It’s been amazingly quiet since I got up at around 10am, but the day is still young and I’m sure I’ll hear some sawing and buzzing at some point. Maybe even lose the water for a while. Yeah, they decided to turn it off for a while yesterday. We’re both disappointed in this park in some ways. He doesn’t care about the noise because he’s out a lot more than I am and isn’t as easily distracted by it as I am, but he’s disappointed in the water outages, even if it’s been a while since the last one. 

As for me, I think the park is very pleasing to the eye, and I love knowing I can run without dogs chasing me or anything like that, but it’s not nearly as quiet as I would have thought it would be for an adult community. Haven’t heard that dog since its last 3-hour barking spree, but I don’t think it’s because someone said something to them. I’m now thinking they were doing something inside the home that required getting the dog out of the way. I would’ve heard it a long time ago if that wasn’t the case, cuz no one wants to bring their dogs indoors here if given a choice. 

It’s around 70° now which is a bit warm for running in the direct sunlight, especially if you don’t want to burn. I’m going to wait until the last of the direct sunlight fades before I go out on my run. 

Down 4.5 pounds since my last period, but I’m not stupid. I know my body. Another week it will go into defensive mode, fight to hang onto its weight, and refuse to give up another pound. Then the intense PMS hunger will kick in and I’ll eat on half of what I lost since the other half will be water, but you know what? I’m ok with that cuz I definitely don’t have to worry about gaining indefinitely on what I’m doing. I’m eating a low-cal, high-protein diet with a half-hour of running and walking each day. If the best I can do is bounce up and down within the same 5-pound range having hypothyroidism, that’s better than hopelessly gaining a pound a day for life. 

What I don’t get is why some obese people say they’re proud to be that way. I’m not obese myself, but 20-30 extra pounds really show at my height. To me, though, obesity is not an accomplishment to be proud of. It’s unsightly and it’s unhealthy. So while I can certainly see some people being ok with it, which is perfectly fine, how can you be “proud” of it??? Obesity is caused by either overeating and lack of exercise or a serious medical condition. What’s to be proud of in that case even if you don’t mind being big? 

Tammy's looking forward to heading down to Florida at the end of next month. In response to my complaining about how my sunburn is making my scars more evident and I might as well wear a neon sign saying I WAS SUICIDAL, she reminded me how many scars she’s got from her numerous surgeries. The poor girl is like a human cutting board! 

I have more to write about, but will do it in another entry. 

Later… 

Tom’s working late and I’m doing laundry while impatiently waiting for the sun to start setting so I can go out running. 

I spoke to Andy last night who told me about his nightmare. Had to laugh when he said it’d take him two days to type it up, too. Anyway, in real life, his doctor, who was also his mother’s doctor, is moving out of state. He’s waiting for his new doctor. Meanwhile, he had a dream that his old doctor told him, with his mother in the room, that he would die of a cancerous tumor found near his shoulder blade. This, in combination with the dream I had of him calling to tell me he had cancer, scared the shit out of him. It would scare me too, if we both had a knack for life imitating some of our worst dreams. 

But as I reminded him, not all my bad dreams come true. Yes, too many of them for comfort have a way of coming to life, but not ALL. A violent or deadly dream of someone usually means that the person I dreamed about is in for a rough spell and not necessarily the end. 

His worst fears have always been burning alive in a fire or not being able to breathe, and he seriously worries he’ll one day not be able to breathe, just like I worry about Tom and I growing old and unable to fend for ourselves. 

The only dreams I remember last night was painting part of our place, which didn’t look like our place, as usual. Only I was painting a low or the lower part of a wall. I decided to paint it lavender and then paint the “ends” pale pink on one end and light blue on the other. 

Then I was with these two other women. Don’t know if I lived with them or was just staying someplace with them or what. One was white and poor, the other rich and black. The black one’s daughter was murdered and I apparently wrote a book about it to help bring awareness to the case or something like that. When I held the book up to her from behind a wall with a window in it, her smile fell and she stormed off, clearly upset. After briefly considering taking off in case she turned violent on me, I decided I wasn’t going to run scared and would fight back if she attacked me, even if I was risking her crying racism, hate crime or whatever. 

Later… 

Went on my 2-mile run and I’m not even tired anymore afterward. Sweaty but not tired. Went out once the direct sunlight disappeared and loved all the cooking and flower smells. I love all the decorative mailboxes some people have, too. Worked my arms and abs before it was time to go out, and now I’m going to relax the rest of my day away. 

Yesterday we got our decorative drapes but we can’t transfer them to the drawstring track. They look ridiculous. So we ordered a rod with pink translucent balls on the ends. In the end, we’re going to do away with all the old curtains and liners and put up mini blinds in all the living and dining room windows. We can still put the decorative drapes over the side windows as planned. 

I also threw in a giraffe for my growing zoo, which will be Animal Figure #18. 

My figure skater trio came today. They’re made of very sturdy metal, but there was no wall mount or hooks or any way to hang them, so I placed two in the laundry room window and they look really cool there cuz you can see them from both inside and outside. The other one will be placed above that window once that room is painted. 

The tentative floor and wall plans are to return to the original idea of re-carpeting everything that’s carpeted right now. Crème colored carpet will probably be what will replace this old ugly dark brown carpet. I’ll probably leave the master bath’s floor alone since it’s in good condition. I will probably pick some light-colored linoleum tiling for the other bath, laundry room and kitchen. 

I’m not sure what all the wall colors will be, but one idea is this: The second bedroom is lavender. The master bedroom will be minty green. The kitchen will be a deep turquoise or sunny yellow. The laundry room will be powder blue. The living, dining and hallway will be pale pink. 

I want to eventually get my bride doll, plus the one I recently got, sturdy cases to display them in to protect the whites of their gowns. It’s just that decent display cases are expensive! $50 - $100 just for a lousy case. Well worth it, though. 

Tom was given two nice computers from work. I’m not at liberty to discuss how and why he got them. There’s a lot of security and confidentially where he works and with his job. They're actually a bit nicer and faster than our Macs and will make great backups if our Macs go out since they're getting pretty old. 

I briefly considered taking one and returning to Windows, but I don’t like their square-ish aspect ratio and while Windows may be safer and less crash-happy than it used to be, I haven’t had a single virus since I went Mac many years ago and have only crashed 2 or 3 times. So why change what works even if Mac is a little trickier to navigate and I miss a couple of my old Windows programs?