This past year and today.

Despite gaining all of my weight back I can not say it was a completely bad year. Or even a mostly bad one. I am going to quickly bring you guys up to date, and then we can continue from there. Please have patience, this could get pretty lengthy.

My best friend had her baby in January (The pregnancy for which was one of the things that spiraled me into depression pretty big time. That is a story for another day though, I'm in a bit of a different mindset these days and I love my niece Loey very very much.), and my husband and I finally bought a car! A brand new 2011 Kia Forte 5-door...which was totaled in June. A teenage girl ran a stop sign and I hit her pretty hard. Hard enough to fold her drivers side tire under her car (no one was hurt, but it was scary). She was found to be at fault less than 24 hours later and now we have another 2011 Kia Forte 5-door. We really love our car.

I took a really big step for me around late May. I called a dentist and began to have my teeth fixed. My teeth have always been a pretty big self esteem drain. I have never had straight teeth, and as a child I had a lot of work done. When I was 23 I was eating lunch at work and my front tooth basically crumbled into my hand. I have been terrified of dentists for so long that it took me until last year to call! I had a lot of work done, including surgery to remove one of my wisdom teeth, and the fixing of that front tooth. Currently I have an appointment for another surgery on the 2nd to remove an abscessed tooth. I want to keep it but the specialist I saw said he could not guarantee that he could redo the really complicated root canal I had when I was a teenager and that just trying would cost me close to $900. If he failed there would be a second surgery costing me another $500 and none of this includes the crown or guarantees that the tooth wouldn't abscess again in a year or two. So, I am letting it go. It is the first tooth (other than a wisdom tooth) I have ever had pulled and because of how complicated it is I have to see the surgeon again. After that though my teeth should be healthy unless the rest of my wisdom teeth move!

I also had my 6 month cleaning a few days ago and not only do I not have any cavities, but my teeth are in better condition than they were the last time she saw me. For the first time in my life, I love my smile. It has character, and its me.

I lost two of my cats this year. One, Annie was pretty bad off for most of the time we had her. We had nursed her back from the brink more than once before. It was hard to see her go, but we knew it was coming. Then in November Artie fell ill very suddenly. The vet said it was kidney failure. I was away and did not make it home before he died which pretty much wrecked me. He was less than 4 years old and such a silly, vibrant cat. The kind of personality you know is special. I'm tearing up now actually. Sometimes I feel silly because the animals we have are so important to me, but they just are. I love them.

Brightest spot of 2011? My husband. No shock there. He is steady and calm in my ocean of squalling winds and rocky bluffs on the edge of nowhere. I could tell you I love him, but that doesn't even begin to cover or describe the kaleidoscope of feelings I have for him. Love is just the blanket you pull over all of the words. He catches all of my spills and I can only hope that I am half as wonderful to him.

All through out this year I made half hearted attempts and promises to myself to start again. I think that one of the worst things for my journey was moving back home. I don't regret helping my mom, but the environment here is much less conducive to lifestyle change and can keep me stressed pretty tremendously at times (another blog, another day). Not that those are excuses, but I should recognize my weaknesses and learn how to work around them or cope with them.

A friend of mine has been trying to get me to go to the gym pretty regularly with her all year and I have to say, I have been a pretty big flake. She never gave up on me though and for some reason recently it just "clicked" again. Finally, like I needed to wait for those moons and stars to line up again before I could see the light or something. Of course I didn't need to wait so long, but one thing I learned from last time is that until you are ready to commit, you wont. Period. It is a choice. I have to make it every day.

I think I just felt so good after the 3rd day in a row of the gym that I knew that I had been missing something. Losing weight is great, but feeling good about yourself, feeling proactive in your life and about your choices is amazing. My whole body hurt but I felt really right and in tune for the first time in over a year. Call it what you will, fate/God/intuition/self preservation/endorphins, but it was there.

So now I have a gym buddy who is mostly available on my schedule and who is pretty open and honest about her need for motivation. We kinda match. Oh! I switched gyms. I am now going to Planet Fitness. They are less than 10 minutes drive from my house (a block from my gym buddy) and they are open 24 hours a day for most of the week. So that cuts a bunch of my excuses out. I don't have to go far and I can go on my time. They are also a lot cheaper with a lot more equipment. They don't have a pool, but I didn't use the one at the YMCA enough to justify the cost.

Another change I am making is that weekends are no longer off limits to the gym. I will go every day that I can so that when I DO miss a day it wont be as big of a deal.

I have made this entirely too long, but I have so much to say! I want to get back in the habit of daily posting because its good for me and helps keep me accountable.

I think tomorrow I want to talk about shame and the actual number I weigh now. I'm not hiding it, I just don't know it. I haven't weighed myself in months. ..because my scale wouldn't weigh me the last time I got on it...which means I am back to at least 401lbs. This is why I want to talk about shame. I'm going to weigh myself this week. I will be fine at WW after next weekend because they have a larger scale, but I need to put on my big girl panties and look at the number myself.

So here I go.