312 posts tagged “life”
Yep, this morning was my last chance training session. Because tomorrow is the day I go shopping for a pair of swimmers.
See, I've been trialling this new way of living where I take one day at a time. Just live that day. Don't worry about the future and forget about the past. The one flaw with this plan is that one day you happen to glance at your calender and realise you'll be leaving for Thailand in three weeks and don't have a thing organised.
So I'm off to the big(ish) smoke tomorrow on the dreaded swimming costume search. I will have an egg on toast and a glass of juice before I go so I feel fortified and strong. You don't want to risk any mid afternoon blood sugar level drops because that could lead to depression and feelings of self loathing.
One thing you must remember when trying on swimmers is that there will be none of those awful change room down lights that show up every dimple of cellulite, on the beach. Another thing to remember is that 99% of people are perfectly average just like you. So unless there happens to be some sort of super model convention happening where we are I should be fine. And if there is...... well best not to even contemplate that.
But I am shopping for swimmers at a great time. I've just lost 7 kilos so I'm feeling pretty damn fine and this morning I managed to fit into a pair of size 10 Cue pants which didn't hurt the self confidence either. Plus it means I have something to wear to my nephews wedding next weekend.
But the main thing going in my favour are the people I'm travelling with. There will be my daughter Kimba and her friend Nat, both 21, almost 6 feet tall and gorgeous, and there will be Lizzie, 17, beautiful, all dark and mysterious. So no ones even going to be looking at me.
Of course Jem will be there as well. She's 5 years younger than me at 40. She's at that difficult age where you still feel like you have to show you've still got it. Whereas once you hit (almost) 46, you're not as hard on yourself. I mean there comes a time where you just have to say, this is it. This is me. I eat healthily, (well, except for the wine, but its not going anywhere) and I exercise like a demon, and this is as good as it's going to get. And its not that bad.
However, having said all that, I still find shopping for swimmers to be the most horrendous job out there. Hopefully it all goes to plan.
Sometimes, when its late at night, and I'm lying in bed trying to sleep, I feel like walking up to Lizzie's room and saying to her
what the fuck are you actually doing?
Because it sounds to me like she's moving a large herd of cattle through a small obstacle course.
Or sometimes its like hospital noises. You know, random things crashing about, television blasting, phones ringing, laughing. At any moment I expect her to crank up the vacuum cleaner.
And I'm beginning to think she's retarded in some way. Because no matter how many times I ask her to try and be quiet after 10.30pm, she persists in being exactly the opposite.
It seems that she lives in the filth and squalor that only a teenager can live in for months, then suddenly decides she must clean her room at 11.30pm.
This also requires a loud thumping up the hallway past my bedroom to the bathroom, where she deposits an extremely large pile of dirty washing which she is always surprised to find hasn't been washed ready for her by the next morning. It also means a large pile of towels to be washed, some of which feel suspiciously like they have never been used, just left on the floor for a while.
Now here it is, 11am and she's still in bed. Meanwhile I had to be up at 5.30am to fit a 30km bike ride in before my day even began and she'll be up soon wondering why I need an afternoon nap.
I wonder if you can have morning tea naps.
I have come to the conclusion that no matter how far I run, how many lunges I do, how many upward dogs and downward dogs, three legged dogs or pigeon fuckers I do, I will always have my mothers legs.
It has been a disappointing realisation.
By the way, there is no yoga position called a pigeon fucker.
Its just pigeon. But I used to work with a guy and his nickname was The Pigeon Fucker.
Not that he did mind you. Well, not that I know of.
He was french. Its a long story. And I think you had to be there.
Anyway the point is genetics suck.
Its a constant battle fighting them.
Well, Lizzie's school report came home today.
And before I start I just have to point out that she did lose her mojo this year. I dunno what happened. Friends, boyfriend, parties, turning 17. Shit happens.
But it came back, so she told me we have to ignore this report.
So the first subject I came to was Maths.
And I really didn't get past that because it was the funniest Teacher Comment I think I've ever read on a report.
it said.
Lizzie is a student with the ability required to do the work but finds it very difficult to fully concentrate on a task and is always talking with peers and occasionally eating.
I said to her - what are you occasionally eating?
But he is a bit of a nutter. One day there was a girl in the class using one of those vicks inhalers. You know the white sticks you put up your nose and inhale to clear your nose when you have a cold?
Anyway he rang up the girls mother and told her that she was sticking tampons up her nose during class.
Now I must admit that Lizzie did tell him that it was a tampon. But she was joking. And you'd think he would check before he rang and told the girls mother.
Are you prepared in case of a natural disaster? What do your plan and preparations include?
lol, what a strange question! Are we expecting one then?
I'm obsessive compulsive enough thanks. If I start worrying about potential natural disasters I'll be a nervous wreck.
Although, we are going to Thailand at christmas time, and I must admit that the thought has crossed my mind as I run on the treadmill each morning, that'll I'll be right to run a long way up into the mountains if a tsunami hits. Maybe even carrying one small child on my back. Which rules out my kids because they're all much bigger than me. Which is good because I won't have to do the Sophies Choice thing.
Remember when everyone was freaking out about the Y2K thing? I said to Daz, maybe we should stock up on food. And when the year 2000 clicked over with no problems I looked in the laundry and we had stocked one bottle of water and a 4 pack of baked beans. It was a pretty piss poor effort really. We'd have lasted a morning.
I think to be prepared for a natural disaster the best thing you can do is forget about supplies and just stock up on weapons. Lots of guns and ammo. Thats your best bet, because you're going to have to kill a lot of crazy desperate people to get to the supermarket and the bottle shop. Maybe even zombies. I'm not sure what sort of disaster we're talking about. Oh yes,there they are, I wasn't looking properly. No zombies, so that makes it a bit easier.
And nail polish. Stock up on nail polish. Because new nail polish always makes you feel better.
My new bottles arrived in the mail the other day.
I'm wearing blue at the moment. But I'm wishing I'd picked Calypso.
I admit to being a Denise Austin fan. Even though she never shuts up. And she always lies. But you get used to that. I now know that when she says
just one more
She doesn't really mean just one more. She means just that one more then a few more after that.
I've been doing the Fat Blasting Yoga dvd. Its pretty strenuous. And just when you think its over she brings out the stability ball and does another 15 minutes.
When I first started doing it a few weeks ago my legs would be wobbling and shaking from the effort but now I'm pretty good. My thighs feel like they're packed with cement actually. Jem was feeling them the other night and said I'll be able to crack coconuts with them. Which I guess could come in handy someday.
And I've lost 5 kilos which is also pretty handy. 4 more to go. But my aim is really firmness. I want to firm up all those bits that start going soft after 40. You know where they are. Triceps, back fat over the bra, thighs, well lots of places really.
And I made this magnet a couple of years ago when I was trying to lose weight and I think its time to put it back on the fridge to help the cause. Because she's 52 and looks pretty damn fine. And firm. Thats my aim. To be fitter at 50 than ever before. So I have 5 years up my sleeve.
I have decided not to delve any further into the tinnitus situation for now. Even though it really can make some days bloody awful.
Main reason being that I'm fed up, and not in the mood, to get on that expensive, time wasting road of tests and specialists that seems to lead nowhere.
It all started a couple of years ago when I found a small lump in my breast one day. I went to the doctor, which lead to a mammogram, that lead to an ultrasound, that lead to them telling me it was just a cyst.
Then, my doctor decided that since I was over 40, I should have a full set of blood tests done. The one that they use to test for ovarian cancer came back at a high level. This led to a trip to the ultrasound place for an internal unltrasound, which is possible one of the most embarrassing yet humourous things I have ever had to go through. This led to a trip to the hospital for a laproscopy. This all led to nothing. Turns out there was no problem, some women just have elevated levels of whatever it is.
And then there was the Weird Undiagnosed Throat Thing. That remains undiagnosed. It started with a trip to the doctor, that led to an ultrasound, then on to the ENT guy who stuck a camera up my nose and down my throat, and finished with a barium swallow. All of this led to nowhere. Apparently I'm just making it up in my mind.
So. The tinnitus. I have been for a hearing test and I have some slight hearing loss so far. I was given a referral to another ENT doctor, but at the moment I just can't be bothered driving for an hour and a half, to sit in his waiting room for another hour and a half, then pay him a small fortune for him to tell me there's no cure anyway. I said to my doctor, well what will he tell me anyway that you haven't. And he said - he'll advise you.
Thats one problem with small town life. You have to drive to the big smoke to see any sort of specialist.
Maybe I'll look into it next year.
And what a day it was.
A friend of mine has a mulberry tree.
Daz went and picked mulberries because I said I'd make him a pie.
I googled a recipe and set to work. I even made my own pastry. It seemed pretty simple. Mix your berries, sugar and flour together and toss them in the pastry, whack a lid on top and cook it.
And when it came out of the oven, it looked magnificent.
So I thought, (luckily), that I'd cut a piece out and take a photo of it looking warm and delicious. But it didn't look warm and delicious at all. It looked dry and more like a spotted dick. I guess the berries didn't have enough juice in them, because it hadn't come out and mixed about with the sugar and flour. Everything was still sitting in its place. A bunch of berries amongst big lumps of flour and clumps of sugar.
So. I cut the top off the pie, scooped out the filling, put it in a saucepan and cooked it up with some alcohol I found in the pantry. Kirsh I think. Anyway it was looking good then and I spooned it back into the case. But when I tried to put the lid back on I could see it was never going to work.
So, I decided to turn it into a pastry crumble top.
Nice save me.
And in the end it turned out well. And it was warm and delicious.
You've gotta love Centrelink.
No, really. Once you get past all the anger and frustration.
For those of you not in Australia, Centrelink is a government run agency that hands out money to the unemployed, single mothers, struggling university students, that sort of thing.
That is if you pass all the eligibilty tests. And can provide every pay slip and receipt and in general any piece of paper you've ever received since you turned 16. And if you have a few days to trudge though the endless paperwork.
But I thought they might throw some money my way for Lizzie and Lloyd for education expenses.
So I logged on and the first thing I noticed was a message telling me that from now on I was going to be able to handle all my secret questions and answers. Which I thought was big of them. Considering they are my secret questions.
You always have to be careful with those secret questions. You can't make them so secret that you can't remember the answer. Because I did that once.
So I start the application and one of the first things they want to know is how long I've been in a relationship with my partner. And they want day/month/year.
What can I say. Um, well it was sometime late in 1984. It wasn't too long after a toga party we went to with another friend and my then boyfriend. He got totally trashed and the last we saw of him he was running off down the street into the darkness in his underwear.
So probably a Saturday. I had to guess that one. I wonder if they check it against a previous application I've done.
Then I click on the - how many dependents do you have - arrow, and it goes as far as 29. It went further but I didn't want to know how far it went. I had visions of the old woman who lived in a shoe trying to claim child support.
And my favourite part. Where you had to pick your title. I must say I felt very ordinary picking Mrs when these were some of the options I had.
Most Revered
Able Seaman
Air Chief Marshall
Swami
Baroness
Bombardier
Countess
Dame
Madam
Air Commodore
Thats as far as I got yesterday. I haven't even reached the serious parts yet. Where I have to disclose every tiny detail of my life and beg for the money.
At the moment I don't even know if I can be bothered.
I think I just lost my mind at the mall
The noise level was totally unacceptable.
Toddlers should not be allowed in the supermarket.
Unless they're gagged. Or drugged.
And there were renovations of some noisy kind going on.
And the guy behind me at the checkout stood so close to me I thought he was going to whisper something in my ear.
And then I saw they were putting up christmas trees for sale.
In October! That is way to early. Christmas isn't any fun anymore. It all starts too early. There should be a law that says no christmas decorations can go up until the 1st of December.
I remember when I was a kid, that I knew christmas was close because cherries show up at the shops. Now we fly them in from around the world and they're not a christmas association anymore.
And I'd just like to say that I refuse to buy grapes from the USA.
I'm sure there's nothing wrong with grapes from the USA but I don't see why we have to have them selling here in country NSW. Talk about carbon footprints. And anyway, how fresh can they be.
And no asparagus from Peru either.
So all in all it was a very cranky annoying shopping trip. Rounded off nicely by the dickhead delivery guy who just showed up at the house and wanted me to help him lift two airconditioners off his truck. Then wanted me to say please to him, twice, before he'd drive them around to the workshop.
I don't think so mate.
