Month completed: September 2008

No posts for a while, as I was off experiencing what Ireland has to offer. Nat and I spent six days in Kilkenny and Dublin, going to castles, drinking too much alcohol, and generally having a great time.

My highlights were visiting Kilkenny Castle, and the Guinness factory.

I found out recently about a lady named Barbara, who has taken the plunge and started her own list.

This in itself is a cause for congratulations, as starting the list is, I think, the hardest part.

What I really like about Barbara though is that she is 61 years old.

It would be very easy at 61 to say that it is too late to start. Too hard.

But not Barbara. She has set herself 147 goals to achieve before she turns 70. 147 because she was born in 1947.

You may think that the things on her list would mostly involve grandma stuff like knitting and helping out at the local op shop.

Well, you would be wrong.

Among Barbara’s goals are to go hang-gliding, go to a rodeo, do the City to Surf (again!), ski at Thredbo and visit Antarctica. Naturally there are some grandma ones in there, like opening a bank account for each grandchild and putting $1 per week into each account, and making and donating 12 baby quilts.

But my favourite of Barbara’s goals is the last one – to ‘live, laugh and be happy every day’.

To anyone who thinks that they are too old, or it is too late for them start, take a leaf out of Barbara’s book, and start today.

For anyone interested in reading about my adventures in London, I have started a new blog - HeathInLondon.blogspot.com

You will notice my trademark on the right hand side – a list of things to do while I am in London. If you have any suggestions for things I should do, or places I should go, I would love to hear them. 

The LLL diet (Leave for London Lighter) finished on the day I left Melbourne for London.

The aim was to get under 70kg. 69.5kg to be precise.

I was close, but didn’t quite get there. My final weight was 72.2kg.

Despite not completing the task, I am very happy with how I went. In eight weeks, I lost 5.3kg, through a combination of walking, jogging, cutting down on alcohol, and eating much healthier.

I anticipate I will probably put this back on while in London (I have heard a lot about the dreaded ‘Heathrow Injection’). But that’s OK, because now I know what it takes to get rid of it again.

Month completed: July 2008

Getting a bit of publicity for Project 183 has meant that I have started to get some requests from people to help me achieve certain goals.

One of the generous people who offered their assistance to me was Sarah, who offered to teach me some basic sign language. To be more specific, Auslan (Australian Sign Language). Sarah is very experienced in Auslan, as both her parents, and her two sisters, are deaf.

After about 25 emails back and forth, we managed to arrange a catch up at Fed Square, and over a hot chocolate she taught me:

- the alphabet,

- numbers up to 20,

- hello / goodbye,

- how are you?

- my name is…

- I’m really great

- Where is the toilet?

- I’m hot / cold / hungry / thirsty

- Nice to meet you

I plan to teach Nat now, so that we can speak to each other in a whole new way. I also plan to continue to learn new words on an on-going basis.

While writing this post, I stumbled across sign language keyrings (the letter H is below, although it is different to what I learnt). 

Click here to check out the full range. 

Footnote – You may have noticed that I achieved this goal back in July. I actually also wrote the text for this post back then too, but was also going to put up a video of me doing some sign-language. Unfortunately, things kept getting in the way, and rather than delay this post any further, I thought I would just put it up as is.