aka getting back on track

I got back to some painting today.

It felt good to be back into a comfortable activity.

I am up to the tricky parts of the fence again and this time I had to climb onto the water tanks and sit on them to reach the top parts of the fence.

I am working in full sun on these parts ... can't seem to wake up at 6am to do them, so I am only spending about 30-45 minutes out there otherwise I get burnt and it gets too hot.

KT went to visit the school dentist yesterday with her class.  They will be doing checkups on all the kids next week but they all went to have a look and meet the dentists and try out the chair beforehand!

Short post today ... lots to get done and presents to wrap ... hee hee hee

50m freestyle

Today I had the pool to myself for the first 25 of my 30 minutes swimming!

I also swam for the first time ever a full 50m of freestyle (with flippers on), without stopping, having problems with my breathing, or swallowing any water.

When I stopped I didn't feel like I was out of air, but of course it did take me a while to catch my breath and my heart was racing like you would not believe!  I know the breathing statement sounds like a contradiction but it is like if you are running to catch a bus, you are breathing while you run and you are in no danger of running out of air, but when you stop your heart is racing and you need to catch your breath.

I painted another fence panel today ... unfortunately I got quite sunburnt doing it.   I am up to the inclined part of the fence now and I have to climb a chair, or the water tanks, or the fence to reach the very top parts I have to paint.

I have settled into a rhythym of painting from the top of one paling, right down including crossbeams as I come to them, then moving to the next paling and starting at the bottom of it and working up all the way to the top, then from the top down on the next paling and then the bottom up on the next paling etc.

This means I don't "lose my place" and don't end up painting the same paling twice.  It also means I am constantly changing my position so I don't get stuck crouched down or stretching up for long periods at a time.

This afternoon I will comb the lice eggs out of KT's hair and probably again in 2 days etc etc.

We did our 3rd lice treatment last night after KT had lots of bloody spots all over her scalp.  As I speak Uni is washing the treatment out of his hair too.

Why oh why have they gotten rid of the spellchecker function???

Or has it moved somewhere that I have not discovered yet?

very tired

I came here to write tonight but I am very tired .....

Uni is on holiday and I have had a big day.  He woke up bright and early this morning and took the dog for a beach walk!

I painted the fence ... I'm flying through it now ... the end is in sight ... aiming to be done before the heat of summer ... I think I might be repeating myself ... but no time to go back and read what I have written before ....

I also watered the garden.  It has not rained in any serious amounts for nearly 2 months.  I stopped using KT's bath water on the garden, opting to wait for rain, but now there is not much bright colourful life in my garden (although everything is bravely hanging on), so I am back to carting buckets of water through the house and down the stairs and into the garden until it does finally rain properly again!

I am building up some muscles!

A few nights ago Uni said that my belly felt tight and that my arms feel muscly.  Am surprised at how much pleasure I got out of those statements!  I have been swimming for 7 weeks now ... I guess that is enough time for some muscles to develop. It is definitely much more of a workout than bellydancing although if I had taken bellydance practice as seriously as swimming practice perhaps it would have been too.

I did some ironing while we watched a movie together at lunchtime, then made KT's sandwiches for school for the rest of the week, and made tonight's dinner.

I went to swimming class tonight and there were a full 8 students ... roughly one lane each.

There was another newby to the swimming class ... Leslie who apparently has been learning with Jennie in the 18 metre pool and made her debut into the big pool tonight.  She was swimming with a kick board and is very much a beginner also, so I will keep an eye on her progress with interest.

I spent a lot of time on butterfly tonight ... concentrating more on the arms and even tried to incorporate a breath.  It is funny how skills or ability come in a flash, then disappear, then come back in a flash again.  The movements for butterfly are becoming familiar, and I have now seen Jennie demonstrate them enough that I have a "movie" of how they should go running in my head.

I can also see the similarities between the strokes and how certain principles apply to all even though they are different.

Today I also stumbled on the fact that at night when the lights are on I can look down and see the shadow of my arm movements on the bottom of the pool.  This means I can "watch" what my arms are doing (in freestyle) as well as "feeling" what they are doing, while my head remains looking right down (correct head position).

My shadow's movement looks smooth and graceful!!!!  I have noticed my bellydancing shadow looks the same way!!!! This creates a positive feedback loop because I watch what I am doing, I do it better because I can see I am doing a good job and concentrate more on doing it right.

I wonder what I will do in the day time ......

I haven't had the swirly eye thing happen for over a week so I think my body has adjusted to whatever it needed to adjust too.

I am very sleepy though and I think I need an early night.

Goodnight to all

... And my final note is that I have enjoyed reading more frequent blog entries this past week!

Spring cleaning

I can feel spring in the air and feel the urge to get things organized.

I have spent most of today on the computer but have been getting the last 6 years worth of photos backed up onto DVD. It is great knowing that I have everything safely stored.

I went swimming last night and attempted butterfly for the first time. It was a fairly hilarious session last thing before the class ended ... but I will have a chance to practice during the next week on my own.

I have been concentrating on looking down and getting the correct body position in the water. I have also tried to focus on what my arms are doing ... and trying to adjust my breathing now that my head is lower down in the water.

In previous weeks I was feeling confident with breathing, but was throwing my head up high out of the water ... now that I am keeping my head lower in the water I often end up with a mouthful of water when I breathe.

Jenni suggested I concentrate more on slowly expelling water out of my mouth as I turn my head to the side, then take a breath when my mouth clears the water.

I wonder if maybe I am keeping my mouth open too long and so when my head re-enters the water I get a mouthful of water. I will have to try and see what my mouth is doing (as well as my arms, head, legs, body .... LOL!!!)

I have been swimming now for about a month and I am very pleased with myself. The people in the night class are familiar to me now (by sight more than anything else) and I have become a recognized member of the group! It still is nowhere near as social as bellydancing is ... and I think I like that. Not much time to chat while you are trying to swim.

I think by the end of next week I will be finished the first coat of paint on the long side fence. Then I imagine if I work steadily on a second coat ... I should be completely finished the fence by the end of the year.

Uni joked that some people paint their fence every year! Hmmmphhh we will not be one of those types of people ... since it takes me more than a year to do it the first time!!!!

Yesterday we emptied the lower tray of the worm farm together, for the second time. We were both pretty impressed by the "soil" we found. This time around we left it for a full three months and it had a lot less worms left in it and was in a much more "finished" condition.

I think from now on we will empty the tray at the beginning of each season. I put the worm castings into the garden and in the next few days will plant some flower seeds for spring and then mulch the entire front garden.

I will also plant some paw paw seeds for someone!

There is a rogue tomato growing out of my compost ... will be interested to find out if it is a cherry tomato or not ... at the moment it is looking very healthy and has heaps of little tomatoes on it!

Manic Thursday

I had a really manic day on Thursday.

This week has been my first child free week since the school holidays and I have been driven to work hard on all the things I have not had time to do.

I painted heaps of the fence, cleared a path for myself along the fence line (through the undergrowth and the tree branches).

I hadn't made any attempt to clean up the house and it had been driving me crazy so I just went through each room and tried to tackle something that needed doing (and preferably something that had been needing attention for some time).

This plan of attack worked well because there was no pressure to tidy everything in every room (which would be way too much to ask), but it did mean that there was a noticeable improvement in each room.

I think I remember reading about this house cleaning tip on one of the helpful websites I visit ... it was something along the lines of set a timer for x amount of time and just tidy for that amount of time only ... so my plan was a variation on this theme.

Apart from clearing some space on the floor in the lounge room, I also went through and got rid of a lot of older artworks. My art box is full to overflowing and I had 6 months worth of paintings piled up in there.

Our big bins had just been emptied so I got rid of a fair bit of stuff (while still being very sentimental and keeping about three quarters of the original stack).

I won't clear out any more artworks until I have photographed them ... and of course until next fortnight after our bin pickup ... I have to leave some room for our other waste.

I also started to tackle the reorganization of all of our digital photos so I can back them up onto DVD disk in date order and keep them safe.

Now that we have a fully functional computer I can do that and have been reunited with all the old videos I have taken over the past 6 years but have not been able to view on my previous computer due to a malfunction with the quick time application.

I am surprised to see how much changes in 6 years ... and equally surprised to find that I have taken (and kept) approximately 6000 photos in that time.... an average of 1000 per year!!!!

I have been playing with Kodak Easy share, Picasa 3 and Windows Photo Gallery/Pictures to try and decide which is the best way to sort and store and process my photos. There are pros and cons for each ... some have overlapping features and I am trying to learn them all in depth and record information about them so that I don't forget what I have discovered. In the space of only a few days I have learnt quite a lot.

I am also very happy that I did some study in word, excel etc (this study is yet to be completed) as I am much more familiar with tricks and strategies to get things done. The kind of things that work in many different applications ... like Control A = select all, control v, control x, control c and also selecting multiple things with Control click etc.

I am very tired though, as each day I have been getting up early and going to bed later and later as the week progresses.

Finished the day with a massive headache ... but feeling very accomplished!!!