Lifestyle

Sixteen years of blogging!

/ edebock / 15 Comments

I published my very first blog post sixteen years ago today! It was also the shortest post I’ve ever written; a brief message announcing that hubby and I had just accepted positions teaching conversational English in Japan. The blog was meant to share that year-long adventure with friends, family and anyone else who might be interested. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that it would still be alive and well sixteen years later!

The title, Following Augustine, no longer fits the blog as well as it did in those early days, but since it’s what I’ve been known as in the blogosphere for more than a decade and a half, I hesitate to consider changing it. You can read about why I originally chose the title here.

Though I probably already had neuroendocrine cancer (NETS) when the blog was born, I didn’t know about it until several years later. When I finally received a correct diagnosis, blogging became a helpful way to process what was happening and to share the journey with friends and family. I also use the blog to raise awareness of NETS. I’m sure that this will continue to happen as I’ve recently become a member of a newly formed Advocacy Advisory Board that will report to the board of directors of the Canadian Neuroendocrine Tumour Society (CNETS).

When I started the blog, writing about fashion was the farthest thing from my mind. Several years ago, however, I starting following several fashion blogs and began to develop a greater interest in the topic. It was then that I decided to add the weekly Fashion Friday feature. At times, I find it a challenge to come up with a new fashion related topic every week, but it’s been a great way to connect with other women and to ensure that I post something at least once a week. Fashion Friday has a fairly small, but loyal following of interested readers, so I as long as I can continue to think of engaging content, I plan to keep the feature going.

As an avid reader, it was my passion for books that prompted me to add the latest feature to the blog, a monthly book review that first appeared at the beginning of February this year.

I refer to Following Augustine as a lifestyle, travel, and fashion blog, but in recent years, there hasn’t been as much travel content as I would have liked. First, the pandemic and then a number of other health issues, both mine and hubby’s, have limited our ability to spend as much time away from home as we would like, but our brand new ten year passports arrived in yesterday’s mail and we hope to be able to put them to good use in the future. If that happens, the blog will once again chronicle our wanderings.

Following Augustine will probably continue to undergo changes from time to time, but at this point, I don’t see it coming to an end anytime soon. Over the past sixteen years, I’ve published over 1400 posts and I expect that I’ll continue adding to that number until I’m no longer able!

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Getting back on track

/ edebock / 9 Comments

When I was diagnosed with cancer at the end of August, it would have been easy to fall into a deep pit of anger. After all, I don’t smoke, I only indulge in an occasional glass of wine, I’ve never even experimented with street drugs, I eat a healthy diet and I exercise regularly. I’ve taken excellent care of my body, so why cancer? Why me? There are no answers to those questions. I don’t think there’s anything more that I could have done to prevent such a catastrophic diagnosis, but life’s not fair and cancer is no respecter of persons.

Fortunately, I managed not to wallow in anger, but for awhile I definitely let a “why bother” attitude take hold. Why bother exercising? Why bother watching my weight? Why not eat whatever I want? After all, I have cancer. I deserve a treat, don’t I? Now, every time I look in the mirror, I see an unwelcome “why bother” bulge around my middle and every time I zip up my jeans, “why bother” gets in the way.

In spite of the delicious food, I actually lost a few pounds while we were in China.  The amount of walking and stair climbing that we did on a daily basis more than made up for the extra calories I consumed. I was surprised that I didn’t gain the weight back as soon as we got home and after being diagnosed with cancer, I actually began to worry about that. I knew that if I had to have surgery or if treatments caused me lose my appetite, I didn’t have any extra weight to spare. That made it easy to get lazy about exercising and to start indulging in fattening foods. I kept up my morning exercise routine but when winter arrived, I quit walking and the weights and the treadmill gathered dust in the basement. Suddenly my weight started to climb again and it didn’t stop! By early December I was seven pounds heavier than I’d been just three months earlier!

Seven pounds isn’t a lot but it’s five percent of my present body weight and on my slight frame, it shows. Also, I realized that if I kept gaining at that rate, I’d put on 28 pounds in just one year! There’s no way I wanted that to happen! It was definitely time to do something about the “why bother” attitude, but with Christmas goodies staring me in the face, I decided not to make any drastic changes until after the New Year.

Now, with Christmas behind us, most of the goodies eaten and the family gone, it’s time to get back on track! Today I bid “why bother” good bye, dug out my virtual walk DVDs and got back on the treadmill. I only walked 1.2 miles (just under 2 kilometres) but it’s a start and it felt good. Before we left for China, I didn’t have time to finish my video course, The Secret Life of Words: English Words and Their Origins so, when I’m not enjoying scenic pathways around the world via DVD, I’ll be watching lectures while I walk.

When the little ones were here for Christmas, we had to hide the free weights to keep them from dropping them on their toes but I’ll be digging those out again next week. It’s been almost a year since the last time I lifted so I’ll have to start small but that’s okay. Cancer may have slowed me down for awhile but it hasn’t stopped me yet!