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I'll wait until there's a shooting 2002-04-15 This morning I decided that I am not chubby; I am merely in large print as a service for the nearsighted. I finished my first 12 weeks of Body For Life yesterday, and I have lost 12 pounds. I had expected to lose more than that, but I really did put on a lot of muscle so I think that offset some of the fat I lost, scalewise. I had planned to take a week off before starting another 12 weeks, but I changed my mind and am just going on with the BFL. I am going to put more aerobic exercise into the program by walking on my lunch hours 3 days a week (I would do 5 days but I have to work through lunch Monday and Wednesday) and on the weekends. And I may do an aerobic or kickboxing class once a week or so. I think ramping up the aerobic exercise will help me lose fat more quickly, which would be really good at this point. If I can lose even 10 more pounds in the next 7 weeks (before our vacation), that would be great. We're going to be walking around a Lot when we're in Europe, and I want to be as light and unencumbered as possible. This weekend Francisco and I did a lot of obsessing about our trip. On Friday night we went to B&N and got a couple of guidebooks. On Saturday we went to REI and got a suitcase that converts to a backpack for me--Francisco will be using a suitcase/backpack that his mother gave to him after Her trip to Europe. The pack I got is really great, and it was unexpectedly on sale. I love getting up to the checkout and having the item that I was going to buy anyway be $35 less than I thought I would be paying. Woo-Hoo! At REI we also got moneybelts (under-clothes pouches for money and passports) and a portable clothesline. We looked at the travel clothes REI offers and will be going back in a few weeks to get some things. I would like to get one of those wrinkle-proof dresses, a pair of light pants that convert to shorts, and a couple of lightweight but nice looking t-shirts. It was originally my plan to dress as European as possible in an effort to blend in, but now I realize that no one will be fooled anyway, and because we'll be doing so much walking, it will be better to be comfortable even if we fail to blend. We will still be wearing muted colors--no hot pink for us. Yesterday morning we went to breakfast and then rented a couple of travel videos. They weren't very good. We also went to the library to check out guidebooks. At the same time I checked out an audio book of conversational German. I listened to the tape this morning on my way to work and spent some of the time in despair and some of the time laughing. I like the way German sounds, but my mouth doesn't want to make some of those noises. I think I need to not be driving while listening to it. I need to look at the booklet while listening, because when I can't see the words, many of them sound like gibberish. Otherwise this weekend we cleaned and did chores, and yesterday I knitted a headband. I know that my hair will look awful when we're on our trip, because I don't plan to take a hair dryer. My plan was to make some fun headbands out of pretty fabric and elastic, but yesterday I decided to try and knit one. I used a beautiful wool that I don't have much of (not enough for a scarf or anything) and it worked great! I sewed some thin black elastic to it, and voila! I felt quite accomplished, but really any chimp could've made it. Okay, on Saturday I noticed that Lucy is favoring (not quite limping on) her right back leg, and now that she is doing that I think that's why she was shitting outside the box--maybe it's been sore and she's been unable to squat properly. I got all worried and called the vet to get her an appointment, and they have nothing available all week. We decided we would watch her closely and see if she starts limping more or if the leg doesn't improve, and we will take her to a different vet if she gets worse or it doesn't improve within a few days. It's tough to decide these things, because she can't tell me how much the leg is bothering her, or when the pain started, but I know how incredibly unhappy she'll be if we have to take her to a vet. I think the wait and see approach is the right thing to do, but I am worried anyway. I felt the leg and didn't feel anything weird, but Lucy clearly didn't like me feeling it, so it must hurt at least a little. Could she have arthritis? She's 8 years old and that doesn't seem old enough for arthritis. My poor kitty. I gave her lots of love this weekend. She stinkyed me at least 5 times., which was gross. In other news, Francisco and Boy cleaned the bathrooms yesterday--it was glorious. The whole house looks a lot better, but I didn't dig in the yard at all. I'm starting to wonder if I should put in the annuals and other plants I planned to put in, because that would mean I'd have to make my parents water the plants while we're gone on our vacation. My dad hates watering so much that he had an automatic watering system put into their yard last summer, so the last thing I want them to have to do is spend time watering my yard while they're here. I think maybe I'll let the yard go for one more year. Or maybe I'll get drought-tolerant annuals or something. Nursery, here I come! I am so boring today. I slept very poorly last night and I sound like an idiot when I try to talk. The wrong words keep coming out of my mouth and I'll bet everyone I've talked to today is skeptical of what I've told them. I blame the neighbors. We have two sets of neighbors who keep peculiar hours. We have some Asian neighbors who I almost never see (the sightings are Bigfootian in frequency) but who I hear at least twice a week, talking in the cul-de-sac at 1 in the morning. I don't know what they're saying because it's not in English, but probably they're saying how stupid we are for trying to sleep while they socialize with friends in their driveway. The other set of neighbors is even more mysterious. They are rarely seen during the day, although cars come and go, but at night they really come alive. Last night at midnight I heard a lot of ruckus (our window was open) and I looked out and every light was on at the mysterious neighbors'. I don't know what they were doing, but they do it often. Scuttlebutt is that they own a daycare (not in their house), but would You be up at all hours of the night if you had to be dealing with children early in the morning? It is a recipe for disaster. These same neighbors will, about twice a year, throw a party for about 50 people. At that time they basically branch out into the culdesac and play basketball and other games, and have a picnic. They seem nice, but I am suspicious of them for their strange nocturnal habits and their frequent daytime visitors. I thought this morning about calling the police, but what would I say? "The neighbors stay up late and they have lots of visitors, and sometimes they use a power saw at 11:00 at night"? The cops would totally patronize me if I tried to tell them that. I'll just bide my time. Talk to you later, Love,
come over some time & see me - 2011-02-25 |
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