I’ve been up for over 10 hours and I’m just now able to relax and enjoy some free time after a very busy but productive night. I worked out, took care of the animals, did some cleaning, and did various odds and ends around the house. Now it’s me-time.

Found that I was down half a pound even though I only ended up walking for about 45 minutes yesterday. I’m not really that surprised because even I can lose a few pounds when I either up my exercise or lower my calories.

I would love to be able to eat like I have been and still maintain my weight only somewhere between 110-120 pounds. But that’s not the way it works, of course. The less we weigh, the fewer calories it takes to maintain that weight. At least I shouldn’t be seeing the 160s anytime soon with all I’ve been doing. Besides, I’m in my comfort zone, what I’m used to, and where my body feels it needs to be.

I made myself a delicious home-cooked meal of a super lean beef patty, home fries, and broccoli with chopped green onions sprinkled on the meat and potatoes. It took about a half-hour to throw it all together, but it was relaxing, and the pigs loved having me hang out in the kitchen with them.

Got a pair of wrist weights that fit perfectly. Not too tight, not too loose. I hated the light blue stretchy ones I got from Denise Austin back in Arizona because they started off too tight and then became too loose. The weights are a pound each and are pink with black trim.

I didn’t do any walking on the treadmill today, but I did a 35-minute low-impact HIIT routine that left me surprisingly sweaty, out of breath and a little fatigued. The instructors kept saying that was normal and they were feeling it too, but it seemed that I shouldn’t be sweating in my bra and panties when the house was 71° and the fan was going. I’m starting to believe I’m never going to stop hot flashing. It’s still not as bad as last year but I’m getting them in bed and when I do physical activity. Unfortunately, I also felt a little anxious earlier tonight and last night, so it’s time to scale back the medication. I think I’m just going to skip altogether tomorrow and just drop back to 3 full doses a week instead of 4. Even though I’ve improved immensely, I’m beginning to think I’m going to experience intermittent anxiety all my life. Especially if I’m right about most of it being connected to this drug which I’m going to need forever.

HASfit has 33 low-impact video routines I’m subscribed to and I love how it keeps track of how many I’ve done. I’ve done the first two so far and it says 2/33.

Got the newest Alexa with the digital clock in it and I love how I never have to set it. If you like it as pitch black as I do when I sleep, it’s only slightly bright but not blinding like the other clock we put layers of cellophane over that I still had to block with a pillow or something. Obviously, when I’m sleeping in the daytime it won’t matter, but if it bugs me at night, all I have to do is rest a spare pillow against it.

I always have her play brown noise at volume 5. I usually have the stereo doing its white noise at 24 decibels in the daytime and 26 at night. I decided to take a chance and drop it to 26 and I slept fine. Not too thrilling in the way of dreams but I’ll get to that in a minute.

I also got the oolong tea I ordered and I’m glad I only got 20 bags because this particular brand tastes kind of weird. I still have some honey so even though that’s a bit fattening, I’ll add some to it.

My new nightgown comes today. It’s a pink floral fleece nightgown similar to the one I got at Goodwill.

When I sat and thought about it, I realized that Jessie is now my longest-running friend. Pretty sure we were both 10 when we met. We’re very different in many ways. She doesn’t agree with abortion. She’s much more mild-mannered and soft-spoken compare to me in some ways. She’s more likely to get scared in situations that would get me pissed off. But she’s never been the selfish judgmental person Andy was, and I do appreciate that much. The only thing I don’t like is the same thing I can complain about with most people I’ve dealt with, and that’s that it was me doing the reconnecting. It was me that looked her up when we lost touch with each other for about a decade or so.

Ah, but things are changing. I’m no longer forgiving compared to most people and I’m not, for example, ever going to contact Christiane again. I have nothing against her personally, but our friendship was just too one-sided. I would only hear from her if I messaged her first. Well, no more of that!

Anyway, Jessie thanked me for her friendship yesterday after I told her I was here for her if she ever needed to chat. She said she wasn’t really sure how she felt at the moment but was going to try to return to work. I guess she still works as an accountant. We don’t talk much given the distance, but Sarah was wrong when she said I no longer had any family. Family, to me, means much more than biology and I can assure you that she and Aly are a lot more like family than my sister and her fucked up brats will ever be.

I swapped emails with Dixie yesterday as well and she told me to recommend one of my books for her to buy. Knowing she’s a bit of a prude, I felt I should warn her that most of my books contain some degree of violence. I suspected that might bother her as well and when I asked her how she felt about it, she said she’s “sick” of violence. Therefore, I told her I didn’t think my books were for her. That’s okay, though, because no one can be everyone’s cup of tea, weird-tasting oolong or not. ;-)

The winds are southerly and again I’m getting a wonderful break from the commercial planes. They were pretty annoying the night before, and I even heard one for the first time just after 4 in the morning. As I may have mentioned before, they’re only a few thousand feet up. It’s sad that some people just don’t give a shit about others, but what can you do?

From the looks of it, I should be able to enjoy tonight and tomorrow morning as well. It’s after 8 now so I expect traffic and landscaping to start up any second.

The dream I had was basically about us going from one rental to another, each one getting noisier. Hopefully, nothing up there is trying to say, “You can move around all you want but you’ll never get any peace.”

I don’t know where we were, but the first place we rented was actually not that bad. It was just a very small, old house. We wanted more space and something newer. The second place was noisy and the third was like OMG! But it’s like it wasn’t even a house or an apartment. Instead, it was almost like we had a room or suite in a building, and we were even on a point system too, like Valleyhead.

I went to bed in the evening. but was woken up by someone blasting their stereo a few hours later. A road of all things ran through the place and one of the staff members told me that it would be repaved between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m., so I knew I wouldn’t be getting any real sleep that night.