Again I dreamed of my dentist, though I don’t remember any details of the dream. Why do I dream of her so often? I had another local visitor yesterday early in the morning (this time listed as being in Sacramento), so maybe some of my local visits really are from her and I’m sensing her presence in my dreams or something.

“I don’t have to like anyone I don’t want to like. I don’t have to feel guilty for it either.”

Saw this on someone’s wall and totally agree. I used to feel a tinge of guilt and shame and tended to hide the fact that I’m not particularly fond of some individuals as well as some groups of people who, if you’re willing to open your eyes and your mind to the statistics, aren’t very helpful to society. But not anymore. Hey, as long as we’re not harming anyone, we all have a right to like and dislike whomever we please the same as we do with foods, music and color. No one likes everyone and no one is liked by everyone. Like it or not, that’s just a fact of life. Might as well deal with it.

Lost another pound, so now I’m down 9 pounds total with 36 more to go. Still doubt I’ll lose that much, but am glad to have stopped gaining. Had 1200 calories yesterday and might take it up to 1500 today. I’m hungry as hell. This is typical after hitting a new low. I dread entering the PMS zone when I tend to have days when nothing I eat fills me up. Did one of those 1000-calorie workouts yesterday and another one today that I haven’t done before. As usual, I fell short on some of the cardio training due to the extra weight (and maybe age?) but did better on the strength and core strengthening. Been pushing myself so hard that I may have to take a day off tomorrow or do a shorter video that’s about 20 minutes. Today I did an 84-minute one that was the longest 84 minutes of my life, LOL. Might as well have been 884 minutes. I’m totally burned out now and am glad I don’t have any cleaning or laundry to do today. I actually feel like I could take a nap. Just maybe I will. I’ll kick on the sound machine and just relax and drown out those damn landscaping sounds, which will probably start up in another half hour or so.

Later…

Wow. It’s just after 10am and still peaceful. No landscapers, no door slamming, no nothing yet. Part of that may be due to it being the coldest it’s been since moving in here. It’s even windy enough that I can hear my newest wind chime in front. It hangs just outside the window barely 5’ from where I sit.

Anyway, it got down to a frigid 67° inside the house, but the sun is now warming the place up nicely. It’s to be 76° today. The cold is better for sleeping and working out, though I do not like it much otherwise. I had to laugh, though, knowing we’d have the heat on for damn sure if we were still in that little old trailer. It would’ve been too warm not to go to bed with the window open and I’d wake up freezing and scramble to shut the window and get the heat going.

Bye, bye, Bob and Virginia. Yeah, they just left for vacation. Tom was on his way to pick up the mail yesterday when Virginia jumped out to meet him. She wanted to let us know that she and Bob are going on vacation for 3 weeks and that their son will be keeping an eye on the place, so we wouldn’t think anyone broke in. Since they don’t have a dog, why the close eye in a gated retirement community in a nice neighborhood? Maybe they have a cat or plants to water. Hopefully, the kid will park in front and go around to the front door instead of parking alongside us and going into the garage. If he does park by us, hopefully he comes and goes and quietly as his parents do. The light was on at 5am as usual this morning, so I saw from the kitchen window and knew they hadn’t left yesterday night.

She also said she’d have more tomatoes for us next year (I told Bob the previous morning when I had the front door open and saw him shut the back of his SUV how good they were).

I love our new home, park and neighborhood, but really get sick of the landscaping sounds, as I’ve said before. I heard what sounded like tree branches being thrown in a wood chipper in the common area yesterday and it was louder than what I usually hear. I guess that after the first rain, they are eager to prep for the winter rains, assuming we get that much. It’s almost impossible to do anything that requires a quiet background in the daytime, especially between 9am - 2pm. In some ways, I hear more here than at the Jes pest, though I’d still take the predictable sounds at predictable hours without the welfare bums mixed in. It’s still dead quiet most of the time, too. All I hear now are vehicles speeding down the freeway, a pleasant sound.

Andy suggested going to Macy’s and asking for makeup tips, but right now I’ve got more important things to focus on than trying to pretty up my face. For now, I’ll adopt the “don’t like it, don’t look” attitude. After I see how much more progress I can make from the neck down, then maybe I’ll consider the face.