FINALLY an update blog! *PICS*

Happy April Spark Friends! Remember me? Long time no see. Anyone still out there? lol Has it really been almost 9 months since my last blog entry? Wow! I'm really slacking here. I think this calls for a brief update. I feel like so much has happened since my last blog but these are the highlights.

1) I started a new job a couple of months ago. I'm working as a dental assistant now. Crazy active job I don't sit down at all during my shift! I love it though and it's not too bad because it's not a very long day. For a while now I always thought I'd go back to school to persue a career path in the dietician/nutritionist field but now I'm considering going to school to be a dental hygienist. Anyway here's a couple of crappy pics I took on my cell phone at work in my scrubs (PS scrubs are amazing. What's better than basically PJs being your work uniform? lol)


Another big update is that I've finally had a little bit of luck in the dating department I'm not someone who has ever been opposed to the idea of online dating and know a few people who have had successful love matches after finding eachother on the internet. But still I could never imagine myself going through with actually joining any type of dating website. My other issue was that I've always been too timid to truly put myself out there in the "real world" or accept advances from any guy who's ever expressed any type of interest. I was basically waiting for someone to fall out of the sky and find me without me being required to put any real effort into it. And as luck would have it, that's kind of what ended up happening lol. I was "found" by someone on (oddly enough) another weight loss website I'm on. He sent me a very short and sweet private message, and I responded and we hit it off immediately, saw how much we had in common in so many ways and it snowballed into what we have going on right now. I've been talking to him since October and we finally met in February (he lives in Canada and I'm in NY soo yeah it's pretty long distance. Not ideal but...whatever. lol) He stayed for a few days in NYC and we really had an amazing time together. He gave me my first real Valentine's Day and made it really special for me. He's coming back in April and I can't wait to see him again.


Oh yeah and these were unexpectedly sent to me the other week


In much unhappier news, this coming week I have to have one of my cats put to sleep. In my last blog in July I talked about having my 17 year old cat Squeakers put to sleep unexpectedly. Just a few months later here I am again with my other 17 year old cat Sneakers. However this has been a long time coming with this cat and it's definitely time. Sneakers was diagnosed with FIV 2 years ago and is also blind in one eye (glaucoma caused by the FIV) Ever since then, his health has slowly but steadily declined. The end of January he had what appeared to be an upper respiratory infection but it turned out to be an infected tooth which turned into an abscess. The poor guy's head was so swollen, even towards the top of his head near his ear. At the vet they drained the abscess and gave him a strong dose of antibiotics and sent him home with pain killers too. He would have needed most of his teeth pulled as well as a thorough teeth cleaning but would need to be put under anethesia for that. At his age and with the FIV that's very risky. After having a full blood panel done, we also saw he's in renal failure so even if putting him under anestheia was a risk I was willing to take, they can't do that when an animal is in renal failure. Despite his issues he's still up and about and has a ravenous appetite. However I have had to bring him back to the vet at least every other week for more antibiotics and pain meds. At this point he can't keep any weight on despite eating constantly, he for some unknown reason has lost nearly all of the fur on his back, and his infection keeps coming back. At this point the abscess came back but this time on the outer part of his face and he has an open hole that will not heal/close (probably because of his compromised immune system from his age and FIV) It's apparent to me he's never going to get better and now the infection is speading to his bone. He look obviously uncomfortable to me despite the topical ointments and pain meds I've been giving him. His quality of life is so poor and it's something I know will only continue to get worse in probably a very short period of time. I've had a lot of time to think it over and after my last trip to the vet on Friday I know it's time to let him go. He's suffering at this point and it's not fair to keep him alive hanging on by a thread. Our vet makes house calls and even does euthanasia at home so I made an appointment for my vet to come over and put my poor guy to sleep to finally give him some much needed peace after this long battle with his multiple illnesses. He has been so stressed and unhappy being stuffed into his carrier every other week and going back and forth to the vet. I don't want to bring him to the vet again and have that be his last memory. This way he'll go peacefully in my arms in his home where he won't experience any stress whatsoever. It's the kindest thing I can do for him and as heart wrenching as this is for me to have to go through this again, at the same time I'm mostly at peace with it because I know there is no other option for him at this point. He was always an indoor/outdoor cat (he was rescued as a kitten from my yard) but has been indoor only ever since his FIV/glaucoma diagnosis. He lived to a ripe old age and has had a good life. It's supposed to be sunny and pretty warm this week so since he still loves to sit outside on our lawn, I'll keep him on his leash so he can enjoy the nice weather. I also bought a few packages of ground chicken and some cans of tuna. Luckily he stil has a major appetite and still gets excited over poultry and tuna so I'm going to let him feast on as much of it as he wants these next few days.

This is Sneakers in his healthier days. Makes me sad to look at this picture because it almost looks like a completely different cat

Moving on. Let's talk about weight briefly. To be completely honest I could not tell any of you when the last time I weighed myself was. I don't even know the last time I accurately tracked my food in my food journal. I know I've been snacking way too much, but I'm also very active so I don't feel like I'm gaining much, but I know I'm at least maintaining a weight that is higher than I'd like. I'm going to guess here I'm probably at or around 150 now but I'll know for sure when I weigh myself next week (I still refuse to weigh myself when TOM comes around) Either way I'll update my tracker whenever I weigh myself next. Now that the warmer weather is approaching and it will be time to start wearing short sleeve and sleeveless tops and eventually bathingsuits (ahhhhhhh!!) I would like to shave off a minimum of 10 lbs, but possibly closer to 15. I've been gauging my size/weight on how my clothes fit and nothing seems much different than it did towards the end of 2011. But then again, I wanted to lose weight all those months ago and I know for a fact I havent. I'm back to tracking today and would like to get back into that habit pretty consistently. When my weight creeps up I know tracking and calorie counting is the only way I'll successfully lose these extra pounds.

So that's pretty much it for now. Hopefully I'll get back into the blogging routine too. I miss it and I've missed all of you! I still come here and check my messages pretty often so even if I'm not posting things too often, I'm still around. I hope everyone has been well and that 2012 has been going great for all of you out there!!