The fitting went fine, I have three programs – one for general talking, one for music and one for the loop system. I wore them home, managed to experiment with my headphones and the phone [no idea how I'm working those yet]. My ears got tired and I had to take them out for an hour or so. Now they’re in again and I’m listening to the fan, my typing and the occasional aeroplane overhead. I’ve noticed creaky floorboards and Weasel no longer has to shout at me.

They’re not perfect and they’re a little uncomfortable, but I trust this will improve over time.

The other day while reading 1000 Times No she showed a video of Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture. Most of his talk was about achieving one’s goals and childhood dreams. It was very entertaining and interesting. Infotainment as it were.

It got me thinking about goals and dreams and I realised I didn’t have any. How sad is that? I thought I’d look at other people’s lists and get some ideas, so to 43things.com I went and then the 101 things in 1001 days project. Looking through lists of things other people wanted to do just highlighted how much I didn’t want to do things.

I’m at a very strange part of my life. I am starting from scratch. Money isn’t an issue. I am overwhelmed by the options. I cannot focus on a single thing and everything seems scary. Need to figure out who I am now and what the hell I want to do with myself.

I bought a new computer chair. Since it has been so hot I was sticking to the leather of my old chair and driving myself crazy. I love sitting on my feet and putting my legs underneath me when I sit and I couldn’t quite fit in the old chair, this one is 10cm wider and has a fabric covering. I ordered it at 6:30pm on Monday and it arrived around 9am on Tuesday. Very pleased. Weasel gets my old chair for her flying. She normally sits on her exercise ball and used a kitchen chair for flying so this works better for all of us.

Last night I started a toasted sandwich and came back to the computer. After 10 minutes or so all the power went off. We flicked the breaker and everything came back on, including the sandwich press. It has a red light to indicate power and green to indicate heating up. The green light never came back on. Our current theory is that the press broke and tripped the breaker. So I’ve ordered a new one, should be here tomorrow.

I’ve been trying to find white sandals for a Weasel and it has proved near impossible. I can see the style I want in my head and in sizes up to 8, but Weasel needs 10. I don’t know why the designers feel the need to punish people with larger feet. The shoes are ugly and don’t take the target audience into account at all. It makes me grumpy. Weasel is perfectly proportioned and all the clothes manufacturers love her, yet it never occurs to them that if you have a woman who is 6′ [or more] tall she is going to have larger than size 8 feet.

I totally stole this from Erin – A Little About Us.

Who are your significant others? Weasel & Horatio
How long have you been together? Weasel since May 1998 and Horatio since September 2002.
Dating/Engaged/Married? Married to Weasel since December 22, 1999 and dating Horatio, totally would marry him too if I could.
How old is your S.O.? Weasel is 28 and Horatio is 24. I’m 27.
Who eats more? We all eat about the same.
Who says “I love you” first? I don’t know. It is a phrase that is oft repeated in my relationships.
Who weighs more? Horatio weighs more than me [last I knew anyway] and I weigh more than Weasel.
Who sings better? I used to before I got sick.
Who’s smarter? We are all smart in different ways.
Who does the laundry? Horatio does his, I probably do 80% and Weasel 20%.
Who does the dishes? Horatio does his, Weasel probably does 70% and I’m around 30%.
Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Weasel when I’m with her, me when I’m with Horatio.
Whose feet are bigger? Horatio and Weasel both wear a size 10, I’m usually a 7.
Whose hair is longer? Mine is longest, Weasel’s is next then Horatio’s is the shortest.
Who’s better with the computer? Tie between Horatio and Weasel, depends on what I need.
Who mows the lawn? I used to before I got sick. Now Weasel or the gardener.
Who pays the bills? Horatio pays his and Weasel pays mine and hers.
Who cooks dinner? Mostly me, Weasel prefers to do the dishes instead of cooking.
Who drives when you are together? Weasel and I don’t drive, so Horatio does.
Who pays when you go out to dinner? Horatio and I always pay for ourselves. Weasel and I pay from the same account so it doesn’t matter who’s card is swiped.
Who’s the most stubborn? Horatio.
Who is the first one to admit when they’re wrong? I usually suspect I’m wrong anyway so probably me.
Whose parents do you see more? Weasel’s.
Who asked who out? I think I pursued both Weasel and Horatio. They were powerless.
Who’s more sensitive? Weasel then me followed Horatio.
Who’s taller? Weasel is 6’1″ and Horatio is 5’10.5″ and I’m 5’6″.
Who has more friends? Weasel then Horatio followed by me.
Who has more siblings? I have two. Weasel has two. Horatio is an only child.
Who wears the pants in the relationship? I do.

I’ll end with the Book Meme because I can. The premise of this exercise is that the National Endowment for the Arts apparently believes that the average American has only read six books from the list below. The rules:

1. Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2. Italicize those you intend to read.
3. Underline the books you LOVE.
4. Reprint this list in your blog.
5. Strike through those you hated.

01 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
02 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
03 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
04 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
05 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
06 The Bible -
07 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
08 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
09 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables- LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down- Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Things you can do at home when you do not have house guests:

• be naked/partially clothed
• leave the bathroom door open
• ignore everyone and everything without feeling guilty
• do whatever you want to do without worrying about what others might want to do
• make no plans
• eat cheese for dinner and call it good

Mish arrived on Thursday. It was very hot. So very hot. I pretty much drained myself walking to the station and back. Thankfully I wasn’t required as she and Weasel headed down to London for a feminist meeting. Weasel got very drunk and Mish very kindly got her home safely. I think they had a great time.

We all slept badly thanks to the heat, drunkenness and coughing fits. Friday Mish and I went shopping to get things so we could have chimichangas for dinner. They were lovely. The heat made us all sluggish and slow witted. Before dinner we played games which were very fun. Dinner was great then we went for a walk in the cool night air. Saturday Weasel kindly took some things up to the Post Office for me. We played more games. I adore board games and I don’t have any to play with usually so it was novel having someone. Scrabble, Fluxx, Trivial Pursuit and Nertz! all made an appearance. Saturday we got pizza.

Other things we did but I can’t remember when: played Mario Kart twice, watched the Futurama movie which I totally predicted, Sweeney Todd and Yugio the abridged series and there was probably more eating. I made some oat strawberry thingies that are yummy.

I think it would have been much much better if it hadn’t been so fucking hot. I couldn’t breathe very well at all, the humidity was all crazy like. I think Mish enjoyed herself, she is fairly reserved so it was hard to tell. Plus I slept badly the entire time so I’m sure I wasn’t as much fun as I could have been. All in all, a success.

I got the letter today, my next lung dilation is 15th August! Yay! I get my hearing aids on Wednesday. I’m very excited for both these things. I can’t help but think that once I can hear and breathe everything will just be roses.

Remember my backwards clock that stopped working? I figured out it was the glass pressing on the hands stopping them from moving. I ordered new hands thinking I’d just be able to swap them over and everything would be fine! Unfortunately, the hands didn’t fit. So I put some band aids under the glass and now the clock works fine and all is well.

Remember the oscillating fan that stopped oscillating and we did some fan juggling? When we went to the same store to get something else it turned out they had our nice remote control black fan with nature setting there – and half price! Score! I had a momentary temptation to pack the old one in the box and give it back to them but I didn’t. So now we have four fans, and thank god because did I mention it is really fucking hot?

My sister has had some more bad news. Everything sucks right now. What we need is good news. Something happy. So if anyone has any please share.

I’ve been recording movies off of TV lately. This is nice because I can watch it and delete it no wasting tapes anymore! I can fast-forward through the adverts! Anyway, I recorded The Day After Tomorrow and Weasel and I watched it over the weekend. It was hilarious! If I’d known how funny it was I totally would have seen it in the cinema.

I understand it is not intended as a comedy, but it was so over the top. It was cheesy and predictable. Their message was very heavy-handed. Plus, the episode of South Park that mocks it got it so perfect that I couldn’t stop drawing similarities and giggling.

So Weasel and I have decided that we need to seek out the disaster movies for our entertainment. Let me know if you have any recommendations!

I made a Chocolate Fudge Cake yesterday. I have a poor history with cakes. I invariably get something wrong and they turn out strange. For example, for my 25th birthday I made one but I put the baking soda in at the wrong time and it was very pointy on top. It tasted great, but it looked very strange. This one turned out okay, but it is a little dense and the icing is a little bitter. The things that could have contributed to this include:

• accidentally melting the butter instead of just softening it by being cunning*
• running out of self-raising flour and finishing off with plain flour
• eggs were straight from the fridge, not room temperature [thinking the cold would make up for the melted butter]

* My cunning was that while Weasel was making her lunch in the oven I’d put the butter in the separate grill part to catch the reflected heat and soften. Only I forgot the butter was in there and by the time I went to get it it was pretty melted.

I’m going to continue making cakes until I get it right. I must do more reading on the subject.

Mish is coming to visit this weekend. She arrives time on Thursday, she and Weasel are going out that evening. I think Weasel intends to work on Friday so Mish and I will hang out and do fun things. I have a few ideas for meals which should be very nice. We have a few ideas for activities too. I’m excited to get to play some board games and talk of many topics.

Horatio has been in France with his family for ages and still doesn’t get home until next Monday. I miss him. He still calls, but the conversations are very different and often it is fairly late by the time he can call so I am useless. I want to go visit him ASAP, but I have to wait and see when my next lung dilation is. I meant to call today to see if there was any news, but I forgot. Oh! I’ve totally added it to my Rainlendar for tomorrow. Now I won’t forget.

Still haven’t touched my counselling binder, but I’ve thought about it. I’ve had a fairly good day today and I had at least two moments where I thought I could probably get it out. Unfortunately, I was out on my walk during one and I don’t know what I was doing during the other. Perhaps not all is lost.

Weasel’s friend who I got to make giggly noises about and italicise things very kindly gifted her one of those foam swords. Weasel lets me keep it by my desk and poke her with it. This cheers me up. Especially if I can have a ‘bonk!’ noise to go with it. I ought to say that her friend is going to remain a friend, things did not work out as we hoped. Sad. Which explains why I was deliberately vague here, I didn’t want to announce too much when things were just getting started.

I have plans to make clothes for Fergus when I visit BlanketGirl in November. Weasel and I were discussing what we could do with said outfits once we had them. She suggested a website where he could offer his medical services with contact details etc. I said we’d need a biography. We started planning it out and every juncture makes me giggle more. I had cause to ask Weasel what his hobbies might be and we came up with dancing, political discussion and mycology [study of mushrooms]. The last one is hilarious because if you recall, Fergus has a stuffed mushroom that is his official chew toy. I’m very excited for the possibilities here.

Weasel and I had words this morning. I got up to get ready for our Quaker meeting and she told me she was tired and didn’t want to go. I explained how it was important to force oneself sometimes for the greater good. We exchanged more words and I went off to get ready. Meanwhile, she got dressed and up. I was ready 10 minutes early and she explained that it wasn’t just tiredness, but that she just wasn’t in a church-y mood. I said that was cool, I only wanted her there because of my hearing issues. I’m afraid people will say something from the side or behind me and I’ll seem to be ignoring them. And I want these people to like me so I don’t want to be rude, I like having her there to buffer and explain that I’m hard of hearing.

I’d had the thought last night that it might be fun to go to the leisure centre since it is fairly close to the meeting house. I haven’t been to a restaurant since September 2007 so I wanted to see how I’d do. I decided not to go because I wanted the experience to be a happy celebratory type thing.

So with five minutes before I had to go she went off to get ready and come with me. Because I walk so slow I had to leave before her. I got to the meeting right on time and she was 10 minutes late but we got there and it was a good meeting.

We had more words afterwards and I think we both understand much better where the other was coming from. We walked up to the leisure centre where I saw that the video rental place has closed and a bar. There’s still one unit standing empty. But we’re not in a recession. We settled down in the Mexican restaurant and got yummy virgin cocktails. We got a platter of yummy things and some quesadillas to share. I was slightly disappointed with the quesadillas this time, but only because I’ve made them at home and the ones I make are better. That was an awesome feeling. We shared a waffle ice cream thingy for dessert and it made me long even more for a waffle iron. I’d really love to explore the world of savoury waffles. It was all delicious and the place was very quiet and I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

I am pleased to know that I can get to the leisure centre and home again fairly painlessly. This gives me more options for where I can walk. I’m hoping to go to the cinema after I get my hearing aids. I’ve missed going out. We didn’t go out often, maybe once a month, but I haven’t been out and enjoyed myself in months.

I was thinking recently about European kissing. The friendly greeting/goodbye kiss on the cheek people give when they’re fond of you. I’ve lived here for nearly nine years and I still haven’t figured out how to accept these kisses gracefully. I’m never sure where to turn my head, if I ought to just hold steady and be kissed or if I ought to try to turn my head and give a kiss while receiving it. How do people learn this? Doesn’t help that I’m generally socially awkward.

Yesterday Weasel asked me to show her the ball exercises to work her abs and back. I love playing on the ball so this was no problem. I showed her back extensions and crunches. Then ‘killer’, ‘superman’, leg lifts and a few options for the side muscles. She had a hard time because she hasn’t worked her muscles in a year [since I got sick]. I’ve been doing stuff for about two months I think. Just back extensions and crunches because I cannot do the rest yet.

The interesting thing to me was that although I’ve been reading a lot about diets, fat, exercise, scientific studies – learning that health comes in every size and correlation is not causation. All of that has been so interesting and fascinating to me. But I found myself falling into the socially conditioned thinking. Weasel is thin, she must be fit and healthy. I am fat, she must be fitter than me. People looking at us would assume she is fitter than me. I’ve realised now so I will shake off my conditioning. She’s done very well this week introducing exercise into her life and I’m so proud of her.

At last week’s meeting, as well as the thoughts on prayer I thought about my fear of learning. Since I’ve been sick I haven’t touched my counselling course. I’m scared. I think I am using the steroids as an excuse for my own stupidity. I am not intelligent, I take ages to grasp a new concept and the steroids have simply given me a tangible excuse to pass along to others. Why am I scared of learning? I cannot even bring myself to touch my binders.

I have a plan, I’m going to review the course work I’ve already finished. My comprehension is so dismal at the moment. I read things, I know the words but I cannot get the sentences to mean anything to me. I often find my thoughts wandering while I’m reading and I have to back up and try again. I don’t remember what I’ve read and I lose the thread so quickly. But I don’t think this is new or just the steroids. I’ve always had a hard time with this. Horatio suggested it is learning styles. I have always been very good at reading. I was crap at listening to lectures and getting anything out of it. He suggested that it might be experience that works best for me. It makes sense given what I used to do at my job. And when I was leaning HTML etc. I love pressing the buttons to see what happens.

But none of that changes the fact that I can’t reach over and pick up my binder. All three are within 10 inches from my computer monitor so they sit there mocking me all day.

I guess part of it is my general instability at the moment. I have no idea who I am. I have no idea where I’m going. I have no plan. My whole life stopped and I don’t know how to start it again.

So I’m going to make a cake tomorrow.

I still can’t get used to how tired I get. I have wanted to write here for three days but I just haven’t had the strength [physical and mental]. So now we get to catch-up to cover all those things I wanted to write about.

Saturday Weasel and I went to see her family. It was excellent, we had very yummy food and I actually managed to play games! I haven’t been able to play games for months, I was too sick. Mal and I had a very excellent game of Scrabble where the words were of the highest quality I’ve ever seen from us. Best word on the board was ‘momentary’ I was also pleased with ‘wolf’ on the triple word score. We played Rummikub and Uno too.

Stoat and Mal went on my walk with me, I went to try and find a new bra. My boobs always get bigger when I gain weight and I never lose the weight from my boobs. So none of my nice bras fit anymore which means I cannot wear any v-neck shirts without my bras showing. I tried on loads of 38DD and 40D and I fell out the top of all of them. I’m going to have to go into town and be measured again. I’m hopeful that maybe I can go next week, I am miserable being this limited in my clothes.

Sunday BlanketGirl called a little after I woke up so I spoke with her as long as I could before heading off to the Quaker meeting. I was quiet agitated when I got there with my thoughts jumping all over the place and it was interesting feeling the calmness descend and by the end I felt much better.

I had some thoughts about prayer I hadn’t considered before. I started the meeting asking to please help my sister feel better, it broke my heart that she was suffering so much. In thinking though I hit on the idea that maybe it isn’t so much about asking for what I want, but asking for help along the path that I have ended up on. Asking to please guide our doctors and help them to have an open mind and approach our illnesses with care. To ask for greater understanding from our friends and family as we move through this difficult time. Ultimately the end will be the same, but the intention from the prayer is different.

But then I wondered about freewill. Surely we’re here to learn and grow and in doing so we must have the option of experiencing things for ourselves, making mistakes. So do I become a silent partner in my life? An empty vessel just to do the will of the Divine and disregard what I want?

I’m sure there must be a compromise somewhere. I’m thinking on it still.

I also wondered what the point of destroying two young lives is? BlanketGirl and I are very ambitious, very hard working and now we’ve been reduced to sitting at home in pain [her] and sitting at home in silence unable to breathe [me]. Why take so much from us? What is the higher purpose here?

After the meeting we went to have lunch with Helena and her friend Liz who attends an meeting in a neighbouring city. We got a lift out to her house and I finally got to see where Stoat worked for so many years – we drove by. When we arrived we had wonderful conversation and delicious food. We had roast vegetables over couscous with this wonderful spicy sauce. I took some oatmeal fudge bars and Liz brought a sponge cake in berries from her garden. It was all very yummy. After lunch we went for a walk to Helena’s allotment where we met a very friendly cat. We walked one field over and saw two lovely colts with their mamas.

It was 4:45 by then so we made a move back home. I called BlanketGirl at 5:30 and I think she was feeling better by the time we hung up. It was a very long day for me, I haven’t been away from the house that long since the chemotherapy.

Which brings us nicely to the next topic. In March if you recall I had my hair done, I was nearly finished with the chemo and I was pleased because it mostly seemed to be in tact.

March 2008

I went to have my hair done last Friday. It turns out that while I didn’t lose my hair with the cyclophosphamide but I am losing it now with the azathioprine.

July 2008

I think I’ve lost about half of my hair, if I continue at this rate I’ll be bald by November. I plan to wait until I have visible bald spots, then I’ll shave my head and get a wig.

I took some before and after haircut photos. I do not look like me anymore. In my head, I still look like this:

2004	2005
2006	2007

That last picture was taken in September 2007, about a month before I was diagnosed. The saddle nose had started forming by then, but my nose was so swollen you couldn’t see it.

I really didn’t want to put this out there, but I think it will do me some good. So here I am now:

The steroids have caused moon face and weight gain. I cannot exercise like I used to because my lungs aren’t working. The saddle nose is more noticeable than I thought it was.

I accidentally pulled out the shirt I’m wearing in the 2006 photo a few days ago and I nearly cried. I love that shirt and I cannot wear it anymore. None of my clothes fit or look good anymore. I can barely stand to look in mirrors.

Then when I mention to anyone how sad I am over how I look now or if I say I’m ugly they all just say I’m not and that’s it. I don’t know what I want differently from them, perhaps unprompted expression of these opinions. I doubt their validity and I suspect people are just trying to be nice to the ugly ill girl.

I preferred being the fat girl on the clown bike.

Let me go back. Please.

One of the Post Secrets this week says that some of the things they’ve seen in their career as a EMT makes them question their faith in god. This is curious to me because surely the whole point of faith is to question it? To test it, to see how you really feel, to find the edges of your belief before others can.

Questioning yourself is always good, working to improve yourself or to gain a better understanding is never the wrong path.

My keyboard finally arrived today. I’m pleased because it isn’t all black and the media/digital buttons are not annoying placed. There is lovely space between the arrow keys and the insert/delete etc. buttons. It isn’t as clacky as my old one which is a little strange, but I guess that’s what the kids like these days. I’m so old skool. I’d probably prefer the keyboard I used in 1988 all told. I get used to things and I get very proficient and change makes me weak.

I got my disabled persons railcard this week. I looked it up and an advance ticket to see Horatio usually runs me £42 but with the card it becomes £28. I am pleased. It’ll also give Weasel and Horatio discounts when they have to travel with me.

My ordeal with the fan that stopped oscillating is over. It won. I took it apart, I could see that the problem was something that should have been turning was not. So I thought it would just need lube. It turns perfectly well manually, so the problem lies inside the motor. I tried to find a replacement motor on the intarwebs and was overwhelmed and confused. Weasel has decided to take this fan into her office where she doesn’t use oscillation, we’ll take the fan currently in the lounge to the bedroom and the fan currently in her office will be in the lounge. Fan musical chairs. But at least we’ll be cool.

I will miss this fan for the bedroom, it is black and has a remote control with a nature setting [gusts instead of constant blowing] it also had a timer. Sigh.

I woke up too early [important coughing to do] so I’ve felt drained today. I’ve still made bread, went for a walk, washed all the sheets on the bed [including hanging them up outside to dry] and turned the mattress. I wanted to make a shepherd’s pie but I couldn’t get any energy to do it. I also wanted to tidy the lounge. Gah. So instead I have hung out online and I’m going through recipe books for BlanketGirl.

I can’t remember if I told you all that the milkpan of my fancy new pans had a bit of non-stick coating come off while being washed? I finally got around to calling them yesterday and they’re sending me a replacement. This is pretty sweet. Also means that I get to give my old one to Stoat. His pans are very similar to mine – which is why I got mine, I lusted after his – but he only has a three piece set. So I give him this one and we both have four piece sets. Worked out very well.

On my walk today I walked by a neighbour who was trying to convince his dogs to please get in the car. One of them got in but the other had important sniffing to do. But the time I got to them he’d just picked up the second one so I got to say hello and I got many doggy kisses. I’m tempted to see if I can walk the dogs for him sometimes or Lester [keeshond who lives at the end of my street]. Older people own all of them and I know from being ill myself that some days just don’t go as we want. I’m thinking on it.

Updated illness page today. Things are better.

I have been trying to figure out how to talk to people about fat and I’m not sure how to approach it. For example, I read this recently: “And as much as I try to eat salads and whole grains and lots of fruit, I can’t help but love foods that are bad for me.” There is no such thing as a bad food. Your body doesn’t care if the protein comes from a steak or tofu. It doesn’t care if the sugar came from fruit or some manufactured syrup. It breaks down whatever you eat and uses what it can and passes on the rest.

Just be sensible, eat a variety of foods in moderation. Have a little of everything. I don’t even think there is anything wrong with having a little piece of cake every day for dessert. One little piece of cake isn’t going to kill you and you’ll certainly be happier for it. If all you eat is cake you might have bigger problems. I just wish there were a quick way to help people debunk these scare campaigns from the media and government.

I’ve been reading about intuitive eating lately. The idea that one eats when one is hungry and stops when full. No foods are off limits and you just try to eat a variety. I think the key is that when you deny yourself certain foods you miss it and crave it and wish you could have it. So if you allow it you’ll probably binge for a while because you missed it so. Then when you’ve had enough you stop and since the food is no longer forbidden it’s appeal is lessened and you can eat sensibly.

It just makes me grumpy that the media can spread these lies and scare so many people.