So, okay, enough with the politics and me bitching about everything all the time.

Things around here have been great lately. I found out a couple of weeks ago that the disease I�ve struggled with for the past 20 years has simply gone away. At first I thought the doctor was full of shit, but after he started showing me x-ray after x-ray and explaining it all to me, I believed him. So folks, you are now talking to a woman who no longer has Rheumatoid Arthritis! Okay, so I still have some osteoarthritis and a little bursitis in my hip, but I don�t have that bastard Rheumatoid any more! That means that I no longer have to take Methotrexate, which was a BITCH of a drug. Imagine having a migraine headache 3 days out of every 7 and feeling like shit for another 2. That�s pretty much what it was like, every week, for the past 10 years of my life.

Well that little life event made me do some serious thinking. I realized that I had been using this illness as a bit of a crutch, okay, so a LOT of a crutch! I think it was my default excuse for the way a lot of things in my life were. I thought that I was overweight because of the years of steroids and the methotrexate. I excused my laziness as awareness that my joints were deteriorating quickly and I should therefore not push them to their limits. Well, all that thinking stopped 3 weeks ago. What that doctor said to me changed my life. No longer will I use that or anything else as an excuse to not be as healthy and happy as I possibly can!

Yes, I�m fat. And sister, I mean FAT!!!! Huge, gigantic, enormous, obese. So, step number one was to join Weight Watchers. Yeah, yeah, I�ve tried it in the past, but I�ve never had anyone�s full support and allegiance before; this time I have Fu. He joined with me and we are both doing great. I�ve waivered on whether or not I wanted this to become public knowledge, but that like everything else I realized was a crutch. I thought that if people didn�t know then they, therefore, wouldn�t know if I ever fell off the wagon. Yep, that�s an excuse to fail people! So, hello world! I�m fat and I�ve now joined WW. And the meeting we attend is fabulous. It�s all sizes of women and men and every meeting has left me happy, motivated, and optimistic about the future. A future where there is a lot less of me to carry around.

Step number two is to get out there and go. Walk every night, walk until you�re sweating so much you think you might die. Do yard work even if it is a little warm out, take the dogs to the park, walk places instead of driving. So far it�s working. This past weekend we did some major yard work and last night Fu & I walked for a good 30 minutes. Not just a stroll but power walking. I know this may not seem like a lot for many people out there, but it�s a big step for us. We had become very, very sedentary! BUT, it gets a little easier every night, so we push ourselves a little further every night. We are testing our limits and in turn that expands them so that we never reach the point where we regret what we�ve just done.

Tomorrow is our second weigh in. The first week I joined at a different location than Fu. So for our first weigh in, he lost 5.6 pounds and I lost NOTHING! Oh man, let me tell you that was really heartbreaking! I had been nothing but faithful to the �diet� (I prefer to call it a lifestyle change because diet has a bit of a stigma to me) and drank water like it was going out of style. Fu said that he thought it was a difference in scales at the separate locations. I said, no, I�m not going to use that as an excuse, I�m going to try harder, eat healthier and exercise more. And I�ve done it. So let�s hope tomorrow the scale shows me a bit more mercy.

I now realize that after our company was shut down last year and I completed the freelance work that kept me busy right after that, I fell into a bit of depression. I can see it now, but man, I sure couldn�t at the time. There were weeks when I would go for several days without showering and there were weeks when I didn�t even leave the house for 7 days!! That seems crazy to me now, but it didn�t at the time. I just hole�d up in the safety of my home and slowly went a little nutzo! I feel so bad for Brad, but I�m thankful to him at the same time, he put up with some crazy behavior from me over the last year. He is a great man and I�m thankful for him every day.

We had discussions, pre WW, that perhaps I should see a therapist again. (About 5 years ago I went to a therapist for a couple of months. It was, to say the least, life altering.) And I almost went, but then I started thinking back on what I learned last time and that was this; I am the Captain of my destiny. Okay, so that�s a little too �fortune cookie� but you get the idea. If I want something to happen in my life, I have to make it happen. I can�t sit around waiting for fortune to shine her light my way, I have to go out there and find her! I can�t sit around and wait for the fat fairy to make it all go away, I have to work hard. Lord knows I had fun shoveling food down my pie hole all these years, now I need to have fun fitting into smaller clothes and being able to bend over and tie my shoes without cutting off my air flow, you know simple things! Haha

I can look back on my life and see times when life changed for me. Every one of those times it changed because I made it change.

The first time was when I graduated HS. I was unbelievably shy and a complete wallflower, so when I moved to Dallas and started college I decided this was my chance for a fresh start, I blossomed into a friendly, outgoing, fun-loving young woman. I am proud of my college years and the fun I had.

The second time was when I felt my personal life was stuck in a never ending cycle of sadness and anger. I took charge and made some drastic changes. I left an 8 year relationship, I moved to a different town, I began to really devote a large part of my time to my career, and I struck up new friendships and accepted offers to go out with acquaintances. Those changes lead me to some of the happiest and most productive times of my life. I advanced in my career, I traveled extensively (even taking a vacation by myself, something HS Squeeky NEVER would have dreamed of), I partied like I was back in college, and ultimately those changes led me to Fu. We met because I took a chance and decided that I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. That was the best chance I ever took, it led me to my best friend, my soulmate, my husband.

Now I feel that my life is turning another corner, one that I can�t quite see around just yet but I am very optimistic about where it might lead me.

Wish me luck! Wait, what the hell am I saying, I don�t need luck I�ve got determination!