Chickafinty ~ A Life in the Laundry

31 days to clean Day #1

I want a warm, tidy, clutter free home.

I want a home where everyone feels welcome and cared for.

I don't want a show home (it's never going to happen).

I want our home to bring me joy, not stress.

Stocktake

A number of events in the past couple of weeks or so have forced me/us to do a stocktake.  If you like, a specifically spiritual stocktake - a taking-the-temperature of our lives and seeing what is good, what is not good and what is downright bad.

My people have just come home and I need to be with them, so this will have to wait...

Embarrassingly honest, or honestly embarrassing? You make the call

You can follow a trail around our house and it will tell you everything that we have done in the day.  Why?  Because no-one in the house (including me) tidies up after they have finished an activity.  All four of us complete something and then just walk way.  Which, by definition, means that we never complete anything.

I don't know why it's taken 40 years to figure out that this is a pretty rum way to run a railroad.

Cold

The cold weather is back with a vengeance.  Today it is freezing even inside the house.  My fingers are stiff with cold and make writing neatly a challenge.

I'm writing on the back of two nights of bad dreams.  Last night's dream would have made the perfect CSI script (if only I could remember it) and it freaked me out so much that I was too scared to get out of bed to use the bathroom.  Thankfully Mister Bear stirred awake not long after and I was able to go with him.  If you think about hand greandes, body cavities and destroying evidence, you'll get a bit of an idea about where my dreams took me.  Yeah.  Not pretty.

The kids are having a scrappy (as in bits and piecy) school day.  They are cold, I'm cold, the dog is shivery and no one's concentration is in good nick.  I'm writing this during an extended recess and planning a short middle session.  Hopefully we will pick up the pace in the afternoon.

Something is happening tomorrow which is preying on my mind.  I can't discuss it here yet, and hopefully by tomorrow evening there will be nothing *to* discuss, but my headspace is full of it today.  I think the kids are picking up on my uneasiness too.

Me time

This afternoon all is quiet, except for the dishwasher.

The house is empty of Mister Bear, Chickabid, Ladybug and Gyspy Jane.  It's just me alone.  I can't remember the last time I had time to be alone and to do nothing in particular.

For months I've been at work on the supersecret project, my Organised Fidgeting*, but that was completed yesterday when I sat and crocheted like a madwoman.  I still have a blanket on the go for Chickabid, and one slightly less along for the Ladybug, but I am kind of all crocheted out for a little while.  Their blankets will keep until we're all together and catching up on stuff on the TiVo.  For the moment I am merely enjoying the silence and the freedom of having nothing in particular to do.

In a minute or two I'll sign off here and fetch the scrapbooking box.  I have a few layouts that need finishing touches, and I have a whole bunch of ideas from here to explore with scrappy things.  There's a box bursting with photos that need scrapping.  I have barely touched scrapbooking in about 3 years - too unwell to think about it - but now that life is on the improve I need to capitalise on this.

I see the dr this week about my new med protocol.  There are not words to thank him enough.  I have my life back, but a better life than I could have dreamed about.  In looking back I think I have been sick for most of my life, without knowing it.  At least since I was 18, and possibly longer.  It is not beyond the realm of possibility that a particular traumatic event that occured 30 years ago could have triggered the illness and that it has been undiagnosed at least that long.  Everything is different now and I am having to learn how to live a new life.  It's a bit tricky, espceially when long ingrained patterns of behaviour no longer occur.  All I can say to the doctor is "Thank you", but that doesn't seem adequate.

I also have to write about Maria's visit...I'm finding it hard to believe that the visit has come and gone.  We were looking forward to it for so long, and now it's in the past.  It was a wonderful 2 and a half days and I will be forever grateful for the chance to meet someone who is now a firmly entrenched part of our family.

Swapsies

Mister Bear had a wander past the doctor's office yesterday.  Nothing drastic or worrying to talk about, just a shopping list of niggly things that needed to be dealt with.

Very long story short it has been brought to our attention that we both need to do something about or weight if we want to avoid a future with Type 2 Diabetes in it.

The Australian government has been running campaign talking about swapping things in your life for better outcomes in your health.  I'm all in favour of swapping our regular milk for the 40% fat free variety (yes, you read that right) but I'm not sure that's exactly what the government has in mind :)

Seriously though, we're looking for some swapsies that we can do because diets are not an option.  We've been down that path and it doesn't work for us.  We're both foodies and restrictive diets always end up being broken and we both end up weighing more than we started with.  The swapsies idea though *could* be a workable one.  I say could.  Maybe.  Don't count on it.

I'm considering swapping coffee for green tea as my drink of choice.

Mister Bear is considering swapping coke for coke zero as his drink of choice.

I'm considering swapping breakfast cereal for porridge, and a poached egg on toast (low GI, high protein?? and v v filling).

We've already swapped from white bread to bread with lots of bits, and I am considering swapping shop bought for exclusively homemade, still with lots of bits.

I've swapped regular yoghurt for low fat yoghurt.

I've swapped taking the car for walking whenever possible.  I've swapped a basically sedentary life for semi-regular gym visits*.

It's possible that a swapsies attitude will be sustainable on a long term basis where restrictive diets aren't.  We'll see.

* The gym visits have become semi-regular due to Mister Bear's job.  I can only go to the gym first thing in the morning, and Mister Bear has a project that's rolling out.  New projects rolling out mean lots of very early mornings and lots of late evenings for him, which means no gym for me.

I have gained just about everything I had lost before.  I decided to skip the weigh and measure for the month of April, but apparently that's not acceptable.  I got rung this morning and pressured into a weigh and measure booking.  Not happy, Jan.  I don't need to know exactly how much weight I have gained (I'm guessing it is in the vicinity of 3kg) nor how many centimetres have gone on (I'm guessing at least 20cm).  I already feel like crap and I don't need to be made feel any worse thanks all the same.  It is almost a deal breaker.  Almost.  I am looking forward to it with the same amount of pleasure as anticipating root canal therapy.

It's been a while

It's been 13 days since I last blogged.  So much has been going on that I have hardly had the time to think let alone blog.

Maria's visit has come and gone.  At two-and-a-half-days it was nowhere near enough, but certainly more than we ever thought we wold get.  We packed a lot into our limited time and it was exhausting (back me up on this one, Maria), but it was also FUN!

Meeting Maria was nothing short of delightful and I was so sad to see her go :(  So was the Ladybug - she cried for about 2 hours and then whenever Maria's name was mentioned.  I think Maria might have stolen her heart.  Ladybug is Ladybaby's new blog name, in honour of Maria's visit and her souvenir from Australia.

Here's a few pics of our time together.  Yes...actual pictures of *me* on the blog.  Shock!