Thanks for visiting and your comments about poor hubby having to defend his territory. I somehow think that he is fairly confident about his place in my affections.
I did my long walk extra early today - getting back home by 10.15am. That was because I had to go to the hospital for the ultrasound test on my abdomen. Hubby is so sweet and took a couple of hours off to keep me company. We are supposed to wait ages and get the result of the test from our GP. I however got talking to the senior sonographer who did the test. She was a really helpful larger lady who could identify with me and gave me the lowdown. There are no tumours and no nasty implications. Also no problems with the aorta because anneurisms can sometimes cause such a bulge too. All the nasty possibilities got ruled out which was certainly a relief.
She did notice gallstones which explains those pains that I was getting last summer that were never properly explained and were put down to possible constipation because they eased if I had raisins or a laxative. It is nice to have a proper explanation. She told me that the best thing that you can do if you have gallstones is follow a low-fat diet - and she is convinced that I basically have had so little bother with them because I am eating so healthily that I am doing that already.
My bowel is in the wrong place and it is in this bulge - and you can normally see a hernia but you couldnt see it. She thinks that there is a hernia that has caused the bowel to shift - but more tests are needed to confirm that this is the case. She told me that there are other tests that are much better for checking up on the bowel.
She basically told me everything that I now have to wait for my doctor to tell me. Then I will have the joy of waiting for loads more tests! Still - it is nice to know that there is nothing serious going on there. She agreed when I said that the bowel has probably been like that for years.
Rae
Those old clothes kind of got kept by accident. I must admit I am a bit of a hoarder - and clothes do not go to the charity shop as quickly for me as for many people. Having said that - pretty much all my clothes less than a UK size 20 went to the charity shop when we did two house moves earlier this century. Lots of really great outfits that I hadnt worn since the mid 1980s - but if you havent worn something in 14 or more years and you are a vastly bigger size (I had stabalised between UK size 30 and 32 for many years) - it kind of seems reasonable that you will never get below size 20 (and you feel a bit of an extreme hoarder keeping much of what you do keep!)
Anyway - my parents have a big house which is far too big for them. There were six of us in the house when I was growing up (my parents, me, my auntie and my two cousins). This means that now that my parents live there by themselves there is an awful lot of space. It transpired that when I left home my mother had decided to use my wardrobes / drawers for her own clothes that she wasnt keeping in her bedroom and she packed away some of my old clothes that I hadnt taken with me in case I asked for them (she also sent some stuff to charity shop - I have no idea how she decided what to keep and what to get rid of). Well I was saying that I have shrank out of almost all my clothes and she suddenly said - "you have some old clothes here that might fit sometime soon". Naturally - the last couple of times that I was up there - I checked out these boxes and found some interesting stuff. I am not saying that they are great clothes for wearing for day to day life. Most 48 year olds do not look ideal in clothes designed for and only ever marketed towards younger folk. What I am saying is that they are great fun for playing at dressing up in (rather like a child may dress up in her mother's old clothes). I actually managed to get a couple of things on (too tight a fit to wear properly) and had such a laugh. If ever I wore those things in public it would be the wierdest form of mutton dressed as lamb ever.
Four skirts however were really nice and if I could wear them they would be (although probably unfashionable) perfectly nice for a woman my age to wear.
It would be nice to acquire the figure to be able to wear those clothes well though. The fit of them will be a very good indicator as to whether my figure has become the figure that I aspire towards.
Kimberly
So you have noticed that calorie counting challenges and I do not exactly go together well!!! If it had said one week of calorie counting from the start or had been running a while before introducing calorie counting - I might have given it a go - but talk of 7 weeks of calorie counting with strict target adherence before teams were chosen had me resigning as quick as a flash. Even though they softened the impact - I really couldnt bring myself to start counting calories today and adhering strictly so I stayed out. They have even numbered teams so I feel no guilt.
Walking in the snow was much nicer than doing an impression of a drowned rat. It was really quite pretty out. The only thing left to remind us that it snowed yesterday are two melting snowmen in the next street. I expect that they will disappear before the end of today.
Thanks for your congratulations on the new low weights. My weight is up slightly today at 10st9.2 which is 149.2 pounds. We definitely want a big party when I get to 147.
Claudia
It may interest you to know that Henry VIII lived at Hampton Court Palace which is less than 5 miles from where I live. England certainly did have a bloody history. Looking back at page 71 of my diary - you might be interested to see what my own family got up to going back a while - they lived in the border area between England and Scotland and were basically a law unto themselves - they didnt seem to care whether they were attacking English or Scottish (basically any other family was fair game). It certainly makes you proud!:
Just think - my ancestors were probably happily attacking your Scottish ancestors a few centuries ago. I would have to try very hard to get my ancestors to turn over in their graves in shock - they were a pretty lawless lot until about 400 years ago.
If you see the surnames - 3 of my grandparent surnames made the list - Little, Irving, Forster. I am also decended from Bell, Carruthers, Scott, Tait, Graham.
The verbal history passed down the generations has it that our Littles were decended from when a Little kidnapped a McPherson and took her as wife. Such "marriages" didnt seem to be very well documented in the normal sense. Such things certainly make you proud. It kind of makes you think that the courting rituals of the late 1970s and early 1980s (i.e. when I was young) were rather romantic and a bit twee!
Take care
Love
Margaret
I used to not care about that part, and that's where I had to readjust my attitude.
