Dreamy Times

I’ve just had my second progress weigh in at Curves and everything is still going the right way! Despite missing all of last week exercise wise (a combination of kids doing my head in, ANZAC day and walking into the towbar…) and eating half a pan of the rather delicious Carrot and Lentil soup I made yesterday (Seriously, my farts should be classified as a bio-hazard)

So here are the scores on the door:

Total Centimeters lost: 27  (from 18 last time)
Total Weight lost: 2.1kg  (from 1.7kg)
Total Body Fat% decrease: 0.6%  (from 0.6%)
Total Body Fat lost: 1.47kg (from 1.31kg)

Fantastico!

(Now I just have to find where I put the bloody spreadsheet I created last month!)

After a trip to the dietician a month ago, she recommended that I should do some strength training to top up my treadmill walking. One of the things she mentioned was Curves, which is one of those 30 minutes express circuit training places especially for women.

I decided to give it ago and toddled along. First session was really good, but I managed to throw my back out over the following weekend (just coincidentally I think.. picking up dog poo!!) so I couldn’t really get back into it for a week. I’ve persevered though and today I had my first monthly check in. I also sorted out the Curvesmart tag which tracks your actual progress on the machines and tells you how many calories you’ve burned doing the circuit.  (252 today, which is pretty damn good)

I am so ecstatic about my measurements!!

Total Centimetres lost: 18
Weight: -1.7kg
Total body fat %: -0.6
Body Fat: -1.31kg

The biggest measurement loss was around my abdomen – 8cms gone!!!! How fantastic is that?

So – bottle of wine to celebrate?

So it may be some kind of record on the blog front – no posts since September last year! I am duly ashamed and vow to do better.

Obviously a lot has happened since then: we had our trip to the UK; Matt has passed his diploma at college and is now in Uni; we’ve applied for citizenship; I’ve been to see a dietician. Naturally, my appointment with the dietician is the most important thing, so that’s what I’ll talk about first

My weight loss has been pretty much non-existent, despite mostly sticking to 1600 cals a day, exercising mostly every other day, trying to be good (and keeping my blood glucose levels at a good level) I am aware that there are a lot of ‘mostly’s in this paragraph but I do try very hard. After our trip to the UK I put on about 2kg – couldn’t shift them. After Christmas, I put on another couple of kilos and I can’t shift them either. The result of this is that I’m pretty much back to where I started when I was first diagnosed with diabetes, almost two years ago. It’s very disheartening and depressing to say the least.

At my last diabetes check-up I finally succumbed and asked if I could go see a dietician (I get 5 visits to a diabetes related professional every year, as part of my diabetes care management plan). I went to see her on Tuesday. In brief, she thinks I’m concentrating too much on being a diabetes sufferer, that because my HbA1C blood results (the test I get quarterly, which gives an average overview of your glucose levels over a three month or so period) are so good (5.6-5.9) that I have my diabetes well under control. That’s without medication too, so I’m a little star. However, what it also means is that I don’t really need to eat so many carbs and I also don’t need to eat quite so often. At present I have breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack and dinner (I’m supposed to have supper too, but there’s a limit to how much I can chuck down my neck). I’d also have to have between 30-60g carbs for each meal and 15-30g carbs for each snack, so between 120g-240g.. so now she wants me only have a snack if I’m actually hungry, to have no more than 45g carbs per main meal and no more than 165g carbs per day. Also, I have to do at least 60minutes of exercise EVERY DAY, burning at least 200cals. I should also be doing strength training and reduce my calorie intake to 1400 cals per day.

Flipping heck.

So, with all this in mind and with my trusty myfitnesspal app in hand, I have an appointment at Curves (recommended by dietician) – one of those strength circuit places where you do 30 minutes of targeted exercise. Also, if I’m watching the telly, doing laptop stuff, reading etc (ie all those sedentary activities I love so much) I have to do as many of them standing up as I can. Der dah! Laptop on ironing board, kindle on treadmill etc etc. She wants me to lose 0.5-1kg a week (1-2lbs) and she wants me at 90kg in 3 months time. Considering the last three months I’ve lost 200g, I’m hoping that I can do it!

Enough of all that now

In other news, we have our citizenship test appointments for the beginning of next week, so fingers crossed we all pass those and that we get a date for the citizenship ceremony shortly afterwards. I’ve had a look on our local council’s website to see if they say how often they hold the ceremonies but I can’t find anything. Then it’ll be a case of getting Aussie passports.. then we’ll be all done. Hurrah.

The two eldest have just gone back to uni – both in their second years. Matt was able to fast track straight into the second year on his diploma, so that was a job well done. He had to pick his major/minor straight away. ‘well, Matt, what did you pick’ I asked. He told me. ‘And are those conducive to the type of career you want when you graduate?’
‘I dunno.’
‘Would it not be a good idea to think about what type of career you want and choose your major accordingly?’
‘I dunno.”
‘I’m sure that’s how most people would do it – you can’t just pick things you like the sound of!’
‘I think you’ll find that’s what I have done.’

Hey ho (again)

And so finally – our trip to the UK last year. I had planned on doing a weekly update while we were away. Obviously that didn’t happen. I haven’t even got my photos uploaded yet!  Suffice to say, we had a great time.. and I’ll do a proper entry around the piccies.

Honest guv.

Just under 4 hours now until the taxi (which I must remember to book) turns up to collect myself, Himself and smallestchild. Then its off to the station to catch a train to take us to the airport to catch a plane to take us on our first trip back to the UK in almost 4 years!

Because they’re both in Uni, Eldest and middle children aren’t allowed to come (and plus its handy being able to leave someone sort of responsible at home to look after the animals)

I have posted endlessly about this on Facebook but my intentions were to leave the house immaculate so that I could expect the same standard on our return. As I’ve had a bad cold, a sprained ankle and a horrific dose of general apathy this hasn’t happened.. but I’m past caring now

So, we land at Heathrow on Thursday morning, UK time, pick up the hired car and head to Himself’s mum’s house in Folkestone. We’re having a week there, so Himself will get to spend his birthday with his mum, and then we’re off upto York to see the people we left behind when we moved out to Australia. In the meantime we’ll hopefully catch up with Rory and some others, which will be great.

A long weekend in York is followed by another trip up the A1 to my mum’s in Newcastle. I’m hoping to see some old school friends before we head across the Pennines to Blackpool, for our obligatory trip to the Pleasure Beach and (if its open) several rides on Valhalla  Down the M6 for a week in Warrington to see Neil’s family and then down to Heathrow for a couple of days incorporating a day in Thorpe Park and a quick visit with Sknowsy.

Awww… I’m starting to get excited now, even though its a lot of travelling. It’ll be lovely to see my dad, who couldn’t come when my mam came out to visit us, although I’ve decided that Middlechild is too much like his Grandad Colin.. and also to see my sister in law Dawn who I miss a lot Not to mention (although I just did) all the other friends and family.

Naturally, I’m hoping the weather will be like it is here – 25-30C.. but I’m not holding my breath, lol! I shall report from the Other Side.

It was, as ever, an interesting time in the Dreamy household on Friday night.

I’ve been suffering really bad cramps and diarrhea (yes, yes, I know, TMI) with a bit of nausea chucked in for good measure, but I had a bit of a craving for a baked potato. We’ve got one of those microwaves that has a ‘one touch’ button for baked potatoes – you bung it in, press the button and it stops cooking once its done. Fabby!

Now.. the microwave has a bit of a history. About a year or so ago, Ben was cooking steaks. Unable to judge for himself, and unable to work the oven timer (god help the engineering world once he’s working in it) he decided he’d use the microwave for the timings. Not the timer on the microwave, but the actual microwave. He was also, apparently unable to cook more than one steak at a time, so he did all 4 individually (I was upstairs with a migraine at the time so he was only making dinner for everyone else… I hasten to add that Himself was also in attendance!!)… naturally, by the time he’d done all four, the microwave had thrown a hissy fit and fused the leccy. :sigh: It’s never really been the same since.

Anyway, back to Friday night (I put the above in so that I am completely absolved of any blame). So, I’m sat reading, sort of half watching the telly too, feeling sorry for myself, when all of a sudden the smoke alarm in the hallway goes off. I sat up and was horrified to see that the kitchen was full of smoke. Now, we have an open plan kitchen/dining/living room.. so its a little disconcerting that I didn’t realise at some point before the alarm went off that there could have been a problem. (And no, Kevin Arnold, I wasn’t drunk!!)

I jumped up, trying to work out where the smoke was coming from. As well as the microwave, the oven was also on for the kids’ dinner.. had a look in there – no burning. By the time, the kids had come in from the study and were frantically waving teatowels at the smoke alarm (but hey, at least it works!!), wafting doors and trying to help me work out where on earth the smoke had come from. Finally, I remembered that I’d put a baked potato in the microwave. Which was now a blank, powerless machine. I couldn’t see anything inside it, so pulled the plug out of the wall and carefully opened the door. Yep.. that’s where the smoke was. My baked potato was now a cremated mess in the middle of the turntable and the inside of the door had partially melted. OMG! Obviously, the sensor had failed somehow and the potato had just continued cooking.

Now that we’d worked out the danger was over, we carried on trying to get rid of the smoke. Through the kitchen door, a small white cat appeared proudly bearing a gift for us all. Yes, Obi had somehow managed to catch a mouse. How he did it, we’re still not quite sure, but I’m betting that Leia was the architect behind it’s downfall. We shouted at Matthew to get hold of his cat. So he picked Obi up – the dogs, already hugely excited by the smoke alarm, were jumping up and down, trying to get the mouse out of his mouth. Matt is just vaguely waving Obi around, I don’t know if he was using him as a smoke disperser or what, so I shouted at him to put the cat down and get the mouse (which we assumed was dead) out of the cat’s mouth.

So Matt did as he was told and put the cat back down. And let go of him! Fortunately Obi was still so surprised to have caught something that he just stood there in shock. Then the back leg of the mouse wiggled and we realised it was still alive. We all shouted at Matt to get the mouse out of the cat’s mouth and he stood shrugging his shoulders like we’d asked him to come up with a viable theory to explain time travel. James shoved his fingers in the sides of Obi’s mouth and he dropped the mouse. Of course, now the mouse decided it would have a scamper around the kitchen bench… Ben threw a teatowel at Matt and told him to catch the mouse. Eventually, it was captured in the teatowel and I told Matt to go put it in the garden. He went out on the deck and flicked the teatowel over the edge of the railing. Coming back inside, he realised that the mouse was still clinging on to the towel for dear life. He ran back out and flicked the towel again.. this time a bit too energetically because the mouse AND the towel went over the side.

:sighs more:

It is all quite amusing looking back on it.

I am thankful that it happened before we disappear off to the UK for a week.. and Ben has promised that he won’t use the new microwave as a timer at any time..

I called into Coles for a few bits and pieces on the way back from taking James to school.

This is quite a normal occurrence and not usually something which causes me terror (well, apart from having to dodge all the Curtis Stone gurning cut outs).

Heading back to the car, I bent over to lift the hatch.. and was stopped in my tracks by the sight of the hugest, fattest, hairiest, hugest, juiciest, hugest, enormous, hugest Huntsman spider, pinned to the back of the car by the boot door. Did I mention it was huge? It was also, fortunately, extremely dead. I was too traumatised to take a photo so, with the power of Paint (why has no one bought me Photoshop yet??) I have recreated the incident (James Cameron has nothing on me), to scale.

The moment the spider was revealed

I’ve only just realised that I’d lost my blogroll in the last server move.. d’oh! So if people could email me their blog links again I’d be endlessly appreciative.

The reason I realised the above was when I was adding a new blog link – Diary of a Stay at Home Dad - which I can thoroughly recommend to everyone as a damn funny read. The bloke who writes it is a member of an ex-pats forum I write on (except he’s in the US rather than Aus) and his posts are always funny, usually disgusting, sometimes thought provoking and did I mention they were funny… I haven’t checked all the way back through his blog but I really, really, really hope he’s uploaded his ‘first week in a low paid job’ story – I still have nightmares about TheHorseInseminator.

That concludes today’s offering… I’ll be back soon with a proper entry. Honest.

Before I start, this blog has just changed servers, which wiped my subscribers list. I’ve added everyone who mailed me but I’ve also taken the liberty of adding anyone who has commented in the last couple of years or so. If you don’t want to be on the subscription mail list then please either email me or leave a comment on this post

Now – the mysteries of S-Time.

Over the last couple of months I’ve noticed a peculiar phenomenon. When the alarm goes off on a morning, I, like probably everyone else in the known universe, hit the snooze button. I don’t know why we don’t just set the alarm for the time we ACTUALLY want to get up, but I think its because a) you feel like you’re coming awake more gradually and b) its like you’re cheating the Gods out of 20minutes (my snooze zone is 10minutes but it always get hit at least twice).

However, I’ve discovered that I can fall asleep really well in those ten minute intervals and, contrary to all the science about alpha, beta and theta waves, feel much more rested than if I just slept an extra ten minutes. I have the most bizarre dreams, which I know is because I’m technically no where near deep sleep, but I can always manipulate them to go the way I want, so it’s brilliant! Start the day with a fulfilling fantasy and it gives you a smile that lasts all day long. No, not THOSE sort of fantasies (well not always, anyway) but just more mundane things.

But is this particular to S-Time, or does it apply to general lying about in bed when you should be getting up? The answer is no. If I’ve accidentally hit ‘stop’ instead of ‘snooze’ but believe I can just lie there for an extra ten minutes anyway, it’s always going to end in tears. Every 37.5 seconds you jerk awake, convinced that you’ve been asleep for an hour. You check the time, realise you still don’t have to get up, fall asleep and do the exact same thing again. You then finally get up feeling like you’ve had no sleep at all and you’re grumpy and miserable and take it all out on the dog/cat/kids/other half (shut up at the back, I am not usually like that anyway)

Also, on that rare Saturday morning when you CAN lie in til 9am but you still woke up at 5.20am so you try to go back to sleep to make the most of it, you just wake back up at 6.45am feeling shit.

S-Time is magical time, we should all make the most of it.

Shhh…

It’s 9.08am.. and they’re all gone!!!

YAYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!

I’m off for a sleep

I’ve been dreaming of this day.

For the first time since we moved to NSW,  I’d have the house completely to myself for a prolonged period of time. No kids, Himself at work, just me, I’d be able to watch what I wanted on the telly. I’d be able to play my crappy computer games with out derision. Sleep on the settee without sarcastic comments about needing a nannynap. Play Abba at full volume. Play Singstar without care. Dance around the house naked if I chose to! (Well, perhaps not that one. Not without putting all the blinds down first, anyway)

Yes, finally, Eldest and Middlechild were back in Uni.

However, it was not to be. Himself was waved off at the train station at 6am. Middlechild was waved off at the train station at 7am. I managed to stave off Youngest’s complaints of toothache (mostly by zoning him out) so that he wasn’t getting a day off school and dropped him off at school at 8am. Stopped at the supermarket on the way back from school, thus killing two birds with one stone and be back at home by 8.40am. Just one more child to go, and I was free!! Free I tell you!

‘What time are you at Uni?’… 
‘Er.. not til 2pm.. ’
‘But you need to sort out your travel authority?’
‘I was meaning to talk to you about that!’

Yes, he was only on a different campus today and could he please have a lift so he could sort out his travel authority at his home campus (so he can travel as a student on the train) and then could I please take him to the neighbouring campus where his lecture was. Via the train station so he could pick up a weekly ticket.

I’ve only just got back. 2.15pm. Is the rest of the day mine? No.. because Youngest is due in at 3pm.

What can I do with 45mins? Decisions, decisions.