This and that

Tuesday:

I have to keep reminding myself that it is that time of the month where life seems a bit more difficult and everyone is annoying, and that it is not a good day to make a decision like giving up on my diet and eating all the things, or leaving my family and going to live on a pristine island somewhere.

In the spirit of focusing on the good in life, our garbage was collected today! Both general rubbish (weekly collection) and recycling (fortnightly). This is a big deal at the moment. We've been behind on recycling since we moved, even with that trip to the waste management centre. And we've been way behind on kitchen waste since Christmas - far more important as it gets smelly. We asked at Christmas if anyone could take some home to put in their own bin, but everyone said theirs was full, which annoyed me quite a bit because we were the ones hosting two enormous meals with all the associated waste. No one would help. (I let my brother-in-law off the hook because I knew they forgot to put their bin out one week and were as overflowing as we were.) Each week since as soon as the bin is emptied on Tuesday morning we can put in all the extra bags we have still in the house - and it's half full again straight away. Back in Canberra we would put any extra bags in our friendly neighbour's bin, he was a single elderly guy who always had space, but I don't know our neighbours here yet. Anyway, both bins were emptied this morning and maybe we'll catch up eventually.

Second good thing, I have suddenly switched from waking around 5am to sleeping until around 7! I don't know if it's the cool rainy weather, or my new healthy diet, or what. It's not exercise because I haven't the past few days. But it's lovely!

Leftover chicken and a cucumber for breakfast. Home made roasted tomato soup (two bowls) with bread and butter for lunch.

A Pink Lady apple in the afternoon with my cup of tea.

Lemon roast chicken with potato, broccolini, onion, tomato and cucumber for dinner.

My calories were just about perfect for the day and I was full - or at least I wasn't hungry - but I just wanted something more... So I had some chocolate. I wish chocolate wasn't so high calorie! But I still did ok. And it gave me that truly satisfied feeling.

It was pouring rain again, some parts of my city are having flooding problems, so I didn't want to go out. In the morning we watched the Big Hero 6 movie that Aiden got for Christmas. Great movie! I really meant to exercise this afternoon but I had a nap instead while the kids did an active Xbox game. I still don't have a lot of energy. I know I need to do something, even if small, anyway. But it's so much easier not to!

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!