"They" say when you lose weight your stomach shrinks but they couldn't prove it by me. After I lost my 100+ pounds I never had a problem eating as much as I wanted including New Year's weekend 1999-2000. A couple of hours after eating a 5-pound ham (minus whatever the bone weighed) plus 2 liters of diet cola I somehow managed to get to the phone, call 911 and don't remember much after that until I woke up in the hospital and was told I had a case of congestive heart failure. One benefit was I probably lost the weight I gained eating that ham after a few days in the hospital. (An aside: that's when I started the meds that I wrote about the other day.)

Lack of Moderation or addiction?

PLANTS

I have 28 potted plants in my apartment. I've always loved plants/flowers and I usually had a couple around me but when and/or how did it become 'obsessive'? By taking cuttings a planting them I, somehow, have Christmas Cacti that bloom around Christmas, Easter and, somehow or other, in February, especially every 4 years around February 29th!! That was crazy but I have the pictures to prove it over the past 3 (12 years) Leap Year birthdays. When we got new owners of Gateway the first rule they made was 'no plants outside the apartment' so I had a choice of either throwing some of them out and bringing in the rest to my apartment which is what I did. I originally had over 30 plants so, at least I rationalized, I had less now. That was good, wasn't it? Moderation? Addiction?

BIRDS

I've always had a pet, usually a dog but sometimes either fresh or saltwater fish sometimes both. Now that I was old(er)---I wasn't old at that time--I really didn't want the responsibility of a dog plus I would have to give a $500 deposit, which I didn't have and, living on the second floor, back then, fish tanks were out of the question. I don't recall who mentioned it first but at work someone suggested a bird. I gave it some thought and said: "Why not?" Possibly if I had done some research I wouldn't have gone in that direction but I didn't, so I did.

I started with 1 budgie---you know them as parakeets--then I had 2. Jill surprised me with a cockatiel and, once again I had 2. Her budgie hatched a few eggs and she gave me 2. Then I made a mistake by buying a pair of finches! Folks they are worse than rabbits. Before I knew it I had 21 finches, 3 budgies (1 had died) and 2 'tiels in 6 cages!

It wasn't long after that my doctor told me because of having COPD the dander from the birds was making it worse and I would have to get rid of them. I immediately thought of a couple of birds that had low or no dander but I couldn't have them because of my taking blood thinner there was the danger they would bite me, break the skin and cause problems, whereas the birds I did have wouldn't do that damage. Now I was without a bird! Obviously not moderation but what about addiction?

By the way birds are the easiest pets to have and take care of so keep that in mind.

(To be continued--with carrot cake, ice cream, pizza, cookies, etc.)