hello, it's me, is there still anybody out there!

I haven’t blogged for so long, it seems everytime I think about how long it has been it frightens me off...but I need to get back into it soon so here goes...

I have been very busy over the last few months with working and family and although my usual short blogs don’t take that long to write and publish - I leave it, and then it seems the I have too much to say until it all becomes too hard so I write nothing, so not too much focusing on what I have been up to and onto the future. However, I have not let my blog reading become so slack and have kept up with all of you.

The scales have been creeping up a little, but I am determined not to go back into the 80’s...so last week as I was scoffing a bag of extremely yummy Eta Sancho Corn Chips I asked myself why on earth I was eating them and everything else in sight all the time. I decided I wanted to make my weightwatchers goal (69kg) so I can stop paying them money (I really, really don’t want to quit until I make my goal), so I am on a “august challenge”, no idea what I could reward myself with at the end of the month but my goal for this month is to get into virgin WW weight which would be 77.5kg (or lower). So far I have had 5 days 100% on track and with today almost finished soon it will be 6. No exercise though so I really do need to make an effort to get up earlier in the morning to tread the elliptical.

The weight goals I am setting myself are:
· 77.5kg - virgin ww weight of
· 75 - it's just a nice round number
· 72.3 – 30kg loss since I began my journey (pre ww)
· 69kg – GOAL!

So that is 10kg’s in rough 2.5kg lots, if only I had some good rewards but I don’t tend to do too well with those, I find when I want something I just get it and then there is nothing I seem to want badly enough to make it a goal to really strive for. One thing I do want is another tattoo, and I have been looking for a while now for what I want but it seems the more I find the more I don’t know what to do, I know one day I will just come across the perfect picture like my last one, so when I do I will want it then.

While doing my grocery shopping the other week I came across a whole new range of Weight Watchers cakes, YUM. I am very fond of the Lamington Squares, but they also have chocolate chip bars and blueberry bars. I have also seen price labels for lemon slice, carrot, caramel and chocolate somethings, but the shelves were emply, must be coming soon. (drooling over the lemon slice already).
While at the supermarket the lady serving me asked me what I was doing as I am so 'skinny' now, made me chuckle, skinny...I wish but an awesome compliment all the same...will visit her checkout more often.

Kirkcaldies has been having there bi-annual sale the last few weeks, hubby has been in spending up large, he likes his nice gear and has bought himself a couple of nice Rockport sweaters and two shirts and three more business shirts…I bought the kids a couple of things, a cardigan for Connor (old before his time at nine, he just lives in the things), half price at $35.00 and Jordyn I just bought a top and pants because you can’t go home with something for only one. I also got some perfume, yummy Samsara, but I got the Au Du Toilette and now wish I had gone for the Parfum as I just can’t smell the damn stuff. Anyhow I decided I would rather go to the tail end of the Farmers sale and got my two nice ‘Jigsaw’ tops for $30 each (normally $90 each) so I was wrapped. When I first started working I had all nice and easy wash - dryer – hang tops but now they tend to be becoming more wash – hang to dry on coathanger tops, maybe with the weight loss and extra confidence the nicer more expensive tops appeal majorly.

I really want to try out the Vietnamese Rice Paper Rolls from the latest Weight Watchers cookbook, but with bloody cucumbers priced at over $5.00 each they just may need to wait a little longer. I was thinking of checking out the Farmers Market out in Porirua at the weekend maybe I can get more for my money than the supermarket can give.

Oh and this morning I got out of the car to walk to work and my friggin heel snapped off my boots...my pants were long enough to hide this so I made it through the day without having to buy more...I already have another pair at home so didn't see the point in buying another pair this close to the end of Winter (well hopefully it is). We also had thunder and lighting at 6.45am this morning, weird time for it but the day got better and was actually quite warm while waiting at the school for the kids.

Oh and last weeks weigh-in was 79.1...as good a starting point as any.

Oh and it sounds like the mid winter christmas was an outstanding success with a great time had by all, wish I could have made it.

Right I am out of here, dinner does not cook itself...more's the pity (actually I have just discovered that I do actually enjoy cooking and don't hate it as much as I thought I did) BYE!.

another weekend already

I had weigh-in on Thursday and was rapt with a 200g loss. Especially after my dinner last Thursday, lunch last Friday (Lemon Chicken with a huge bowl of cashew nuts) and on Sunday night I made homemade fried rice which was ok but I also ate a whole huge packet of cashews again.
I did my measurements again tonight and so far my stats since joining weightwatchers on 17 October are:

19.4 kg’s lost
7 BMI’s dropped
14cm lost from chest
2cm lost from neck
12cm lost from waist
16cm lost from hips
1cm lost from wrist
3 dress sizes dropped

I texted hubby in Sydney yesterday and asked him to go to a book store and get me the Biggest Loser Cookbook, I thought maybe it might have some good recipes in it. I have loads of the weightwatchers recipebooks and have found some awesome recipes which I used very regularly but I still don’t too much about simple/basic preparation of a lot of the foods I use all the time.

I had my last solo dinner tonight – roast salmon with roast potato/pumpkin/kumara/yams and corn on the cob – the salmon was just gorgeous, usually I cook it on the George Forman grill but this was just delish, looking forward to having that again and very soon.

We had a lovely day here today, pity I had to spend the most of it doing housework - kind of forgot what most of that was like over the last six months - used the vacuum cleaner for the first time since November...it was quite funny as I had only just bought the new vacuum cleaner a week before MIL arrived so I only used it once or twice and I forgot how powerful this one was compared to my last useless one which had no suck at all, so I dragged the vacuum out think I was in for a long long job of vaccum down stairs but it only took 15 minutes or so - I may even being to like vacuuming if it is this easy!!!!!!

Oh...I popped into Farmers (It's in the building next to me at work) and brought my first new bra since Xmas and was pleased to not only drop a size but also a cup, yeehaa. I should of really got two but I wasn't sure exactly how comfortable it would be until I wore it. typical....I'll just have to wait for their next sale, they seem to be having one every few weeks at the moment.

Just off to make jelly now and hubby should be home very soon, it is 20 minutes to midnight and I am rather shattered and looking forward to crawling into my bed tonight.

i have my house back

I am so loving this week. I have my house all to myself (well except the kids, but they’re easily locked away :-) ).

Yes, MIL flew back to England on Sunday afternoon and hubby left for Sydney on Sunday morning (early) for his studies and I am just loving the peace and quiet. I have spent the last two days updating my New Zealand Genealogy site and adding all of the new entries I have received in the last year, since I last updated, and have been watching hour after hour of the latest Australian Biggest Loser (I call it homework - my studies while hubby is doing his). Just had the fourth weigh-in, these guys seem to slog their guts out exercising all week but the kilo’s seem small (3 – 4), maybe it’s all the muscle as one of the girls was 96 kg and said she was in a size 12 skirt.
I am tossing up whether to attempt to put the elliptical trainer together (and get cracking) or wait for hubby to get back at the weekend…I don’t have time tonight but I’ll see if I have the time tomorrow.
I had a fat day today, felt so bloated and yuk but knowing TOM was around the corner I wasn’t too concerned. The scales didn’t reflect the feeling either so that helped write it off. I don’t really ever remeber noticing this feeling at this time of the month before, maybe because I always felt fat that I never noticed it.

Jordyn has gone off to Brownies for the first time tonight, she just hasn’t shut up about it all week…I hope she enjoys it, although not to keen on the thought of being parent help, I wished Jordyn’s kindy days away cause I just hated that so much. Looking forward to picking her up though so I can get my warm jammies on and settle in for the evening.

Got my new phone all up and going on Sunday afternoon, lovely, still haven’t had any time to read the manual yet so am just doing the basics for now…am hoping to get reading really soon.

I had a yummy dinner tonight of steak, pepper sauce, roast vegetables (kumara, potato & pumpkin)…and corn on the cob. I had the same last night and it was lovely. Had sushi for lunch today and a stinky headache all day even the nurofen couldn't shake it off, and then had to waste an hour of my work time in a waste of time meeting about our new system which is crap and not working properly...made my headache worst listening to all the moans and complaints...I am so lucky that I don't have too much to do with it at this stage, my work is only just beginning to flow in, but slowly thankfully.

OMG, I read an article today about a baby born in Poland – 7 kg and 66 cm long (half the length of his mother).

roll on another weekend

What would I do if I won lotto?

1. Pay off the mortgage
2. Buy rental property
3. Buy my dream car (don’t know what)
4. Put aside money for the kids education
5. Pay of Mums mortgage
6. Holidays - lots and lots of them (especially asia & egypt)
7. Own my own business – don’t know what but I love second hand bookstores.


Today was weigh-in day, wow another week down and this week I had a 400g loss…I am happy with that considering my few little blow outs this week. I worked out that I need to loose another 600g to drop another BMI. When I first started WW I found this awesome spreadsheet on the internet that someone had created. You enter your new weekly weight on the chart, it creates a graph to show your progress, works out your BMI and total loss, tracks TOM and also room for measurements. It also has a points calculator and weight and height converter. I am not sure where I found it now but if anyone would like a copy leave me a message with your email and I will send it through.

Wednesday morning while making the kids school lunches I asked for their lunchboxes, I opened Jordyn’s to clear out the rubbish and put her new sandwiches in and I find her lunchbag from Tuesday, and on written in black ink she had scrawled ‘I don’t like Hot Beef’. Whoops, I had swapped their sandwiches around which meant Connor had gone to lunch with Fairy Bread.

Lonestar last night was very nice, I had the Blackfoot Fish, which was a blackened Cajun Fish with Chilli Rice. Very nice...we also had Nacho's as a starter and Cheesecake for dessert (we shared both)...but the music was so loud you really couldn't hear yourself think, but a good night, the kids ate well and were on good behaviour.
For lunch today we went out to Monsoon Poon which was very nice. For a starter I had Chilli & Lemongrass Cashew Nuts (very very very bad) and vietnamese rolls with the 'golden lemon chicken' for my main. Very yummy, and it cost us $77 for the two of us for lunch, Phew!.

how fast does a week go by?

Oh my the last week has been a blur, my head is just starting to come out through the fuzz and I can’t believe we are almost half way through this week already. Phew!!!!!!!

The week that was:

Wednesday: Popped out to the local Kmart to buy a Hydro Spa I saw advertised and thought it would be great for hubby for his birthday (he loves his baths and this turns your bath into a spa bath), then of course the Birthday girl opened her presents and as always was very spoilt.

Thursday: Weigh-in day and I lost 500g. Did my grocery shopping and wrapped hubby’s presents for Friday, not a very exciting day.

Friday: Hubby’s birthday, sent him off to work without any presents and told him he had to wait until he got home for work (and then told him he had to wait until after dinner).

Saturday: Had one car in the garage for a WOF, and while that was being done hubby and I drove into town to buy me my Mothers Day Present (a cool pink Razr cellphone) – trouble is I can’t bring it out until this Sunday after my MIL has gone back home as at Xmas when my last cellphone died she gave me one of hers (as she had brought two over with the intention of giving me one) but it wouldn’t of been my choice, so once she has left I will be pulling the new phone out. Rest of the day was pretty uneventful.

Sunday: Mothers Day – I got an awesome multi coloured scarf I saw in Just Jeans – the drawback of working in the centre of town and having to pop out somewhere at lunch time. Transferred the last 8 months of photo’s onto my laptop to sort through and print out, haven’t looked through yet, and not really looking forward to seeing the early ones of myself from back then. And Jordyn had her birthday party in the afternoon, which was held at a scrapbooking place in Wellington, she had eight little friends and they did scrap canvas’s. It was awesome, this is Jordyn’s:


Monday: Hubby was off over the Wairarapa for work for the night (team building thing). I went off to work, had yummy sushi for lunch, kids finished school early at 1pm for a paid teachers union meeting, Connor’s class had swimming in the afternoon so they still went and I had to go back at 3pm for him. I then had a hair appointment for a cut and colour, boy that felt better. Easy dinner and then we watched a British documentary called ‘the truth about size zero’, where a British celebrity who was a British size 8 was going on a strict regime to become an American size 0 (British size 4) in 4 weeks. She made it but her BMI had dropped to 17.6, seriously underweight. We then watched ‘the Life of David Gale’, I had seen this before but thought MIL might enjoy it, good story line. Oh and I got another compliment from a lady at work today.

Tuesday: Another uneventful day, hubby was back home, watched the finale of Survivor and had a cruisy night.

Wednesday: The world is almost back to normal. Phew. Now if only we could get the internet connection (browsing) to work properly…it is shocking, and that’s when it works, which in the evenings isn’t very often at all, hubby spent 55 minutes on hold with Slingshot last night and then at 10pm got cut off as there helpline closed for the night. He was not a happy man and I was fuming, he was actually going to tell them to cancel our account and move off to somewhere else, the downside, having to change my email address everywhere again, I just hate that.
Just making dinner at the moment, usual Wednesday night feast, Sweet Thai Chilli, Rice, Kumara and Carrots with Yorkshire Puddings, YUM, YUM, YUM. Having been feeling really picky lately with food and I hate it but feel a little out of control. Tonight I had a couple of WW chocolate Chip cookies, then some beef jerky and although I wasn’t hungry I then went looking for something else….found a “mad about chocolate crème egg” which I proceeded to take to the computer, sat down, started to rip the foil off and then thought “what am I doing?”, Chocolate is a downfall and if I did it today it will lead to more tomorrow and the next day until I was back into my old habits of having half a dozen chocolate freddo’s after school. So I put it back in the fridge and went and got a small bag of popcorn, it was light and buttery and now all I can taste is a thick layer of butter all over my lips, that was only worth 1 point so not too bad, I was very proud of myself for putting it back but a little concerned to why I am suddenly feeling so peckish, TOM due next week but I haven’t been through this for ages.

Tomorrow night we are off to the Lonestar Restaurant for dinner, as the MIL is leaving on Sunday and this will be the first meal we have have out in the six months since she has been here, and we haven't had any takeaways.

Well better get this published, I have hopefully learnt a lesson here about leaving an update for so long, I am sure I have forgotten so much.

and now my baby turns 7

This is my girl...she knows what she wants and what she is prepared to do. She refused to ever sit in her pram again since she was 18 months, has chosen exactly what it is she wants to wear since being in kindy and hasn’t seemed to stop ever since her very speedy delivery 7 years ago today for which I couldn’t even make it to the hospital for. Yes, she was born at home in my bed, and when she was 5 minutes old the ambulance rang to say they just couldn’t find our street as it wasn’t on the map (the street was at least 2 years old as well).
I had had a dream in early April that I had delivered the baby and although I didn’t see the baby in my dream I saw the hospital card with all the birth information and the one thing that stuck in my head was 24th April, so I thought I had better tell my midwife cause if she did make her entrance that day who would believe me that I had seen the date in my dream. At the time she was born (6 days overdue I might add, no where near the 24th April) my midwife looked at the clock and told me to look at the time, she had been born at 4:24am…and I would never even have picked that up.

Yesterday morning trying to wake miss 6 up I told her it was her Birthday Eve, Master just turned 9 asked me what that was, ‘there’s no such thing’ he said, I said ‘yes just like Christmas Eve and News Years Eve this is the day before her birthday, therefore Birthday Eve’, to which he turned round to me with a big smile on his face and said ‘so today is my Birthday Boxing Day’. Thankfully that didn’t mean we had to rush out to all the sales.

my big baby is 9 today

I have made it into work today but not sure how much of a productive day it will be, I am shattered.

Saturday we had Connor’s sleepover birthday party. We took him and two friends out to Laser Tag & Go Karting, after that we headed off to see Spiderman 3 (yes, I did succumb to a little popcorn, I just can’t help myself with that stuff), we had the boys sit in the row in front of us and because of the new theatre it was like we were there by ourselves, we couldn’t even see their little heads in front or hear a word they said. The movie itself, well not really my cup of tea and hubby hated it, said it was the biggest pile of c**p he had seen in ages but the 9 year olds seemed to enjoy it and that is the main thing.
After the movies we went through Burger King drive through and got them some dinner and then home to our own dinner and they spent the evening watching telly, and sometime close to midnight they finally went off to sleep.
Sunday morning then started at around 7.30am when they all woke up and couldn’t have been noisier if they tried. They came downstairs had some ice-cream cake for breakfast and played on the x-box until it was time to take them home. The morning seemed to take sooooo long to get through, especially after I decided to go out shopping once I had dropped them all off at home to get a few things (some PJj’s for me mainly) and had a cruisy afternoon out wandering (well I wasn’t in any hurry to get back home).
And so last night was spent get the last few presents all ready for today, he has unwrapped most of his presents except the main one which he will get tonight (I have to go home and wrap it after work). His birthday dinner he has chosen Burger King again, which is good as that leaves no temptation for us (usually we have a family birthday dinner). I brought a small chocolate cake for him tonight, just big enough for the two kids to a piece each tonight and some for school tomorrow (considering we have to do it all over again on Wednesday).

Also on Saturday we had a school gala, which thankfully the weather stayed fine for, great opportunity to spend lots of money…they have an auction and as it was we won three things so I now owe the school over $300…but we did get some good bargains.

• A WOF, with oil change, valued at $145 for $115.00, and great timing as hubby’s car is overdue for his warrant.


• Lonestar Resturant voucher valued at $150.00 for $110.00, also great timing as we want to take the MIL out for dinner next week before she heads off back home and we had mentioned Lonestar as a possibility.


• A facial, massage & ritual treatment including blow wave valued at $188.00 for $100.00, and with Mothers Day just around the corner I am looking forward to that one.

I also received another compliment at the gala by my sons teacher from last year, commenting on how well I was looking and had done so far and to keep it up.

We have had Mince wraps both days over the weekend, as it was easy with the chilli already made and took minutes to prepare. Tonight the plan is for Chicken wraps.

P.S. – This time 9 years ago I was in a bit of pain, and still had 6 hours to go.