They're back

And We are not amused.

In the halcyon first days of our marriage The Husband developed these terrible, debilitating headaches. As in "the room had better be pitch black, give me an overdose of whatever pain meds is available in the medicine cabinet, and deargodinheaven keep the guns away from me so I won't end it all right now" kind of headache. They weren't migraines, which can last for up to days. These headaches would appear at the same time of day, every day and last anywhere from one to three hours.

We were mystified. And to be completely honest, I thought he was overexaggerating the pain a little bit. I mean, why would a headache cause you to want to stick a gun in your mouth? Could it truly be that bad? Not even my friends who suffered from migraines said it was that bad.

For about three weeks, we developed a routine. At 4 o'clock, he would start getting tense. By 5 o'clock, he was shuttered up in our pitch-dark room, rocking back in forth in bed as I hovered over him, getting him whatever I could to make it go away. Sometimes he would even go and deliberately bang his head or punch a wall with his hand in order to distract him from the pain that felt like an ice pick was being shoved through his right eye socket through to the back of the head. And then banged on with a ten-pound maul. But by 7 or 8 o'clock, all was fine in the world again.

I was terrified that my new husband was dying of some wierd illness, but because we didn't have any health insurance at the time and because he is stubborner than a goat when it comes to seeing a doctor, we never saw a one or got a diagnosis. And then after three weeks of daily insanity and pain, they suddenly went away. So we thanked our lucky stars and went on our merry way.

About eight or nine months later, it started again. This time, 10 p.m. was the witching hour for him. Again, he refused to go see a doctor, although one night I was so scared by what he was going through I was seconds away from calling an ambulance when suddenly the pain stopped. It took a month of these headaches happening about every other day before they went away again.

We started asking questions and seeing if other people knew what in the heck was going on with him. This was before we had a computer and the Internet wasn't the vast sea of information that it is now, so we were still in the dark about what was happening to him. But then someone had an inkling.

"Have you ever heard of Cluster Headaches," he asked. Nope. Completely new to us. Apparently they're related to migraines, but operate differently. Men get cluster headaches more and women get migraines more. Why, they didn't know, but this was the case.

Whew. At least he wasn't dying of some terrible disease. We hoped.

A few years later we found a friend who had the exact same thing happening to him. The cycles of weeks of pain at the same time of day with no known trigger. Then months, sometimes years of remission.

He directed us to a website, www.clusterheadaches.com . And boy, was that a lifesaver. For the first time, I was able to fully understand that no, my husband wasn't exaggerating in the slightest. If anything, he was holding back on me on how badly it hurt. I was crying when I apologized to him for not believing fully in the anguish he was going through. Most importantly, we got tips on how to deal with it from those who had to resort to kitchen alchemy to control the pain.

So here we were, four years into The Husband having these headaches off and on, and still no real help from doctors. We had finally taken him to see one during one of the remission periods, described the symptoms, but were told that we couldn't get a prescription of the needed Imitrex until he was actually having a series of headaches.

Lemmie get this straight. He has to have a headache that makes him want to actually kill himself to stop the pain in order to get the needed pain medication? Fuck you. I know that it's a controlled substance, but for God's sake, we never know when these hit! We're not looking to sell it on the street, we just want it so that he doesn't have to go through this kind of pain again! So we were stuck without help until the next time they came around.

It took about another year before the pains hit again. But this time, we were actually prepared. As a big ol' fuck you to that doctor, anytime we were prescribed heavy-duty painkillers, we made sure that we didn't use them all up unless necessary and stockpiled them. A friend gave us the rest of her liquid lidocane prescription that she got when she had a skin cancer removed from her nose - on the website we had discovered that liquid lidocane was one of the best ways to get near immediate relief from the pain. Fuck the doctors not wanting to prescribe things to help us out. We were ready for the worst should it come. And by God, it worked.

The beginnings of the headache would come. Clusterheads call them "shadows" because you feel like you're walking around with the pain slowly overtaking your visibility in the sides of your peripheral vision. At the hint of a shadow, The Husband would take one of the leftover vicodin or Tylenol with codiene. If it got full blown, I would mix a solution of 1/2 saline nasal spray and 1/2 liquid lidocane and put about 4 ccs of it in a syringe with no needle. The Husband would lay back on the bed with his head hanging off, and literally snort/squirt the lidocane up his right nostril into his sinuses to directly hit the nerves being activated that cause the headache. This usually brought the pain back down to the shadow level for a bit until it either went away or spiked up again, and I would give him another lidocane/saline shooter. Lather, rinse repeat, adding in more vicodin/codiene as necessary. We made it through two months worth of headaches - the longest period ever for him - by using this treatment regime. This time, his witching hour was 2 a.m., so it made for very long nights for us.

We saw the doctor during this time, and again, since we were handling it so well by ourselves, the doctor wouldn't prescribe anything to him because obviously we would just abuse it. Again, fuck you. Try dealing with your husband beg and plead with you to get him a gun so he can shoot himself to stop the pain. Then let's talk about how we're "abusing" controlled substances to gain some relief. Asshole.

After this bout, we were exhausted. It took a while for the both of us to recover from the whole thing. Being reduced to two or three hours of sleep a night for two months while working full-time with two young children to take care of as well makes for some fairly unstable people. It was not fun and definitely not recommended.

But five whole years passed, and not a single headache happened. Perhaps he would never get them again? It's happened before to people, and we were hoping that it was happening this time.

We're just not that lucky, people.

Last week, The Husband started getting severe sinus headaches. He was grabbing at his right eye and pushing on the back of his neck. He may not have wanted to admit it, but I knew. The clusters were back. And with a vengeance.

Day before yesterday, we spent five hours trying to calm down the worst flare-up he's ever had. I finally had to dope him up with some Excedrin PM in order to take the edge off and to knock him out enough to sleep. So yesterday, he headed straight to the local Urgent Care, hopeing that the PA there would take him seriously, especially seeing as how she's a long-time friend of my family and knows that we're not there to just get handed a bunch of drugs willy-nilly.

And thank God, she knew, agreed whole-heartedly with our self-diagnosis, understood, and was actually knowledgeable about the headaches! Amazing!

Apparently there is new research out there that suggests that there is a link between cluster headaches and allergies. All of a sudden, your body decides that it's allergic to something new - even if you've been exposed to it for years - and it triggers the onset of a series of cluster headaches until your body gets over the allergy. Not all cluster headaches operate this way, but some do. Seeing as how the last two weeks have seen some serious wind action around here with goodness knows what in the air (ahem, PM-10, I'm looking right at you! Thanks, Los Angeles!), there is a possibility that The Husband's body decided to rebell, declare itself allergic to something, and start up the headaches again.

Cluster headaches can also be triggered by stress, and boy howdy is that something else The Husband has been dealing with lately. In fact, the last two sets of clusters we attributed to some serious stress that he was under.

So between a rogue allergy and/or stress, the headaches are back. The PA loaded The Husband up with a prescription for both Nasonex to take care of his allergies as well as the new Imitrex nasal spray for when he has a cluster attack. Finally, someone has listened to us and taken care of him. And maybe now we can actually deal with them without ruining our lives again.

The moral of the story is this: get medical help. When the medical help seems determined not to do anything about your problem, go see someone different. If they're not educated about the situation, then educate them yourself. Don't take no for an answer, whether it's about your weight or anything else. We did for far too long, and The Husband went through pain he shouldn't have had to.

A Meme. Because I care.

Stolen from Ezpy.

1. What curse word do you use the most? Fuck. And I use it way too much.
2. Do you own an ipod? We have three in our house. A 4G Nano (mine) a 30G 5th Gen (His) and a 60G 5th Gen (Mine).
3. What person on your f-list do you talk to the most? Um, what's an F-list?
4. What time is your alarm clock set to? 4:30 AM for work days to help get The Husband off to work and then to 6 AM for me.
5. Do you still remember the first person you kissed? Yes.
6. Do you remember where you were on September 11th, 2001? Yes. I was driving the kids into the sitter's and heard it on Mark and Brian. I thought they were doing a War of the Worlds thing. Freaked me the heck out.
7. Would you rather take the picture or be in the picture? I hate having my picture taken, but I think that's resolving the more weight I lose. I could care less about taking pictures, however.
8. What was the last movie you watched? In the theater: "A Bridge to Terabithia" On DVD: "Eragon"
9. Do any of your friends have children? Yes.
10. Has anyone ever called you lazy? Yup. And I am.
11. Do you ever take medication to help you fall asleep? Yes. Lately Valium has been my friend in time of need.
12. What CD is currently in your CD player? Well, I use an iPod, and right now I'm doing a Shuffle and "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer is on.
13. Do you prefer regular or chocolate milk? I think I prefer regular milk. Whole and served over ice. Mmmm.
14. Has anyone told you a secret this week? Not this week, no.
15. When was the last time you had Starbucks? Well, I had Pony Espresso this morning for the first time in forever, and it's been about a month since I had Starbucks.
16. Can you whistle? Somewhat.
17. What is the first thing you notice about the opposite sex? Eyes, lips, biceps, tush.
18. What are you looking forward to? Finishing the outfits for our vow renewal and actually starting on making my dress! A little more than a month to go. Eeek!
19. Did you watch cartoons as a child? Heck yeah. Popeye, SuperChicken, Tom Slick, and the old school Bugs Bunny Roadrunner Show were my faves. Oh, and don't forget the Anime one with the five cat machines that combine to create Voltar? I think? What's the name of that one? As an adult, it's mostly Anime along with old-time favorites.
20. Do you own any band t-shirts? Disciple and Red.
21. What will you be doing in one hour? Working on Word documents. Excitement abounds.
22. Is anyone in love with you? Yes. Truly, madly, deeply.
23. What was the last song you heard? Tribute by Disciple.
24. Last time you cried? Yesterday.
25. Desktop computer or a laptop? Both
26. Are you currently wanting any piercings or tattoos? Always. Hopefully Friday will see the completion of my upper back piece and touchups on the wolves. And I'm in the process of designing a wrist wrap that I want next. Bring on the ink!
27. What's the weather like? Psychotic. It can't make up its mind if it wants to be cold and windy or hot and calm. Cut it out now!
28. Would you ever date a girl/guy covered in tattoos? Yep.
29. What did you do before this? Read through my blog roll and put up my own pissy whine about my weight bounce.
30. When is the last time you slept on the floor? Well, it was on an airmatress but it had a hole in it and we had to keep using the pump to re-inflate it all night.
31. How many hours of sleep do you need to function? Five, but to be a truly happy camper it needs to be around eight.
32. Do you eat breakfast daily? Most of the time it's a protein shake but on occasion I have a sausage egg McMuffin minus the muffin or an egg and pepperjack cheese omelete with some bacon thrown in.
33. Are your days fast-paced? Please. I'm a slug.
34. What did you do last night? Finished up one of the shirts for the groomsman and finished up watching Eragon.
35. Do you use sarcasm? Yep. But usually not in a cutting way with friends. I hope.
36. How old will you be turning on your next birthday? 37
37. Are you picky about spelling and grammar? Yep. I'm terrible about it. Then I go and blatantly misspell things and use bad grammar deliberately for effect. Hypocritical, but there you have it!
38. Have you ever been to Six Flags? Yes.
39. Do you get along better with the same sex or the opposite sex? I get along better with guys. But I do have some good girlfriends.
40. Do you like mustard? It used to be deadly poison for me, until The Husband made me these delicious little appetizers using Little Smokies, pepperjack cheese and honey dijon mustard. Now honey dijon is food of the gods. All other mustards can take a long leap off a short cliff, though.
41. Do you sleep on your side? Didn't used to unless I was snuggling up with The Husband. But since my surgery I have a lot for some reason. But I'm a stomach sleeper by preference.
42. Do you watch the news? Not unless I want to have an aneurism.
43. How did you get one of your scars? I was attempting to bring my roommate's Shar Pei back into the house and the little fucker bit into my hand. It's almost gone now 15+ years later.
44. Who was the last person to make you mad? Unfortunately my children. They know how to push mom's buttons for sure.

Doomed. Just Doomed!

Five fucking pounds up. The hell? I'm going to just tell myself that it's because of all the exercise I had on the stationary bike last week coupled with the 100-120+ grams of protein a day I was consuming.

Fuck being a good girl if this is what it's going to get me. Blech.

Don't Lose Anymore!

I suppose it's fitting that I just hit eight months out out this surgery and one pound away from having lost 100 pounds and have now I have received my first "Don't lose anymore! You look just fine!" comment. Wierd. Especially since I still have 50-ish pounds to go to start grazing the top of the "normal" BMI range for my height.

It's probably par for the course because I didn't pull a Star Jones about my surgery and have been open with everyone who asked how I was losing the weight. It doesn't matter to me that they know, because I'm happy with my decision. The only thing I'm uncomfortable with is that everybody has to put in their two cents about it. Water off a duck's back, right?

Like I've said before, I really would be okay right here if I didn't lose anymore. It is a good weight for me and clothes fit nicely. But why bother having surgery if I'm not going to work it for all it's worth, right?

The elusive 100 pound mark, however, is seriously pissing me off at the moment. I imagine once I forget about it I will of course jump right down there which is again, par for the course. Until then, I'll be a good girl (well, except for that bite of marshmallow egg yesterday) and push my protein and fluids. I've got some Peach Nectar I need to use up. I'll use that instead of my Crystal Lite drinks every now and again. Good stuff.

This Sunday I will be exercising my thespian muscles for the first time in a long time in a small skit at church. It's set in a gym, so I'll be on a stationary bike the whole time. Should be interesting. Let's just hope I don't get stage fright after not treading the boards for so long. NOT!

Message Board Wars

I'm getting way too old for this.

I guess this is just another line from the old song and dance of "can't we all just get along?" combined with a smattering of "get over yourself already, you twit!" Cause let's just face it. None of us have all the answers and to pretend otherwise just makes you look, well, stupid.

Way back in the late 1990s I found a place called The Knot. The Husband was going to be Best Man for his brother and I, being the dutiful wife, wanted to find out what a Best Man was supposed to do because, well, we eloped and never went through all that crud. On that site (and oh my golly is it ever so Stepford Wife!) they had message boards to ask various questions on, to bitch about things and have other assorted fun. One such board was appropriately named "The Bitching Post." Being of the curious sort, of course I clicked. And that one click sucked me into a world that would shock and amaze you. Well, mostly just shock.

From that board, I met women all across the country, mostly brides-to-be and some newlyweds, all with something to bitch about, be it their witch of a future mother-in-law, their husband-to-be, or their maid of honor who just didn't quite know what to do. Cliques formed, as they always will, some of us formed "secret" boards on another site so that we could bond together and bitch about our favorite assholes far from our target's field of view. Trolls abounded, of course. We even had our own personal Internet scammer who weaved her web long and thick and drew many into her grasp, only to suck them dry and spit them back out. Some people caught on long before the truth came out fully, and they made fun of those who defended this person, who later had to admit that they were completely duped. We even had an Internet "death" that wasn't. Good times.

Over the course of time, most of the women on the board married, and eventually we figured it just wasn't all that great of a thing to hang out on a wedding board anymore. Plus the boards were being flaky on The Knot and so we created another community on MSN. Well over 300 women gathered to the new board. At one point, I think membership was nearly 1,000. But then the usual infighting happened, people were ganged up on for the stupid things they said or were misunderstood about, more fractures occured, more boards were spawned, lather, rinse and repeat. And of course there's always the hate and discontent between "rival" larger boards, the ubiquitous "they're so stupid" posts refering to the "others," nevermind that most people belong to several of the big boards. It's like being back in high school again.

I still belong to a few of the main boards that survived several fallouts as well as one "secret" spinoff board. It has it's days where things are boring, and then something comes along that we can really sink our teeth into and be utterly stupid about. This week it was a post about some man who is the co-worker of a board member and the tactics he used to enforce a form of discipline on his 8-year-old son for not finishing his homework in the proscribed time. Three hundred and some-odd posts later, my brain was mush because of the stupidity being babbled by those who just knew they were perfectly right. Because THEY would never subject their child to a non-naturally occuring punishment for not doing homework.

Just what precisely is that? What in the hell is a naturally occuring punishment for not doing homework? I mean, besides getting a bad grade, which to some kids isn't a punishment at all. The psycho-babble that some people spout out is unreal and just made my head hurt.

Anyway, I have eight or nine years of experience with these type of boards. Then when I started researching WLS seriously before my surgery, I stumbled upon WLS-related boards. And now I belong to a slew of them. And it's the same. damn. thing. all. over. again.

While for the most part, the different boards are not spin-offs of each other, however one was made because he/she saw a lack of real accountability for post- and pre-ops in the realm of food. Okay. No problem. Good for them. Lots of people are non-compliant, and need to get a reality check. Also helps that said person owns a company that sells products to help WLS patients. All good.

This this board started up, there were all these attacks against it because they were "against" the biggest board. It was silly, stupid and petty. Some people managed to make themselves look like asses, others took a higher ground. Typical and standard for human behavior as a whole.

Time has passed, but apparently the "rivalry" has not. A shit-stirring post was made on the big board about the owner of the newer board. Responses were typical with people for or against, blah, blah, blah.

It gets tiring. I don't go to message boards to get sanctimonious people spouting all over me. I go to get advice, or to while away some time, or to have fun. I don't go to read things like, "Oh, you're such a great person for taking the high road in this. They just don't do things the way they're supposed to. They'll feel terrible once their fat again and realized they should have listened to you." Blech, puke, gag. Why don't people realize that this kind of fawning obsequesity (is that a word? should I use obsequeousness instead?) is just as bad as the trash talk? And it actually is worse in a way. I mean, this person isn't God almighty to the WLS world - instead they just happened to build a rather successful business around it. Lucky them. But they don't know it all, and I'm tired of reading that yes, yes they do. Over and over.

Maybe I've truly grown out of the whole message board thing. It was great to meet people from all over the country/world and chat with them about things, get into arguments with them, have fun snarking at things, relate with them, pass on information and gain some from them. I've had tons of fun. But it seems to have devolved into the whole "us versus them" thing, and I don't have the stomach for it anymore. I've been posting less and less - usually only when I have a bit of information that's directly related to the topic at hand. I just am not into it anymore.

I have my one board of a handfull of women that I've been with for several "cycles" of board cloning and destroying. I think I'm going to stick with them, as they are the real "friends" that I've made in the cyberworld and back off from the rest. It will probably cut down on my ranting about stupid people a whole lot more. And be a whole lot better for my sanity.

You're Only as Smart as the Sound Bites You Provide

And Hillary Clinton is certainly making herself out to look like an ass at the moment.

*** Disclaimer: While my political views are obviously diametrically opposed to many people that view this blog this is not a slam on you if you happen to think that Hillary is the next Big Thing. I just can't stand the words that come out of her mouth sometimes. Well, most of the time if I'm honest with you. This is one of those times. ***

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy? You're going on about THAT again? Please give me a break.

Listen, lady. You're pretty politically savvy, no? If you weren't, you obviously wouldn't have gotten your husband all the way into the White House and now maneuvered yourself to be a pretty decent candidate for the upcoming run for the job in 2008.

In all this time of being as politically savvy as you are, has it never, ever occured to you that yes, there is a conspiracy out there, but it's actually called PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE DIFFERENTLY THAN YOU?

Because let's face it. There's a Right Wing Conspiracy, a Left Wing Conspiracy, a Leftist Conspiracy, a Communist Conspiracy, a White Conspiracy, a Black Conspiracy, a Green Conspiracy and for good measure a Purple and Orange Polka-Dot Conspiracy. It's called people of opposing political parties having different ideas about how things need to go and organizing themselves in such a way that their political ideals will: 1) gain popular acceptance, 2) get voted into place, and 3) hopefully survive the test of time. And if in the whole scheme of this "conspiracy" you take down those on the other side in the process, that's all well and good because aren't you doing this for "the good of the country?"

If you think that you have the balls to be President of this country, then you had better damn well get used to the fact that there will ALWAYS be people that oppose you. Being President is no picnic, my dear, as you well know. And frankly, you are actually tying yourself into the stereotype that women can never become President because of the hysterics you seem to be having over this "conspiracy." And don't even play the innocent that your "side" doesn't have its conspiracies of its own. To do so would be totally ingenuous and a bold-faced lie to boot.

So thanks. Thanks for proving to all the Good Ole' Boys that wimmen ain't good for nothin' but stayin' barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. I think you've set us back at least a decade at getting a woman in the White House, even if I personally don't want it to be you. Thanks alot. Why don't you keep your mouth shut for once? Maybe people will actually warm up to you because you are very smart and I think very capable of being President should you win (even though I won't like your policies AT ALL and hate every minute you're in office).

At the moment there are a whole lot of people who will come out of the woodwork specifically to vote AGAINST you should you win the Democratic Primary. Start thinking further than a foot in front of you and you might actually make it there.

Black and Red on Skin

Well, here it is. The red is going to need some touch-ups here and there, but other than that, it's perfect in my opinion. The Husband's took four hours; mine took three. Doing the same lines for a second time definitely makes for an easier go of it. Plus I'm a bit more stoic when it comes to pain that he is, so I sit better even though it still hurt like hell.

Anyway, hope you enjoy it!

The Good, the Bad and Everything Inbetween

So much for my resolution to post more often. Forgive me!

• Last week we lost one of the baby lambs to tetanus - one of Chocolate Chip's enormous twins. Last year we lost three of the babies to it as well. According to the vet, it appears that we have a lot of the dormant bacteria in our soil. It's a hazard of simply being on a farm and our using of elastrator bands to dock tails and castrate the boys increases the risk of the sheep getting it. So, after trying to mega-dose the affected baby with the tetanus anti-toxin and failing, we vaccinated all the other babies and so far none of them have had a problem. It's a good thing we vaccinated them because at least one of them had started developing a stiff-legged gait which is a prime symptom that they have tetanus. From now on, the babies will get vaccinated whenever we dock/castrate in the future. I'm not playing around with this anymore. It's not fun to come out and find one of your babies lying on the ground, bleating piteously and there's nothing you can do for it because it's too late. Major suckage.

• The Husband and I got matching tattoos on Friday celebrating our 13 years of marriage. I know it's a month before our actual anniversary, but he was so antsy over it, that we had to go and do it now. They're lovely and I'll post a photo tonight of mine. And holy hell did this one hurt! If I thought The Husband was getting hurt (he got his on his right pec), getting mine proved that he wasn't being a wussie boy about it (I got mine on my left thigh). That 3-liner hurts! But if she had used a standard 5-needle to do the lining, it just wouldn't have looked as good. I can't imagine the pain of getting single-line work done. Owieee! The tattoo on my back/neck is still unfinished but hopefully I'll take care of that on the 23rd.

• We went shopping on Saturday for all the other fabric that I need to pull off everything for the wedding. I had a list as long as my forearm, and even though The Husband has seen me shop for fabric before, I think he was actually a little bit intimidated by the way I can march through a fabric shop and pile up the bolts of fabric that are needed. We made some good choices, even though I have now re-thought one of them and already ordered a replacement, and I think we can pull this off.

• Started making my corset for underneath the wedding dress yesterday. I forgot how much I enjoy making these things, even though they can be a pain in the ass (grommets, I'm talking about you!). I made it a little bit small, so I'm going to have to adjust some of the seams tonight, but I think it will turn out well. I wanted to make the corset first so that I could take measurements on how to construct my dress later. Once I get it done, this will be a huge step towards making this thing a reality and will help propell me through everything else. I'm going to be sewing every night for the next month, however. It's been a while since I've done that and it will be fun to do that again. I think I need to buy a clock for that area because I lose track of time so easily when I'm sewing. I don't feel like eating dinner at 11 at night because I've lost track of time!

• I am now two pounds away from having lost 100 pounds from my highest known weight. Hot damn! My body seems to have settled into a rhythm with the losing. I go two or so weeks maintaining the same weight. Then quickly drop three or four pounds in a few days. Then back to maintaining for two to three weeks. Then drop some more. It's a bit disappointing to not see the scale drop every week, but hello! I've lost nearly 100 pounds! I've just got to keep on keeping on. Eat that protein, drink that water, take those vitamins and all shall be well. Hopefully.

Anyway, that's me and my life for now. I'll post tonight with the picture of my tattoo and we'll go from there. Have fun this week waking up from Daylight Savings! I know that dragging myself out of bed today was terrible. I love the light in the evening, but hate the reality of the morning alarm. Aaargh.

Regaining the Land Speed Record

I was always a fast walker. It was as if it was a sport to me. I mean, come on, we've got a lot of ground to cover here, people! Move it, move it, move it! It used to be the biggest complaint people had about me - that they couldn't keep up.

By the time I reached about 260 pounds, that started to change. I slowed down. A lot. By the time I was at my highest weight (which the husband now thinks was a bit higher than the 315 that we know about based on pictoral evidence), I was a veritable sloth. Those of you that have been or are currently heavy know what I'm talking about. You're out of breath. Your feet hurt. Your knees hurt. Your back hurts. Walking quickly? Hah! That's for lunatics. Don't worry about me. I'll get there eventually!

About four or five weeks ago, I noticed on my daily walk into work through the parking lots that I was no longer lagging behind people getting out of their cars at the same time as me. In fact, I was either keeping pace with them, or starting to gradually overtake them.

Then two or three weeks ago, I realized that I was back at it fully. I'm speed walking again. I don't want to waste time, so I'm moving as quickly as I can without breaking into a trot. No, I don't wiggle my ass and hips the way those professional speed walkers do, but damn it all if I'm not acting like I'm getting a workout while simply walking somewhere again. And I'm not winded when I get to my destination! Glory Halleluia! It's amazing what losing close to 100 pounds will do for a person, eh?

Out-of-pocket cost for Duodenal Switch Surgery? $3600

Cost of new clothes to fit shrinking body? $1000

Monthly cost for protein and vitamins to fit new lifestyle? $150

Re-setting your own personal land speed record? Priceless.

You've fallen into one of the classic blunders . . .

The most famous of which is Never Get Involved in a Land War in Asia. But only slightly less well-known is this: Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line! Hahahaa ha! Hahahha ha! Hahahhah hah! *thunk*

Do you love The Princess Bride? Well, we do. I think I've touched on this before when discussing our vow renewal. And since this post is about the renewal, I think it's fair to revisit the subject again.

Over the weekend while camping and playing with our quads, some of our friends came out to visit us and have lunch with us and the topic turned to the renewal. Specifically, what on earth were we going to do?

The pendelum has swung - sometimes violently - back and forth from being completely irreverent and just having fun with it, to being all serious and formal and stuffy and everything in between. This weekend, however, we decided to just throw all caution to the wind and Go For It. We are now officially having a Princess Bride ceremony.

Thankfully our officiant - a friend of ours known for his jovial manner - is more than likely to play along with us. All he will have to do, other than preside over the ceremony, is begin like the pompous officiant in the "wedding" from the movie. Mahwage. Say that one word, and at least half of those attending will burst into laughter - which is as it should be.

The Husband will be dressing as Westley. Well, sans mask. His brother will dress as Inigo, and his best friend will dress as Fezzik. Me, I'll be dressed similar to Buttercup, but since I just don't have the same body type as Robin Wright Penn, I'll have to go with what works for me. And oh yeah. It's going to be a white dress. I have completely lost the battle within myself over having a non-white dress, and instead am going with blinding bridal white with a flash of sapphire blue here and there. You only live once in this life, and this will probably be the only time that we are going to do something like this, so dammit all, I'm going to go for it. If somebody has a problem with it, they can just go pound sand. Hmph.

As a special surprise, we're going to have a friend of ours play the Old Woman from Buttercup's dream sequence. Booo! Booo! Booooo! We're not certain where we're going to go with that from there, but we have time to come up with it.

All this playacting means a few things, however. One, we're going to need some specialized props, like rapiers. Two, some costs have been cut - like instead of renting tuxes, I now get to make the guy's outfits which is much cheaper and easier to fit to them - while other costs have risen - boots? Have you seen the prices? OMG! *sigh* I think we'll have his brother and our friend provide their own footwear. I'll make the outfits, but the shoes are all up to them. Eeep. Well, unless I can find something that will work well instead.

It's wierd, but it's as if things are working perfectly now where before it felt kind of disjointed. We're happy that we're going with something that we're passionate about and that fits our personalities. I know some people think theme weddings can be a bit ridiculous, and I've seen some myself that were plain silly. But I think when you're going to do something over-the-top, you have to embrace it fully - don't just do it half-assed. And boy, oh boy, have we ever plunged head-first into the pool of schlock. I mean, really. This is a vow renewal. We're already married. We just want to have some fun and have people celebrate with us. I can't wait. Hee!

Sibling rivalry sucks

In the world of sheep, there are the bullies and the bullied. Right now, all of the babies are the bullied, as Rambo, their father, and their two older step-siblings from last year's crop are intent on getting the damn little things out of their way. You can practically see the cartoon balloons coming from their heads saying "Annoying little bastards! Get the F away from my food!" Nevermind that the little ones are mainly dining on mother's milk and aren't a threat to their food source.

But it always pisses me off when I see Rambo head-butt one of the little ones. His head is REALLY hard. I know of what I speak here. Ow. Asshole! So that's when we bring out the "Rambo Be Good Stick" - otherwise known as an aluminum baseball bat. He respects that at least.

Within the little ones, there is also a pecking order. On the top, there are Chocolate Chip's twins. These two little hellspawn are growing like weeds. I have NO idea how Chip is producing enough milk to maintain their phenomenal growth rate, but she is. These little boys are HUGE for being only three weeks old. Next down the totem pole is Oreo's boy. He's not quite as big as Chip's twins, which is actually kind of odd seeing as how he doesn't have to compete for food at all, being that he's the only one Oreo feeds.

On the bottom are Clarice's triplets. The two black boys first, and then the little grey girl is lowest on the heap. And it's her that I'm a little bit worried about.

At two weeks old, there is already a big difference in size between the triplets. One boy is noticeably bigger than the other, so obviously he's been getting the most food. But the little girl is so tiny and still weak-looking that I'm wondering if she's getting all the nutrition she needs. She looks like she's only a week old, and not twice that age.

I know that there's always a runt of the litter when you have triplets or quadruplets and that usually they do just fine, but with so many sheep in the pen right now, the little girl is in big danger of getting maimed by the rest of the flock if she doesn't start gaining weight and soon.

I'm thinking that it's time to start supplementing her food - which means we're going to start bottlefeeding her at night. If I can get her to double her size in two weeks, and keep her from getting injured, I would consider that a huge success. I don't want to take her away from Clarice completely, but if Clarice ends up rejecting her after we start supplementing, it won't be as awful a thing as if she had been rejected from the begining. Clarice is very mothering towards all three of her babies and her udder is constantly swollen with milk, so the little girl's lack of growth isn't from her not being allowed to nurse or a poor supply problem. It's just that her two brothers are pigs - one more so than the other.

Plus, it's always so nice to bottle-raise a lamb. The girls love being able to lavish attention on the lamb, and it's a bit like having a dog in a lot of ways with them always following you around.

So tonight I'm taking the Coke bottle I salvaged from the recycle bin, and buying some new lamb nipples. The formula's already at home, and we're going to go to town. Gotta catch the little bugger first, though. Time to train the Aussie Shepherd! It's time she started earning her keep around the place.

Wish me luck!