Still sick

Urgh... I am still sick.  This is so unusual for me.

I have a very set pattern for when I'm sick.  1 day of achy-tender skin, sore throat, fever, flu type symptoms.  1 day of coughing starting the day as a dry cough ending as a wet phlegm cough.  1 day of runny nose, that then ends up as a blocked nose and sinus build-up the next day, which just had me attached to a tissue box.  4 days, done and dusted.

This is different.  I'm still coughing.  Half choking.  I don't seem to be able to cough up whatever it is that's sitting in my chest.  So I have a sore throat from coughing, and pain in my chest from coughing.

I left the house today for the first time in days.  I had promised two weeks ago that I would go op shopping with my best friend, and I didn't want to let her down.  I'm known for cancelling on her all the time.  Usually for no good reason at all.  Just because I've had a freak-out and don't want to leave the house.  So I didn't want to cancel on her because I thought she would think that I was just bailing without a legitimate reason.

I'm glad I went out today.  I was able to pick up a nice stash of books to add to my collection - including what I swear must be the rarest book series possible to need to complete - The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper.  We had to read the first book 'Under Sea, Under Stone' as our year 8 English novel.  I loved it, and years later I discovered there were more to the series.  5 books in total.  Tracked down through various libraries.  Nearly impossible to buy.  But today I was able to buy the 5th book - the Silver on the Tree.  Not only that, but I managed to pick up the whole series in an omnibus edition.  It's fairly small print through, so I possibly won't get into it very often.  But it's nice to know it's there to read the whole series.

I've got a doctor's appointment tomorrow about this being sick business.  Hopefully I'll get definite feedback about whether it's something that can be treated with antibiotics or if it's just bed rest.  To be honest, I I kind of want it to be bad enough that antibiotics are needed.  I've had enough of chicken soup, tomato juice and tea with lemon honey.  And I want to get something done in this last week of the holidays.  Not just spend two weeks at home because I'm sick.

Gogglebox

I watched that (newish) show on Thursday night called Gogglebox.   Hilarious!  Going to be part of my regular weekly viewing, hands down!

Basically it's a reality TV show, where 10 households are filmed while they're watching television.  They're all told what shows to watch, and the reactions to what they are watching are edited and shown.  Priceless!  There are families, couples and flatmates.  It's really cool to see 1 - how other people watch telly and 2 - how other people talk and comment on what they've seen.  I think it's great because I was watching it and thinking they are so Australian.  The reactions they have to things are are brilliant.  Unfortunately I'm trying to think of an example and I can't quite think of one.  Most of the people featured swear a lot, which suits me.  I'm a big fan of curse words; I use them fairly liberally myself.  There's a swear jar at work just for me.  :-/  But back to the show: it's those throw away comments and one-liners.  It's the randomness.  I need to get to somewhere with free wifi and catch up on the first 6 episodes I think!!

**

I did end up going for that walk on Friday afternoon.  2.4km (1.5mi).  I'm relatively happy with that.  Although it did make me start coughing again.  : S

I need to plan out food that I am going to make for the upcoming week, and workout my schedule/routine for the new few months until my next holidays,  I'm always leaving everything until the holidays, and then when the holidays come around, I waste them.  Like all this last week, I've been meaning to call the tax department.  Have I though?  Not a chance.

There's also organising a doctor's appointment, dentist appointment, plumber, fixing a bookcase (that I've been meaning to do since I moved in 2.5 years ago!),  repainting, replanting, changing over clothes and bedding to a winter wardrobe.  And maybe donate some things that I've been meaning to donate.

I also got it into my head that I want to buy some lino or vinyl to line my kitchen cupboards.  It was exit-cleaning my best friend's rental over the New Year that gave me the idea.  Her kitchen cupboards were lined and it made it so fantastically easy to clean.  They weren't even her idea, they were already in the house when she moved in.  I had been meaning to do it ever since then, but put it off because I knew it would be a tedious task to measure every cupboard to work out how much I would need.  But when I got back on Tuesday, I opened a cupboard to discover a tin of fruit (that, to be fair, I'd had for a fair few number of years) must have rusted through because there was a dark syrupy type substance on the shelf.  So I after I cleaned it up, I figured that it was no time like the present to organise and look for some lino/vinyl for my shelves.

In fact, I may as well do it for all the shelves in the house - my wardrobe shelf is not very smooth and occaisionally my clothes catch on in.  I originally taped down some butchers' paper, but I think lino may go much nicer.  I want to get some of a decent thickness that won't slide around.  Otherwise there's no point is there?

It's Friday already? Oh dear...

So I started the week with a renewed sense of wanting to get fit, organised and healthy.

I went for a 25 minute walk on Tuesday morning.  I planned to go as soon as I got up, but it was around 9:00am before I left the house.  Nearly 2 hours later!!  Mind you, it's the first time I have undertaken any form of exercise in weeks.  Possibly since January to be honest?   It's not surprising then I felt out of it for the remainder of the day.  I split my time between the sofa and my bed.

I still managed to do a bit of washing up, but I also spent a lot of time just kicking back in the air-con (yes!, April and I still have the air-conditioner running some days - it's just that hot).  That's when I wrote the other blog post.  Felt slow and dopey all the rest of the day.

In fact, I kind of felt achy and my skin was tender - like I was coming down with something.  I was originally planning to walk to the shops (1.6km/1 mi each way) to pick up a few things like chicken drumsticks to make chicken soup.  And tomato juice. But I piked out and ended up driving.  And I'm glad I did.  Because when I crave tomato juice, it means I'm getting sick.  A cold or virus.  Urgh!  Just what I don't want when I'm on holiday.  So I made chicken soup with LOTS of vegetables and garlic.  And drank nearly a two litres of liquids before bed.

It helped.  I woke up Wednesday feeling better.  WAY less achy, but with a minor sore throat.  I decided to go for a walk anyway because I figured that a short bout of exercise could only help to boost my immune system.  25 minutes again.

This time, I felt a bit more motivated and later that morning I walked to my nearest hardware store to buy a hose.  I don't own one anymore, and I decided that I really needed to wash out my wheelie bin and my kitchen bin.  So it's easiest to do that in the backyard with the hose.  Especially as Wednesday is bin day, so it was "freshly" emptied.  So that is one of my (many!) holiday jobs done.

I've since spent the rest of the week doing nothing but lounge on the sofa and either be on my laptop or playing games on my phone.  Physically I'm still going back and forth between being better and worse.

For instance, last night I felt really full of phlegm and mucous, and this morning woke with a pretty horrid sore throat.  Gargled salt water, had a few cups of strong black tea with honey.  And am feeling much perkier. I've not got a runny or blocked nose and for that I am incredibly thankful.  Sinus infections just seem to drag on forever don't they?  But I have been coughing a bit.  A wet cough.  *Gross out warning*  I've been coughing up a lot of mucous, but it has only seemed to reach the top of my throat and then I've swallowed it again.  This morning I was finally able to cough some up and spit it out.  Gross I know, but as soon as I did that, I've started to feel better.  

Hmm.... I think I need to leave the house this afternoon and go for at least a small walk.  25-30 minutes like I have been doing.  Try to motivate me again to keep up some momentum.  And plan out what I am going to do with the rest of my weekend.  So I actually stick to it.

7 April 2015

Still here. Still not losing any weight.  Still upset at myself for not trying.

It's Easter  break now.  10 days.

10 days to complete a to do list that has around 25 dot points.  Some more urgent than others. But a lot that definitely needs to be done.  Some of it house stuff, some of it health stuff.  Some of it looking after parent stuff.  Which I hate.  I swear I'm going to end up spending more time looking after her, than she ever had to look after me growing up.  If we were close maybe it would be different.  But my mother is a nasty bitter unpleasant woman and causes far more stress than is healthy for me.  And it never seems to end.

But back to my physical health.

I'm really really over being fat and overweight.  I just want to fit into clothes again properly.

I'm slowly working on the food issue.  I've worked out a fairly good system of making meals and freezing them.  I'm eating a form of dinner at work at 4 o'clock and then only fruit or crackers later at 7pm.   Now I've just got to get back on track with weighing and logging everything.  After all this time, I still find it a time consuming thing to do. It would probably work better if I took more time on Sunday to plan out and log my entire week in advance, just modifying where needed from where I deviated.  Yet another system to set up.  And stick to.

My whole life has been like this. I am full of ideas and plans and projects. I am a great starter of things but not a great finisher. I either get distracted or my enthusiasm wanes. I have so many incomplete hobbies and projects everywhere.  I wouldn't be surprised if they made up around 15-20% of all the stuff I own.  Which I'm still sorting through.  Which is yet another project to work on.  And I've already come up with yet another new project to do. And I can't let it rest until I have more time,or at least a better time because my enthusiasm will wane and I'll be left with this half finished project  that  wont get completed for another two  years.   *Rolls eyes*  This is the way I live my life. Every single day. Does this happen to anyone else? Is it fixable? Is it a learnt behaviour that can be unlearnt?

It's frustrating that's what it is.

7 Feb. 15

Oh dear.  Can you tell I'm back at work again?  Absolutely no time to blog.  Or read other blogs.  Bugger.

Annoyingly too, weightloss is not happening.  But I know exactly why.   I'm not sleeping well, which leads to me not eating well.  I'm also not logging properly or even exercising.  So frustrating, because it all seems to take time, time which I feel I don't have to put into these things.  But I have to have time to do all these things otherwise I'm shortchanging my own health.  I keep telling myself I just need to get my feet onto the ground with what I'm doing at work and then I'll be fine.  *Rolls eyes*.  Yeah, because, like, that ever happens.  /sarcasm


I'm continuing on with the house cleaning and organising and unpacking.  I managed to clear another two boxes on Thursday afternoon, so I'm feeling pretty good about that.  It's starting to really get to me that I have been living in my unit for over two years now and I still haven't unpacked everything.  In every room there is mess and clutter and STUFF.  So much stuff... I mentioned it before how I find it hard to get rid of things.  I hold onto things for such a long time.  In fact, in one of those boxes I unpacked, I found the portable CD/Tape/Radio player that I received for my 13th birthday.  The one that hasn't working properly since I was fifteen and there was a power surge.  This means it doesn't work through the power cord any more, but it will work if you use 8 D cell batteries.  So I've held onto it all these years.  Because it was still usable.  It wasn't broken, just not in the best of working conditions.  

I'm feeling upset even as I mention it, but I decided to throw it out.  

 
By which I mean, I've put it in another area of my flat with the other electronics and appliances which no longer work as they should and I can take it to an e-waste disposer. 

It makes me so uncomfortable to know that I am doing that.  My first reaction when I saw it was 'Oh, I remember this, I remember how proud I was that I had a CD player, how cool it was to have one'.  My second was 'I don't need to get rid of this.  It still works on batteries.  This can go in a storm survival kit!' 

Anything so that I don't have to get rid of it, right? : (

It's so hard, but I'm working on it.  I am telling myself that it just wouldn't be practical in a storm kit.  It's huge.  It's 50cm in length (20in), and bulky besides.  It would take up most of the space.  Plus on top of that, 8 D cell batteries is expensive.  I've had it for over fifteen years, it's time to cut the apron strings.

So, another work in progress.