Spotto!

Red Witch Says Hi.

Today I found out for sure that again I am not pregnant. Its not too bad a let down this time as I had been testing for the last few days and coming up negative. My period came a few days early which is better than when its late. Hopes have time to get up higher when it is late and then you have further to fall.

Its been a rocky week so far as I crashed my car on Monday. I was on the way to observe Jules at school. So I was leaving an hour earlier than usual. I was pushed for time and I ended up eating lunch in the car. I think this distracted me, so I wont do it again. I was turning right to go on the highway and I see a flash of a blue car, and I barely have time to think I must speed up when BANG!  My back tyre is hit and the car suddenly spins around like it is in an amusement park ride.

I jump out immediately to see if everybody is alright and thank god everyone is. The cars are pretty banged up, but I have insurance and it was my fault so thats fine. A witness appeared on the scene immediatley and gave lots of empathy to the schocked victims of the crash and a tow truck was there in unbelievable speed. As far as accidents go, everyone couldn't have been nicer.

I called Jason and arranged for my mother in law to collect the kids. She means well and does her best but gets quite muddled. I am very grateful for her though, as I don't really have anyone else nearby enough to do it in an emergency.

The kids and I play the spotto game. When you see a yellow car you say "Spotto". Geordie elaborated on this and now we also have "Blinko" for a pink or purple car. "Linko" for a light blue car. "Loco" for an orange car, and "Sneezo" for a light green car.

So you can imagine the kids delight when our hire car turned out to be a Spotto!

Camping...in the drizzle

So months ago I had planned to go camping with Karen S as she wanted someone to help her go camping for the first time with her baby. 

I had packed and sorted food before I found out that it was meant to rain that weekend. Plus I had paid the whole thing (should of just paid the deposit) so we decided to chance it. Besides it doesn't tend to rain continuously. So at 6 am I get a call that baby Natalie has a fever and so she can't go. Which is true, you would be absolutely stupid to take a sick baby camping.

So we were lucky enough to set up in the almost dry. Then it drizzled continuously for 1.5 days. We still managed to get a fire going (the wood was dry) and got a great roast. The kids also settled really well. They chilled out fantastically. They spent quite a bit of time on their ipads and just were so content. I had heaps of time to read my book.  Despite the wet you can see how we still managed a serene camping trip :)

After starting to fear that we might get flooded in, the weather cleared up and we got to pack down the tent in the dry. Yay! I went for two little rides, but as a whole it was a weight loss disaster as camping = lots of snacking for me. It gets worse as we had Indian takeaway when we got home.

Time to start picking up the pieces tomorrow.

I am also in the two week weight. I spotted a little bleed a few days 5 days after ovulation which I think might be an implantation bleed. It will be interesting to see if I was right, and if little dot makes it past the period.

Social Eating

Friday we celebrated Jason's 10 year anniversary of being an insurance underwriter at the same company. Margi, my sister-in-law and her fiancé came up for the night. We get along really well. We went out for Thai food to celebrate. In order to minimise the damage I ate frugally the day before and the meals beforehand. I had a chicken satay stick for entrée and some prawn thai fried rice, chicken pad thai and beef pad see eew. So yummy, but I wish I had of ordered the thai beef salad. I didn't because I didn't realise we could share it. How silly was that? It could have been shared like any other dish. And it would have saved me feeling sick as my body wasn't used to as much fat at that point. We spend the night afterwars watching reruns of the bachelor and getting really giggly and girly. We ate a lovely fruit platter with brown rice crackers and low fat dips for supper.

They left early the next morning. I took the kids to circus and then we had some of Jasons friends over with their computers to celebrate guy style. My god they are a bit of work food wise. I served baked potato that night with lots of roast chicken I had bought and chopped up. They also got oven chicken tenders as a night snack. Popcorn and chocolate chip cookies to snack on as well as lots of hot beverages. Luckily for me they made a move early and I got to go for a bike ride with Jules. My fitness is improving which is great. I have so much work to put in before the epic though.

Look at all those hills...




Jason has been very inspired in the lead up to the Epic. We got him a very fancy secondhand bike. So he is feeling good and empowered right now.

We have been putting in lots of effort teaching Geordie to ride his bike without training wheels. Jason spent 90 mins teaching Geordie to ride his bike. It is very slow progress, but once he gets his confidence up he will be right.

Jason went for another training session in the bush. I tell you its just great to have him off the computer!



While the social events were fun, I am very glad they were short. They have definitely sabotaged my efforts, however thats life. Its not the food of a single day but the overall lifestyle that counts. I have eaten well today but my potions have been too big as a consequence. I have another awkward week coming up, as I have three days of kids being at home (and they don't like the healthy meals I make so there is compromise there). After that I have two nights of camping with an avid junk food eater. The next weekend is a family bbq in Balina which is a 3 hour drive each way. We will be staying overnight. Luckily for me Jason's family is sensible when it comes to food.

Epic

Hi There!

Phew back from another little bike ride. Its astonishing how much that can suck and rock at the same time! I have to talk myself into it but I get there. I have been riding every second day for the last week. I have already doubled my distance and I am recovering faster. I started at about 1.5km (embarrassing I know) and today I did 3.7km. I am already noticing I get up from the floor easier and I have more fertile mucous (I know, too much information lol). This.is.in.a.week! It is incredible how quickly the body adapts to exercise, its like we were born to do it or something lol. And how much do we fight it considering how awesome it is for us, and how good we feel afterwards?

Beings are designed to avoid pain and seek pleasure, so it has to be really convenient to exercise or the couch will win. Having a brand new bike (Jules') a bike path around the corner and the incentive to train for a 4.2km mountain bike ride next month is what it takes to haul my ass on a bike :) We are going to go to The Epic which is near Gatton, QLD.  We go there every year as we have when Jason and I first dated. Here is a picture of us in 2008, the event was a lot smaller then.

 Here is a video of the Epic from last year if you go to the time 3:21, is of us camping at last years epic!
Actually looking back at those older photos was really nice. This was taken 6 years ago when Jason and I first started dating. I had recently lost about 12 kilos as I had just separated from my exhusband. At that point I was a single mum so I had no money, but I had clothes I liked that I had held onto for when I was slim again and the beauty was that I was actually thin again. I got to my lowest a few months later and I was only 9 kilos off goal!

Incredible to believe how close I was. I had really hoped to be there about now, but its hard to juggle life and everything else. This week alone I have turned down 3 invitations and accepted 3. I have spent the majority of my free time withdrawing to get rid of my massive backlog. And you know what? I  am actually getting through it. The kitchen is sparkling despite how many meals I am preparing in it!



I am starting to menu plan, the kids are read to every night, their piano done, things are off the floor and the garden is improving. This has cleared the physical and mental space I need to get my head around food and food systems.

Food has to be measured, planned and ready to go at a moments notice. So I have been working out things to eat in my calorie range. This has been surprisingly slow to do. And I am only about a 20th of how far I want to go. But that's okay. I have been keeping up my main responsibilities now (webwork, parenting, cleaning, chauffeuring, maintaining friendships) and I have enough time to start to deal with the head game which is weight loss. And it is a massive head game. One thing I am realising is that I can survive thinking about food in the am, but not in the pm. In the pm, my body gets cravey and can't handle the temptation. So plan in the am, distract in the pm, luckliy for me I  have heaps of work to do to keep me busy lol.