Was up early and couldn’t resist going for a swim this morning. It was gorgeous. I took my new finger watch and timed it. I was gone for about a half-hour walking to the pool, then swimming, then walking back. No one was there, which made it nicer, though I could smell more chlorine than usual. At least I could shower it off when I got back home.

I noticed something about our place and next door that I never noticed before. I’m surprised too, cuz I’m usually pretty observant. They have quite a bit of grass next door. It’s on the other side, fortunately, but it runs all the way down to the gully. It’s more of a yard than we have, but have enough trees, flowers and bushes to tend to of our own.

I didn’t realize our patio roof in back didn’t cover cement areas only. There are some dirt sections where plants are growing, though they don’t reach the roof. Wish more of our trees and shrubs covered more of our windows, so I could feel the added privacy of “hiding behind the bushes.”

My swimsuit was noticeably looser, yes! Don’t know how much more weight I’ll lose but I’ve been having so much fun not only swimming, walking, jogging and working with my resistance bands, but doing YouTube fitness vids as well. I’m glad Tom wanted to get this nice new TV. It was funny cuz they say you should have enough space around you to take 3 giant steps left, right, front and back. LOL, we couldn’t even take one in the trailer.

I’ve always been a slow loser who can’t usually lose more than a pound every 10 days after the initial few come off fairly fast. But slow is better than never. Even though I got heavy for a while from overeating and lack of exercise, I have been there before as far as the fitness, nutrition, diet and exercise thing goes and have lost weight before in my life, so it’s nothing really new. It’s just a very slow process and a matter of consistently enduring the hunger, and remembering how important that hunger really is at least to a degree. Hunger isn’t just your stomach’s way of letting you know it’s empty, but the actual burning of fat and calories. It’s something you gotta take one day at a time, one pound at a time.

Tom says I look way down. So it’s not just psychological cuz of how much better I feel, huh? I’ve lost more inches for the pounds due to being so short. Where it takes most people 10 pounds to drop an inch, I can drop more than an inch in just 5 pounds.

The exercises are helping to reshape me as well as strengthen me. Weight loss can be stalled when you initially build new muscles, and I’ve definitely been waking up old muscles that haven’t been used in a while.

It’s almost time to call Andy, who’s as unpredictable as he is predictable, LOL, so I’ll write about my nightmare in my next entry. I thought he’d get a kick out of this young guy doing a headstand with his pants down around his knees, but nope. As I told him, though, I don’t understand why so many men choose to degrade and belittle themselves every chance they get with the half-assed pants and other things. There’s trashy, then there’s classy. There’s sexy, then there’s slutty. Men have always been sluts, but it seems each generation loses even more self-respect. Maybe it’s me, but the half-assed pants thing doesn’t make you look sexier, mature or smarter.

Later…

Had a nice chat with Andy. It’s been a long time since we were able to chat with the shitty connection I had for so long. He still sounds the same. He shared some cooking tips and suggestions, but I’m not as big on spices as he is. “Hey, I’m in training,” I reminded him. Can’t have much in the way of starchy or sugary foods. Still, he’s always been a much better cook than I’ll ever be.

We talked about the annoying things we have to live with as much as we each love our homes. With him it’s yard work and barking, with me, it’s yard work and whatever the guy next door has been doing in his garage that can be heard in here. Not sure if it’s a saw, a sander or what, but even though he technically has a right to be doing that during normal daytime hours, I didn’t come here to listen to the whirring of machinery in here.

He suggested writing an anonymous note letting him know it bothers me, but I’m not going to write a note after just two times of hearing it. If it became a few times a week, then I don’t know what I’d do. Just live with it, I guess, just like I’ve had to live with other things everywhere I’ve lived. It’s not like it goes on and on for hours, and the sound machines and music drown it out. If it were 2-3 hours a day 5 days a week, then I may speak up, but I can’t see that happening. God, I hope not! Especially since this isn’t just any old neighborhood. This is a retirement community. A place people go to live in peace. Besides, no matter how anonymously I complained, they would know it was from this house cuz we’re the only ones who could hear it. The people across the street might be able to make it out a bit if they were in the front of their houses. Tom thinks he’s like him – if he has something to fix, he fixes it, but it’s not a hobby. Let’s hope he’s right!

It’s been a very peaceful Saturday so far. No landscaping, not much traffic noise, etc.

Another thing I didn’t come here for is for the net to drop off the 5 or 6 times it dropped off yesterday. I thought cable wasn’t supposed to do that, but as Tom pointed out, cable isn’t what it used to be. That’s true. All good things do come to an end. Back when we last had it in 2007, not many people had it. Now it’s everywhere, and the more of your neighbors that have it, the less reliable it can be. It hasn’t cut out today that I know of.

Poor Tom. Turns out they also have a similar service here like Goodwill where they come around and get unwanted household items right AFTER he dropped things off at the Goodwill. I guess they do this a few times a year. A few times for furniture and appliances, and a few times for clothes and small household items.

Our tentative plans are to tackle the walls sometime soon and get a new used vehicle either in the late winter or early spring. We’ll probably use our tax return toward it.

Tomorrow we’re going to load up on mostly non-edibles at Sam’s and enjoy spending time together. Where I saw too much of him when he didn’t work, now I hardly ever see him and I miss him. Why is it that so often in life we either get too little or too much of things?

Ok, now I’ll cover last night’s nightmare, then I’m going to get into bed and read myself to sleep. I had a very long, busy and physical day. I was beat after doing the fitness video I was doing today. Gotta remember to save those for the end of my day till I get in better shape again.

It was a very sad and scary dream. I was sent to prison for 15 years, though I don’t know why. It seems I was younger in the dream because I remember thinking I’d be 47 when I got out. It was strange because right after I was sentenced, Tammy came to visit me and they let us chat outside the jail by the parking lot. I was just about to step up to her and whisper, “Let’s just get in your car and go,” But then the guards came and got me.

Inside I was chatting with another inmate at dinnertime and I nodded toward a girl in her 20s and asked what she was in for. “She beat a man unconscious, then stabbed him to death for good measure. Then just as she was about to smother someone’s baby, the cops arrested her.

The thought of spending the next 15 years living with such characters made me shudder.

At night we slept in huge bunk beds that were outdoors but with screens around them. I was lying on my side on the lower bunk with my knees pulled up by my chest when I saw the shadow of a bear approaching. I could tell it was interested in the bugs that walked along the outside of the screen. It started growling and I wondered how it would react if the girl above me woke up and made any sounds.

Suddenly, I felt a great pressure on my knees. They had been close to the screen and the bear had placed a paw on the screen, which bent inward and rested upon my knees. I tried to stay as still as I could but the pain was too much. Terrified, I woke up right as I pushed myself away.

Even Andy had a nightmare last night and we wonder why. Our lives are going so incredibly well now.