Half lazy, half every other excuse

Yikes, I didn’t realize how long it had been since the last time I posted anything here. Well, I started this blog for one big reason: To improve my frazzled daisy self one petal at a time.

Funny thing is, when one does something like that, one tends to not have time to write in a blog. But really, like the title says, I’m half lazy.

Here’s the other half of excuses:

Well, I did start doing other things besides eating, sleeping and working. Doing other things means not having time to blog. I’ll get to a couple of those other things in a minute.

After I started exercising and dieting in 2020, things kind of fell off for me. I ended up having some not great test results involving my liver, and I blamed the diet and exercise because it was the only thing I was doing differently. Dumb, but I was depressed and just assumed that my attempt to better myself in that way backfired. More on that later.

I got vaccinated against COVID, and in April 2021, I was finally able to leave my home with some feeling of protection. I still wear a mask, not just for COVID, but for all the other diseases floating around out there.

My personal computer is now my work computer. When I first started doing this, where I worked provided me with my own laptop. When I changed jobs, I started using my personal computer for work. So, I didn’t really want to stay on the computer any longer than I needed to. This computer is SLOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW now, so I bought a new laptop, and I use this computer for personal stuff again.

I was ill with problems involving female anatomy. I already suffer from fatigue due to my autoimmune condition, but this other thing made it a million times worse. On Nov. 15, 2021, I got a total hysterectomy. Turns out I had a lot of problems: adenomyosis, enlarged uterus, one bad ovary, a ton of fibroids and multiple cysts, one of which was inhibiting my hormones. Well, after the surgery, I had a ridiculous amount of energy. I didn’t want to sit in front of a computer, I wanted to be active and do stuff!

So, yeah, lots of excuses. But it’s been an eventful year or so.

I was really bummed about the liver results. I stopped dieting and exercising, and I was too ashamed to pop on here an admit that. Turns out that I have fatty liver, which is a bad thing. Now I absolutely must diet and exercise.

I am doing really well dieting. My appointment with the bad news was in November, and I’ve been dieting ever since. Now, I did eat my mom’s Christmas cookies, but I limited myself to five a day. Usually I would eat a plateful, so that was a big step for me. Dec. 26 was the final cookie day.

Since then, I have had absolutely no junk food. My main issue, though, wasn’t junk food, it was portions. I have cut my portions by A LOT. I now eat half or a third of what I would eat before. Example: I used to eat one or one and a half sandwiches at lunch. Now I eat a half sandwich and an apple. Tonight, we’re having homemade pizza, but instead of the 4-5 slices I usually eat, I’ll eat two.

I have lost 15 pounds since November. I really hope I can keep this up. I haven’t been craving any junk food. I actually had a craving for cucumber in a salad the other day.

Now, last time I tried exercise, my knees almost fell off. My bicycle can’t hold my fat butt. I am hoping to lose enough weight to actually start regular exercising, but at my weight right now, I am only hurting myself more than helping myself. I am, however, getting my exercise by doing household chores, yard work and such. I’ll even go window shopping just to get myself up and moving around.

All right, enough of that. Fun stuff, fun stuff. Let’s see. Well, you know I got a cat in 2021. Taffy! She’s an absolute lunatic. She loves drinking water from the lid of plastic water bottles. She doesn’t like wet food, but she likes broths. Her tail gets huge really easily, and she’s still skittish sometimes. She makes sure I’m up in the morning by batting my face, but she doesn’t wake me up. She’s not a lap kitty, which is great for me, but she does use my arm as a pillow, which is freaking adorable. She greets me every day with her belly. She LOVES belly rubs. I call her Ploppers because she is always plopping over for rubs.

Belly rubs! Top center is Taffy wanting water from the bottle lid.

My mom and I have been doing a lot of stuff together — going out to eat, shopping and vacations. We went to Biltmore and Bryson City, N.C., to ride on a train. Neither of us had ever been on a train before.