SNAPPING OUT OF IT

 

RIGHT.

Let's have a better day today shall we?

I'm still not feeling 100% cheerful, but I am trying to snap out of it.

There's a few things upsetting me obviously.

One is my weight.  It's gone up A LOT in the past month, since I stopped using Trulicity.

My brain went like... fuck!  I feel hungry again... LET'S EAT!

So 'we' did.  Anything and everything.

What a twit I am.

I put on all that I'd lost while being on Trulicity in about 2 weeks flat!

Talk about feel like an utter failure.  A prize IDIOT.

I knew exactly what I was doing and didn't care.

WELL, that's a lie.  Cos clearly I do care.

So.  Starting TODAY, I am going to cut back DRASTICALLY on sugars and carbs again.

NOT go 100% Sugar and Carb free, cos that only makes my blood sugar levels drop too low, and I end up feeling sick and dizzy.  But, I will curtail the free fall eating I  have been doing, and try hard to get back on track.

Before NOTHING fits my sorry arse again.  😖😕😞

I just find it so annoying how hard it is to lose even 1 kg, yet can gain 5 kgs in TWO WEEKS!  WTF?

CRABBY is how it makes me feel.  C. R. A. B. B. Y.

AS F*#K.

So, let's start the day on a positive.

I'm going over to Cambridge for an FBG walk.  Being with the girls (and odd guy) will cheer me up I hope.

At drinks afterwards, I WILL NOT BUY A PINK ICED BUN.  I WILL NOT.  I don't think I will even buy a hot chocolate.  I'll just have my diet coke on hand.

Once home I will continue with my latest mission...

ABOVE: That 'mission' is to fill this rack with Braid Runner tops, ready to quilt and bind them all later on.

So, that rack should hold about 2 dozen runners!

I got three and a half made yesterday.

ABOVE:  I wasn't too sure about this one's colours while stitching it up, but now that it's done, I like it.  AND it got to keep it's pointy ends for a change.

ABOVE:  This is the 'half'... I'm thinking of keeping it simple, just black and white.  No embellishment by adding some colour to the house in the middle, or adding another house somewhere.  Do we agree?

Moving right along... I think I should get outta bed and actually start the day.  Catch ya later.

ONWARD...

Oh shit!  It's 2 pm and I have forgotten to update.  

So, my walk was lovely.  Nice short walk.  No photos.   And I didn't go to the coffee shop, I AVOIDED those evil pink iced buns.  WIN WIN.

Home.  Did a couple of jobs around the house, then had an early lunch.  Lamb chops and veges.

Now I'm in the sewing room, just finished that black 'n' white runner (the top), and have started on another one.

5.35 pm. I'm now at Steve and Bex's for a couple of hours while Stew is at the pub.

I almost got three runners finished today (the tops only). I made one that I think Vickie will approve of. I'll show it tomorrow. 

9.12 pm:  I spent a nice time with the kids, then Stew and I came home.

I cooked him some chops for his dinner, the same as what I had for my lunch.

We are now settled down for a couple of hours before bed.

Catch ya tomorrow.

NOTHING

 

Today I will be pottering around the house, doing odd jobs and sewing.

So, just a normal, boring for you to read about, day.

So.  Bugger off and find something more interesting to read.

I probably won't be back until I've made something worth showing you.

Then again, considering the mood I'm in, I might not come back till bedtime!

ONWARD...

11.45 am.  And ... no one cares.

Except my girlfriends in Palmerston North, who rang to see what was 'wrong' with me.

I totally appreciated the call.  I'm just in a GRUMPY mood.

It happens.

Trying to snap out of it.

ABOVE:  'Housework' in the sewing room, I got all those black bobbins wound.

I vacuumed the floor, and did a general tidy up.

ABOVE: Then I got the next Braid Runner laid out... and sewed up half of it, before deciding I was hungry.

ABOVE: So I drove down the road and bought a Subway.  Sorry Sandra, I also got two biscuits.  Oatmeal and Raisin, my favourite.

I'm now about to continue sewing.

I did REALLY WELL this afternoon!

I got heaps done.

I'll show  you tomorrow, cos right now, I'm going to get Stew to order our dinner.  PIZZA.

Cos, well... when you sew all afternoon, ya don't give much thought to dinner.  Well, I didn't today that's for sure.

FBG WALK

 

Well, it's going to be a run of the mill sorta day for me.

Off to Cambridge for a walk this morning, then back here to do some fluffing around the house, before heading into the sewing room.

Soooo... what are YOU doing today?  Anything fun, exciting, boring or mundane?  

Fill me in.  

ABOVE:  Last night's sunset sky.. though the sun was off to the left of this photo.   I just liked the way it looked out me sewing room window.

ABOVE:  And HEY!  What is that in the sky?  I think it looks like a plane, but I've never seen a plane in the sky THERE before.  And I don't remember hearing a plane while taking that photo.  It's a bit weird.

I just did some research... and found out...

ABOVE:  It WAS a plane!  Sent to circle over the countryside until it could land at the airport.  I knew it wasn't on a regular flight path.  But, it was an Air New Zealand plane.

That Flight Radar website it pretty good!

ONWARD...

11.47 am, and I've been home about an hour.  What a glorious day it turned out to be.

I met up with my FBG friends, and we enjoyed a casual stroll, followed by a hot drink.

ABOVE: Crossing the Blue Bridge, which is on the outskirts of town.  It won't be long before it is surrounded by houses.  They are getting VERY close already.

ABOVE: You meet all sorts on our walks.  Today we met lots of walkers with dogs, and a cute little pony and child, being walked by her carer.

ABOVE:  A nice short walk.  

Now... I'm about to have some lunch, then I might tackle a couple of jobs.

I was on the home stretch with the next runner, when I get an SOS call from Lacy.

ABOVE: She somehow managed to drive her car into the little garden in front of her house.

So I had to go over there and tow her out.

Luckily my little car managed to do the job.

I'm now back home, and about to finish the next runner.

ABOVE: And there we have PE #3.  I could make a few more like that using left over pointy ends, but meh.

Let's see how they go at a market first.  

I am now going to sweep all the bits off me sewing room floor, and vacuum it.

Well, another quiet day here it would appear.

Stew and I had left over casserole, it was just as yummy 2nd time around.

I'm now watching the telly, waiting for Coronation Street to come on.

NEW WEEK, NEW RUNNER

 

Another Monday rolls around.  And I don't have an FBG walk today, so it's a stay at home day for me.

And I am going to make a runner today that is NOT a Braid Runner!

ABOVE:  In fact, I'm going to be using some of the 'ends' that I have cut off Braid Runners.  The ends that come off, so the runner is square ended, instead of pointed.

I think joining them together will make an interesting runner.  Well, I hope so.

Before doing that though, I shall be doing all the usual Monday morning jobs around the house.

I've got a pile of washing to fold and put away, and a few other odd jobs.

So ... I better get on with it.

ONWARD...

ABOVE:  8.30 am.  Preparing dinner, and I fumble with an open tin of tomatoes.  I end up wearing them, and make a hooah of a mess as well.

Splattered tomato everywhere.  😖😔😒

ABOVE: After a big clean up... we have a lovely Beef, Bacon and Tomato Casserole in the crock pot.

Dinner is sorted.

Now... back to the housework.  Nearly finished all that as well, so will be in the sewing room fairly soon.

ABOVE:  2.07 pm:  And there we have two more runners.  I'm calling them 'Pointy End' Runners, cos they were made using the pointy ends from Braid Runners.  

I'm now going to stop for lunch and a rest.

6.25 pm:  And I have just finished sewing for the day.  I have another runner ready for it's binding, which I will do tomorrow afternoon.

I'm really happy to have found a use for those cut off bits.  Waste not and all that, and they are becoming quite nice runners.  Win/Win.

Stew is now home, and enjoying a bowl full of casserole.  I think he likes it.

And that is me for the day.  Catch ya tomorrow.

*HIC*

 

Yesterday...

ABOVE:  Run the bath...

ABOVE: Get yourself a drink, book to read, peanuts to eat and ya phone to keep up to date...

ABOVE: Wallow, like the cherub you are...

ABOVE:  Drink copious amounts of Totara Cafe, then decide to shave ya legs.

NOT a very good idea, but hey!

Ya got away with it!  

Even though the soap kept falling in the bath, and ya took FOREVER to find the fucker again.

AND... ya didn't nick yourself once! Bloody miracle.

Get all dizzy... Text the man to fill up the glass again ... so ya ended up having about 6-8 nips of Totara Cafe in quick succession!

Can't read the book!  The words are running together... WTF?

So read the news on ya phone.

Boring.

ABOVE: Reach for the book again... WHOOPS!

The bloody book ends up in the bath!

Save it.. but it's a bit wet.  Oh well.

Have another mouthful of Totara Cafe.

Finish it.

Stew is engrossed in the goddam rugby, can't ask him for more grog.

Get out before I sink into the depths, never to be seen again.

Afterwards?   Sit in me lounge chair, wondering how I actually feel?

Tired. Definitely.

Chilled out?  Definitely.

PISSED AS A CHOOK?  Definitely.

Happy?  TOTALLY.

Shut eyes.  

Room spins.  

Stomach churns.  

WHOOPS!

Three hour nap later, all is good in the world again!

LESSON:  Baths are lovely.  But lots of alcohol is not for me.

Today?  Gunna go look at bloody rain jackets.  AGAIN.

This time, dragging Stew along with me.

We are also going to look at options for covering the wet/muddy ground at our Tamahere Stall site.  Maybe fake grass with a thick plastic backing?   We really need some way to keep the water and mud from pooling in the stall.  It was horrible yesterday.

ONWARD...

11.57 am. We have had a busy morning. 

Stew did his grocery shopping while I did some mundane housework. 

Then we came to The Base and looked in a few stores for rain jackets.

We finally settled on some. I'll show you later.

ABOVE: We are now at The Foundation for lunch. We have ordered a selection of 'Bar Snacks', it's a nice way to have a variety of things.

Lunch was so so.

After lunch we went 'flooring' shopping... to cover the muddy, wet patches at market.

ABOVE: We bought two large and one smaller rubber mats.  They should solve our ground issues.

ABOVE:  We got a rain jacket each, both the same.  They are slightly heavier than we intended getting, but they were about the only ones we could find that didn't stop at the waist.  We really wanted slightly longer ones.  We are happy with our purchases today.

Now that we are home, we are tweaking the car pack up again, to account for the mats, and to be able to unload in the rain in a more organised manner.  Yesterday worked OK... but it did need some tweaking.

90 minutes later, and we have it sorted.  Hopefully next time it's raining cats 'n' dogs, we can unpack and pack up much easier, and have no massive mud patches putting off people coming into our stall.

The mats cost us several hundred dollars, but in the long run it will be worth it.

Stew and I are now done for the day.  We are gunna sit down and relax for the remainder of the day.

8.20 pm:  We've had a lovely, quiet evening. Just watching TV, browsing the 'net and so on.

Time to sign off for the day.

THREE MORE MONTHS

 

5.45 am.

It's pitch black outside.  No idea what the weather is doing yet... but we are expecting RAIN. 😖😠

I really hate the July/August/September markets.  They are invariably COLD, WET AND MISERABLE.

The only reason we do them is to hold our spot at the market.

*SIGH*.... we are not expecting much today.

In fact, it will probably be a bust.

And I will bitch and moan about it all day!  lol

Stew is thinking the same as me.  

Time to get a move on though, the sooner we leave, the sooner we can come home again!

ONWARD...

ABOVE: Our 'wet' set up. Everything tucked in, only half our stock out.

ABOVE: A few hardy souls braving the wet, miserable weather.

It has lightly rained non-stop all night,  and it is still raining.

We set up in the rain. It was HORRIBLE,  but we managed to keep everything dry. 

I'm wet across my back... but oh well. I'll  live.

There's only half the number of stalls here today, which doesn't surprise us. You have to be mad to be out here in this weather.

So, it's  now 8.10 am, we are all set up... waiting to see if any shoppers arrive.

ABOVE: Ahhhh.... that's  better. I took off the wet sweatshirt and put on my amazing puffer jacket. All is good in my life again. Well... cupcakes help. 🤣😅🤣

Remember me saying just the other day I WASN'T gunna get a rain jacket after all ? 

Ha ha ha... Stew just said we both need one, after we both got wet setting up the stall this morning. 

So we shall probably look at some tomorrow. 

ABOVE: 10.30 am. Can ya see the crowds? YEAH, me neither.

It is absolutely pissing down now. 

Happy Happy Joy Joy. 

100% looking forward to a long, hot soak in my bath this afternoon. 

ABOVE: Finding amusing things while just sitting in the wet misery that is today.

GREEN LICHEN on a tree.

It's pretty.

11.51 am. OMG it really can't get much worse! HEAVY RAIN. NO PEOPLE. Just over an hour until we can pack up and get the hell out of here!

1.30 pm:  And we are home.  The organiser of the market came around and told all of us to pack up an hour early.  The weather was just atrocious.

We now need to get our thinking caps on, to work out what we can do if it's that wet again, because of this:

ABOVE: We had to be extremely careful moving around, to keep the water and mud off the patchwork!

It was horrendous.

ABOVE: Our site, once we had put everything back into the car.

We again, had to be very careful how we packed up and put things back in the car, so we didn't traipse too much mud into the car.

What a mission.

Luckily, the only things we need to clean are the gazebo, it's sides, the plastic 'flooring' and a table cloth.

Everything else stayed clean and dry.

Bloody miracle.

Now that we are home, we can reflect on what a day it was!  We made NO SALES!

Hard to sell to people who are scurrying around trying to keep dry.  And there were VERY, VERY FEW 'customers' today.

Although we made no sales, we still had a good day.

We saw our market friends, the organiser (J) came around and thanked everyone for turning up, and we were given a big bag of tamarillos for free from the lady opposite us.  

I am now about to run a lovely bath.

Bath is done.  And there's a story about that!  Tomorrow.

For now, I'm gunna sit and sober up!

*hic*

I think... I might be... a little inebriated. 

Whoops.  

Stew is getting our dinner.

Think it might be takeaways.

After the rugby.

NOTHING can happen until after the rugby.

New Zealand vs Fiji, played in San Diego.

7.23 pm:  Well... around 4 pm I was feeling very tired.  Me eyes shut and then...

FUCK!

My head spun, my stomach churned and I felt really ill.

Alcohol and me just don't like each other at all.

So I went to bed to try and get over the ikkk.

THREE.  HOURS.   LATER.   And I'm feeling much better.

We are now gunna have some dinner.

And that is all I have for the day.

I think that's quite a lot if ya ask me!

WOW

 

Lacy put up a Facebook post yesterday, and I just had to copy and paste it.

Lacy Harvey

  · 

I'll never forget who raised me.....you are the best thing that happened to our Mum and Family xx

Stew, I do believe Lacy 100% loves and appreciates YOU.

I believe that Stew deserves all the accolades for taking me and 4 little kids on, way back in late 1985!

Now onto something else I saw on Facebook and MUST SHARE:

ABOVE: Who agrees that it's hysterical?

Moving right along... I did NOT get that third Braid Runner bound yesterday, I got caught up in some frenzied 'Spring Cleaning'!

So, I WILL do it this morning.

When I was cleaning all my precious blue glass and Polish Pottery yesterday, I decided to start USING the blue Polish Pottery dishes.

What is the point of 'saving' them for special occasions?

How many special occasions do we have left?

I should be using it, and enjoying it NOW.

Don't leave anything for later.

Later, the coffee gets cold.

Later, you lose interest.

Later, the day turns into night.

Later, people grow up.

Later, people grow old.

Later, life goes by.

Later, you regret not doing something...

When you had the chance.

Life is a fleeting dance, a delicate balance of moments that unfold before us, never to return in quite the same way again.

Regret is a bitter pill to swallow, a weight that bears down upon the soul with the burden of missed chances and unspoken words.

So, let us not leave anything for later. Let us seize the moments as they come, with hearts open and arms outstretched to embrace the possibilities that lie before us. For in the end, it is not the things we did that we regret, but the things we left undone, the words left unspoken, the dreams left unfulfilled.

( — Before the Coffee Gets Cold is a 2015 novel by Toshikazu Kawaguch.)

ONWARD...

LAURA: I am more than happy to give you a reply to your comment, but it would need to be via a private email.

ABOVE: Finally got this one finished. NUMBER 99 Braid Runner.

I keep thinking I've made more of them, but after double checking, it's 99.

I might do the top part of #100 today.

Then I can stop and have some lunch, even though it's already 1.25 pm.

ABOVE: Guess what?

I made AND FINISHED number 100 this afternoon!

It's 4.45 pm. Not a bad effort.

Now... I'm going to stop, close the curtains, turn on the heat pump and sort out dinner.

Forgot to sigh off.

Better late than never.