The last 20 years

Well if you weren't bored by the last post, this will bring you up to date. When we last left, I was having fun learning to ride horses. I was also working as a social worker in the state mental hospital and passively smoking about 2 packs a day courtesy of my office mates. (for those of you who don't know it, people who work in psych and health care are among the worst offenders when it comes to smoking...and they smoke more around you when you complain...) I got really sick during a move to a new house and would up in the ER with a severe asthma attack (never had to go to the ER before, never for asthma) Riding went away, had to leave my job because my doctor told me to quit smoking (this is before all the stuff about second hand smoke - the state wasn't about to accomodate me) and it took several years for the breathing to stabilize. Got a new doctor who determined that several of the air sacs in my lungs had broken abruptly during the asthma attack, got on a new med regime and life resumed...

I began riding dressage and my hubby got me a horse so at age 38 I realized the dream of the 3 year old who sat on a horse for the first time....

This is Ari, who is now enjoying a well earned retirement on a farm near Rockford IL. He is a 30 year old Quarter Horse, a great grandson of Leo. He is a wonderful friend.

He has a chronic suspensory condition leaving him prone to lameness.

There really IS something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a person, don't you think?





The weight came on gradually but really piled on after 2003 and my mother's hip fracture and father's diagnosis with Lewy Body Dementia. They moved nearby from their home 150 miles away and I became more of a full time caregiver than I had planned on being - I have no brothers and sisters to share the responsibility, so RPM and I double teamed as caregivers of aging parents. I made an attempt on Atkins and lost 17 lbs a few years back but it came back. Seemed no matter how much I watched what I ate, it applied itself directly to my hips (and arms and butt and thighs!)


The chubby person in the photo is me - I've come along way from 88 lbs, don't you think? I sure thought so when I saw this picture...great one of the horse but what happened to me??

And would you believe this wasn't the straw that broke the camel's back? (It should have been!) See, someone really DID come in at night and steal my thighs, and my butt and my stomach and replaced them with somene else's!