Souffle

Light and fluffy like a souffle - that's how I'm feeling this week. An incredible 1.3kg loss this week - amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it. So that's me got rid of the previous two weeks indiscretions and now I'd just like to get a bit more off before we leave.

It's only two weeks now and I'm starting to get so excited. I think I've got most things organised - but now just trying to hurry through an update to my credit card. We always travel using my visa card and never bother with foreign currency before hand or travellers cheques. Last Tuesday I got an offer in the mail to upgrade from my standard blue Visa to a platinum Visa for no extra fee. This is a big thing as the annual fee for two cards is $250. But an even bigger thing is that a platinum card offers you free travel insurance which in the case of this trip alone will save us $655. But.... I need to get the new card in the mail, activate it and pay for at least $250 of the land portion of this trip to qualify. And of course I need to have the new cards before we go - and it's not as simple as saying I'll just keep the blue one if the platinum doesn't come through in time as after 14 days the blue one will be deactivated.... and then I'll be up the proverbial creek! Anyway so far so good - I faxed the response to them to save time and have been ringing to check progress every day - hopefully it will arrive in the mail by the middle of this week and then I can relax.

I'm writing this at work and don't have a copy of my chart here. But it was quite a good week chartwise - water pretty good, tracking and points excellent, alcohol on only two days, exercise on four, and steps I have no idea as my pedometer broke on Friday and I'm lost without it. I'm going to try and get a new one tonight. Would really like to have on while on holiday as it will be interesting to capture how much walking we do.

S and I went out to a work function on Friday night and this is us all set to go. This little jacket top I picked up at our local charity markets the other Sunday - it was brand new - had a designer label from Melbourne on it - but had a mark on the back on the hem like glue - think it had maybe had a sticker slapped on it that had left residue. Anyway it was only $5 so I thought what the hell - worst case scenario I'll lose $5 if I can't remove the stain. But I removed it with the old Sard wonder soap successfully, washed and pressed it and it got it's first outing on Friday night.

No 2 son called me Saturday night - he's the one in London currently - has been working (and holidaying) there since January this year. He's just got another job - in Malaysia - working on an oil rig (he's had a bit of experience doing that in Oz). Anyway it's 8 weeks on, 2 weeks off, fly in and out of London (as that's his point of recruitment). But that means that if he'd rather travel the shorter distance to Australia for his 2 weeks off then he can. So might get to see him before too long. The money is incredible $1000 per day tax free!!!

This is a recent photo of him - he puts lots of photos on Ringo and I had a look for a decent one to put here - in just about every single one he has his arms round a different woman - and they are all beautiful! One of these days, one will come along and knock him off his feet - and that will be interesting to watch!

Anyway good people - must away and be productive. Have a fantastic week everyone.

Another bit .... just took up Miss Beck's offer of an IQ test

Am I good or what!

Custard

Yep, that's what last week turned to - absolute custard!! The only thing I can blame is the cold weather and that's a cop out. I didn't exercise, had alcohol every night, didn't drink enough water, didn't track and my arithmetic was pretty ordinary as far as counting points went. And the scales - well we won't even go there! Work has been so busy and I'm trying to line all the ducks up before I go on leave, hence why I'm late in posting this week. Although of course if you've nothing exciting to share, there's not the same urgency to tell it to the world!! Anyway I gave myself a bit of a talking to yesterday - told myself that I wanted to be at an all time low before I went on holiday - not heading upwards! So I'm pleased to report that yesterday I got all ticks on my chart and I've already been for a run this morning so that's the first tick on today's chart. Not too much else to report - this week has been a bit quieter than the one before - thank goodness although we were out for dinner Friday night, drinks and nibblies on Saturday night and on Sunday I went to Josh's Little Athletics carnival. I've got the bulk of my stuff organised for our holidays and ready to start on Bloss's stuff. Just trying to make sure everything we want is clean and ironed - then hidden in the spare room so he can't wear it in the meantime! Sorry I haven't commented much lately - there has been a distinct shortage of time so although I keep up with you all with Bloglines - I don't often take the time to actually open your post so I can comment - but I'm with you all in spirit and will try to poke my nose in to say hello as soon as I can. Have a great week everyone.

Pictures of the tart on the town and chez Zanna

This is me ready to go out Saturday night - this top is one of my shopping snips - reduced to $9.45 from Katies

This jacket was on sale for half price. I tried it on - loved it but demurred that I would hardly get the chance to wear it in our CQ climate. S said that it suited me so well that I should just buy it to hang in the wardrobe and look at it occasionally!! Anyway bought it for $60 and wore it out on Saturday night. It makes me feel so sensuous - the lady in the shop said (after I had bought it) that she had never seen anyone wear it who looked so good in it as I did. So I did have to buy it didn't I??? It's white as you can see but is highlighted with pink sequins here and there.

This was me ready to head out on Friday night - this little red number was one I picked up in K Mart a few weeks ago for $10

This is the beautiful S and I - we're the ones who are known collectively at work as the "Ab Fabs" we love to dress up and take pride in our appearance (in a town which doesn't exactly have a particularly high dress code for ladies) and we make no apologies to anyone for maintaining our own particular dress standards.



This is R and I - our corporate buddy

Thought I might show a few pics of Chez Zanna. I have become big into paintings and have trawled E bay to get some nice specimens. Note the tryptich of tulips in the corner.

This is the one that started me off - I brought this triptych in Thailand a couple of years ago.

This one came from Germany via Ebay

Another E bay masterpiece


Got this one through Ebay too - but comissioned this one size wise to fit the spot - at the top of the stairs

Brought this one back from Hong Kong for the entry hall - not sure if it's big enough for this spot - could be a bit of rearranging still to happen!

Quickie

Life is a tad frantic this week so just doing an utra quick post so you all know I haven't disappeared into the misty yonder.

This week's chart has a lot more crosses than ticks in it and correspondingly my weight is up too - by 800g.


The girlsz weekend actually started on Tuesday. The friend from Brisbane (R) also works for the same business as S and I do but in the corporate section. Her boss had been nominated to lead an investigation into a major process incident we had and he then asked her to come up to help out with the admin side of things. All this happened on Tuesday so R arrived late Tuesday afternoon, so there was tea at the pub on Tuesday night for her and I, dinner with drinks at our place on Wednesday, tea at the Yacht Club for R,S and I on Thursday, the big night out on Friday at a Chinese restaurant and the local services club, a full day's shopping with lunch in Rockhampton with L - another friend, then home to a dinner for 5 with some other work colleagues on Saturday night and then after visiting the local charity markets, a leisurely brunch at the Coffee Club on Sunday. See where the 800g came from??

Work has turned absolutely ballistic this week so I'll have to get back later with the photos and tell you all about the shopping trip.

Till then - take care everyone - and don't do what I did!!

Nothing to get excited about!

Well a piddly 100g this week and I've been sick AGAIN - I'm fed up being sick!! I copped what seems to have been a 24 hour virus - horrendous nausea and the dreaded diarrhea - was worried that it might be a recurrence of my Hong Kong episode but it seems to have gone again - in fact now suffering from the opposite extreme - sometimes you feel you just can't win!

Anyway here's the chart

So Steps - Well I forgot to put on my pedometer on Tuesday and Friday I came home sick at 10am and spent the rest of the day and night in bed. Exercise - I took sick in the middle of the night so didn't get up and run on Friday morning and wasn't quite up to it on Saturday either. Water, Points and Tracking all got their full quota of ticks - although points were incredibly low for Friday as I didn't eat a single thing all day and only had a piece of dry toast and a poached egg at night just to try and put something in my stomach. Then Saturday night we were invited out for dinner - didn't do anything too drastic but had to just guestimate points and have probably erred on the high side. Alcohol has featured a few times this week - couple of big days at work so had a couple of wines of an evening mid week - then out again at the weekend. However they are all counted in my points - in the past I've been known to be quite forgetful about including them - didn't chew it so it won't count!!!!!

I'm feeling a bit frustrated today - was actually down a bit further over the weekend but shot back up again this morning. I'm really conscious of the fact that I've really just been marking time for about 8 weeks now but I'm just not quite getting it all together. However I'll just soldier on and hopefully manage a couple more kilos before going on holiday. TOM sort of arrived last Monday but so light it was hardly worth noting, then disappeared totally for a couple of days then popped in again yesterday - that was the first for around 4 months- and I've been erratic for the past couple of years so maybe this was just a farewell flutter - here's hoping!

It's been a fairly ordinary kind of a week - don't mind them now and again - gives you a chance to regroup and catch up on things. Ran around a bit at the beginning of the week fixing up Josh's bike - No 2 son bought him one for Christmas but the training wheels (which he bought separately) were just a bit too short and Josh was riding on an angle on one training wheel which made it incredibly hard to pedal. So Granny decided that before I dropped his bike back home after his visit to us last week, that I'd call by the bike shop and see what could be done. Another set of training wheels and some clever adjustment by the man in the bike shop and it's heaps better. Had Curtis for most of yesterday - No 1 son was working and DIL had Little Athletics with Josh and it's such a long time for Curtis to be stuck in his pusher so he had some 'granny time' - thoroughly enjoyed by both of us.

Fun week ahead - Bloss it taking off to Brisbane from Thursday to Saturday to catch up with his No 2 son - the one from New Mexico - who is going to be in town briefly. He'll stay with his No1 son so it will be a wonderful opportunity to have some father/son time with no other time claimers like wives and children. A close friend is coming up from Brisbane on Friday night for a 'girlsz weekend', so there will be a lot of dining out and probably a wine or two consumed between then and Sunday afternoon when she flies back. We'll all be staying at my friend S's place - she's lives in town so better placed for taxis etc. The three of us try and get together every six months or so and it's been a while since the last one so really looking forward to a good girly gossip and catch up - we're all nutty as fruitcakes so there will be plenty of laughs and nonsense.

OK everyone - hope you're having a good week - catchya!

Prepare to dissolve in a helpless heap

Guarantee you will as you read the story below.................... and just to clarify ....the 'I' in the story isn't me - don't know who it is - this was sent to me by a friend at work.

All hair removal methods have tricked women with their promises of easy, painless removal - The epilady, scissors, razors, Nair and now...the wax.

My night began as any other normal weeknight. Come home, fix dinner, play with the kids. I then had the thought that would ring painfully in my mind for the next few hours: "Maybe I should pull the waxing kit out of the medicine cabinet and try it."

So I headed to the site of my demise: the bathroom. It was one of those "cold wax" kits. No melting a clump of hot wax, you just rub the strips together in your hand, they get warm and you peel them apart and press them to your leg (or wherever else) and you pull the hair right off. No mess, no fuss. How hard can it be? I mean, I'm not a genius, but I am mechanically inclined enough to figure this out. (YA THINK!?!)

So I pull one of the thin strips out. It's two strips facing each other, stuck together. Instead of rubbing them together, my genius kicks in, so I get out the hair dryer and heat it to 1000 degrees. ("Cold wax," yeah...right!) I lay the strip across my thigh. Hold the skin around it tight and pull. It works! OK, so it wasn't the best feeling, but it wasn't too bad. I can do this! Hair removal no longer eludes me! I am She-rah, fighter of all wayward body hair and maker of smooth skin extraordinaire.

With my next wax strip I move north. After checking on the kids, I sneak back into the bathroom, for the ultimate hair fighting championship. I drop my panties and place one foot on the toilet. Using the same procedure, I apply the wax strip across the right side of my bikini line, covering the right half of my vagina and stretching down to the inside of my butt cheek.

(Yes, it was a long strip) I inhale deeply and brace myself.........RRRRIIIPPP!!!! I'm blind!!! Blinded from pain!!!!....

OH MY GOODNESS!!!!!!!!!

Vision returning, I notice that I've only managed to pull off half the strip. CRAP!!! Another deep breath and RRIIPP!! Everything is swirly and spotted. I think I may pass out.....must stay conscious...Do I hear crashing drums??? Breathe, breathe...OK, back to normal. I want to see my trophy - a wax covered strip, the one that has caused me so much pain, with my hairy pelt sticking to it. I want to revel in the glory that is my triumph over body hair.

I hold up the strip! There's no hair on it. Where is the hair???

WHERE IS THE WAX???

Slowly I ease my head down, foot still perched on the toilet. I see the hair. The hair that should be on the strip. I touch. I am touching wax. CRAP! I run my fingers over the most sensitive part of my body, which is now covered in cold wax and matted hair. Then I make the next BIG mistake.......remember my foot is still propped up on the toilet? I know I need to do something. So I put my foot down. DAMN!!!!!!!! I hear the slamming of a cell door. Vagina? Sealed shut! Butt?? Sealed shut! I penguin walk around the bathroom trying to figure out what to do and think to myself "Please don't let me get the urge to poop. My head may pop off!"

What can I do to melt the wax? Hot water!! Hot water melts wax!! I'll run the hottest water I can stand into the bathtub, get in, immerse the wax-covered bits and the wax should melt and I can gently wipe it off, right??? *WRONG!!!!!!!*

I get in the tub - the water is slightly hotter than that used to torture prisoners of war or sterilize surgical equipment - I sit. Now the only thing worse than having your nether regions glued together, is having them glued together and then glued to the bottom of the tub...in scalding hot water. Which, by the way, doesn't melt cold wax.

So, now I'm stuck to the bottom of the tub as though I had cement-epoxied myself to the porcelain!! God bless the man who had convinced me a few months ago to have a phone put in the bathroom!!!!! I call my friend, thinking surely she has waxed before and has some secret of how to get me undone. It's a very good conversation starter - "So, my butt and who-ha are glue together to the bottom of the tub!" There is a slight pause. She doesn't know any secret tricks for removal but she does try to hide her laughter from me. She wants to know exactly where the wax is located, "Are we talking cheeks or hole or who-ha?" She's laughing out loud by now.....I can hear her. I give her the rundown and she suggests I call the number on the side of the box. YEAH!!!!! Right!! I should be the joke of someone else's night. While we go through various solutions. I resort to scraping the wax off with a razor.

Nothing feels better then to have your girlie goodies covered in hot wax, glued shut, stuck to the tub in super hot water and then dry-shaving the sticky wax off!! By now the brain is not working, dignity has taken a major hike and I'm pretty sure I'm going to need Post-Traumatic Stress counseling for this event. My friend is still talking with me when I finally see my saving grace....the lotion they give you to remove the excess wax.

What do I really have to lose at this point? I rub some on and OH MY WORD!!!!!!! The scream probably woke the kids and scared the dickens out of my friend. It's sooo painful, but I really don't care. "IT WORKS!! It works !!" I get a hearty congratulation from my friend and she hangs up, still laughing.

I successfully remove the remainder of the wax and notice in my grief, and to my great despair....THE HAIR IS STILL HERE.......ALL OF IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. So I recklessly shave it off. Heck, I'm numb by now. Nothing hurts. I could have amputated my own leg at this point.

Next week, I'm going to try hair color......

Well - did you wet yourself!!

Pretty ticks all in a row

STOP PRESS - Monday morning - I did manage a little loss - 300g. Not very exciting, given how much effort I put in, but heading the right direction. I did Week 9 Day 1 of C25K this morning and I ran for 30 minutes - gee do I feel proud of myself. As someone who couldn't run for more than 30 seconds a couple of months ago, it's been a real achievement (and a lot of fun) to build up to 30 mins. I'm nowhere near running 5K - probably just under 4K at the moment. But I don't really care - this wasn't about distance, it was just about being able to run for an extended period of time. And Aunt Flo - thinking she might visit but hasn't quite made up her mind!

It's Sunday morning and Bloss has had to go into work and I'm still in bed (10.30am - how slack is that) with my laptop on my knee catching up on all kinds of things. I've been so good this week and as the title shows have been achieving lots of ticks - but I have a dull sinking feeling that the scales aren't going to show anything clever tomorrow morning. I haven't had a visit from Auntie Flo since the end of March but this past week have had incredibly tender boobs so wondering if she's going to pop in for a visit which might also explain the lack of downward movement. Oh well we'll see in the morning.

Not sure how well my chart will show up - but a quick review shows that I achieved my 10,000 steps daily plus another 8,000 averaging over 11,000 a day - and today's not over yet!
I exercised five out of 7 days and got 13.5 bonus points. Water was spot on, tracking too. I had alcohol last night but counted it, and haven't completed points for today properly - but I have used 124 out of my 126 points allowance for the week and still have to have tea tonight but as yet haven't touched my bonus points so I'll still be well under even after whatever I have for tea tonight.

Tomorrow I start week 9 (the final week) in the C25K programme. This will mean running for 30 mins on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I've stopped using the podcast and started using my own choice of music and just add up the duration of the songs till I get to 30 minutes. So I've spent some time this morning googling away merrily and found lists of suggested songs to run to then arranged them in a folder and transferred them to my MP3 player. so now quite looking forward to tomorrow's run to a whole new selection of music.

Had Josh, our eldest grandson, down for a sleepover on Friday night. He's just so much fun now. As you can see from the photos we had a lot of fun. Have also included a couple of photos of Curtis too, although he wasn't staying this time - he's about 20 months now and takes a fair bit of watching so we decided this sleepover would just be for Josh so we could do some special things.

Josh telling us a really amazing story

Picasso at work

Nearly bed time - Josh and Zanna

Curtis (Josh's little brother)

Curtis again. My ex and his wife have been in town and stayed with No 1 son and DIL for a few days. He has always been a really keen photographer and took heaps of photos of the boys while he was here. DIL had them all on a CD and brought them down to show me so I downloaded them on to my laptop since, as you can see, there are lots of top photos.

Licking the bowl after we made Freddo Frog cakes

The results! And yes I had a Freddo Frog cake and yes I counted it in my points.

Got this jumper last week - the bottom is on an angle and has a 3 inch fringe - I love it (and it was only $30 from Millers and is a small! - went hunting for a medium and there were only two small in the shop so thought what the hell and tried it on - and it fitted!)

I've been playing around a bit with Picasa to manage all my photos. Have also discovered that you can blog photos straight from Picasa either singly or up to four at a time. So I tried that with these and I have to say that it is so much faster than adding them through Blogger. I wasn't going to bother adding this snippet of info but I was amazed at the response in blogland to the information about Google Reader. I have been using Bloglines for a long time now - which does almost the same thing. I found out about it from a comment made ages ago by Sue (the now single girl who must be having such a good time that she's forgotten all about us!!!). She commented to the effect that she hadn't been visiting some blogs because Bloglines had been playing up. I wondered what she meant so went googling and found out about it. I didn't think to mention it since I though I was the only dumb bunny around who was clicking in and out of everyone's blogs to see if they had updated. And then find out that there's a proliferation of us rabbits! So I think we should all consider what we have learned along the way in this blogging journey and mention any little tricks we've acquired - I guess we don't need to go into huge detail but if it strikes a chord with someone then they can contact us in a comment to find out more info. What do you think? My question for anyone is about Technorati - not sure what it does ?

Ok it's now 2.30pm on Sunday arv and I've done nothing but play on my laptop, but achieved some stuff I've been trying to do for a while. And in the midst of all this playing have made this a very long post - if you've got this far - take a bow! Will update quickly tomorrow with what the scales say. Have a great week everybody!