windtear

I haven't posted in a while, so, yeah. Hello. I'm not dead yet.

Work continues. It's very stressful and so I have discovered the joys of monthly massages. It helps, but I'm still chewing my fingernails down to the quick.

Something about this job that I didn't realise when I applied was that RSL Care have really high standards in our field, and as a consequence, I'm finding that I'm paying Granny Weatherwax's Price (if you are the best, then you have to be the best, with all the extra work that that requires). But what nobody mentions when they talk about the Price is what you get at the end, when you look at what you've done and it's up to spec. It hurts to pay the Price but once paid the feeling of satisfaction is blissful.

I am not sure if I have mentioned here that I have been on a diet since the beginning of last December. Well, if not, you know now. It's a Lite'N'Easy type of diet, in that I get delivered all my meals, and I'm supposed to stick to eating what's on today's menu. It's an up and down thing; I still want things (like yesterday afternoon, I would have killed for a sausage roll) but with three full meals (and we're talking real food here, not any meal-replacement drinks or reconstituted cardboard fakes) and a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack, it's really hard to justify breaking it to myself (plus it helps that there are no fast food shops around my workplace). And in three months I have lost twenty-five kilos. My goal is to weigh 70 kilos so I've got twenty to go, and I'm sticking with this diet, because it's working.

Life with contact lenses is interesting. It turns out that for the past few years, my optometrists have been giving me glasses that are slightly stronger than what I need, so I've been functioning with the practical equivalent of 22/22 vision rather than 20/20. My contact lenses, however, are the correct strength. So it's a trade-off; I can put in my contact and get peripheral vision and the ability to wear mascara without painting black lines on my vision (I have long eyelashes) but I get dropped down to 'normal' vision (which feels like it's not quite good enough, thanks to the years of 22/22), or I can wear my glasses, forgo eye makeup and the edges of the world, but be able to clearly see to a greater range.

The current thing I'm looking forward to is The Hunger Games movie. I didn't think my mother would read these books. I read them, I loved them, I talked them up, and I tried to lend them to her but she was resistant and wouldn't touch them. Then, four weeks ago, I got a phonecall. She'd picked up The Hunger Games from her library, tore through it, raced back and picked up Catching Fire, tore through that, and then went back for Mockingjay... only to find all copies checked out. Was my offer of a loan still good? Of course I lent it to her, and showed her the trailer for the movie, and now she and my sister and I are planning to go opening weekend. It'll be good. (But I still want the books back.)

I've got a cold.

Of course, I know why; at work I sit directly under the air-conditioning vent, and because it's set for 24 degrees it comes out at about 18 and then when I go outside again the outside temp is between 28 and 32 degrees. A cold or the flu was probably inevitable. But it's still really irritating. I'm pretty sure I'm getting better - the sore throat is gone, my ears are unclogged and I'm sneezing and coughing much less than yesterday - but still. I really don't like being sick.

Life is quiet at the moment - I'm pretty much broke until payday, which has led to an interesting situation - I'm going to have to go a week without my proper Diet Factory (think Lite 'N' Easy, only local and a little bit cheaper) meals. I've already planned out most of my options and I think it'll be fine, but still. This will be interesting, to see how I go when I'm the one doing my calorie planning. (At this point, my opinion is: it's much cheaper when I do it but the food is much more varied and interesting when they are. I'll keep you posted.)