A kick up my (fat) arse!

 Had my annual diabetes tests first thing this morning - bloods, BP, weighed, wee checked, feet checked.  Bloods and wee will be sent off, I'll get the results in a couple of days.  My feet are fine.  My blood pressure, generally a bit high, is absolutely fine - I put that down to the caravan effect!  My weight has gone up a bit.....2.5 kg to be exact.  Oh dear.  I'm not surprised, I know why it is - not cooking many healthy meals lately but relying on takeaways and even *shock, horror* quite a few bought ready meals.  Oh, and a few bags of crisps and the odd chocolate biscuit might have jumped into my mouth too.  

Well, it's the kick up the backside I needed - and now we're not so frenetically busy with the caravan renovations, I have the time to get back to cooking proper, healthy meals that aren't carb laden.  Went shopping afterwards and have stocked up on loads of veg and fruit, cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, lean bacon medallions, low fat minced pork.  We already have loads of chicken and fish in the freezer.  So no excuses!

We'll have a chicken and Mediterranean veg tray bake tonight.  I'll also make a minced chicken cottage pie with a topping of low fat cauliflower cheese for tomorrow.....soft food as it's the dreaded dentist day tomorrow and I won't be able to chew anything for 2 or 3 days.

Some of you have mentioned how upbeat I am lately - thank you.  It's true, I am, I feel like a different woman.  The caravan has rejuvenated me and given me a purpose, I can't begin to tell you how happy I am to have found it.  The van is just lovely, I'm so pleased with the way it's turned out.  The garden will be lovely too - it's a blank canvas at the moment, and I have a good idea of what we're going to do with it.  The park and all (well, nearly all!) the residents are wonderful, we feel so much at home there already, we've been made very welcome.  It will be so nice to start exploring the local area, in a couple of weeks when we have more time, having completed most of the work.  We do have some knowledge of the nearby towns and villages, having visited some briefly over the years, but there are areas we're not familiar with at all.  We've already been told about a nearby cycle path that runs for several miles through some nice countryside, that'll be good for long walks with Betty.  There's a local farmers and craft market on a Thursday, and a huge boot sale that's on every Sunday, we'll look forward to visiting both of those.  The seaside town of Weston super Mare is only 20 mintues or so away, it's improved vastly over the years since we first moved down here to Somerset and is actually quite nice now, although not somewhere we really want to go during the school summer break, far too busy with tourists.  Come September though, it'll be nice.

My attitude to stressful stuff has changed a bit too, partly because I don't have time (or the inclination) to worry about it too much.  There's still stress going on, a family member is still being a complete pain in the backside and goes through phases of bombarding us with dozens and dozens of WhatsApp messages.  I'd worry about it a lot before.....now I just mute notifications for a few hours and ignore it.  By the time I switch notifications back on several hours later, or even the next day, things have generally calmed down.  I've also 'unfriended' a couple of people on FaceAche, people who I felt obliged to be 'friends' with, owing to the fact that they're extended family, but who give us nothing but trouble (and have a habit of badmouthing anyone who doesn't do what they want, basically).  Life's too short to be putting up with unwanted crap, Covid has taught us that, so I just don't anymore.  And, guess what, the ceiling didn't collapse, no bombs dropped and nobody died!

If I've bored anyone to tears, or lost readers lately because of all the dreary caravan renovation stuff - sorry about that.  It's such a massive and joyful part of my life now, so I'm afraid there'll be lots more 'caravan life' posts!!

Oh, this week following my nasty dental stuff tomorrow, when I won't feel like doing anything much for a few days, I'm going to be experimenting with some artwork to go in the caravan.  I have a few ideas I want to try out.