A Hard Week

Blogging so soon? I know what's up with that?

Lots to talk about, or maybe not much. Either way, I wanted to write it down.

We've had a tough week. Wednesday was an especially sad day for us, because we had to say good bye to our wonderful dog, Holly.

When we bought our house in March 2009, Scott and I decided that we had plenty of room in our home and hearts to bring a dog into our lives. At that time, my sister-in-law's living situation had changed and she and her three kids moved in with Scott's mom and stepdad. They brought with them their golden retriever, Holly. Holly was rescued from a "breeder" when she was 6 years old. She was the sweetest dog I had ever known. When she was rescued my mother-in-law had taken her in. When my sister-in-law and family moved into a large farmhouse, Holly went to live with them. When they had to move in with her parent's there were three adults and three children all living under a small roof and not a lot of room for Holly.

Scott and I talked with his sister about us taking Holly for her retirement years. Holly was 11 when we brought her home. A couple of things about Holly, she never barked or whined, she didn't really like going for rides in the car, but tolerated them. She loved attention from everyone. She was an aging Golden, so she had all the problems that go with that, a cyst in her eyelid and arthritis in her hips. No matter what, she just wanted to be close to us. Scott would say she was my dog, because she would follow me around the house. If I was in the living room, she would hang out there, if I was at the computer she would sit behind my chair on the rug. We ended up getting her two dog beds, so we could move them around the house as needed.

As happens with all dogs as they age (Holly turned 14 in December,) we started to see her having problems moving around and getting up. In the past couple of months the started to decline more and more, until in the past couple of weeks, we've had to pretty much pick her hind end up to help her stand. It was the toughest decision I have ever had to make, but Holly eyes communicated to me that she was tired and at peace.

I stayed home Wednesday to make the arrangements, I wasn't in any shape to be driving anyway. Scott went to work for a couple of hours, but came home to say goodbye with me. She went peacefully, and we stayed with her for quite a while. We thanked her the time she spent with us and told her how fortunate we were to be her humans for her retirement years. She was the sweetest, most loving pup we had ever met.

We will miss our Holly, we were lucky to have such a wonderful pup to spend time with.

One Year Later

I can't believe it's been a year since I last blogged. I was hoping to be much better at keeping up with it. Maybe this will be a new beginning.

Just over a year ago, on March 16, 2011, I had Gastric Bypass surgery. My last blog was a couple of weeks after and I had lost about 36 pounds. I am pleased to report that just over a year later, I have lost 140 pounds, gone from a size 24 to a size 10, and have more energy than I know what to do with. I've met all my goals, hiked the Ledge Trail on Douglas Mountain, got into a bathing suit in front of my good friends and a number of small goals within the year. Oh yeah, and I am now the happy owner of a Coach purse. Somethng I never would have done for myself, but Scott agreed it would be a reward after I had lost 120 pounds.

With all the changes to my body, Scott and I also made some life decisions. It is recommended that after gastric bypass surgery you wait approximately 2 years before getting pregnant. That would mean that both Scott and I would be in our 40's before we would be able to have children. We decided that we are at a point in our lives that we didn't want to become parents and Scott took himself out of the gene pool. In some ways it's selfish of us not to want to give our parent's grandchildren. But, If we don't want to be parents it wouldn't be a good thing to have them just for that reason. Other couples with children keep telling us that we would be missing so much, but honestly I don't want to be a parent and we have no regrets. We didn't make this decision on a whim, it's something that we have talked about for a couple of years.

In other news, I have discovered LTC's!! But more about that at another time!