Perfectly timed question for me… after having a helacious couple of weeks and not logging on to this site much I just realized how much I miss it, wowowow is something that I do for me :)

Hi, Maurine! Oh, yes, that’s my little sleepyhead, Ona, though she was about three months old in the picture and is now 2 1/2, I have her and a boy Bernese, Tobie, born one day before her. They are a riot, amazingly sweet and loving, little angels just like Goldens :)

What I will remember the most is November 4th.

Wishing all of my WOW sisters and brothers the very Happiest of Holidays, and to the founders a huge thank you for opening their arms and welcoming us all to this site, it’s been a great ride so far and can only imagine everything yet to come!

Beautifully said, Mugsy.

Lucinda, that’s exactly what I always say! I learned that lesson vividly when one of our close friends who was beautiful, full of life and amazingly fit died our my arms suddenly of a pulmonary embolism. From then on I always say (as I did last week), it sure beats turning X,Y or Z age (in my case 52) than not turning it, my poor friend never got the chance to age.

Ditto to I.M.

thanks, gulliver, good point, i’ll keep that in mind. wish us luck!

Ms. Dee, that’s hysterical! and if you don’t mind, I am going to be a copycat. My brother and sister-in-law are being adamant about no gifts this year too and they would love the joke :) Long live incorrigible givers everywhere!

Yep, the way it’s being reported is sorta ridiculous, not only in how much attention it’s gotten but it does probably play the most superficial angle on the story. The thing is that so many women (and men too for that matter, maybe just concentrating on less body parts than we do…) have body image issues, god knows I do, that maybe it’s a good thing that it gets talked about, period. I somehow trust Oprah to go in the real person direction. And ok, before everyone jumps on me for insinuating she’s “just like us” (I honestly don’t get when people begrudge her her billions, she freakin’ earned them, right?…) let me remind folks that way early in her Oprah magazine days she was the first one to do one of those airbrush-make-up-celebrity photographer to real, untouched photo comparisons, way before Jamie Lee Curtis did it, to specifically make the point that holding yourself to a fake cover girl ideal is absurd.

Hi, Stever, I get your point but why are we all assuming Oprah is connecting her entire self estemm to her body image? I’d venture a guess that the woman might feel pretty good about a whole lot of areas of her life or parts of herself. I just see this as Oprah straightforwardly discussing something that first off, I’m sure anyone who follows her has noticed, and secondly, is real part of many people’s lives. I don’t see her advocating drastic measures to lose weight for the simple sake of looking good, her approach has mostly been about health (if we ignore the Opti-Fast thing of many years ago…) and that’s pretty valid, I think. I mean, it is true, she has gained weight, and she has the right to address publicly if she so chooses. That the news leads with this kind of thing, well, that’s a whole other ball of goods, that’s just plain stupid and out of touch.

Hi, Carol! have been off the computer for a couple of day so I hadn’t seen your post, thank you so much for the good wishes. Yes, it is difficult to deal with and honestly scares me like crazy, he is not able to tolerate any C-Pap machine, we’ve tried several and due to some sort of structural thing in his throat it just doesn’t work the way it should. I feel bad for his struggles but sometimes it just makes me want to scream (I’m kinda embarrassed to even admit that…).

Thank you, Belinda, in a forum where we have all discussed so many deep issues it’s not bad to have a little levity sometimes, we need it here and we need it in life :)

You mean uninterupted sleep? sheesh, I could count that by the minute… my husband has a horrible case of sleep apnea and when I’m not laying there trying to ignore the roaring snores I’m just keeping my ears open trying to make sure he’s still breathing, it’s kinda miserable actually.

To say I can relate to her weight struggles is an understatement. More than anything I admire her for being so open and forthright about her battles, the fact that she acknowledges that even someone with her vast resources has not been able to tackle this personal issue speaks to just how complex body issues can be to so many women. She opens up and exposes her vulnerabilities and I find that to be brave.