Cutting back

image from Clipart Library

I mentioned in my last post that I was reassessing how I am managing my life outside of the dietary changes I am making.  There have been ~ still are, to a degree ~ lots of things to consider, including how my health issues may play out over the coming years.  My big "worry" now is a) whether I will have any reoccurrences of gout, and b) if so, how often it may happen.  Of course, I have no answer to those questions and it's not something that my GP can easily predict either it seems.  Dietary changes are the only way to at least mitigate the chances of a reoccurrence so as that is my only realistic route to take, that is the one I am following.

I do have other issues to consider, too, quite outside of those I told you about in my previous post.  I had a prolapsed disc some years ago and my back has never been quite the same since then.  This does restrict my being able to do just what I want, when I want, but I have learnt to "manage" life with a somewhat dodgy back and do try to be sensible most of the time!  Of course, losing weight would be an enormous help for this issue and the dietary changes I'm making are helping the excess pounds to come off. 

One of the biggest challenges now is how to manage our garden, which as I've whittered on about many times over the years since we moved here is rather larger than we had realised when we viewed the house!  We're also both now well into our 60s and hard physical work takes its toll much more that it used to do.  It doesn't take long for the beds and borders to start getting out of control when they aren't tended to on a regular basis.

As you know we have made considerable changes to the layout, including setting up raised beds in a kitchen garden area, altering borders, etc.  Realistically this is going to be a lot of ongoing hard work for us, especially if I have periods when I'm not able to contribute to the work there.  We've therefore decided to start a programme of further changes to the garden which will probably take us a couple of years or so to complete, but the hope is that is will make the garden easier to manage.

I won't list everything that we are planning right now but will keep you up-to-date as we make each of the changes 😊

I have had to consider other areas of my life that also needed overhauling, quite apart from the garden.  I am, of course, talking about my hobbies ~ and all those things that my butterfly mind comes across and immediately thinks "wow, that'd be a really fab thing to try!"  Unfortunately, said butterfly mind soon flits off to something new leaving me with a whole load of books and supplies that I'll never get round to using 😏  So there has been a lot of thinking and sorting going on in my craft room, which I'll share later.

And finally I have been considering whether at the age of 64 I can finally move my personal "style" in a new direction, one that I've thought about oh so many times over the years.  I've never had the courage to step out of my comfort zone, so it always just slips away again.  It's not even as if what I'm drawn to is something "outrageous", so maybe it's less to do with courage and more about laziness?  The problem is, though, that the images I have floating about in my head and what I love to look at online just won't go away!  I must be at least two-thirds of the way through my life now ~ if I'm lucky! ~ so if I don't grab at those ideas now then I never will 😳

So there we are, lots of changes coming along over the next (being realistic) couple of years ~ onwards and upwards, as they say!