Greatest Gift.
Category: Uncategorized
Future City Traveling.
United States:
1. Galveston, Texas
2. Branson, Missouri
3. Chicago, Illinois
4. New York City, New York
5. Jamestown, New York
6. Las Vegas, Nevada
7. Boston, Massachusetts
8. Cambridge, Massachusetts
9. Portland, Maine
10. Bar Harbor, Maine
11. New Orleans, Louisiana
12. Baton Rouge, Louisiana
13. It’s not a city, but the four corners
14. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
15. Anchorage, Alaska
16. Honolulu, Hawaii
Canada:
1. Toronto
Overseas:
1. Seoul, South Korea
2. Beijing, China
3. Cairo, Egypt
4. Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
5. Auckland, New Zealand
6. London, England, United Kingdom
7. Berlin, Germany
8. Dublin, Ireland
&& no, I’m not very traveled. >Broke<
I didn’t add reasons behind it because some are a “duh”. The ones that aren’t, meh, that’s my secrets.
Journey Update #2
Today is December 13, 2025. Which marks one year and one month since I had surgery. Let’s talk…
I have no regrets. Although, I have seen many people talk about how they regret it. How it was the worse decision of their lives. How, if they could rewind time, they’d never do it again. I don’t feel like that.
To date, give or take, I have lost 140 pounds. I say “give or take” because I do wobble between 187 and 191 pounds – which for anyone that didn’t know, I have no memory of ever weighing less than 205 pounds. ((Miracles happen))
I have days where I can eat more than others. I also have days where I can’t eat anything. Some days I feel great! Some days I feel like utter trash. Some days my stomach feels fine. Some days my stomach hurts.
Sugar makes me hurt. && when I say hurt, I’m talking hurting. Small amounts are fine, but if I “indulge”, for whatever reason, I hurt. (Just an FYI, I don’t eat sugar as often as most people think I do/did. But you can believe whatever you want. Sugar didn’t make me overweight. Carbs did. I went downhill when I figured out how to make ramen in the microwave.)
I can still eat carbs. Pasta. Rice. Bread. I can eat it. Not as much as I used to be able to. Three bites of pasta. Three bites of rice. I’m done. However, I always eat protein before I even attempt rice or pasta – && I’ve never been a huge fan of breads – so I can go without it.
I miss gulping water. But if I gulp water, it makes my stomach hurt for a few minutes.
I still make my plate like the old Barb. I do love leftovers, though.
Grape propel has become my best friend. I actually thought it would be Gatorlyte, the red one, but I have come to buy Propel more often when I’m out and about && want something other than water. (I’m a bottled water snob.)
I’ll never get used to being cold. Being overweight my entire life, I got used to being hot – all the time. Snow on the ground wandering around in shorts, short sleeve shirt, and flip flops. Sleeping with a fan on full blast. It hits 50 degrees and I’m putting on a sweater. Sitting under a heated blanket. Buying a heated mattress cover for my bed. I usually just joke with people that my padding disappeared.
I feel like I look old now. I understand that skin is only so elastic, after a while, your skin cannot bounce back. I am 38 years old, and I feel that I look in my 50’s. Logically, I know that’s probably not true. People tell me it’s not true. But it’s also the people who always told me I’m not “fat”. It’s also the same people who told me “You have a great personality” – which for future reference, that’s you telling them they are ugly.
I would do the surgery again. Sometimes I wish I had done it 15 years ago – when I thought about it the first time. But I honestly believed I could get the weight off myself. It wasn’t until I start dating TheBoyfriend that I realized I was doing the correct things – my body wasn’t. It also helped talking to co-workers (which is another conversation that people have I don’t understand) after they started watching what I consumed on a daily basis. I never lied to them. Didn’t fake what I was eating at home. But when you drink water or eat a cucumber and your blood sugar hits 500 – something isn’t working correctly. Did I ever have a doctor tell me this? No. Because they always said the same thing, “you need exercise and drink more water”. Remember that time I was drinking so much water on a daily basis that I ended up getting hospitalized because my body couldn’t get the amount I drank out? Then was followed up with having kidney disease and heart disease? I’m sure I’ve mentioned that. If not, I was drinking SEVEN GALLONS of water a day && still had doctors tell me I needed to drink more. That was their way through everything. Exercise && water. That will fix everything.
I started noticing things. All the small things I was ignoring. When I was hospitalized in 2021 is when it hit me – hard – like a cement brick to the face – I have to do something. I started listening to my body. It’s cues. The small things it would do or wouldn’t do. In 2021 is when I decided that I don’t have much of a choice – I have to do this surgery or I’m going to be the second girlfriend he buries before he is 40. && let’s be honest, I wasn’t/am not ready to die. I still have things to do/accomplish.
But it’s been a year. One year.
Recipe #1: Tuna Salad
Let us discuss tuna salad. (Know that I hate when I am looking up recipes && have to go through one million words just to get to the bottom, && sadly, I don’t have the “skip to recipe button”.)
My manager at work && I talk about tuna salad a lot. Not because we are obsessed with tuna salad, we just: one, like to talk about food, two, enjoy a good tuna salad. However, our ideas of tuna salad differs, a lot. For her she uses tuna, Hellman’s mayonnaise, pepper, and pickle relish. For me?
Tuna, Mayonnaise (usually whatever jar I have that is almost empty), mustard, purple onion, dill relish, salt (not pictured), pepper && eggs.
The way I make it usually becomes a very high talked about subject. I’m not sure if it’s the eggs, mustard, or the fact that I don’t always use name brand mayonnaise.
We also get on the subject of goulash – which she said she has never had, && most tell me “you make it differently than I do”. That’s okay.
It’s okay if we don’t cook the same. It’s what makes food interesting. Seeing how one person differs from another, even if we are making the exact same dish. Tuna salad, for example, is one. Last Tuesday we got on the subject because I had wondered over to the bakery at work && got their tuna salad, which is tuna and mayonnaise. Which is fine. It gets me protein, and I like mayonnaise and tuna.
One of the topics of discussion is the fact that I put egg in mine. Here’s the issue, I think I’ve discussed it before, but I don’t know where or why I got the idea to scramble my eggs. I will put butter in a skillet, drop the eggs in and scramble them before adding them into the tuna. The only thing that I can think of is that one day I was making myself tuna salad, too lazy to boil them, so I just scrambled them? Possibly. I do know that no one in my family has ever scrambled their eggs, they boil them – but they do say different people cook differently. Maybe this is just something I do?
Future-ex-boyfriend doesn’t complain. I just have to let it sit in the icebox for a bit because he doesn’t like hot tuna.
I did eight cans of tuna, eight eggs, 2/3 purple onion (yes, I refuse to call it red, it’s not red, it’s purple), eight tablespoons of dill relish (don’t do sweet), eight tablespoons of mayonnaise (which you can do more if you like it creamier). I normally top it off with pepper, but I made this batch for work (because they all said they’ve never eaten it like I make it, so I made it, && cooking for people makes me happy – which I need a little of lately) and one of my employees can’t eat pepper. I figure I’ll tell them to pepper it when they get some. I pulled future-ex-boyfriend some in his own bowl for tomorrow, which I peppered for him, && tasted – perfect!
Then just mix it really well.
&& for anyone curious, the bottle is Milo’s Zero Calorie Sweet Tea (yellow bottle). I approve that tea. Them && sriracha, if I ever became a popular blogger, they could sponsor me. (Please note, I’m chuckling while typing that.)
So, in conclusion, maybe I do make my tuna salad weird. But I have yet to really have a complaint. Only ones who complain are the ones who don’t like tuna, && I don’t know why they be eating it when they don’t like it. Ya’ know?
Hey! At least it doesn’t have raisins in it, right? Because that’s apparently a white person thing to do. Just add raisins to everything. && yes, I know that was a joke from Saturday Night Live that people took way too seriously.
1 Can Tuna
1 Tablespoon Mayonnaise
1 teapsoon mustard
Small Handful of diced PURPLE onion
1 Tablespoon DILL relish
1 Egg, I scramble, feel free to boil
Salt && Pepper to taste. I really LOVE pepper, so I probably use more than you will.
Mix all ingredients really well. Serve cold.
Journey Update #1
I can’t sleep.
Which wouldn’t really surprise anyone that knows me. Sometimes I can lay down && just fall asleep, other times, not so much. Tonight is “other nights”.
Wandering around the house I remembered I haven’t updated y’all on my journey so far. So, let’s do that.
Today is April 17, 2025 – it has been five months and four days since having the surgery – 155 days. I have lost 81 pounds. The first three months I lost 60 pounds – knowing I have only lost 20 pounds in two months makes me sad. I don’t know if this is normal.
I’m on a DS Support Group on Facebook – my surgeons office told me to join one. Everyone will post that in six months they pulled off 120 or more pounds. It makes me wonder if I’m doing something incorrectly.
But let’s talk about the positive:
1. I’m off all diabetes medications. My A1C went from 8.7 to 5.3 by month three.
2. When I had the surgery, I was on seven different blood pressure meds. Today, I’m on one.
3. I can walk without getting winded.
4. I fit in my car. (Technically, I fit in my car before, but there was no gap between me && the steering wheel.) I was driving today && for a moment though I feel small in my car.
5. I have been able to buy clothes from Wal-Mart. Last time I remember doing that I was about 19. After that, my weight went up causing me to only buy from Woman Within (plus size clothing store online for anyone wondering). After I started the job, I have now, I gained more weight. What else are you supposed to do when having a sit-down job? The answer to that – eat. After I started dating boyfriend I gained more weight. I don’t think I meant to, but it happened. So, the idea of buying clothes in a store just left. I have bought shorts && shirts from Wal-Mart && that made me happy.
6. People are always telling me I can see the difference. So, there must be a difference, right?
7. I haven’t weighed under 250 pounds in… goodness, I can’t remember when I weighed it. Maybe when Boyfriend && I first started dating back in 2014? Possibly.
I don’t see the difference. All I see is the fat around my waist. (No, I’m not making it up, there is still fat there.) I can feel the thinning of my hair && see it when I brush my hair. I caught a glimpse of my reflection today… my face looks the same. But I wonder… will my face change? I know when people lose weight their face slims, but even when I was younger && weighed 205 pounds, my face was fat. Possibly kid fat face? But it was fat. Maybe I’ll just be one of those chunky faced people.
The DS Support group has stated many times that once you hit six months, that’s your biggest weight loss. After that, you’ll lose slower and not very much more. I really wanted to be 120 pounds down at six months. Where did I get these numbers? Out of a hat, possibly, but I’m not going to hit it. One of the ladies in the group said that I’m probably going to hit 150 pounds – when? && do I want to weigh 150 pounds? According to my height, on the BMI chart, I’ll still be considered overweight. Everything says I need to weigh 110 to 125 pounds.
Even when I was a kid, I never wanted to weigh 110 to 125 pounds. I still don’t.
I think I have mentioned my goal before. My first goal was to reach when my driver’s license said – because you know, I have never told the truth. It was 276 pounds. Then I just wanted to get under 250 pounds. I have technically done that, but I keep bouncing between 248 && 253 pounds. One day I’ll be on the lower side, then two days later I’ll be over 250.
I would also like to mention in that DS Support group they said when they do the surgery, they remove the part of your system that tells you that you’re hungry. That you’ll never “feel hungry”, but you need to eat anyways. Okay… hear me out… I think he left mine in. Because I do feel hunger. My stomach will growl. && I know that because right now my stomach is growling, but it’s 11:09 PM && I don’t think I should be eating again. I wake up every morning… EVERY. MORNING. I wake up hungry. Stomach growling. Tumble rumbles. I first thought it was gas, because that comes with it. But I realized a few days in… that’s hungry.
I’m 37 years old. && until I had this surgery, I didn’t know what “feeling hungry” felt like. I never gave my system enough time to feel hungry. My inability to stay away from food, or my need to eat when I felt weird… kept me from feeling it.
Carbs don’t bother me. Pasta. Rice. Breaded foods. (Don’t think I’m eating that day in && day out, I don’t. I haven’t had pasta since November – I had rice the other night at a Mexican restaurant.) Know what bothers me? SUGAR.
I made a cake the other night for my work peeps. I tasted the icing to make sure it was decent tasting. Oh. My. Goodness. My stomach hurt all night. Mind you, before you get all judge mental, even before the surgery, I rarely ate sugar. Stop giving me that look. You know the look. The look people give fat people when they say I don’t eat/drink sugar. because it’s automatically a lie, right? How else would I have gotten fat?
One word. Ramen.
When I learned to cook ramen noodles in the microwave, it was downhill from there.
Oh, I lied up there. I have eaten pasta since November. That’s how I know it doesn’t bother me. I will make ramen broth – most of the time I’ll take the packets out && toss the noodles (boyfriend don’t eat them so I have no need to keep them), but every now && again, I’ll crumble the noodles and add about a handful of them. It’s rare, though.
I just want to keep it real. No lies. Just honesty.
Do I think that’s what my issue is when it comes to losing slow? I don’t know. Is it something medical? I don’t know. I know at my third month appointment the dietician mentioned weight loss shots. Here’s the thing – I had this surgery so I wouldn’t be on shots for the rest of my life. I still don’t want to me. My issue right now?
I don’t want to be fat when I get married in July.
But honestly, I feel like I will be. && that makes me sad.
Gods Library
Walking through Wal-Mart parking lot. I see a bumper sticker that said, “Don’t worry about tomorrow, God’s already there”.
Which got me to thinking.
I tell people a lot that He already has a book written of your life – so He knows what’s happening tomorrow. Then started thinking about what His library would look like. 📖
Photo Credit goes to Nemanja Sekulic.
Y, tho?
I have upset myself once again.
Driving down the main road the other day in my town I see that the only restaurant we had is up for sale. That particular restaurant has been here, being the only place to grab a quick bite, for years. The individual that owned it, last year, decided they were tired, and wanted to retire. They shut it down and it sat there for about a year without a for sale sign out front, I wasn’t even sure if they were going to sale, it or not.
Ever since I saw the sign, it’s all I can think about. At first when I saw the sings, I looked up the website && it wasn’t there on there yet. Yesterday, however, when I looked it up, there is was: $275,000 – full restaurant with kitchen still attached – it needs work, though.
So, how did I upset myself again?
I don’t understand how people get the money/funds to open a restaurant when they don’t have anything to begin with. Where do they get the money? It’s literally… LITERALLY… all I can think about. It made it worse when I saw the pictures of the inside. At that point, I had never even entered that building, so I didn’t know what it looked like. I do now.
I have fallen in love with the bar.
I see other things for sale, but I never actually look at them. But the thought of that restaurant, being empty, for sale, && if I just had the money. I could own it.
I know it’s going to sale quickly. It probably won’t be on the market for a month before someone swoops in && buys it. I don’t blame them. It’s an ideal location in a small town that used to not have anything but that building. We now have a Sonic (who in Oklahoma don’t have a Sonic?), a Mexican restaurant (heard nothing good about them, but I haven’t eaten there), && an Indian place (this one is terrific!). Then of course, if you want to calculate the places inside the casino, we have a few more. But I don’t count them.
I would make a killing. Now you’re thinking a little cocky, aren’t we? Yes, yes I am. Through the years I have been trying to figure out what I’m good at. (Most will tell me writing, but I’m not so sure anymore. Yeah, I can write an essay && get an A, but that’s not that hard.) Cooking. COOKING. That’s my thing. That’s the thing that I feel I was meant to do.
But… where do they get the money from?
I know the ones who come from money get it there. But the ones who don’t? The ones who struggle? The ones who have a full-time job, && still can barely make ends meet, where do they get the money to just go out && open a restaurant? Because they do it. All the time.
Then there is me.
That’s how I upset myself again.
The Moon
TV Shows – Rewatching
I watch two shows yearly: Buffy the Vampire Slayer && Charmed.
I have been watching these two shows yearly for a while now, I don’t think I can even tell you how many years. I have even bought the whole series of Buffy on DVD, just in case they stop streaming it.
I saw the other day that they were in talks of remaking it. Not really “remaking it” but bringing back the cast and making another season. I’m not sure I like the idea. But the child part of me likes the idea. Sarah Michelle Gellar said she’s willing to come back and do it, and she’s the one that has been in talks with Hulu to bring it back.
Here’s my thing. I love that show – I watched it as a child when it was first put on screen, so in 1998ish – I was 11. I used to watch it weekly with my mom, which is probably half the reason I find the show comforting. But honestly, if we are being honest here, they should have cancelled the show around season four. When they blew up the high school && Angel and Cordelia left.
Or, okay, let ‘s say four wasn’t the end – they probably should have stopped when Buffy jumped off the tower and into the swirly bits to protect Dawn. Honestly, they should have never brought her back to life. Because let’s be honest – the fact that they even remotely thought that she was in Hell was a complete sham. Buffy Summers saved the world, a lot. She wasn’t evil. She might have done some things that might have seemed evil, but Buffy was far from it.
&&& I hate what they did with the character of Dawn. She was made from Buffy. I think she should have been stronger. I think they should have made her a slayer. && if not, they could have made her a Guardian. They only spoke of them once, && I’m not sure they were called Guardians. But I think they could have done so much with that character. && sadly, now, we’ll never have a chance. Because I swear to everything green && holy, if they bring back that show, and they recast Dawn with another actress – I’ll riot. Michelle Trachtenberg is the only Dawn I’ll ever want to see in that series. Remember. I. Will. Riot.
People are still mad about David Boreanaz not wanting to reprise the role of Angel. He moved on. Let him stay moved on. Don’t get me wrong, if he wants to come back and be Angel again, let him, but don’t be mad at him if he doesn’t want to. You still have James Masters, he’ll reprise Spike.
Then of course there is the ones who said, “I don’t watch this show if they let Nicholas Brendon come back”. I will end that thought there, I have no thoughts about it.
The only thought I have about bringing back Buffy is…. you saw what they did to Charmed, right? Yes, I know it was a whole different cast && they didn’t allow the old cast to even be a part of it. But it wasn’t good. It looked like, from what I could tell, I only watched season one, that they followed the plot line of the original. Start with three sisters. One dies. Then finds out they have another sister.
I stopped watching it because I’m not one of those females that walk around screaming “GO WOMEN”, “WOMEN ARE GOOD MEN ARE BAD”. That’s what they did to that remake. They made it all about women && they didn’t have to.
Here’s a concept to think about. The original Charmed TV show was about women. Women doing great things and having power that men didn’t. Taking men down and women too. It was very much “woman powered”, but it didn’t throw it down your throat – the remake of Charmed, did. (That’s also why I stopped watching The Connors – well, besides it not having Roseanne in it, and they said that she died of an opioid overdose. Don’t get me started on how messed up that is. But when the Connors continued without Roseanne, and Darlene basically became the main star, they turned that into “women good – men bad”. && I hated what they did to the character of David.)
Basically, I’m not a feminist. I’m telling you right now, there are things men do I refuse to do. I don’t want to do it. && I’m also not one of the ones who think men are allowed to do things women aren’t. Tell me one thing ((&& do not tell me ‘not get raped’)) that men can do a woman can’t. Change my mind.
P.S. For anyone out there that has strong convictions that Buffy needs to be remade with a black slayer. Did everyone just forget about Kendra? The slayer who replaced Buffy when she died in Season One. The slayer who was a better character than Faith ever thought about being. The slayer they let be killed off by Drusilla so Faith could bloom. Forget about her?
P.P.S. I really hated the character of Kennedy.
P.P.P.S. I don’t think they should have killed Amber.
P.P.P.P.S. Sineya, the first slayer, was black. Try to tell me otherwise. Nikki Wood, Principal Wood’s mother. Remember? Spike killed her in the train in New York. Black. I could probably keep going on this for a while. Stop saying that Buffy was a bad show just because the main slayer on it was a white, blond girl. The second most powerful slayer on that show, Kendra, wasn’t white. I was always sad that they killed her – I think they should have let her stay. Faith was fine – but I liked Kendra better.
“I am Kendra. The Vumpire Slaya.”
Frozen Can-Can
I haven’t always known how to cook – some might even say I still don’t know how to cook, which is fine. I like my cooking – so does Boyfriend, so that’s all that matters. I learned how to cook by watching food television shows, which also include food competitions. Normally when they cook on them, they explain what they are doing, what they are expecting, what it should look like – you end up learning a lot.
For example, I have been watching “Guys Grocery Games” on Max a lot lately. I learned that the reason mushrooms get slimy is because you don’t remove the ribs in the back of the mushroom. That has stuck with me since Guy mentioned it. I didn’t realize that – don’t get me wrong, I’ve always removed the ribs, so my mushrooms aren’t slimy, but it was something I learned on a cooking competition show.
So, basically, I have taught myself to cook. Normally people say my mother or grandmother, or aunt taught me how to cook. I didn’t get that luxury. I taught myself. Honestly, it’s fine, just means it took me a little longer to learn things, so I used cookbooks (yes, I honestly have read cookbooks), and television shows. Rachael Ray was a huge one I would use, through the years, though, it has changed. I don’t miss any show of Gordon Ramsay.
Back to Guy’s Grocery Games: for anyone who doesn’t watch it – he picks three to four people and put them in his grocery store, give them games, and they cook – the winner will win 10,000 dollars if they can get all the ingredients at the end. If you don’t watch it, but like fun and goofy game shows, you would enjoy it.
He has one game, my favorite to watch, called “Frozen Can-Can”. The rules are simple, you can only shop in the frozen section and anything in a can. && every time they end up playing this game everyone starts freaking out. I’m not talking like a little freak out then calm down, through the whole episode they do nothing but complain about not having fresh foods, how canned foods are gross, how frozen foods are nasty.
Here’s my thing.
All kinds of different people watch these shows. People who can afford to go out and buy fresh foods, people who have to use frozen foods, people who have to buy canned foods. Some people don’t have the luxury of being able to purchase fresh foods all the time. Then there are people who don’t know how to cook with fresh foods – which seems strange to anyone who knows how to cook fresh foods, but I didn’t at the beginning of my journey. I have had to google, read cookbooks, watch television programs, ask a lot of questions. I still have a few fresh items I have never cooked with && wouldn’t know where to begin.
I think what bothers me the most watching them freak out is the people that are watching the show that have no choice but to stop in canned or frozen food. Families on food stamps, for example, have to buy canned or frozen so it lasts longer. My household is just Boyfriend and me and I tend to stay away fresh (I’m not talking about meat just fruits and vegetables) because fresh food goes bad very quickly. I can buy $100 worth of cans and fresh food that last me months. Fresh vegetables would last me about three days, just long enough for them to go bad.
Basically, stop food shaming people. You’re making the people who have no choice but to purchase cans and frozen items feel bad when they shouldn’t be. Because frozen items are just as good as fresh items if prepared correctly.
Stop. Food. Shaming. People.
That includes talking about what people eat. Just because you don’t like canned tuna, doesn’t mean the woman next to you needs to hear about your hatred. && I’ll never understand people who don’t like vegetables.
♥The Barbosphere♥ 