Highlights for 02-27 May 2019

New light and fan

Finally, the rain has come!

Thursday, May 02, 2019

We’ve been needing rain for months now and last night and today we finally have had plenty but not enough to cause flooding. The grass might turn green for the Winter again! (Yes I know that might sound weird to those of you in the Northern Hemisphere but green winters are pretty lovely to see). 

Yesterday my neighbours offered to take the old cans and bottles I’d moved to a safe location closer to my car off to the recycle centre for me. They returned all smiles with $69 to hand me. Wow! I probably will never have that amount again in returns because I’m not having that much these days and most were for trying to get lots of calories into my late husband. In previous years I’ve used this money for dinner out and a car wash. Well I don’t need the car washed, the rain took care of that for me, and I don’t feel up to going out but I might order dinner in. Luckily there are very tasty healthy choices available so I won’t be falling off the bandwagon I’ve barely climbed back on. 

I checked my weight today – I’ve been afraid to do that for the last few weeks now. I was very pleasantly surprised that I haven’t strayed too far and have only gained less than a kilo. 

I saw a researcher yesterday to see about taking part in a social research project for Type 2 Diabetics dealing with so many of the stigmas we encounter. I qualified and it should be interesting to take part in the study. Not only interesting something I’d probably sign up for anyway, I’ll get paid $50 for participating. Neat! I’ll set that aside for spoiling my grandkids later this year. 

Today I did my first WOD (Work out of the Day) challenge for the rower. I had to learn how to program my rowing machine for Intervals, and set it up for 3 sets of 700 meters with 2 minutes rest between each set. This gave me the furthest distance I’ve rowed so far (2100) and taught me not only about setting up the machine for intervals but also how much more powerful I was after each of the rest periods. I was not expecting that to happen. 

Monday Surprises

Tuesday, May 21, 2019

This was definitely not an ordinary Monday. I got up early. An electrician was coming to install a new fan and light in the gym and removing the old one that I didn’t trust to run anymore after seeing what the wiring was like a few months ago. Indeed, even the electrician wasn’t impressed. He got everything back into code again though, and my gym is available to me even in the late afternoons when it gets dark. While he was working on that the plumber I requested came and fixed a broken tap in my laundry room. I had thoughts today that maybe I should have just torn the house down and started again, but I couldn’t do that. This was my husband’s home most of his life (including when he was a kid) so taking care of it feels a bit like taking care of him. 

The mail brought me a new book recommended in my grief support group. It’s called “Healing a Spouse’s Grieving Heart”. It has 100 short chapters that cover a range of topics. It’s perfect for picking up as needed to browse through, rather than reading from start to finish. In the short time I spent with it today I learned that there’s a difference between grieving and mourning. What I feel inside is grief. When I express that grief to others, that is mourning. I never knew there was a distinction until I read that. My dear niece is mourning the loss of her 21yr son, her only child. She’s struggling so much with her pain, but is able to mourn online in ways I’m not quite comfortable doing. As much as my own heart aches, it also aches for her. Anyway, I didn’t come here to blog and mourn. 

 

While all the work was happening, I wasn’t comfortable doing the accounting I’m trying to catch up on doing. So instead I worked on logging the food that I ate last week into MyFitnessPal and then taking the information from that and updating my glucose app. Every week I get an Email that lets me know how well I did the week before… for diet, exercise and glucose readings. I really didn’t think I’d get it done on time for the app to send me my weekly Email and have any actual data to read about besides my testing results. But I wanted to at least TRY to get all the information in one place because rather than feeling bad that it wasn’t done, I’d feel better so I’d at least be able to see where I went off track. I really thought I had. But you know what? 

Sometimes our minds lie to us. And mine was telling a great big whopper of a lie last week. I had far better glucose control and after taking into account the food I ate last week (including pizza), it wasn’t so bad after all. My bloods were much more stable this past week than the week before and I didn’t even did better at having fewer carbs than the week before. The only area I really didn’t do all that well with was exercise. I’m not making excuses for myself but I did have to cancel an appointment last week because I’d reached my physical limit. I had a flu shot mid-week and had several days of repairs, appointments, the grief support group, etc. By Friday I was absolutely exhausted and took a rest day for myself. I’ve been better for it since then. My gym was occupied by the electrician today, but I did manage to reach my step count goal and another feat was I recently set my Fitbit to tell me to walk every hour for 250 steps each time… I had it set for 8hrs for a the last six months, but I changed that and added time at the beginning and end of my previous range. The idea was if I could get 8hours ALL together (not necessarily consecutively) out of the 11 hours I chose to monitor, that would be a win. Well today I got 11 hours out of 11. It’s a small thing but worth celebrating. 

I got back on the rower today

Monday, May 27, 2019

Last week wasn’t an easy one for me. It ended with a trip to the hospital in case I was having a heart attack (my shoulder and neck developed very sudden intense pain that lasted … well it’s still here. Nothing wrong with my heart (thankfully!) but the xray showed some calcification on the shoulder so they want my GP to order get an ultrasound done on the area. 

I took Friday and Saturday off, spent some time being up and about on Sunday and did a few household chores. Today I eventually got up and after a long (MUCH needed) phone call with one of my sisters, I did the household and the work stuff. And shortly will finish the day with everything I wanted to get done … done. Including 10 minutes getting some cardio in. It’s not a lot, but I feel like I’m back at the beginning again and the best thing for me to do was get back on the horse. Er. Rowing machine. The shoulder held up fine so that’s good. 

I’m still learning how to mourn and how to cope with my ‘new’ circumstances. I think that had a lot to do with my rough patch last week and I really gave myself permission (again) to really have a major crying jag the other night. It helped. Tomorrow I have my grief support group meeting (it’s only for people who’ve lost a spouse), so I’m sure to both cry and get support at the same time. It helps. Sorry I’m not as cheerful as usual, but at least I’m not hiding the grief. 

Anyway, time to get that one thing off my list and have a relaxing evening. Thank you for keeping me sparking as best as I can. It may be a little spark now but little sparks can grow. 

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11Feb23 Lunch Group at the Mt Compass Hotel.  This was the Fish Platter and I couldn't finish it.  I took what was left home and had it for my dinner.  It was really good.  I even took Per's salt & pepper calamari home too!  We plan to return as everything was lovely - the food AND the service.  @MtCompassHotel #2023pad #lunchgroup #lunch #MtCompass #mtcompasstavern #fishplatter
11Sep22  I take a photo of these whenever I do a test because with catarachts I don't trust my eyes.  It's easier to see for sure if there's a bottom line from the camera.  Then I let them hang around so I know the date I last checked.  Anyone else do that? This is called a RAT test in Australia.  #2022pad #covidnegative #justchecking #covidrattest #rat
A little 44 seconds of the beach.  Enjoy.
10Feb23 My Pink Tigger!  The pink is from my nightlight, which makes everything pink when it's bright when I first come to bed and it slowly fades to very dim through the night.  But isn't GaliLEO so cute stretched out and about as conked out as you can get?  #2023pad #catsofinstagram #pinkcat #sleepingcatsofinstagram
9Feb23  I thought I had possibly broke my arm, so got a ride to the hospital to get it x-rayed.  It wasn't broke (phew!), but it was badly sprained.  The day before I had, for 10 full minutes, stood at my boxing bag and beat the heck out of it.  That didn't help - so I had muscle soreness from that, but then I was carrying a water reservoir from my dryer and bumped into a wall, wobbled or otherwise was carrying it awkwardly, and that's when it started really hurting.  The dryer is self contained (no vents), so I have to drain the water that it removed from the clothes, when I'm done washing for the week.  #arm #fracture #hospital #sprain #2023pad #dryer #wobble
09Feb22 A bit red and sweaty after a rowing session.  I spent six consecutive days rowing in order to complete this year's Concept 2 Valentine's Day Challenge.  And yes, I rowed more than 14,000 km and completed the challenge.  #2022pad #rowing #darkhorserowing #homegymlife #keepmoving #iamadarkhorse  #latergram #selfie #rowingselfie
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