A few snippets!

Grabbed this from Lee-Anne - I always enjoy reading about the little extra bits that make my blogger buddies tick, so thought I'd do it for me too. 1. What is in the back seat of your car right now? Green shopping bags 2. When was the last time you threw up? Two weeks ago after my sruegery. 3. What’s your favorite curse word? Buggar 4. Name three people who made you smile today. Have only seen Bloss - but he makes me smile 5. What were you doing at 8am this morning? Lying in bed reading a book 6. What were you doing 30 minutes ago? Mucking around on Face Book 7. What will you be doing 3 hours from now? Sound asleep in bed I hope 8. Have you ever been to a strip club? Yes in Thailand - an interesting experience 9. What’s the last thing you said aloud? Yes please, then thankyou for a cup of coffee Bloss made 10. What is the best ice cream flavor? the other day in a bit of badness had Tia Maria from Cold Rock - mmmmmmmmmmmm! 11. What is the last thing you had to drink? Coffee. 12. What are you wearing right now? Pale blue hoodie, navy gym pants and my slippers 13. What was the last thing you ate? Grilled steak, vegies and oven fried chips 14. Have you bought any new clothing items this week? No 15. When was the last time you ran? About a month ago 16. What’s the last sporting event you watched? Friday night footy is on the TV right now but I don't watch it 17. Who’s the last person you e-mailed? My old school friend Alan who I stayed with when I was in London earlier this year 18. Ever go camping? Yes, but not for a few years 19. Do you have a tan? Yes - confess to going to the solarium now and again just for a bit of colour 20. Do you drink your soda from a straw? Yes much prefer it that way 21. Are you someone’s best friend? Yes - the lovely Shaz 22. What are you doing tomorrow? No idea - haven't thought that far ahead but will go to the post office to mail the application for Vietnam visas 23. Where is your mom right now? In Scotland - probably just finishing breakfast 24. Look to your left. What do you see? Little glass table with a vase of Bird of Paradise flowers 25. What color is your watch? Black and gold. 26. What comes to mind when you think of Australia? Warm weather and the place that I love to come home to 27. Would you consider plastic surgery? Yes I think so - if it seemed important enough 28. What is your birthstone? Peridot. 29. Do you go in at a fast food place or just hit the drive-thru? Very seldom ever go to fast food - but drive thru usually 30. How many kids do you want? I've got 2 and I'm more than happy with them. 31. Do you have a dog? Yes - the beautiful Zanna. 32. Last person you talked to on the phone. My sister in Scotland earlier this evening 33. Have you met anyone famous? Not that I remember 34. Any plans today? Will be heading off to bed soon 35. Ever go to college? Yes 36. Where are you right now? On the recliner in the lounge with my laptop on my knee 37. Biggest annoyance in your life right now? Can't think of anything - my lack of healthy eating motivation maybe 38. Last song listened to? No idea 39. Are you allergic to anything? Not that I know of. 40. Favorite pair of shoes you wear all the time? Beige clogs I bought in US last year 41. Are you jealous of anyone? No fortunately I don't have that affliction 42. Who is your favorite actor/actress? - No-one overall but will always love Mel Gibson when he played 'Tim" 43. What time is it? 9.15pm Friday 30 May 44. Do any of your friends have children? Oh yes 45. Do you eat healthy? Yes I do but don't always drink healthy! 46. What do you usually do during the day? Work. 47. How old will you be on your next birthday? 53 48. Have you ever been to Europe? Yes - France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Denmark, Monaco. 49. Name one thing you’d still like to do. Visit more places in this wonderful world - Greek Islands, Egypt, South America, Russia, China etc etc 50. Favorite colour? Red always makes me feel perky!

Look what I got!!!

Dear The Tart Who Travels author, Our editors recently reviewed your blog and have given it an 8.0 score out of (10) in the Recreation category of Blogged.com. This is quite an achievement! http://www.blogged.com/directory/recreation We evaluated your blog based on the following criteria: Frequency of Updates, Relevance of Content, Site Design, and Writing Style. After carefully reviewing each of these criteria, your site was given its 8.0 score. We’ve also created Blogged.com score badges with your score prominently displayed. Simply visit your website’s summary page on Blogged.com: Click on the "Show this rating on your blog!" link underneath the score and follow the instructions provided. Please accept my congratulations on a blog well-done!! Sincerely, Amy Liu Marketing Department amy@blogged.com www.blogged.com Click here to see how it looks

Instant Makeover

I've had so much fun this afternoon. I started with this photo of me taken a few months back then visited here

Are you ready????

Like this one

What a waist!

And those boobs!

Nice earrings!

Just adore this pose

Quite regal really!

Would love to have had shoulders like this

Don't think I'm meant to be a raven haired beauty

Mmmm like this

Cute!

What's your favourite? And I just love getting an instant new body to go with the new hairstyle!!! Now off you all go and have a play - and make sure you post your results.

Zxx

I'm OK

Just a quick post to let you all know that the surgery went well and I'm back home sitting with my feet up.

I flew to Brisbane last Wednesday, dropped one bag off with my friend R, then headed for the apartment I'd booked for the night - right across the road from the hospital. I had to be at the hospital by 6am on Thursday. The admitting process was fairly straightforward and before I knew it I was flat on my back in theatre around 8.20am. Don't really remember much else till I was back up in my room - that was around 10ish I think. Had very little pain from the surgery but don't do too well with anaesthetic - had forgotten this since it's over 20 years since I last had any surgery. Anyway I was really nauseous and ended up throwing up a few times but they gave me a few potions in my drip which eventually did the trick. By Friday morning I was allowed to get up to go to the loo - thank heavens!, then had a shower, got dressed (my surgeon had been in earlier) and then I caught a cab to R's place. I had a lovely relaxing weekend with her and her husband - and I have to confess that the 100day challenge took a bit of a backseat - not so much on the eating but I did have a couple of wines over the weekend - it had been a long time since we'd got together!

I flew home on Monday and I'm now living like Lady Muck for the next two weeks before I go back to work. I have to wear the dreaded stocking - it's actually not too bad and it's only around bedtime that it starts to rub a bit. I have two bigger scars - one in my groin and one behind my knee - both healed externally already with internal dissolving stitches (this was the vein he stripped) and then I have lots of little nicks which did have steritape on them where the ugly vein was removed. Anyway all is good just lots of bruising. I'm only allowed to be active in short increasing spells - had to start with only about 5 minutes walking. I mustn't stand for any length of time and have to keep my foot elevated when I'm sitting. This is harder than it sounds because most of the time I'm painfree and I have to remember to take it easy.

Weightwise I'm holding steady and back on the 100day challenge again.

Thankyou to those of you who sent me your kind wishes - and the virtual flowers which Maria sent me

Gift sent by Maria

And then there was this lovely basket from my team at work

And there was this lovely bunch from our friend H

I'm a fortunate lady to have so many people caring about me. Have a great week everyone

Love Z xx

Day 22 of 100 day challenge - 78 days to go

Hear that squeak - that's how good and clean I've been this week. Have to say that there's been no formal exercise but nonetheless a fair amount of incidental running around. Still no alcohol although I was very tempted with it being Mother's Day etc, but I remember that I get a bugger of a headache when I have a couple after a big break and I've got a big day at work tomorrow and that last thing I need is to have to cope with a headache. It's Sunday as I write this so will do my weight in tomorrow morning and let you know how I've gone then post this.
6.20am - 1kg down for the week and needless to say I'm very happy about that. Challenge ahead for this week is being away from home for most of it and trying to count and keep up the focus.!

I'm having a lovely Mothers Day - No 2 son called at 7.45am from No 1 son's house where he stayed last night, singing a little song about wonderful mums. Then when he arrived home mid morning he brought me a box of Ferrero Rocher chocs (I've eaten only one and counted the points!), half a dozen red roses and the homemade card below which I've scanned. It reduced me to tears. No 1 son and family are coming down tomorrow night for tea - they had another function to attend today. Tonight No 2 son is shouting tea - Chinese - yummo!

And just in case you can't read it -
I may be far from home many times,
But for the past 10 weeks I've made yours mine
Thankyou for having me
I cherish every moment
Your the GREATEST
Your loving son
Clive xoxxo

Hair is getting longer and starting to wear it in front of my ears now. Got a new Vidal Sassoon hair straightener when I was in Rockhampton last week - makes life so much simpler. Took this with my phone while in the car.

I've been flat chat at work all week - had my coaching session for my FLDP course - got huge raps from the facilitator - really happy with what I've done - it's 98% complete with 3 weeks still to go and easily up to diploma standard he said. I head off to Brisbane on Wednesday afternoon this week for the surgery on my leg, so I've been frantically trying to get everything up to date at work as I'm off for two and a half weeks. Fortunately I can log on remotely from home to our work network so I can keep a few tabs on what's happening - though I'm not silly - I won't be trying to do too much! So next week's entry will be a couple of days late. I get out of hospital on Friday morning and stay with a friend in Brisbane until Monday afternoon before I'm allowed to fly home. I get to wear a beautiful specially measured support stocking complete with belt ties - oooh so sexy!

Looks like No 2 son is also heading off first thing Wednesday for the next job - Brazil this time so extra special to have had him here for Mother's day. Talked to my Mum on the phone last night - she's doing tremendously well after the hip op - she's off to Spain tomorrow morning for a week with a couple of friends - just chasing a bit of sunshine and sangria!! Don't know if I told you that mum, my sister and brother in law are coming to Oz for a month at Christmas - so plenty to look forward to.

That's the news from me for this week. Hope everyone's having a great week.
Love Z xx

Day 15 of 100 day challenge - 85 days to go

Well as they often say - fake it till you make it. I've been kind of fakin this past couple of weeks but will say that it's starting to come together although nothing exciting happening on the scales yet which is starting to get to me. However I have managed to exercise 4 times this week and I now haven't had any alcohol for two weeks so feel like it's all getting back in the groove. Just need the grammes to go!!! I wrote this paragraph yesterday but did my weigh in for the week this morning - I'm up 100g WTF!!!! Not a smiley face! But I've had a realistic think to myself - while I've had no alochol and managed to get in 4 exercise days - I haven't been tracking religiously - I don't think I've done anything too drastic but a quick mental track of the past two days shows me to be probably about 3 points over each day and for me to lose I need to be spot on. So the plan for the week ahead is to stick with the no alcohol and increase the exercise, plus track and weigh. One positive thing is that my boobs are no longer painful.

Had Josh and Curtis staying overnight last night - we had a fun day yesterday - went walking to the park and to the shops - even saw a dugong in the river under the bridge - a truly unusual sight! Don't know what a dugong is? - then see below for a picture We saw a mother and calf (they are sometimes know as sea cows because they live on sea grass). Full grown adults weigh around 400kgs and are 3 to 4 metres long. Then in the afternon we went four wheel driving down on the beach and tried a spot of fishing - Curtis too little and Josh lasted about 10 minutes and no fish to be seen anyway but fun nonetheless.

Now some photos of the boys as we were at the park, and the last one - Curtis has a real thing about putting the waste paper bin from the study on his head!

Sad to see the Biggest Loser end - have really enjoyed it and liked all three of the finalists and would have been happy to see any one of them win. Loved the expression of delight and surprise on Sam's face - and was totally gobsmacked to see Alison - she must have worked like a demon on her bottom half after getting out of the house - she was indeed a yummy mummy and a damn nice person too I reckon.

Went To Rockhampton on Thursday for the scan of my leg and took the opportunity to have just a wee look at the shops!! Goldmark had a sale on - and I just adore watches so got this little number at half price - only $69 - kind of a crummy photo - coudn't hold the camera steady enough to get a proper close up.

Other news - this year's holiday is to Vietnam - flights booked - had enough frequent flyer points to do most of them. We fly to Brisbane/Sydney/Ho Chi Minh on Saturday 26 July and head back again on Wednesday 6 August giving us 10 nights there. I'm having a bit of fun planning where we'll actually go while there and lucky enough to still have No 2 son here who spent some time in Vietnam on his world travels. It's looking like arriving in Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) then flying to Hanoi the next morning, two nights there, then a two day/one night boat trip to Halong Bay - staying overnight on a junk. Back to Hanoi fly to Nha Trang on the coast for 3 nights then fly back to Saigon for a final three nights. This means missing out on the Mekong Delta and Cambodia - Phnom Penh and Angkor Wat but if we headed south and did that we were going to end up spending more of our holiday in Cambodia than Vietnam so might save that for another trip.

And this means that we leave on holiday on day 97 of the challenge so I'd better get a move on! So the plan this week is to be super squeaky clean - and counting and weighing every morsel - let's go girls!

Love Z xx