Day of Opportunity: Päivätilaisuus

Having one of those days where there's nothing on, all the food is prepared (leftovers from yesterday) so there's no cooking that needs doing, there's no shopping to be done except for buying a paper, and my bum and legs hurt from yesterday's attempt at running the Lower Horseshoe so there'll be no running today because I am, underneath it all, a bit of a wimp.

There is washing to be hung out which I may attempt now - I didn't earlier because yesterday I managed to rip open (ok that's a slight exaggeration) my finger on a tree whilst cutting back some weeds and it hurts quite a lot still (witch doctor gel hurts REAL bad) so I didn't want to get it caught continually on the washing. But, having said that, I've just made a batch of bread dough (now prooving in the oven) and got dough and flour and butter all over my hands, including the huge great gaping wound (it's about 2mm long actually) so maybe I'll get around to hanging out the washing after all.

I suppose today is really a fantastic opportunity for me to get into the attic and do some of that which I tend to call "work" which is actually playing around in the studio, painting or playing music. Singing's a bit out of the question at the moment as my voice is still recovering from last week's cold, but my fingers still work and there's a book of music downstairs which I'm actually really looking forward to playing through.

A Day of Opportunity indeed.

Motivation...

We put a deposit down on a car at the weekend :D and we keep looking at each other (this hasn't really stopped since Saturday) and saying, "we'll have a car next week!!" So we will be picking up a boy-racer-red, 1.8 tdi vRS Skoda Fabia on Friday or Saturday. And I get to drive it to Manchester on Sunday or Monday! :D

Other than that, I don't really know what to write. I think the main thing I'm thinking about at the moment is my lack of exercise. I just called the leisure centre to cancel tomorrow's appointment, I've been poorly this week and it's meant that even if I'd wanted to go out training I couldn't have. As I drove back from the shops today (driving a hired Toyota Aygo... not great fun...) I remembered what Adrian (my trainer) said last time. Something about how if I actually filled out an application form for this summers' Round Hill Romp (a 10k run) I might feel a bit more motivation to do some work. I was filled with dread at the thought of actually putting my name down for something.

I don't even know if I want to do this run. Part of me does, yes, but it means making a decision that I don't want to make just yet. And possibly, by the time I am in a position to make the decision, I won't have time to either apply or train adequately.

Read another blog just now. The author noticed another roll around his tummy this morning and has vowed to go to the gym every morning this week. Wish I could get up the motivation to do that.

rubitinyourfacebook?

I've heard people refer to facebook as "rub it in your face-book" quite a lot over the past months, and it does seem to me that, certainly as Christians, but also just as nice people (do those two things always go hand in hand I wonder?), whether we should be posting things and writing things that, either deliberately or not, really hurt other people?

I read another comment somewhere on the ether that your facebook profile is essentially what you want the world to see about you. It's entirely calculated; you can tweak it here and there to reflect how you wish to be seen by others. In the same way, we each have a lot of control over what we put up there which could potentially hurt our BROTHERS AND SISTERS. I say that in capitals because that's what we are to each other. You might not share the same earthly parents, but you share a heavenly Father and it just constantly amazes me how people can either be so callous or so ignorant as to post things that are obviously going to hurt other people.

You do realise, don't you, that if you break up with somebody and your relationship status posts this all over the internet, that you can delete that bit of information from your Mini-feed? It's quite easy to do. You can choose what bits of information get posted all over the news updates by controlling what appears in your mini-feed, and you can also go through your privacy settings and tweak things here and there. It really isn't hard, you've just got to get over the mindset of "technical-aaargh" which never helps.

Ok, rant over. I've just been upset by things that I can see that have obviously hurt other people and it annoys and upsets me that we call ourselves Christians and then have this cavalier attitude to our brothers' and sisters' emotional and spiritual well-being.

Salt and Light

Just read a rather interesting point made by somebody commenting on a blog somewhere in the ether:

"You don't put a big pile of salt in the middle of your food because it will just taste of poo"

Interesting. The point they were making is, are massive churches the best thing? Surely salt is better mixed into the food, rather than huddled together in one place.

Discuss.

All drugged up and feeling... a bit numb actually

Came down with a cold last night. Thankfully it had the grace to wait until I was asleep before assaulting me, so I was able to finish the marmalade off while still feeling ok. Had to buy 8 more jam jars this morning though, as I'd managed to completely by-pass the whole process of thinking and had only bought 6 half-pint jam jars to fit the fruit, sugar, and 5 pints of water into. This was at the same time as buying a bigger saucepan because my biggest pan wasn't big enough. "Ooh yes, 6 will do...."

This morning I woke up feeling very sorry for myself. I'm paying for all the hard work I did yesterday at the gym, and that, coupled with generally being poorly, is combining to make today
rather painful. I am now all drugged up on paracetamol and vitamin C (I've just had the first spoonfuls of homemade marmalade!) and feeling odd. That strange feeling of fake-chirpiness, combining the slightly crazed look in the eyes from the temperature, the numbness from the painkillers, and the effort from having to breathe through my mouth whilst trying not to choke on the toast at the same time.

Good things though. Went to see the lovely physiotherapist this morning, and she was delighted with the response my shoulders are making already. Got another exercise to add to the list, and I'm also having to re-learn good posture again - shouldn't be too hard (she says) as I've already learnt it several times before, and so it's just a case of reinforcing what I already know.

Roll on tomorrow...

Fit as a fiddle? Me?

Went to the gym again this morning, feeling extremely guilty and pretty bad about myself. I'm supposed to be "training" for a 10k run in the summer, and I am not very good at self-motivating. You might think that the following is a good thing but in some ways it really isn't. You see, I've never really had to think about what I eat (other than the diabetes), I've never really done or had to do much exercise, I've never watched my weight, I've never looked at myself in the mirror and thought "you're fat" or "you're too thin". I just am. It took Steve to convince me that looking in the mirror before going out was actually a good idea (thank God for Stephen). So I'm getting better at some things.

But here's the thing. I convinced a friend to go to the gym last month. She's never been to a gym before. She's in her 30's I think (haven't asked yet!) and knows she's unfit and overweight, but was terrified of going to the gym. So she and her hubby went along and joined and are nearly through their induction - and she's been going EVERY DAY for a WHOLE HOUR. She went to the 4th induction session and the girl said, "gosh, you've been coming quite a lot. You do know that your body needs to rest as well, don't you?" So my friend now takes Sundays off.

I feel.... I don't know what the word is. But Adrian, my instructor, was quite surprised today. Last time I went it was just after getting back from Finland and it felt like I'd just slept and eaten for two weeks, so he went easy on me and took the speed on the treadmill down a notch. I was exhausted. Two weeks later and I've not done a single session on my own, or been out running, or done anything really except bake lots of cakes and bread, and he puts the treadmill speeds back up to what they were before Christmas. And I sail through. I'm still chattering away at the end of the session, barely out of breath. Adrian is confused. So am I. He says he wishes his training regime could be like mine - don't do any work, and still get fitter.

I'm hoping that the thought of the speeds going up next week will panic me into actually doing some work this week....

Contracts signed, so here's to the 31st...

Got back from Manchester yesterday after an emotional and traumatic day finalising the house sale: checked out the house to make sure it was still ok only to discover that the back door key was missing (can only presume it was the estate agents, as they'd left the shed keys and the gate key on the keyring) so we couldn't get through to the back garden easily to get rid of the last of the rubbish. And the alarm panel wasn't working properly - the numbers for the alarm code we've used don't work any more, feels like somebody's been using the end of a ball-point pen to push the buttons so they're really hard to push now. Wasn't like that when we left it. Bit annoyed about that.

BUT. The contracts have been signed, got a fax today confirming the completion date and the amount, so we'll be off to the bank this week to see if we can get a very very very short-term loan so that we can buy a car. A car!! Our own car, that will hopefully not break and die within two months of owning it, that will enable us to get around and about.

And all that about today being the most depressing day of the year? Well my advice is to have a nice long bath, preferably the candlelit kind, with yummy bath salts or a bath bomb or something equally delicious, get all clean and put something nice on. Worked a treat for me today anyway.

Pizza's in the oven, husband's poorly on the sofa, and I'm not looking forward to my gym session tomorrow. I feel so guilty that I've not done anything for the past two weeks - I'm really going to try and do better this week. It's just the weather... it's just not conducive to me going out running...

Amazing what you can get done in half an hour.

So this is how it goes in the morning. Firstly it depends on whether I can convince myself that getting out of bed will be a good thing. Waking up doesn't seem to be much of a problem initially, but it's getting out of bed that gets me. If it's cold or Stephen's being particularly snuggly then that bit is tricky.

But once I've decided to actually get out of bed, I can usually manage to get all the usual things done and stumble downstairs into the kitchen to put the kettle on. I usually manage to stay looking at least half-awake until half-way through breakfast and then all of a sudden it's as if I'm asleep again.

I have about half an hour from getting out of bed where I'm awake and useful, and then it takes a good couple of hours and a cup of tea or two while I'm a bit zombie-ish before I'm anything like useful again, so during that half hour I've learnt to make breakfast, a cup of tea, do the washing up and tidy the kitchen up a bit if it didn't get done the night before and put a load of washing in. It's amazing how much I can get done in that half-hour of productivity.

Almost makes up for the two hours of stumbling around that follow...

What day is it today? What, all day??

Oh dear. I'm having issues with what day it is. Again. Yesterday I spent half the day thinking it was Monday (which was OK, since it was actually Monday) and the rest of the time thinking it was Tuesday. So much so that I emptied all the bins and got the recycling ready for the weekly Wednesday rubbish collection. Steve said he did notice but decided (wisely, I feel) not to comment. In the evening I think I said something about it must be Tuesday because he went to work the day before. But no, it was still Monday. I've even had to blu-tac a little star on the relevant day/date on the calendar - and despite the little star being there, I managed to get confused.

We've just watched the Louis Theroux programme (downloaded it yesterday) and when it ended I thought - briefly before realising my error - oh that's nice, we can have an early night and a nice long lazy lie-in in the morning. Thinking it was Friday. It's still Tuesday. All day.

Which means that it's Wednesday tomorrow.

All day.

Cornbread and lingonberry bread... and spoiling the husband :-)

I have been accused of spoiling Stephen! I said it was to make sure he didn't run off, but he assures me that there's more to him loving me than just my baking :-) I baked cornbread for breakfast on Saturday, and made a loaf of lingonberry bread in the afternoon. We finished the lingonberry bread yesterday with dinner and the cornbread is looking at me from the breadbin... eat me... eat me... I'm bored so I bake. Just need to be able to adjust the quantities a little better, so that I am able to bake what we might actually eat, before it goes bad because we can't eat it fast enough.

Made dumplings for the first time ever last night to go with the casserole. I've made biscuit before, thanks to Justin's Canadian recipe, but Steve says that dumplings still win hands down. Quite pleased. So we've got the other half of the casserole for lunch today, and it'll be bread and cheese and salad for tea later on.

The rain is miserable. The most miserable of miserable weather. I really miss the cold of Finland, it just seems so warm here by comparison. It was odd going back there, we thought we'd be ok with the cold and when the temperature dropped we were really not ok! I guess living somewhere where it gets cold every year you get slowly accustomed to the change in temperature and can deal with it better (and have appropriate clothing) but it caught us out. By the end of the week though we were much more accustomed to it, and when we got back to England even though it was cold here by our standards, it felt so warm and muggy, not nice at all.

So I'm a little bored. I'm assuming that the boredom has something to do with not having anything to prepare for (namely, Christmas, and relatives coming to visit) and also because we don't have a car at the moment and it's just too wet to consider going out for a walk. I don't even fancy going to the shops at the moment although I really ought to as it's Steve's sister's birthday at the weekend and I'd like to find something lovely for her. Even though the shops are just across the road from me I just can't seem to find the motivation! Maybe by this afternoon the rain won't be so bad and I might venture out...

Happy New Year and all that jazz :)

It's Wednesday morning and it's about 42 hours since we got home on Monday from Finland. I'm just about managing to keep up with what day of the week it is, and I'm quite pleased that we remembered to put the bins out this morning. The bags are all unpacked, the house is tidyish and some of the washing has been done. The Christmas tree and decorations are down and in a pile in the attic waiting to be sorted out and put away, the chocolate and biscuit pile isn't really getting much smaller, Stephen is back to work and life is slowly returning to normal.

I wonder what this year will bring. I hope that I make new friends here, that I can be so part of their lives that I can challenge and encourage them for the best; I hope that we will have children of our own this year, and I hope to see my new nephew soon! I'm humbled that my brother has asked me and Stephen to be Godparents to his new baby, and I hope that we have the opportunity to fulfil the duty that it offers. I'm grateful that in all this God reigns and I hope that I have the wisdom to see when God's way is different from my ideas - and the grace to accept it and get on with it!