The weekend turned out to be moderately busy. It rained the whole time and on Saturday I avoided the rain and stayed inside most of the time. On Sunday I couldn’t avoid my chores any more and had to get some things done. I made some trips over to the storage unit and got soaking wet going back and forth between the car and the house. I never did really dry out either – well not until the evening. Chloe tagged along and was actually an honest-to-goodness help! Isn’t that great?! She was good company too.

We went to home depot and bought a swing – you know, for grown-ups. It’s a very sturdy love-seat sized swing that comes with a roof. The very cool part is that the back folds down, like a futon so you can get really serious about your nap-taking. They only had the floor model left and I got a great price on it. They didn’t want to disassemble it for me, but I charmed the crap out of them and they took it apart for me. I also bought a bunch of steel L-brackets that I will use for the whelping box I’m planning.

We spent some time at Barnes and Noble after our home depot time and everyone bought some books. Then we went to Applebees for lunch. Afterwards I dropped everyone else off at home and me and Ben went back to Home Depot to get the swing. He actually was a great help. It was good to have him along.

When we got home Liz helped me assemble the swing – which wasn’t easy because we didn’t have any instructions. Fortunately, she’s a whiz with those sorts of things. The rain held off until seconds after we were done. Isn’t that great? But it was still hot and humid and I was still soaked to the bone with sweat and a little rain.

On Saturday we babysat the neighbor-kid, Adam. He’s about 3 months old and Liz LOVED holding him and playing with him! She didn’t want to give him back to his parents. In the afternoon I took the kids to a birthday party at one of these indoor playground places while Liz went shopping at the mall. I sat down with Ben’s cub scout manual and tried to layout an achievable plan to get some badges earned over the summer. I think we’ll have a good time with it.

This morning I went to the doctor’s for a followup visit from the gout medication I got. The nurse practitioner noticed that one of the blood pressure medications I was on is a diuretic. And that my blood pressure was a little low. So she wants me to knock off the hydrochlorothorazide (50mg, which she says is a high dose anyway). They sent off some blood work, too to see how my liver is doing and how high my uric acid levels are. Finally she said she wanted me to lose five pounds before my next visit in six weeks. She made some suggestions like not eating red meat, or cutting it down to once or twice a week, but that was really part of the gout-conversation and not so much part of the diet-conversation. She wants me to walk for 15 minutes a day and increase my consumption of fruits and vegetables. And don’t eat after 7 or 8 at night. She thinks I should have half a bagel with peanut butter for breakfast instead of the whole one with cream cheese I normally eat.

These all seem like reasonable suggestions. So I will follow them. I’ve walked for 30 minutes today and bought a couple of apples. Liz helpfully had supplied me with a fruit bowl – I just need to start filling it. Liz also thinks I eat too much, even though I’ve never thought it was that much. I usually “clean my plate” and don’t have any desert. And I guess she thinks that’s too much. And maybe it is – I understand American restaurants keep increasing the sizes of their portions and its slaves to habit like myself who just keep eating whatever is on their plate regardless of the quantity. I saw one article that suggested eating the child’s size of whatever you want to eat.

So I’ll have to work some of that out. At my previous job I was able to work out during the day – I can’t do that now. I was able to increase my activity-level and lose weight. I think these days I need to come at it from another angle – I need to eat less to lose the weight and ignore the fact that I lead a very sedentary life.

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