Weight loss

I just wanted to clarify my last post. I know how annoying it is when someone slim pinches an inch and goes, "Oh, I'm so faaaaat!" It's not like that at all.

I have gained back 25 of the 35 pounds I worked so hard to lose. That is cause for concern.

I am struggling to fit into most of my clothes. That is cause for concern.

I carry my weight around my middle and that is the most health-dangerous place to carry it. That is cause for concern.

I am 10.5lb over my healthy BMI range. That is cause for concern.

I am not setting a good example of healthy eating and weight management for my children. That is cause for concern.

I feel tired and grumpy all of the time due to what I've been putting into my mouth. That is cause for concern.

But most of all, the way I was out of control, the way I felt unable to say no to myself, scared me. The only difference between me and someone who weighs 300lb was time.

I watched a show the other day which showed a woman who was so obese that she couldn't even move off her bed. She lay sprawled naked on her bed with her acres of flesh pooling around her as if she was a wax candle that had melted. It was horrifying. In her interview she said, "You look at me and probably want to ask, 'How does someone let themselves get to this state?' And the answer is, 'slowly'."

My weight gain is the symptom. The problem has been the choices I've been making with regards to the things I've been eating. Too much sugar and too many refined carbs, not enough of the good things. That helpless feeling of being unable to make better choices, where the craving overwhelms the long term goals.

I've had to face up and draw a line. I'm drawing it now, and I'm determined to make better choices. Please don't think this is about any one of you, no matter how much bigger than me you are. It's about me, my choices, my endless struggle with food (I just like it too much!) That's one thing I've learned on my Weight Watchers journey - each one of us is on our own journey and it has nothing to do with anyone else's. We all have our own battles to fight. And I'm fighting mine.

What I wore

Ugh, I wasn't going to post any more what I wore posts until I lost some weight. I hide it pretty well in the pics but I have piled on some pounds recently. Last week's visit back to Weight Watcher's was sobering, but my friend Rachel and I are doing it together now since we realised we are both so rubbish at doing it on our own. Sure, it means a drive through to Preston every week but it's the first time I've been focused and motivated in ages so if it works it's worth it.

Anyhoo, onto the pictures. We had a lovely hot day two weeks ago and this is what I wore to college (I don't have a picture of last Thursday's outfit):



Green t-shirt: Matalan (on sale)
Skirt: An outlet store (on sale), can't remember which one
Brown leather sandals (Hush Puppies): Stead & Simpson
Necklace: gift from my in-laws
Bangle: Superdrug (on sale)

And this is what I wore to church on Sunday:

Sainsbury's

Dress: charity shop (thrift store)
Belt: charity shop (thrift store)
Bronze metallic sandals: New Look
Necklace: can't remember
Bangle: Superdrug (on sale)

P.S. Thanks for voting on my baking business name. I wanted to use Crumbs & Bliss before I posted the poll but then you know how when you say something over and over it starts to sound weird? Well, then I wasn't sure but it came out top of the voting so that's what I'm going with!

NZ update - references being checked

Last night Grant phoned his recruitment officer in New Zealand. He hasn't been getting replies to his emails and he basically just wanted to know if she had any idea of time scales. He got through to the woman who is looking after his file - let's call her V. She is an ex South African too!

She said she is going to contact Grant's work and the University where he had his last job for his references today and once they are back with her she will then send his file off to Wellington for final approval and they will issue the job offer. We've worked out that if all goes smoothly we might get Permanent Residency by the end of November and be over in NZ by January or February next year. There would be no point trying to move before Christmas - flights would be too expensive and places like estate agents and car sales places would be closed.

The only hiccup in this whole process is our South African police clearance certificates. They will expire before we can apply so we need to get new ones. They take 3 months to come so we have already contacted Grant's parents for help in getting new ones (they last 6 months from date of issue). The good news is that because they are repeats we don't need to provide fingerprints again which means we are able to sign and scan the forms and email them straight to my parents in law. Thankfully they are not very expensive because there are enough other expenses - for instance, we have to have medical checkups done at specific doctors and it includes x-rays and costs £300 each! Yikes!

So ... another baby step forward. Just knowing a rough timescale has been very helpful and it was reassuring to hear from V herself that she is on top of things and that they are progressing as we were very much in limbo waiting here without any news. Onward!

Bathroom picture update

I forgot to blog this! I've been wanting to switch out the pictures in the bathroom for a while and add a pop of colour. I eventually got around to it when Photobox had a special offer on large prints. Here's what I came up with - what do you think?

Before:


After:




Before:


After:


These are the photos I used - yay for almost free art! I only had to pay for the prints because I took the photos myself.

Baking business

I may have an opportunity to begin baking cupcakes and birthday cakes as a small business. I'm trying to come up with a name and can't decide. Please help me out by voting for your favourite in the little poll in the sidebar. ---->

If you have any other suggestions I would love to hear them!

Hotel competition

I don't know about you guys but Grant and I don't have pots and pots of money lying around. One of the things we looked forward to about moving to the UK was traveling and having holidays in European destinations. Unfortunately, it's been over 10 years here and we still can't afford to travel like we'd planned! It's not the flights that cost so much, it's paying for accommodation and meals and car hire for our family of four. So this competition really appealed to me because if your accommodation is paid for then that's a major chunk of the holiday budget freed up.

What's the competition? Radisson Blu is offering you the chance to win 365 nights in their hotels, and you have 5 years to enjoy those nights and a selection of over 200 Radisson Blu hotels to choose from. How fabulous is that? All you have to do is click on over to their site - you can do that with this link - and tell them why you deserve to win the 365 nights. Then get everyone you know to vote for you and if your entry wins then start packing your bags and booking your flights ... you're going on holiday! It's really quick and simple - if you Twitter then you can do this. You don't have to write an essay, just a quick blurb about why you deserve to win. Because you do, right?

You do need to be either an EU citizen, or a citizen of Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Switzerland to enter (apologies to my readers across the pond!) Don't forget to be creative and put some thought and humour into your entry because every week Radisson Blu will select 10 entries that are particularly amusing, creative or original and they get a special badge for their candidate page and a prize! So hurry and post your entry because the competition closes on 24th July.

To tempt you, here is a sneak peek at one of the hotels you can stay in if you win the greatest holiday in the world:

Sponsored Post

Shopped till I dropped

Sorry I've not posted this week but my mom has been visiting and we've been shopping our brains out!

On Monday we went shopping in the morning, went out to lunch and then more shopping in the afternoon.

On Tuesday we went shopping in the morning, then went to watch Daniels mini tennis tournament, then more shopping in the afternoon. We collected a coffee table I'd won on eBay (more on that later) on the way home.

On Wednesday we were going to relax at home but then I needed to post something so we went into town and ended up shopping again!

On Thursday I went to college and my mom went shopping, then I met up with her and we shopped together.

Today we were just going to relax at home but my mom had to take some stuff back to Matalan so we ended up shopping some more!

We are absolute exhausted!! It may sound like we've spent a fortune, but we did a lot of looking and only bought inexpensive items, it's not like we're made of money. But we've had an absolute blast.

So much for a holiday - I think my mom is going home more tired than when she arrived!

CSN

You guys know I love home decoration and I adore shopping online because I can do it in my pyjamas and it's exciting when the goodies come to my door. The CSN stores are great because they do everything from lights to cookware to furniture. What I really like is that their stock seems to change all of the time so there's always something new to look at. I'll be reviewing one or two of their products next month, and let you know all about that but you can have a browse for yourself in the meantime. Have fun!

Noahism

This morning Grant was undressing to take a shower and had removed his pyjama top when Noah walked in and saw him topless. He ran and called to his brother, "Daniel, Daddy's wearing a naked top!"

And here's a photo of Noah taken by Daniel that I found on the camera.

My second attempt at fondant

I had another go with fondant icing and created these pink flowers with edible glitter:



I also made a pig.



Daniel didn't want a cupcake, but Noah loved the pig cupcake!

More summer toes

Remember when I blogged about my charcoal metallic nail polish recently? I'm not kidding you, that cheap nail polish stayed perfect-looking for TWO WEEKS before it started to chip a little at the cuticle on one of my small toes! I find my nail polish lasts so much better now that I've started using a base / top coat. I use Sally Hansen Double Duty. I always thought base and top coats were something that sounded nice but didn't really make a difference until I had a professional pedicure and my nail polish stayed perfect looking for two weeks, then I was sold and went right out and bought some! I also find my nail polish lasts better if I do a proper full pedicure on myself rather than just paint my nails.

Anyway, here is the latest colour I bought. I have been wanting a sparkly turquoise / teal for a while because I'm obsessed with that colour lately. Did you notice my toes in my last post? Don't you love how you can indulge a love of colour with some £1.78 nail polish and a £3 vest top? Here's how my toes look today - LOVE!





And yes, you did read right when I said £1.78. It's Collection 2000 brand, their Hot Looks range and I now have Intense, Bongo Beat and I also have Minx which is a really sparkly pinky purple that I haven't worn yet.



They're not huge bottles, only 8ml, but I really like that - I rarely finish an entire bottle of nail polish before it goes thick and nasty anyway, and I'd rather get two small bottles of two different colours than one big bottle. The brush is a good one and works well and the consistency is good and you only need two coats. But best of all ... did I mention they're only £1.78? Sold!

What I wore

Here's what I wore to college on Thursday:



I've blogged the shoes and necklace before:





White blouse: Sainsbury's (on sale)
Pink cardigan: charity shop (thrift store)
Jeans: Matalan
Purple shoes: Next outlet
Necklace: Accessorise (on sale)

Here's what I wore hanging out at home with a friend. This is what I look like with no lipstick - I have no visible lips:





White t-shirt: Sainsbury's
Turquoise vest top: Asda
Jeans: Matalan
White crocheted shrug: charity shop (thrift store) - I've blogged it before here but have since removed the satin bow
Necklace: made by me

Funky buttons

I love buttons that are just a little bit different - a different shape or texture or have some detailing on. Do you ever notice your buttons?

What's the time, Mr Sun?

Ages ago I was obsessed with the idea of a beautiful big silver sunburst mirror above our bed. Of course, they were all out of my price range but I liked the look enough that when I saw this gold sun mirror at Matalan marked down from £15 to £3.70 I snapped it up.



It was way too small for above the bed. I kept it for a while then decided to paint and distress it one day:







Then it went back into its box and into the cellar again. I liked it a lot, I just didn't have anywhere to put it. I finally realised what the problem was: the mirror was too small to be functional as a mirror. It would have to be hung too low to look good on the wall and if it was hung higher, simply for decoration, it would reflect odd things.

I made up my mind what to do with it after we switched the studio and living room.

I spent some time removing the chipboard backing and scraping out the hot glue that held the mirror in the frame. Then I found a clock face picture on Google Images, altered the colouring and size and printed it out on cardstock:



I spray mounted it to the original chipboard backing and put it back into the sun frame. I had to stack some cork stickers under the little clips as the mirror had been removed and the chipboard wasn't thick enough.



I bought a clock mechanism for next to nothing on eBay and installed it (very easy). Unfortunately I bought the wrong size hands and they were too long so I had to snip the points off - but it still looks fine.



Voila! A much-needed clock in the living room. I love it!

Victorian mosaic

A friend of mine lives in an old Victorian house that has been turned into flats (apartments). Her entrance hall has the most amazing original mosaic tile floor. Luckily I had my camera with me last time I dropped in and I quickly snapped some shots on the way out:

Cable tidy up

I am sensitive to visual clutter and it irritates me so you can imagine that I wasn't overly thrilled with the mess of cables underneath our computer desk:



The other day I had had enough of it and took the time to hide them. It didn't even take that long. I hung the socket extender thing on two screws (they have holes on the back for hanging on screws), stuffed the cables behind the cabinets and made sure they stayed there by binding them with rubber bands hung on screws:







Ta da! Sooo much better! I wish I'd done it ages ago!