Farewell to Freeserve/Wanadoo/Orange email

I thought I'd take the opportunity to mention this as we are just days away from the end of an era.

In 1998, I finally took my first steps on the information superhighway, as it was popularly known at that time.  I wasn't really interested in the internet to start with, but eventually my curiosity got the better of me.  My first internet experiences were at my local library in 1998, although it would be fair to say that the staff were not prepared for this new technological revolution!  Then I reached a stage where I had enough money to buy my own computer.  In those days, Freeserve was bringing internet access to the masses - for free, all you needed was to pay your phone company's dial-up costs - so I signed up with them, and got my original email address, which has (free)served me well since 1998. I'm proud to be "old school" :)))

Freeserve, which subsequently became Wanadoo, which subsequently became Orange and finally EE.
But one thing remained the same: my "Freeserve" email address.  Along the way, I also got myself a couple of Googlemail (Gmail) addresses after I started blogging, but that Freeserve email address was my main contact.  Considering how fast things move in the world of technology it should be very surprising that something should stay the same for so long.  But finally, a couple of months ago, I received notification that all those Freeserve/Wanadoo/Orange email accounts are finally closing down at the end of this month.  In the meantime, I've set up yet another Gmail address which will replace that much-loved Freeserve address.  It's been a lot of work and a long process having to notify all the companies I deal with, about my new email address - it certainly brings into focus just how much we use our email on a day to day basis.

If you are reading this and still have one of those email addresses, you only have a few days left to change it over; unless you have a forwarding arrangement to another email address, you will also lose all Freeserve/Wanadoo/Orange emails as well.

At the beginning of yet another weight loss journey (groan!)

So since my last post I have been on holiday, which I will eventually write about over at EuropeCrazy, although I'm struggling to find the blogging mojo at the moment, so it might be a while yet.  We have also had unusually high temperatures over the past few days which have turned even the simplest of tasks into a struggle.

Over the past two years I have gained three stones in weight, because I have struggled to deal with the loss of my mum, the general stresses of day-to-day life, and another major factor being that bloody menopause - which I didn't expect to have such a debilitating impact on my life - and which brought anxiety and panic attacks into the equation.

Anyway, back to my holiday.  I had to buy clothes in the biggest size I've ever been.  I now struggle to walk anywhere and need to wear knee supports all the time (thank you maxi dresses and wide-leg trousers for allowing me to do this!).  Right now I feel about 10 years older than my real age.

Putting all this down on a blog post just brings me to the conclusion:  I can't go on like this any more,

Of course I've been here a million times before with the dieting, and the way that has a negative impact on my mental health etc.  But do I want to carry on like this?  I think we know the answer.

I had decided to give myself a little bit of breathing space after the holiday to decide which way I'm going to do this.  I'm not rejoining a club, I'm not rejoining the gym, but I now need to focus on the longer game, with no silly targets or timescales, not putting pressure on myself and just build in more exercise and healthy eating, and not get too bothered about the numbers.  I had quit Slimming World (again) but please don't take that as any bad reflection on Slimming World as it's a great programme and it works very well if you stick to it.  I have all the Slimming World recipe books/syns directory etc so can do it on my own now anyway.

I did weigh myself today though: the good news is that I'm actually 6lbs lighter than I was at the time I wrote http://europecrazysrandomramblings.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/im-lost-cause-basically.html which was a pleasant surprise since I hadn't weighed myself since that time, nor had I really been watching my weight.

So there will be no more weigh-ins until Friday 30th June.  In the meantime I'll just get on with the healthy eating etc and I'll let you know at the end of June how it's going.  All together now, "things can only get better". :)