Artslim
 
It is my birthday and I have been spoiltJ. I am wearing my extravagant birthday present, four sliver Pandora charms, (I wear them around my neck over my clothes, as they tarnish on my skin), each one to represent one of my grand children. I have a friend whose husband keeps buying her corsets for her birthday, lol, I am too much the bush girl for those sorts of things, I usually choose practical gifts, and these Pandora beads have been the first luxury item I have chosen in a long time.

Now I have a bead to represent each member of my immediate family plus each bead does double duty and represents 5 kilo of weight I needed to lose, from my heaviest weight of a few years back.  I now own 10 Pandora beads; yes that is the full 50 kilo.

I have taken the emphasis off losing weight now and my aim is for a balanced lifestyle that stays true to continuing to nurture myself, both physically and creatively/emotionally ad my belief is that my body will find its own ideal weight quite independent of BMI charts and bathroom scales and by conscientiously eating a healthy portion controlled diet, being active and paying attention to balance and strength training exercise in particular, I will continue to be a strong and productive happy senior for as long as I am able.  I am very happy with where I am, within myself, todayJ.

I thank my family and friends for all your assistance in helping me achieve this comfortable place I am at and encouraging me in the trasition period to a new, downsized, in home, career and self, lifestyle. Today I have begun to write a small book, about this downsizing journey.

 
 
 
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My daughter, Carla's dog, Kelly, not looking very thrilled about the idea of having her bath in Carla's new walk in dog's hydrobath.
My daughter Carla, who does a marvelous job of clipping our poodle Indigo at her Carla’s dog Clipping, Narre Warren, when we are at Summer studio Home, base in Victoria, during the warmest months, has added a walk in hydro bath to her dog grooming salon so she does not need to lift heavy dogs.  Some dogs are heavier than humans so I’m happy to hear that she is protecting her back.

My S-I-L, has just renovated their home, turning an en suit shower into a sit down shower bath and I have only just become aware of all these new innovations in bathroom fittings, take a look at walk in tubs ,before making final decisions on bathroom renovations..

I was reading about how a lot of people who are doing up homes to resell then make the biggest mistake in the area of the bathroom. Many, especially seniors like me, still have their heads back on the 1970’s when renovating the bathroom and if you are planning a bathroom renovation there are a couple of points to keep in mind, one is obviously to take a look at what is new today, bathroom design is changing rapidly and secondly be aware that western cultures have an aging population and bathroom design may need to consider this new, healthy trend of allowing people to live in their home independently, for longer and the bathroom is possible the room that most needs adaption to cater for disability and frail elderly seniors.

I did have to smile in agreement when I read the article that most senior’s ideas of a bathroom renovation are stuck back in the 70’s, because they were correct in my case.  Back in the 1970’s I traded a painting of a waterfall, for a luxury spa bath called ‘Just heaven’, and that is what it was, armchair reclining comfort. Fully stretched out, arms on arm rests, and semi sitting up sleeping position, I did sleep in that bath many times, also wrote long soggy letters J and watched TV relaxing. I loved that great tub 1970’s bath room design and if money were no object probably would renovate today in those same dated designs if I had not been jogged into seeing how things have changed, in bathroom fittings. J.

Today my bath is in the outside courtyard garden of a little retirement summer studio, our home during the warmer months in Victoria, in south Eastern Australia.  It isn’t even plumbed in, I fill it via a hose from the laundry that is passed out of the window and I empty it in 10 large bucket loads of water, which is the perfect amount of water to water every meter of my courtyard garden.  I lay back and look at my climbing roses and the bird life against the patterns in the sky and look at my vegetables growing around the base. 

My children are somewhat aghast that I tell people I have a backyard pool, they warn me about ‘Google Earth’ and I think they fear their less than perfect eccentric senior mum might end up with her ‘in the bath tub’ photo on show on the internet, LOL, I tell them I’ll curl up and hide under my diary if I see the ‘Google Earth’, satellite go past. 

The first photo below, shows our courtyard, before the outdoor bathroom makeover. 
The other photos are the after pictures.

The bath was new from a seconds shop, cost us $65. plus our garden plants, 6 x $10. climbing rose arches and the beautiful flat rocks came with us, from our last bush property. The total courtyard bathroom cost was very little.  We do have an indoor bathroom with a foot bath at the base of a shower and we have solar hot water service and free irrigation supply river water into the bathroom, so there is no costs involved in our bathroom use. it's a great summer retreat set up when we are not touring.

I'm going to run a hot bath, grab a cuppa and a magazine and go relax in the bathroom courtyard, right now. 
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The before photo.
 
 
I was unpacking my sewing machine,  wondering if I’ll ever want to find time to use it again and I remembered that I bought it with the proceeds of a cashed in life insurance policy at a time when I realized I had made an error of judgment by failing to get enough life insurance quotes and information before committing to a policy I could not afford, so I ended up forfeiting half of what I had paid, when I cashed it in, and that was  my lump sum that bought my great Bernina sewing machine and now it's just one more posesion I have little use for, as I love our downsized lifestyle.

I started downsizing posessions almost six years ago,  begining with swapping my career as an artist to a hobby business, as I became carer for Reg and we downsized tools of trade, selling the pottery studio equipment and picture framing work shop and the art gallery.  I just have our simple home and caravan possesions, the remains of my art and craft supplies, and this, my ‘might use one day’, sewing machine left from our years of accululating possesions.

It was almost three years ago that I realized the downsizing needed to include, 'me', and we also decided to downsize from a bricks and mortar home into our caravan, towing car and simple country reteat.  I am very happy with what we have achieved doing this dramatic downsize, I don’t need all the possessions we had once and I love that our caravan is now parked, packed ready to go, outside our home and I love that I have downsized from size 22  to 24 to a size 12 to14 .

I’m holding a garage sale this Saturday, a little more downsizing.

The rule that I apply to everything in my home now, is, it has to be beautiful or useful and preferably both for me to keep it and I only purchase items I actually need.  LOL, now 'need', that's an interesting word isn't it?  Can I justify that I still need to own roses, wisteria, iris, day lillies and lilium? :-).  Need is an individual thing.   LOL, just as well I see the dog and the man as having both the qualities of beauty and usefulness so they are on the keep list along with both being needed so they would even meet the new criteria for added on possessions, :-), they are safely part of this downsized lifestyle I love. J
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My active week continues today, on a high after spring cleaning and changing the function and furniture arrangement in two rooms.

The office is now a walk in wardrobe room with a large sewing table and the iron and Elna press set up, mirrors, original art work and grandchildren’s photos mounted and storage on one side and under the table.

The kitchen has had a complete sanitising, everything in every cupboard and the cupboards themselves is sparkling clean and those little pesky field mice who made their home in the cupboards while we wintered in the north of Australia, won’t find our home as habitable in future. 

I dug out my CSIRO healthy heart cook book and I bought everything they suggested that I did not have, in the basic pantry supplies and everything they suggested for the week one menus.  I spent $600. on supplies and $150. on vegetable seedlings, seeds and cow manure so  would not have to continue to buy fresh herbs and some of the cut and come again type vegetables through summer and autumn. 

 
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It took me three days to complete the kitchen dining area set up and  pack the pantry shelves expertly, and  have never in my life had such fully stocked cupboards and I extended the range of foods and spices I cooked with.

The past three days while working in the kitchen I have been trying out the recipes in this book and preparing luscious sit down lunches, again, strait out of the CSIRO healthy heart program cook book. 

Breakfast for me today was a break from my normal rolled oats, and I followed the plan to the letter, weighing my portions.  40 grams of Uncle Toby’s healthy heart, breakfast cereal, it is one of the few breakfast cereals without iron added and suitable for people with hemochromatosis and I am using one of the new special formula, with plant steroids to help lower cholesterol, healthy heart, low fat milk.  I have not used this before; we usually use skim milk powder.  The CSIRO healthy heart program will cost a little more than my usual eating plan but if you keep doing the same thing, you cannot expect different results and at my last two checks this week, it appears my blood pressure has gone up and I’ve requested time to try to bring it down naturally using dietary changes, walking and swimming exercise and releasing more of my excess body fat.  I believe I can do thisJ.

 
Lunch today was 40 grams of roast beef for me, 60 grams for Reg, a delicious 8 vegetable mix salad, on third of an avocado as spread on a multi grain roll, very satisfying,  and tonight I am cooking 150 grams of gem fish for me 250 for Reg with low carbohydrate vegetables grilled skewers and serving them on a bed of salad with one glass of chilled chardonnay, mango, 100 grams of low fat, natural yogurt and 10 almonds as my snacks and two cups of express coffee, two cups of Dilmah tea, all with the low fat, heart health milk, and just checking over that, I will be taking two Blackmores calcium plus tablets (you can see our supplements,( used only when necessary),  in the pantry pictures) today to increase my calcium serves to four for the day. 

Now that is LIVING, not dieting, I feel so satisfied after my luscious lunch and as I have been very active all week I should have no problem coming in with a fat loss this week. J.
 
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That is the bare kitchen end, BEFORE we laid the new floating timber floors throughout the entire home.  The second picture is one I love to show, of Reg laying the floor in our dining area. 
I turned that little dark room at the end of the kitchen into a light, (using mirrors to enhance the natural light from the side windows), walk in wardrobe room and sewing ironing, plus storage centre.
My kitchen looks more homely now, with my personal possessions on the benches and the small dining area and recline chair, TV set so the cook can listen to the news as I prepare evening meal, all set up, opposite this view, and I've planted a pretty and functional, flowers and vegetable garden down the side, plus shade trees and climbing ornamental grape vine and ivory rose, all to be views through the windows.
 
 
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133 days to my three year downsizing goal date and I have had a very busy day.  It’s only three days since I felt I was getting over the bout of food poisoning I had last week and I’ve been working hard at the active jobs, trying to catch up on lost time.  This will sure rev my metabolism up.  They say being active all day, does more for fat burning than 30 minutes of gym.  I hope that’s so because what with moving furniture to clean out everywhere that pesky field mice went, in our home, while we were away and gardening today, planting out my vegetable garden, I have not felt the need to attend gym, I’ve been giving myself a huge nonstop work out in the home and garden and gym on top of this would have been overload.

Yesterday I completed a total clean, rearrange of furniture and room purpose, renovation of the smallest room in the house.  I took the small office that extended off the kitchen and turned it into a wardrobe dressing room plus sewing ironing room with storage and I increased the light by fixing five mirror tiles to the wardrobe doors and one larger mirror to hide a storage area and positioned it to reflect light from the small side window. I have high cupboards that can become grand children, picture gallery wall. I’m delighted with the result; it’s a great, practical use of a tiny area.

If I can keep working at this pace, I doubt that I will need best weight loss supplement, but I think I’m petering out tonight and it’s going to be hard to find the energy to achieve today’s gaol of a clean tidy, fully restocked kitchen and a dining area set up where I previously had the ironing and sewing.  I did make the delicious dinner goal with Reg’s help.  I can always depend on Reg to cook a great lamb roast with all the trimmings. J  I already have the leftovers carved and packed away with vegetables in the freezer, marked as two lamb and vegetable lunches for two.  Mr Nobody doesn’t come into my kitchen late at night any more to snack on the left over roast and surprise ,surprise, I no longer gain weight.

I’m not a housekeeper’s bootlace, LOL, but when I get enthused about something, I want to complete it.  If I ‘play a mind game’ and break the kitchen, dining room which is one long room, into a kitchen and a dining room, (two separate identities), in my mind, I can tackle the easier end, tonight then go to bed feeling very pleased that I am right on target, and have 2 rooms done and 5 to go, plus of course the outside deck.  I should have the home and garden clean, re set and functional and ready to live in, before the end of the month.

 
 
 
I wanted to show you the comfortable interior of our eco tourer slip stream caravan that Reg and I call home for half of each year. 

I love its sleek easy clean surfaces, and the fact that it is the shower and toilet model, and I have my own ladies vanity wash basin and don’t have to use the kitchen sink for my personal needs.

I love the comfort and luxury of natural leather trim seating and that the kitchen table folds back to a small bench which can give me sufficient floor space to do my exerciese while watching an exercise DVD. 

There are a lot of storage areas, a huge amount of storage space under the bed, just as well because during the last three trips I have had to carry several lots of clothing, the size I currently wear and one size smaller to come home in, LOL, it’s been fun discarding something that is now too big for me at every town we stay a week in.  The discarding is slowing down now but I still have my next size, I hope to go home in, clothes stored under the bed.

I love that the TV in our caravan is suspended out of the way, from the ceiling. It pivots so you can watch it from the back of the van, in the double bed or from the dining area at the front of the van.   We are fully self sufficient, I can watch my exercise DVD’s powered by the solar power panel that is mounted on the roof.

With TV’s becoming slimmer it’s not always safe leaving them self supporting, we have already had an accident with one, Reg accidently dropped the one I bought for our summer retreat home in northern Victoria, he reacted to try to protect the TV and the floor and put his leg out to break the fall and we ended up with Reg’s ankle and the TV both broken and a dint in the floor.  It didn’t matter about the TV or the floor but it set Reg back considerably, his needing to rest his leg for months, he has fully recovered now, thankfully.

I bought him another, even better TV.
I do need to search for a secure tv stand so we don’t have any more accidents with these new, slim designed, television sets.