Catch up on latest news

I hadn't realised how long I'd left it to update my blog. Only just felt like going online again. Wished I hadn't logged onto Facebook that's for sure! I just took a Dr Phil personality test and I came out as two extremes: one who takes so long to decide anything that I eventually decide against it anyway, and the other that made me sound like Hitler! Can these be right? Am I that disturbed?! Makes one think... Need to do something now that reaffirms that I am relatively normal, likeable and loved. Any suggestions? I'm all out!

Sigh...

One of the reasons I stopped writing in my blog I think was because of "milk week". Part of the newer LL initiative is to introduce at the 13th week a time to put milk into all shakes and soups. I tried to pretend it made the soups into "cream of..." but it was all yack! Even with skimmed milk - tasted far too sweet and creamy. And when I didn't lose ANY weight that week, I had a big mardy at the LL meeting, and swore my head off. I threatened to sue the government for making me do this and wasting my money for the week. Then I cried. As usually happens when I get madder than a mad thing. Annoying, but that's the way I evidently work things out. Anyroadup, the following week I lost 8 lbs and the week after that, 7lbs. Last week I lost 4lbs as well, so I guess milk week reboosts your system again. How does one make ones words appetising enough to eat?! So now I've lost 6st 2lbs!! And finally I feel like I've lost some weight :) I had to get a new belt for my trousers which until this point have been causing me to trip up. My biggest worry last week was the fact that I was struggling up the stairs with the ambulance driver behind me making sure I didn't fall, and a workman at the top of the stairs fixing the outside light - all while my trousers were slipping down and taking my knickers with them! I managed to hold onto them, along with my two sticks and bag! Not easy I can tell you, but infinitely preferable (for all!) to mooning at the men around me! lol

Still smarting over the Dr Phil test! Get over it, I keep telling myself, it's just a silly quiz on an odd site (still not worked out the point of Facebook). You see? I keep trying to CBT myself, but I'm still dealing with the old programming that tells me "there must be something in this" malarky. If it had said something positive, I doubt it would cross my mind however. I'd probably think, "yep, that's what everyone's will say". I did the test several times too! Still not sure how the questions deliver the answers...

MOVING ON... I now have four hamsters! :D Emily and George, mentioned in previous dispatches, are still not comfortable with me, sigh, and Harry, the new one, will take a long while I think before he becomes comfortable with me too. It doesn't help that Dum-Dum tries to get his whole head into Harry's cage through the bars (and he nearly can you know!). Harry's a Syrian hamster, so he's massive compared to Dums, and a veritable gargantuan compared to Emily and Georgie. But he's still scared of everything else around him, especially nosy little Dums. D-D still has the run of the table although there is far less space for him to do so what with Emily's cage and the new giant cage for Harry. Harry was brought round for me to look after as the children he was bought for don't really bother with him any more. I've yet to get him out in the big ball, but there's plenty of time (I hope!) to do that later on when he's a little more settled. I told my neighbours 9 year old boy that they were rescue hamsters. He asked me quite innocently what they rescued. I have to rethink how I say that from now on!

Philip, my CBT chap, lent me his book on CBT for CFS sufferers, which I'm looking forward to delving into. I've not been reading much lately because my eyes are a bit painful lately, wondering if it's the light at this time of the year. Hasn't it been absolutely glorious though?! Today's a bit drab, but it's really lifted my spirits to see so much gorgeous weather over the past 8/9 days.

Oooh, I'm going on holiday! For the first time since 2001 :D Some friends were offered an opportunity to go to a caravan in Mablethorpe and have invited me to accompany them. Isn't that kind!?! Hoping we have the same kind of weather as the past week or so :) I've asked my uncle and his family if they'd like to stay at my place while I'm away, so they can visit with Mum for longer. Probably won't happen, but hey ho! My friend's son might welcome a change from living at home... Another friend has already said she'd be able to come over and look after the hammies while I'm gone :) I have good friends, praise God!

Next week i'm leading a Taize evening at St Barnabas'. Just an hour's service, but I'm really looking forward to it. Need to sit down with Rob and practise a bit though. He's unfortunately got Ofsted this week though, so it'll have to be the weekend if he's available.

LL has changed again for me, now that I'm in Developers (those that still need a ways to go before they reach target weights) our evening meeting has changed, and we've lost 3 of our group to the final group, Maintenance (the ones that are pretty much there and only need to reintroduce food back into their lives - actually that sounds far easier than it is! Apparently, we've done the only easy bit!). I'll miss them a great deal because they helped keep me going, and also we'd bonded very well. We move into a different group with different people, one of whom I know :), but it'll be a shock to the system I suppose. All grist to the mill of life.

Did anyone else have an influx of ladybirds on Sunday?! There were hundreds outside my living room window - no other window, just the living room! It was such a beautiful day, but I was most surprised to see them at this time of year. Anyone know why? I did hear that they were the immigrant ladybirds that are killing our own. Is that true?!

I've just started reading a new Stuart Pawson novel, he's very good. He writes about Charlie Priest, a DI in Yorkshire. It's about serious crime, but his own blend of humour sparkles in the doom and gloom. He's also very descriptive of the local area and the walks that the detective takes, almost to make you feel like it's there before you. There's also a touch of poetry in the writer's, and character's, soul, and paintings feature in every one of his books in this series. A believable and likeable bunch of characters, except for the criminals - who are nasty pieces of work, every single one of them - working out credible story lines, human, flawed, but inevitably solved, though rarely understood. Gripping stories that bring about the realisation that there is something different in people who perpetrate horrendous crimes, and those of us who would never have even considered such things were possible.