Peace and quiet makes me think too much.

Jen
JensNotes | Pura Vida
Dear 2011, please go away soon.  That’s all I have to say about that.  I miss my grandma and I want her back.  I made this video for her right before she died, I cry every time I watch it, if not just for the music by itself, but she loved every bit of life for my kids. I was devastated when she died because she just gave up and I blame myself, “Did I not bring my kids by enough?”  Her soul purpose for living the past 10 years were for them, especially Chris & Andrew.  Again this was a work of many hours and days. I love to do video editing, but I got so emotional at the end I messed up the whole end timing back earlier this year.  It always comes straight from the heart, and nothing less.  She only got to feed Ava once, but I gave Ava the name she picked out as a middle name in honor of her, since Ava nor Caitlyn will grow up with her influence as I have.  I have nobody to talk too anymore.  I mean Julie is my best friend but even she was left speechless after she found out what happened to me this month.  She’s not used to me crying being upset, I never open up like that.  My grandma was my t:herapist, pretty much that *mom* everybody wants. She told me so many times she lived for the kids, and she told the doctor that too, we shared docs.  They knew how upset I was watching her inhumanely die and they knew the effect that had on me. But now I’m left with my husband, who is not a good conversation maker. Last night I was trying to tell him stuff and he had his darn ipad out fiddling with it.  He needed a smack upside the head!! 🙂

I’ve been driven insane all summer long that today is the first day I’m left alone with my girls and they are napping and the horrible part is I’m watching Sesame Street by myself. I haven’t even changed the channel.  I haven’t had a t.v. to myself since mid-June, and even then I suppose I only watched Fox News 24/7. Yeah, we are republicans.  Nope, that don’t matter too much these days.   You know what though, the awesome people got the house from are extremely nice and helpful, and very understanding.  I tell everyone about my life, so I hope I didn’t overwhelm them or scare them off, lol.  I can definitely say, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are gonna get.” This is so very true for me.  I’m going to make it a point in 2012 to get back to the physically fit me, and I’m going to try to enjoy the winter as much as I can. Maybe we can get a winter getaway with the kids somewhere.
I don’t go through my photos like I used too.  It’s therapeutic.  It is my hobby, and lots of memories surface. I need to get back to what I love doing most and that is photography.
While I was emailing someone today some good memories popped up in my head, my weight loss and my military program training. I can’t find my die hard BDU attire, i’m a little more influencing in the pure camo head to toe 🙂

This picture has significance because I was very ill at this point in my life and everyone knew it and I knew it just looking at myself.  This was mid-pregnancy and I was battling all sorts of stuff.  So though not a happy memory, makes me thankful for what I am right now.  This was also before I destroyed my hair accidentally too.
 
This was my most shameful embarassing picture ever.  Just look above and below.  Hard to imagine right? Try going from that to that in like 9 months. I willl never go back to this.
 This was another very ill moment in my life, I had been dragged through mud at this point.  It also makes me happy knowing where I have been and where I am at now, though a little mentally shaken up, I’m ok.
 Caitlyn right? No me, which is scary
.  I hope my baby girl keeps them beautiful looks!!

I used to like to skate, until the *accident* that claimed that non-career.

 
When my dad died of a stroke 3 years ago, this is what he left me with.  But it makes me think back to happier times when it wasn’t this way.  He became a hoarder, but notice all the trash and that fancy new monitor for his computer he bought a week before he died, because gaming was so important.  This is why I will not let my kids get addicted to games. My father gave up everything to sit in an apartment and collect wages from my grandparents, and this is what it went to.  I couldn’t ever imagine living in such conditions.
My mentor and the person who changed my life, before and after he was convicted of criminal sexual conduct and sentenced to a minimum of 17 years in prison for relations with a 14 year old.  At least my guidance was good.

Fun horrifying times dissecting a pig fetus in college.

Reminds me of that passion for photography I’ve lost since April. This was my last beautiful storm picture.  When life gets back to normal, so does photography ambitions.

I can’t help but laugh now, but this was 5 weeks post c-section and of course my clouded judgement last year prevented me from realizing… whoah, what happens if I fall on my chest or stomach and split open my 12″ incision.  Sprained wrists, horrible chest wall pain and humiliation.  My skate caught a groove in the ice, I came to a dead stop and slammed chest first into the ice. I laid flat out for a couple minutes before my friend came to help while no one else did.  At this point I was like just rolled over and notice…. Matt is still filming because at this point he didn’t think I was so badly hurt. 3 Months of pain with only Tylenol 3 = priceless, but OMG that was painful.  This first one is my best friend rescuing me from the horrific fall caught on video (as usual by Matt) while the rink guy causally skates around me in an orange coat. I was in shock and couldn’t talk, at this point I thought I had a collapsed lung.

35 weeks pregnant, right about time for a bowel obstruction.  Probably exactly one year ago. I never got huge, ever, so I never got that satisfaction some women get after 4 children. Heck, i’ve never even had child birth.  I totally got jipped on my final birth experience too.  When I rate my pain when I’m in it, I always say, well I’ve never experienced child birth, so the worst pain i’ve ever felt up to this point was a fake contraction so that wasn’t a good indicator for what pain really was. Now that I think about it, no the worst pain I ever felt was post-gastric bypass in the recovery room and having this c-section was extremely painful for some reason, so yeah I guess I do have something bigger to base pain off of!  I guarantee for both of them I probably said, “oh, just let me die” because it really was miserable. Anyhow, I had Ava less than two weeks later.

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Out comes my baby girl Ava, in the same incision I just got done packing for 2 months straight to heal.  She was worth every ounce of worry, ever high risk measure we took, every cranky episode, every anxiety attack, and every emotional meltdown from fear of the unknown.

I was extremely ill for about 4 weeks because she left me depleted of all my nutrients. As a fresh gastric bypass patient, everything I didn’t malabsorb went to her growth, and she was tiny at barely 6lbs. Photos like this bring back the memories in good and bad ways, but it was all worth it.
Yep, imagine this at 20 weeks pregnant split open and having to pack it while at Disney World two weeks after surgery in July and then re-imagine what it looked like when I split it open while ice skating 6 weeks later (just a little bit). Not pleasant, again, my obvious lack of normal judgement.

When I seen this just 3 months after my gastric bypass and a week before I was scheduled to have a mass removed my abdomen to check for cancer, it changed my world forever.  It has lots of pluses and lots of minuses, but the pluses make it all worth it.

2 weeks post operative from a vertical incision omentectomy ( @ 20 weeks pregnant) with removal of various tidbits of my insides next to the baby.  How the hell did I survive this.  Good times…not!  I used to be able to suck it up back then, now not so much.  I like how I can pretend nothing is wrong though.  I look grossly bigger than my family in the bottom picture but by time this picture occurred I was suffering and couldn’t stand up straight so we left.  Animal Kingdom sucked, literally and physically. Maybe just because I couldn’t enjoy it.  I mean, really, this was Florida in July and it was over a hundred degrees.  I also did SeaWorld without a cart somehow.  I was so much stronger just a year ago!  What’s great is I don’t even look pregnant!!  Even when I delivered I barely looked pregnant!

No lapse in judgement here, could you imagine taking an open wound and soaking it in saltwater, owe, no thanks.  Instead I got it filled with sand, and pasty me got a nice burn too.

Going back a little further, my little monster Andrew was being hard to deal with right from the get go.  Born at 35 weeks weighing in at 7lbs 12oz, he was a whopper for having 5 weeks left.  He spent 5 weeks in the NICU.  He’s a rounder as my gram would say, but cutely worth every ounce of bountiful imagination!

This was Ava on our second photo op since she didn’t cooperate the first time.&nb
sp; I wanted these photos in case something happened, and I got lots of them.

I used to work so hard at keeping this house beautiful.  I took it from looking hideously ugly to only moderately ugly.  We’ve moved on to bigger and better.

One of the last times my grandma held Ava before she died.

Never in a bagillion years ever get a LapBand.  Gastric bypass was so much less of a problem, despite two surgeries to correct it.  I love the fact that I’m no longer an involuntary vegetarian.  This was what it looks like when you have a band and your esophagus is swollen, kinda like what I feel like right now.

This is one of my favorite pics of my Matthew and my little buddy Junior.  Junior hisses like a snake so Matt pretended he was snake charming him.  I love this pic!

This is Matt’s favorite past time, I’m constantly kicking him in the side to wake him up.  Just like the movie White Chicks where Marcus in the beginning is visualizing his wife’s thoughts but he’s really sleeping. Since that is Matt’s favorite movie, I constantly say, “what were you doing? Visualizing my thoughts?” ha ha.  This one just makes me laugh.  He claims he never falls asleep and then I caught him on camera and he can’t deny it.

This was one of the best days. I knew that INS could no longer be a threat to our marriage, he was finally a citizen! I think this was 2005, just before Andrew was born!

That’s my brother, Blart. For real.  At this time he was a wannabe mall cop.

Paul the Bounty Hunter, ha ha.  My dad used to like to morph paul’s face onto various things like Ninja Turtles so I did both of these 🙂  At this time he was a wannabe bounty hunter, and he’s older than me.

Ha ha, my dad did this one!  See, we do have good memories!

Another of my father’s finest pieces of art before he died!

he he ha ha, my dad and his demented sense of humor 🙂

Ah well, that’s all for now.  I feel a lot better.  These are my favorite pictures that span my memories good and bad, but will always remind me of something positive.

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