This is the time

[maleficent]

But there's no castles round here!! (Not counting Lord of the Rings ... not quite sure where those ones are ...) By chance the first European city I saw was Edinbrough and it blew me away. I'll never forget driving into the city and seeing Edinbrough Castle towering on the cliffs above.

IF you get the chance - go to Prague - hands down the most incredible city in all of Europe... least i think it's europe -i took a plane from london to get there and it wasn't all that long a trip (I'm very geographically challenged )

 

[felici]

Hey Felici, that is indeed an interesting recipe. I think we all have to learn balance as we go. I must say I've seen several European cities and Edinburgh still blows me away. The castle overlooking downtown looks great and the culture and arts in that city are first rate.

I knew that spelling needed a google!!

I suppose balance must be an issue for lots of us. I sometimes feel that there are some activities I have to stay away from completely if I want to have a balanced day and fit a range of things in. I guess it's similar to food issues I have where some kinds of rubbish foods will stop me eating a balanced diet. Only thing is I feel like I really need some of the absorbed right brain time, at least at times, and that it's not necessarily unhealthy, because it has it's own virtue ... just unbalanced ... well ... must be unhealthy if it actually stops me exercising. Too late at night here. Time to quit these fuzzy thoughts. soz Cannon.

IF you get the chance - go to Prague - hands down the most incredible city in all of Europe... least i think it's europe -i took a plane from london to get there and it wasn't all that long a trip (I'm very geographically challenged )

I am definitely going back to Europe one day. I will add in Prague! It might be a while off though, barring a Lotto win! (And when I get back to Sydney without 3 other people and a tight schedule, I will climb Sydney harbour bridge as you suggested too!)

Wednesday December 5, 2007.

Breakfast: 7:30 Toast with plum and cinnamon jam. A boiled egg. Weetbix with hilo milk and tinned peaches. Coffee with a little hilo milk.

Snack: 10:30 2 Vive crackers. 1 coffee with milk.

Lunch: 12:30 4 Vive crackers with 100 gm low fat cottage cheese, a tomato and a mushroom. Pink lady apple. Coffee with milk.

Snack: 3:30 Ladyfinger banana. 200 gm diet apricot yoghurt. Slice of ham. 2 wholemeal Vive crackers. Coffee with milk.


Dinner: 8:00 Spaghetti ½ C. Sauce: Beef mince, onion, tomato – and whatever else I put in there before I froze it some other time.

9:30 200 gm diet apricot yoghurt. Coffee with milk.

Exercise: It was mostly raining and windy by the time I had any free space this evening and I've ended up not going out. I see that I am not driven to take every opportunity I can think of in order to make sure that I exercise every day. There's definitely an issue with competing interests at present.

 

[wishes]

oo i like that AV pic - i need a santa hat!!

 

[felici]

You should get one!! Go the Santa hats!!

 

[wishes]

with a light up bell on the end!

 

[Miss Ladybug]

Oh that new AVI is adorable. What a great picture!! YOU WOULD BE VOTED BEST HOLIDAY AVI around. SO, SO CUTE!!

See, you take good pics also, I'm so jealous!! Hope your day is going well, and I like your Boiled Egg idea, thanks for the tip!
Enjoy your day!
Kim

 

[felici]

with a light up bell on the end!

Oh yeah!! I <3 flashing Christmas jewellery too! You could make a gif avvie.

Oh that new AVI is adorable. What a great picture!! YOU WOULD BE VOTED BEST HOLIDAY AVI around. SO, SO CUTE!!

See, you take good pics also, I'm so jealous!! Hope your day is going well, and I like your Boiled Egg idea, thanks for the tip!
Enjoy your day!
Kim

Thank you. I'm know it's too easy for me to waste time messing with pics but I'm having another little spate of it anyway. I really want to finish a couple of little projects.

*wonders if it would be more sensible to go Christmas shopping in December first, before trying to add a Christmas hat to a moving dolphin avvie.....*

Hmmm.

(but you know if I wait until my shopping is done, it will be late on Christmas Eve, and I won't want the avvie any more ...)

 

[felici]

So I never did post holiday pics ...
My photos so do not do the scenery justice - especially once they're resized ...
and I am still processing the weight loss implications for myself ...
still finishing the Holiday Road story ...
but I did say I would post pics and for those interested, there are some here!



I think the easiest way to view them is to click on 'view as a slide show'. I have included as much description as I could in the titles. If it seems too quick you can press pause or change the speed.

 

[daiseeangel]

I loved all the pictures! The scenery was beautiful!!

And I LOVE the avatar! I am such a Christmas nerd! I started wearing Christmas jewelry and socks (even when it doesn't match my clothes!) since Dec. 1st. I don't think my kids (students) even notice or care... I do it for myself! It makes me so happy!

 

[frankie1]

Oh Felici,

What absolutely gorgeous photos - you are a great photographer, and I am now officially homesick. I can't wait till this coming saturday when I get on that plane and get to hug my dad.

NZ is truly special - even with all those staring sheep!!!

Frankie

 

[felici]

I loved all the pictures! The scenery was beautiful!!

And I LOVE the avatar! I am such a Christmas nerd! I started wearing Christmas jewelry and socks (even when it doesn't match my clothes!) since Dec. 1st. I don't think my kids (students) even notice or care... I do it for myself! It makes me so happy!

I like Christmas stuff! I feel very relaxed about Christmas this year. Maybe because no one is coming to my house and I haven't been given my cooking instructions for the other ones I'm going to yet! So far I have just wasted a lot of time on Christmas decorations for forums I belong to, put up our tree today with the girl (and we did it a different way - even better than last year!!), and went out to a Christmas dinner tonight! And now I feel very cheerful just like in my avvie!! Well even a bit more cheerful than the avvie actually!!

Oh Felici,

What absolutely gorgeous photos - you are a great photographer, and I am now officially homesick. I can't wait till this coming saturday when I get on that plane and get to hug my dad.

NZ is truly special - even with all those staring sheep!!!

Frankie

Thank you! I bought a new camera before we went, and cameras these days are so good that it actually took pictures quite similar to what I was aiming at despite me having almost no knowledge of what I was doing. I had great subject matter. I almost want to go back just to fix up my photo collection now that I've had time to reflect on it.

NZ is very special - and the sheep help!! I reckon the farmers purposely fill all the paddocks next to the main roads with lambs just to help out the tour operators. I kinda get all those jokes a bit better now I've been!! Well, a lot better actually.

Your homesickness timing is spot on!! This will be a very special trip I'm sure.

 

[felici]

I went out to dinner with some other women that live nearby tonight (the official ladies Christmas dinner, not to be confused with the street party in 8 days time.) It was such fun. We walked to a cafe nearby and I had half a bottle of wine, which is very unusual for me. I was very aware of how it compared with the same event, at the same place last year.

Last year I had just started losing weight and was so unsure of myself that I was very careful about every meal, even that one, and they were mystified about how I didn't want to eat as much as them. This year I've already totally changed my appearance, and I felt relaxed about just having controlled amounts of food and wine (slightly controlled wine), but basically eating what was there. (I just skipped the deep fried spring rolls - deep fried is a bridge to far for me...) I finished the dinner feeling totally satisfied, and then we stopped on the walk home and sang a carol at one of our friends who couldn't make it but who still had her house open and was obviously awake! So I got a hug from her anyway, even though she wasn't at the dinner.

I also clearly recall going to the ladies lunches with these ladies when we first moved here, and my kids were so small, the girl was a baby, and I used to fully stress about the lunches at our homes, and tell myself it was the right thing to do to be sociable, and that I would be glad afterwards... and here we are ten years later ... and I am glad.

 

[daiseeangel]

YAY! What a great feeling to be so much more comfortable in your own skin! I'm glad you are so much happier and confident with who you are! You are beautiful, on the inside and out!

 

[wishes]

wow thats super fantastic about going out. Man id love to do that.

Here its raining and hot atm - summer at winter takes all the xmasy feeling away i tell ya

 

[frankie1]

Felici,

I can so relate to your dinner dilemma thoughts. I have just started this journey and being this time of year, we have alot of functions coming up, like this coming wednesday we are going out to a swanky restaurant with friends here from the UK whom I haven't seen in a few years. In that time, I have gained an awful lot of weight so am embarassed of how I will look/ what can I wear, and also cognisant that I don't want to drink and be merry or eat bad stuff, but also don't want to be a stick in the mud and be the one not joining in the christmas festivities. So once I get over the anxiousness of my appearance and how they will be thinking gosh she really let herself go, I will then deal with the food.

It must have been a good feeling at your dinner this year, and I love singing christmas carols. This weekend I am so looking forward to going to mass with my Dad and singing with him.

Take care,
Frankie

 

[felici]

YAY! What a great feeling to be so much more comfortable in your own skin! I'm glad you are so much happier and confident with who you are! You are beautiful, on the inside and out!

Thank you, Tyly!

Yes, I am happier and more confident in general. I think having babies really impacted on my confidence. Before I had them, I used to be very much self referencing, or limiting the range of people whose opinions I took notice of. Once I had children I felt obliged to meet other people's expectations in a more general way because I thought that would help my children, but I wasn't sure that I could. It wasn't a bad thing for me to do. I was the one who gained the most from it. It's nice to have moved on from being unsure though.

Losing weight has been great, in similar ways to that I think. On the one hand I feel more confident knowing that I approve of a lot more of my own important behaviours. Also, I know that I have a more positive impact on other people from the outset - partly because I'm feeling more happy and confident even before anything else happens and partly because I expect them to like my appearance more.

wow thats super fantastic about going out. Man id love to do that.

Here its raining and hot atm - summer at winter takes all the xmasy feeling away i tell ya

It was great to walk to and from the restaurant - I didn't notice it as exercise, and yet it was probably another 20 minutes walking added on to my day - and no need to count drinks!! (Kinda ) It was a balmy evening. We were joking about wanting that for our street barbecue next week - which is traditionally wet and windy!!

I feel your complaint - hot and wet is not a great combination!!! Yesterday and today aren't raining here - but very hot and still and muggy. I expect Christmas weather to be fickle, but I do like to have a bunch of dry weather beforehand to spring clean in and make it easy to get organized. Mind you no one is asking for too much effort from me this year. I should do it anyway I guess, cos it really helps set things up for a smoother year to come.

Felici,

I can so relate to your dinner dilemma thoughts. I have just started this journey and being this time of year, we have alot of functions coming up, like this coming wednesday we are going out to a swanky restaurant with friends here from the UK whom I haven't seen in a few years. In that time, I have gained an awful lot of weight so am embarassed of how I will look/ what can I wear, and also cognisant that I don't want to drink and be merry or eat bad stuff, but also don't want to be a stick in the mud and be the one not joining in the christmas festivities. So once I get over the anxiousness of my appearance and how they will be thinking gosh she really let herself go, I will then deal with the food.

It must have been a good feeling at your dinner this year, and I love singing christmas carols. This weekend I am so looking forward to going to mass with my Dad and singing with him.

Take care,
Frankie

Oh the old friends thing! I so did not want to be invited to reunions the past few years! Well, past 15 years. You can look swanky without being slim though - I see many do! Also, at least you know that you are doing what you approve of for yourself - and that it's a thing everybody approves of!!! Of course they are quite likely anxious about their own appearance too and overall it can be lovely to meet up with old friends anyway!! Hopefully you can decide limits in advance that let you relax a little in a way that's easy to recover from, and save your focus for enjoying your friends' company.


Last night we unexpectedly had one of my husband's old friends over. (He generally lives in Melbourne and the Gold Coast). I left my mobile at home in my swimming bag while I took my son and his friends out for over an hour in our non-air car, so he could buy himself a new body board. Nice for him, tedious and hot and tiring for me, but I had agreed to do it and I was unresentful. However the girl aggravated me most of the way home and then the boy said something that really flipped my switch as we pulled into the driveway. I was so angry my control was at about a four year low I think, and yelling loudly , as we entered the messy house and saw this lovely, old friend having drinks on the back patio with my husband! I wanted to crawl under a rock!! Instead I just banged doors a bit and went and lay on the bed in my bedroom for 10 minutes!! This guy is so sweet though. When I finally came out, he came over and gave me a hug and commented about how he would never have been able to get his arms all around me like that before, and told a long story about how difficult his own 15 yo can be to deal with...View attachment 5274

and all 5 of us had a really lovely night!! View attachment 5273

 

[felici]

Tonight will be busy. It's the dress rehearsal for the girl's dance concert. 5 costumes, and I still have a couple of adjustments to make today. I had best get started on them I guess. I hope I have remembered everything I was supposed to do!!

Agh I just remembered I need to go buy a dress rack and new lipstick. And eat dinner at about 4:00 ... I hope that's all!!

 

[Cannon 2006]

deep fried is a bridge to far for me...)

I know what you mean. I have a few things that I consider a Binge Too Far myself. Your attitude sounds exactly like what I'm trying to develop myself.

 

[wishes]

i guess half the battle is recognising the trigger/bad foods and avoiding them, then when you feel more able/ready to handle them introduce them slowley and figure a way to get past them.
Im getting there with mine, but still struggle - probably always will, but at least i know what has to be done the day after (eating less lol) as payment.

 

[felici]

deep fried is a bridge to far for me...)

I know what you mean. I have a few things that I consider a Binge Too Far myself. Your attitude sounds exactly like what I'm trying to develop myself.

I like that Binge Too Far. I need something to smile at too, cos I'm not happy with myself.

i guess half the battle is recognising the trigger/bad foods and avoiding them, then when you feel more able/ready to handle them introduce them slowley and figure a way to get past them.
Im getting there with mine, but still struggle - probably always will, but at least i know what has to be done the day after (eating less lol) as payment.

and my learning for tonight would be, don't introduce a controlled amount of chocolate in the week prior to the dress rehearsal and dance concert....

Though I can easily itemize all the smaller events that led up tonight being majorly stressful for me, it's still a mystery to me why I was actually so stressed that I felt dizzy and shaky. Maybe I had already started bingeing by the time that happened and was reacting to that. At any rate a majorly bad evening for me as far as food went.

Well one or two bad evenings does not a fat feli make. Sad but not fat!! I am not in a situation where I don't have support. I have tons. I still have the concert to get through on Saturday and I don't see how I can really fit in food in a way that will support me then, maybe eating in the car on the way to the concert? But I will have a lot more people with me instead of being on my own, that will make a difference. However, in general, I have plenty of good food here, plenty available nearby, enough time to exercise (as far as I know right now). Quite probably, I need to sort out any lingering issues to do with the concert (for example 4 more pair of dance stockings to replace the 4 the girl broke tonight....) with as much priority as I give the food and exercise. I don't know. I have been stressed before and not binged. I have had my meals out of sync before and not binged.

I think I had my guard down too much already this week and left myself open to the idea that small deviations from plan were ok, and larger ones were potentially ok, and that even this horrible night could be recovered from - all of which is true of course, but then I could also look at it, that this is the fourth day in a row that I haven't posted my food here and that it hasn't really been as good as usual, and that it's deteriorating daily. That is not ok. For me this has to stop fast.

So for a start, I will list my food for today. Because that is one of the things I was always doing when I was eating better, and times when I haven't listed it - whether because my computer was broken, or I was away from home, or because I my focus was elsewhere, have always also been associated with me bingeing. I have to say I really don't feel much like doing this though. Is it bad for other people here if I detail how crappy it was? Will it actually be useful for me?


Tuesday 11 December, 2007.

Breakfast: 7:45 Toast with plum and cinnamon jam.

The gap in the middle of breakfast is where I prepare a plate of food for the girl to take to school, for the morning tea for the Year 7 Graduation morning tea. This is a sore point. I have only agreed to make it because she cried and said the other Year6/7 teacher would yell at her if she did not return a note saying we would send food. I did not want to send it because the note requesting it was signed by one of my two mortal enemies, and couched in presumptuous language. It is not for my own girl's year, or for me. The girl does not like the trendy food I send, Turkish bread, EVO oil, spices and hummous, and leaves me to take it to the library myself, where I have to ignore the fact that said mortal enemy is in the same room as me for 20 seconds. (I should perhaps say that she became my mortal enemy through threatening the well being of my son, and then insulting me, and that despite it being uncalled for, quite possibly no one else has ever been so rude to me ... )

8:45 A boiled egg. Weetbix with soy milk and tinned peaches. Coffee with a little hilo milk.

Lunch: 12:00 6 wholemeal Vive crackers 100 gm low fat cottage cheese with, mushrooms and cucumber. 1 apricot, 1 nectarine. 1 coffee with milk.

This is where I remember what the other two things were that I was supposed buy before the dress rehearsal, but which I could not remember because they were not on the clothes list, because they were not clothes...

3:00 This is where I'm about to leave to collect the girl from school and we have a sudden down pour on this suburb which leaves me with water 4 inches deep all the way from the house to the car and unnerves me a little regarding what will happen next and how I will get her 5 fiddly costumes into the car if it is like this when we have to leave. It also means that I don't stop right outside school because it is pouring so hard that I cannot see any children outside the buildings, and she gets upset because she sees me and braves the downpour and then can't find me because I am turning the car...

3:15 This is where I have the girl stand still (ish), with her tutu on because my original stitching needed altering and I found that I couldn't make it sit properly without her wearing it. This does not sound as hard as it was. It does not include that I have made a really strict conscious decision not to raise MY VOICE. It does not include that her feelings are hurt because she wants to tell me really really important secret stuff that I am absolutely not allowed to tell anyone else even Grandma about what her teacher said to her about her not getting to be a counsellor next year, and she can't tell me straight away because I have not sounded interested enough when she told me that she got stung by a bee today...

3:45 Around here is where I open the box on the clothes rack and find that rather than unfolding it as I expected, I need to assemble it, using 15 pieces, 8 bolts, and 8 screws, using a single picture and requiring a phillips screwdriver and wrench (not supplied).

4:20 This is about where my husband comes home from work, and is very unhappy because I ask him where his socket set is (twice) ... (It occurs to me now that he didn't know we even had this dress rehearsal on tonight...)

4:30 This is where my son tells me he is about to leave to go for a swim at a friends despite the fact that he is going to a paintball birthday party tonight and needs to be ready in time for the other parents to collect him.

Dinner 4:45 ~ 150 gm grilled lean lamb, 2 v. small slices wholemeal Vienna bread. 1 box vegetable juice.
We are eating early between hair do and make up. There is no possible later time for the girl to eat.

5:20 Small ladyfinger banana, 4 dates, 25 gm beef jerky, 5 jols. (This is on the way to the rehearsal, and those foods are potentially ok, but I was already eating like I was bingeing.)

6:15 Icecream cone (Drumstick), 2 chocolate bars (Timeout, Crunchie), coffee with milk. 25 gm beef jerky. 5 sugar free jols. This is after I have set her up in a dressing room minus the clothes rack, explained to her that if she had let me explain how to put on stockings she might not have needed the spare sets, and I'm waiting for the performance to start.
7:30 Icecream cone (Drumstick), tube of chocolate rounds, coffee with milk. This is after I have run all around the theatre looking for the other two girls who'd gone missing from her tap dance, and then when that dance finished, I'd run back to help her change for hiphop and we actually could not get not possibly get her changed into a leotard, leggings, skirt, shirt, earrings, different shoes and different hair pieces in three minutes and she missed her entrance ... Good grief. At the time I didn't see going back for more food as actually related to this piddly stuff, and maybe it wasn't – I just ... what ? ... I dunno - how can you explain doing something so crappy. Explaining is like logic and brains and words. This is mindless.

Pretty much a whole days worth of calories in one evening. This is not ok, it's crappy – a combination of environmental and emotional triggers and habit slip. Far out.

You know for all me saying it was stressful, I am talking about standard privileged life incidents here, not people nearly dying or anything!! And on the other hand you could say I spent 10 hours straight working on high alert. Or, say that situations in which I'm not sure of myself and I'm also trying extra hard to care for my daughter, push all my buttons in the way that having my life threatened doesn't. It wasn't just dancing, but also two other situations from her school day that have the same sort of impact ... I'm not making excuses here, I just want to clarify things a bit. I have a 14 year old and an 11 year old. This stuff is no where near over yet, I have to cope with these Pitsville days better than I did today. I will, because I am not putting up with more bingeing. It can take over very fast, and it has reruined the lives of fatter and thinner weight losers than me.

And why am I even calling it a Pittsville day, when she danced well and was happy with her own performance and overall the dress rehearsal was fine and several of the dances were very exciting and I even found one of the older dancers' acts moving for the pure art of it ...


And you know, now I have written all this down it just seems ridiculous!!!!


Far out, if I had noticed how ridiculous it all was at the time, perhaps I would just have had a cup of coffee. LOL.