The Visible Woman...July 21, 2003

I've been swearing to myself...the more I do, the more I can do. Still, there seem to be limits.

I thought I might get my workout done rather early. Still, I finished in time to read a little before my tennis clinic. After the clinic I thought I'd grab a bite and attack some of my nastier cleanup jobs. I came home to find that one of my computer monitors had gone belly up. (I had two identical ones and the other one failed similarly a couple of months ago.) I had to switch to an extra one. The good news is that the extra one was taking up room on the floor of my office. The bad news is that the dead one was a giant heavy 17inch one that would have to be disposed of. My firts try at this would be to lug it to the curb and hope someone would try to salvage it from what I describe as 'curbside mall.' Great prices...all free.

After switching the monitors and stuffing my face and changing out of my soaking tennis clothes (why shower to just sweat again in the garage?), I had a sinking spell. My morning's exercise did not yield fantastic energy. No. I had to sit in my easy chair and read and doze for a while.

Finally, I mustered the umph to get started with my task. I wanted to clean enough of the garage to make an easy passage for servers for the party from house to storage. Then I wanted to clean the storage room and dust and stuff in FFP's office. I started by dumping the old monitor on the curb and putting out my 'free' sign. I would add, during the day, a dead compact disk deck, some old vacuum cleaners, some weird gadgets meant to help one weed. Other junk. By the end of the day, all that junk was gone. I'd also tossed some things, merely moved others around and managed to clean up...the back porch. It's a tiny porch. Doesn't seem much, does it? Well, it was an archeological dig of cleaning supplies, mops, brooms and such. It was much harder and sweatier than you might think.

While I took a shower, FFP made dinner. Bless him. He opened a nice Italian red, too. I drank more water and with what felt like my last ounce of energy, cleaned up after our meal.

Well, the more you do the more you can do, right? Maybe tomorrow. At least some of tomorrow's jobs can be performed inside air conditioned spaces. All this sweating takes it out of you. I did have a brief good feeling though when I noted that my trusty free sign was the only thing left on the curb. Add up all that stuff and what I put in the garbage and, today at least, more things were discarded from this house than entered it. Imagine if you never achieved that. Yikes. Now if I can can just conquer the newspapers!

Monday, July 21, 2003

A Journal from Austin, Texas. A Project of LBFFP Stealth Publishing.
food	reading	writing	time	exercise	health and mood

I should have taken a picture today. Tomorrow, maybe. This is Jerry at our pool party holding a big, honking digital camera. Wonder what kind of pix he got? He owns a camera store so, you know, there you go.	good theory up to a point I've been swearing to myself...the more I do, the more I can do. Still, there seem to be limits. I thought I might get my workout done rather early. Still, I finished in time to read a little before my tennis clinic. After the clinic I thought I'd grab a bite and attack some of my nastier cleanup jobs. I came home to find that one of my computer monitors had gone belly up. (I had two identical ones and the other one failed similarly a couple of months ago.) I had to switch to an extra one. The good news is that the extra one was taking up room on the floor of my office. The bad news is that the dead one was a giant heavy 17inch one that would have to be disposed of. My firts try at this would be to lug it to the curb and hope someone would try to salvage it from what I describe as 'curbside mall.' Great prices...all free. After switching the monitors and stuffing my face and changing out of my soaking tennis clothes (why shower to just sweat again in the garage?), I had a sinking spell. My morning's exercise did not yield fantastic energy. No. I had to sit in my easy chair and read and doze for a while. Finally, I mustered the umph to get started with my task. I wanted to clean enough of the garage to make an easy passage for servers for the party from house to storage. Then I wanted to clean the storage room and dust and stuff in FFP's office. I started by dumping the old monitor on the curb and putting out my 'free' sign. I would add, during the day, a dead compact disk deck, some old vacuum cleaners, some weird gadgets meant to help one weed. Other junk. By the end of the day, all that junk was gone. I'd also tossed some things, merely moved others around and managed to clean up...the back porch. It's a tiny porch. Doesn't seem much, does it? Well, it was an archeological dig of cleaning supplies, mops, brooms and such. It was much harder and sweatier than you might think. While I took a shower, FFP made dinner. Bless him. He opened a nice Italian red, too. I drank more water and with what felt like my last ounce of energy, cleaned up after our meal. Well, the more you do the more you can do, right? Maybe tomorrow. At least some of tomorrow's jobs can be performed inside air conditioned spaces. All this sweating takes it out of you. I did have a brief good feeling though when I noted that my trusty free sign was the only thing left on the curb. Add up all that stuff and what I put in the garbage and, today at least, more things were discarded from this house than entered it. Imagine if you never achieved that. Yikes. Now if I can can just conquer the newspapers!
JUST TYPING I have my limits still. The line has moved. But it is still there.
		Food Diary. Four pieces turkey bacon. Some grapefruit sections from a jar. A plate of nachos (with jalapenos and onions). Large (six ounce?) serving of sauteed salmon, marinaded and topped with a bit of tartar sauce. Zuchinni, yellow squash and onions steamed and topped with Parmesan. Some red wine.
		Time flies.... Cleaning out an area of the house, long-neglected. Revealing, sad and very time-consuming.

		Reading. Finished Why I'm Like This memoirs by Cynthia Kaplan. Sort of finished this while deciding what to read.
		No, no, no. I clean up old cleaning supplies and haul unwanted junk to the curb to be scavenged by passersby.
		Exercise Fifteen minutes on exercise bike. Lower body and arm weight exercises. Two hour tennis clinic.
		Real sinking spell after the tennis in the sun. But I didn't really feel bad...just sleepy and tired. No headache or anything which means I somehow drank enough water to replace buckets of sweat. My mood, though, was sort of down.