Up and down Monday 18/1/16

Ups and downs today:

Up at a reasonable time so that was good.

Step count up.  Another plus.  This is my third week of using my Fitbit.  The first two weeks I averaged about 6000 steps per day so my plan is to push the goal up each week until I'm doing the magic 10,000 steps a day.  So this week I've upped it to 6500 and the plan is to increase by 500 per week.  It's quite hard when it's so cold to get out and walk but I do resort to doing laps of my kitchen/diner or an exercise video to get the count up.  Good job I don't have carpet in the kitchen  as I would be wearing it out!  I'm also gradually upping the amount of water I drink each day.  (And trying not to think of the downside of that i.e. more visits to the loo!)

Work rate up - I started stripping another bedroom today.  I need to get it stripped so that I can then get both top bedroom ceilings plastered.  I didn't get much done but just having made a start made me feel better.

I did get out to the shops so some exercise and fresh air gained.  The washing got done and dinner was cooked.  (Well that was a bit of a cheat as it came out of the freezer and just had to be reheated but at least I remembered to get it out in time.)

As for the downs?  Well my weight was up 1lb on last week so that was a down.  I can't think why that could happen when I'm doing all these steps and so on.  Oh yes.  The empty biscuit tin and the desserts that we had with dinner yesterday might have something to do with that.  I definitely need to up my willpower!

The other down is that my Mother-in-law is not making much progress.  If anything she seemed worse at the weekend.  Very drowsy and very confused and quite distressed by it all.  However they have now confirmed that her wound is infected so they have started to treat that with anti-biotics.  It also seems that giving her oxygen causes more problems rather than being helpful so they have stopped doing that.  I just hope we see some improvement soon.  It's horrible seeing her like this.

But blogging gives me another Up so I think I'm in credit overall today.  Although checking out some of the SoCS posts from the weekend could leave me feeling a tad inadequate.  But I'm not going down that road.  How do people cope with 2, 3 or even more blogs?  Do they ever have time to check out the people visiting their blogs.  I try and return the favour when people visit me and if I've missed anyone out apologies for the omission.  But time is limited.  Or perhaps for them it's not.  

Although according to my Fitbit I only slept for just under 4 hours last night.  Apparently I didn't get to sleep until 3.30 am.  Well I know for a fact I was in bed by midnight and I certainly didn't lay awake for 3 hours.  I also didn't wake up exhausted.  Wouldn't it be great if I could harness that missing time and put it to good use?  I could have half a dozen blogs on the go, not to mention increasing my reading rate.

Oh that was another up - I've finished 2 of the 3 books set by the reading clubs I've joined and I managed 2 more chapters of Catch 22 today.  I think I'll quit while I'm ahead.  Goodnight.

Catch 22, a WIP

Oooh I'm all embarrassed.  My blogger friend Lorrie nominated me for a Liebster award.  More of that in a separate post as it will require some thinking about to respond correctly.  But it did make me think I need to up my game again when it comes to blogging.  

Taking part in the A-Z Challenge got me back into the swing of blogging regularly and it came at just the right time for me.  But recently I've dropped off a bit but I do love a challenge so it was good to get a new prompt.

Today I have finished chapter 19 of Catch 22 by Joseph Heller.  That means there are only 23 chapters to go.  It's been a WIP (work in progress) for a long time now.  Some of you may be thinking why bother?  I've had the same thought many times.  It's not an easy read.  The subject matter, an American bomber squadron based in Italy in WW2, is hardly something I would usually read.  But it's on a list of books that I challenged myself to read purely for that purpose.  To get me reading different things.  To be able to acquire knowledge that I wouldn't otherwise have.  

The chapter I've just read was all about contradictions.  The majority of sentences were contradictory.  I'm beginning to appreciate why the book is so highly rated.  The writing is very clever and the language has huge variety.  I will get to finish it.  Eventually!

I do love a challenge and will persevere to complete things.  Crosswords and number puzzles are one of my obsessions and I hate leaving them unfinished.  During our week away I was in my element as there were lots of newspapers around so lots of puzzles on hand.  It's good doing them with other people as well.  I'm not very good at cryptic puzzles but I'm improving.  Practise might not make perfect but it does make better.

Perhaps I'm really just stubborn.  I hate things getting the better of me.  Give me a tangled ball of wool and I have to get all the knots out.  When something goes missing I have to find it.  That came in useful when we were away as my son misplaced his phone.  In the huge house we were staying in the possibilities of where it could be were numerous but I suddenly remembered seeing him on a sofa in one of the quieter areas at one point and on searching it found the phone tucked down the side of the seat cushions.

Now if I could just channel by perseverance into clearing my house of clutter.......

A busy few days....

It’s been a busy few days since I last blogged.  

On Saturday I got up early to get my hair done.  Just as well I did as I’d planned to get the train there and when I went online to check the train times I discovered I would have to go by bus as the trains weren’t stopping at my local station due to engineering works!  That meant a quick hike down to the bus stop to avoid being late.

Having been restored to my unnatural colour I headed off to my daughter’s to feed her cat.  I can’t have cuddle time with her cat as she’s not that friendly but she will sit next to me on the sofa and let me fuss her so I made do with that while I had my lunch there.  I miss my cat around the house.  Once home it was a quick meal and change before heading out to our local social club for a friend’s 60^th birthday.  It was a lively evening.  Hubby played guitar with a few others and then there was a DJ session which involved some dancing and we finally left to walk home at about 1 am.

It would have been nice to have just relaxed on Sunday but my youngest son had invited himself and his wife for Sunday lunch, which was fine as we hadn’t seen them since they’d both got back from the US (visiting her family) but we also offered to have Nick’s Mum for lunch as his sister had been invited out for the day so that meant a trip to Brentwood to get her and then a trip to take her back again.  At least our diesel fuelled car is getting a few longs runs lately.

On Monday my daughter wanted to go shopping for wedding shoes but she also wanted to visit her aunt and grandma so that ended up taking up most of my day and she didn’t get any shoes!

Yesterday I met my “lunch ladies” plus a former work colleague who now works in New York but who’s over here visiting family members.  That was really nice.  Lots to catch up on over a nice lunch at a Greek restaurant.

Today I had a former work colleague here for breakfast, which ended up being more like brunch as she was running late.

Tomorrow I’m off to my sister-on-law’s to help her pack for our family holiday and then hopefully I’ll be home in time to get my own packing done.

In between all this I have been working on my scrapbook WIP.   Which I’m pleased to say is almost finished!  It took a lot longer than I anticipated but I am pleased with it.  I’ve stuck in all the 60 memories that were collected and there’s still some space for photos that were taken on the day.  I need to get them printed but I wanted to have the book ready for our family gathering as so many people have said they want to read the memories.  Some are quite funny and some are just such accurate observations of hubby’s habits and mannerisms.  The picture above shows the WIP.  Note the cup of tea but also the empty wine glass!  I'll try and get some photos of the finished project later.

Now I’m catching up on blogs and off to look at the Hodgepodge.

Successful shopping

Well I braved Westfield today and managed to get the paper cutter I wanted.  I also got gold and silver inked pens to use in the scrapbook - it has black pages so they should contrast nicely on those.  I've become quite a savvy shopper since we've come down to one income.  I noticed a coupon in our Saturday paper for £5 off if you spent £12 in W H Smiths so guess where I got the paper cutter from?

I expected the shopping centre to be more manic than it was as it's school holidays and I didn't get there very early.  Rain was forecast for this afternoon so I wanted to get the washing done before I set off which meant it was almost lunchtime when I got to the shops.  It wasn't actually that bad and it helped that I knew exactly what I wanted and where to get it.

Paper cutter and pens - tick

Birthday present for D-I-L - tick

Watering can  - tick

Milk, onions and marmalade - tick

I had tick symbols next to those when I typed this in word but they didn't translate when I posted here. :(

I took the bus there and back as parking is quite expensive so I did what felt like quite a bit of walking, especially as the watering can had to be bought from a shop in the old Stratford shopping centre.  I was pleased to see quite a lot of people there though as, when Westfield was built just across the way, I did worry that the old centre would decline.  But they are two quite different shopping centres and both seem to be thriving.  I was disappointed to find though, that despite trekking there and back by bus and walking between the centres I only managed to clock up about 2 miles of walking.  But that’s 2 more than I would have done had I stayed home.

I have been quite lazy this afternoon though, just getting the washing dry and looking at properties online.  My daughter is flat hunting at the moment and she sent me details of a flat she was going to view.  Well that flat led to another …..and another…..it’s scary how easy it is to fritter away time looking at things on the internet.  But being lazy means I don’t get so hungry which is good when you’re trying to diet.  I lost 3 pounds last week so that’s a good incentive to keep trying to be good!

WIPs 9/8/15

Two works in progress here.  The first one is the start of a scrap book project.  The envelopes all contain a memory that were done for my husband's 60th birthday last April.  Friends and family were asked to provide memories of Nick.  My daughter then collated them into 60 envelopes that were presented to Nick at his party.

I've decided to put them all into a scrap book so that it's easier to see them and a nice memento to keep.  I want to have it finished by the end of next week so that I can take it to our family gathering.

Many of them were handwritten so I just need to display them but some were on two sides so I've had to scan them to be able to display the whole thing on one side.  Many were sent by e-mail so I need to re-format them and make them look pretty.

My daughter also married up photos with some of them and I might try and find more photos where appropriate.

I've done the scanning.  Now I need to reformat the typed text before starting on putting the scrapbook together.  I have already got the book and photo corners but will need some glue and I've also decided to get a paper cutter so guess who's going shopping tomorrow?

 

This is my other work in progress.  Yesterday I managed to visit some blogs on the A-Z Road Trip and one person that I visited commented back saying she would like to see the blanket I'm trying to make.

I thought it would be good to photograph it and it has actually done me a big favour as now I've worked out how many squares I still need to make and in which colours etc. So a big thank you to Cait at Click's Clan for pushing me to do this.  It's going to take a serious amount of blocking to get the squares matching up but one day it will be finished.  I have a lot of other things I'd like to be making and I'd also like to be doing some crochet but I'm terrible at starting things and not finishing them so I've set myself the target of finishing this before I start on something new.  I don't mind if I have say a knit, a crochet and maybe even a cross stitch on the go but I have in the past had more than one of each started and then they never get finished.

This is only going to get one more row which would be five squares but because of the colour distribution and patterns needed I worked out I need 7 squares plus the one in progress finished.

Watch this space for updates!