A quiet weekend.

Our DD is gone back to university.
We are 3 again .
It means less having the dishwasher on, less cooking, less breadmaking.
I shall miss her chats though .

I am still reading my wheel of time ebook, only half way through, they are very long but worth the time .

Today I put the pull up bar back on DD's door frame and managed to do 4 each time I tried a pull up.
It will take time to build back up again.
I did a bit of indoor skipping too.

I am averaging 135 points a day on swag bucks which is nice as it is about £5 a week in Amazon UK vouchers.

I bit the bullet yesterday and ordered my vegetable seeds from the Us Amazon store where I accrue a few vouchers. They should be here by the end of the month.

Wodens Day

It's been a bit of a dull day .
I have done some more exercises just to keep warm and have something to do.

• Pistol Squats X 10 each leg
• Dips X 10
• Ropeless skipping 5 minutes
• leg raises X 10
• Pull ups X8

This morning I did some work online and then read some more of the current Terry Pratchet.

I have another one lined up for when this one is finished and then a Robert Jordan book to make a change.

It has been Icy cold in the Kitchen as usual.
We have a very small radiator in there but we only have the heating on an hour morning and again evening so the rest of the time it is froozy.

Tomorrow will be spent in wrapping the presents that are sitting in my bedroom in a box.
I have saved the packing paper from an amazon delivery to use as the wrapping.
I shall make some microwaved Flapjacks too.

Bookish Monday rolls round again

I have been immersed in Terry Pratchet!
The book I have just finished was called Guards Guards and is very funny.
I especially like the Grim reaper who comes and waits for the deadies to realise they are dead !
Some hilarious Clichéd quoting too from Clint Eastward films.


If you have read and enjoyed any of the Red Dwarf books ,you will find these are at east equal in humour.
I think they are better but that is maybe just me.

Pull ups


I have been keeping up with the pull ups. I can manage about 14 in one go .



I'm afraid I have been slacking off on the running lately because it is cold and damp out and I am a wimp.


Presents



Presents are now all bought and paid for. I always buy them from my Internet survey vouchers if I possibly can.

This year I successfully managed to incorporate everything within that criteria . Just as well as the self employment was going nowhere.


OH has a couple of new things and the afformentioned vouchers and cover.
DS has something he will find handy(he mentioned how good they are and I took note without hopefully letting on that I was doing so ). 
DD has her reader dubries.
We don't go overboard on relatives.
OH has bought a few bits for his nephew and 3 nieces .
I haven't any on my side and all my aunts and uncles are dead .


For those of you who think Christmas us humbug, I don't disagree, I do think it is a great excuse though, when your kids are little and want everything.
I always used to say  'yes it is nice but that is the sort of thing you only get for Christmas or a Birthday present'.
It worked really well over the years and I still stick by it.
So for me anyway, it is an excuse to buy someone something when I avoid doing so at every other time of year.

Bookish Monday

I have been reading the Hunger Games part 2 this week.
I haven't got to the end yet.
It is called Catching Fire and is the ongoing adventures of Katniss Everdeen and her family and community.
There are twists and turns everywhere in this book.
You cant predict what will happen from one chapter to the next and I like the underlying story that is just peering through.
Of course the next one I read will be part 3 as that is also sitting on my Daughters shelf calling to me.


Pull up news

Pull ups are going well.
Lost count of how many I have done today but I am now able to do 10 wide grip pull ups which are harder than my usual hand hold.

Still pulling on the bar

The OH went back to work today so our pull up bar made it back upstairs where it is used the most.
I managed 10 and lots of lesser amounts till I had done around 58.
I am still improving on the one legged pistol squats. Less wobbling.
The temperature is finally beginning to kick in here and it was only 17 degrees downstairs so we have been upstairs in the warmer rooms all day.

Making spare cash trickle feed style


I joined Shop and scan this week. It is a company that asks for you to scan all the bar codes on your shopping and you upload the scans( they loan you a scanning device) and a picture of your receipt (to prove you didn't just scan the contents of the shop) and send to them once a week. 

They reward in vouchers which will be so handy for Birthday present buying.


I am trying out Amazon MTurk too.
This is an american company .
You sign up and do little tasks on line for small payments in cents.
The UK participants are paid in US Amazon com vouchers only spendable on the US version of Amazon , so I thought I would have a go and see how handy they are once I have earned some.
If they are not really very spendable because of import duties making them worthless ,I will stop doing them.


I enjoy this kind of thing though, it is my trickle feed approach to life yet again.
If you stick at anything long enough, you will see rewards or at least know why you shouldn't continue.
Most of the tricklers have proved useful in one way or another .
Now the freelancing has dried up ,this is helping to fill in the time and provides a little bit of something for the very few times when I feel like parting with earnings.

Tools rediscovered

I went on a little shopping expedition Saturday morning.
First stop was Hobby Craft.
It is a big warehouse type outlet selling everything hobby based.
I bought a helping hand tool for when I am soldering or gluing or painting,all of which I do every now and again.
A little pot of clear ceramic paint for adding a protective layer on top of my hand painted mugs.
A packet of Bits for the Dremel rotary tool that I salvaged a couple of days back.

Hobby craft is not always the cheapest option but often has everything you need.
Todays purchase was £3 off the paint so worked out about the same as buying the whole lot on-line would have,plus I didn't need to pay postage.

There are 60 pieces in the Bits set which was £13.99 as opposed to a 100 piece Dremel set in Wickes who wanted £29 !! When you consider that a lot of 'pieces' are actually things like a circle of sandpaper,a shaft to hold a blade, a soft circle to polish things, I think there was just as much useful stuff in the Hobbycraft set.
I wont buy lots more bits for it, some will be fabricated to incorporate the shafts that came in this set.
No idea what the thing that was stuck in the Dremel originally was, it appears to be a shaft with a nearly smooth end so possibly it was worn almost smooth over time. As it wasn't something you could remake , just having some new empty shafts is enormously advantageous.




This set will now be used to fabricate new blades for my mini bandsaw which I have rescued from certain death out of our Narnian book cupboard.

Pull ups today 40 in all,longest continuous 10
One legged Pistol squats 72=3x24 each leg

Thursdays scuttle

Thursdays Garmin induced run was faster than the plod of Tuesday.
We fair scampered along and managed a whole minute off of Tuesdays dismal time.
The boy did not accompany us.
We were spotted by my neighbour as we left the house ,it made us feel very furtive.

Pull ups have reached an all time high with  a new score of 60.
That isn't all at once but throughout the day.
10 is still the highest at once.

Keeping up with the exercise

Yesterday I did about 44 pull ups.
I do them whenever I am downstairs and remember to do it.
I think I did one 10 and the rest lesser amounts.

I also did 3 X 8 pistol squats each leg.
I go quite carefully with them because it is easy to hurt your knees if you don't get the angle of your knee right.
It can be quite stretching for the Achilles tendons too.
I can do them without holding something for balance now.

We ran yesterday evening.
2.89 miles.
It took 30 minutes which seemed quite slow but was only a little bit slower than usual once I uploaded the Garmin results.
I have been leaving my Garmin at home a few times just so it doesn't get too obsessive.
I think there was a wind blowing against us on the way back but I didn't notice it behind us on the way out.

Mending and making do

We inherited a Dremmel from a relative. Just the main unit ,no attachments.
It is one of those rotary tools where you fit little saw blades and drills and grinding ends into a shaft and then you can work on small projects.
We already have a cheap rotary tool but this is much heavier duty.

After much pulling and puffing,I managed to get the tool that was jammed in it, out.
It needed pliers and a lot of twisting and tugging.
The chuck is perfectly okay though so I will have a go at making some tools for it sometime this week.
Instructables has some interesting home made bits for them so I must do some research.

Slacking off

Have done very little exercise the last 2 days.
However I have kept up with the pull ups and this morning managed 6 in a row!
It was going to be a skipping afternoon yesterday but we ended up going into town for a new non leaking kettle.
Today was hopefully the last day of my TOTM which has been rotten this month .
There is no knowing how easy a time I am going to have each month,especially as I am 49 and even the unpredictability that I usually experience has become more unpredictable LOL.
I never have enjoyed the monthly 'gifts'. Why once you have had your kids, cant you opt out?

OH was given a huge slab of chocolate which I have had a few bits of.
Nice but not as addictive as it used to be.
I will most likely not run tonight as I am not quite back to my usual self  and don't feel like it.

Shedding the shed

Our oldest shed must be forty years old.
It stands at a slant and the door doesn't fit the hole.
A hole in the roof and a rotting side make it useless as a shed so for the last 4 or 5 years,I have been planning to dismantle it and use any good wood for building a compost bin.
Today my son painted the gate that he made a few weeks ago and then looking for another project, I suggested the shed.
Now it is in 3 piles.
The floor which hasn't been removed from situ
The good wood which will be the compost bin and remains will be burned.
The burn pile which is rotten wood and wood too soft to reuse.
Most likely the floor will be burned too as it is all holes.

My poor arms are worn out with dragging panels and throwing pieces of wood around.
I think that is plenty of a workout for one day.
Plus it is TOTM(womens problems) and as usual, I am knickered,knackered,knockered.

I have done 10 pull ups so far today.
2 X 5
The men have gone to Karate and tonights tea will be chips,sausage,bacon,tomato,egg and baked beans.

Thurs and fri in the garden

The garden was screaming for attention LOL
So for the last 2 days, I have been out there digging and hoeing for a couple of hours each.

Last evening,we ran as usual and it being a nice night,we managed a nearly 3 miler without too much gasping.

Today I walked into town to buy Onion sets and paint.
The onions will go in the garden when I have cleared sufficient weeds out of the way.
Onion sets were £2 each pack and I bought 3 packs of 50.That sounds pricey until you realise that 3 full sized onions in Asda is about  £1 . I will buy a bulb of garlic next time I am there as I'm not paying £2 for garlic if I can get it for less.
The paint is for the gate as my son wants to paint it to save it rotting away after he went to the effort of making it.
Also as it was only the worst half that was replaced, it has been a two coloured pair of gates for a few weeks which does stick out like a sore thumb.
Now it is half dark grey undercoat and half old blue paint and if it doesn't rain, it will be all blue tomorrow.

I have had to rethink my self employment.
After not really having any significant work for some months, I decided it was better to give it up than to sit on my behind and look hopefully in the direction of the company that had been sending me work last year.
With the economy up the spout just about everywhere, there isn't the demand for retouching ,especially when people are quite willing to have a go themselves or put up with a few spots and scratches on their prints.

While I am disappointed that things didn't really pan out with it, it is sort of liberating to have made the decision.

The pull ups have been going surprisingly well.
On Thursday,I didn't do even one because I am trying to be sensible and let the muscles rest between attempts.
Today I did 5 in a row twice and 4 once so far.
That is such a quick improvement.
It seems that once I got past two in a row, it is just a question of building from there because Wednesday was the first day I managed 4 and I think Monday was the first day I managed 3 .

The gardening has been quite an arm workout on its own but I am finding that using the tools is so much easier since my push ups,pull ups and dips have improved so drastically.

Tuesdays run

We ran in the dark again.
It seems to be a bit of a habit.
OH wanted to get back for a telephone call so we only did 1.75 miles.
The garmin worked perfectly this time and said we had run at 10.01 pace.
It felt reasonable but not fast which it turned out, it wasn't.

I held off on the pull ups all day so as not to over train but it is quite addictive to do pull ups once they come in multiples greater than one.

This morning Wednesday,I managed 4 in a row,then 3 chin ups in a row and 3 wide grip pull ups which I have never managed to do before.
I did that sequence twice.
Then I did weighted leg raises ,concentrating on getting a good crunch rather than numbers.
Lastly 12 assisted pull ups which seemed hard but I managed.
I have added a couple more 4 and 3 reps as I have walked past the pull up bar during the day.

In the afternoon, I did a laptop workout (virtual gym) which was Core focused.
Although I hadn't done one since last week, the core part of the workout seemed very easy.

The water board was back outside hunting for leaks as usual.
They actually discovered our stop-cock which is on a drive about 50 meters up the road. Not our drive but the drive to the house that is 4 away from us!

Good news! Our son has passed the theory part of the driving test.
We said we would buy him some lessons with a driving school once he had got that part under his belt.
He has had quite a lot of practice driving our car but needs a bit more specific advice on some aspects so a fresh pair of eyes will see what OH is missing.

Monday monday......

So Monday was spent mostly pulling up on the bar!
Well not really!
I went shopping in the car with DS.
We trudged around the supermarket and bought fruit and veg etc..not terribly interesting.
The reduced sections or whoopsied or yellow stickered as some people like to call them, is now so ridiculous as to be hardly worth the glance.
10 pence less was about the limit of the reductions.
We laughed at a rice pot thing that was smaller than a yoghurt and consisted of a handful of par cooked rice and about 2 tablespoons of some runny orange sauce..it was £1 reduced from £1.97. You could buy a whole bag of rice and a tin of something tasty to go on top for that reduced price and a whole 4 portion meal for the original price.

I can now do 4 pull ups in a row.Proper pull ups with hands facing away and legs not touching the ground at all!
I did several sets throughout the day ,some were only 3's but more than 1 set of 4.
I also fitted in the leg raises with weighted ankles and one set was with v.small dumbells hooked over my toes too.

I gave one legged squats a go again and discovered that I could do about 4 each leg and then repeat,providing I was alongside something in case I needed to grab on.
I have been reading a book called 'Never gymless' which has body weight exercises. Some are quite challenging and some I will never be able to do but interesting none the less.






Another similar book is





which is an excellent read and by a Russian Author with a lot of fitness knowledge and good advice.





There have been a lack of push ups and dips as a result of the pull up work so I fitted in 60 push ups and 50 dips just to be sure I still can do them.

Dark running

It was way past sun down by the time we ran last night.
My Garmin wasn't interested. I think it was too cloudy plus we started to run the minute we were outside which left it no time to catch the satellites.
We were bombing it .
I think it was about a 22 minute run all together.
A cup of tea and a banana refueled the fires once we were home.
OH had his dinner as well.

I was using the pull up bar on and off all day yesterday in an effort to improve my consecutive pull up count.
Sometimes I was managing 3,sometimes 2 1/2,sometimes only 1.
I realised that the challenge I have been following ,expects the counting to start from feet leaving the floor,till returning to floor which in my case has been 1,so although I have managed a maximum of 10,really it is only 10 X 1.
That isn't a bad thing because to begin with I couldn't do one and could only lower myself down off a chair.
I do want to progress now that I can do >1 though, so I need to push myself .

I have a couple of hard drives to reformat today.
They are surplus stock from OH's work but we were allowed to have them as they are just gathering dust in storage.
I will try GParted on them as that is a terrific program considering it is free. It can do pretty much everything partition magic can do and I always feel confident using it which I rarely do with P.M.

There is another crop of lettuce to harvest in the g house.
I sewed it as a cut and come again crop.
The lettuce seeds are sown in pots and then cut while quite small still. Only the largest leaves each time.
This crop is the one I first sewed a few months back.
Providing you keep harvesting,they keep producing.
Same with spinach.
You can get a good bunch of salad from the two plants every week when treated that way.

Pull ups again

The 3 rep sets are getting more frequent I think.
I did about 4 sets this morning .
Then the leg raises with weight.
4 leg raises without weight but more crunched as it is supposedly more effective.
12 assisted pull ups using the inner tube band.
A couple of chin ups.

I will get in some more pull ups during the day.
I moved the bar to my daughters bedroom after all as OH wont be using the room for a couple of weeks and it is the least in the way spot. It can go back on the living room door after that.

New pull up scheme

After last times success with 3 pull ups in succession without a foot landing, I decided that I would change the routine a bit.
This morning I did 3,3,3,2,3,1,2,2
all being consecutive pull ups but smaller sets.
I think this is the way to improve because all the time I do single pull ups, I am getting more endurance overall but not very quick progress with increasing the time between foot landings.
After that,I did 6 singles,7 singles,8 singles and 2 consecutive.
Then
6 chin ups(singles)
12 leg raises
12x2 weighted leg raises
12 band assisted pull ups
My shoulders and arms feel very pumped and powerful.

I hung the pull up bar on a different door so that I could leave it there for the odd pull up throughout the day.
We really don't have a lot of doors where it will fit(3 in the whole house).
The usual door is right by the front door so the bar cant stay there else no one can get out or into the house.
The 2nd door is my daughters bedroom but also doubles as OH's study room and his exam room when the time comes, so would be a bit cheeky to hang it there , a bit too 'I'm in possession now'.
The only other door with a suitable frame, is the door of my workroom(former dining room) which has the sofa right up against it on the other side but as it wont be permanent,I have it there for now.

The usual scuttle
We ran our almost 3 miler last night. I didn't really feel like it as it was dark and cold but with a long sleeved top and track suit leggings,it was quite warm and I had my light jacket over it for visibility which left me feeling very steamy. I didn't take the garmin this time.I don't want to rely on it always .It can become a bit obsessive to always be fretting over a time when what I really got it for was the gps mapping and the heart rate .
We didn't have an audience last night and no dogs showed an interest.