A Good Day

Went for physio today then ran a bunch of errands and shopping then met with a friend for lunch.... more errands then home. It was a very busy day and I didn't make it over to visit Joyce as I had planned, nor did I make it to the bank... just too tired by the time I did all the rest. When I went to start the truck this morning there was a moment I thought it might not start after sitting in the cold since Monday without being started, but he started up without problem, just kinda stiff from the cold. Was grateful to be back home this evening, safe in my warm, cozy home with the fire burning. As I sat working on some Sudoku puzzles, one of my birds, Bubba, flew over and sat on my knee keeping me company. He's such a sweet heart and mostly lives out of his cage, free in the house. He's a cockatiel.

All in all it was a good day.

Cold Weather

Last week some people were still riding their motorcycles, then on Friday there was a drastic change in weather. Overnight it went into the deep freeze and Friday we got our first snow of the year. It has been way colder than usual for this time of year too. It's been so cold that politicians and CEOs of Insurance companies have been seen with their hands in their own pockets!! Now that is cold! I don't usually wear a jacket as I don't usually feel the need to, only when it's really cold, and I've been wearing one the last several days and been very grateful for having warm jackets to wear. Last night before I went to bed I checked the thermometer outside my door and it was a nasty -20C (0C = 32F). This morning as I left for my physiotherapy appointment it was -13C, so had warmed up some though still cold. This evening the snow started falling again. Dan, a friend of mine, is driving 117Km (73 miles) each way to work these days and stopped to visit me on his way home this evening. He said it was horrible driving in the snow storm as he couldn't see where he was a great deal of the time.

Tonight on TV they said we've broken records for cold temperatures. Today -19.8C broke the record set in 1985 at - 18.4C. Burrrr!

The weather forecast is for it to start warming up to normal November temperatures, and for us to get a lot of snow in the next while.


I sure am grateful to live in a nice home with a good pellet stove to keep me and my pets warm, and with hot tea to add to the warmth and comfort.

Dreaming... my Wish List

Just over a month to go until Christmas. Yup, that's right, today is the 19th of November so just over a month until 25th of December. This is kind of scary for those of us that don't do our shopping and such ahead of time. Who is on your Gift List to buy for? What is on your Wish List? I can tell you a few things on my Wish List:
- a fancy new cell phone with all the 'bells & whistles'
- a CD player for in my home
- a CD player for in my truck
- a big flat screen TV
- a new trike, or even a great paint job on the trike I am about to build to replace the smashed one
- tanzanite jewelry
- body work and paint job on my truck
- a Wii and Wii Fit to go with it
- an Amega wand
- a trip to a warm location
And last but not least..... the most important thing on my Wish List... a wonderful new man to love me and to buy some of the above things in my list.

My Weight and Health

I don't really believe in taking medications for anything unless it is totally the last choice and yet even I have been tempted lately with the idea of taking what could be the best weight loss pills. Not that I'm going to yet if ever, but I have been 'out of control' with my eating lately and have been gaining weight instead of loosing it. Every Thursday I go to my TOPS meeting and weigh in. Last year most weeks I had a loss, earlier this year lots of ups and downs resulting in staying about the same, but since my crash I have been 'bad'. With a shattered wrist and a sprained wrist I just ate what I could get my hands on... nothing I had to cook or prepare so nothing healthy, just stuff that would fill the emptiness in my stomach. Usually I wear jeans so if I am gaining weight with them, it shows with discomfort in tightness, but now I can only wear stretchy pants that are easy to get into with damaged wrists. This has resulted in gains. I have now recommitted to getting under control for my weight and for diabetes. I HAVE to get back under control or be in very grave danger. I am now writing down what I eat, and when as well as back to taking my blood glucose readings and writing them down too. This will all help me to see where I am going wrong and where I need to make changes. I also must get back to more regular exercise.

Weight Loss

Very nearly 2 years ago, I was wondering how to lose stomach fat fast, as well as how to loose fat from other parts of my body. One evening at Toastmasters I was talking to Pat and the subject of weight loss came up. I said I'd like to loose weight and she invited me to attend the TOPS meeting with her that Thursday morning. I went and on that day, January 15, 1008, I joined. Over the next year I dropped 20 pounds. Sadly I have been gaining a pound here & there again lately, but since I weigh in every Thursday I am very aware of this and know I must make changes in what I eat and how much I move in order to get this going back in the right direction for my looks and my health. I am going to keep a 'food journal' for the next while, recording what I eat as well as when & why. I will also record water and other drinks as well as exercise I do. This will help me to see what I've been doing wrong and correct it. I am sure that eating lots of scones has something to do with it, so that must change to eating a scone only occasionally.

Grateful

I used to think that I should have lived in a much earlier time, like maybe the 1700s or 1800s. I romanticized the life style of the times and felt it would have suited me to a 't'. And maybe I did live in those times as well, but I am now living in this time. I have come to be quite grateful for this fact, and very grateful for people who do health care jobs. Think about it, all the things that are possible medically now that were not possible or available 100 years ago, or maybe even 50 years or less. If you read this blog, you know that I was in a bad crash 2 months ago and had my left wrist shattered. I am so aware that if something like this happened earlier in time the outcome would have been very different. I was able to have surgery to reconstruct the wrist bones, a metal plate and 9 screws put in to hold it all together. This could not have been done 100 years ago, even 50 years ago it could not have been done with the skill or chances for total recovery that it can be done with today. I don't know yet if I will get full use back of my hand & wrist, but it should be close and I know that if I had been born a century or two before I was, and if I had a similar injury then, I would likely loose most or all use of the wrist and hand. I am grateful to live now. I am grateful for my life.

Thoughts

When I was a girl I often heard adults say that time flies faster now that they are older and I thought that was stupid. Time is time and it always goes the same speed. Yet, now that I am older it truly does seem that time goes faster and faster each year. I'm sure that, even if I was wearing a Momentum Cobalt Watch by St. Moritz, time would be going faster now than it did when I was a kid. It's just crazy... I mean, it was spring just such a short time ago, now summer is gone, we're well into fall and any day now the snow will be flying. Oh, you wouldn't think so to look out my windows as it is such a sunny, gorgeous day with the most beautiful clear blue sky and yet, being the 12th of November you just know that it won't be long now. Even if it was one of those years when we don't get snow until just before Christmas, the way time flies so fast it will be here all too soon. Life is getting just a little crazy, spinning out of control... or so it would seem.

November 9

Today was a wonderful, full day. It started off with my friendly pellet stove repair man coming by about 8:30am to have a look at my stove. It's been making noises lately that I don't like and figured that the motor on my fan could be 'going'. He thinks it just needs a good cleaning and oiling so will be by Friday morning to do that. This means I will have to get up early to turn the stove off so it can cool down before he gets here as it must be cool for him to work on.

I was on the schedule tonight at Toastmasters to be the Greeter & the Grammarian, give the Joke, chair the business meeting (I'm the club President) and to give a 5-7 minute speech as well as to be Timer throughout the meeting. I had been trying all week to think of what do do my speech about and yesterday came up with an idea that just wasn't really working, though today it 'jelled' and came out as a fairly good speech. It would have been much better if I had it written a few days ago so I had more time to practice it rather than just a couple hours, but it is what it is. Due to many people moving away for work, our club has gone from around 21 people to 7 people this year, so each of the active members must 'wear many hats' to fill in all the spots on the evenings agenda.

Usually on Tuesdays I am at the pool for a good part of the afternoon, doing Aqua Therapy then some swimming &/or soaking in the hot tub, but not today. I had to get the speech written & practiced, do up the agenda for the business meeting, read over the basics of Roberts Rules of Order in preparation for the business meeting, find a Grammarian word and print out the word with it's meanings, find a joke and familiarize myself with it in order to 'present' it rather than 'read' it.... etc. etc. so I didn't have the time to spend in town. To make up for this, I got onto my recumbent exercise bike and peddled for 30 minutes while studying the speech I'd written, then had my shower & got ready to go out. I've decided that since I don't seem to be able to give up the 'bad' foods or change over to more healthy, sensible foods, I must exercise more to make up for bad eating. I still must work on changing eating habits, mind you, but the 'work outs' are a good thing. More work to be done tomorrow.

November 8

Yesterday I went to town for x-rays on my left wrist, then went for blood tests for my diabetic check up that is coming up soon. By this time I had to run to get a cup of tea to take with me and off I went to my appointment with the orthopedic surgeon that did the reconstruction on my shattered wrist nearly 2 months ago. He brings up on his computer the x-rays done at the hospital as well as those done at the x-ray place downtown. It was interesting seeing what the metal plate & 9 screws look like and where in my wrist they are. He said to now start doing physio therapy on the wrist and go back to see him in 2 months. He also said it will be 6 months before things are back to normal if they ever get back there.

I went to visit Joyce then Tuggy phoned and wanted me to meet him at A&W, so Joyce & I went and had lunch with him. He was on his way to his doctor for more tests as he's not well & they're not finding out why or what to do about it. I had planned to go to Aqua Therapy, but by this time it was too late to get home for my swim suit and such, so I went to Joyce's for awhile longer then headed home to try to write a speech for tonight at Toastmasters. I had finally come up with an idea what to speak about... or had I? It just wasn't working.

During the evening I watched House, Lie To Me, & Hawaii 5 O on TV. While watching House I got on my recumbent exercise bike I had a workout. The timer quit working part way through so I don't know how long I peddled on it, but do know I did it for a fairly long time. Once in awhile I stopped for a short rest before starting again, and did this for the greater part of House.

Thinking about time.

Time sure has been flying for me and it's hard to believe it's almost 8 weeks since I was in the crash. This Friday it will be 8 weeks. On October 27 I went to a movie with a dear friend I hadn't seen in many months and here it is already a week since then, though I was thinking it had been 2 weeks, so time is getting mixed up for me. Anyway, it's been quite some times since I was last to a movie at a theater and was surprised to find out that you no longer buy your theater tickets at a desk when you enter the front door, then if you want popcorn etc you go line up to get those things. Now you go in and line up in the 'treat' line to get tickets and your treats all at the same place. I can see where this would increase chances that people will purchase snacks to eat during the show... even if they hadn't been planning to do so before they got there. I really enjoyed the movie and Pat's company.

I spent time today working at cleaning my home. I've been doing this lately, trying to get it back to where it once was before I let it go. It sure is starting to look better in spots. Oh so much more to do... and it seems to take a lot of time to accomplish a little bit. I can only do small amounts at each go due to having a broken wrist and back problems. I am now laying on my bed resting my back so I can go to Toastmasters this evening. I have to be there early as I am the Greeter... and the Table Topics Evaluator and the Speech Evaluator #2 as well as one of the 2 Timers. Our club was a good sized group last year, but many people moved away so now we are a very small group in need of new members, and those of us that are left do several jobs each Tuesday.