Slow and steady, with some wobbling.

I haven't talked about it much, but I am slowly starting again on losing some lard.  Strangely, I had a bit of motivation reading an email at work.  There is some sort of competition where everyone keeps track of steps.  The one who has most consistently gone over 5000 steps each day, is the winner.  (I believe it was for the month of July.)  

I can't participate in the competition, but I finally got out my step counter, and have kept it on me pretty regularly.  I have, MOST days, been able to get 5000 steps.  Not a bunch more, but enough that I am becoming mindful of it.  I am also slowly making some other changes, but this is the big one.  I am just working on walking more. 

I suppose part of it, besides the general "I want to be more fit" part, is the thing I was told not so long after my car wreck.  My legs were torn up pretty badly, and the doctor had made great strides in getting me back into more or less one piece. 

I still remember, though, him sitting by my bedside not too long after the surgery, and saying, "Yes, it went well.  I repaired what I could, but I want you to know, you will be in a wheelchair by age 60." 

Well, excuse my language, but shit on that noise!  So I walk.  Retired Knitter suggested on her blog about the Walking for Fun website.  I chose the Pacific Crest Trail, and have added that to my walking. (I have finally made enough progress on it that you can see where I am, the little tabs aren't one behind another!)  I still don't like walking in the house, but it's a bit safer when it's wet, and when I get up at 4-5 in the morning, I *really* don't want to walk on the road.  I have all the protective gear, but I know some of the drivers around here... 😐 

I still need to work on my diet... The ol' Seafood diet, I see food, I eat it, sort of defeats the 'let's move' part of the program.  So I am trying to drink more tea,  (Husband bought me a case of my favorite kind for my birthday!  YAAAAY!!), as well as drinking more water. 

I have been trying to inch toward eating more vegetarian... ish.  I have enough pig, cow, and chicken in the freezer, though, it's not going to be gone anytime soon.  But I can make that ONE meal, rather than 2 or 3, at least...

And, the garden goodies, when ripe, won't hurt.  If I don't flood anything with butter. Ahem. But, since I can mow through a pile of crookneck, butter or not, it shouldn't be too bad...

Now, I just have to keep a lot of the goodies I like out of the house.  I make cookies, so I try to make ones that I can ignore, that Husband likes, (as well as the deputies), and have just about cleaned the house of any chips or chocolate, so I am able to ignore that.  Mostly...

So, we shall see if I can get back on the downswing of things! 

Shudder. I am going to do this, soon... Update.

I have decided to change the system thing on my computer.

I am going to Windows 10.  The little reminder thing has popped up several times, and after establishing it wasn't some sort of virus on my computer, but something from Uncle Billy, I think I'd better change it.

Mostly, I know it will go away eventually.  I also know, that if my parents get new computers, I will need to find out how the new system works, so I am not looking blankly at them when they ask about something.  (Dad's system is about a generation behind mine now, and I have to stop and think, ok, what did I do when that happened?)

I asked one of the IT guys if it was okay to do, and there was a grunted "yeah".  Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but it sounded like it wouldn't cause me to kill off the computer, or send a rampant virus to everyone online.

So.  I will see if I can do this thing, and then maybe update this blog entry.  Then again, my computer might go up in flames, and I won't be able to do a darn thing...

Do I sound apprehensive?  I am.  I know that this is a change that has been there for a while, but having heard very little positive, I am not eager.

So.  We shall see what commences.  Wish me luck.

*****************

So.  I tried, and nothing has happened, as of yet.  I am now informed that my Kindle for my PC has expired, (why that has anything to do with downloading Windows 10, I am not sure), but I will download the 'upgraded' Kindle app, then try again.

I guess I will have more later.  Nothing's blown up, fallen apart, or stopped dead, so that's good, right?

J is for junk.

This will probably raise ire.

I think that a lot of things today are wasteful.  When I was small, I recall Dad saying, take care of your (tools), and they'll take care of you.  Mom said that if you took care of something, you would have it later...

So, when I was... first or second grade?  Somewhere around there, my parents bought me a record player.  They showed me how to use it.  And I took care of it... Ok, once I put a kitten on it, to see what it would do, but other than a really dizzy kitten, no harm done. (Note: it doesn't really take that many spins to dizzy up a kitten.) But, I made an effort to not mess up my 'player.  And I still have it.  It might need some lube and care, having been stored in the attic, but when it was retired, it still worked.

In high school, they surprised me with a stereo system.  Played records, cassettes, 8 tracks, and had AM/FM.  I still have it, and it still works, and this one has remained kitten free...  But how many cassettes and 8 tracks are coming out now?

I picked up a CD player with my computer, I don't recall having that as a separate unit, and later an MP3 player.  I have gone through about 3 or 4 computers, and I didn't rough house them.  I didn't abuse them.  They just ran out of memory, or, in one case, a part burnt out, that after about 4 years of owning the computer, would have cost more than the computer to replace!  And now, with tablets, and 'stuff' online, CD's seem to be going out of fashion, too.

Now, the MP3 player.  I had one for about 6 years? Maybe a little more.  Um, well, it was not treated as well as I could have, played the heck out of it, while I was gardening, or exercising, so it was bounced and bopped a bit.  So I suppose that I can say I didn't care for it as well as I could have.

Still, it seems odd that something like that is built to last about 2 years.  At least that was the shocked statement from the clerk where I bought it.  I had thought about replacing parts.  She had to go into records to find what it was, they'd stopped selling it about 4 years ago, and the parts, again, were more than the player was worth.  So, I sighed, and now have a new one.

I guess I am sort of confused.  If we were so wasteful, and didn't save the resources, etc., that we needed to improve and make things work better on less...

Why do we have to throw things away after such a short time?

I is for Internet.

Well, a less retro entry, I suppose.  But I was thinking about how the 'net has changed.  When I was in high school, one of my friends had internet.  One.  It was a very unusual thing, and the schools were barely out of the old 'green screen' computers.  I remember the wheeee-grind-buzzzzz-grind-eeeeee sound before the computer connected.

AOL was a major player for getting online.  I never used that particular one, but I still remember the "YOU'VE GOT MAIL" tag that I heard, and it seemed to be a pop culture staple.

I know most of my friends had much faster internet than I did, even recently.  To wit: the speed averaged 28.8 to 30.0, not exactly speedy.  One four minute download was about, oh, on a good day... an hour or so.  Basically I would start a download, go do something, then come back and check.  If I was lucky, the download was still running, and hadn't timed out.

Husband and I decided to bite the proverbial bullet, and get fairly fast internet... At least for this area.  It's a benefit for Husband's work, he sends big files, and well, a 12 to 15 hour upload just wasn't going to cut it.  So, we found that there were fun things to do with the internet, besides his work.  We could look up things for our respective hobbies.  We could watch shows that we missed, or can't get on our TV.  I can blog, and look at cute kitten pictures.

Ok, I admit it, this is one time that I think that retro isn't the direction I'd like to go...