lazy and late on posting! 35 days post-op and eating anything i can

well, i've had my jaws unbanded for 4 days now, and i've been pretty lazy in regards to posting on here. first thing after my appointment friday, my parents and i went to talita's in grove city and i tried to tackle a giant cheese, rice and bean burrito:

the green portion is about how far i got. the margarita was no problemo, though!

it felt like i was trying to chew with someone else's face using telepathy. the teeth on the right side feel numb still, and it's just so awkward. i felt like my teeth fit together all wrong, and my tongue felt huge and clumsy trying to push food around my mouth. however, i continued the theme of being an overly determined bada$$ and made it through about a quarter of the burrito. the hardest parts were actually getting the food into my mouth (teeny, tiny, slightly flat bites...use a fork!) and keeping it between my teeth so it would get chewed. i also have almost no muscle strength to chew with, so it was kind of like smushing the food until i got tired and swallowed it. gross, right? yes! after all the work that involved and a little kick of my old friend jose cuervo, i went home and passed out for an hour or so. 

with my mouth moving around again, the insides of my cheeks are getting completely shredded by the surgical hooks i still have on my teeth. i get these off friday. the doc wanted to leave them on to make sure everything is stabilized in case they should need to band me back up (which i would be crushed). i feel like things are pretty much fine, relatively anyway.

i still feel kind of swollen when i wake up in the mornings, but that's probably just from sleeping on my sides (i can't help it!). my lower lip is still completely numb, which makes me sound a little silly when i talk and makes it hard to make sure i'm getting food where it needs to go. 

but...

i went to the ohio state fair yesterday with matt, and had a blast! we saw all kinds of animals; i especially loved the huge draft horses. i thought i'd put a few pics up here:

 this was a belgian draft horse that stood over 20 hands high(almost 7 feet at the shoulders)! also, his eyes didn't really glow. although that might've been really, really awesome. 

fun fact: belgian foals are born at about 200 lbs. 

 a big sleepy percheron, standing about 20 hands high also.

percherons all dressed up in their harnesses

 here's my humongous bunny friend. i called him general fluffybun.

 here's matt, eating a bahama mama from schmidt's sausage haus (while i watched...don't worry, then he bought me fried cheese on a stick!)

 this is a striped gar (i think), which apparently lives in ohio rivers as well as in my nightmares.

 a horse with some really wicked tan lines...hah

 india's brahma bull...so soft and sleepy

 the cutest goat i have EVER seen in my life. he was an african pygmy baby standing only about a foot tall.

 yeah, people actually do things like this. huh. 

 we spent about 6 hours or so at the fair, and i ate fair food! i had deep fried cheese on a stick. i couldn't actually take bites; i had to break bits off and eat them by hand, but it was soooooo good, and i didn't have too much trouble with it. 
later that night, we went to steak n shake and i got to eat some fries soaked in cheese sauce. i'm making major progress! :) 
here are a couple pictures of my face so far. it's been almost 35 days since my surgery. i don't look super great in these by the way, i'm kind of tired and have no makeup on but...

so altogether yesterday i got to eat: mac n cheese, green beans, mashed potatoes, rice and cheesecake at hometown buffet; deep fried cheese on  a stick at the fair, and cheesy fries at steak n shake. it might not sound like much, but it's SURE better than this:

how fast can i regain the 10 or so lbs i lost? haha...*starts exercise regimen*