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"Get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged..." |
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Hey folks and happy February!!!
It's a stunningly beautiful, blue sky day here in Upper Hutt and I am sitting on a deck chair in my back yard typing this. I can barely see the computer screen because it's so bright. I couldn't find my sunhat so I'm wearing a pink beanie that says 'Pirate Girl' that Mazz gave me a few years ago as a present after coming back from his trip to Florida.
I'm also wearing short shorts that I bought years ago to wear at the gym, that probably look rather unflattering on my chunky legs, but right now I don't care. Hopefully I won't get sunburned, but I do have sunscreen on so I should be okay. Oh, and I'm wearing a long, blue, tie-dyed T-shirt with pictures of different coloured geckos on it. I got it when I was 14, on holiday in Canberra, or somewhere like that. It was really long when I got it, came nearly down to my knees. These days it's one of the few t-shirts I have that properly fits and is in good condition.
I'm making it sound as though I put on a ton of weight or something. Not really. Not a ton. But I think I did get bigger than I had ever been before by last Christmas, about a size 18 which I feel is a little too big.
But more about that later. So right now, as I sit in the backyard in the intense sunshine, I have The Beatles' Let It Be album blaring out of the stereo in the lounge. It's pretty loud so probably all the neighbours can hear it. But meh. It was that kinda day, for chilling in the sun with loud summery music. And I've always associated the Let It Be album with Summer, ever since I was little. Not sure why. Partly that a lot of the songs are slowish, but not in a sad way, more in a calm, reflective way. Kinda upbeat but slow at the same time.
The Long And Winding Road, from that album, was my first favourite Beatles song, when I was five. Still a great song.
Taina is at work right now. Actually he might be finished already by now, but I think he's staying after work to go to some leaving party for this guy Jesse at his work who's leaving.
Okay, Let It Be just finished. Now I'm listening to Queen.
"Just waiting for the Hammer to fall..."
Another favourite song.
So, what's new? Not a huge amount. Still working full-time at Specsavers. Been applying for a couple of other jobs though. Not because I dislike my job, more because I could definitely do with more money, so I can save for eventual overseas travel plans.
Got a couple more courses to go on for work next week though, this time in Wellington. Get to learn technical stuff about contact lenses and such, how they're made, different types, potential problems people have with them.
Probably my biggest piece of news is that my Grandad died on Tuesday. The Grandad on my Dad's side of course, as my other Grandad died back when I was five.
Grandad had had cancer for quite a few years, since the 90s I think. But he had always seemed perfectly fine for years, whenever I saw him anyway. I guess he was on some medications, maybe went into hospital for treatment briefly once or twice, but always seemed fine, just doing what he always did.
Then suddenly around Christmas he had to have his medication increased, and he was tired a lot and suddenly it seemed like the cancer was real, not just something I heard people mention from time to time but knew nothing about.
Sometime last month he got moved into Fergusson Rest Home to make things a little easier on Grandma, and then on Tuesday, while I was at work, Mum texted me to inform me that Dad and Grandma were at the hospital, and the doctors thought Grandad wouldn't last the day. Sure enough, by 2.00 that afternoon, my Mum had texted me again to tell me he had died.
To be fair, he was 89 so it's hardly like he missed out on anything. But it was going to be his and Grandma's 60th wedding anniversary later this month.
We had the funeral on Friday. Dad's family is semi-big, so there were a few people coming over from Australia and things, and it was pretty packed at the get-together at my Uncle Greg's house after the funeral, even though it was mostly just family there.
The funeral itself seemed pretty meh to me. Grandma and Grandad are Catholic, so the service was at the Our Lady of Grace Catholic church, in Palmer Crescent just around the corner from where I used to live with Glenn and Smeags.
Being a Catholic funeral, it seemed to be a lot of rituals, the communion stuff, prayer readings, bible readings, hymns, some priest blabbering on about stuff...it felt like very little of the service was about Grandad personally. My uncle Adrian sang, but even then, he was singing some religious song in Latin. He's a decent singer though. I guess that's where I inherited my musicality from. I certainly didn't inherit it from anyone else in the family.
Finally towards the end of the service, my Dad and Uncle Greg both got to make a couple of speeches, and they were kinda interesting, actually stuff about Grandad and his life and whatever.
Then we went to Akatarawa cemetery, and did the whole burial thing, and then back to Uncle Greg's place. It was really great to catch up with the cousins though, especially the ones from Australia that I don't see too often. Someone suggested we take a photo of all the "kids" together, like we used to do back at family get-togethers when we were younger. But it was pretty difficult, there's a lot more of us than there used to be.
Other than work, funerals, hanging out with Taina...yeah not much happening. Taina's been trying to kickstart the band into action again, as things kinda fizzled out at the end of last year. So far not much done, other than discuss potential practise spaces and discuss general music ideas.
Early in January, a girl Kate at Specsavers was telling this other girl Danni about this website where you enter your details, age, height, weight etc and it calculates how many calories you should eat per day depending on whether you want to lose weight, maintain weight, gain weight etc. Then each day you enter what foods you've eaten and it automatically tracks the calories, plus how much carbs, protein, fat etc you've eaten. You can also enter all the exercise you do and it allows you extra calories onto your daily quota depending on how much exercise you did. Basically like a free version of doing Weight Watchers or whatever.
I started using it and it's pretty cool. There's forums on there too, so I chat to people and make friends on the site, and people give each other advice about weight loss or whatever. I've found it really useful so far, I've lost 2.5 kg since I started, well, since I bought my scales and actually started weighing myself, anyway. And I learned that the easiest way to get too many calories is by drinking soft drinks or juice. So I've started drinking only water, and occasionally milk or black coffee. It's made it so much easier to stick within the calorie limit the site gives me.
Plus I got the PS3 Zumba game a little while back, so I've been playing that every day for the last few weeks.
So that's my new little hobby. And that's about the only new news I have to report.
Yeah. Oh, and me and Taina had our two-year anniversary at the end of January. Went out for dinner to Elke's, the German restaurant in Upper Hutt. Me and Taina like going there, we've been there a few times now. Their egg noodles, or Spaetzle, are probably one of the tastiest foods in the world.
"It's late, it's late, it's late, but not too late."
Queen's definitely another band I associate with Summer. And with weekends. Particularly Saturday afternoons when i was 12, dancing around my room, attempting to make my bed but mostly just getting distracted and singing and dancing all afternoon. Good times.
I think I should go for a walk, while the sun's still shining. Get some more exercise to add to on to my daily calorie profile. But maybe I should try and find my sunhat first. I think I'd probably look a little silly walking around with this beanie on.
weezieishness · Sun Feb 12, 2012 @ 02:59am · 0 Comments |
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