'm trying to get stuff done when he's out of the way, and having something safe and easy to heat up when I do get hungry works better than stopping to make a sandwich.

I have elderly bananas so I'm going to make banana muffins soon. I do not know if I am making them tonight or tomorrow. We'll see how my energy goes.

Oh Bella. I am so sorry and sad for the both of you especially as the options narrow. (((HUG)))

Thank you Jennifer! Hope you’re doing well and getting ready for your musical adventure.

Good morning, Yooly!
I'm here - in my little quagmire. Always sending positive thoughts your way.

TODAY

Today I begin logging again. Just hit me. No trepidation. Poke around in my mind a bit to see if it (the hamsters) were fooling me and they are all fine with this. No complaints or worries.
That could be because we (me and the pups) have been installing new baseboards/door trim in the office the last few days - and it was hot (not by your standards Yooly but hitting the feels like 100 a few times. Yes I have air conditioning - but the wood sealer was sooo stinky I had to open the windows and the heat just hit you like a water balloon hot spring. My body felt sooooooo heavy - bending down, squinching over, up down up down a million times. Great reminder that lighter is better!

💩?!

I’m just going to pretend everyone is still out there but just being quiet. I know Laurie is still with me, and PAV sort of.

Busy day running errands, meeting with friends, a little housework. Took hubby for a stress test at the cardiologist to check out some minor abnormalities. 💝 He was told it all looks okay just low blood pressure. We should all be so lucky.

My scale is still showing gains. I think it’s just water 💧or something from the mega antibiotics working their way out of my body. Feeling puffy! So I had a “what the hell” bowl of ice cream 🍧tonight. Yeah, that’s a stupid thing to do but tonight I’m tired and weak. 👿

Tomorrow will be better. Medical retests will be in two weeks. Hopefully I’ll be back to my svelte 🦵self before I have to face the doctors 👩🏻‍🔬scale.

Definitely puffy - no major swellings but definitely have the fat fingers syndrome. Thanks PAV for the kind words. Sometimes I’m just impatient and I sure don’t want to regress now.

Hubby is off to the grocery store tomorrow. Heaven help us! He’s been told to eat more salt. Can’t wait to see what he hauls home. Stress test was fine but he does have a bit of arrhythmia.

I plan on working off some of this puffiness by scrubbing floors tomorrow. Did I mention we’ve had some substantial rain with more forecast? And finally some days in the upper 80s.

I'm still here, but keeping quiet at the moment. I'm having daily phone calls with my sister for upwards of two hours at a time that are draining and wrenching - it's emotionally hard to hear her sobbing with pain and fear, hearing her regrets and recriminations about the years she feels she's wasted nurturing grievances and grudges, worrying about her weight but not addressing it, allowing friendships and family relationships to wither from lack of effort...

I've driven to see her twice in the past ten days at her request (400 mile round trip) but when I get there she's wiped out after fifteen minutes and has to go for a lie down. It's hard to know how to support her - she's full of anger, fear, regret...and naturally in lots of physical pain too. I've been trying to do practical things (grocery shopping, household chores, washing her hair etc.) to help her husband out a little, but frankly I feel pretty useless at the moment.

Plus, what she's facing has given me lots of things to ponder, and left me feeling unsettled and conflicted about my own life's priorities and goals. I'm increasingly aware that my life is unbalanced, with health/fitness/weight control taking up far too big a proportion of my mental and physical time and energy. I need to redress the balance, but that's scary too because I don't want to undo my hard work. Crises like these are all part of life's rich tapestry, and lead to transitions and upheavals that can bring positive changes as well as negative...but they feel tumultuous when you're living through them!

Bella. I can't put myself in your shoes really - I don't have any siblings. Intellectually, I can put together the pieces, but that only goes so far.

Yooly has shared some great thoughts.

All I can add is that you seem to have taken a great deal of pleasure in the process of increasing your fitness and health, and that should not be undervalued. Keep on taking care of yourself. It is really important for you and for those that you love/love you. Part of that is being kind to yourself. Sounds like you are being an amazing support for your sister and her husband.

So yesterday Sergeant Pickles went to the vet. He is "Friendly but strong and wiggly." Yep. That's why my shoulders and back and core ache from holding him still long enough for the vet to get him vaccinated. Before we have to do this again he will be learning how to stand still on command.

Then that afternoon we had a landscape architect come and look at our fence problem. If it was just the fact that the fence needs replaced, that would be one thing. But there is a stream that runs along one side, enters the yard diagonally to section off the top right-hand corner, and then runs along the back fence for a bit. It is not possible to fill it because the water has to go somewhere, and at least this is not in my crawl space. And unsurprisingly, it has eroded and undermined the fence that currently exists. So he made some recommendations within our budget, and will get us a quote for his company to do the job. He'll probably subcontract out the fence installation itself, but as I said to him, he's an architect. It's his job to generate the plan, not to make it happen.

It would make us all feel better if we could just open the door and let the dog out, and not have to mess about with the long line that he keeps getting tangled on things. Plus, once we have the new fence in place, I can think about landscaping what we have so that we can have a pretty yard to look at. I realized that I had sort of mentally put all that on hold until the fence was fixed.

But the upshot of all this is a lot more sheer physical work than I am used to, and so today I am sore. That's impacting my day and what I get done, unsurprisingly. It's annoying, as I have some baking to do and I want to stage the spare room so that we can take pictures to rent it out.

Bella. You have it. What you have written is so very true. For you and for all of us. Thank you for sharing. Sending you strength.

Hang on to those self protective skills Bella. You need to remember your well being matters too.

I got so lost in caregiving and worrying about everyone and everything, I ended up over 300 pounds for years. It took serious mortality reminders from the doctors to finally scare me 😳 into better care for myself.

Previously I had lost significant weight only to repeatedly sacrifice myself to insidious stress eating. I’ve done permanent damage to my health.

I cannot do that again. And neither should you.

Very carefully! Hope you enjoy!

Oh, oh, oh, oh: CONGRATULATIONS on the 48th Anniversary!
Woohoo!

Yes, the kibbe I try to hide from... because I LIKE them! The falafels I find a bit too "spendy" for my tastes. The rest of it... hard to win if you're not trying to find some extra calories!