Well February is over already, and with it summer. I can say that I have actually enjoyed this summer. Mainly because I think we have had about one week of hot summer weather. I'm not complaining...oh my no, I'm just surprised I suppose. Here's hoping that we don't make up for the lack in March!
A lot of things happened this month.
- We got our power on! Woo Hoo, I'm still pretty darn excited about that. I love being able to use the washing machine whenever I want, I love not needing to buy ice to make my food all cold (and wet...yuck!)
- My youngest brother got married (I'll talk about that a bit later).
- My brother in law moved down from QLD so we inherited some dogs. 2 big German Shepard x bull mastif, escape artist, poo machine dogs. I am slightly more fond of them now than I was when they first arrived. I was most unimpressed when I came home one day to find one of them missing and I had to go and collect him from the vet (who had thankfully seen him wandering past her window and taken him inside!)
- I've experienced my first major meltdown from my almost 3 year old in a shop. (I refused to get him a very large, and very expensive, Thomas the Tank Engine train set which was on sale in BigW. I was getting a very large play workbench with lots of tools etc and he didn't want that. He was screaming and throwing himself on the floor and pulling on the trolley to stop me from going to the checkout. I'll give him 10 out of 10 for the performance – it was a doozy! I ended up carrying him out of the shop under my arm while he was still screaming and carrying on. Thankfully I had many compassionate looks from other mums and none that suggested I was a bad mum!)
- We got our driveway redone after many months of putting up with mud and potholes after it was destroyed by contractors working on our neighbours houses.
The boys watching our new driveway being put down.
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| Wheels make great seats, at the swap meet. |
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| Awesome! a bowl of noodles at the swap meet |
Ok, I told you that there was a bit of a story about my brothers wedding. For a start it was on the same weekend as the Ballarat Swap Meet. For any one who has no idea what that is, it is a very, very large, mainly car and motorbike related 'market' where a lot of people bring a lot of stuff (or junk!) to sell to a lot of other people, hopefully for a lot of money! It goes for 3 days and most of the siteholders camp out in tents, buses, caravans etc. It is a HUGE event on my husbands calendar. I have been at least 3 times. I go mainly as the cook! It is not the worst thing in the world, it is nice to get away for a quasi holiday and spend time with my husband (which I don't get to do a lot of). Anyway, it was on the same weekend as the wedding and around 2 hrs away from where the wedding was being held. Allowing that we have not had a shower for the last 2 days and have been camping, we need to get pretty for the wedding and have 2 children to get clean and pretty too, I wanted to make sure we had 3 hrs to get there. We were pretty well ready to go at 2 pm. The trailer was packed and the camper was packed. The children were in the cars, everyone had been to the toilet, but it was still 2:15 before we got out of there. Then we had to stop in the car park and unload some stuff that another guy who was with us had bought. Ok that shouldn't take too long...15 minutes later... ok we are ready to go now. Oh but wait my wonderful husband has to drop off a set of tires that he sold to some guy who lives about 5 minutes away...ok...that should only take...HALF AN HOUR! I'm getting pretty peeved by now because I know that it is going to take longer than 2hrs for us to get there and be ready for a 5pm wedding. Ok...I'm trying to stay calm and just take it as it comes but, I'm pretty worried that I'm going to miss my brother's wedding, which I am pretty blooming excited about. Anyway, we are on the freeway at 3pm and I'm in my car and my hubby is in his car. But my car is making bad noises. I am getting a butt massage from all the vibrations and the rear view mirror keeps tipping down from all the shaking. I'm a bit worried that a wheel is going to fall off or something, but if I stay under 100kmph is is not so bad. But I don't want to stay under 100 is a 110 zone, I want to get there ASAP. So I'm going as fast as I can and the skylight on the camper which I am towing pops up, got to stop and rope that down. Back on the road, still loads of really bad vibrations, I am furious. Flaming Murphy. We stop AGAIN and check that the wheels are all on properly and that there is oil where it needs to be and everything looks in order. It is safe enough to drive. We'll just have to fix whatever the problem in when we finally get home (at that stage we were assuming that it was the spare tire that DH had put on earlier in the week which must have been unbalanced). Anyway, we are driving along and we get to the Ring road in Melb. They are doing roadworks so the speed limit is 80, not too bad, it was still moving, but it is 4:30 and we are still at least an hour away from Lilydale. There is a back way, but it is hilly and we are both towing so we decide to take the big roads. We get onto the Eastern Freeway and they are doing roadworks there too, what the...don't you know I'm in a hurry! Anyway, it's already 5 pm (the start time) and I'm in my car on a road at least 15-20 min away, so I am bawling my eyes out that I am missing this important event. I decide that we have to go straight there and see whatever we can of the rest of the ceremony and we can get tidied up after it, before the reception. So we rocked up there, dirty and stinky and looking like hobo gatecrashers just in time to see the kiss and the signing of the registry :( Pretty bummed that I missed the walk down the aisle and the exchange of vows and rings and well...everything. But I got to see my brother and new sister in law beaming and looking gorgeous, at least for a bit!. We did race off and get pretty and have a really fun time at their reception though, so it wasn't a complete loss!
We did have one more adventure on the way home the day after the wedding. My car had been assessed to have a worn out tie rod (part of the steering/wheel system). It is fine but we will have to replace the part when we get home. I am towing the camper trailer and DH is in his fully packed ute, towing a car trailer that has 14 (yes 14) wheels with tires, 4 doors from XW's, 3 bicycles and my freaking awesome pram/bike trailer thing on it. We decide to take the slightly longer less hilly and windy way home. It is just getting dark and we are on the road between Yea and Seymour when I see lots of sparks coming from behind DH's car. We pull over and see that the WHOLE TOW BAR has fallen off the back of his ute...SIGH! DH has enough supplies and tools in his car to temporarily reattach the tow bar, but we can't tow anything with that car now. So we take everything off the trailer (it looks a bit like we are engaging in some illegal dumping with no less than 14 tires on the side of the road!), then we reverse the camper up onto the trailer and pack everything back around it. DH then tows that with my car and I drive his ute home. We made it all in one piece and with all our stuff, just a little later than we thought it would be! I sure can't complain that my life is boring!
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| The trailer after everything was loaded back onto it |
So how have I done weight and exercise wise in Feb? Well I weighed in at exactly the same on the first of March, but my measurements were 2cm less on my waist! I cheated and had a look today and I am on 98.5! Woo! What is great though, is that for pretty well the whole month of Feb I have been eating nothing but junk and doing hardly any exercise. Well not completely I have still been having some fresh food, but not nearly as much as would be better for me. I have been continuing to eat according to my hunger and have not gained any weight at all. Normally, if I had a 'break' I would gain at least 2 kilos, so I am wrapt that there has been no change. This month however I have decided to keep a success diary, I think that while I understand the principals behind the Don't Go Hungry Diet I am not getting the best results I could because I am cheating myself a bit. Anyway I am keeping the diary, and I am committing to do more serious exercise, like I had been doing in Dec and Jan and strength training too. But I'm feeling great and very happy with the results I am seeing!
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| 98.5kgs...down, down, down! |
