Long time no post.
Life has been hectic. Everyone’s life is hectic at times I think. It's been awhile so I'll just do an update of the last few months.
I’m still good on the weight loss. I haven’t gained any of the weight back. This is the longest I’ve ever kept weight off. It isn’t easy. Food addiction is no joke. I wish I could say there is any easy way to overcome it, but there’re not. It’s struggling to make good choices every single day. Some days its struggling to make choices at every single meal. I try to take it one day at a time and shoot for more good than bad. I also try very hard to keep up with my exercise because it helps offset the days when I’m not very careful with my calorie intake.
In February we spent Chinese New Year in San Francisco and it was amazing.
In the spring time we went to this very cool thing called The Lightsfest. It was so beautiful. We sent a lantern up for my mom, and one for Sophie and one as a celebration of our 25th wedding anniversary. It was very emotional when all of the lanterns went up and I cried.
Went on a lot of hikes and started having fires at our place on the weekends, which is so fun and I've missed it. In June my niece graduated from 8th grade and OH MY GOD somebody please stop time. I can't believe both Cameron and Grace are in High School this year
Took Lola to the dog beach for the first time and she loved it.
Over Fourth of July we took a week off and went to Yosemite with my Seester and friends and it was AMAZING. On the way home we drove 101 freeway and stopped at every beach city on the way, along with a stop in Solvang
We loved Yosemite so much so that I’m surprising joe for his birthday and we’re going back in October. We’re camping. It’s supposed to be cold which will be new for us. We usually camp in the warmer months. We haven’t been camping in so long and I’m so looking forward to it. I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep it from joe for that long. I’m terrible at keeping secrets.
I don’t participate in Dragon Boating this year and it made me sad. I injured my shoulder last year and it didn’t heal properly and it hurts if I make certain motions and paddling is one of those motions. I hope I can get it healed so I can participate next summer. That’s a long way off.
Been doing a few paint nights and it's super fun. I'm not always happy with how they turn out because I'm such a perfectionist, but they look ok from far away. lol
Stopped at Griffith's Observatory, one of our favorite places.
Turns out i had a bad case of diverticulitis. CAT scan showed infected pockets in my upper colon, which is strange because usually it occurs in the lower colon. Of course it does, because if I’m going to have an ailment, it’s going to be strange or different. They recommended I stay the night but I was over it after being there for 12 hours so they let me go home. I got some pain meds, I.V. antibiotics and strict orders to come back if the pain got worse or I had a fever.
Well guess what happened about 24 hours later? Yup, horrible pain and fever. Ended up in the E.R. again on Saturday night (a different ER, which was awful and I’ll never go back to that one again)
More pain meds and antibiotics. Blah. So horrible. Took me a couple of weeks to feel better.
Before I was even feeling 100% well there was a wildfire very near to our house(that was set purposely. What an A-Hole) and we were evacuated. At first it was voluntary, but I had a bad feeling (we could see the fire from our house) so I went ahead and packed our car with all of the items that were important to us, along with clothes.
I’m so glad I did because while I was at work on Thursday we got the notice that they were closing the road we live on and a mandatory evacuation was ordered.
Problem was, they wouldn’t let me drive home to get my pets or my husband, who doesn’t have a car! I was freaking out. Finally a neighbor offered to drive him and my babies to my work. I was SO stressed during the time period where I didn’t know how he was going to get to me. So stressed.
This has been a wake up call that we have to get a second car. I don’t know how we’re going to do that financially but we have to. The part that really disturbed me was the fact that if my husband had not been home we would not have been allowed back home to get Lola or the cats. I would have been devastated. Thank god joe sleeps during the day and is home. If he had a day job I honestly don't know what we would have done. It has really made us think about our emergency plans. We need to have a backup plan for someone to have a key to our house and be able to get them if this ever happens again.
I was so scared. The first night we didn’t know where we were going to go. There sat joe, outside of my workplace, with everything we own, Lola on his lap and our cats in a crate not knowing where we were going to go for the night. Finally we were able to find a hotel that would take us all, and my sister offered to pay for it so we headed to a hotel in Laguna Beach. Lola was fine but the cats were freaked out(naturally). We stayed the night there, but again had no idea where we were going to go after that.
Thankfully a friend offered her home to us, even though they already had three cats and two dogs of her own. It was a lifesaver. Finally someone suggested I call our renter’s insurance and ask what benefits I had. Well they said they would put us up in a hotel for up to 2weeks. It’s sorry WHAT!? I didn’t even know they did that! So we packed up again and headed to a hotel near to my work. It was a residence inn, so it had a full sized kitchen which was great because I was so sick of eating fast food. The cats were more settled there and if we hadn’t been displaced from our home and stressed out we would have enjoyed it. We had to stay there for seven days! That’s how bad the fire was. So scary. They finally got it under control (90% contained now) and we were able to go home. Of course our house was a MESS. They turned off our electricity so all the food in the fridge was spoiled and there was ash everywhere. Then we emptied our car so everything we owned was dumped on our living room floor. I’ve only just gotten the house cleaned and back to normal.
Our renter's insurance paid for us to restock our fridge as well, $300 worth. If you are a renter and you don't have renter's insurance, I highly recommend you get some. It was an absolute lifesaver for us. The hotel bill was $1,100 and we didn't pay a dime.
Really makes you realize what's important in your life when you have to pack it all up and fit it in your car. Clothes, pet items, photo albums and every photo that I had hanging on my walls. I have so many photos. Our car was stuffed to the gills.
Terrifying
We tried to find some normalcy in the displacement and visited the beach a couple of times but we were so happy to get to go home.
Oh yeah, and I cut my hair. This was the longest I've ever had it in 14 years or so and although I liked it long I was ready for a change. Joe is a bit sad. What is it with guys and long hair? It took me a bit to get used to it but I love it now. Hey, it's hair. It'll grow!
Well, that's pretty much it. We don't have a lot coming up in the next few month's aside from Joe's birthday, which is fine by me. I'm done with excitement for now.
