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Welcome to this Researcher's Journal. If you'd like to comment on anything they have written here, just click the relevant 'Discuss this Entry' button. NajoPoMo2012 - Deb - 12th November
(Nov 12, 2012)
Once again I'm staring at the screen wondering what to write about. I'm seriously doubting my ability to see this through to the end this year.
One of the problems is I'm starting to feel overwhelmed by unread posts. I'm getting a bit trigger happy with the unsubscribe button, I'm scanning other journal entries rather than giving them the attention they deserve, and I know I'm missing some.
I don't think I like the way NaJoPoMo is working this year. Last year everyone posted in one place and it was easy to keep track, but this year they seem to be all over the place, and I'm finding that by the time I've finished reading what's appearing on my ps, I've run out of time to go looking.
Something may have to give, and I'd rather go and read something interesting that witter on about nothing!
So I think tomorrow I'll go and read stuff first. If I still have time I'll see if I have anything to say.
Deb 
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(5 replies,
Latest reply: Nov 16, 2012)
NajoPoMo2012 - Deb - 11th November (
(Nov 11, 2012)
As it's Armistice Day, which a lot of people think of as Remembrance Day, I suppose it's natual to remember the people I've lost. I don't know anyone lost in wars so my 2 minutes silence is spent in just a general acknowledgement of those who gave their lives for us over the years. This is slightly bizarre, possibly, but when I try to think of one soldier I think of Hugh Laurie in Blackadder Goes Forth. Stiff upper lip, coming across as slightly stupid but actually aware of what's coming and being a "brave little boy".
Today I'll remember Jeff, my husband. I'm pretty sure I went into his illness and death in one of last year's NaJoPoMo journals so I won't do it again here. But in a nutshell, he was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer in August 2005, just before our wedding in the September. He died on 7th May 2006, 8½ months after his dianosis, at 37 years old. 
I'll also remember my dad, Bob. Dad wasn't such a constant presence in my life as my mum as they divorced when I was 15 and dad went to live with my stepmum, who aready had two daughters with a complete  for a dad. I always felt I had to stand aside for them as they deserved a decent father figure and I had another one in my stepdad Donald. So my contact with dad was fortnightly visits and regular phone calls. Until I moved away from home, when I probably spoke to him every 2 weeks. When we were together we got on really well, we had lots of things in common, but neither of us liked talking to people on the phone and we both worked on the addage "No news is good news". He died on 16th November 2005 from heart failure he'd been living with for 12 years, at the age of 60. I was very happy he'd been able to give me away at my wedding two months earlier. 
Also Donald, my stepdad. He died on 8th July 1991, 5 days before his and my mum's 5th wedding anniversary, when she was away from home in Orkney visiting me in London. He was helping his best mate with his salmon farm in a storm. They threw the anchor over the side and the rope somehow got wrapped round his ankle and took him with it. Donald's was the most shocking death I have ever encountered. We were knocked up at 1.30 in the morning by two policemen to break the news. My mum fell to pieces and the next 36 hours were awful - that's how long it took to get her home due to weather condition, etc. Donald was 31 when he died and a good, good man, I truly believe the love of my mum's life.
Memories of these men are very precious. I don't only remember them today but it seemed an appropriate journal subject.
Deb
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(5 replies,
Latest reply: Nov 16, 2012)
NajoPoMo2012 - Deb - 10th November
(Nov 10, 2012)
I'm going to take Harry for a walk up the skelly this morning. That's a big patch of wasteland with a stream running through it, criss-crossed with trampled grass paths and a wonderland for a dog.
Well, it was. A couple of years ago the council decided to sell it off as building land. On the road by the land there was a crossroads, now there's a big island to add access to the road they built half way across this land. The road ends at a small island so you can easily turn round & go back!
Then everything stopped. At the moment the road is closed off to traffic, so it's actually great for kids on bikes or whatever. The trampled grass paths have been upgraded to some gravel and some tarmac so it's possible to walk all the way round without getting muddy. Me, anyway. Harry still has loads of long grass to run in, including lots of puddles & patches of mud. And the stream is still there - he loves a paddle.
It's just over an hour's walk from home, round the field and back again, depending on how fast & energetic I'm feeling and how many times Harry loses his ball in the undergrowth. Also it's a good place for a dark walk at this time of year - I can walk up the unused road to the island and back, it's well lit with streetlamps and there are a few other people around. I wouldn't do the perimeter walk in the dark, too many trees and bushes. Just cos I'm not paranoid doesn't mean there aren't some nutters out there!
So at the moment the skelly is actually a better place than before they messed. But...it seems someone has now bought it with a view to building houses. Before long it'll be yet another housing estate. And I'll have to load Harry in the car if I want to walk him somewhere a bit wilder than the local park.
Deb
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(3 replies,
Latest reply: Nov 15, 2012)
NajoPoMo2012 - Deb - 9th November
(Nov 9, 2012)
Tonight's Euromillions jackpot is £121,000,000. ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY ONE MILLION POUNDS! That is a seriously obscene amount of money.
Yes, of course I've had a go!
I know, I know. The lottery is just a stupid tax. I don't care. It's worth £2 for the fun I'll have dreaming of what to do with all that money, between now and the time I find out I've won £1.30 or whatever.
My mum could retire. After the year she's had, having to go back to the daily grind is quite wearing and if I could take that away, well, how fab would that be?
The rest of my family would never have to worry about money ever again (some of them do struggle).
I could spend more time with the dog. That matters a lot to me.
I'd quite like to do the At Home With The Braithewaite's thing where Amanda Redman's character won £30 million and set up a charity trust. It would be to give money to small worthy causes like a life-saving operation abroad or helping a donkey sanctuary rather than giving to the big, already well-funded charities. One of my ex-colleagues helps run a charity called Camp Quality which runs holiday camps for sick children. Her own son had a brain tumour as a child and when he was ill he went on one of the camps, so now they both volunteer. The camps allow the kids to be kids first rather than sick and the parents get a break.
Best of all, of course - I could slowly forget there are TWO 5.30's every day!
But really, it IS an obscene amount of money. I hope someone else wins, too 
Deb
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(7 replies,
Latest reply: Nov 14, 2012)
NajoPoMo2012 - Deb - 8th November
(Nov 8, 2012)
I'm on a diet. Again. Slimming World. Again.
The thing is, this time feels different. It feels like when I stopped smoking 12 years ago, which was successful after many, many failed attempts. I think partly that success was due to the fact that instead of wanting to stop smoking, I didn't want to smoke any more. There's a subtle difference. I was sick of smoking, sick of being a slave to the addiction, sick of the taste, the smell. So I read Alan Carr's Easy Way, and I didn't smoke again.
Unfortunately you can't really do that with losing weight, it would be like trying to stop smoking when you must have three cigarettes a day to keep you alive! But this time I want to change my eating habits, I'm sick of being a slave to the addiction to sugar and empty carbs, sick of being unfit, of feeling my clothes are too tight. Of the way I look.
So I've joined another Slimming World group, chosen purely on the basis of location and time - I pass close by it on the way home from work, at around the time of the group. I've been to other groups, but I've never really felt part of one before. This group seems to have clicked with me and I feel like a valued member. Nearly 4 months in I'm showing no signs of wavering. Mind you, I'm not breaking any records! In 17 weeks I've lost 17lb, but that's ok. A pound a week is almost 4 stone in a year. In 3½lb I'll get my Club 10 Award, which means I've lost 10% of my body weight - medically speaking that's supposed to have all sorts of benefits. And I do feel benefit already - I'm down 3 notches on my belt!
Slimming World also push the fitness aspect, giving "Body Magic" awards for increasing your activity levels. I have bronze & silver so far, and am half-way through my gold. I was glad of that fact yesterday when I got to work to discover the lifts were out. I made it to the 6th floor without breaking a sweat, and still able to hold a conversation with a colleague at the top!
I'm hoping this diet continues to feel different. If it does I might even make my target by next Christmas.
Deb
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(5 replies,
Latest reply: Nov 14, 2012)
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and don't have much of a clue about livening it up. I could go and find the instructions, I know they're out there, but I keep procrastinating.
here cos I only get on a couple of hours a week.
.
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