Messes

Today started at 7am, I did 30mins WiiFit, and a basket full of ironing. After getting the scales working yesterday, I decided to make the eclairs I’ve been promising. 

Not unusually for me, this did not go without issues.  I made the choux pastry more easily than expected, where I usually them spoon the pastry out to make buns, this time I piped out eclairs. They cooked well, actually they cooked quicker than expected and came out darker than normal.

After they’d cool, I melted chocolate for the top in a glass banana-spilt bowl. I selected that as being best for dunking. I took the bowl out of the microwave, stirred the chocolate, it still had lumps, so I went to put the bowl back in the microwave – and dropped the whole lot on the floor!

Melted chocolate is not easy or fun to cleaned up. I was wearing my favourite comfortable Merrells, and they got covered.  Most came off, but the stains look really bad. So those shoes which I used to wear out often enough, have become for indoors only.

After that, I had to go for a walk, I needed more chocolate.  Hubby and I took our usual 3.5km route, popped into a local shop, and once home, I finished the eclairs. Woohoo! Okay, they don’t look good, but they taste fantastic.

On the walk though, something annoyed me that I’ve spotted before but not mentioned. There is an increasing amount of dog mess on the streets. It’s like (some) dog walkers have decided if there’s no one around to see they don’t clean up after their pouches, they don’t bother. It’s disgusting. If your dog made a mess, you clean it up, non-dog owners shouldn’t have to put up with that muck on the pavements.

Rant over.

Finishing

Today I have been mostly finishing stuff.

I finished the washing, and got it out on the line, were if mostly dried.  There were a few bits that needed 20 mins in the tumble drying, but air drying is my preference where possible.  Of course, now I have a pile of ironing that I haven’t even started. I finished typing up my notes for book 5.  I finished the edits on one of my Locked Books from the proof-reader.  All I have to do now is make it available – one of the more useful things about self publishing, it’s easy to change the text if necessary.

It was such a nice day that I got to spend a fair amount of time sitting in the garden. Which was really pleasant, except that the neighbours had their radio on too loud and their choice of radio station is certainly not mine. It annoyed me so much that I ended up coming in just to be aware from it.  Though in all honesty it was also starting to turn cold, so I wouldn’t have lingered much longer anyway.

In a complete change of direction, jeans are a difficult thing to find with a decent fit, but yesterday I took a chance on buying a new pair from Tesco.  Today I’ve worn them all day, and they are so comfortable.  It’s lovely to find a pair of jeans that fit properly and comfortably.  The fact that they didn’t cost a fortune is also a good thing.

Right well, up for a movie night now. Aliens.  Got my pop. Got my popcorn.  Got my feet up.  That’s all now.

Straightening out

Exercise is beneficial in treating depression, yet even knowing that, I’m struggling to encourage my fat backside off the couch. Not sure why, I enjoy exercise when I get to it, I just seem to have some invisible barrier between thinking about exercise and actually exercising.

The bigger problem than the width of my backside, is the state of my brain. The more I don’t exercise, the more my head tells me I’m lazy and worthless. It’s a downward spiral that feeds straight into the dragon of my depression.

Since I am trying to slay that dragon, I needed to get up today and do something. Exercise wasn’t happening so I needed something else.

Modern advise is that the average women needs 2,000 calories daily. Rubbish. Aside from anything else, there’s no such thing as the average woman. The thing is that figure was calculated many decades ago, back when there were a lot less time / energy saving devices. The ‘average’ woman had to work harder at the housework.

Back when we first got together, my husband and I couldn’t afford a new washing machine, so we got an old twin tub that would otherwise be scrapped.  It took hours and effort to wash clothes then.

My point is doing chores use energy. So instead of exercising, I dealt with the basket full of clothes that’s been nagging me to iron them for a fortnight.

The pictures 10 yrs old, but only one I could find of ironing.

After taking three hours to work to the bottom of the pile, my legs and back certainly feel like I did a workout. More importantly, it feels good to have achieved something, to have ticked something off the to do list.

This probably sounds like nothing to most, but when in a depressed state, it’s hard to do anything, so doing something is good.