Lost and found

Well, John said we might be off-radar for a while and I certainly have been. For me, the last four months have been spent either working on the house, working at my day job, or sleeping. I weighed myself tonight, and I'm four pounds heavier than I was in January - I'll weigh myself again tomorrow morning for a more accurate reading, but as we're normally up to 3lb lighter in the mornings, I reckon I've got off lightly, as it were. I can't say the same for John. He's not been tracking regularly, and the weight seems to have crept on. Maybe up to 12 pounds of it has just crept on. That's just a phrase we use, isn't it? 'Just crept on'. When I weigh myself properly tomorrow I might find some weight has 'just crept on' me as well. That's what happens when we don't log everything we eat, when we estimate that portion of cereal, eat six slices of toast but log four, and so the list goes on. It's not helped at all that he's been ill in hospital again twice. Six months ago he could walk 200 yards - just - before having to stop for a rest. Now he can't walk across the room. How is he going to get any exercise in this state? And if he doesn't exercise, how is he going to lose weight? And if he doesn't lose weight, his heart will get even worse. Forgive me if I'm feeling a bit down about all this.

John's been nagging me to blog more. Warning - whine coming up (with a more optomistic bit at the end!). I'll let you into a secret. Over the last few months, I have occasionally felt - gasp- RESENTFUL! of John, sitting on his backside at my Mum's with nothing much to do but write and go to his creative writing class. I've been working particularly long hours the last few months, finding my day job particularly stressful, and the rest of the time has been spent sanding, painting, cleaning, lugging boxes out of the garage, and so on. But obviously, John's situation is not one he would have wished for. And not one I'd wish on myself. Time to snap myself out of that one.

Because now the end is in sight! I'm sitting in my lovely new living room with lime green and white walls (thanks to my friends who came and helped paint), and the rug we bought months ago is now on the floor, and we have a massive new kitchen/diner ready to cook lovely healthy meals in. And I've started writing again! I've decided I really must start earning some money from writing - that's been my ambition since I was a child and I owe it to my six year old self to try. So after looking at a lot of options, some of which pay peanuts, I'm trying out Hubpages. Remember a few months ago I said I was going to post a review of the Weight Watchers iPhone app? I've written it, but decided to post it on Hubpages and link to it from here, rather posting it directly here. Hubpages has millions of readers and scores very well on Google searches, so I can get my writing seen by more people. Please go and have a look!

And please cross your fingers for our proper weigh-in tomorrow. I think a small gain for each of us would probably be the best result - it would show us that we can't get away with letting things slip!

The walls come tumbling down

Things are getting on top of me. I'm feeling squeezed. I've lost another pound and half.

Apologies from both of us for the lack of blogging this week, but our house-building programme (which is grand way of saying we are getting an extension, rather than creating a New Town from scratch or anything) has been consuming most of our time.

Whether this has stopped us consuming other things, it is difficult to say ... I hope that a combination of exhaustion, physical exercise (packing boxes, mostly) and having something else to think about other than food for a change may mean that I will continue to lose weight during the downward run to Christmas without (a) really noticing it or (b) really trying. I have lost weight in this way before, but usually only because I've been very ill. As I said a couple of months ago, the trick is to lose the weight that death's door brings, without actually being anywhere near it!

... So if you don't hear much for either of us over the next few weeks - have no fear. We will return! We shall get on with building a new bedroom and downstairs loo, and you can get on with preparing for Christmas. Shall we all meet here on the evening of the 24th and do some carol singing, perhaps?

In the mean time, to get you in the mood, here's a picture of a puppy in a Santa hat: