Spring arrived officially today at 5:01am! The robins showed up today as if on cue - I saw several rooting around in the brown grass outside the treadmill window. The geese have been arriving for several days, as have the odd red-wing blackbird. The birdsong has several new voices creating a cacophony of discordant music. But oh what a sound! It's gotta be on my top 20 favorites 😉
I've been fully on a half dose of tamoxifen for over a week now and as I expected, I had a few rough days of insane fatigue and nausea when I increased from ¼ to ½. But the last few days have been a bit better so hopefully the trend will continue - it's been 3 days now that I've started back into my workout routine but gosh, I’m having to push myself through the fatigue... In the meantime, my temperature regulator has been going haywire - I'm grateful for any break from dripping with sweat or being chilled to the bone - I will never take having a ‘normal’ temperature for granted again!
The temps have been unseasonably warm so yesterday Carm and I ventured out for a long walk along the quiet part of our country road. It was spectacular! We are debating on whether to bring the dogs next time… we don't ever walk them off the property as I figure it's less likely that they will take themselves out for a solo walk, but maybe I'm being over cautious. They would certainly enjoy the outing 😀
This morning I ventured into town with Carm on his trip to Costco and had him drop me off to see Mom & Dad. It had been ages so it was nice to spend some time with them. It's been a long winter for all of us I think!
Zumba has been cancelled two weeks in a row but should resume again next Monday - we'll see if the break made me more agile on my feet - I highly doubt it! In the evenings I distract myself with FB reels - sometimes the algorithm brings me lots of exercise videos which are very motivating. I've saved dozens of dance/zumba reels but never seem to remember to try practicing with one or two of them. I feel that if I were to practice moving my feet more, I might improve… ha ha ha. Sometimes I think it's a miracle that I can even walk without tripping!
I've droned on and on this last year about diet and exercise - it's almost an obsession… but anyway, I log my food into an app that calculates not only calories and macros, but also micros (vitamins and minerals). It's a challenge to meet everything in the calorie deficit that I've been keeping and no matter what I did, I could not lose weight but was gaining, even on 1200 calories a day. That sucked! And I was hungry all the time… So I delved deeper into the internet to get some ideas on what I was doing wrong.
It seems that I was not eating enough calories and that they were the wrong kind. I rarely hit my protein goal, well actually, I didn't pay much attention to it. So after reading a ton of stuff, I started adding my exercise to the app and ADDING the extra calories I burned in the form of protein and wouldn't you know! My weight has been stable for a few weeks (I actually lost 5 pounds when I started) even though I'm eating a ton more calories. I'm HOPING that I've been gaining muscle, but my fancy scale doesn't seem to think I have. I'm not worrying about it at the moment, especially since I started back on the tamoxifen which does cause weight gain… I know I seem hung up on the numbers on the scale, but it's the easiest metric to gauge my progress.
AND GOSH DARN IT - I've worked so hard to get to this point I don't want to backslide! I like the way I look in the mirror 😉 It thrills me to see a new muscle pop out! 💪
We had a little earthquake here yesterday! It sounded and felt like a giant truck driving by but it went on and on and rattled things that wouldn't be rattled by a truck. I found a website that showed a chart of tremors and sure enough, it wasn't our imagination.
I think the restart of the tamoxifen played havoc with my mood and anxiety as I was on the verge of a full blown panic attack 80% of the time, on top of everything else… that has calmed down somewhat the last few days. Plus I've been better at staying off of social media which is a cesspool of anxiety causing conversations. I keep up to date by reading a few daily emails from trusted sources and mostly stay away from everything else. I'm not perfect though and sometimes end up down a rabbit hole into a quagmire of manure.
An old song came on my playlist this afternoon which seemed apropos given the current state of global affairs... 'Eve of Destruction' by Barry Maguire is an oldy from the sixties when fears of nuclear war was in the backs of everyone's mind...
Don't you understand what I'm trying to say
Can't you feel the fears I'm feeling today?
If the button is pushed, there's no runnin' away
There'll be no one to save with the world in a grave
Take a look around you boy, it's bound to scare you, boy
And you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
How you don't believe
We're on the eve of destruction
Yeah, my blood's so mad, feels like coagulatin'
I'm sittin' here just contemplatin'
I can't twist the truth, it knows no regulation
Handful of senators don't pass legislation
And marches alone can't bring integration
When human respect is disintegratin'
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin'
And you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
How you don't believe
We're on the eve of destruction
I'm writing this in 'Blogger' as my old method no longer works but unfortunately the numbers and extra characters don't work... very frustrating and annoying. Not even an exclamation mark... and there's no formatting like indent. Boo hiss.
Awesome!
“first long walk of the year”
“robins! red-winged blackbirds! geese!”
“tofu crumbles”
“snow melting”
