So, last week I made a commitment to get below 90kilos by the start of September.
As part of that, I have tried to go for more walks, and I have been out for walks 4 times this past week, I have a new mammoth water bottle (that holds 2.2litres) that I have been succeeding to drink each day, and I am trying not to eat carbs at night.
Last week I was 91.3kg, and this morning I am 90.9kg, so after an up-and-down week, I have lost weight overall.
And you can see that the yellow line in starting to dip downwards again - hurray!
This coming week, I am going to keep doing the same things: drink plenty of water, eat plenty of vegetables, and get some exercise.
If I keep losing 0.4kilos a week for the next two weeks, I should just reach my goal by the start of September.
Successful or not. Rich or poor. People use plenty of terms to determine and define happiness—but is it really joy they're seeking? Author Toks Adebiyi shares examples from his time in both Nigeria and the United Kingdom in the inspirational memoir Joyful. Like many others, Toks got caught up in the push for wealth and popularity and dreamed of becoming the next Richard Branson or Robert Kiyosaki. But when events in his life brought him back down to earth, he began to redefine what joy meant to him. Here, Toks shares what he found, laying out a path for others to follow in advice-filled chapters such as "Loving Yourself" and "Mind Your Environment." All throughout, he includes action points to aid others in their own pursuit of joy. Joyful is specifically targeted at young readers and families. This lighthearted, easy-to-read guide will help you find what matters most in your life—and what you really need to find inner peace.
I found this book to be a mixed bag.
At first the book reads as if it adheres to the Prosperity Gospel, but if you persevere you realise this isn't the case. There is also much of this book that is just biography, and anecdotes of his own inspirations and prejudices. The chapters are very, very short, I hadn't realised that it was purposely aimed at young readers, so that may be the reason why?
And some of the comparisons are hilarious - when discussing the idiom [paraphrased] "the wealthiest people are not always the richest and the richest people are not always the wealthiest" he gives the example of someone who has a one hundred million pounds of savings but is depressed and gets divorced, compared to someone who has one hundred thousand pounds of savings, who is happy and content. £100,000!!!! That's still someone who is really really rich! I do agree that you can be economically poor, yet rich in life, but this was not the example to choose!
However, within the book are nuggets and gems, hidden amongst the other stuff. I got the book because it was free on Kindle, and if you can get it for free it is definitely worth reading.
Since the ages before time was measured, the angelic races have existed. Unseen by our eyes, they move through creation, shaping our world, sustaining our existence, and battling demonic hordes. But the war is changing; the battle lines are expanding into new frontiers and the next epoch is emerging.
Centuries after the first humans were exiled from their home, their descendants have pushed eastward into a prehistoric wilderness. In a land shrouded by mist and superstition, primitive tribes struggle to establish new civilizations, unaware that their world is about to change forever.
Weary from unceasing conflict, Sariel—legendary warrior of the Eternal Realm—crosses into the Temporal in search of the only one who can bring him peace. But he is not the first; others have already begun their inhabitation. As the dominance of their kingdom spreads, threatening to engulf all of humanity, Sariel finds himself standing between his own kind and the one he loves and must embrace the life he abandoned in order to secure her freedom.
When I started reading this book, I found it hard to get into it. It starts in a battle in the Eternal Realm between angels and demons and seems a bit same-old. But do persevere as it does get better. Sariel falls in love with a human, which isn't permitted. There is also the story of Enoch who is a prophet - he leaves his home, wife and child, to walk miles in order to preach the Holy One's message. Unlike other prophets, his message was for angels...
As a Christian, this was my context that I put the book in, but I would be interested to know if it can fit other world views or religions that have angels and demons?
So yes, I found the beginning of the book a bit unnecessary, many of the names of places, types of angel and their weapons have too many vowels (including 'y' as a vowel) - silly I know, but that's how I felt. You do get used to them, and understanding the differences between the types of angel becomes more relevant as the plot progresses. I confess, though, that I still didn't understand all the different weaponry: vaepir or vandrekt amongst them. I also don't know why they are always written in italics?
Once I got into the main part of the story, I did enjoy it, and have added the next in the Wandering Stars Series to my wishlist.
Throughout lockdown, I've been keeping my depression at bay by singing regularly. Unfortunately, my usual Adult Musical Theatre group has had to stop, however, I have been able to join The Collective - a virtual choir made up of many people around the world!
The Collective was started by Simon Lubkowski, a music teacher and barbershopper. His vision (I encourage you to read the About Section on the Facebook Page) has taken off, with a fantastic team of volunteers who are all encouraging everyone to do their best, and now with thousands of participants, singing their hearts out. Being part of the group, I can see the amazing amount of work that the leaders all do for free - from the admin, the tech team, to the music group and section leaders, to Simon himself, who seems to not need sleep at all! It is the type of production that people would gladly pay to be part of, but it is done solely for the love of music and spreading joy. It's amazing.
I missed out on the very first song (White Cliffs of Dover), but I have joined for three songs, and unfortunately have had to pull out again, because I'm just too busy to dedicate the time the latest song deserves.
The first of these songs was One Voice by Barry Manilow. Not being a Manilow fan (sorry! I don't dislike him, just couldn't care either way) I didn't know the song beforehand, so had to learn everything from scratch. The materials to learn the song, both the music script and audio of the song, plus individual parts (I sing soprano) are all provided to you as part of the collective. The music team then gets to work teaching everyone, over zoom, the melody, breath points, various singing and breathing techniques (ninja breaths!), multiple times a day, multiple days a week, across various time zones for the international singers.
One participant, Ian Walker, deserves special mention as he made an app for all the information you could possibly need: links to videos, audio, script, rehearsals etc all separated out into your section part (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass or Solo), and adjusted according to your timezone. Very impressive!
Once the song is learnt, the music team then focuses on performance, how to put emotion in the song, and the tech team teaches how to record your final version and the technology you need. And, if that wasn't enough, they invite everyone participating to record themselves to gain feedback to improve their performance.
As I write this, I had a sense of deja vu, and I have written about this before, so sorry for the repetition. I will now get to the point of this post - the final video!
Recording it was a bit of a palaver, as I didn't have a good set-up, so I'd have to balance my laptop on a couple of boxes on an upturned bucket on my bed. Not only that, before this recording I woke up late, and had to rush to put my make-up on, before joining in the zoom meeting.
But that didn't put me off. After the tech team did their magic to integrate all the individual recordings from hundreds of people, to align them all, and then to get it to align with the video (that was recorded separately) the video was finally finished! Hours and hours and hours of work for the volunteers to produce this 8minute final video. I am there; briefly during the song itself, and more clearly in amongst the credits at the end.
Yesterday I woke up, used the en-suite and noticed that when I stood on the tiles, they bubbled and water came up. I mentioned it to my husband when he returned from work, who admitted that he had had a shower before work with the door open... 😒😒
So we mopped it up, but the water kept coming. Every time we stood on a tile, more water would appear, so we figured that the water had gone under the tiles and we'd need to lift them.
After a few hot days, we couldn't sleep much and I awoke at 5am. As the tiles were still wet, my lovely husband decided that this was the best time for hammer & chiselling up the tiles... 😒
After drying under the tiles, husband went to work, but more water kept appearing. In my husband's defence, the water wasn't coming from the shower, that was just a coincidence. No, the water was coming from the toilet. 😒
You can actually see the different colour of the grout dark and wet near the toilet lighter and dry away from it.
So, on to CheckaTrade to find an emergency plumber. I like to use local and independent companies if possible, so I was pleased that A Team Plumbing and Heating was the first to answer my call. (At time of writing, they don't have their own website or Facebook page, but if that changes I will edit their details in here.)
I phoned late morning, and Lee was able to come round to have a look in the afternoon. He took the toilet off, located wand isolated the leak, explaining everything that he was doing. As he didn't have replacement parts on him and another job to go to he promised he would be back either later or tomorrow and sort it then. I was only expecting him to stop the leak, give a quote and rearrange an appointment at an unknown point in the future. I was impressed that he was able to fix it all so soon.
Fortunately for me, he was able to come back after an hour, this time with James who did the work. All the way through, I was updated with what they were doing and why. They were very friendly and knowledgeable, and offered advice on areas beyond the job they were doing (specifically, a discussion about replacing the tiles, and which brand to go for when we need to replace our boiler). They even tidied up everything and took all the rubbish away with them!
All in all, it was only a couple of hours work, and he charged me less than what he quoted!
He did ask for a review on CheckaTrade, which I was more than happy to give, and I am happy to give this review here too. If anyone needs a boiler in Swindon or the surrounding areas (I know he works in Bristol too), use A Team Plumbing and Heating.
It follows Joanna, the owner of an independent vintage clothing store. She is doing her best to eke out an existence, and has a few regular customers and sellers that she builds a relationship up with. One of these characters sells Joanna an authentic Lanvin coat, and ends up dead in the store after asking for it back. Seeing the police decide that it's not a suspicious death, Joanna takes it upon herself to find out about her customer's friends and family, to find out why her friend was murdered.
The blurb says:
All Portland vintage clothing store owner Joanna Hayworth wants to do is turn her back on the modern world and retreat into a carefully curated life of satin cocktail gowns, icy martinis, and old movies.
But when Joanna finds a key in a 1930s Lanvin coat cast off by an ex-showgirl, everything changes. The elderly woman turns up dead, and Joanna is pulled into a long-ago drama of back room deals, blackmail, and lost love. She must find a very real—and present day—killer before she becomes his next victim.
This was an enjoyable read. There were a few absurdities (but I don't know the life of a show-girl, so maybe they are realistic), and there were some characters that I would have wanted to find out more about and be investigated earlier, but overall that didn't detract from the story too much. As far as amateur sleuthing goes, this was interesting and at times you felt compassion and other times you were on the edge of your seat. An easy summer read.
As I mentioned the other day, my weight has been going up and down a fair bit recently. The book that I'm reading with my friend talks about self-discipline, and I feel like I am lacking that. So, I have made a decision that I want to be below 90kg by September. They say it is possible to lose 2lbs a week, and for me to achieve this, I need to lose 4lbs in 3 weeks, so it should be doable.
I almost go down to that weight a couple of weeks ago, but it didn't stick. To make things different, and try to establish good habits, I am not intending to do a crazy 3-week crash diet, get below 90kilos, and then pile all the weight back on. Instead, I am trying to control small actions, and become more self disciplined over small things.
I am getting quite good at eating veggies most, and not eating carbs in the evening. To help with this I have bought a couple of meal prep books, and once or twice a week, I am batch cooking, then portioning the meals off to put in the fridge. That way, I know each meal is 300-400kcals, and even DD1 has been helping herself to some of the food, which is great, as she can be fussy at times! Unfortunately, I haven't been taking photographs, and because I've been eating straight from the container, I haven't taken photos then either. Next time (if I remember!) I'll take some decent photos. I'll also do a review of the books and the containers I bought, in case they are of use to you.
You can see from the graph that though I have had some high and some low points recently, that the yellow line is starting to trend upwards, which isn't good. I think partly because I'm looking at the whole year-so-far, I'm congratulating myself at no longer being 96kilos, whilst not making any progress to reduce my weight. In order to own the gain, I'm going to truncate the graph again, and start from 1st of July. From there you can see my recent highs and lows and hopefully it will be better encouragement/motivation for me to keep going.
Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I am 91.3kg this morning, and I'd like to lose 2kilos in the next 3-ish weeks. I am going to keep meal prepping, keep eating veggies most, and will try to do a short walk every day. This afternoon a friend is coming to my house so we can walk together for a few kilometers.
I have also identified where I need more help. I am getting better at choosing healthy foods. I am much much less good at saying no to food. For example, on Saturday I ate a healthy lunch and my husband came home and offered my a cookie so I ate it. I don't want to deny myself foods, as I doubt I can maintain that long term, however, what I want to try to do going forwards is postpone it. I don't have to have a cookie because it is offered to me there and then. I know I like something sweet in the evening, so if I save my cookie until then, I can enjoy it more knowing that I have been healthy all day. I started trying to do this yesterday, and I said no to an ice cream - even when my daughter offered to make it for me! Small steps, but it's a start.
