Skip and snow

Sunday:

Last Tuesday we had a skip delivered and we spent a couple of hours filling it with junk from the garage and "studio" (the old garage converted into spare bedroom and junk room, unfortunately not connected to the house so it is not heated or cooled and doesn't have a bathroom for guests but still very useful). The skip looked big when empty but it filled up very quickly and we still have plenty of things we could have got rid of, but we did some good clearing. All the old broken baby stuff like the change table and pram, old bed that the kids have used as a trampoline for years even though we have a real trampoline, bookcase and chest of drawers that we broke apart to compact (that was quite fun), a couple of hundred taped-off-TV video cassettes, broken bike, unfolded moving boxes that have been getting dusty in the garage for seven years ... we now have a neat nearly-empty garage and a bit more room in the studio which is excellent. And it was good exercise too.

There were a lot of things that we didn't want that were too good to throw away that I was planning to give to charity, and by a great good fortune a friend contacted me yesterday to ask if I had any stuff to donate -- she is even going to pick it up to delivery it for me! So her local nursing home trash & treasure is going to get a lot of books and toys and two bicycles that are too small for our kids, and I don't even have to lug it all to the local Salvo's. Awesome.

On Wednesday my health crashed again -- hopefully for the last time with this stupid illness as I've been well since then -- and I spent the day slumping in front of the TV or resting in bed.

Thursday we went to the snow. Our children had never seen snow even though we don't live far from NSW's ski slopes (such as they are). Last year we drove to the nearest place that sometimes gets snow but there wasn't any, this year we hired proper warm snow gear and boots and toboggans and drove the three hours to Jindabyne. It was a lovely day for it, not too cold or windy. We were snug and warm in our hired gear (when I changed into normal winter clothes for the drive home I noticed the difference!) and it was a good day. Aiden looked gorgeous in his little snow suit. I wasn't sure about the tobogganing as I am scared of heights and don't particularly like going fast, but I started from halfway down the smallest hill and gradually built up and I was fine. Good exercise from trudging back up the slope. I can't say a really enjoyed tobogganing all that much, just not my kind of thing, but I did it and it was ok. Tim and the kids had a great time. The children were so excited to see little patches of snow beside the road, then bigger areas, and finally whole hillsides of white.

Haven't done much since then. Due to my habit of trying to squeeze in work from repeat customers despite vowing not to work in school holidays, I've had to do a bit of editing. Today is the end of the school holidays, so tomorrow it's back into a proper routine. Back to work and back to the gym!

I've relaxed my eating since quitting Weight Watchers and haven't exercised as much as I planned, my weight has crept up a little more but that mainly happened while I was still officially on WW but not following it properly. This morning I was 78.5 kg. I am not going back to calorie counting or stressing too much about food, but obviously I can't do nothing or I will be back to where I started a year ago pretty quickly. What I need to do is focus more on what I should be eating rather than what I shouldn't. I need to return to eating my two fruits and five vegetables every day, and drink my water. Eat the healthy food first, then have treats if I'm still hungry. And, of course, exercise regularly.

Tim and I have been drinking alcohol nearly every day this week, apple cider, which is very unusual for us and that will need to go back to being an occasional thing. Tastes nice though. Can't say that about many alcoholic drinks.

I'm so glad to be finally feeling better, and this time it's lasted for four days. My mum is better, too, after being sick for about three weeks. And Aiden's nose has finally stopped running. Welcome health!