Books, Furry Kids and More

I love to read!  The problem is that my concentration is seriously affected by depression.  Right now, I am reading Not Lost Forever, a story I heard about on an old 20/20 episode.  It's written by a woman who survived a murderous rampage by her father when she was just a toddler.  Keith would say that it's my kind of book, my kind of story.  What books are you reading?  What do you enjoy?  I just love to read biographies and autobiographies, to learn about other peoples' stories and what they've experienced.  I think it's my inner psychologist.  LOL

Not only does the depression affect my concentration, but I am receiving ECT treatments for it and they have destroyed my memory.  That means that if I can get through a chapter, the next day I will have virtually no idea what I read.  You may be asking yourself "what on earth is ECT?"  Well, I'll tell you - it's electroconvulsive therapy, aka "shock therapy."  About half of you are probably thinking something about "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" or some such thing, but it's not like that.  It's not torturous, it's not for "crazy" people (gosh, I hate that word!), heck, it doesn't even hurt!  It's done under anesthesia.  If you're curious to read more about it, click here.  Or, please, feel free to ask me questions - I don't know you, you have nothing to lose!

Given the ECT, any question starting with "do you remember..." usually gets the response "NO!"  Let me tell you, it's frustrating!  When I was in the ER last week the doctors kept asking what meds I was on, what specialists I saw, what surgeries I've had, etc.  It's mortifying to not know the answers to these questions.  It makes me feel incredibly stupid.  I've even forgotten an entire vacation Keith and I took.  I work hard now to make memories "stick."  We'll see how that goes.  For the record, such severe memory loss is a rarity!

Back to the "reading" thing... I have a Kindle and love it!  I look at the multiple full bookcases I have throughout the house and then at my little Kindle and wonder why I'd ever buy another paperback!  This thing is so easy to use and amazon makes it so easy to buy books and download them onto the device.  I have a "Kindle Wishlist" on amazon that contains something like 71 books!  Is that crazy, or what?  I sure wish I could read faster!!

On a completely unrelated topic, you  may have noticed that I switched the background for my blog to pawprints.  I adore animals and as I've mentioned before, we have 2 dogs and 2 cats (Casey and Poly, Tori and Bert).  They are all named with Disney references: Casey's is a hot dog quick service restaurant in the Magic Kingdom; Poly is the abbreviated way to refer to the Polynesian Resort; Victoria and Albert's is a very fancy restaurant in the Grand Floridian Resort (Keith and I enjoyed it on our honeymoon).

Nikki

All of our furry kids are rescues.  Tori and Bert came first.  It was just over a week after our dear kitty, Nikki, had to be put down and we fell in love with these guys at the pet store.  They are biological siblings and sure act like it!  Casey we met through a rescue and the woman fostering him brought along Poly.  We just couldn't separate them!  They "play" just like siblings, too, even though they don't share any DNA.  The rescue told us that Casey is a shepherd mix and Poly is a vizsla mix - who knows, but does it really matter??  No!

Tori (bottom) and Bert (top)

Casey (left) and Poly (right)

There is never a dull day here at the "B" household, that's for sure!  These four guys keep us on our toes!  It took us a while to tell the difference between the kitties without seeing their collars (Tori's is red, Bert's is green), but now we're pretty good at it; she's the more petite one and he, well, he likes to eat, like his Mom.  Casey is a lover - will give kisses until his tongue falls off - but he is very protective of us and does not like strangers, especially males.  She is more reserved. To get kisses from her is cause for celebration.  You dog lovers will know what I'm saying...!

So, please tell me what you're thinking, ask any questions, and don't hesitate to drop a comment!  Thanks for reading my musings!

Life

Life holds many things, some of which are positive and some of which are negative.  If I'm going to reveal some things about myself, I'm not only fat, I'll share that I suffer from bipolar disorder and have a number of physical problem which are unrelated to my weight (not to mention those which *are* weight-related).

So, my life now holds a membership to the Y.  For several weeks at the end of the year I was talking water aerobic classes.  Being in a bathing suit is not thrilling, but being in the water is far better for my body than trying to workout in the gym.  I did lose 16 lbs, but haven't been in weeks and gained back 4 of those lbs.

Life also holds a house full of critters - 2 large dogs and 2 cats.  I haven't been able to walk the dogs due to the abuse on my body from the pulling but we've ordered a new leash (the Wacky Walk'r) which is supposed to buffer that pressure.  We also got the related Crazy Coupler so that I'm only holding onto one leash and the dogs can't get tangled.  We'll see how this works.

Food.  This really deserves a post all of its own, but I'll just say that I have a sweet tooth which is absolutely destroying me.  My eating habits have gotten pretty bad - not only do I crave chocolate, but I totally have an addiction to carbs.  These things aren't the best way to enjoy food if I'm going to lose weight.

I need to lose about 150 lbs, although I'll settle for 120 (from this point, so on top of what I've already lost).  As I said in another post, I've considered lap-band surgery.  I don't want to do gastric bypass, but it seems like lap-band is a reasonable alternative.

This is my life as it stands now.  Ironically, I'm off to go have some tortellini for dinner.

Our furry family

It seems these little guys were feeling left out, so I had to add them to the blog.  This is Victoria, left and Albert, right (aka Tori and Bert), named after an amazing restaurant in none other than Disney World.  Yep, always with the Disney reference, albeit often too obscure for most to realize.  We've had them since 2/09, just 11 days after we lost this precious girl:

This is Nikki... sadly, no Disney reference.  This one was a Christmas reference (ok, so I like the obscure): St. Nicholas --> Nikki.  Yeah, whatever.  She thought she was a dog, very affectionate and social.

Then there was Kilter (who I figure I might as well show you since he comes up from time to time and this is a furry kid post).  The first is the day we met, the second is when he's more than a year old.

He's a beautiful boy and I miss him, but hear that he's happy where he is.  It's far too complicated to explain why he's not here, but let's just say that I'll always love him and leave it at that.

So, that's the furry kid history in our home.  Now we wait to see what the future holds!