Primal journal : Coll page 32

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I have been in a bit of a funk for a while now - hence the lack of progress of any kind. Don't know why exactly, just tired and stressed about a bunch of things I guess. For some reason I am really up to the eyebrows with renting and not having our own place. I have to really watch my attitude toward our landlords as it just seems to be so wrong that they should have this incredible piece of property that they are just throwing away. I know this is a classic case of envy, not sure how to deal with it - it sure isn't good for me though! I am just longing for a place of our own - no matter how humble. It would be so lovely to be able to put time and effort in, knowing that it will benefit us years down the road. I still have boxes waiting to be unpacked, and I am gradually getting them sorted - much closer since we got a couple more bookshelves. But I find it really depressing unpacking and organising in a house that I am going to have to pack up again in a few months time. I guess I am feeling all done with moving - but I am not. Hopefully we will be able to find someone to lend us money to buy a place after the end of the year. I am also feeling really homesick for South Africa... spent the day yesterday fighting back tears and trying not to think about it too much. We really need some friends - going to try going to the homeschoolers park day tomorrow again in the hopes that the kids at least will make some connections. That takes a lot of energy because DS usually falls apart when surrounded by a lot of people and is usually in tears by the time we leave. I just can't figure out how to meet the same people on a smaller scale so that he is not so overwhelmed. But folk seem to be pretty strongly opposed to anything at our homes ... sigh. I know something will work out eventually - seems that everything is in that state at the moment though. Eventually ... I will lose more weight .... get more sleep... have our own place... have friends... get my folks out here.... get rid of debt etc etc - boy aren't I a happy little ray of sunshine today! Enough of that.

Going to start fitday again ... see if I can get back into the routine of keeping a tab on my macros again. Hopefully I can get on top of why I am not losing weight. I know some of it - too much chocolate for one...

Next massage this afternoon. Not freaked out about this anymore after the last one - got this one and one more and then hopefully I will be ready to try the graston therapy again. I have noticed a distinct improvement in the amount of pain I am experiencing which is very nice! Taking the Wobenzyme is definitely a part of that - if I leave off taking it the pain starts to kick in again... eventually will try to wean off it but not until I am done with the graston therapy I think.

Had to pull up my spaghetti squash plant today as I discovered it has a fungus. Kind of silly, but that was a bummer! (especially as it had a whole bunch of new squashes forming) And now I see that my zucchini plant has the same thing - so, got to pull that up too. We have been enjoying the fruits of my garden so much... I think the day and night temperatures are just too different especially for the heat loving squashes. Temp goes from around 90F in the day to in the 40's and 50's at night! Hopefully nothing else is infected ...

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I feel really good after my massage this afternoon! I can walk without limping and no pain at the moment. I had a full half hour just on my left calf and heel. Progress...

A bar of chocolate found its way into my belly again today. Otherwise, I eat totally primal, drink totally primal. Going to put our mead into the big glass carboys for the secondary fermentation. Will be trying the pear mead green.... (un-aged) sometime in the next few days.

[Sabine]

Chocolate bars have a good sense of direction. Very tricky to fool them.

[Siobhan]

Those chocolate bars are tricky little devils...they need serious taming...I know from experience.

My situation was a bit different, but yours reminds me of how I felt in the house I just moved out of - it was a great property and could have been a really terrific place, a real showpiece, but the owners did not want to put any work AT ALL into it, didn't take care of the outside as they promised, just gobbled up my rent checks as fast as they could. It was sort of toxic. Seems the only way to look at that situation is that I had nowhere to go but up. So I am wishing good things for you and also envying you that pear mead!

[lopisheep]

Well, perhaps you could think of the downside of owning a house. The new heater you have to get two weeks after you just moved in when you had no money, the whole new roof (astronomical costs), plumbing going out, electrical problems, never any money to get things fixed -- paint and supplies are so expensive -- spending every spare minute with the fencing, the huge heifer nextdoor breaking into your pasture, deer invading and bringing in foot rot (this and the heifer meaning huge extra fencing costs), the cesspool which goes defunct, well water tasting like sulphur and turning everything brown, a drunken speeder driving by in the middle of the night and tearing out your fence and your neighbor's (most importantly, the speeder was okay -- albeit pretty freaked out), floods, a huge factory going up across from you out in the middle of nowhere, etc. Sometimes, apartments sound really good!!!

It is frustrating when people don't use their property. Makes no sense to those of us who would love to use it:-)

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Pam, I can sympathise with all those things you were mentioning Just with our own spin on them. Last place we bought the well went out two days after we moved in and we had to drill a new one, I had a 3 year old and a 9 month old at the time!! Yup, all those unexpected things that happen and that cost a bunch of money that you don't have! But at least everything you do is yours whether it is crappy or wonderful and you don't have someone else dictating what you can and can't do with your property (for the most part anyway - don't even talk to me about HOA's because I think those are the worst invention!)


We are trying to make the most of renting as there is a lot less to do around the place than if it was mine. I was concerned about the grass in our yard looking mostly dead until I saw the landlord's place and there is mostly just dust (and this is on a place that has unlimited water rights!!!!!!!!!!!!! It 'should' and could look like an oasis) Going to pick up old feed bags to pack up my good organic composted manure and soil to take with us when we go. Raised beds are going with us lock, stock and barrel!

Had an inordinate amount of bacon for breakfast, some fresh tomatoes from the garden and two cups of tea with cream and stevia. I am wondering if I should cut way back on my stevia intake as it certainly does feed the sweet craving. Still managing to forage up some great chocolate 'fruit' on a regular basis and am making sure it doesn't get 'over ripe' from sitting around too long

Went to a Scottish Highland festival yesterday which was a lot of fun. DS got a kilt at last (he has been obsessed with kilts for a long time now and we actually were able to get him one yesterday) He looked SO cute in it. DD got some pretty stuff too and DH and kids went to watch the jousting while I got to watch the pipe band competition. First year that both the kids are old enough that there was no whining about being too tired and bored etc. We all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. THose meat pies smelled so good - but I wasn't tempted because I know what the crust would do to me. We took lunch meat and nuts and fruit etc and a big jar of mint lemonade to drink. So when we got back to the car there was a lovely refreshing drink waiting. I have orange mint which I love to crush and toss into the lemonade. I was delighted to find that though my heel pained me slightly, it did not get worse and worse all day and this morning when I woke up it really wasn't bad at all! This is definite progress and I am so happy. My massages and Wobenzyme and no icing are paying off. From what I read about the icing, it actually compromises long term healing ... so here's to complete healing of my achilles and calves!

Going to a little art festival (very informal and low key) this afternoon. DD who is pretty talented with her drawing is taking a few pictures to put on display. We'll see if there is anything to this at all ... may just be a fun couple of hours at a park too. Really would rather stay home and relax... but the kids have known about this afternoon for a while so no getting out of it.

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Art festival was pretty much nothing except a few kids putting their pictures up on a board and there was hardly anyone there. THe kids had fun on the jumping castle and whacking a pinata for the first time in their lives. Came home with a few candies ... I will have to look at making a pinata with good stuff inside it for their birthdays sometime. Like little packs of biltong, dried fruit, nuts, good chocolate ... mmmm, I wonder how hard they are to make? Will have to do some looking around and see if I can find something about that.

Decided that since today is Monday it would be a very good day to start being more intentional about my diet again. I have really just been floundering for a while and I felt quite inspired after reading Ecks' journal yesterday to just buckle down and do what I need to do again. Not that Monday is a magic day or anything, just added incentive to get my butt in gear. I am going to cut out all snacking. If I am hungry enough to eat, then I need to eat a proper meal with plenty meat and veg and not fill up on nuts and cheese and fruit. I am going to take a complete break from chocolate and then once I feel more in control again, I will go back to 1 or 2 squares a week of the 80+% cocoa content only!! Anything less get the old chocolate monster revived and that is just a downhill ride from that point on. I am going to plan my meals as much as possible on fitday so that I can get my macros in a good place. I really want to lose more of this fat that is still hitching a ride on my poor patient body. I am not sure what a realistic goal would be for the next week ... maybe 4 pounds off? I know I have some water weight to shift since I indulged in a whole pint of ben and jerry's yesterday afternoon! 195 lbs today, but probably 1.5 lbs of that is water, since the day before I was 193.5 lbs and the icecream and chocolate were the 'only' cheats. So, I am aiming for 191 lbs next Monday and then I will see what the next goal is. I really want to get below 185 lbs soon. I have not been there for about 10 years!

The weather is crazy at the moment (I should say - still crazy!) Daytime temps up in the late 80's and nighttime in the late 30's and 40's! My zucchini is expiring and I am going to pull it up later today and then try planting lettuce and cool weather plants again. I tried a few weeks ago and some took off but others expired in the hot dry weather. I do have some chinese cabbage, some turnips and beets coming up nicely, a new lot of carrots and a few spinach plants made it through the heat. Need to fill in the gaps with lettuce and spinach and more turnips and broccoli etc.

Our dog just turned 11 years old today - can't believe that tomorrow will be the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 incident. One of those memories that will stay forever fixed in my mind. Still get the chills thinking about the whole tragic day!

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Cool! I had no idea Mark was going to do a 21 day challenge! And here I was getting myself all psyched up to get going again, such perfect timing for me. SO I am going to do the 21 day challenge and my goals are:-
-lose 9 pounds over the next 21 days
-get my macros closer to 1200 calories a day and my carbs under 50 g/day
-start exercising again, slowly and carefully, especially with sprints. Might just stick to lifting heavy things and a little walk to start with
- no chocolate or snacks for 21 days

Really pretty similar to what I wrote earlier today ...

I had brussel sprouts for lunch and paid for it with my usual terrible stomach ache and an evacuation of the contents of my nether regions Guess I just have to accept that I need to avoid them. I really feel nasty after eating them - above symptoms as well as pretty dizzy and tingling lips. I think I may have a mild reaction to them - sigh, and I do so enjoy them (while I am eating that is)

Have had two mugs of black tea with cream and stevia. Didn't realise how much cream I was having in my tea and so am going to cut back to one mug every day. Had two fried eggs, leftover brussel sprouts, fried zucchini and onion for lunch, oh and a tin of kippers. I was pretty hungry and that went down really well until the other stuff started up. Decided to have a small glass of kefir which did calm things down somewhat... Decided to skip dinner because of feeling not quite right and my macros are already up at 1300 calories already.

Off to a homeschoolers meeting tonight - hopefully I can connect with someone and get the ball rolling as far as connecting with other people goes. Too long since we had friends to hang out with and so on!

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192.5 lbs today. Lost 2.5 pounds of retained water and feel much better for it. I ended up only eating lunch yesterday after my run in with the brussel sprouts. Woke up feeling energetic for a change and the dog and I walked about a mile together. First walk in absolutely forever that did not leave my heel burning and aching. I hardly noticed it in fact .... I have another massage this Thursday and then I think I'll be ready for the Graston therapy.

I am hungry this morning, but not unduly so. Going to have my tea with cream and stevia and see how I feel after that. I may wait until lunch time to eat, if the pangs settle after my tea (which they usually do)

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So today went really well, though I was very tempted to snack. I resisted, successfully, for a change. I had 2 fried eggs, a handful of baby carrots and a fresh baby carrot from the garden(!) a few cherry tomatoes off the bush, and 3 baby portabella mushrooms raw. Lunchtime I was still hungry so had a burger patty wrapped in red cabbage, onion and tomato (orange one from the garden too) with ketchup and mustard, 3 green olives, a slice of roast beef lunch meat while the burger was on the grill, slice of cheddar cheese while I waited and another on top of the burger. A small cup of tea this evening while making dinner and playing dominoes with the kids. Dinner was spaghetti squash with spaghetti sauce (ground beef and breakfast sausage included) I am full and yet not stuffed. HOwever I do have the munchies right now. I am going to read a story to DS and wait for my stomach to catch up with the food consumed and get over the munchies before emerging from his room!