 Hi, girl friends. I can't believe that I'm here. It has been five weeks. Five weeks since I sat behind the camera and did any sort of a video for you. So I am super jazzed about this one. Now I'm not going to be talking about any of the makeup I'm putting on. I'm just going to be doing the makeup and then I will have all listed and linked below. And then at the very end, I will show you what I have on today. It's just very simple, but we usually talk about that at the beginning, but we're going to talk about all of that towards the end because it's kind of like a big reveal for me. I'm so excited to be here with you. I can't believe it. So I had surgery as most of you know. You've been asking, you've been wondering where I've been. I had skin removal surgery. So I'm just going to do a really quick backstory of what has been going on with me and how I got to this point. I think I'm almost out of this primer. So yay. I wanted to use it all up and it's almost gone. Okay. So backstory is this. In 2019, in July of 2019, I had gastric bypass surgery and I ended up losing 125 pounds. And of course, that is a huge, huge deal as you all know. And I was over the moon happy about it. Once you have that kind of surgery, it is impossible to tighten your skin without some sort of intervention as far as surgically goes because it's like a balloon. And I talked about this before. It's like a balloon that gets blown up. Once that balloon gets expanded, there's no way for you to ever get that balloon to look the same as it did before you expanded and stretched it out. And so that's what I've been dealing with for the past three and a half years. And although it's not like the end of the world or anything, it was causing me to have a lot of infections. And I was just having a lot of trouble with my skin there. I would have to be on either steroids or antibiotics all the time in order to try and get that skin to heal. And, you know, as soon as it would heal, well, I was just right back where I was because it obviously was, you know, folded over, hanging way down, and it keeps a lot of moisture up there. So it was just causing me a lot of problems. And the other thing was, is that it really, truly was hard for me to fit into any clothes that were decent looking because I had that hanging down. Now, it's interesting. I had a lot of people, not a lot of people, I had several different people say, have you ever heard of dieting? Have you ever heard of taking care of yourself better? Maybe this wouldn't have happened. Well, yeah, hindsight's 20-20. If I hadn't gained 125 pounds, then definitely I wouldn't have gotten all that skin and, you know, after losing it and whatnot. So, yeah, I understand that I did that to myself. But at the same time, if there was something that I could do about it afterwards, then I really wanted to do it. So my husband and I, we talked it over for a really long time, and we decided that I was going to have this surgery. We talked about, you know, how we invest in cars or homes or anything like that. And we're like, why don't we invest in our own bodies, you know, to take care of ourselves, to be healthier, sorry about the jets. They always seem to get a little bit noisy when I decide to sit down here and film. So I did consult with four different surgeons, set the date with one that I felt really comfortable with, by the way, it's Dr. Burnett. He is in Ogden, Utah. And it's amazing what he can do and what he did for me. And I do not have anything bad to say about this man. And he is just, he's a wizard. As far as I'm concerned, and you'll see what I'm talking about here in a little while. So surgery was on January 9th. And let me tell you how that went. I went, the day that I went in there, I was, I had a little bit of a scratchy throat. And I was like, I think I might be getting a little bit of a cold or something, or maybe it's just because the dry air or something in there, like, no, it's probably just the dry air, you're fine. And especially since I couldn't have anything to eat after midnight that night, they were, you know, really pretty sure that there wasn't much wrong, that it was probably just because of being a little bit dehydrated, right? So they went ahead with the surgery. And I don't remember anything. He took, they took me in there. The anesthesiologist said, okay, I'm going to put this in your arm to make you relax. And it's going to burn a little bit. And then, you know, that's just going to help you relax. And then we'll go on. I'm like, okay, so it starts to burn. It doesn't just burn, it heart burns. And I'm like, out, out, out, out. And that's all I remember saying. I don't remember anything else. So the next thing I remember, I'm actually in my car on my way home. I don't even remember anything beyond that. I don't remember getting in the car. I don't remember being in the recovery. I don't remember my husband being there. I don't remember any nurses. I don't remember anything. So I'm pretty sure they gave me some pretty stiff drugs to get through that part because I seriously, I don't know how they got me dressed. I don't know how they got me in the car. Nothing. I don't remember the ride home. I remember my husband saying, we're home and you're going to need to get up and you're going to need to go in the house. And I just remember him coming around to the side of the door and him trying to give me a hand and me being like pushing him away and just saying, get out of my way. And so I knew I had really been worried about, I have like six really steep steps from my first level to my second level in my home. And I knew that I was going to have to get up that and I had really remembered that I was worried about that. And so I just remember thinking, okay, I've got to get this far and then I've got to go in and I've got to get up those steps. And I was so wobbly that I do remember kind of, you know, kind of going like sideways and stuff as I'm going in my house, but I don't remember anything else. And I do remember hitting one of those stairs, not hitting, but you know, getting over one of those stairs and then I don't remember anything else. I don't remember anything until in the middle of that night. My husband was talking to me and I guess what he was doing because they wanted me to stay on this regimen of having pills at a certain time because if you get off of that, you can really feel really bad and it's hard to get ahead of the pain again. I guess he was just sticking those in my in my mouth like this and trying to get me to drink because I don't remember any of that. There was a nurse that came that night. They send you home with a catheter because they want you to just rest for 24 hours. They don't want you up for 24 hours. They send you home with the catheter. I don't remember this nurse coming. She came and she gave me a shot to help with with blood clots. She gave that to me in my belly. She checked all of the drains. She checked. You come home with a drain too. She checked all of the drains and everything and she talked to my husband and apparently she talked to me, but I don't remember it. So I remember that night just waking up and I had to pee so bad and I was just like, I've got to go to the bathroom and he's like, well, you've got a catheter and just peeing your catheter. Well, if any of you have ever had a catheter in, it is so hard to have that in and feel like you got to pee. So I'm like really concentrating on getting this pee out of my bladder and I could not do it. It was just like, this is so weird. It was just so bizarre. So anyway, I guess I finally, you know, got to the point to where I was feeling like maybe I could push some of it out. I don't know. I don't remember very much of it about about any of that, but I do remember that I was finally to a point to where I had just a little bit of that urge. It had kind of gone away pretty much and yeah, so we were like battling that all night long, me trying to pee and then, you know, just being a nightmare. I got too much of that color corrector on the first time I've used that color corrector. So I definitely got too much of that on. So I'm going to wipe just a little bit of that off. Okay, let's try that again. Well, that was a lot of color corrector. Okay. So the next morning the nurse comes, she takes out the catheter, what a relief, right? And then she gives me another shot to do, you know, because of the blood clots and everything, they're worried about that. And she gives me another shot in my stomach and they get me up for the first time and scream, scream, scream. I mean, it was horrendous. And the only other time that I've ever felt that kind of pain is when I was 17 years old and I broke my back and they got me up for the first time after breaking my back to teach me how to walk again. And that's the only time I remember any pain like that. So this was intense. This was very, very intense, very scary. And I, you know, I knew it was going to be. I knew that it was going to be really bad pain. But I'd had people say, Oh, it feels like a Caesarean. I've had three Caesareans. It don't feel like a Caesarean. It doesn't feel, I almost gave birth to my son, but his head was too big. He couldn't go through the Birkenau. It was not anything like even that pain. So it was pretty darn intense. I think this was probably the hardest, most painful thing that I've ever been through. And yet here I am on the other side going, it was probably worth it. This is not a perfect makeup tutorial by any stretch of the imagination. I am just doing my makeup because I do have somewhere to go today. And I wanted to be able to chat with you guys too, because it's been so long. Okay. So now we are in the recovery time. And this is where things are just my husband's home. He took a week and a half off from work. Bless that man's heart. He just did such a good job. My oldest son is here and he helped too. We have three dogs. So he like wrangled the dogs while my husband was taking care of me. And yeah, it was really, it was very intense. It was probably the most intense thing that I've ever been through. Even though now on the other side of it, I'm feeling like it was a necessary thing. I'm not so sure that I would ever go to somebody and say, yeah, go ahead and do this. I'm not saying don't do it, but I'm saying really gear your mind up. And I think that's a huge deal with any surgery. You've got to really just tell yourself, okay, I know this is going to be something that's going to be the harder, probably the hardest thing ever, but it's for my betterment. And I definitely, you know, can get through it. And that's really the thing with pain medications, the way they are today, and everything, you can get through just about anything. Now the scars. So I have a scar that goes all the way around my whole body. It is a scar that goes along the bikini line, if you've ever had a C-section, you know what a bikini line scar is more than likely. And it goes along the bikini line, but then it comes all the way around the hips, and then it goes all the way around the back to my crack. And so I had that done. And then he did lipo like everywhere. And I really, he said he was going to do lipo like on my flanks and on my inner and outer thighs, but I had no idea how extensive that would be. And so I was bruised, and I was bruised like, oh my gosh, like nothing I'd ever felt or seen before. And if you are squeamish, I'm going to put a picture in here. So trigger warning, if that is hard on you, you need to fast forward or just skip out of this video altogether because I am going to put a picture in here of what those bruises looked like and what my scar looked like. So big trigger warning, right here, right now, just click out if you need to. So that is the scars. Yes, they're gnarly. Yes, they're horrible. And yes, they still look like that today. But you know, they're fading a little bit, but they're not fading a lot. So that is what I still have to deal with. I am okay with that because, you know, I knew what I was signing on for. Scars don't bother me. A lot of women, I have heard that scars are really hard on them. And it's really kicks their self-esteem and whatnot. That doesn't bug me because I've been through so much as far as different things like that go. So I wasn't at all worried about that. It's interesting that the doctor told me that I bruised more than normal people because my skin was so light. And I'm like, he's like, you know, most people with skin like yours. I said to him, I said, you mean skin that is so pale that it's almost see-through? And he's like, yeah. And so when that skin is so white like that, it looked, you can see through it almost. So really truly you see more bruises than you would on somebody that was darker. I knew that that was going to happen. And I knew that I was going to bruise like a mother and it was going to be bad. And so yeah, just didn't really worry about that very, very much at all. But that recovery, that two weeks of just being in my bed and not being able to do much and just hurting so much, that was hard. And then when my husband went back to work, then it became even harder. I got this off of Amazon. I don't know whether I like it or not. I feel like I have to really rub in there to get a whole bunch of stuff up. But yeah, we'll see how it goes on there. You guys seen these? Oh, I was so excited when I saw these. These are the new pure nude baked blushes from Essence. So pretty. I'm sure you guys have because I've been like majorly out of the loop. Anyway, just wanted to give you that update to tell you where I'm at. Things are going really good now. I feel a lot better. I'm going to be doing a lot more like clothing hauls now and different things like that, because I actually can wear pants for the first time. And I swore I wasn't going to. I wasn't going to get all sappy or nothing on here. But it is such a big change for someone that has had that flapped over skin. Because 33 years ago, yeah, 33 years ago, I had my first son. And when I had my caesarean, I had that flapped over skin to an extent anyway. I gained a lot of weight. And then when they put you on that surgery, then you end up, it ends up being that flapped over and you're stuck with it for the rest of your life. It's a body dysmorphia type thing. When you go to try on every single pair of jeans in the store and you can't get them up around that, but it fits okay on the rest of your body like your waist or your hips or your legs. But that thing is there and there's nothing you could do about it. So you wear stretchy pants for the rest of your life. So now all of a sudden I'm at a point to where I can wear just about anything I want to. And I'm just in shock. And it's just like, wow. I mean, I did realize that I was doing it for that to an extent. But now I'm at the point to where I'm like, wow, this has completely changed my life. And looking back on it, like I said, I don't know that I would tell anybody to ever have this. But at the same time, I don't know if I would ever tell anybody not to have it. It's one of those things you're like, okay, it was super hard. It was the most intense thing I've ever been through. But the benefits outweigh, it's like when you have a baby, it really is. It's like you're in the middle of having all this, you know, horrible labor pain. And then all of a sudden the baby's there and you forget all about it. So even though it's been like six weeks of labor, not really labor, but you know, again, you get what I'm saying, even though it's been six weeks of that intense pain and that intense adjustment, it really truly has been something that I'm glad that I did. So right here, while we are talking at the end of the video and I'm getting ready to do my mascara, I want you to take a look at what I looked like at my heaviest. Well, this isn't my heaviest. Just so you know, this interestingly enough, I had already lost 30 pounds here in preparation for that surgery. So I had already lost 30 pounds and I was not happy with myself, you can tell by the look on my face, but also I was really ready to have this. And then I will show you pictures side by side picture of me at that weight and then of me at my lowest weight. I'm going to show you a few pictures of me recently and how you can tell that I have that, you know, hangover, that tire around the middle and the last of my bottle of my Charlotte Tilbury is just about done. Okay, I am using the Maybelline Sky High New Primer Mascara and then this is the new one from Flower Beauty and this is Dream Warrior. And I haven't used that one before and I am going to separate my lashes with this comb that I got off of Amazon just helps to make them look more voluminous instead of like one clumpy lash if you can get it in there the right way. And I have never used this, I've never used this Flower Beauty Mascara before yet. I have used the Maybelline one and I do like that primer. Kind of like the Sky High Mascara and yeah, just works really good. So that's what I'm using today. Alright, that is the total look for the Get Ready With Me. I'm going to stand up so you guys can see what I look like now and we'll kind of do it side by side here in just a second as well. I had to change my shirt because I was really sweaty and plus I got a glop of mascara on my shirt. So this is me, you guys. This is what it is now. It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. I still can't believe that this is me and I'm just so happy with where I am now and everything that's happened and I just appreciate more than you will ever know that outpouring of love and encouragement that you all gave me during this whole thing because I don't think I could have done it but I would log into my account and I would see you all encouraging me and you didn't even know where I was in my recovery or anything because I was just like shut down. But wow, it's just been absolutely amazing. I still can't believe it. I have the flattest tummy I've ever had in my life. I think even when I was a teenager, maybe not when I was a teenager, but you get it. It's incredible and I couldn't be happier and I just thank you all for your love, your support, your kindness watching my older videos while I was going through this and continuing to let me know that you were still here for me. I just thank you from the bottom of my heart and I'm back and so I'll be bringing you a lot of content and like I said I'm going to be bringing you a lot of fashion, affordable fashion from Amazon which I love anyway but I'm a size smaller now than I've been in a long time so I am doing some shopping which darn it, I have to do shopping for new clothes. But anyway, I love you guys so much. Thank you for everything and I will be seeing you and doing a lot more content now and yeah. Take care of yourselves. I hope you're all doing well and I love you to the moon and back. Goodbye my friends. I love you girlfriends. Bye bye.