You do what people want then they dog you down about it so much it brings you to tears. Over 1 day’s events you are withdrawl from the family you knew growing up as a child, yet thankfully through the internet, you have the family that you’ve never known that is your birth family. I feel more withdrawn from life now more than ever and there’s nothing I can do about it. I have been asked to remove all pictures and associations that I had only to 1 family. So I have done that. Feels like losing half of your heart when you’re asked to do things like that. So all I have now are the pictures from the past when I was a child from 1 family, and pictures of my childhood and growing up from another family that I’m not allowed to show to anyone I care about. Stupid issues, no wonder I don’t leave my apartment. I leave here and have to deal with the drama outside.

Not sure if it’s just today, or been building up, but wow I feel emotionally like I’ve crashed to the bottom of a cliff. I’ve been holding back tears all day today but not really about anything. Just have been really having a hard time with stuff. It’s the weight issue and I can’t get past it. Even though it’s only 35 pounds, I can’t get it off and it’s dragging me down emotionally and physically. I am losing my motivation to even try and all I seem to do is want to eat and cry. I know that feeling is only from frustration of trying to lose this weight for the past year and failing and it has gotten to me emotionally.

For the past year I’ve been recovering from 2 different surgeries. February 2010 I had a vertebrae removed from my neck and a metal cage put in place of that with a metal plate over that, then I was back home the next day and basically down for a month. They went in through my throat so i couldn’t eat anything more than the consistency of mashed potatoes for that month, then after that all was better. I could eat again and I definately did. Then I got serious about my walking regime and did very well for 5 months and by that time I was almost fully recovered. Then I had a doctor’s appointment for a checkup (June 2010).

When I was 12 years old it was discovered that I had an irregular heartbeat and a heart murmur, but they (my parents and my doctor) decided that if it wasn’t bothering me then they’d just let it go…and I did very well it didn’t bother me a bit all through school. I had some shortness of breath sometimes but nothing that I associated with my heart troubles. I was in just about every physical activity I could be in when I was in school. The relay team I was on in track placed 4th in State our senior year which was awesome, and I never even thought about my heart since it never bothered me.

So, throughout my life I’ve seen many doctors and told them about my heart, yet not once did anyone even do anything about it other than that initial EKG when I was 12. Then, last June 2010, I started seeing a new doctor who is very good and she listened to my heart and was kind of alarmed stating that it was REALLY loud. So she sent me to the hospital to get a heart echo done. The first test on my heart since I was 12, and I’m now 42. That test showed that my aortic valve was very narrowed and I was immediately sent to a cardiologist in Rolla. Within a month I was in Barnes Hospital in St. Louis Missouri for valve replacement surgery on life support during the process. That was July 14th, 2010. The surgeon was startled at how narrowed the valve was, and for me to hear that was kind of eerie. One of the best surgeons in the country who does this surgery thousands of times, and he’s startled when he sees mine? Wow, makes me wonder just how bad it was. The cardiologist sent me for a cardiac cath test and then wanted me in surgery that next day but my mom wanted to be here for my surgery so we had to reschedule. Having my mom and my sister and my dad and aunts there was incredibly comforting and I don’t think I can ever express to any of them how much them being there meant to me.

Afterward I did pretty good, and I was excited when I found out that I was eligible for the Cardiac Rehab program that was 3 months long. So I went through that and that ended in the beginning of December. So it’s been 6 months now, and I still am the same weight that I was, my skin doesn’t have a blue tint to it anymore though which is good. It’s just SO incredibly frustrating that I can’t get this stupid weight off and it’s staying the same, within 10 pounds….between 160-150 is where I’m bouncing back and forth, haven’t been able to break below 150. I try so hard to do things right and eat the way I should but I’m soooo hungry all the time it’s driving me insane, and I don’t know where all of it’s coming from. I haven’t been like this since I quit drinking (May 2006) and I think the eating is a comfort and a release…I just have to figure out from what. So I guess it’s just all the stress that I’ve kept inside that is starting to come out a little. Major depression at the moment and very tearful and extreme lack of motivation. No one here to talk to things like this about so I type and pray. Dear Lord please give me the ability to stand strong through this time of struggle in my life.

My New Year’s Eve was uneventful, but comforting and relaxing.  I laid down on the couch to watch tv and relax about 10pm and promptly fell asleep.  So even though I didn’t get to watch the ball drop like I do faithfully every year, I am very thankful to have even made it to this day after the past year’s events in my life.  My neck surgery in Feb 2010 had me really worried and about 5 months of recovery before I had to have my aortic valve in my heart replaced in July 2010, from which I am still recovering, but thankful for each day that I’m here.  It was hard to talk about then, but a little easier now.  Even knowing how often that surgery is done now in this day and age, it’s still a VERY scary situation to go through.  Knowing that your blood will be put on bypass and your heart stopped and you will be on life support machines is NOT a comforting thought as you enter that hospital.  Knowing that only ONE knows by which means you will be coming back out through those hospital doors, and if it is your time to answer God’s calling, no amount of medical expertise will be able to bring you back.  But thankfully I was allowed to come back to my loving family, friends, and whatever purpose is still before me.

I woke up around 5am this morning thinking “Wow, where did 2010 go”?  I’m hopeful for 2011 in many ways.  I don’t have much left for vices to get rid of, I quit drinking May 2006 and I quit smoking January of 2010.  The only vice so to speak that I have is my coffee, and I don’t see that one going anywhere anytime soon!  My resolution this year is my health and fitness.  I have approximately 30-35 pounds to lose and I’m determined to lose it.  I’m 42 years old and I still have problems with my diabetes, fibromyalgia, lower back, and twinges of pain in my chest once in a while (still healing), but if I can lose this weight, I’ll be able to breathe better and get around better, not to mention looking and feeling better.  So it’s all in how I look at it.  Positive, or “OMG I’m falling apart, I may as well just lay here”.  I choose the positive, knowing what the end result will be, so I push myself each day (some days more than others) and try and keep a kind heart to all even if I’m having a bad day . . . it’s not everyone else’s fault.

I hope everyone has a wonderful day today and a great new year!  May your hopes, wishes, and resolutions all come true.

XOXOXO

Dawn

Wow I can’t believe Christmas is almost here, and another year has gone.  The presents are all wrapped, the food is baking and here I am talking to you.  I am looking forward to being able to spend the day with family and feeling the love and comfort of my grandmother’s house.  It’s a feeling of complete relaxation and comfort when you walk into that house.  Memories of years past running in the grass, riding horses, naps by the fireplace…all the while knowing grandma was close by somewhere baking something wonderful and keeping a close eye on everything around.  Nothing in the world compares to that feeling.

I’m eager to see what comes of this big storm and the snowfall we’re supposed to get.  I’ve learned that there is no feeling in the world like standing outside during the snowfall, closing your eyes and nothing except the soft hush of the snowfall landing ever so gently, drowning out all other sounds around, ensuring serenity.

The christmas cards are hung by the tv, and the decorations are all in place (well, the ones my cats haven’t torn up or dragged down), and I’m off for another day.  I hope everyone who reads this is able to stop and think of the meaning of Christmas and celebrate this wonderful time of year.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,

Dawn

I was expecting this cold, but not THIS cold!  It’s 7am Sunday morning and 15 degrees (-2 with the windchill) and the weather reports for today are saying it can get to -10 with the windchill.  Just WOW.  I’m so very glad that I took it upon myself to make some homemade chicken noodle soup yesterday, so now there’s plenty and even some in the deep freezer ready to heat and eat.

My cardiac rehab ended December 1st, and to be honest I’ve felt a bit out of place since not having to get up and go somewhere 3 days a week.  I’m sure this will pass, it’s just an odd feeling of “nowhere to go” type of thing.  The  cats are sleeping in this morning.  Usually they have me up by 5:30am – 6am since they got used to me getting up when I was going to rehab.  They don’t realize that now I can sleep in, so the Kitty Kat 500 races start.

Anyway, I guess I’ll head out for now.  Think I’ll go make some coffee and watch the snow fall.  Nothing in the world like the beauty and serenity of snowfall.  Standing outside (when it’s not blowing 40 mph winds) and hearing nothing but the soft hush of the snow landing on the ground, dulling all other sounds around you so the sound of the snowfall is all that you hear.  Seeing the pureness of it’s clean white form and realizing again, as in so many situations I’ve come across this past year, that the beauty of God is all around us everyday, we just have to allow ourselves to stop and see it.

UPDATED SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

2:30 p.m. “Antebellum Plantation Life; Perception vs. Reality”- White Haven Ulysses S. Grant National Historical Site 7400 Grant Rd. St. Louis, MO

* Hollywood vs. Margaret Mitchell’s Version of Tara
* Mitchell’s Fitzgerald Grandparents’ Civil War Plantation Rural Home

Panel includes:

* Pamela Sanfilippo (Historian, U. S. Grant Historic Site)
* Abb Dickson (Historian, Jonesboro, Georgia)
* Kathleen Marcaccio (GWTW expert)

Tour the grounds of White Haven (once Ulysses S. Grant’s home)

“The Art Of The Southern Biscuit”

* Cooking Demonstration by Suzanne Corbett, Food Historian.

Sneak-Peak Art Exhibit Preview of GWTW Artwork by Yakovetic

Civil War Era Music

7 p.m.     “Blog With The Wind”- Drury Inn Forest Park. Find out about the social media out there.

* Leigh Mills (Vivien-Leigh.com)
* Angela Danovi (Bring Olivia deHavilland To The TMC Movie Festival)
* Denise Tucker ( GWTW But Not Forgotten Facebook)
* Sally Tippett Rains (Website [GWTWBook.com], Facebook, Twitter [GWTWbookSally] & http://GWTWbook.wordpress.com)

8 p.m. “Fiddle-Dee-Dee Follies” – Drury Inn Forest Park Ballroom

Musical/stage production saluting Gone With The Wind. Produced by Three-Legged Productions (www.threelegged.org).

* Separate ticket required. Contact Anna Blair through email: fabab37@hotmail.com or www.brownpapertickets.com

Saturday, November 6

9:30-11:30 a.m. “Market Bazaar”- Drury Inn Forest Park Actors Autograph Signing!

Features autograph session with three actors from GWTW, plus author book signings and Gone With The Wind, Civil War, and Movie items and related books.   Look for the souvenir jewelry and tee shirts!

9:30-12 p.m. Selected Pieces From The Gone With The Wind Memorabilia collection of Novella Perrin, PhD. – Drury Inn Forest Park- Jewel Room

Gone With The Wind Art Display–Artist Yakovetic (licensed by Warner Bros. to create original GWTW artwork)

* View Gone With The Wind art. Bid on art signed by Ann Rutherford and others in the silent auction which will be completed Sat. night.
* Special unveiling of Yakovetic’s newest painting, “Young Master Wilkes.”

Saturday    12:00 p.m.

“Margaret Mitchell / Vivien Leigh Birthday Celebration”- Drury Inn Forest Park (Includes box lunch, ticket required)

* “The Atlanta Premiere of GWTW”
o Keynote Speaker: GWTW Expert Herb Bridges.
* Dr. Novella Perrin on her Gone With The Wind Memorabilia Collection.
* “Beau Knows Gone With The Wind”
o Mickey Kuhn, Patrick Curtis, and Greg Giese, actors who played Beau Wilkes at various ages in Gone With The Wind. Introduction by Patrisha Henson, GWTW Collector
o

6:30 p.m. “Gateway To The Wind Charity Ball”

Benefits Rainbows For Kids (www.RainbowsForKids.org)

*

Sunday, November 7
11:30 a.m. “Meet The Speakers Reception”- Saint Louis University Cook Hall. 3674 Lindell Blvd. -ticket required, light brunch, served, courtesy CPR Packaging. (www.CPRpackaging.com)
12 p.m. “The Hollywood Connection”- Saint Louis University John Cook School of Business Anheuser Busch–Emcee- Kent Martin (HEC –TV, formerly KMOX Radio)

* Documentary Screening: “The Making Of A Masterpiece” featuring actors from the movie. Documentary produced by Sally Tippett Rains, edited by Audrey Hasse, through a grant from the Hawkins Foundation.
* “Gone With The Wind Memories From Our Mother, Marcella Rabwin” Mark and Paul Rabwin share stories told by their mother, Marcella Rabwin, executive assistant to Gone With The Wind producer David O. Selznick. Paul Rabwin is a producer on the ABC hit series “Detroit 1-8-7?.
* “Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable” Leigh Mills, Vivien-Leigh.com
* Harry Hamm, KMOX Radio Film Critic

7:30 p.m. Sunday evening Nov. 7: Webster University in St. Louis MO will be showing “Gone With The Wind” as part of their Film Series. Watch Gone With The Wind on the “big screen” at Winifred Moore Auditorium.

How many times in life do we let our feelings and emotions get in the way of our life. If you live alone then it’s dealing with the world outside of the secure comfort zone you have created called home. If you have a roommate or significant other, then those feelings never have a chance to actually come out into the open without allowing someone else into that protective wall that we all build around ourselves.

Then one day it DOES come out and the person that you share your space with threatens to leave stating reasons that weren’t thought through before stating them and those words hit harder than a fist. The first time, it’s maybe not so bad because you think “well maybe it’s just a bad day and the person needs to vent”. The third time it happens, you feel like a fool for still being there and allowing yourself to be treated like a doormat even though your objectives in life are only to try and make the lives of people around you better and happier any way possible. Even if it’s just a friend that you share living space with, and those words come flying at you like bricks. Threatening you with leaving and taking whatever they paid for with them, then within 15 minutes stating “Oh we can work things out” when they realize how totally different life would be if that person were to actually leave. No more computer, no Xbox, no Wii, not to mention the fact that the person didn’t stop to think that they were sleeping on YOUR bed in a room where you can’t sleep in for now with the layout it has because it reminds you of an ex-relationship. So, you let the roommate sleep in there on your $500 waterbed and lounge on your $3000 couch and play on your computers. Finally when that realization hits is when those “Oh we can work this out” words come out. When the person finally understands that if/when they do leave, all they will have is a tv to watch, appx 5 movies and a stereo to listen to. No furniture, a mattress on the floor.

So how should feelings be dealt with when this has happened for the third time and you’ve been treated this way. Do you just blow it off and continue on with the friendship that has been there since you were 5 years old? Or do you start stacking those bricks up thicker and thicker around you so you don’t get hurt by feeling like a doormat and being used?

Just been a bad day and I guess I just needed to vent, to whom I have no clue because I don’t think hardly anyone reads this. Maybe I just needed to write it out and get it out of my system before I close up entirely and stop helping anyone altogether.

I pray tomorrow will be a better day and that God will grant me patience and guide me into handling this situation in my life. I know God never gives us more than we can handle but WOW it’s getting really close at this point. Lord, please remove this burden of stress and anxiety from my shoulders and heart for I cannot bear them. I pray that I can do your will and that I can continue to walk down the path you have laid in front of me, and have the ability to step over or around the big logs that are in the middle of that path during different times in my life. Amen.

At what seems to be almost the end of the day, I should say that this has been a very GOOD day! Rehab went well this morning other than I had to shorten my time on the treadmill about 10 minutes due to the fact that I felt like I was climbing a mountain! I made up for it on the recumbant machine though. Usually I’m about 20 minutes on the treadmill and 20 minutes on the recumbant stair stepper and then 15 minutes on the arm bicycle. Rough day in rehab that’s for sure but I’ll get over it

My sister and I are going to “Gateway to the Wind” – The Gone With The Wind convention that is being held in St. Louis, MO November 5 – 7, 2010 and both of us are SOO excited! Hopefully the weather will still be good but I’m glad that I’ll be in good health for it and able to do things. This has been a rough year with 2 major surgeries and 1 little one left to go to fix the numbness in my left hand. I can’t wait to be able to spend the time with my sister and not to mention, doing something we both are so insanely passionate about. I think it’s gonna be a blast! By the way, if anyone lives near Marietta, Georgia they are having the same convention there the weekend of November 13th, 2010.

I just joined this program that pays you to blog! I have not tried something like this one before but I am a member of some other really nice programs, and figured I’d give this a try. Feel free to sign up too by clicking the image and let me know what you think about the program.

This morning at around 7am, it was 37° and I have no idea what it got down to last night.  Yes, fall is definitely here!  I was able to get a ride to Rolla this morning and do my grocery shopping, and on the way, there are several ponds around and they actually had steam/fog coming off of them because the water was warmer than the air temperature.  Now THAT is just nuts! :silly:

Cardiac Rehab is going well.  I’m scheduled to go to that until around the 22nd of November, a little over a month from now.  WOW it doesn’t seem like I’ve been going to rehab for 2 months already, I guess time really DOES fly when you’re having fun.  It’s a real workout and I’m still really tired afterward but I am so very thankful for the opportunity that I was given to be able to go to Cardiac Rehab.  My valve replacement surgery was July 14th, 2010 in St. Louis, Missouri and the surgeon and staff that I had there were incredible!  I know I’ll probably never see any of them again, but I can keep them in my prayers and hope that each day they are helping someone else live a new life grants them the same feeling in their heart as the person who’s heart is getting fixed.  Thankfulness, Gratitude, Caring, Love and Appreciation for a new life is the only way I can describe it.  I know that the surgery is such a common one now-a-days but still, it is a very intense and scary thing to go through, there’s always that chance of the situation happening that no one wants.  The only thing you can do is have your family there with you, hug them for all you’re worth and tell them over and over how much you love them and no matter which way the surgery goes, you’ll see them again.

I was thankful to have a pack full of the women in my family and my dad there at the hospital with me that day and the support was simply amazing.  My mom, her sister, my sister, my aunt and my dad all were there for me for whole ordeal and I can never express to each of them how much it helped with them being there.

I can only say that I am happy that it’s all over with and that I’m still here on this earth, with a new appreciation for everything.  I’m glad I was able to come “back” and it also let me know that I still have things to do in this life and that it wasn’t my time yet.  So hopefully I can continue walking the path that I am supposed to and will be shown what to do with this new life that has been given to me.