Welcome To Leanne 3.0

It’s my birthday today, and time for a system upgrade. Welcome to Leanne 3.0! A few things needed to be jettisoned before rebooting myself from Leanne 2.0, (the one who struggled with personal boundaries), but it's never too late for an upgrade. Here are a few things I've shed:
 
Weight: Nothing motivates me to lose weight more than agreeing to meet with people from my thinner years. This year, I’ve elected to attend such an event: My High School Reunion! Wayne suggested we both join Weight Watchers. He had great success with it in the 1990s, although both of us slid backward in subsequent years. I’ll take a quick moment to list my own personal rationalizations:
“It’s ski season, so it must all be muscle.”
“I don’t really eat a lot, do I?”
“They don’t make clothes like they used to – they just never fit right anymore. It’s the Chinese!”
“My husband must have left my jeans in the dryer for too long.”

So three weeks ago I shuffled into a Weight Watchers meeting with my head hung low, feeling as if I’d failed on my own, condemned to a 12-Step program. “No,” Wayne insisted, “this is a positive thing!”
I won’t go into a pound-by-pound narrative of my process; just suffice it to say that measuring cups and spoons are your friends. So is the gym. And of course, you have to work at it, just like anything else.
 
Annoying People: We’ve been through some tough times in the last few years, including remodeling our house room by room whilst living in it, unearthing my husband’s mood disorder, and surviving a major injury. A few erstwhile friends could not see past the mood disorder thing, which sometimes features angry meltdowns where annoying people are concerned. Wayne’s working very hard to overcome this in therapy, although he still blows it now and then. Would you desert your best friend over that? If so, stop reading this immediately. Locate the nearest garbage can. Climb in and be sure to close the lid after you.
So following The Great Fall of 2014, while I was wheelchair ridden, recovering from the worst accident of my life, the erstwhiles took it upon themselves to try and separate me from my husband.
“How can you allow him to behave like this?!?” they cried, and, "He'll ruin your life!" among other epithets which continue to amuse me, but are hurtful to Wayne just the same. I strengthened my stance (well actually, my sitz, back then) regarding my husband, continuing to support him as he worked through his mood disorder. Fingers wagged, advice turned to scorn, and accusations flew, ranging from “faking” his depression, to domestic violence, driving away all my friends, and my personal favorite, me suffering from the dreaded Stockholm Syndrome!

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Rest assured, dear friends, if you’re still with us, and have been following this blog, you already know that my life has never been better.
Meanwhile, a few more shed-worthy characters we've purged include those who swill diet soda every waking hour of every day, big drinkers, and the worst, most heinous creatures to walk the face of the earth:

There. I feel lighter already.
So yeah, it’s a good birthday. I’ve gotten lots of great gifts, well wishes and a John Deere Lawn Tractor which has just been delivered. Pictures to come soon, most likely after I’ve lost another five pounds.