Watch this totally freaky yet completely awesome animated short. It’s smartly done and the details are lovely.

This makes me laugh every time I see this gimmick in movies/tv shows.

My favorite comment on the Boing Boing post about this:

“I love it when computer nerds possess magical powers. I also want to one day make cop shows, so when the time comes to use ‘hey, could you enhance that image?’ the tech guy adds page curl, lens flare, and little unicorns.”

(Thx for pointing it out Marc!)

Adam and I were driving around Sedona just after taking some sunset photos of the red mountains and we decided to drive into a little shop we passed along the way.

Yup. Smack dab in the middle of beautiful natural landscapes was this little UFO shop, Ye Olde UFO Store. I’m such a big geek it made me giddy to be there. It was totally touristy what with all their props around the outside the shop, but what got me giggling was the music they were pumping outside as well. It was the theme to the X-Files. (hee!) Took some outside shots then went into the store. Part of it was selling stuff.. t-shirts, books, videos, etc. But the other part was about sightings in the area, tales and photos of locals or investigations. A large TV played some random UFO sighting DVD and there were cases of material. It was a shop and a tiny museum. It was all very interesting I have to admit. A third part was devoted to items about Area 51.

I bought a t-shirt (couldn’t resist) and chatted a little bit with the clerk. She asked me if I’d been to any of the vortexes in Sedona. Um wha? So apparently there’s a lot of little hot spots in the area.. places the people have either seen activity around or the land is different. There is something about the iron deposits too.. but I forget the details and don’t feel like looking them up right now. But anyway, she gave me a map and said that one of the easiest ones to get to was Bell Rock (all the big rock/mountains around are named.. there is Snoopy and Coffee Pot too for example.) She said you don’t even have to be very close to it to “feel” the vortex.

Side note – we went to Bell Rock a few days later and I didn’t feel anything. Boo.

Another was located on the Boyton Canyon trail – we took that trail on our trip too but I will tell you about that in another post.

So the UFO shop was a cute little stop I’m glad we came across. I had no idea it was there during all my Sedona research. Here’s a few more photos from outside of the shop:

It’s been two months since my surgery and I’ve lost quite a bit of weight and I’m seeing some significant changes in how I wear my clothes.. or more accurately, how some of them are wearing ME.

The first big change was about 3-4 weeks ago, just before Adam and I went on our Arizona trip. My jeans, my trusty dusty jeans I wear way too much were starting to sag everywhere. Baggy jeans! I was faced with somewhat of a dilemma. I know that the next few months I was going to be dropping sizes at a rather alarming rate (compared to oh, say, my entire life) and clothing is expensive. I could go to thrift shops, but finding decent clothing in my size, nice jeans for work etc.. meh, I don’t know, I’m snobby/picky. I’ll admit it right now. The other options were shopping for new clothes or wearing the same jeans until they simply fell off me. Since Adam and I were going out of town I opted for buying new jeans and hit up Lane Bryant.  Ah LB.. one of the three shops I have shopped at for several years. Macy’s and Avenue are the other stores I’d frequent. Well thankfully there was a sale and I went and bought jeans that fit; one size smaller than the current baggy ones. But I didn’t stop there. Because of that sale, I bought a second pair of jeans, one size smaller. I couldn’t fit into them comfortably at the time, but I knew in a month’s time, I’d probably fit into them.

I’d like to stop right now and just share how strange that thought process felt for me. If you hear me tell you this story in person I usually add in a few “it’s so weird.. ” “it’s such a weird thing..” because it is weird to me. All these years I’ve slowly gone UP in size. I’d plateau for awhile, then a pair of jeans get a wee too snug so I sigh and say to myself “This is the largest I am going.. I’m only getting these because I have to.” It’s depressing and I’d often find myself leaving the mall wanting to cry (and sometimes eventually doing so), feeling depressed, and ultimately turning to food for comfort. It’s a horrible mental cycle.

Oh and side rant to this, how horrible and demeaning does it feel to have to go to what I call the “basement” to shop for clothes in Macy’s? I suppose if you were doing a process of elimination, you’d want certain departments in the heavy traffic areas.. and the basement turns out to be where “everything else is” — underwear, kids clothes, and plus size. But still.. there’s just something about having to go downstairs in the back corner to shop for clothes.

So after the jeans I said I wasn’t really going to buy anymore clothes for awhile…

Until last week. Adam and I were in the mall to replace my laptop charger (Apple replaced it for free! Love them.) and on our way out I decided to stop by Torrid. Now, ok.. Torrid may cause some people to roll their eyes. It’s not the best quality stuff out there and some of it is soooo not my style – however, they changed their focus a few years ago to more trendy biz-casual cute styles and not just gothic/rocker/club wear (though, they still have that too). Anyway for some time now I hadn’t been able to shop there even though I’d see a few cute tops now and then. Their sizes for the most part are smaller cut, so their largest wouldn’t fit me like I’d want it to. One thing about a lot of girls I see that shop there, they tend to wear shirts a size or two way too small for them. I hate clingy. Anyway.. now that I’ve lost some weight and was seeing several of my shirts hang on me I thought I’d pop in to try on a shirt or two. I was curious if I fit into their largest size comfortably now. I went in and looked at everything – I didn’t like a lot but I found one shirt and grabbed a size 4 and a size 3 and went to the fitting room. I decided I’d try the 3 first; why not? It was too big! OH the smile on my face. I should have taken a photo. The shirt was BIG ON ME. Something other than a blanket was BIG. ON. ME. Ok so I walked out and picked up a size 2 and bought it. (Again, it was clearance.. I’m really trying not to spend a lot of money, that I don’t really have, on new clothes I will be swimming in soon.)

I mentioned to Adam as we left the mall that it’s the first time in a long time that I wasn’t feeling depressed after shopping. I was excited and happy and had a huge smile on my face. I felt a little misty eyed, but not for depressing reasons.

This shopping high inspired me to dive into my box of “Someday Clothes”. These were clothes I had saved over the last six or so years thinking that one day I will be able to wear them again. There were a few items that still had tags on them. I tried on everything. A few were thrown into a Goodwill pile and others were in the pile “To Be Washed” because ew, some were dusty. I think those had sat on my shelf for awhile and I didn’t bother washing before putting ‘em into the box. But the more interesting thing… a few of the shirts got hung up in my closet! I gotta say, it’s kind of fun going through and being able to wear these “New Again” pieces of clothing.

This is one of my favorite photos from our trip to Sedona. Just look at those colors! Very little post-work was done to this photo. I didn’t want to ruin the natural rainbow-like effect.

Surprisingly, I slept close to six hours the night before my surgery. I didn’t expect this, I thought for sure I’d be awake right up to 4am – my scheduled time to rise. But, I think my mind had made peace with it and allowed me to rest. But 4am sure came fast. I was up and taking my no-fancy soap shower, packing my overnight and goodie bags and then sat and waiting for Adam to de-zombify himself.

Nerves still hadn’t hit me even as Adam and I walked into the hospital and to the pre-op surgery area. I was a little surprised about how the pre-op area is set up. You walk in and immediately to your right in the worlds-smallest waiting room. Continue your path and you’re in what kind of looks like tiny ER or triage area… which I suppose is normal. I’ve never been to a hospital in this capacity before, so what do I know? I turned the corner and proceeded to sign in, promptly at 5:30 as instructed. Next up, a nurse weighed me and took my temperature. After that I was given my own little curtained-off nook in the pre-op area.

My parents showed up, looking nervous but trying to hide it for my sake no doubt. I still didn’t feel nervous. I felt excited.

I had a handful of visitors – the nurse who checked me in, the anesthesiologist, an assistant to my surgeon, and the bariatric education lady for Good Sam. Almost everyone asked me the same standard questions – all including “Do you know what surgery you are here for?” Yes I was well aware. I was getting my insides rearranged.

The nurse gave me my fancy new outfit, a thick back-opening gown that had a funny little pocket in the front. There was a machine hanging on the wall, a heater with a long tube, that could be hooked to the front of the gown should I be too chilly. On went some slippers, my silly little hat, and the leg pumps.

The nurse helped me get up and I gave hugs and kisses to my parents and Adam and off I went! I walked into the operating room and at this point everything seemed to go super fast. The doctors had me get on a small operating table and adjust my legs. They put my arms out (like a cross – freaky!) and they put the gas mask on me and asked me to take deep breaths.

Tangent! This is probably the only part of this whole ordeal that kind of freaked me out. Not the actual moment, but just thinking about it here and there prior to surgery. I’d seen one too many 20/20-Dateline-Etcs that featured people who had anesthesia and it didn’t work but they couldn’t wake up enough to let the doctors know they felt everything. Thankfully, I was not one of those people.

Literally the next thing I know I was waking up in the recovery room. I swear it seemed like only five minutes later. There was a nurse next to my bed, no doubt waiting for me to come around, and she let me know that I’d be taken to my room as soon as someone could come down to get me. Apparently they were short staffed, or it’s just normal there is only one or two people that can do this. I told her it was fine. Not like I had plans or anything. In the bed next to me there was an older man that got to leave straight from the recovery room. I think he had something done to his foot, or something else minor. Then a bit later they brought in a little kid, maybe five years old or so, and he was crying. The poor thing, I felt bad for him.

Finally it was my turn! They started moving my bed out of the recovery room and I remember glancing around and I saw Adam walk by down the hall, see me coming, and turned around. No doubt he was off to tell my parents I was being moved. The bed was pushed through the waiting room to the elevators and I saw my parents, Adam and Iris gathering their stuff and standing around my bed as we waited for the elevators. I remember being slightly giddy and I don’t know what prompted me to say it, but I exclaimed “This is how I roll!” as they’re pushing me into the elevator. On the way to my room, the nurses told me I had my own room, to which I replied “Party in my room!”

It was safe to say I was pretty looped out still.

“Is all she’s going to blog about is that damn surgery?”

Well, here and there yea. There’s been a lot on my mind in the last two months and I’ve been wanting to blog about it. I don’t know how interested ya’ll are going to be in it, but it’s up to you if you read it. I’ll continue with other posts of photos.. random silly stuff.. etc.

So continuing with my story..

The time between my first real meeting with my doctor and the actual surgery was a few months. Everyone’s experiences are different but mine were almost seamless. Almost. So I met with the Dr and he went over my information. While chatting with me he said it was pretty clear I’d done my homework and I really didn’t have a lot of questions at the time. The next steps were for me to have Psych and Nutritionist evaluations and then do some tests and lab work. Honestly I’m kind of speeding through this part because frankly it’s not all that exciting or interesting. The bottom line was it took forever during this time because at first I had to wait for my insurance to tell me if it would cover such a surgery; I had to wait until the Psych chick and Nutritionist submitted their reports to do this. Well the Nutritionist SAID she was going to submit the file but didn’t until she came back from a weeklong vacation. ARGH. There was something else that took an additional week somewhere else in there.. but finally.. FINALLY.. I was approved for surgery.

I went around telling family, friends, my bosses and coworkers (I had to break it to them I’d be away for about 2+ weeks) – I didn’t get to everyone, some I saved to tell after and some I just didn’t get around to it. Time started to fly by and I just couldn’t meet up with everyone. I wanted to tell people in person.

Honestly, with some, I was a little concerned about reactions. I value my friend’s opinions, but I didn’t know if some would realize how much research and effort I’d put into this. It wasn’t on a whim, I wasn’t half-assing it. But, thankfully, all responses have been positive and that’s really helped me both pre- and post-op. It’s definitely something you need a circle of support for.

It’s almost time to tell you about the surgery itself… but you’ll have to wait.