To the future!

This is the first post of 'the rest of my life'.

Sounds a bit deep doesn't it?

The reality is, I've joined slimming world this morning. After seeing the dietician, I tried to eat healthily, but I find I can't do it on my own. I need checking, a day of reckoning each week. I know Slimming World works for me. I've lost a huge amount of weight with them in the past, but gave up and became a slob, gaining so much weight I can't bear to think abut it.

I had a really odd experience last night and it hit me like a thunderbolt. Obviously my weight has been on my mind since having Isabelle three years ago, but it's kept creeping up and I've ignored it. I've been 'thinking' of going on a diet, changing my eating habits.. whatever you want to call it, for quite some time, but never taken it further than that. I've never had the inclination and have just plodded (literally) on. Last night, I took Isabelle to gymnastics and popped to Sainsbury's to pick up something for dinner, like I usually do on a Monday, generally to kill time until it's time to collect her again. I walked past the magazines (I'm not normally a magazine buyer at all) and I stopped to look. I picked up the slimming world magazine and the lightening bolt hit... I thought, right, that's it. I know there is a class on Tuesday mornings right next to Isabelle's Nursery... I'm going in the morning. I felt completely happy and relaxed about it. I never normally feel this way about changing my eating habits and stopping eating junk, but I was actually looking forward to it. Seems odd to me LOL. I went and had a coffee and read my magazine while waiting for Isabelle. One success story struck a big nerve with me. The girl had lost almost 5 stone. She has fibromyalgia/ME, whereas I have Fibromyalgia/Chronic Fatique Syndrome. Her story inspired me, even though I'd already decided I was joining, it really just confirmed my descision.

When Mark got home I told him my decision. He finds it hard to understand that I need to go to a class and have help and support. He is such a strong willed person that once he's made his mind up about something, he sticks to it and nothing can change him from that decision. I on the other hand end up a completely emotional wreck. I punish myself mentally for failing. I can also switch off my conscience as and when necessary when it comes to food. We ended up talking for over an hour about my decision. He still can't understand it, but he accepts it and also accepts that I need it, it's what works best for me. He is behind me on this though, and he wants to eat healthier himself. He's agreed to help me plan main meals for the week (not that he'll cook them lol).

Another problem I have is that I'm a very picky eater. I don't like fruit, but I love veg. I don't like spicy food, which often leads to me eating what other people might call 'boring' meals. I'm happy with them, but Mark thinks I should be a bit more adventurous with my food. I promised I'd try. I've also told him that I am going to have a section in the fridge where I can put food that is specifically for me. If Mark sees food in the fridge, he will eat it whether I've planned to use it for a meal or not. I may save some ham for my lunch the following day, but he picks a lot. He'll see the ham and just eat it as it is, because he wants it. When I've bought food specifically for me in the past, I've gone to get it only to find someone's eaten it. It drives me nuts! especially as he really kicks off if someone eats any of what he calls 'his' food. So he's promised to leave my stuff alone.

So, I've been and weighed in this morning. I've done it. I've faced the trauma and shame and humiliation that I've actually got to this point. I stepped off the scales and said to the guy who weighed me in... ok, you'll never see that number from me again... onwards and downwards. And that's really how I feel.

I've got all the books I need. I've joined the Slimming World Lifeline Online website. There are tonnes of recipies and help and advice.

What's really odd, is that I feel really positive. Of all the times I've tried to lose weight in the past, this is only the second time I've felt this way. The last time I felt like this.. I lost 9 stone in 11 months!! How the hell did I ever let myself put all that weight back on?? I am so ashamed of myself, but on the upside, I am now doing something about it. I've faced it and I'm tackling it.

Come and Gone

Well that's another weekend come and gone. How come they arrive so quickly and then vanish just as quick? The year is flying by! It's October next week. Then starts the Christmas countdown. I have no idea how we're going to afford it this year :(

We did nothing special this weekend due to lack of cash. It's payday tomorrow.. thank god!

Isabelle went to school no problem today. I've been having a bit of a problem getting her there. She was refusing point blank to go. I practically had to drag her kicking and screaming. Thankfully, that seems to be over now she realises she has no choice to stay home, and that she has to go to school. I explained to her that I went to school and daddy did, and Russ and Eve and... well everyone. She is great at understanding things, and I know she was thinking about it. So hopefully, that's that problem solved.

Today is a long day for her. Aswell as school this morning, she has gymnastics at 4pm. She ADORES her gymnastic sessions, but she comes out very hot and tired, bless her. I give her a banana, get her home, showered and ready for bed, give her some dinner and then she crashes out, sometimes as early as 6pm but never later than 7.

Good news on the ebay front. I've sold all 6 bad fairy wigs I had listed. I'm going to get some more stock tomorrow because I'm sure I'll sell more on the run up to halloween. If not, they may still sell towards Christmas for office parties or nights out etc. I did chuckle to myself as I had one long crimped with with red streaks in it. A man bought it! LOL. Well, it may be his partner that bought it but it was a man's account and name and address teehee.

Time Consuming!

Phew! I had no idea it would take so long to get things listed on ebay. Geeze! The biggest time eater was taking photographs of my stock and re-sizing them ready for uploading. Then I've had to write a sales pitch for each item on sale. Working my poor little brain and getting cells to work that went to sleep a long time ago lol.

I bought some Bad Fairy wigs to sell for halloween. Mark laughed at me and thought I'd gone mad buying 6 wigs. The laugh is on him.. I've sold three of them in two days.

I spent some time last night making up a charm bracelet with the cute Tibetian charms. Here's how it looks.

Of course, Isabelle being the girly girl she is, wanted one. So I made her a little on with the stars and moons. She walked around with her arm out for ages, jingling the little charms LOL. Bless her.

Here's Isabelle's bracelet.



I'm making these to each person's choice. They can choose the charms they want and the length of chain they need and also they can choose between a serpent toggle fastner or a heart and arrow toggle fastner. Hopefully I can sell a few for stocking fillers for Christmas. I find it strangely therapeutic making these charm bracelets. And I have three neices who will be getting them for Christmas this year LOL. No I'm not a cheapskate really.. I know they'd love them.

If anyone who happens to be reading this blog would like to order one (wink wink) they're listed here on ebay.

Not sure where to start

Well I'm not quite sure where to start today. I suppose the thing thats at the uppermost of my mind.

Eve phoned yesterday from my Mum's house. She had to get off the phone quickly and said she'd phone back. She did, but the reason she left the phone in such a hurry, is that my mum had fallen in the garden. This is the fourth time she's fallen in the past few weeks! This was the worst one so far. it's not as if she's old. She's only 61. I think she's coming off some tablets and it's made her spacial awareness a bit dodgy. The last fall, she bashed her knee up pretty bad.

I did speak to her briefly, but she sounded awful. I asked her to get checked out at the hospital. Mum being mum said no she'd be fine. I phoned her this morning to see how she was doing. She could barely move. I tried to insist she see the dr at least. She brushed it off. She phoned me later after my Aunt (her sister) visited and said that Sue had called the Dr out for a home visit. Phew! It turns out that Mum has badly bruised her hip and broken several ribs. I'm glad she got checked out, although there's nothing they can do apart from give her painkillers. Eve is going over tonight (at my request) to make sure Mum gets some dinner. She'll not bother if it's just for her, so Eve's going to cook something for them both.

My day has been hectic, as ever. Since Isabelle started nursery I just don't know where the time goes.

The washing machine repair man came today after messing about to confirm that I did actually take out extended cover on the machine. It's only 18 months old as it is! Anyway, new pump, complete clear out and it's now working again. A week without a washing machine is one way to accumulate a mountain of washing! I have such bad luck with washing machines, I think I jinx them.

I've just had to stop typing this to go and see to Isabelle. Mark got very little sleep last night so he went to bed just before 7.30 as he had already fallen asleep on the sofa! Isabelle went to bed a couple of minutes later. As I was taking her upstairs she said she wanted to snuggle her daddy, so she climbed in bed with him and snuggled in. Half an hour later I thought I could hear her stomping about upstairs and hear her chirruping to herself. So I went up. Mark is fast asleep buried under a mountain of quilt and pillows and Isabelle said she was making Daddy warm. She'd taken herself off to her own bedroom and was watching the cars go past out the window LOL. So I've tucked her in and hopefully she'll be off to sleep. She's not normally bad at going to sleep.

And so on to my new venture. I have decided to try and sell things on ebay. I really can't commit myself to going out to work at the moment. I only get 2 hours between dropping Isabelle off and picking her up again. I don't want to pay all my wages to childminders, and to be honest, I prefer to look after Isabelle myself. She's my last child and there's plenty of time when she's in school full time to get myself a job outside the home. So I started shopping on ebay in the wholesale/job lot section.

I bought loads of stuff and am now preparing it ready to get it all listed for sale. I've done all my maths, made a spreadsheet to keep records of everything. I've been really organised LOL. I even sold something today already! woohoo. Let the cash roll in LOL

We'll see how it goes, but I really hope I can earn something to put towards Christmas. Which is

91 days, 9 Hours, 35 Minutes

...But who's counting?

Wayhey! We had sunshine!

At long last we've actually had some sunshine! Oh it seems to have been gone for so long. Even if we didn't actually have rain, it's been very grey and gloomy. A completely miserable summer as weather goes.

So on Saturday, the sun was out. Right people.. I said.. lets get in the car and go somewhere. We ended up going to Llanberis in Snowdonia. I wanted to take Isabelle on the little steam train that goes around Llyn Padarn because I'd taken Eve and Russ on the train when they were about 4 yrs and 8yrs old. When we got there, the train doesn't run on a Saturday or Sunday. How stupid is that?!?!?! So we ended up taking a cruise on the boat around the lake. She thought it was wonderful. I managed to get a few decent mountain shots even though I only had my 28-70mm lens with me.

I don't think I'm very good at Landscapes. Firstly I struggle to see them. That might sound odd as I appreciate a beautiful view as much as the next person, I just don't see them photographically. But I emailed my Snowdonia shots to my Mum who has walked up Mount Snowdon as part of the Three Peak Challenge that she did a few years ago. She emailed back and said 'oh you must have a good lens'. Humph! But she didn't mean it that way LOL, me and my automatic assumption that she meant the camera did all the work.. she actually meant that me (and my lens) had captured some excellent detail in the mountains.

This shot is of Dinorwig disused slate quarry on the right and Crib Goch (the mountain) centre.

Isabelle had a whale of a time feeding the baby ducks (she wanted to bring them all home). And collecting things for her 'collection'. Now this child is obsessed with collecting things. By things, I mean sticks and stones and feathers! We can't go anywhere without her bringing back a 'collection'. She brought a branch back with her one time (Thanks Mark!).

We were actually at the Llanberis slate museum which is on the site of Dinorwig disused slate mine. So there were miles of slate shingle. She couldn't walk more than two steps without finding another 'beautiful stone'. My camera bag ended up full of bits of slate and bird feathers. Bless her.

We did have a lovely day though and it was so nice to get out in the sunshine!

Brain Training

I'm so pleased!

I've just done my brain training on day 4 and have managed to lower my brain age from 72 to 37! Yay.. my brain is now younger than me :) I just hope that in 6 months time I don't lower my brain age to that of a 3 year old LOL. According to the scientist who created the brain training, the optimum age for your brain is 20 years old. That's when it's at it's best working capacity. So, 17 years to restore.

I think that the thing about the training is that it gets you to do things with your brain mathematically and visual recognition as fast as you can, and this means that I am doing challenges on the training that I would never do in normal real life. I rarely need to use my times tables, and I certainly don't count how many people enter a house and leave a house to be able to know how many are still in the house. Confusing? Nah, it's not that bad. I'm really enjoying it though to be honest. So much so, that I ordered a copy of 'More Brain Training'. This is the second version and has different challenges to the first one, including things like how much change to give. With not working and just being at home with a 3 year old and doing all the boring day to day tasks I don't suppose I get to use my brain that often, so this has given me a new challenge and I'm loving it!! The one that does get confusing is colours of words. A colour such as blue will pop up on the screen but it will be coloured yellow. You have to speak the colour of the word, not the word itself. Trying to convince my brain that the answer to RED is actually BLUE is a bit of a challenge LOL

Wow! From 72 down to 37.. yay.. I'm chuffed to buggery as my dad would have said LOL

Signs

Yet another busy day! Why are there never enough hours in a day?

Got Isabelle off to Nursery this morning. She's doing great and when she came out she announced 'I love my new school'. Thank god for that. I used to have awful problems getting her to playgroup sometimes, including full screaming and kicking sessions. But she seems fine here and has made a friend that she sits with all the time called Kira. I'm even managing to get her to eat breakfast before she goes to school. She obviously takes after me and will eat breakfast when she feels like it.

After I picked her up we had to go and get some food shopping and then on to Matalan. I haven't been able to find grey pinafore dresses to fit her for school anywhere. So I thought we'd try Matalan.

When we go anywhere in the car, Isabelle is very observant and talks about everything out of the window the whole car journey. Of course, I'm trying to drive and listen to her yapping and answer her questions. Her recent obsession has been road signs. She constantly asks 'What does that sign mean?' So today she asked, what does that arrow pointing up mean? I gave the simple answer of 'It means you have to go that way'. She replied 'but that's no good we're going to Matalan, if we do what the arrow says we'll drive into space!' I had a good giggle to myself while I explained it actually meant go straight on, not straight up. Out of the mouths of babes.

While she was in Nursery I managed to get 5 minutes at the computer to check out my shots of the moon that I took on Saturday night. That's how busy we've been, I've not had chance to look at them yet. Well anyway, I took some shots of the moon with my new biiiiiiiiiiiiiig lens. I was chuffed to bits with how they came out. It really made me smile :)

Now it's time to grab something to eat before getting Isabelle ready for her gymnastics session at 4 o'clock. An hour to kill then back home for the dinnertime / bedtime scramble. I feel worn out already just thinking about it.

Memory...

Or should I say .. Lack Of!

My memory is shocking. It just seems to have stopped working properly. The stupid thing about it is, I can remember useless information like a fly can produce babies when the fly is 2 days old... but can I remember what I need to buy from the supermarket when I get there? NO!

Mark had given me some money to spend on me from his over-time pay. woohoo. He insisted I spend it on myself.. so, as I mentioned before, I bought my biiiiig lens for my camera. I had a bit left over and while we were out shopping yesterday.. well I say shopping, we were just wandering really.. we passed 'Game'. As avid gamers in this house, between Mark and Russ, we have nearly all the games platforms. Mark has his PS3, Russ has a PS3, X-Box and Wii. I don't really play that many games like I used to, although I still love Gran Turismo, Tekken and Tiger Woods Golf, I just sort of got out of the habit of playing them. I do play games on the PC and love them, but don't play that many now.

So, as I said, we backtracked and went in to Game for a wander. Mark wanted to get a cheap PS2 as he still has a couple of games he likes to play, but they don't work on the PS3, so he went to look for a pre-owned console. He managed to find one for £40 so he decided to get it. Me on the other hand wandered over to the Nintendo DSLite section. I've wanted one for ages, I don't know why... I just did. They had pre-owned Nintendo DSLite's on offer with a game of your choice. I bit the bullet and impulsively (not like me) got one. I got the Brain Training game to go with it.

So last night I sat playing and training my brain. First tests showed that I have a brain age of 72!! My god that was shocking!! So it seems my brain has practically shrivelled up and died already. So I've decided to give my brain a daily workout on the brain training game. So I did this morning's session. My brain age is now 55 and that's only after two sessions. It's the maths that lets me down, in particular my times tables. I never learnt them.. shocking I know.. but that's my biggest downfall. So, I'm going to get my brain back into gear and get it working again. Who knows, I may even start remembering important stuff! LOL

Nursery

My baby started Nursery today!

I know it's a really poor picture but I took it with the little point and shoot that madam has obviously stuck her sticky fingers on the lens. But here she is in her school uniform. The strange thing is, it makes me sad that she's growing up so fast. It's probably because I know she's my last child.

She did good at school though apart from me leaving. She didn't want me to go and had a bit of a panic. But one of the teachers took her and once Isabelle knew her name, she was fine. She's always had a bit of a panic when she doesn't know people's names. She was the same in playgroup. She came home today with a little certificate saying 'My first day at school'. It lists her teachers' names and who she made friends with, what she played with and the thing she likes to do in school the most. Something else to go in my memory box. So there it is, she's now going 5 mornings a week.

My new camera lens arrived at last! I was getting a bit worried. The guy said he posted it on Friday 1st class and it still wasn't here by lunchtime today. I had an appointment at 3.15pm (more of that in a moment) and I was just getting ready to leave when there was a knock on the door. Much to my pleasure, it was my new lens. all 170-500mm of it .. wahooooo!! This is going to be great for my motorsport photography. I can't wait to get out there and try it. I'll have to buy some more bird seed tomorrow so I can practice taking shots of the birds in the garden LOL. My 300mm lens just doesn't reach far enough to get a good bird shot on the bird table.

This afternoon I saw the dietician. My GP referred me and I had my heckles up before I went. I'm allergic to dieticians lol. Well, my previous experience of a dietician was a very overweight, very over-bearing woman telling me how, and what to eat. This afternoon's appointment was very different. It was a very nice Irish chap. Poor bloke has been lumbered all his life with being called Mr P Green. LOL. I was dying to ask him if he did P Green, but I refrained. He was lovely though and we had a really good chat. It was more like talking to a friend than a specialist. He's asked me to go back to see him again in 2 months. He's posting me a load of info he wants me to read through and he's going to work with me on changing my eating habits... or should I say bad eating habits. The likes of, not eating until mid afternoon, or evening. He wants me to eat breakfast, even if it's just a slice of toast before I take Isabelle to school. He said I wouldn't expect a car to run on no fuel, so how can I expect my body to run on none. He also put me right on the thinking that if I didn't eat breakfast that my body would use it's reserves. Erm, no. It doesn't work like that apparently. He did explain why and didn't treat me like a fat idiot, which was really nice. We're going to work on losing 20% of my body weight. This will apparently increase my health quite substantially. He's not given a timescale for it, he just said, as long as my weight is going down, then he'll be happy. He also is giving me a plan to work with. This is the info he's sending me, but it's about how to get things right in my head.. the planning, the lifestyle changes and the retraining my brain and body to accept food as fuel instead of a luxury and then beating myself up about it if I eat something that I consider to be wrong.

The one thing that did shock me, was that you only need to over-eat your body's natural calorie requirements by 140 calories per day to put a stone on in one year! Wow, that is so easy to do!

Anyway... onwards and upwards.. positive mental attitude and all that. Stop making excuses and make myself healthy.

My toddler!

Oh dear, Isabelle makes me shake my head sometimes.

We had to go to Asda to get some shopping, and I'm STILL looking for age 3-4 pinafore dresses for her school uniform as she starts nursery on the 11th.

So I try to get her out of the car, but she won't move. I tell her, c'mon we need to get this shopping done and she says she can't go into Asda. When I ask her why not she says, "I've got a bare bum". Now this child drives me demented lol, she never has any knickers on. I can dress her, and her knickers are off within 10 minutes. I can put them back on, and 10 minutes later, they're off again. Well today she had a dress on, so I didn't notice she didn't have knickers on till she told me at Asda. LOL. So first port of call in Asda was to the kids underwear department! I chose some, took out one pair and put them on her. At least she was now decent lol.

Of course, by then, I was in the kiddies clothes and Asda have some lovely stuff for Isabelle's age. I did quite well though in the sales stuff. I got her 2 summer dresses for £3, a vest top, t-shirt and shorts matching set for £3, two pairs of shorts for 50p and two t-shirts to match the shorts for £1. These will all fit her next year so even if she doesn't get any wear out of them this year, I can put them away till next summer. I was quite chuffed with myself until I walked past the shoes and boots. There were a pair of pink suede ankle boots. A bit like soft doc martins with a spongy type top on them. There was one pair in her size and I always have problems getting shoes and boots to fit her. She must be a common size LOL. So I ended up paying £10 for these ankle boots. She looks great in them though, they really suit her. They've got great doc martin type soles on them too, so she can clomp about in the puddles and mud to her heart's content. I'll just need to scotch guard them first! She adores them and is wearing a pretty, strappy summer dress with little flowers on and looks all cute till you catch sight of her big ankle boots LOL. Bless her.