Tinges of sadness

I've had a tiny little scare but nicely resolved, after finding a little lump on my gum above the area where my original cancer was. This only came to be noticed after I had a tooth, or rather a nasty old root stump from a long dead/failed crown removed when my trainee royal torturer, or as she prefers, oral hygenist, felt that the exposed root was just a playground for infections.

The removal was simple but immediatly I noticed I could get my tongue up inside the cheek now and, on the gum was a bump.... This of course could be 100% due to the extraction so we waited a few weeks for it to heal up... which it did, and the lump didn't go away.

ok, so as a cancer "survivor" (I hate that term) I am acutely aware of the importance of checking all lumps, bumps and odd shaped moles etc as soon as possible, and arranged a trip to see my old oncologist/oral surgeon, Dr Jan, to check it out.

And... its nothing... indeed some tiny bone fragment from the extraction getting lodged in the gum.. it will settle..its not a problem.

But I updated my cancer blog, as I do whenever there's any concern...and was a little sad when I remembered that it was there, mainly to keep mum informed of my health during the cancer times.. Her little messages of support and concern are still there, and took me back a bit to happier times when she was still with us.

I doubt anyone reads that blog, but whenever I have a cancer related health scare I'll post something, and spend a few minutes looking back on mums replies. I miss her.

Ahthankyew

It's oh so quiet....

I had children in the house for just over a week... Danni and the Grandkids came to stay with us, and we spent a lot of time keeping them entertained and amused.

It was fun, though Efteling almost killed me, too much standing around..

But now they've gone...the quiet is....quiet.

oh well.. back to de-cluttering. The attic is looking nice now though as I got most of the decotrating done before my grandson came to sleep there..10yo's need a bit of space :D

Ahthankyew

De-clutter continues and weight drops

With the loss of my beloved guitars, there's no need now for a big old guitar vault in the attic, so I've dismantled it over the course of a day or 2, and its all in a neat pile waiting for a collegue from work who wants to take it and reassemble it at home... that will be an interesting jigsaw puzzle :D

I'm also midway through decorating the attic, putting wallpaper up at last to cover the plasterboard walls that were installed 14/15 years ago... I know, long time but I never minded the plasterboard walls... Different if its a useful room though. 

All part of the tidy and declutter process that is happening this summer, to make the house more attractive to family buyers. Our estage agent would rather target developers/project minded couples but I also think that its wise to make sure all the minor decorating/cleaning/updating jobs that need doing get done so that  we can target small families in no rush to change the functioning if dated kitchen and bathroom we have now.

This has a bonus on the diet though, since I am very active up and down stair and steps and getting paint/wallpaper sorted, I am losing chunks of weight each day with the 800kcal or so wrap diet.

from the start of 108kg I'm down now to 101.8, touching distance of under 100 which I should hit by the end of the week.

But the attic is a key sales point of these houses, that 3rd floor bedroom/studio/store whatever, needs to wow the viewers, so the tidy up is priority, not least because we've got family coming to  visit next week and there will be at least one of the grandkids sleeping there for a week, so clean, tidy and decorated is urgent.

Next up is the back yard, the decking has to go as its long past its useful days and its now rotting and unsafe... going to rip that all up for the skip and lay down some nice simple grass with border flowers...

Appearences, valid or not.....sell houses, once the tidy up is done I'll get my estate agent to  come back for another valuation. His current one is in my mind about 25K too low, I will try to convince him 15K more is possible. Then... we put the house on the market....scary.

Ahthankyew

An Awesome start

Though its not exactly unexpected, when you go on strict intake diets, your body needs a few days to get ride of the crap you'be been eating for 6 months. But I am actually working quite hard, up and down stairs, doing a lot of moving stuff around and by default something I believe is called excercise?

But I've been dropping nearly 1kg a day for 4 or 5 days, for sure most of that is down the toilet, but some of it is indeed sweat and work.  I've gone from a rough 108kg with  clothes and a bit bunged up due to loperomide, to an encouraging 104.1kg

So nearly 4kg in 4/5 days, a good start, but it is just a cleansing period.

I'm doing the wrap diet, 1 simple taco wrap, with a protein of some kind, often fish, or 1 sausage, and lettuce/cabbage/onion/carrot/bit of sauce.  Trying to eat it as close to my 8pm deadline as I can so I don't get too hungry before bed.
Its what I did before, and lost over 18kg so I know this works, the only issue I had was the lack of focus and distraction due to hunger during the day, even though I got used it it over time it wasn't easy so this time I am adding,  a small fruit and musili breakfast to keep me going through the day... no booze.. no snacks, nothing after 8

I'll drop or at least reduce the portion of brekkie in a few weeks once I'm on the burning fat path, not the cleansing and getting used to being hungry path.

It worked last time, quite well and should work quite well this time too. 

Of course once my body has cleared itself out and it balances the intake vs the output, I don't expect such massive drops each day, but I'll be happy with 2 or 300 grams a day.

The 80 day challenge is off and running.

Ahthankyew

It just won't stay off

The weight of course, its becoming a recurring topic and probably pretty boring.. But yeah.. its back and brought some friends...

Its been a stressful few months, though not in a chasing my own tail kinda way, just lots of things to do/get done and thats resulted in lots and lots of comfort eating... not helped by my lovely wife who hates to see me hungry... its an asian thing I think.. no matter how much I tell her I need to eat less, she insists on cooking a meal for 2 just for me....

Well we retire in 153 days now, so I've given myself 153 day challenge... it won't happen, but at least if I type it here I can look back at it in 6 months and be a bit annoyed with myself.

I am 108kg... back over the 100 and then some.. I need to be 70 by the time I get there... or Im going to be suffering from chaffing in parts that shouldn't be chaffing when we get over there...hot weather and pasty fat scotsman do not mix well.

38Kg in just under 22weeks... lets see.... No fancy diets, just starvation and more movement...the wrap diet worked really well last year, so 1 wrap for a main meal and no eating after 8.... lets see how it goes..

Just need to work out how to keep Jirawan from making any more crispy pork.

Ahthankyew

tickets ok but...

We have new tickets for Jirawan they have a different refernce number which was confusing, and we can't check in via the eDreams website, but we can check in via SIA... so...flight wise we're finally sorted.

Hotel wise, I'm a little less sure, on eDreams site our booking is showing as pending cancellation, which I am am hoping does not include the hotel....but thats not showing as cancelled, only booked as the day of our departure rather than the day of our arrival. But... meh... that should be fixable

We fnally have a result though... what a palava

Ahthankyew

No more Credit Card

Almost 2 years ago, my credit card company took the decision to cancel my spread payment facility, in other words the ability to use my credit card as a credit card... Buy big items and pay them off....

It wasn't just me, it was everyone, there was a government policy to reduce credit and the banks were instructed to remove spread payments. For me this was a problem as it had come at a point where I had just hit the card very heavily with payments for trips to Thailand and hotels and the balance was pretty high, close to the 10K limit I had;. a limit I had as a result of being an excellent customer always paying off even high balances as quickly as possible.

But cancel it they did, my limit went from 10K to 500 no K , overnight and they kindly requested payment by the end of the month!!! They later reduced it further to 200, useless.

I was, needess to say, very upset by this and wrote, emailed, phoned them in the nicest diplomatic language, what the fuck did they think they were doing?

Anyway I made it clear there was no way I was going to manage to pay it in a month, or even 3 months as they suggested so I made a couple of big payments and simply told them I'd pay it off monthly but I'd never ever use their service agan.

And that's what I've been doing, sticking in some bonus money when it came, and paying extra each month.

But now, I have been selling a lot of stuff so there's a bit of spare cash to clear it off, I made the last 702.95 payment today.. The credit card is gone.

And I will NEVER use their services again.. not least becuase I am leaving NL but also it was a shocking betrayal of customer/provider trust.. They made the point several times that I was a very good reliable customer, always clearing the card despite yearly bumps... but sorry give us the money now...

Thats just not good business...I appreciate it was a government mandate, but a gradual reduction over a few years, would have been just as effective and less painful to my budget.. 

anyway, done... bye ICS, never again

Ahthankyew