Thoughts all over the place....grasshopper mind strikes again

Let's get the business over and done with.

Lost 1.6 kgs this week BUT this is probably a false reading as I have had another tummy upset over the weekend (my third in 7 weeks).

Exercised with two Lucy walks and one gym session. Been appalling weather here last week but has returned to fine and sunny so we did start the week well this morning with another early morning walk before the heat and humidity kicked in.

Four no alcohol days.

The tummy upsets are limiting me a bit. Might be I am eating too much fruit but it is summer, or nearly, and the fruits are just amazing. Don't think it is anything more sinister unless M is trying to get rid of me.

Talking about M, because the weather was terrible on Saturday morning, raining and windy and therefore no golf, and because I was not feeling great he did all the vacuuming for me. He does such a great job. I wish he would do it every week. Maybe if I turn around three times and click my heels together this wish will come true. Here's hoping.

It was a nice weekend - dinner with old friends who seem to be forever travelling since they have all retired. The three of us worked (I still do) for the education department which was how I met them and we take turns arranging a dinner every four months with our other halves who luckily get on well together as we make them sit down one end so we can catch up. One of the other couples has just got back from South America and are off to Europe next March and I think the other couple is off to either Europe again or Canada next year too.

Went back to the podiatrist last week and he checked my feet again. I have decided that when my care plan runs out I will still keep going to him because he has made such a difference to the amount of pain my feet give me. He assures me that he sees worse feet than mine.

In between the nausea etc I was feeling on the weekend I managed to get some gardening done. Found three enormous and beautifully camoflagued grubs on my basil so hopefully that will stop the carnage that has been going on. I kept feeling ill so at one stage ended up lying on the back lawn watching the clouds go past in a perfectly beautiful sky. Something I dont think I have done since I was young.

I have moved my yoga mat from my car boot to the family room. It has lived in the boot for about a year (since before my last back op). I have bought some things to hopefully refocus me and I will let you know how they go and as I have said before when I work out how to put links in I will link to Nadine's blog so that you can see what I am talking about. That probably doesnt make sense but I am running out of time and must get back to work.

Kids and their partners coming for baked dinner tonight as usual.

Goal for this week is to aim towards preserving a healthier me. Thinking maybe a naturopath?
Carpet gone from bedroom completely along with all the nails and tacks that took him hours to get rid off. Makes such a difference and I think my breathing has improved greatly at night in bed. Sinuses not giving me as much of a problem. Lucy having trouble slipping and sliding a bit when she jumps up on and down from the bed (naughty spoilt much loved dog).

Planning started towards trip to Qld in January. Linda, will be in touch when I have firm dates to see if you are free.

Have a great week.

A year ago

This weekend was a bit of a disaster. It isnt called yo yo weight for nothing - back up 400g this week.

Goal update:

Managed 3 days with no alcohol (should have been four)

Four Lucy walks plus one gym session (Missed a walk)

No tracking after lunchtime on Friday until this morning (this has to stop)

Just looked back at my WW online and exactly a year ago I was 1.8kg lighter.

I returned to this time last year on my blog too.

My back was really giving me a lot of trouble.

A friend has just suicided. (There was actually a rememberance ceremony last Friday for her which I went to for a little while - still miss her)

I had to get to work early this morning to open up for one of the consultants who is running a staff development day here today. Up at 5.30 - walked Lucy - at work by 7.30 and boy am I tired. Here it is Monday morning at 9:45 am and I want to go and lie down for an hour or two and I cant stop yawning.

Carpet is coming up in the bedroom today I think. I don't know how M is going to do it by himself but I am glad I am not there to watch or hear it.

Update: 9:47 am and Carpet has gone. Yay!

He is also redesigning our built-in wardrobe and has been harping on about my shoes and how I possibly couldnt need all of them. He is right but it is something I am not ready to tackle yet so I have dug my heels in (no pun intended) and told him to back off.

I wish everything would just go away and leave me alone. (I think that is the tiredness speaking.)

Having a blood test today to check out my thyroid and going to the podiatrist later this week to check out my feet. I have 5 visits under the care plan and the first one made such a difference to the pain in my feet.

Also going to get my hair cut tomorrow. Think I have had enough of trying to grow it.

This was a really pretty moth that came to visit on the weekend. It was on the deck railing and obligingly waited for me to get my camera and take a photo. Good moth. Dont you love the lacy pattern on its wings.


Anyway, I cant blame anything or anyone for my gain this week unless of course it is myself. I am feeling a bit down but it will pass.

Walking Lucy this morning was gorgeous. Cool before the humidity kicks in again, nobody but the two of us, so I could let her off her lead for a little sniff and run. Mark has clipped her a lot over the weekend because she has been really suffering and while she looks a little strange she is much much happier being a shorthaired dog.

This week will be better. I will try and remember all the things that I know about why I am doing badly. I will exercise more, drink alcohol less and try to keep an accurate record of everything for 7 days. I may not succeed but I will try. Hope your week goes according to plan too.
:)

Visitors from last week

These were the visitors from last week.

This is the first echidna I have seen close to the building.

The water dragon is a regular visitor. He sits on the huge rock outside in the garden and holds court and does push up (maybe a courtship thing). His chest goes bright red when he does. Very entertaining.

Well good news for this weeks weigh in this morning.

Lost 700g of the yo yo weight again.

Re the goals:
Had four alcohol free days but I think I made up for it on Friday and Sunday nights. Got to work on that aspect. No wine while I was cooking dinner was hard and felt very righteous that I made it. LOL. Such a twit.

Walked Lucy four mornings and managed a session at the gym doing upper body weights.
Am behind the eight ball this week as I didn't walk her this morning.

Damn what was the other thing. Just let me check.

Oh yes, tracking - Good for four out of seven days. Some improvement needed.

No carbs as in bread at lunch on five days. So a tick there as well I think.

Now down to life's nitty gritty:
J is home from Canada. I am so so happy. The daily multiple phone calls have started again and she even visited yesterday and I didnt care that I had stacks to do, if was just so nice to sit and have a cuppa and gossip. They are all coming for dinner tonight. Hopefully the promised southerly will hold off just long enough that we can sit outside and have dinner.

G is thinking about or should I say has decided to move in with his girlfriend. Slightly freaking out (him not me) because it is a big step. We'll see how it works out. He had to grow up one day.

Nothing much else - have decided to rip up the carpet in the bedroom. There are old polished floorboards underneath and I think I would rather have them then carpet. Especially old dusty moth eaten carpet. We will see how we go and either end up replacing the carpet or repolishing the floor when we repolish the rest of the house.

Everything is going well at the moment and I am very thankful. Let's hope that the weight thingy keeps going down. Silly season fast approaching and I am very susceptible to the silly season.

Have a great week - off to eat another salad - this one with corn and chicken and mayo.
Yum Yum

Lunches and other things

This was today's lunch. My lunches this week have basically been the same. Points free salad - carrot, tomato, lettuce, herbs, mushrooms, cucumber, capsicum and onion. The protein changes - sometimes chickpeas or chicken or ham or egg or fish. The dressing changes but I try to make it as fat free as possible. Oh and I occasionally add a small tin of super sweet corn. No bread of any sort. Third day in a row.

No wine for two nights so far but I am sleeping so badly. Will persevere but am looking forward to Friday.

No exercise this morning because I slept so badly last night but am going to the gym this afternoon for some upper body weight training IF there isnt a storm and I dont have to rush home to placate Lucy.

Yesterday was a problem. Am tracking as best I can and can now see why I am putting on weight rather than losing it. I think when I was going through the Breakfast King, Lunch Prince and Dinner Pauper phase I was eating enough points at breakfast to last the whole day, nearly.

Actually thought about ringing my surgeon today to ask would it be okay to start running on a treadmill. Luckily commonsense prevailed. BUT I really really miss running. I've tried running in the pool but it is not the same.

I am very grateful that I can still walk and that is something hugely to be thankful for.

After talking about the brush turkey on Monday, guess what? A baby turkey turned up this morning in the garden outside my window. So so pretty and cute and so little. They are virtually self sufficient from the moment of birth and there he/she was scratching around in the garden like a grown up. Five minutes later a goanna walked passed so hopefully he got away. If I can get a picture I will.

I am half way through the last school term of the year and it is hump day. Bonus!
Enjoy yourselves.
PS - Am not going anywhere near the scales until next Monday although it is so tempting to check.

Wasn't me, did you see me?

I just wanted you to know that I am still in denial. LOL. At least I recognise it. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

More weight crept on this week. Can no longer get into my work trousers without them attempting to cut me in half and doing myself a very very nasty injury. Am wearing my Bonds roll top yoga pants to work. Thank god J is in Canada and cant see me. Boy would I be in big trouble. She hates me wearing them if we go shopping. It's always "put some jeans on......"

Okay am going to try a few steps:

• Tracking - I hate it and have great trouble doing it but I will try at least until some control comes back into my life.



• Wine - Am really really going to try and limit my intake to four days off/3 days on. I know that I probably should try to abstain completely for a while but I think I would be just setting myself up for failure.



• Carbs - Have to cut them back, a lot. What was I thinking?
  

I think it is amazing how clever I am at justifying eating and imbibing as much as I have been lately. The old chestnuts such as I deserve it because I work hard/feel like crap anyway/a small treat wont hurt etc etc etc. continually revolve around in my mind. I am so good at it.

Lately I have not been able to do much housework or gardening without starting to feel dizzy and sick. Lots of short breaks need to be taken usually involving lying down. As you can imagine everything takes an eon to do. It is the pits feeling like this. Everything becomes a chore including the work I am actually paid for. I think I went MIA last Friday as when I came into work today I realised all the things that I should have done on Friday and hadnt. Luckily I play catch up well but I was so annoyed with myself.

Anyway enough whining about me, things in general:

The next lot of renovations have been put back until early next year because the builder is running behind again. Oh well.


J reckons she is staying in Whistler but she is coming home on Friday. She loves it so much and I have explained that holidaying in a place is different to living in it but you sometimes can't tell these younguns anything. Miss her so much although we facebook and skype continually. Here is what she saw on her bike ride this morning.

I saw a brush turkey at the end of the street on Saturday morning when I took Lucy for a walk. I see them all the time in the national park and their population has increased dramatically in the last couple of years with the demise of foxes but this is the first time I have seen them this close to home. I am not too sure I want them in my garden as they absolutely destroy everything when they build their nests but it was a novelty. We actually have a nest next to the stairs at work and national parks have meshed it to stop people walking through it to get to the public toilets. Interesting to see if we get to see any babies.

Anyway, have a lovely week and I hope there will be less of me next week and I can stick to this plan this time. I hope you all can reach your short time goals too. Let me know what they are for this week.

Accountability

I hope that I too can be accountable to myself on this frustratingly long journey.

I didnt realise how tired I have been until M asked me would it be okay to have some people over on Saturday night. He was checking because he knows how tired I have been getting. Bone crushingly tired by the end of the week and the end of the week seems to be coming earlier and earlier.

Am off to GP today to talk to her about it. I wanted to go last week but she was away. I need to talk to her about the blood test from a few weeks ago re the anemia. I came to the realisation that the call I got from the rheumotologist's reception was very unsatisfactory and answered none of my questions except that it wasnt caused by lack of iron. I can't believe it took me weeks to realise this - I can be such a drongo. A friend suggested I get my thyroid checked out too so I will ask. It is lovely having friends in the same age bracket - we all seem to be going through similar things.

Made a couple of small changes this week - forced myself out of bed on both Saturday and Sunday (with the mantra in my head that I could go back there once I got home again) and Lucy and I went walking. Just short walking but I was mobile. This is probably the first exercise I have done in nearly 7 weeks due to the tendon damage that I think I did. Just took time and rest to heal itself. I will wear my MBTs again but maybe not on my Lucy walks which is a shame because they did make me feel like I could walk forever. It is such a lovely walking motion but anyway, preservation has to come first. We have also walked both mornings this week too.

I am going back to the gym again tomorrow afternoon after work and will start doing upper body work mainly. Only once a week to start with. I think I did too much last time and really paid the price of sore and overworked muscles. Time to find a happy medium.

Weight has still been climbing. I know I have been eating too much again. I was fooling myself that I would have a big breakfast, a medium lunch and a small dinner but it never worked out. And I have to stop snacking because I dont have that stop mechanism that most people have. I am sure sometimes I could eat until I exploded, patch myself up and come back for more.

On the home front: M is still wearing himself out sanding the deck back and restaining. I dont quite know what all the rush is about unless he knows something that I don't. Anyway he off to the Hunter tomorrow to play golf.

G is starting to make serious noises about his new/old girlfriend. Maybe second time around they will make it.

J is in LA at the moment. They spent yesterday at Venice beach and the sights had her wishing that she had brought her SLR. She absolutely loved the place even though I remember it as a fairly tacky place. She probably sees it through different eyes. She is a really good photographer and takes some amazing photos. She had a great time in Las Vegas and went for a helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon. She is off to Vancouver in a couple of days. She has heard from her friend there that it is snowing in Whistler so she is looking forward to that. She absolutely loves what she has seen of the US and is talking about her and Marc going back there in the future and visiting the east coast.

In general: I just read the eulogy by Mona Simpson on her biological brother, Steve Jobs. It was so moving and if I knew how I would put a link in here but I sure that if you are interested you will be able to find it. It appeared online in today's edition of the Sydney Morning Herald.

Today is Melbourne Cup day! If you have a bet or are in an office sweep I hope your horse does well. It really is the "race that stops a nation". Have you ever driven on the road when it is on. The place is like a ghost town.

Enjoy the rest of the week - I am going to start adding links to my posts next week to others who have inspired me and why. That is as soon as I work out how.

Take care