My morning routine

Usually, Mr. Yumicho wakes before I do.  Not always, but on most weekdays.  If I don’t wake while he’s getting ready, he kisses me goodbye and we exchange “I love you”s.  When I do wake (usually not that long afterwards), I rush to the bathroom and pee. 

Back in the bedroom I strip and weigh myself.  This, of course, can influence my mood either way depending on the number.  I then brush my teeth and drink a huge glass of water.  I might tidy things a bit, do some washing up, and make the bed at this point.

Next up is forum and email checking.  I usually put a pot of coffee on.  Since we have the coffee pot from hell, I have to babysit it to ensure the basket doesn’t fill up with water and damp grounds, piss over the side, and spread sludge over our counter and floor.  When it works, it makes a brilliant pot of coffee.  When it goes wrong, it’s pretty grim.

If I have a big project scheduled, I might start it.  This can range from housework to paperwork.  I like to keep Kitty Yumicho guessing, so I vary when I feed him, sometimes waiting until afternoon.  If I don’t have too much to do, I might play games or read.  If I am feeling industrious, I might write a bit.

For a while I tried to get into British soaps.  I like them more than American ones, but I just couldn’t get into them.  TV at first was pretty novel, but DIY, Big Brother, and game shows get a bit old after a while. Don’t get me wrong, I love some things on British TV, but I rarely watch daytime TV here.  It’s probably a good thing.

Not what I wanted to see

When weighing this morning, I was up a pound from yesterday, and back into a different “decade” of weight (you know the second number in your weight).  It might have been Nobby’s Nuts from a few nights ago, because yesterday I IF’ed until dinner (intermittent fasting).  Maybe I just ate too much at dinner.

It’s times like these I have to avoid my own ability to sabotage my weight loss.  It usually takes a while, but if the scale doesn’t move for a few weeks (or even worse, goes up), I get doubts about our way of eating.  It inevitably ends up with a trip to Pizza Hut, me with sauce from a profiterole on my chin, and the two of us rubbing our bloated carb guts.

Maybe my body knows this and really wants profiteroles.  That’s why it’s doing this crap with the weight gain.  Ugh.

Woefully neglectful

I’ve not been writing at all.  I’ve been in a funk, and I really can’t explain why.  Who wants to read the work of a depressive social phobe?  Other days I think that I am living several things at once that people blog about successfully.  Besides, what is a successful blog?  I am just doing this to actually work on my discipline, my demand resistance as some might call it.  And recently, I have been giving into the resistance a lot more than I have been giving into the demand. 

Blog topic 1-Weight loss:

Well, I fell off the wagon a bit for a while.  I fell ill and wanted comfort food.  Mr. Yumicho (I really need to come up with a moniker for him) obliged with delights that I had never had before.  There is something addictive about Victoria sponge cake.  I have to hand it to British commercial bakers, they usually can pull off mass production of baked goods in a way that Americans just can’t. 

 I vacillated a bit.  I’d eat properly for a few days, and I’d give in and blow it.  I’ve taken off almost all that I put on over the past couple of months (about 10 pounds), and I’m eating pretty cleanly.  That is apart from things that totally blindside me.  Like Nobby’s Nuts.  Granted, peanuts aren’t really the most healthy low carb snack, but I had bought a bag for Mr. Yumicho, and last night he was happily chomping them as a late night snack.  I am not really sticking to any plan per se, and I occasionally will eat peanuts or cashews in small quantities.  I asked for a handful without looking at the bag.  They were wonderful.  Light and airy.  I wondered if they were popped like popcorn.  How could peanuts have such a texture?  I asked for another and bit through it and realised they were really small peanuts coated in thick wheat breading.  Ah well.  I told Mr. Yumicho to keep his Nobby’s Nuts away from me.

I really need to keep on keeping on.  Or whatever.

Blog topic 2- Expat stuff

My gut clenches when I think of upcoming changes to immigration law here.  I wonder if we will ever feel the security that others take for granted?  Maybe once I am a citizen.

We’ve done a bit of site-seeing.  I’ve also struck out a bit on my own and have discovered a town that I like.  I am not sure if I like it because I found it on my own, or because it reminds me a bit of the East Village.  I considered naming it, but being the modern, forward thinking explorer that I am, I decided to call it by the natives’ name for it: Camden Town.

I really wish I’d pick up a British accent.  I am not trying to be something that I am not, but rather avoid the associations with my accent to something else I am totally not.

Maybe my recent funk is home-sickness.  Not really yearning for my hometown or the other places I have lived, but maybe some place I’ve never lived.  Maybe it’s an amalgamation of everything I’ve wanted in a place, but really haven’t found yet.  Or maybe it is my anglophile ideas about what life would be like here.  Don’t get me wrong.  I still love the UK, and think I was meant to live here and that I was somehow born in the wrong place.  Maybe there’s a British woman my age with the same problem, only reverse.  Maybe she was born in the UK and felt she always meant to be an American.  Cultural dysphoria? 

Blog topic 3-The In-laws:

I really don’t feel like writing about this right now.  When I think about how our situation, it rattles me.  I feel like I am living with people who can barely stand me, have huge negative assumptions about me that I can’t shake from them (as if I don’t have adequate flaws already).  I am not sure why I should care, but I do.  Obviously, letting go of what other people think is one of the LESSONS I am meant to LEARN.  Most people probably have to learn these lessons, but I sort of got stopped at that point.  Hung up against a hurdle most people sail over. 

Blog topic 4- Books!!!

Yay!  I just finished Oryx and Crake.  V. good speculative fiction read.  Since I loved it so much, I’ve decided to retry some of Atwood’s other novels that I couldn’t get through.  I have a stack of books to get through, and I am really looking forward to it.

Blog topic 5-Misc minutia:

My cat’s here, finally!

I am craving scrambled eggs.

I am way too addicted to Obvlivion.

Our room smells of good coffee and cranberry orange tea.

I am looking forward to a coffee date tonight.

My love for Mr. Yumicho is much more layered than Nobby’s Nuts.