I’m in the kitchen tonight making a Tzatziki salad to take in my lunch tomorrow. Gabe comes running in to the kitchen, exclaiming, “I made a statue, Mommy!”

I responded, “You made a statue?”

“Yes,” he replied, “its and obelisk?”

“Its a what?”

“Its an obelisk, Mommy. Come see.”

He’s 3 years old, people. I’m fairly certain, I had no idea what an obelisk was at 3 years old. I’m 35 years old and I wasn’t even sure how to spell it!

He showed me his statue and then he knocked it down. I asked him to rebuild it for a video. Here is Gabey’s obelisk:

Here is a “traditional” obelisk:

You know we are in quite the financial predicament. We are all ready living paycheck to paycheck, trying to keep a roof over our heads while we swim in medical debt. To top it off, my husband’s pay check bounced. This is the 3rd time his pay check has bounced in a year. In addition to the check bouncing, his checks are always late. His payroll isn’t current. His 7/20 paycheck (the last one he received) was actually paying him for the end of June. So, his 7/20 check bounced and he’s yet to receive his 8/5 paycheck. So, basically, he hasn’t been paid for over a month’s worth of work.

We don’t know what to do. His “boss” was someone we loved dearly and called family at one point and time. She made a choice to walk away from our family, but that choice was never ours. In fact, I recently extended a hand of friendship, in the hopes of letting her know that it wasn’t too late.

Mike asked me if he should even go to work tonight. If he hasn’t been paid for over a months worth of work, does it make sense for him to keep working? Now, while the company Mike works for pays his check, the place he actually maintains contracts his company and they have likely held up their end of the deal and paid for the services.

What do we do? Regardless of what he does tonight…how do we survive financially, if he doesn’t ever get paid for the work he’s done and has to find a new job?

We were supposed to visit my Dad’s family in Missouri today, but Gabe is home bedridden today. He either strained his neck while wrestling with Daddy yesterday or he slept wrong, but he woke up at 4 AM this morning crying and repeating over and over that he hurt while grabbing his the back of his neck with both hands. We didn’t have much children’s pain reliever, so I gave him what we had and held him while he cried for the next 4 hours. He did sleep for about an hour in the middle.

I finally had to wake Mike up at 8:00 AM so I could go to Walgreen’s and get more pain reliever. Gabe is in pretty good spirits though, as long as he is laying on the couch in a position that doesn’t hurt. I had to make him go pee-pee a little while ago. That was no fun. Moving causes him great pain and he can’t understand how to manage it like an adult would. So, I basically felt like I was torturing him just to carry him into the bathroom.

So, we won’t be going to Missouri and Gabe is going to have a movie marathon day today. My poor little boy.

Today is “Free-For-All Friday” which means you can post whatever you want on my blog. Say what you want to say, share a link, complain about household appliances, etc…all you have to do is login and post!

Here’s how to do it:

• Go to the log-in prompt by clicking here.
• Login/Password: guest/FFAF
• You will be redirected to the dashboard - Click on “Write” on the top menu bar.
• In the categories box on the right, make sure there is a check mark next to “free for all” .
• Type a title in the “Title” field and type whatever you want in the “Post” field.
• When you’re done, click the “Publish” button.

I’m not a smoker. I don’t like to be around smoke. I limit family visits because of the smoke. That said, smoking is legal. As long as it is legal, if I CHOOSE to smoke, it is just that. It is MY CHOICE. If I own a business, I should have the right to CHOOSE whether it is a smoking or non-smoking environment. We used to frequent a local steak house. It is a very small building and the entire building is always full of smoke. After we had children, we quit dining there. It was their CHOICE to have a smoke-filled environment and it was our CHOICE not to go there.

That is how it should work. Government doesn’t need to start taking away my CHOICE to use a legal substance or allow people to use a legal substance in my business.

What is next? I’m an obese woman (albeit 24 lbs lighter). Obesity is a killer. When do they take away my potato chips?

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn’t a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

Today is the first day I’m really noticing the weight loss in the way my clothes fit. The slacks I am wearing today have always been snug. So snug that it pulls on the button. Today, not only are the buttons not pulling, but there is some room to spare.

Wow, that feels good. Watching the scale, can be a tad depressing…even if you are having slow but steady loss. Seeing this makes it worth it.

One problem though…can’t afford new clothes!

I had my 1st follow-up doc visit today. The news is both good and bad…but overall it is good. I’ve lost 7 lbs since my visit a month ago and the doc was very pleased with that. I’ve lost 14 lbs total since I was in the hospital. My blood sugars are much better and out of the danger zone. They are still a little higher at fasting than they should be though. For those of you that understand these readings, here it goes. My blood pressure…which hasn’t ever been an issue outside of pregnancy was 110 over 64. Still not an issue. My pulse was 70. I think that is fine too. Now here are the results of my lab work:

My A1C (which basically determines where my blood sugar averages over time) was 10.1 when I was at the hospital. Today it was 7.3. For people without diabetes the normal range is 4-6. For people with diabetes the goal is to be under 7. I’m almost there.

My overall cholesterol in the hospital was 158, now it is 155. My HDL cholesterol, the good cholesterol, was 12 in the hospital. It should be above 50! Now it is 35. So, that is getting better too. My LDL cholesterol was 100 in the hospital. It needs to be under 100 and ideally below 70. Today it was 90.

My triglyceride level was 229 in the hospital. Normal: Less than 150, Borderline High: 150-199, High: 200-499, and Very High: 500. So I was way over where I should be. Today it was 147!

My doctor was ecstatic. He even left to tell the P.A., who I saw a month ago and she came in all excited too. He said that he hoped I didn’t mind that he shared with Noell, but they were excited to actually see someone make a change and improve so much.

So that is all very good news and things are going even better than expected. The bad part though is that not only do I still have to take my current medication…and I’m currently taking $900 worth of medication, but I need to add to it. The test results show that there is protein in my urine. Which, the doc said was probably because of the diabetic strain on them for who knows how long. So, add yet another medication to help my kidneys. He does suspect that as I lose more weight, continue to eat well and exercise that I will be able to reduce and/or cut out medication, including this one. So, between vitamins and my medication, I take 3 pills every morning. 4 pills with dinner. 4 pills at bedtime and a shot at bedtime. I don’t like taking medication. I never have. I don’t even like to take over-the-counter medication when I have a headache. So, I really hate this and I feel like such a financial burden to my family. That really sucks.

I do feel much better overall and I think this has brought about a long overdue change, not only for me, but for my family.

So often I create blog posts in my mind and they never make it to the blog. Lately, I’ve been recollecting events from the past and I always want to post about them, but I never do. Let’s see if I can actually get this one out on the blog!

Every morning, I drive past a bus stop and a woman awaiting mass transit. She shares an uncanny resemblance to my High School senior year English teacher, Ms. Kelly. As I drive by every morning, I’m briefly taken back to that time and now that I’m in my 30’s I realize that I owe Ms. Kelly a big apology.

High School wasn’t an easy time for me. In the early years, I got mixed up with the wrong crowd. I battled with drug addiction, sexual promiscuity and wild rebellion. I landed myself in lock-up at a mental hospital for two months in the 9th grade. It was actually a very life altering experience and when I was released I was able to put a lot of the past behind me. I got away from drugs. I got away from the “bad crowd”….but still I was extremely unhappy. I went to a school where there were a few different groups of people and I didn’t really belong with any of them. There were the rich, preppy kids. This was a majority of the school. I wasn’t rich, I didn’t have the name brand clothes, the latest styles, the BMW. I had ShopKo clothes in whatever styles they provided and at one point my Mom quit buying me clothes as incentive to lose weight. I was probably a size 12 or so at the time. I was given a 1973 Pinto and totaled it in the first couple of weeks of ownership. So, I was on my own to buy the next vehicle and I worked (another thing the rich kids didn’t do) and earned $500 and bought an old Ford Galaxy. Our school had two parking areas. The main one in front of the school and a lot much further away that was referred to as the Freak Lot. This is where all the “Hessians” parked. “Hessian” was what we called Stoners or metal heads. I had to park in the Freak Lot, because there was no way my vehicle would be allowed in the main lot. I tried to hang with the Hessians, but I didn’t really fit. I was somehow a little too sweet or nice for them. Then there was the ROTC nerds. These were the misfits that attended Reserve Officers Training Corps instead of taking P.E. Some were really into it…others, like me…took it so we didn’t have to take PE. I did kind of well there, but for all the wrong reasons. The guys paid attention to me. Most of the girls (not all…but most) were pretty awkward and unattractive. I wasn’t really awkward and at that time in my life I was pretty attractive. So, the guys in ROTC fawned over me. That was nice, but it got old and I didn’t feel like I had real friends there. I tried many things to try and fit. I tried to do the Flag Corp. I tried music and choir. I tried ROTC. I tried Creative Writing. I tried a language club. I tried many things, but I was a square peg trying to fit in a round hole.

I got depressed. I didn’t want to do anything. I didn’t want anything to do with High School. I didn’t care about my school work. I didn’t care about the people. I barely skated through, failing classes each year and barely passing the rest. Later in my High School years, I found a place where I fit, but it wasn’t at school. Every Friday and Saturday night I went to the Rocky Horror Picture Show and for those two nights, I belonged somewhere. I had friends that I enjoyed being with and they enjoyed being with me. It didn’t change my disdain for High School though. I hated that place and I hated most of the people within the walls of that place. My senior year, I did much of the same. I didn’t really try. I didn’t really care. I didn’t get senior pictures. I didn’t really hang out with my peers. I didn’t study and I didn’t do homework. In the end, I failed my English class…a requirement for graduation.

So, I didn’t graduate with my class. Consequently, I was kicked out of my Mom’s house. I didn’t have a graduation party. No ceremony. I was mad and I was certain that it was all Ms. Kelly’s fault. If I recall, more than half of her students failed and consequently, I was sure she was a lousy teacher. It wasn’t my fault. It was hers.

Even though I failed, I was determined to get my diploma. So, I attended summer school to retake the class that I failed. When my Mom kicked me out, I went to live with my Dad at his farm home about 60 miles away from my summer school class. I made it every day though and I passed with flying colors. I think I got a “B”, which was pretty darn good for me. This solidified my view that Ms. Kelly was the worst teacher EVER and it was ALL her fault. At the end of the summer I got my diploma…still no graduation ceremony, no cap and gown, no party…but I got that piece of paper and I did it in spite of the circumstances and I felt pretty good.

Now, I’m 35 years old. I’ve got to tell you, it wasn’t Ms. Kelly’s fault. I could have passed that class. I passed the summer school class that covered the same material out of sheer determination. I wanted to prove people (my Mom) wrong. I wanted to prove that I wasn’t a failure. I wouldn’t have failed Ms. Kelly’s class if I had that same determination; if I put forth the same amount of effort. A few years after High School I heard that Ms. Kelly was on some kind of probation and had to increase her ratio of passing student vs. failing student or she could lose her job. I don’t know if that rumor was true, but at the time I thought, “See, it wasn’t me. It was ALL her fault.”

I don’t know what happened and I hope she didn’t lose her job. I know from my own reflection, I didn’t try. I didn’t read the books I was supposed to read. I didn’t do the homework that I was supposed to do. If I had to guess, I’d say that a lot of Seniors didn’t want to take the time out of their social schedules to read the books they were supposed to read and do the homework they were supposed to do. She SHOULD NOT pass students that don’t deserve it. She SHOULD fail them and maybe, just maybe, it will give them the determination and drive to succeed and like me they will be able to look back and say, “I wasn’t stupid. I wasn’t a failure. I could have done it the whole time. I just chose not to.”

Thank you, Ms. Kelly. Please accept my utmost apologies for ever putting this blame on you.