Did I mention I love 'Women Food and God" by Geneen Roth

As I may or may not have mentioned at an earlier point in time, a lovely friend of mine was watching Oprah earlier this year (so jealous - we don't recieve channel 10 out here) and on the book club they had 'Women Food and God' and Geneen Roth was talking about her book. When she mentioned it to us (2 other friends in a facebook group trying to bust the weight monster), we thought it would be great to do our own little book club on it.

I am so totally in love with this book. Corny I know, and seriously I'm not making money off carrying on about this book. Since I read this book and changed the way I think about eating, I've lost 5.1kgs. Impressive isn't it. Yes I've hit some stumbling blocks, and yes it's taken a while, but what is most important is that I'm getting a handle on monitoring my thoughts and only eating till I'm full.

Like right now, there is a magnum ice cream sitting in my fridge, calling out my name. "Emily.... come and eat me.... you know you want to.... you know it will make you happy....".

But, AM I HUNGRY???

NO.

Do I want to eat it?

My mind says yes but my body says, no thanks I'm quite satisfied from the yummy chicken spag bol you fed me for dinner.

My how I have grown. Maintaining the thought patterns is something I have to be constantly aware of. I often find myself having put food in my mouth and I'm already chewing when I think WTF how did that get into my mouth. I didn't actually decide to eat that..but here I am chewing on it. At that point I have to decide, do I swallow it, or spit it out. 9 times out of 10, lets be realistic, 10 times out of 10 I swallow it. I want to say I spit it out, but I have real issues with wasting food.

I love this book so much, I actually bought another 2 copies!! One is for my darling mum for Christmas and the other is to loan out to my friends because I can't be without my copy. I am about to start reading it again, for the third time!!!

Seriously, at least google the book.

One of my favourite sections of the book Reteaching Loveliness - and here is my favourite quote from that section:

'The shape of your body obeys the shape of your beliefs about love, value and possibility. To change your body, you must first understand that which is shaping it. Not fight it. Not force it. Not deprive it. Not shame it. Not do anything but accept and understand it. Because if you force and deprive and shame yourself into being thin, you end up a deprived, shamed, fearful person who will also be thin for ten minutes'.

Ahhh.. the lightbulb moments in this book are amazing!!!

Emily xoxo

The new love in my life...

...is my new iphone!

Although I still don't know how to use it properly, and I'm still figuring out the whole downloading aps business...I love love love it.

I love that it keeps track of an sms conversation.

I love that I can sync it to my laptop calender - I should never forget a meeting again as long as I remember to put it in one of the calenders...

I love that it doubles as an ipod, not that I have any music on it yet.

I love that I can facebook from it...not that I have yet.

I love that the case is pink...

I love that when you have to type something in, the keys are in the querty arrangement.

Like I said, I love it!!!

Emily xoxo

Zumba in Roma

So this week I decided to brave my first class at the gym. I have been going to the gym since March and have been happy to just work at my own program. But this week I talked my new buddy Becc into coming with me.

It was SO much fun. We laughed the whole way through it...while desperately trying to keep up with the Zumba guy. My darling hubbie was up the front, as per the request of the Zumba guy, because he has been a few times. We boogied away, sweated and laughed!

So last night I decided to brave the Friday night class, without Becc. Marko (darling hubbie) was there, but he is so fit and keeps up so well. I just kept thinking of the funny comments Becc had made on Tuesday. Seriously, Zumba is a heap of fun. I find it really hard to keep up with some of the moves - I just can not keep up, but I figure if I keep going I should be right.

I also weighed myself yesterday and was thrilled to discover that I've lost 3kgs this week. Pretty mammoth effort I recon!! Thank goodness for the book that changed my life - Women food and God, but more on that another time.

Emily xoxo

Baby shower invitations

A lovely friend of mine is due to have her first baby in January and I nominated myself as the organiser of her baby shower. I have to admit that amongst report cards and end of year paperwork, I'm very late in beginning to organise the happy afternoon tea.

I've decided to make magnet invitations, so that all of the guests can put them on their fridge. I'm thinking that they will look something like this!

Cute aren't they! I'm looking for a template to use for the bottle. I'm going to make them in pale yellow and green as the babies gender is to be a surprise.

I'll take photos as I go so that you can see how I make them.

Emily xoxo



That 70c....

 Question:

What happens to coins that have been stuck inside your washing machine drainage system??

Answer:

They kill your washing machine and come out looking like this!!

So the moral of the story is? Make sure you check the pockets of EVERY item you put in your washing machine!!!

Emily xoxo

What can you possibly do with 70c?

The answer my blogging friends, is screw up your washing machine. Yes you heard correctly....SCREW UP THE WASHING MACHINE.

Several years ago my darling hubbie and I moved into a unit that had a laundry in a cupboard (a novel idea that I just loooove..but more on that another time) and our washing machine wouldn't fit into the small space provided...by like 4mm. So we went to our then local second hand washing machine guy and traded in our old machine for a front loader from a deceased estate. It is a wonderful machine, appart from how long it takes to do a cycle and it keeps our clothes lovely and clean.

Well, on Thursday of last week it decided to die. Well when I say die, it was happily washing away and then wouldn't drain. The clothes were still sitting in water. I did the only thing I could do, gathered up a heap of towels and slowly drained the bitch of a thing. I used vinegar and bicarb to flush out the drain pipe, and again it wouldn't drain. On Friday morning we moved it outside and drained it onto the grass... what a crappy end to a crappy week.

So we have been discussing what to do with it since then. We figure our house insurance should cover it, but it may not cost that much to fix. So this afternoon I took the back off it and had a looky inside...looked ok to me, so I thought I'd wait for the darling man to arrive home. He turned it over on it's side and opened up the pipes attached to the pump....and guess what fell out....

You guessed it!!!

70c

Now I hear you gasp in horror but it gets worse. We laughed about the coins and put it back together (kinda one of those if you didn't laugh you'd cry moments) and I had the bright idea of testing out the machine before we bothered moving it back inside. I got the hose and filled the inside with water and we hooked it up the electricity and what do you know....it worked. It successfully drained itself.

Feeling very chuffed with ourselves we went off to our gym and worked really hard. When we got home we moved the machine back inside and put a load on. Next thing the darling hubbie is yelling from the laundry..... "there is water pouring out the door".... WTF!!!! So evidently while outside something not so great went wrong with the seal, and then the bitch wouldn't drain....again!!!

So plan of attack?

Tomorrow I am going to throw machine down the stairs ring the local machine repairer and get them to pick the damn thing up and give us a quote on how much it will be to fix it. I am also going to ring our insurer and find out what our excess would be on replacing a washing machine....then I'll throw it down the damn stairs.

I do apologise for the angry content of the above post....I am excessively frustrated!!!

Emily xoxo

Hot pink face cloths

Okay, so I'm hoping the photos will load this time....here goes...

Yay!! So this one I've put a lipstick next to them so you can get an idea of their size.

Aren't they so cute!!!

I figure that if I need 3 per day, I'll need to knit between 10 and 20 of them, depending on how often I was them. The ones I use for toner I can just rinse out and reuse, but the make up ones may need a proper wash. I'll have  wait and play around with it to figure out the best way to work it.

Below is the beginning of the first blue one. I was online till 1am this morning looking at patterns and trying to work out the stockinette stitch, which is actually just the stocking stitch, which is the stitch I used in the centre of the yellow and pink cloths, just didn't know that was what it was called. So I'll continue working on it today.

I chose to do a different border on this one as the designer claims that it won't curl like my yellow and pink ones did. This may become my favourite pattern if it doesn't curl. It's looking good so far, but I'll reserve judgment until it is finished.

Emily xoxo

New Projects

The last couple of weeks have seen me take on some exciting new projects. Well I find them exciting!!
My new friend (who scarily is almost like the twin I never had and was separated at birth from - appart from the fact she is nearly 10yrs younger than me - anyhow I digress) found this amazing blog called Frugal and Thriving and she shared the link with me and we are OBSESSED. So much so that her darling husband is sick of hearing her use the word FRUGAL in his presence.

Firstly we got really excited about the chemical free cleaning ideas. I'm totally not a hippie, but I have always been concerned about the chemicals that are in the products we use each and every single day. So I'm going to start to use these ideas - but I'll use up my old cleaning products first because I really can't afford to just throw out a bunch of stuff and besides it would end up in landfill - not a good plan.

Then, we got even more excited when we learned that the amazing Melissa (creator of Frugal and Thriving) knits her own cleaning cloths. Yes, knits!!! So my lovely friend and I organised to meet at Aces (see previous post) knowing we shouldn't venture in alone (hehehe) and searched for the perfect wool to (yes we are mad) knit our own dish cloths and cleaning cloths. We dug through piles of wool and eventually found two colours we both liked. Oh yeah, we'd decided to colour code our cloths so we didn't forget which cloths were for cleaning the toilet etc and which ones were for the kitchen area. So we got two balls each one blue and one yellow. Yellow for the cleaning and blue for the kitchen. My good friend had never knitted before, and she's a lefty, so I set about trying to teach her to knit....yes I said trying....I hadn't laughed so hard in a long time. I think in the end we both stuffed them up so we started again - not that it would have mattered for cleaning cloths, but we did start again.

And here is the result of my knitting!

Front

Back

I have actually now knitted two of these dish cloths (that's all I could get out of one ball). I'm saving the little scrap of wool that is left over and plan to make a multi-coloured something, sometime.

Then just the other night, I couldn't sleep and I'd started knitting my first blue cloth using a new pattern, and I didn't know how do to the stitch required for the centre (little did I know it was the same as the stitch used in the two yellow cloths) and I was thinking about how far I would go with this frugal living. I thought about all the wasteful practices I have, that I'm willing to change. One that really lept out at me was the disposable cotton pads I used to clean off my make up and tone when I'm doing my usual face routine. I use three of these cotton suckers a day and throw them in the bin. I know they are small but it's the small changes that sometimes make a big difference. So I thought maybe I could knit little cloths to use for removing my make up and toning. The next day I bravely faced Aces alone...yes alone...and made a wonderful discover. In amoungst the overflowing shelves I found some balls of bamboo 'wool' for knitting. Bamboo material is just incredible. It is used in the new modern cloth nappies another friend of my mine is raving about - perhaps another post should be devoted to the cloth nappy. Anyhow, the bamboo is so soft and great for a babies bottom so I thought, maybe it would be a nice soft yarn to use for little face cloths. So I bought two rolls of hot pink bamboo yarn and knitted two lovely soft little cloths.

Grr I'm having trouble loading the photos..... I'll have to post them separately. But I'm really pleased with them. It is so much fun creating stuff. I just love it!!

Emily xoxo

2 weeks later...

Like with any new lifestyle choice, changing your habititual behaviour is pivital to success. In my first week I was definately running high on motivation and had great results. Week 2 saw me so excited I weighed myself too often and was disappointed when I lost 1kg - as earlier in the week it looked like I'd lose another 2kg.

Then,

we went away for the weekend. Changed my routine. Not so great! I didn't think much about it before hand, and I tell you the planning is EVERYTHING. So we went to Biloela to visit my Aunt and Uncle. The had offered us their camper trailer to use over the Christmas break, but we had to drive up and collect it. Mum and Dad decided to also drive up and visit the rellies. It was a great trip and I did well with my food and eating only what my body wanted (I swear it did want the two donuts!!!). Then on Saturday night - all the Bilo rellies decended on my Aunt's house for dinner and to see us. Mainly I think it was about the free food...LOL.

Anyway my old habits kicked into action. The footy was on the tv, everyone was talking and there were so many distractions I didn't even check to see if I was hungry. I LOADED my plate with potato bake, lasagne and salad, and after the second bite the warning sign that I was full rang out. Unfortunately I was immediately distracted by my Dad handing me a rum (probably my third and I seriously don't need many). I then polished off the entire plate!! And then I had dessert. I was pretty good, only had the fruit salad and meringues - but by the time I finished I felt so incredibly sick. I thought I might be able to wait it out, but I felt like I needed to vomit it all up - and I wished later that I had. My stomach was so bloated and I was in agony - maybe this is all too much information... but it is what it is.
I went straight to bed and lay there dozing fitfully trying to get comfy. It was so painful that I have now a new resolve to think before I eat. As a result of either my binging weekend or the fact that I gain 2kg during this particular time of the month, my weight was up - I decided not to record it this week and wait for the coming Friday for things to even out. I guess it has made me realise that like changing any habit it is going to take time before I can eat only what I need without focussing completely on it almost every minute of the day to make sure I'm not piling the food into my mouth. I also need to plan ahead. I have two more weekends away coming up, one for my devine niece's Christening and one out to Charleville to visit my parents and test our skills at setting up the camper trailer.....so I'll have to make a plan of action! Sometime before Friday...

Emily xoxo