Battle DragonRyder

Today I just don't have any energy after this past week dealing with my husband's health issues. He had a kidney stone which went well, but then he developed nausea and vomiting.  I see a repeat from the health nightmare of 2010/2011 he had in and out of hospitals for 2 straight months trying to find an end to the relentless nausea he suffered with.  This time, I hope it is resolved faster than last time.  For one thing, since I changed jobs I'm able to take him to Ohio Health instead of Mt. Carmel.  So far his treatment at Ohio Health is far better than with the other hospital system.   I'm just hoping he recovers and comes home soon to me and our Sammy.

While I was working on this piece for the past several months off and on, I kept thinking to myself that the doll must be a warrior on her mount.  Originally when I finished her, I wanted to call this Battle of the Bulge as I decided that this is the time to do something about my own weight and health.  I've always had weight issues my whole life.  My Mother was a very small woman as so my one brother and sister (but I never realized their low weight was because they all had bad oral health which  kept them from eating normal).  Beside them, I always felt like a giant and when it came time for clothes shopping, I was never a happy girl.  Everyone would be looking for clothes on one side of the store while I was on the other.  My Aunt called me chubby and when she's bring clothes she got tired of for me she would have me try them on in front of her and then comment that I needed to lose some weight to fit into them.  I dieted all the time roller coasting from up to down never thinking that all that yo-yo dieting was doing damage to my body and my self esteem.  Name a diet in the past 40 years, and I can probably say that I was on that.  Pills, diet supplements, exercise programs...well they all worked but never stuck.  Then about 15 years ago I read a book called Woman Who Run with Wolves.  This book struck a cord within me and let me realize that I am who I am and I needed to be proud of that.

In Women Who Run With the Wolves, Dr. Estés unfolds rich intercultural myths, fairy tales, and stories, many from her own family, in order to help women reconnect with the fierce, healthy, visionary attributes of this instinctual nature. Through the stories and commentaries in this remarkable book, we retrieve, examine, love, and understand the Wild Woman and hold her against our deep psyches as one who is both magic and medicine. Dr. Estés has created a new lexicon for describing the female psyche. Fertile and life-giving, it is a psychology of women in the truest sense, a knowing of the soul.


I learned that I was never going to be Twiggy thin now would I ever wear a size 8!  I learned to be happy with the body I had...then........ life just got in the way.  Doesn't it always?  Stress from both our jobs, early retirement for him and then his health problems just made me lose track of my own health.  Plus taking another job where a donut shop was open 24 hours didn't help me at all.  I let myself go in the past 6 years and started to see the weight slowly go up.  I ignored it saying I'd do something tomorrow.  Well, tomorrow just never came and I kept eating like there was no tomorrow.  Then I started to see pictures of myself and realize that tomorrow was here.

 I've been following a facebook page of a courageous woman who daily tells her tale of weight loss, exercise training, and how she copes with the success and the failures.  She has been a true inspiration for me.  But just reading and cheering on someone else doesn't make ME healthier, does it?  Not at all.  SO...on June the 4th 6 months until I turn 60 my Tomorrow arrived.  I AM going to take control and find the Wild Woman within myself and embrace her.  I've never really admitted my weight anywhere, but I'm going to be just as brave as Sig and post that here.  Six months before I turn 60 years old, I weighed 194 pounds.  What a number!  What is my goal?  I'm realistic here and decided that I would love to weigh 150 pounds which was what I weighed all during my teens through 30s.  I can't believe I thought I was fat back then...heck I was healthy and looked pretty good.  So I want to lose 44 pounds in 6 months, but I'll be happy if I can achieve a 20 pound lose in 6 months.  SO this is my tomorrow and I have my doll to help cheer me on in my Battle for Health. 

Here I am in May at 194 pounds.