The beginning of the bathroom scale era.

This morning I weighed myself in my underwear like I always do and I weighed 96.8 kilos, that's 0.9 kilos less than yesterday. I am going to be a stickler about these numbers and bore you to death with them, but it's very important to me, so until I've lost all the weight, it will be the first announcement I make on every post. You can skip this part if you want to. I'm stubbornly going to keep starting off with it. Until I am as slender as a birch tree. That's the most slender tree I can think of.

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There was a very smooth talking young man at the door who offered me gas and electricity at a much lower rate and who could get me out of my three year contract with my present provider and pay the penalties for me, so I said yes, because right now I'm paying too much. My gut instinct told me to go for it. Usually I say no, but I wanted to get out of the more expensive contract anyway, which I signed up for and then found out that it raised my monthly payment by nine Euros. To me that's a lot of money. So, that was a nice interruption.

Anyway, I forgot to set the alarm clock last night, but I woke up right on time and took almost a whole hour to sit and have coffee and get my act together. I have much getting together to do in the morning. I have to see if all my parts are working and if they are in a good mood. Usually they are, but they are kind of slow starting and need some time to warm up.

Then, with a rush, I do everything I need to do in the shortest amount of time without forgetting anything and when I'm done, I look at the clock and very leisurely have another mug of coffee and a cigarette and cut it so close that I arrive at therapy with five minutes to spare, so that I can have an espresso out on the deck and ergo therapy always starts late anyway, because our ergo therapist knows that we all need to finish our cigarettes. She's sympathetic to our cause. Or should I say our need.

Ergo therapy went well. Nobody was in the mood to talk about the week before and we left it at that and made a new start, although in an oblique way we each did refer to our moods over the past week without directly linking it to the cause. Instead, we looked at ourselves personally and how we deal with adversity and how we had always done that in our lives, but there were no great revelations.

Some of us are doing well and some of us are not and together we muddle along and help each other out the best way we know how. Some of us are harder to help than others.

For the second half we had to make an individual collage of things that appealed to us and things that did not appeal to us. We had stacks of magazines and scissors and went to work. After we had put it together, we had to pin it to the wall and present it with an explanation.

The things I liked were very rugged looking men, self assured women, and handsome furniture. The things I didn't like were Britney Spears, glamor magazines and many samples of very expensive mascaras, which don't work any better than the cheap ones you can buy at the drugstore. I had more things that I liked and didn't like, but I can't remember them now. My mind's gone blank, but I remember the rugged looking men the best. Two of them had blond tousled hair, very attractive.

In the afternoon I had dance therapy, but the therapist had to go to a meeting so we only had a forty minute class, which was fine with me, because my limbs and my hips were not co-operating and I only finished two thirds of the exercises. I stood there like a fool trying to move my hips becomingly and could not do it, neither could I move my arms and hands in an alluring fashion, let alone do any of these thing while dancing around the room to the music. I think the more I dance, the worse I get. I love the music and I know I have rhythm, but I can't seem to make those movements. I'm not the least bit sexy or sensual when I do. I swear there is no hope for me, but I'll just keep plugging away.

Anyway. it did mean that I was home at 2:30 and the dog was not expecting me and I took him completely by surprise. I think he had a stunned look on his face and took him a moment to get into his greeting stance. After a nice glass of cold juice, I walked him and then made a grocery list and bicycled to the store, where it was not busy for a change. I bought my usual groceries, plus some healthy breakfast bars and some mackerel. I am trying to eat a little bit varied. The next time I'll look for something else that is interesting and that I can eat. I'll just go exploring in the store and try different things.

I needed an overseas stamp and you can't just buy one stamp anymore, You have to buy five at the time, whether you need them or not. Buying one stamp is impossible. If you want to buy a stamp for inside the country, you have to buy ten of them. Now it is handy to have ten stamps laying around, you always need those. But five overseas ones? I'll have to increase my correspondence. This was at the little post office inside the supermarket. It's very handy that it's there, but they keep odd hours, so I never know when to go. The middle of the morning and the afternoon seem to be good times.

Finally the animals had food they liked again! They ate with great appetite as if I had starved them. I bought different cat food, to see if they would like it better, because they didn't seem enthused about the old stuff anymore. I think they like this one, but it is hard to tell. Who knows with cats? They probably want my mackerel.

I get to sleep in tomorrow morning and I don't have to set the alarm clock. I am expecting someone from domestic help at 1 pm, so I'll have some time to tidy up around here. She'll notice the distinct lack of a bucket and I don't know how I've done with out one all this time. I've made do a lot.

Well, that's it for me for today. I'm tired now and need to eat. Some nutrition is called for.

Have yourself a good evening. It was supposed to be a cooler day here today, but it never happened. Maybe tomorrow.

Ciao...