Wedding planning

Last week I ended up having most of the week off training. I had a really really awful day last Tuesday, and ended up taking the day off work, mostly for emotional reasons!! I'm now going to have to get some minor surgery done in the next few months, which is really upsetting me. Its nothing life-threatening, but its upsetting all the same.

So last week I sulked, big time. But this week I've decided to "suck it up, princess!" and just get on with it. So I'm back training hard and eating clean. And I feel a lot better, except this morning I was just too shattered to get up and do step. I will take the dogs for a walk this arvy and then go for a powerwalk instead.

In an effort to distract myself, I've tried to throw myself into wedding planning. I have now FINALLY booked the venue for the ceremony and reception/party - and Saturday the 13th of June is the day! Then I started stressing because that is only about 4 months away, and I've pretty much done nothing except book the celebrant, get my dress and shoes, and order my ring.

SO! I've got lists galore! There are so many details to think about - and we wanted a simple wedding remember?? Ugh! You still have to think about what song to walk down the aisle to, what sort of cake to get, will we have cars or not, what will we do for music at the party/reception, what sort of invitations, the WORDING on the invitations... my list is endless!

We're having a cocktail style party for the reception, so we dont have to worry about sit down menus or seating arrangements, or bonbonniere, or table decorations etc so thats something I guess.

Last night I stayed up late researching DIY wedding invitiations on the internet. So then I went to bed and couldn't get to sleep, too busy thinking about everything I needed to do... I think wedding planning is bad for your health!

And all the guy has to do is turn up!

I will sleep anywhere, and in any position mum, as long as its on your lap

Taken over the course of a few days...

Oh, the life of a cat!

This is comfy, mum...

This isn't very comfy, but I'll sleep in this position anyway...



This is ridiculous, how do you expect me to sleep like this?! Oh but I'll sleep here anyway...

I went for a massage on the weekend, and she says my whole left rotator cuff group of muscles is inflamed. After the massage it still feels like I have rocks in my traps, I have to go back for another massage next weekend. I constantly stink of Tiger Balm, actually I think my skin is starting to peel from over-use!

Went to attempt a shoulder/bi's/tri's workout this morning, but once I got to gym I elected to skip the shoulder part completely - still too sore. Mind you, all of the exercises made it hurt. Stupid body.

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend!

This week I have...

• felt so sad hearing the terrible stories with the bushfires down south
  
• had an awesome shoulder workout on Monday
  
• pulled a muscle in my left trapezius (refer to above comment) which is making me stink from Tiger Balm
  
• sweltered through a 37 degree humid day in our office with broken air conditioning
  
• discovered that I really like Earl Grey tea
  
• damaged my car!!  Tuesday morning 5.30am, still half asleep, trying to park my car in the gym carpark, and scraped the front bumper against a concrete pillar.  aaarrrghh!  Its a company car, so dont have to pay for it though!
  
• started to feel my clothes get a bit looser.

 

Sunburn

Firstly, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for their support and words of wisdom re my last blog post, very much appreciated! You are all beautiful people!

The rest of the week was much less dramatic :) and everyone is friends again, which is good. I dont sleep well when I'm not friends with people LOL! OH and I are both stubborn and we are both the youngest in our families, so we're used to getting our own way! I have to just accept that people want to help and have input in a wedding, and that I cant do it all myself.

This weekend was very sedate. I spent most of Saturday weeding our gravel driveway. I was bent over, yanking out those big "spider" weeds because the ground was still moist from the recent rain. Consequently I got sunburned in a strip accross my lower back (think brickies-bum!!) which is the most stupid, painful spot to get sunburned! It is absolutely roasted, and right where the back of my pants sit. It wasn't even sunny, it was quite overcast and a bit drizzly all day, go figure. I also can now barely walk because my hamstrings are so sore, from bending at the waist all day. It is most strange to have sore hammies, and perfectly fine quads!

After all that weeding, I filled the wheelbarrow 5 times. And then I look at the driveway and think "it barely looks like I've touched it" - gah! there are so many weeds! Ohhhh I would love a concrete or bitumen driveway!

Not much else going on, I'm getting into a really good routine now with training and nutrition, although I'm really struggling to get to gym for opening time in the mornings. I used to be there before they open (5.30am), but now I'm regularly 15 minutes late... tut tut!

I've been seeing a nice, slow downward trend on the scales too lately, which I'm loving. Had a roast dinner at the in-laws last night though, which caused a nasty spike this morning.

I'm excited that The Biggest Loser and So You Think You Can Dance are back on too - both TV shows that make me really conscious about what I'm eating... especially with all those hot bodies in SYTYCD! I dont watch a huge amount of TV, but I make exceptions in this case :)

Better go start dinner... TTFN.

Back online, and dramas

Internet is back on, turns out we had a broken cable. You really dont realise how much you use the internet and email, until you're without it for a week! Withdrawals!!!

So we had a lovely Australia Day weekend, especially Sunday - we went and had breakfast/brunch with a group of friends, and then went and had a game of beach cricket and worked off all the food we'd just eaten! Lots of fun.

I had trouble with food this weekend - its just been too hot to eat. It has been sooo humid, the air is really thick and just completely saps your strength. For me, it also removes any appetite. I had to force myself to eat. Even then, I managed about 3 meals each day - not good. OH only ate once on Monday! I did manage to have a bit of a "whoosh" on the scales last week though prior to this extreme humidity, which I'm quite pleased about. :-)

Wedding stuff - we had major, major dramas on Monday, with regards to our wedding. I spent most of Australia Day in tears over it. Weddings seem to bring out the worst in people, and everyone gets so sensitive. I'm not going to go into details, but the end result is that we're postponing our wedding until (probably) June... oh well at least it gives me a bit more time to get stuff organised. I'm still trying to take deep deep breaths over this and calm down.

Its my birthday today (boo) so I'm planning on splashing out and enjoying some thai food tonight, chicken and cashew sounds like the go - yum!

Broken: one telephone line

Excuse my absence, my home telephone connection and ADSL is broken. :-(

 

The phone company came out but couldn't fix it from the outside (I was in Toowoomba at the time) so they're coming back on Saturday morning so they can test the line into the house, and also the connection in the house.

 

OH is having internet withdrawals... and its making it a bit complicated to do my IBO work.

 

Fingers crossed its fixed soon!

Silly Rabbit

So last night, before I decided to go to bed, I made the dumb-arse decision to flick through my copy of "Cosmo Bride"... I ended up reading a few articles and getting a few ideas for our big day.

But then I decided to go to bed, and because I was all stupidly excited about wedding plans, and had a million-and-one ideas buzzing through my brain, I couldn't sleep!!! I looked at the clock every hour, and for each hour in between I worked feverishly to get my brain to SHUT UP! LOL! Eventually managed about 4 hours of shut-eye.

So to quote O-Ren Ishii (played by Lucy Liu in Kill Bill) - "Silly Rabbit"

Today I'm having trouble raising my arms above shoulder height - my chest is super sore, I mean I can poke myself under the collar bones and I'm like, ouch.

After my silly rabbit moment last night and a lack of sleep, I skipped gym this morning. I made up for it this afternoon though by taking the dogs for a walk, and then doing a bloody awful/amazing circuit type workout in the rumpus room - it was a crazy combination of pop squats, high knees, barbell squats, good mornings, and jump lunges - I gave myself about 15-20 seconds rest between 45 second rounds, and I was GASPING for air!! Ugh I felt unfit. It was a good makeshift workout though.

Anyway, enough ramblings, I'm off to start making dinner!

Reality Beckons

So I'm now at the end of my holiday... (sob, sigh) I'm going back to work on Monday.

This week has gone so fast though, but its been good. I've organised a few more things for the wedding - got my shoes... absolutely gorgeous strappy silver heels - they're a lot higher than I'm used to though, so I've been walking around the house trying to practise. Dont want to be stumbling down the aisle now, do we!!?

We've also chosen my wedding ring, but not ordered it yet. Because my fingers are so skeletal, I have to have it custom made, as its not possible to resize down more than a few sizes, and my finger is a size H.

I keep thinking to myself: I’m getting all organized with everything, but we’ve neglected to actually SET A DATE yet!! I keep getting bogged down in the nitty gritty, like choosing the invitation designs, or looking at jewelry, we’ve even talked to the people where we’re thinking of having a short 3 or 4 day honeymoon, and keep forgetting that we actually don’t have a date yet. D’oh!

Anyway!

This week we had a brief getaway to our favourtie spot in Australia, Montville. We stayed at these beautiful new cottages, which are very modern and stylish. Each cottage even has a coffee machine, everything was presented beautifully, and all really good quality stuff - huge king size bed, Weber Q bbq on the deck, beautiful bed linen, even the crockery and cutlery was good quality!

The view from the deck, overlooking rainforest. It was so relaxing and peaceful, I didn't want to leave! The only sound was birds chirping, and the wind in the trees...

This cheeky Kookaburra came and stole a sausage from OH's breakfast plate yesterday morning! While I was sitting right there! Scared the absolute crap out of me, I thought it was going to attack me, but no, it just wanted one of his sausages! They are very well fed, and not at all scared of people.

Well I'd better start thinking about going back to work I guess. Training has been a little hit and miss this week, what with going away. We did have a bush walk, and a very energetic game of tennis while we were there, so that has to count for something, right?! Back into it fully as of now though.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Wedding Dress... tick!

Yep, after just one day of wedding dress shopping, I am now the proud owner of one couture gown.

I think we went to every single bridal shop in the Queen Street Mall! I actually found it a very strange experience. I've never been one of those girls who dream of getting married, never wanted a big white wedding, never wanted to be a princess for a day etc. So standing in a change room, while the sales girl helped me on with my first gown was a little surreal! I actually stood there thinking "Shit - I'm actually trying on a wedding dress Oh my god!!"

There were some good sales on, and lots of bargains. I was actually surprised at how inexpensive some of them were. Of course, there were plenty that were $2000 - $3000, but they were all a little, um... over the top for me.

I was going for something simple, elegant, but plain. No "flouncy" skirt, no elaborate beading. I wanted to look like the bride, but not be... how do I explain this... too BRIDEY. Does that make sense?

I had the good sense to wear a strapless bra, but the bad sense to wear black undies. Dumb.

Anyway, after hours and hours, I thought we were going to go home empty handed. And then the very last place on my list, we found it. I walked out of the change room and mum went "THATS THE ONE!! We've found it!"

It was off the rack, and on sale. And mum bought it for me - cant get any better than that!

****************************

Last Friday I did a bit of a circuit type training session at home, it involved lots of pop squats, jump lunges, deadlifts, barbell squats, high knees etc. I just used light weights, and oh-my-god my legs, glutes and hammies are screaming at me now! I'd had 2 weeks off weight training, and I'm so surprised at how sore my lower body is.

This morning I went back to gym too - although I'm still on holidays so I didn't get there until 6.30am. Man, was that tough getting out of bed at 6 this morning!! I'll have to ease back into my 5am starts I think. Anyway, I did shoulders, bi's and tri's this morning, plus interval cardio - felt good.

My goal for the next 3 months is to be a buff bride. I have about 4kgs to shed - and the last 4 or 5kgs are always the toughest, so I'm really cleaning up my act with my nutrition. Its going to be a fantastic year!

Christmas, New Year, and everything in between

I love being on holidays... all this sleeping in til 7am is heaven!!


We've had a great week. Christmas day was lovely, and fairly quiet too I have to say. I didn't eat too much rubbish actually, so I felt kinda good about that. I think I made up for it in the days that followed though! Thankfully nobody gave me any chocolate this year, and I didn't buy any. The worst damage was caused by the home-made rum balls that mum gave me to take home. OH doesn't like them, so I ate them all myself! Oh well, its only once I year I suppose.


The trouble with being on holidays is that we tend to go shopping! OH bought himself another pair of sunglasses, and I scored myself some absolute bargains at Lorna Jane, and a Guess handbag and matching purse in the sales. Goes well with the Guess watch that OH gave me for Christmas :)


On Friday I am going shopping with mum, this time for a wedding dress. Yes you read that correctly, we're finally going to get hitched! I suppose after almost 10 years together, and almost 2 years of being engaged, its high time we got around to it.


So far we have nothing booked, but we're thinking of having a mid-week wedding, sometime in the first half of 2009. It will be fairly low-key, and we're only going to have family to the ceremony. Then a week or two later we're just going to throw a big "wedding celebration" and have a party! This suits us to a tee, as we both dont want the whole white-wedding thing.


So I have lots of stuff to organise now!


With all that in mind, I have a new goal to be a buff bride. I had last week off training completely, which was nice, but I'm back into doing cardio and some light weight training this week from home. Next week I'll be back into it full throttle - its so great to have a fitness goal again!


Tonight for New Years celebrations we're just going to a friends house, I think we're getting old, because our last couple of New Years have been very sedate! OH is driving, so I'll aiming to just have a few glasses of wine - there is nothing worse than one of us being hung over and the other one isn't!


So Happy New Year everyone! I hope that 2009 is everything that you hope for!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope everyone has a lovely day, full of lots of love, laughter, and good friends and family.

This time of year is an extra busy one - lots of birthdays. It was my nephew's on the 11th of December, then OH celebrated his birthday on Sunday (the 21st). My sister in law's birthday was on Monday. Today is my OH's nieces birthday, then of course we have Christmas. Mum and Dad's anniversary is the 27th, and mum's birthday is the 28th, and then its New Years!!!

Christmas Day for us will be spent having brunch with OH's family, and then we're going to my parents in the afternoon. Mum volunteered to do a traditional roast dinner for us, so I'm REALLY looking forward to that! There is just something about mum's roast potatoes... its never the same when you do them yourself!

Anyway, have a great day everyone!

Frosty

Yesterday my work organised a spit roast lunch for all the factory and office staff, and they announced we would be having a special guest... Mark Winterbottom (aka "Frosty") from the V8 Supercars series!

Frosty drives for Ford Performance Racing - and my OH is a MASSIVE Ford Fan. I mean, he is a Ford NUT. So I took great delight in gloating that I was going to meet one of his favourite drivers! Of course I had to take in a few things to get signed, so I took his billiard cue, and one of his Ford shirts to be signed. Got to have a bit of a chat with Frosty too, which was cool, and got OH a signed poster with his name on it - so I earned some big-time brownie points yesterday!!

Me and Frosty... dont you just love the hi-vis vests we all have to wear in the factory!

The rest of the week has been quite boring by comparison! Today we are doing secret santa and having some nibblies. Most of the company is finishing today, but I'm going back on Monday and Tuesday unfortunately - and then we close til the 12th of January - I'm so looking forward to having a break!!

This morning I was so tired when I got up for gym, that I actually fell down the stairs at home. I landed on the edge of one of the steps and came down heavily on my left arm, so I'm sure there will be a nice bruise there next week. Ouch. Managed to do a step class without tripping over though, so thats a bonus!!

I'm still here!

I'm still here, I've just got bloggers block! I dont really have anything thrilling to write about.

My days go something like this:

Get up. Go to gym, train. Go to work, eat some meals, come home, water the veggie garden, cook dinner, watch tv/catch up on emails/read, go to bed.

Very exciting stuff!!

I am HANGING OUT for Christmas holidays. We shut down from the 23rd, until the 12th of January, and I cant tell you how much I'm looking forward it - I have been counting down the number of sleeps to go - only 8 more "work" sleeps! We're not going anywhere for Christmas, so it will be nice to just catch up on some sleep, and maybe do some day trips here and there.

Last night I had my first taste of Christmas - I had a shandy! Neither myself or OH drink beer (I drink everything BUT beer!! and OH is a bourbon boy) but we really like to have a shandy on a hot night. We make it with about one third beer, and the rest is lemonade - and the first sip just reminds me of summer, and Christmas for some reason!

Have a great day!

Shoes

Recently I have gone out on two separate occasions with the intent of buying some shoes for work. Normally I wear kitten heel, black pointy toe shoes to work, because I drive a lot they are more comfy than high heels.

But do you think I can find shoes that fit this description, that I like??

On both shopping trips I have come home with a pair of shoes, but not the ones I went out to get!!

Came home with these:

... which I'll probably wear to work anyway, and these:

which are Ipanema's (Gisele Bundchen) and I could't resist!

Last night we went to my Step class' Christmas dinner, it was nice to catch up with everyone dressed in normal clothes, with make up on and without the red face that accompanies every class! Tonight I think we're staying home - might be nice to have a DVD night and get to bed early - I need to catch up on some sleep.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

How is it possible...

How is it possible that I can go to gym this morning, have indigestion and feel exhausted because insomnia is rearing its ugly head again, and STILL beat my effort from last week on leg press?

After that though my legs were shot so I changed my next two leg exercises at the last minute, to something a little easier than front squats (which I was dreading!). Oh well, I guess with very little sleep its ok to slacken off occasionally :)

I've been very down in the dolldrums this week, and sleeping issues are starting to happen again. Not happy!

Anyway, I got my hair cut on Saturday, and got a lovely purple slash of colour down the left side. She's layered my hair quite heavily, so that when I tie it back for gym now, the pony-tail is about as thick (or thin!) as my finger! I'm trying to grow my hair because OH likes it long. But I dont like it now with the layers, and I think it wont be long before I get it all chopped off into a bob again.

We're surviving the wild storms that have hit Brisbane lately- we seem to be in a really good little pocket on the southside that misses the worst of it (touch wood!) - its still raining though, and we had some wicked wind on the weekend. Our driveway is just littered with debris, bark, tree branches etc. The really good thing though is that I haven't had to remember to go water the veggie garden! AND the rainwater tank is super full!

Only 19 more working days til Christmas - yahooo!!!!

Staying strong, and hormones

Thanks for all the suggestions re my fish dilemma! Looks like thai fishcakes are the clear winner - will have to give them a go this weekend. Although OH is not a big fan of thai flavours, so we'll see how we go.

I'm having another fantastic week this week and staying strong, despite being hugely hormonal. PMT has hit big time, and aren't I just miss-cranky-pants! I spent the whole day yesterday scowling. Its not so much that I'm having mood-swings, for the last few days I've pretty much constantly been in a foul mood.

BUT - I have been training my arse off! Yesterday did a PB on leg press (woohoo!) and this morning, (although I almost talked myself into staying in bed) I did an fantastic cycle class. We've had this substitute cycle instructor for the last few weeks, and he does things a little differently. He doesn't tell you how hard you should work (ie the others tell you that the tension lever should be 8 out of 10 etc) - he just tells you that "if you feel like it - PUT SOME MORE ON!!" - so you can work as hard or as easy as you like.

This morning after the class he told me that I had awesome power. I left gym feeling all chuffed with myself! LOL!

I've also been really pleased with myself that I've been eating totally clean all week. The last two nights I've had to do some SERIOUS self-talk to keep myself away from the Lindt dark chocolate that's in the fridge. I have to ask myself "will you really feel any better AFTER you eat it?" "Will it really taste as good as you think?"... NO! I also could have done with a glass of wine last night, but I didn't cave in! Go me!

Fishy

I'd like to eat more fish. I like fish that is really mild in taste, without that "dirty" spot that they all seem to have.

Yesterday I decided on a whim to have tinned pink salmon with salad for my afternoon snack. One girl at my work seems to have this every day for lunch, and it always looks nice. So I thought I'd try it. After I dumped the salmon on top of the salad I started to have regrets. The first few mouthfulls were ok, as long as I paired a morsel of salmon with something strong tasting, like a bit of cherry tomato. Then I struck something crunchy - a bone ...shudder... ICK! Almost gagged then and there.

So I ate the rest of the salad, and dumped the salmon. Bleurgh, wont be doing that again. I felt sick all afternoon just thinking about it!

I used to like Basa, until I found it that its Vietnamese Catfish. After that, every time I tried to eat it, I kept mentally picturing whiskers. So I dont eat it anymore.

I can stomach tuna in small doses. Barramundi is ok until you strike one of those "dirty" patches that all fillets seem to have. Dont like smoked salmon. Have tried to cook fresh salmon fillets, but its too strong in flavour - again - yuk.

Anyone got any ideas or suggestions?

I've had an awesome week this week, I've trained hard, done 6 cardios and 2 weights - just gotta fit in a chest/tricep workout this weekend and I'm done. Food has been spot on this week too, which I'm super happy about! Now I just need to be consistent, and keep it up. Cant wait to start seeing some results!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend - we're having a low-key one - I'm about to go weed the veggie garden!

Spoiling myself...

Look what I got! I just fell in love with this Guess handbag at Harbour Town yesterday, so I had to have it! It was on sale too, so there was no way I was going to walk away without it :) Its a little small for everyday use, but good for going out. Last night we went out in the city for some drinks so I had to take the new bag with me - I even kept it on the top of the table all night so I could keep looking at it LOL! Sad aren't I?

I had a great girly day shopping yesterday with one of my closest girlfriends, a long lunch and lots of retail therapy - long overdue!

I'm having some blood tests tomorrow - one of them is a glucose tolerance test which I've had to eat a diet high in carbohydrates for the last 3 days for. I'm feeling a bit bloated from all the carbs I've been eating, but if you dont do it apparently it can cause a false test result.

Anyway I'm off to get dinner organised and go look at my handbag some more... :)

Check out the shiner...

Isn't she a beauty!!!

This is my knee this morning, after I took a rather embarrasing stumble at work on Thursday. I was out at a customers site, walking back to the car. My (male) boss was walking behind me, and there were two tradies sitting having smoko - they had a front row seat for my spectacular stack!

I slipped on the driveway (no it wasn't wet, I'm just a klutz) and went sprawling... ended up looking like a bit of a contortionist but managed to land rather heavily on my right knee cap - ouch.

Of course I got straight up and started laughing it off - "oh THAT?? Naaaaah- doesn't hurt a bit! Dont be silly, I'm fine, REALLY!" and started limping to the car.

All the while my knee is screaming and felt like it was burning. SHAME. So embarrassed! I've been using Arnica to bring out the bruising, and its starting to go a little yellow around the edges already, so thats good.

This afternoon I'm having another massage - cant wait. Hoping she can really get into my shoulder and loosen it up some more, and also I'm suffering DOMS all over from a super effort at the gym this week. Cant wait to see a little more arm definition come back, I've missed it.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone!

Buns...

I love it when you train legs and then for the next few days you feel like you've got buns of steel... unfortunately its only a feeling, my buns look more like jelly than steel at the moment!OMG my butt is so sore today, after my awesome leg session yesterday. I switched a few things around, and boy am I feeling it. Also tried out the Dumbell Iron Cross for legs and shoulders, good to try out new things. I love training shoulders, its my fave.

Last night I had an awesome 7 straight hours sleep, ah it was heavenly! When I got up this morning, OH said to me: "Wow - you actually look refreshed! Did you sleep?"

Hopefully the dark circles and bags under my eyes are starting to shrink!

I had 4 nights last week without sleeping tablets, and while I was a bit sporadic with sleep, I felt like I was finally getting somewhere. But then I had a dreadful night on Sunday night, so I reluctantly put myself back on half tablets. Its just a matter of getting a routine established I think. I'm trying to get back into taking my glutamine, as I feel that helps a bit too. I think the worst thing is the fear that you wont be able to sleep - once you've lost that confidence that you can fall straight to sleep its hard to get it back.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to thrash it out in a cycle class, Thursday morning cycle is always a good one. My goal at the moment is consistency and re-establishing routines; and I have to say it feels good. I felt fantastic when I left gym this morning, and this is the feeling that I need to focus on. Cant wait to start feeling my clothes get a little looser!