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Cold hands and feet
This morning I took a bus to an appointment at the teaching hospital near Perth. I had to be there at 9:45 so the Scientist dropped me off at the bus station where I caught a direct bus. Although the temperature wasn’t really all that low, it sure felt cold this morning. The bus trip was mostly uneventful and I arrived about twenty five minutes early. I went ahead and signed in at the clinic since there was little else to do. I’d barely sat down when I was called back to sit in the corridor outside the office. It was pretty quiet when I arrived but that was soon to change.
Some patients had been there long before I arrived and were still waiting. One man nearly walked out and another woman wasn’t able to be seen because something was missing from her file and they had to wait for the medical records department to send it through. She was very upset by the time she went in, just before me. Both had been there for appointments scheduled for 8:30 am. Having experienced a lengthy delay in the past (due to an admin. error), I came prepared for a long wait. I used my pda to continue reading Great Expectations. My only concern was that the battery would conk out early and I didn’t have a spare. Fortunately I was called in before this occurred.
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Stuff
I didn’t end up doing quite the things I intended to do today. But I did managed to accomplish a little anyway. I made up for two days of no exercise by doing two hours of exercise on the Wii Fit. I worked myself harder than usual and tried the more difficult levels of some of the exercises, especially within the aerobics category. I found I did far better than expected on a couple activities so feel a bit more confident to continue at the harder levels.
Game Fanatic saw the doctor and all is fine. We may need to see a physiotherapist at some point to strengthen his ankles. Previously she called it a strain but today she was saying it was a sprain. Not sure which it is but I suppose they both take some time to heal.
I received a jury summons a while back for later this month. Because I have full time care of children fourteen years of age or younger, I am eligible to be excused. I finally had that witnessed this week and mailed it off today. If I could be sure it would only be for one or two days, I would go ahead with it because they will keep sending one every two years until I serve. This was my second summons and I’d guess I will get two or three more before I am in a position to take it on.
We spent most of the evening watching the opening ceremony for the Olympics tonight. We’re in the same time zone as Beijing which is rather convenient for us. I couldn’t help wondering at the further pollution caused by all the fireworks but they were quite a sight. The ceremony was good overall but I don’t think it was as good as the one in Sydney in 2000. Strange to think how long ago that is now. Lego Lover likes to watch the parade of nations with all the different flags but he got bored after a while. When I found a list of the countries’ order online, he went off to play and we called out to him when a country of interest was coming up. Game Fanatic did stick around the entire program although he was reading the Scientist’s Far Side comic books at the same time.
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Getting moving
Because I just couldn’t get warm this afternoon, I was finally motivated to exercise. I pulled out the Wii Fit and started it up. Then I discovered it’s been three weeks since I used it. Yikes! I got in nearly an hour of exercise, most of it aerobic. I was feeling much warmer at the end of that. Then I showered and got dressed. Within an hour I was freezing again.
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Sick house
A cold virus has been making the rounds of our house the past week or so. It seems to have started with Game Fanatic, passed to Lego Lover, the Scientist and I have been trying to ward it off for a couple days now. I’ve been slightly successful since I have yet to reach the sneezy, blocked nose stage that the others went through already. So far it’s been mostly tiredness, achiness and a sore throat for me.
I had to go out this morning to get the cat in to the vet for a check up and vaccinations. She was well overdue and we need to leave her in a cattery when we go off on our holiday a couple weeks. So this was a good motivator. That outing went pretty well and the cat doesn’t seem to be nearly as traumatised as I expected.
I returned home with the cat and soon was back out to pick up a few groceries that I had promised to buy earlier. That outing left me really tired. Once I had returned home and eaten lunch, I settled in to bed for the afternoon and finished a book.
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Psycho cat
My parents divorced a couple years ago and my mom has been living in an apartment alone the last couple of years. Last year she decided she would like a companion and adopted a kitten from a litter. Her kitten of choice was the one that didn’t claw her and seemed most loving.
On the second day she had this kitten, he bit her, apparently quite hard, because it was enough to cause her to cry. Over the last year, the cat has bitten her so many times she has scars on her leg. She knew she needed to get rid of this cat but she had grown too attached.
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Wii play
Winter continues to be wet and wild. There was a fair bit of damage around Perth although most in the southern suburbs from what I can tell. I think it may be clearing up tomorrow. Funny thing is I saw some rainbows both yesterday and today and that’s been unusual for me this year. Usually, that’s one of the benefits of winter around here but I must be missing them or something.
Tonight, the Scientist and I spent time with the boys playing their new game. I had played a couple times on the previous version of this game and failed to see what was so great about it. It was always hard to follow what was happening, not to mention take part in the battle. Today was my first attempt at the new one and although I still find it hard to follow, I think there’s a chance I might be competent enough to join in a game once in a while. I will never particularly enjoy it though.
Earlier in the day, I did a Wii Fit exercise routine that lasted nearly two hours. Much of this time I was engaged in balance, yoga and muscle exercises so I didn’t burn off that many calories. I don’t really enjoy many of the yoga poses in the program, mainly because it feels somewhat unnatural to use the Wii Fit board. I do like doing the warrior pose, though and not just because I am very good at it. Most of the time it feels quite comfortable, the muscles I use for it are strong, and it is just a satisfying feeling. There is a very much modified sun salutation and that one just doesn’t have the right feel to it. Mostly I find that I don’t go into and out of poses the way I should be doing. One day I will try another proper yoga class and hopefully get proper guidance again. Meanwhile, I will keep the idea of doing some proper yoga poses at home alive…and perhaps one day make progress in that direction.
My big accomplishment today on the program is doing the jackknife challenge and completing one hundred of them to “beat” the trainer. I really like this exercise and I am getting much better at it. Far easier than trying a sit up and I think I am getting some benefit to my abdominal muscles.
I’m hoping to get back out on my bicycle on Monday to get some different exercise. I find it hard to stay with the same routines all the time and mixing it up seems to help. I don’t seem to be improving on the weight all that much but I think my fitness level has improved quite a bit. I think my addiction to chocolate may be the problem with the weight…I am just finding it too hard to resist lately.
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No mental pictures
Time for another post and I have no idea what I will write. I guess I will see where the keyboard takes me on this one. It was another dark, dreary, and damp winter’s day here. It wasn’t particularly cold for much of the day. There was a certain warmth in the afternoon that was reminiscent of spring storms. We did have a storm and a “lovely” downpour in the late afternoon, just as the Scientist and I went off to the grocery store. Visibility was so poor he pulled into the parking spaces next to the nearby school until it eased a bit.
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Meandering through Whiteman Park
Oh, my body is so sore right now. It was newspaper delivery day (for our weekly paper route) so I went out on my bicycle for most of it. It was a nice thin paper today…good for quick deliveries but not so much money involved. Anyway, that took me a little over an hour.
After I showered, Lego Lover and I went off to Whiteman Park to look for native birds and trees. We didn’t have much luck with the birds. We mostly saw crows and magpies which we can see pretty much any time we want. I did see some galahs just before we left but that was exotic as we found on this particular occasion.
We walked from the village of the park to the Mussel Pool, which is about a kilometre away. There’s what’s called a Children’s Forest along the way and we passed through its many areas in the course of our journey. Lego Lover normally would complain of tiredness but he was having a nice time being “in nature” as he puts it and did quite well. We’ve been worried about his lack of exercise lately. He’s perfectly normal height and weight but his fitness is very poor. So I am making an effort to get him moving more often before he suffers problems from inactivity. He quite enjoyed running around today so it was well worth the short trip (we live five minutes from the park and it’s another five to reach the parking areas).
We both took our cameras but discovered the batteries for his camera were dead. He hasn’t tried to use it in a long time so it should be no surprise. We will have to recharge them before we make another attempt. I took quite a few photos in the course of our meanderings and will try to post some soon. I need to reinstall my photo editing program before I do that…I’ve got so many photos on my camera that it will have to be soon.
Down by the Mussel Pool (that as far as I know has no mussels), Lego Lover played at a tiny playground for quite a while. It was interesting to watch as the sky went from clear blue to mostly dark grey over the course of about forty-five minutes. We had another stop at the big playground at the village when we went back. LL was happy that there weren’t many kids there and had a great time playing. I pretty much had to drag him away before it started raining.
We have plans to go there more regularly, maybe once a week or fortnight to help us with our current project on Australian birds and trees.
I got plenty of exercise today but the body isn’t so happy about the over-exertion. Also, I realised the inserts of my shoes are now well over a year old and need to be replaced which is a likely explantion as to why my knees feel so unstable these days. I’m thinking of seeing a podiatrist before I get new ones so they can tell me all I am doing wrong to my feet.
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Tidying things up
It was one of those cold and wet days of winter today. The rain has stopped but there’s a chill in the air which reaches my bones. I noticed my knees are feeling better today but other body parts are still aching quite a bit.
I managed to start some school “work” with Lego Lover today but that didn’t quite succeed and we ended up in another battle. Last week we stopped the medication he started back in March. We couldn’t see any positive effects and he ended up with stomach aches most nights so it wasn’t worth it. He has now started a different medication which has me feeling somewhat edgy. From reading the experiences of others, it’s a bit hard to judge how well the meds will work for any particular individual. The same medication can be wonderful for one and really terrible for another. So far, I think Lego Lover falls sort of in the middle since we’ve not had particularly great or bad experiences. I do think the shift from one medication to another could be affecting the current mood and hopefully he will settle down in the next few days.
During a heated discussion about “work”, I threatened to remove access to Lego for a time. This didn’t exactly eventuate because LL finally decided he would cooperate. I also started digging into his messy bedroom and the end result is it’s looking quite tidy at the moment. It is no longer the hazardous zone it’s been for weeks and months. Lego Lover did attempt to assist most of the time. It often happened that he would rediscover a forgotten toy and want to “test” it out, delaying the end of the task at hand. Finally, I was able to bring in the vacuum cleaner and remove the layers of dust.
Tomorrow I must get into Game Fanatic’s room and clear out all the dust that’s accumulated there. In the past, I would have had to do a similar cleanout of his room but I’ve found the he is doing quite well at keeping it in good order in the last year or so. It’s quite remarkable, really, that he’s always been particularly untidy and now he’s not. But he doesn’t take it any further so dusting and vacuuming is required at the moment.
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Absent-minded
My bicycle came out of the shop on Tuesday, fitted with lights, a new lock and a bike computer along with replacements of some of the more standard parts. It looked almost shiny and new. I didn’t end up riding it that day. The Scientist and I managed to get it into the car by removing the front tire (which is easily removed). I was emotionally frazzled and not really up to dealing with rush hour traffic while riding. I don’t tend to ride on main roads much but I would have needed to be quite alert just to cross the heavy traffic.
I was finally able to take it out for a spin today after rainy skies cleared up a bit. I still had the threat of rain but it was likely to be only brief showers and I was willing to risk that. I had a letter I needed to post so gathered that along with my mini-backpack and I was off. I found it really tough to ride today and felt like my legs would hardly move. I had on my heart rate monitor (for exercise) and I was reaching 150 bpm pretty easily. I decided that lack of activity the past couple days had put me a bit out of shape. Anyway, I managed to ride about 2 kilometers before I realised I wasn’t wearing my bike helmet. I have never done that since I’ve lived here. I never noticed my hair getting wet or how the strong winds were blowing my hair around more than usual. Once I noticed my mistake, I felt kind of naked. I phoned the scientist and asked him to bring my helmet for me, which he did reasonably quickly. It was lucky I was mostly riding on bike/foot paths because helmets are compulsory on road bikes.