Getting back in the swing of things....7/10/25

I'm trying to be more present here but I'm also trying to get back into the routine of walking - the summer, despite being lovely with various trips and visits, has played havoc with my schedule.

Anyway I managed to walk on Sunday on my own and yesterday with Hubby.  Sunday was the first time I'd been around the lake for a while so although I'd read about the fire at the boat house I hadn't seen the aftermath in person.

The fire happened on 24th September and although the fire brigade responded quickly the building was gutted.

You can see in the bottom photo where the area in front of the boat house at the bottom of the lake has been fenced off.  Hopefully it won't remain fenced off for long as a lot of the ducks, coots etc come there to be fed.  I did actually see two people cross the fencing to the right (not shown in my picture) with bags of bird food.  The fencing has fallen down so it's easy to get past it.

Yesterday Hubby and I did what I call the "golf course loop" and we both overdressed - it was really quite warm thanks to the sun. 

Today it's been mostly grey and cloudy but no rain.  I made it to my Keep Fit class and then coffee with friends.  It won't be the highest step count of the week but I do at least feel I've moved!

Hubby rushed back from his exercise class today as he thought he had a blood test booked for today only to find the appointment is tomorrow.  He was not best pleased!

A Wednesday Waffle in lieu of Hodgepodge

Well apart from Book Reviews and regular memes like the Hodgepodge and Friday’s Fave Five, my blog still seems a little bit neglected lately.  Today being Wednesday usually means a Hodgepodge post but as Joyce is taking a break this week I was determined the day wouldn’t go by without a post of some sort.

Hopefully Joyce will have some exciting news to share with us soon as she is waiting to become a Grandmother any day now.  

Having become a Grandmother myself back at the end of March I can relate to that.  I’m slightly surprised at how doting I am on Nathan.  Maybe that’s because I was there at his birth, or because of the bumpy ride he’s had or maybe I’ll be this soppy about all my grandchildren.  Time will tell but I’m loving every minute of it down to changing stinky nappies!

The blanket I promised for him is almost finished.  Just the edging to complete.  I’ve already bought wool and have a pattern lined up for the next one.  Nathan’s early arrival ruined my schedule for completing this one but hopefully if I get started on the next one soon it’ll be ready for the next arrival.  None expected at the moment but I’m always open to baby surprises especially now that all the kids are married and (apart from one) settled in their homes.

The couple who live with us are away for 2 weeks at the moment visiting her parents in the US so I’m taking advantage of not having to worry about their meals and re-doing the South Beach Diet.  The first two weeks are pretty strict but after that it should be fairly easy to fit in with meals for all of us.

I prepared in advance for this – working out a 2 week meal plan and shopping for the food we’d need as you can see:

Of course nothing goes to plan!  The first day had to be switched as I’d mistakenly put chicken in the freezer instead of the fridge and on day 2 we visited with Nathan and our daughter and went out for lunch.  I was fairly good though and just had a chicken salad.  (We’ll pretend I didn’t touch the streaky bacon or croutons!)

Alongside that I’m also trying to get my step count up – or at least back to the target I originally set myself.  So far so good this week.  Fortunately, although my knee is not great on stairs and I can’t do anything weight bearing on it at the moment walking is fine.

A friend commented that I didn’t need to diet but when your scales keep telling you your weight is increasing it’s time to call a halt. My problem is that I have such a sweet tooth so I’ll always choose sweet over savoury but not for the time being. 

Anyway plenty going on to keep me busy – I’ve even managed to get more reading done the past couple of weeks.  Trouble is once I get stuck into a book that I find hard to put down everything else gets put on the back burner.  I’m going to try restricting reading until I get to bed but that will mean going to bed earlier otherwise I’ll be reading a few pages and falling asleep!  But that will mean less time for watching TV and catching up on all the programmes I’ve recorded!

I used to say that for every child you had the day seemed to shorten by an hour.  Well none of my kids are children anymore but the days still seem short.  How did I ever manage to work full time?

Lazy Saturday 16/1/16

I'm enjoying a lazy Saturday.  Our son and his fiancee are down for the weekend but at the moment they have gone with hubby to visit my MIL so it is quiet here.  Maybe I should play some music.  Loudly.  Lol that's not my style at all.  I like the peace and quiet.

It won't last long though.  Our youngest son and his wife are coming later and the plan is to play board games and have take away pizza.  The two boys together will make noise.  But it's good to have people in the house.  Tomorrow our daughter and her wife will join us for Sunday lunch.

Then on Monday things will get back to normal.  Will I miss the noise and company?  A little, but the peace and quiet is nice because I know it will soon be broken again when they next visit.

I'm trying to keep my step count up but it's harder at the weekend.  I'll need to run up and down the stairs a few times and do some laps of the kitchen.  It's starting to get dark now so too late for a walk.  I did do a video exercise session earlier so I'm not totally a couch potato today.

I've also started the process of migrating my Shelfari bookshelf over to Goodreads.  Well I'm in the process of downloading my data as a back up in case they mess up when exporting it!  Did I mention that I don't always trust technology?

Enjoyment

Well this could almost be my heading for today's A - Z challenge but it's not - that's already done and published see here .

I am really enjoying doing the challenge.  I haven't been regularly blogging for a while but circumstances have given me the opportunity to spend more time on it so I signed up for the challenge.  I was nervous at first that I might not be able to keep up but so far so good.  (I started at 1262 on the list of those taking part and today I'm at 1212 so unfortunately some people have already fallen by the wayside - if you miss five days in a row or don't get started you get removed from the links list.)

I think it's helped that I decided to go with a theme and I planned out my topics in advance.  I can be pretty good at planning when I'm motivated and this challenge has certainly motivated me.  I'm trying to be at least one or two topics ahead of myself so that if I have a stressful or busy day I'm not panicking about posting on time.

It's been interesting visiting new blogs as well.  As I said, I started off at 1262 on the list but there were around 1900 participants at the start.  As advised I try and visit at least 5 blogs a day - starting next on the list but I'm also trying to keep up with some of the hosts and to visit a few more.  Some I realise pretty quickly are not my cup or tea and move on, others get me hooked and this can be quite time consuming.

But it beats watching reruns on the TV or ruminating.  We had a quiet Easter Sunday yesterday.  Just the two of us.  We got up and went to an early Mass then just chilled for the rest of the day.  Today we've been a bit more energetic and have taken some exercise.  But then we undid the good work by stopping off at our local pub to check out the recent renovations.  But that factored into enjoyment so can't complain about that.