Just Nicky

It’s a just step to the left… January 20, 2006

The way I’ve been feeling recently at work reminded me very much of the way I felt when I first returned from maternity leave. Extraneous. Confused. Alone. And I started to wonder if my mood was perhaps heading the way it was when I first went back to work. This was not a pleasant thought.

These sorts of thoughts were bothering me a bit last night (and probably accounted in part for my lack of sleep), so I just popped into the beyondblue website and ran through their checklists for depression. The consensus is that, yes I am suffering some distress, but not in a major way. That’s both comforting and worrying.

It’s comforting in that in matches a bit with how I think I’m feeling - unhappy, but not completely dropping my bundle - and suggests that things are not too bad. It’s worrying in that the advice still suggests seeing my doctor. I don’t want to see my doctor, unless I’m at death’s door. So I suppose my end result is to be alert, but not alarmed.

I’m in a situation I don’t like: Exiting, but not fast enough. Doing work I don’t enjoy. In somewhat of an administrative wilderness because I’m no longer part of the structure of the group I’m working in. And I don’t deal well with being in situations I don’t like and being unable to remove myself from them. I need to remember this when I get annoyed with myself for being unhappy. And I also need to remember that only I have about 4 more weeks of this to endure. Watch me forget in the next 10 hours…

Weighting… December 12, 2005

While Mark keeps dropping weight at a satisfactory rate. I seem to be unable to lose any.

I lost a couple of kilos in the first week or so, but that would have gone anyway. Since then I’ve been hovering around the same number going up by half a kilo, down by half a kilo, down again, then up again…

Of course, I haven’t been walking anything like as much as Mark has. By the time I get home at night Em’s already walked nearly 5km for the day, so she doesn’t really need another walk and I find it difficult to be motivated to walk without a purpose - like exercising my dog - to it.

I’m also rather prone to snackage while I’m at work. When one is bored ( and sleepy today), one’s thoughts turn to chocolate to break the day up, which is not conducive to weight loss.

This is not a great concern to me. I’d like to see a least a couple of kilos disappear so that I have a tangible result from the diet but even if I don’t lose anything, we’re eating a much more balance diet than before and that’s got to be worth the effort.

“Good Enough” is pretty good October 13, 2005

Girl Detective posted an entry on her blog a couple of days ago which really resonated with me. You can read it here.

One of the downsides of our individualist, consumerist society is that we’re encouraged to believe that we can and should be/have/want more and better all the time. It’s just crap and, if we think about it, we know that. But it’s crap that leaves us fundametally unsatisfied with our lives when there’s actually a lot to be happy about.

Early Bird October 12, 2005

Our dogs have recently taken to wanting to be let out at dawn. Which is to say 5am, every morning. Most days I stumble to the door, let them out (resisting the urge to kick them up the bum as they go past) and fall back into bed. Sometimes I go back to sleep until the alarm goes off. Sometimes I don’t. Either way I get very irritable and have a lot of trouble getting up when I’m supposed to and I end up running late for work.

This morning I got up when the dogs started to hassle, put on my trackies, runners, big fleecy top and beanie and took Emmylou for a half hour walk. Then I took Indiana for a 15 minute walk. It was quite pleasant. And I’ve managed to have breakfast and spend half an hour phaffing on the internet before quarter to 7.

If I don’t get sidetracked I might manage to get to work early, which will mean I can leave early with a clear conscience and come home and help Mark Foozle-wrangle. So it’s a pretty good start to the day. Let’s just see what the monolith has in store to stuff it up.

Pumping Iron September 16, 2005

I learned a valuable lesson last night: One should take an iron tablet completely seperately from food. I took my first iron tablet last night during dinner and felt absolutely awful afterwards. So now I will take my iron tablet just before I go to bed. I’ll take a vitamin C tablet with it to maximise the iron absorption - a tip I picked up while googling to check if queasiness is a side effect of iron tablets.

I’m becoming a big fan of using the internet to gather medical information. When my specialist rang to tell me about my acoustic neuroma I was typing the words into Google while he was still on the phone and the resources I found gave me a much better understanding of what I was in for than anything surgeon had to say. My GP didn’t mention any of the possible side effects of the iron tablets when I saw him yesterday. I found out everything I wanted to know this morning via Google (should have done it yesterday).

Search engines are your friend.

Doctor, Doctor… September 15, 2005

I didn’t feel up to fronting up for work again today, so I’ve toddled off back to the doctor and asked for some iron tablets. He tried to talk me into the tests, but I really don’t believe I’m bleeding internally, and I need to get a handle on this sooner, rather than later. So iron tablets I have.

While I can understand his need to cover the bases and so on, I think it’s a bit extreme to assume that a woman of child-bearing age who has low iron levels has an ulcer or a tumour or something else bleeding in her guts. Iron deficiency affects a huge number of people - women, men and, apparently, a lot of toddlers (because their needs are greater for growth) and it’s pretty much always related to diet. This means that if I’m iron deficient due to poor diet, there’s a reasonable chance that Mark & Finn are too, so we still have work to do.

I haven’t been back to the gym since last Tuesday. I’ve just been too tired and it’s felt like too much rushing about by the time I’ve got home from work, had dinner, spent time with the Foozle and see him off to bed to then turn around and dash off to the gym. They close at 8pm, so I need to get out of the house by about 7.15 to get there and do my circuit. Still, I will persevere. I figure I will give it until the start of Mark’s next teaching round (about 8 weeks) and, if I haven’t developed a habit of going regularly by then, I’ll cancel the membership.

Now I’m off to grab a cuppa and do some knitting.

Tired & Sweaty September 6, 2005

I finally went and did a full circuit at the gym tonight. I had my first appointment last Monday night, but didn’t get back later in the week for various reasons.

Tonight I took it reasonably easy. I’m very unfit and, being slightly anemic, I get tired & out of breath really easily and then lose my balance, so I didn’t want to risk damaging myself. I still managed to work up a bit of a sweat and I’m sure I’ll have some complaining muscles tomorrow.

I was trying to work out which nights I’ll go each week and couldn’t come up with a formula that sounded foolproof. Then I realised that I will definitely want to wash my hair the morning after a workout (I hate washing my hair at night) so, given that I wash my hair every second day and don’t want to do it every day, I decided that the days of each week when I DON’T wash my hair will be the days I go to the gym. That way my hair will be due for a wash the next morning anyway. I know that probably sounds really silly, but I need to rationalise all these things to get rid of the myriad of excuses I can give myself for not doing things.

I think I even kind of enjoyed it too. The good thing about having a recorded voice tell you when to move onto the next piece of equipment is that there’s one less thing to think about. You don’t need to count reps or time anything. Just do your thing until the voice says move. It makes it kind of meditative because I was able to clear my mind of everything other than what I was doing at that moment. Like walking meditation with weights.

sniffle August 26, 2005

Why is it that, just when I start making serious efforts to be healthy, the first thing that happens is that I get a cold? Is this some kind of rebellion the part of my body?

It’s just at the beginning so I’m zapping it with echinacea and keeping my fingers crossed.

Gym Junkie in the making August 25, 2005

I went and looked at the gym last night. It’s a pretty basic arrangement. Really just a circuit of equipment in a room. It’s only recently opened and everything, except the exercise equipment, has a kind of cardboardy, impermanent look about it.

The blonde with the drawn-on eyebrows (what makes anyone think that actually looks any good?) was a little over-eager, but I decided to sign up in spite of it.

The women working out all looked very normal and boring, like a group I would comfortably blend into. Everyone wore trackies and t-shirts and the body shapes and ages varied. The cost is not outrageous and I’m on a monthly deal so I can pack it at any time - with 30 days notice. It’s about 10 minutes down the road and I could (if I had my gear with me) go on the way home at night. All in all I figured it can’t hurt to give it a go.

At lunchtime it’s off to look at some shoes. The ones I have are old and, I think, a bit small these days. The potential cost is a bit frightening, but I’ll placate myself with the thought that, if I get good, well-fitted shoes, I’ll get more use from them and have them for years.

Naturopath - the verdict August 23, 2005

I saw, not one, but two student naturopaths at lunchtime - a young, nervous guy and a probably the same age, but seemed older and not nervous girl. They did pretty well. Didn’t give me a million pills and potions to take and didn’t charge me heaps for what they did give me. I’ll be going back.

Most of what they recommended revolved around improving my diet. More green vegies. More red meat and fish. Add some LSA (Linseed, Sunflower & Almond powder) to my breakfast. Drink some water. All quite reasonable and doable - I think.

As far as supplements are concerned, it’s just keeping on taking the multi-vitamin and B-complex I already take with the addition of some Ginkgo they gave me. Easy peasy. The Ginkgo might help my tinnitus which would also be very nice.

And, of course, get some exercise… That could be the difficult bit.