Hello, my name is Hailey, and I procrastinate.

When the site went live I had big expectations of myself to post at least one new article a week to keep the page flowing and keep it from hitting the back burner. That was a great idea. I lacked commitment to the follow through.

Over the last few months, there have been a ridiculous amount of things that I could have been writing about. My brother came to visit and we got tattoos together. I took my children to Florida, as I do, for their summer fun in the sun with family and friends, we stayed for a month. I planned, with the help of the amazing Mr. Aaron, a surprise adventure to the Florida Aquarium for My Best friend Missy and her daughter that included my big sister, her husband and daughter, myself and my children, an overnight in Tampa, and a trip to clearwater beach the next day. I went on a cruise with Aly, her husband, my husband, Britt (my big sis), and her husband, to Cozumel. I took my husband to see Twenty-one Pilots, a show we had been waiting for for almost a year since the tickets were his birthday present last year. I shaved half my head again. The children and I went back to Florida to visit for just another week before Boogie started Kindergarten because he missed his Florida people. We went school shopping. I got my first speeding ticket. I won my very first ever pair of tickets from the radio. My husband missed that show. I fought with carpal tunnel for the first time. My Boogie boy started Kindergarten, We threw an impromptu birthday party for one of my favorite little girls. We booked our next cruising adventure. I started a new semester. I booked another croupier gig. I am using a new app to earn pocket money. I started playing Pokemon Go again. I got a Costco membership, that ones a doozy. Aly and her husband found a real life possible solution to our business plan struggles. Danielle’s dog had surgery. Mushu’s tail rot caused part of his tail to fall off an now he is in much better spirits. Boogie’s first sick day from school is today.

So many things in such a short period of time, and yet, I haven’t written about a single thing. I felt that this article should be mine and that I should push myself harder moving forward. I may do that. I may fall short again. The only person I am letting down is me. I know that.

Let’s see where this takes us. Shall we?

I had a unique experience in January of 2017 when giving birth to my youngest. I had a repeat c-section. The previous one had taken only fifteen minutes and I was in and out of recovery, released from the hospital a few days later. This surgery took more than an hour. The anesthesiologist was pumping drugs straight through my IV to keep me numb, until he reached to maximum he was allowed to give me. I felt a little more than the regular pressures you would feel. My doctor, he requested more muscle assistance to stretch the incision to the appropriate size to retrieve my son from the womb. It was finally over, healthy baby, myself in the recovery room waiting for another room to become available for me to be united with my little one, friends, and family. That evening, we were moved to yet another room, and I WALKED from one room to another. Same day, hours after a spinal epidural and major surgery, I WALKED. After the previous c-section, I was in a wheelchair for thirty-six hours when leaving my hospital room. Walking was not an option for the first twenty-four.

The next morning, they took the catheter out first thing, I mean I was walking the day before, there was no reason to believe I couldn’t make it to the restroom for myself. I was in a lot of pain while trying to maneuver myself to the sitting position on the side of the bed to attempt to go use the facilities that I attributed to having less pain medication in my system than the day before. The pain became near unbearable as I sat there longer. With a walker in front of me for leverage I attempted to stand. . .I honestly thought howling in pain was nothing more than a saying prior to that moment. I howled. The pain was more than excruciating. I was instantly blind, nauseated, and dizzy beyond belief. The nurses helped me back to the laying down position and handed me my poor baby who was howling right along with me. I couldn’t contain my tears. I had no earthly idea what was happening to me. Why couldn’t I walk? I could do it yesterday. How am I supposed to use the bathroom? How am I supposed to feed my baby when I can barely move?

No amount of tests they performed gave them any indication of what was happening. I remained in the hospital being treated by so many different and different kinds of doctors for all kinds of “maybe” scenarios for a week. Upon my release to take y newborn baby home, I was wheeled out to the car where my husband was waiting to bring us home. I lived on the second floor of an apartment building. I crawled up the stairs to get to my two year old at the top who couldn’t understand why his mommy was crawling and a new born baby who was crying and confused. If my mother wouldn’t have been there, I don’t know how I would have made it through the first few days of near immobility at home with a new born.

My mother left, I came up with a routine of my own and a few weeks later my big sister came out to Texas to stay with us and help me for a week because it was still hard for me to accomplish a lot of things on my own.

I went t the doctor about two months after having the baby because I had this lump that didn’t seem to be getting smaller, or shifting back into place like all of my other insides. It appeared to be getting larger. The doctor did an ultrasound to check me out and decided that there was “nothing out of the ordinary” happening here and it would shift in time. I went on with my life. My abdomen hurt all the time. I felt a ripping sensation when I stood up. I sought a second opinion. All she did was look at me and refer me to a surgeon. The surgeon sent me for a ct scan to confirm that I needed to see him. He never got the results from the scan but all he had to do was look at me to know exactly what was wrong with me. I had a ventral hernia in the left side of my abdomen. This type of hernia happens simply from a weak spot in the muscle wall being pushed through. In my case, the weak muscle wall had spawned from not being able to walk after the c-section. I had been unable to do a lot of things that would have helped those muscles to restrengthen after pregnancy the way they should have.

So we knew what was going on at this point. I was in a great deal of pain around the clock because of the pressure and weight of the hernia pulling me forward and to the left constantly. The surgeon then tells me that I am not a candidate for surgery due to my weight. This is why keto.

Finally, February 2nd, 2018, I had lost the fifty pounds required and I was having repair surgery. At this point, I looked as though I were pregnant with twins, only it was a single sided pregnancy. (I try to laugh now.) We were under the impression it would be a four hour outpatient happening. . . that was foolish thinking. After six hours of laborious surgery, the surgeon, as white as a ghost, finds my husband in the waiting room. He informs him that he had placed twenty-seven inches of mesh in my body. He did not look or sound hopeful when he told my husband something along the lines of “I hope this works out for you.” I was inpatient at that point. I stayed in the hospital for a few days and then came home to the care of my dear friends who have put up with so much medical nonsense from me that I am eternally grateful for all that they did and do for me. Danielle brought me home, Alyshia took the next two days, then Missy and her toddler spent the next week here from Florida caring for me and my children. After the first three months I could lift five pounds. Six months gave me the ten pound freedom. it was ten whole months before I was able to hold my baby, not so baby anymore, again.

I am still in recovery a year later. I still wear compression pants to keep the pressure from being too much on those newly developed muscles in my abdomen. There are days that are easier than others. I essentially have been forced to regrow those muscles. Over time it is happening.

I can hold, snuggle, carry, and chase my kiddos around again. Though I must take it easy still, I feel amazing compared to even the day before surgery. The pain is still quite intense at times. I fight back tears a lot. I am just happy to be alive and able to do the things that a year ago, when I was told twenty-seven inches, I didn’t believe I would be able to do ever again. Though I will forever feel certain things differently and probably have some pains that will travel with me through my life because of the amount of foreign object in there, I’m here and recovery is HARD!

A shout-out to the incredible surgeon! He gave me back to my family, gave me my life back, and gave me hope for a full recovery one day.

Why the pictures you ask? Because there is something and nothing special about each of the items in these photographs. Every article of clothing displayed came out of my closet. The miraculous thing about each of these pieces I have chosen is, EVERY SINGLE ONE FITS THE SAME BODY!!! MINE!!!!

This is precisely why shopping can’t be that simple! I have gone shopping for a single pair of jeans before and spent nearly seven hours trying on countless pairs of jeans in several different stores, only to end up spending the larger portion of those hours surrounded by jeans that don’t fit for some reason or another, staring into a mirror, crying, and the larger portion of the day self-hating because the jean search returned zero results. With every pair of jeans that didn’t fit, the hate would grow, I would become more and more discouraged by how tight the fit around my thigh or how I finally got a pair up to where they belong but they are three millimeters away from buttoning. All of that aside from the devastating stares from bystanders bearing witness to my single handedly filling once empty go-back racks in my efforts. I know that I am not the only one who has had an experience like that.

I despise clothing shopping because I love myself.

This has gotten a little away from me. Yes I want to promote self love, however, the simple statement that lead to this rant of sorts is to be appreciative of the people around you. I have not always had friends with similar figures to my own, actually, I still don’t. We are all beautifully built the way we are individually but I know that when a friend asks me what jean size I wear, it is not to gawk at the number I give or to pass judgement when I say “I’m in between sizes.” More often than not it is because they potentially have some sort of gently loved treasure hiding in that stack of unwanted denim that will treat my shape the way it should be treated. I don’t get offended when someone wants me to peak at their hand me downs. I am grateful that I have a friend that would think of me before just tossing them. This is why I pay that love and appreciation forward when I find myself staring at a closet cluttered with misfitting castaways of my own. I don’t jump to dumping them. I think about who in my life may be able to benefit from them. I think about which people that I know could use a little more self love and a little less self hate. Even if nothing that I have to offer provides that perfectly pleasing fit that all women desire from their clothing, there was little to no suffering. There is no commitment to purchase and they never have to reveal the negative experiences they may have had with these garments with anyone, not even me. I do not request the return of anything that didn’t prove satisfactory. 

All I request is that if the items don’t fit properly, don’t be too hard on yourself. They didn’t fit me well either. There will be plenty more jeans to try. There is only one you. Thats part of the struggle of being “plus-sized.” Pass it on.

Topic: Attached Living

1. THE BUGS! I am soooo tired of little invaders. I do understand that bugs are an issue that people who live in freestanding homes have to deal with also, however, it is not quite the same. Since I have been living in apartments I have encountered three of the absolute worst infestations I could imagine. Fleas are a pretty normal thing, especially when you have a pet cat or dog. The reason this is so bad in attached living situations is no matter how clean YOUR pet is, how flea free YOUR home is, or what kind of flea treatment you put on YOUR pet. When you take your pet outside, they come in. When there is a real infestation, I mean really freaking bad, the fleas are even non-discriminate about things. You may not know that there are different flea species that prefer the blood of specific animals but there are. When I bathed my dog yesterday (She is still mad at me by the way, it’s kind of funny) she had  some fleas. . .cat fleas. You may wonder how you can tell the difference. My mother was a very successful pet salon owner for many years and I spent A LOT of time at work with her. But a reference for others.

Roaches are another infestation that I cannot stand. Yes I am aware that roaches happen in all kinds of living situations. I also know that with the correct cleaning and treatments schedule they are of the easier to control/minimize. Apartment complexes include a section of the lease that expresses that they have a pest control routine, in my experience, that “routine” only exists if you ask the management office about it over and over and over until they are tired of looking at your face and call the pest company and set up A visit. Then a couple of weeks later the cycle starts over with the office and this pest control “routine” never truly gets established. In the off chance that you do gt through to them and they send someone out to spray/treat, you are lucky if they even consider the words you say about where you have seen the most of them or even anything really. 

In 2016, My oldest was two and I was pretty darn pregnant with my second, we found some apartments in a great area, centrally located, appeared to be clean and well maintained from the road, gated community, friendly office staff. They took us on a tour of their model apartment for the floor plan we were interested in and we loved it. It was clean, nice to look at, and seemed perfect for our little family. We move in about a month later and it was comfortable for a week. I am not the cleanest person in the whole worlds, but a kitchen that you haven’t even moved into yet, as in the only food in the kitchen is cold food, water, and milk in the refrigerator. My husband was working overnights at the time and I was pregnant and having trouble sleeping. I would get up in the middle of the night for some water and turn the light ion in the kitchen only to find thousands of the little demons! We had an exterminator come out about a month later after I pestered the office enough, the guy was very rude, very judgey, (I still hadn’t moved into the kitchen at this point. There were so many and that seemed to be their breeding ground so I had turned my dining room into kitchen storage, food flatware, silverware, cups and glasses, you better believe they were in the dining room.), and not thorough at all. He didn’t even go into the attached to the kitchen laundry nook and I don’t even believe he actually sprayed anything. I couldn’t find any wet spots in any of the places he put the spray wand. It was frustrating. I learned that the cleaning spray “409” is a deterrent and it kills them on contact. So I bought A TON of that. I didn’t want to bring my baby into an infested dump. Which is how I felt about my new home. We wanted internet installed, they came to put it in and couldn’t find a live box they could use so the technician proceeded to attempt to remove an old box so that he could put in a new one. He hit the old box to get it loose as the edges had been painted over several times it looked like, and the front plate fell off. I want to vomit even remembering that day. The amount of roaches that poured out of the wall from this electrical box that was maybe a 1 1/2 by 2 inch big. I legitimately had nightmares about bugs while living in that apartment. In attached living though, it doesn’t matter how clean you  or your home are. Doesn’t even matter what kind of treatment you have done on personal terms or that is ordered by the leasing office, if your building sharing neighbors don’t also show the same concern for the issue, it will never be resolved. 

By far the worst infestation of my life, also the most terrifying, bed bugs. I don’t really want to go into great detail about these encounters, yes, multiple. They are disgusting. The first time I didn’t live in the best part of town. I lived with my three best guy friends. Our downstairs neighbors had been evicted recently and there was a couch that had been left behind. I came home from work one day to find that couch in my living room. Worst day. . .When I saw the first bug I went ballistic and the smallest pf the three guys went completely hulk and threw the couch over the balcony into the parking lot just barely missing my car parked below. That was absolutely awful. I worked at the airport and because of them, couldn’t return to work for two weeks and had to part with 90 percent of my wardrobe. I showed up at Aly’s with nothing but my computer, my wallet, and the clothes on my back. The second time, I was engaged to be married and had moved in with my now husband who had recently escaped a bed bug situation in an apartment where he lived with three other guys. He only took his electronics and some clothing when he moved out of there. We lived happily and without cares for a few months. Our neighbors downstairs had moved out and another family moved in and they began complaining about bugs. They had all kinds of treatments and then ultimately decided to move out. shortly after they moved out, I saw one. A single bed bug in the crease between wall and ceiling. I don’t think that I slept for days. I sat on a plastic cooler in the middle of the bedroom as far away from the walls as possible while my now husband pulled up all of the edges of the carpet and searched. He then caulked all of the edges under the baseboards. We then laid boric acid and replaced the carpet. Never saw another one in that apartment. The single bug that I had noticed, no doubt came through the walls from the apartment where all of the treatments had happened and then food sources had moved away. Attached living. . .

2. The Crunchy People. That is the name we have given extremely heavy-footed upstairs neighbors. At least since we have had children. We have lived in two apartments with upstairs neighbors. The first one was interesting. Our upstairs neighbor was an extremely petite young woman. She sounded like a herd of elephants! She didn’t have any roommates or family living there. She didn’t have any pets. She and only she lived there. The herd of elephants wasn’t so bad during the day, however, this woman kept strange hours. In the middle of the night it would begin. It sounded like there was a herd of elephants performing a ballet recital above our heads. Often we thought that something was going to fall through the ceiling on top of us. My oldest took months to be able to fall asleep and stay asleep through the noise. I was pregnant so I couldn’t sleep through it for whatever reason. The apartment we currently live in is much the same except there are two whole families living in the apartment above us. They have carpet, two dogs, and cuss a lot. You always know when these crunchy people are headed to the kitchen or when they are attempting to have a meal in the dining room. You can hear them pull their chairs out and sit down. My oldest has told them we call them the crunchy people and even asked why they make so much noise. It truly sounds like the support beams in the building are going to collapse at any moment. Oh my goodness. If they drop anything at all, it sounds almost like it was dropped in our apartment. I don’t hear a whole lot from my back wall neighbors aside from the occasional thud, but I will be happy when I no longer know my neighbor’s bathroom routines by the sounds of their footsteps.

3. Privacy? Not a chance! Not only is the whole complex, whether it be one building or eighty buildings or better, there is no privacy A prime example is me knowing when my upstairs neighbor heads to the kitchen for whatever reason or that I know someone upstairs’ bathroom schedule. Never mind those things. Outdoors. Even if you have a fenced patio, that is not private. The walls are thin. People hear everything. My son was asking me to wipe his but because his, you know, stunk too bad and he didn’t want to wipe anything that stinky. I responded from the living area, “That’s not my job anymore! I on’t ask you to wipe my butt every time I think it stinks too much do I? Would you like to wipe my but?” One of my neighbors told me I was cruel and should have gone to the bathroom and helped him. She gave me the evil eye for a week. Little does she know, this happens every day. Just because his brother still wears diapers and I have to wipe his butt, doesn’t mean that it is still mom’s job to wipe the butt of a young man who is fully capable of doing it himself and just refuses. I don’t like to have groups of people over because when we step outside for those of us who still smoke cigarettes, the foot traffic is enough to drive a person nuts. I do not have one of those fences that keep people off of my porch. People peak into my window, mostly children because a toy or a child inside caught their eye, but its the simple fact that they are allowed by whoever to just run up and smash their face on my window screen. I recently attempted to grow some vegetables on my patio. A friend built me this really nice cedar stair stepper plant stand, my plants were doing fantastic. I even had a toad living in one of my broccoli plants for a while. The Texas sun and heat took it’s toll on them but we were powering through til fall. Fall happens and there is this cat roaming about. This cat likes to sit on my patio chair and taunt my poor Kneela at all hours of the day and night. My plants were getting worse and worse by the day no matter what I did to help them. I was attempting to re-pot thinking maybe a few are root-bound. In this process is when it happened, ammonia, soooooo strong! I realized the cat had sprayed my peppers. I started checking the rest, all of the food plants with the exception of collard greens, sprayed or peed on. I am not sure which. I am just upset about it. Another thing that goes along with no privacy is that people, much like the kids that enjoy peeping, feel like they have free roam of my patio. I came home one day and there were two grills on my patio that weren’t. Why? I have had hand painted decorative flower pots, ashtrays, several packs of cigarettes, lighters, and children’s shoes all stolen from my patio.

While some of these things aren’t avoidable no matter where you live, and attached living does have its perks in other ways (no-maintenance pools, free gyms in some cases, on premises dog park, maintenance issues are not your financial responsibility for the most part), I needed to rant about this. I woke up at 5:30 AM today to the sounds of the crunchy people to find the cat and my Kneela dog having a stare down through the tiniest space at the bottom of the blinds and my patio chairs moved around and lost it a little bit.