NOW I can see a difference!

When you are someone - like me - who is losing weight, neither the mirror nor the scale may alter your own conception of yourself. After many years of being a certain "way", the brain kind of still "sees" out body that way, even when outward sources tell us otherwise. Or, in the case of mirrors, we may still see "fat".

I've been happy with my numbers - I've lost over 100lbs now - and am definitely happy with my improved mobility, plus can feel the toning going on in various parts of my body BUT I honestly didn't comprehend the magnitude of my achievement until I came across an old picture the other day, from a few years ago.

This was me in 2014, it was taken at an AVON President's Club luncheon. My hubby had wheeled me in from the car, in a wheelchair.

I didn't go out much, everything was too much of an effort. Walking was very hard, and I spent most of my days in bed, other than when I staggered to the bathroom, the front door (to let the dogs in and out) or the kitchen to sit and wash dishes, or prepare food.

Throughout my home, everything was geared so that I could go from one place to another and be able to hold onto something to keep me steady.

At the grocery store, hubby would go in and get me a ridearound as I couldn't even walk into the store. I am still unsteady on my feet, without support, but now - most times - I use my walker to go into places, unless I'm having a "bad day" arthritis or blood pressure-wise and the  it's the ridearound again.

Last year, at an AVON "do" locally, this pic was taken of me with 2 of our AVON managers. I can see how much I had changed (and how much better I looked) in the face, my upper arms, and across my shoulders.

My transformation is still ongoing.

I log EVERYTHING I eat (and my meds!) on a site called Sparkpeople.com where I also have set it up to track my vitamin and minerals intakes as well. I log all my activity, and now that I am consistently using it, my time on the elliptical bicycle has gone from a 2 minute that felt like 200 struggle, to anywhere from 10-30 minutes comfortably, as I read various books. Oftentimes, my stopping is decided by my heart rate or blood pressure rising too much/too fast or my bum going numb!

I usually do from 30 - 75 minutes a day, depending on any of the above! Eventually I'd like to get to doing an hour at a time and maybe twice daily, but again, that will be determined by my body's reaction to it.

One thing that all of my health issues has taught me, is that I'd better do what it says, when it says, or else.

We still have not figured out what provokes my erratic heart rate to spike or drop periodically (I have A-Fib) nor why my blood pressure will soar into the 200s/110s for no reason, but, in being more aware of how it "feels" when my body does those things, is enabling me to better deal with them, and bring them back under control, when they do.

I am well pleased, though, with how this journey is progressing. I don't expect to get back to my "regular weight" of 140lbs that saw me through from 15 until I hit 30, but 160lbs would be nice and I'll even "settle" for 170-180lbs.

On that note, I'm just going to keep on keeping on.

Have a great day!

How things have changed

I remember long walks with my nan, with her telling me all manner of things about her childhood, from the time I was about 7. I was amazed at all the changes that had happened in her lifetime. She had been born in 1908, so had grown up and seen the suffragettes win the vote for women, Alcock and Brown's first transatlantic flight in 1919, the first and second world wars, the introduction of tv, and the transformation from horse-drawn to motor vehicles ... and this was only up to the 1960s.

Now, aged 63, I find myself in a similar boat of looking back, and seeing all the changes in my own lifetime, good and bad.

The flickering images on black and white tv (2 channels to begin with) that expanded to colour, and 4 channels, and now (courtesy of Android boxes, cable and satellite) hundreds of channels from all over the world. Among those 1960s images, news programs showing Yuri Gagarin's first manned space trip, Valentine Tereschkova, the first woman in space, and then Neil Armstrong, in 1969, taking those first steps on the moon. Amazing. In MY lifetime.

It amazes me that there is now more memory on a smartphone than there was in a huge room full of computers that sent those first astronauts into space.

Around the age of 11, I had a "tranny" (a transistor radio) that I listened to "pop music" on ... and we had a radiogram in the house that played recors at 3 speeds - 33 rpm, 45 rpm and 78 rpm for the "oldies". Only a few years later we had 8 tracks and cassette tapes, soon replaced within a decade, by compact discs, which are now (in themselves) obsolete with the advent of i-tunes and downloadable digital media.

I can remember reel-to-reel projectors that showed home movies, and then the Beta and VHS vcr tapes ... now long gone and replaced by DVDs and (again) downloadable digital media.

I grew up with lots of heroes, real people who had done extraordinary things, not like today where it seems the only people feted are actors, musicians or sports players.

People like Albert Schweitzer, who opened a hospital in Africa which still serves the local area and has one of the lowest child mortality rates for malaria there;  Gladys Aylward who helped stop the process of foot binding on female children, in China, and led 100 to safety when the Japanese invaded in 1940; Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Rosa Parks, who helped change America during the civil rights era; Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereschkova, and the many American astronauts who took part in the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and the Shuttle flights; Edith Cavell a nurse during WW1 who helped smuggle injured British and Allied soldiers to neutral Holland and who was executed by the Germans for it (there was a school near my nan's in Hackney, named for her, and local people were very proud of her) and Violette Szabo, a heroine in WWII, who was executed in Ravensbruck concentration camp; Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Birute Galdikas were also among so many people that I admired, as I was growing up. Jane Goodall is still alive and pursuing her dreams, an amazing lady.

I consider myself blessed to have grown up in the era that I did.

Ups and Downs

Today has been another roller coaster with my blood pressure, and I am thankful that it finally seems to have settled to an even keel, albeit just before bed time. It has been a hectic day, and trying not to worry about it makes for thinking and worrying about it! Kind of a vicious circle.

On a good note, I had a lovely chat with my AVON coach lane. My team had made excellent growth over the past year, and we discussed my goals for the upcoming 12 months, and the issues that I had to deal with that had prevented me from some personal achievements.

The bad weather has made hubby's, and my, old bones ache, and also our poor older dogs'. Max, especially, has been very whimpery today, despite the glucosamine treats they have, so I opened a regular glucosamine capsule and sprinkled in a creamy cheese triangle for him. Poor baby.

We are a household of crotchetty geriatrics, both human, canine and feline.

Dame Shirley Bassey - The Girl From Tiger Bay

I grew up on Shirley Bassey. My parents played her 45s on our radiogram in the living room at 58 Queen's Rd in Leytonstone. To me, this song epitomizes her as no other song can, it is her story.

Together we are beautiful- Fern Kinney

I was doing nothing really and this song just popped into my head, and so many memories with it.



Waiting at the bus stop in Kings Lynn, at the end of Marsh Lane, for a bus to Snettisham for the discos (which I think were held on a Thursday night). A young skinhead lad, Kevin Ely, used to be there as well, catching the bus to go somewhere else, but we'd chat. It didn't matter that we were "greabos" in our jeans and black leather jackets. We were just friends waiting for the bus.


Later, sadly, he was killed in a car wreck at Heacham. Gosh that's 40 years ago now, how time flies.



This was a staple song at the disco, and is still as beautiful today as it was then.

Winter Weather go away!

I love seeing Winter scenes on Christmas cards and in photos, but - despite having loved snow when I was younger - now, I really don't like the real thing.

My yard, at the moment, is a messy, muddy blob of melting snow and sleet, and the icy rain falling isn't helping it at all. The roads are slick, trees and power lines down, people without power, it's total chaos.

I wish I still had that childhood innocence, that ability to wrap up warm in layers of jumpers and coats, gloves or mittens, and hats pulled down over ears, with a scarf looped around my head to cover my nose and mouth, when going out in the freezing temps was FUN to do, and building a snowman or having a snowball fight were the highlight of a fresh snow day!

I remember my mum always icing our Christmas cake with a snow scene, and had chalk decorations of little kids playing with snowballs that went on it every year, and a bright red ribbon around the outside. Sometimes plastic holly leaves and berries.

How one's interpretations change as one ages and becomes more infirm. The cold reaches into bones and joints and makes them throb, painfully - better indications of rain and bad weather than any tv meteorologist. Mobility issues make the slickness that was so much fun as a a child, even if we fell on our bums, into a danger possibility, and as bones become more brittle, possible breaks become a serious worry. And for those of us with heart issues such as A-Fib or bradycardia by itself, the cold can create a serious slowing down of the heart, that can cause us unwanted stress.

My heating bill goes up in Winter (whose doesn't?) so I am much happier with Spring and Fall, with milder temps, and being able to enjoy them.

Have a wonderful day.

Hubby attacking the "honey do" list

Well, hubby's Thanksgiving "holiday" has been anything but, LOL, as he has been getting on with various projects around the house.

The roof is beginning to take shape, he got the first red metal panel affixed and - despite me bugging for a pic - he forgot to take the phone up with him, to snap one.

Today, the roof being wet and slippery from overnight rain and some daytime drizzle, going up there was not going to be a safe thing to do, so he replaced the tap fitting on the kitchen sink, that has been leaking for a while and getting worse.

Waiting for his magic touch, is  a new toilet for the hallway bathroom. It's higher than a regular loo, they call it a "comfort level" as it's the same height as a chair seat ... thus not beyond my knees and back like the one currently in there is.  He'd replaced the one in our bedroom bathroom a couple of years ago ... just took us awhile to be able to attack the hallway one.

Slowly, he is getting things done around the house. Hard when he works full-time and everything falls on him.

He took some time out earlier to watch "The Greatest Showman" with me. It was a smashing movie. I loved it! Now we're watching season 4 of "Peaky Blinders" on the telly.

It's been a good day!