Home » Posts tagged 'Good health'

Tag Archives: Good health

Stuff and Things and an Update

Posted on by | 191 Comments

It’s been three weeks since I last wrote a post.  Oh, there are quite a few drafts with great intentions and little else but other than that? Zip.  The first week, I was basically sans motivation, feeling some sort of ennui, no, not ennui, more of a malaise of sorts.  At the same time, I was actively looking for a job which I’m now thinking was causing more stress than I thought.

The result? My immune system must have been compromised and to celebrate the first day of spring, I got damn COVID. Thank you, son.  After being sick on arriving at work on Tuesday morning, March 15, Iain’s boss sent him home.  He slept all day and had a headache.  The next day, feeling fine, he went to get a test and sent me this picture with the text:

“noooooooooo”.

I respond with : “Fuuuuuuuuuuck”.

And he with:  “so weak. shameful performance” (must be said with Uncle Roger’s accent)

I showed the photo to my boss who said:  “Now you have to go home”.  I thought it was kind of ridiculous, being 4:00 p.m. with just one more hour to go.   Still. I packed my stuff and off home I went where I have been working since. Why, you ask? Technically I need quarantine for five days. Well, let me tell you why.  (Oh, and by the way, Iain took his required five days off and returned to work on Monday.)

Thursday and Friday, work from home.  I’m good with that, especially because I have two job interviews on Thursday afternoon and now I no longer need to find an excuse to leave the office for half an hour.

Friday, take a test – negative. So I am good to go for dinner at my buddy Linda’s for an overdue dinner and a chinwag. We are reasonable this time and I am home before midnight.

Saturday, go for a fantabulous 45-minute run/walk. I am feeling fantastic.

Sunday. Wake up sick.  Take a test:  negative.  Hmm.  Okay then, must be a head cold. Or a sinus thing because my head is ready to explode and my head is full of, well, let me leave that to your imagination.  I text my boss, apologizing for disturbing her on a Sunday evening and tell her that there is no way I can go in and that I am also taking a sick day.  I took three.

However, Monday, I was supposed to go for another interview – in-person, this time. I contact the placement agent and tell her no way can I go.  She asks me if I can do a Teams meet and I say, I think I can make it through one of those (rather sick but can manage to not cough or blow my nose for half an hour…)  I was supposed to, originally, go for a site visit with the people I interviewed with on Thursday but had to cancel that, obviously.

All is well. The Teams interview goes so well, they send me an offer!  Well, how do you like them apples?  Problem is, I cannot respond as the first one I had on Thursday really interests me and I cannot make a decision without going for the site visit. (Plus, I didn’t really want the one offered as it was, once again, a position obliging me to sit at the reception. Non merci.)

Random photo – Hanging with the cats

My agent asks me if I think I could go for a site visit on Wednesday morning.  I say yes (probably should not have but decisions need to be made!)  I make sure I touch no one and nothing and my mask remains in place.  They are just as welcoming as I felt during our original interview.  I thank them for the visit, ever anxious to get back home and into bed but wait!  I have yet another interview at noon!  Bloody hell.

The interview goes well but I have the feeling the potential boss is one of those hard-ass women who says (too often) how open her door is and how she arrives with a smile and leaves with one.  I have the distinct feeling of. Nope.  Which is fine and dandy because Clemex, the company I interviewed for on Thursday and visited that morning?  They make me an offer that surpasses the one I got on Monday. Woot!

I call my boss on Wednesday afternoon, after I got the offer and break the news to her.  She takes it well, is not surprised but is happy for me as she knows the company cannot really offer me anything challenging at the time.  I promise to her to try to update all the administrative documents so that the next person they hire has something to go on.

I work from home Thursday and Friday.  On Saturday, (it is now March 26), my sister invited me over to watch her daughter, my goddaughter, Ariane, play volleyball in the Canadian national championships.  However, she asks me to test myself again just in case.

I feel you, Omelette!

Dammit.  Positive.

So this past week I have been working from home, trying to train someone on some of my duties via Teams and wishing this persistent cough will just leave me the hell alone. As long as it’s present, I cannot go anywhere!

I now have my last three work days ahead of me, with a lunch planned for Wednesday and I don’t even know if I will be able to go in!  I have this frog in my throat with an occasional unproductive cough, still.

*** UPDATE ***

Had to go to the pharmacy to pick up dye for my daughter today and decided to get myself a cough suppressant and a COVID test.

Great news!  I am now officially negative.

One last thing. I participate in a Facebook Photo Group and last week the theme was reflections.  I discovered this one taken last year and Wow! How had I not noticed this when I took it?  It’s what actually inspired me to write this post.  Well, the original plan was to simply use it as inspiration for a poem.  It is, after all, NaPoWriMo month, so why not a little poetry to end things?

 

Fighting through congestion

One thought begets another

A sleepless night, once again

Path has since cleared

With gratitude

Looking upwards and outwards

Where new beginnings

And challenges await

 

Over-Indulgence Must Come To An End

Posted on by | 4 Comments

So it has come to my attention – like a sledge hammer to a walnut – that maybe, just maybe there is such a thing as too much.  The fact that a bunch of my clothes in my closet are mocking me and that muffin-top has become a resident are reasons enough to make changes.   Somehow the “treating myself” has become a not-to-desirable habit.  Over time, the start of the week-end went from Friday to Thursday to Wednesday to, let’s just call it like it is:  EVERY day had become the week-end!

Before kids I could eat whatever I wanted and never gain an ounce.  Of course I did lots of sports in high school and college. I didn’t know what the word diet was, except as something Mom would try (and there were quite a few)!  Then I had a sedentary boyfriend (read computer geek who was not athletic – yet who has become so!) After that relationship, I met my hubby and quickly had kids (3 in 4 years and yes, it is not an excuse) and even though you are running around with them, there are still lots of times where, well, you’re not.  Things happen in life and you I turn to food for comfort: when happy, when mad, when sad, not even realising that’s what I’m doing.  Or, absent-mindly eating the whole mega-sized bag of chips just because they are there – like an alcoholic must see the bottom of the bottle, I must see the bottom of the bag!

For a while, one can get away with it:  there are no obvious ill-effects of those extra glasses of wine (or beer, or margarita) and those bottomless bags of chips, and pasta – did I mention that I LOVE to cook? Yeah.  Mostly I make healthy stuff but sometimes it’s not necessarily low-fat and always in quantity to not lack.   Well, after a while, the next thing you know is, clothes are snug!!  So, when one sister joined Weight Watchers, the second and I followed her plan.  Excellent!  30 pounds lighter and life is good!  It was great as the three sisters were encouraging each other and counting points together and whatnot.  Till we didn’t.

You see, weight gain can be so insidious… And all that good behaviour slowly goes out the door if you don’t pay attention….  Next thing you know, I’m once again 20 pounds up.  So, when I turned 46, my gift from me to me with all my love was to sign up with WW and start Kyokushin karate (as my sons were already doing).  Yes, I did accumulate some very interesting bruising (it is a very tough version of karate!) but I also shed 20 pounds!  Woo hoo!

Joys of karate

Joys of karate

Well, dammit. I was planning on being “Fabulous at Fifty” and was working out, eating well, cutting back on the booze, but during a workout in January I hurt my foot and my shoulder was not getting any better.  No more karate or Befit for now.  Guess what?  Yeah, you guessed it. I’m back up where I swore I would never be again!!!   My only exercise is walking my dog for six to ten kilometres per most days.  This is definitely worth something but nothing to balance out the daily glass of wine or two and bowl of pasta and muffins and, and, and….

I DO NOT DESPAIR!

Just because I was not where I had hoped to be ON my birthday, doesn’t mean that during the year I can’t reach it, right?  So, along with my new Sunday Gratitude ritual, I also decided that my body is extremely important to me if I want it to run smoothly for the next fifty years so I had better give it more love.  No,NO, NOT more muffins and pasta and wine!  More proper nutrition and exercise !  (So I will stop putzing around and go and get new orthotics for my shoes as my feet can’t take it any more!)  Also, more soul-satisfying activities (meditation, tea time, reading for pleasure time, whatever else makes my soul feel good).

This is the type of meal I am now enjoying (OK, OK, I always enjoyed these types meals!) while keeping away from that nasty sugar that I’m addicted to!

Niçoise sans potatoes

Niçoise sans potatoes

I am on a mission to make the necessary changes to my lifestyle to be around for a long, healthy time!  And writing it down here for you all to see puts me in quite the pickle should I fall off the wagon!