Day #16,387

Thursday:

Today is my 16,387th day alive, or at least out of the womb. New record for me! Go Natalie! Keep it up!

I really struggle when I have a lot of stress happening. Not just with sticking to my weight-loss plan, but with everything. It's like worry takes up all the available space in my brain and there just isn't any room for anything else. I have lots to do, but there is this wall blocking me; I can't do X because I'm too busy worrying. But I'm pushing on, and trying not to make it an excuse. Not very successfully, perhaps. My food hasn't been great. Nor anything else, really. Hard days.

A couple of weeks ago our car made weird noises a few times. I put it in for a service and they couldn't find what was wrong or replicate the noise. But yesterday it made the very loud worrying whirring noise nearly every time I started the car - it stopped when I switched the engine off then on again - and I think there is a slight burning smell as well. Very worrying, especially with the travelling we have to do. I'm taking it back to the mechanic tomorrow. I took my phone out to the car this morning and it made the noise one time out of three starts, but the mechanic couldn't really hear it well. He said he'll just try starting it frequently throughout the day tomorrow until it does it. I really need my car in working order right now!

Australia is about the same size as North America but less than a tenth the population. There are huge empty stretches of land between all the cities and towns. And we are heading out to the real "sticks" (country), dad's town has I think a population of 120 people (we're staying in a bigger town nearby - both the little and the big towns have streets with my maiden name because my family has lived around there for a while). Not a good place to break down. If they can't fix the car tomorrow we might have to think about hiring one for the weekend.

Hoping for a better day tomorrow.