Well...

I said I'd be honest.  Well, I went... and it wasn't GREAT, although at least I know why.  I put on 100gms.

My leader went through my tracking journal.  'You never tracked last Wednesday night/Thursday?'    'Oh' says I.... 'Thursday was my birthday, and um.... it was my last hurrah, as it were'

To be honest, I ate a HUGE morning tea that day, followed by lunch, then afternoon tea with friends (that included a BUCKET of wine), then takeaways for tea...  Mmmm.  Possibly lucky that I didn't put on MORE, in hindsight.  Man, why is it so easy to put it on huh?

So next week I expect great things.  No excuses.

Thankful

I am thankful.  I am lucky.  I have a great family, a good job, a nice house full of nice things.  And I have friends.

Last week I turned 36.  I know, some of you say that I'm just a spring chicken.  And I guess that I am really.  Last week I also made the decision to sign up at Weight Watchers.  It was a hard decision to make, which might sound silly, but sometimes it's just easier to be fat and happy, you know?

I know that I won't always eat ALL the right things, but for now, I am trying.  Really, really hard. 

So this week, I ask you, my family and friends, to support me on this journey.  It's not going to be easy.  Please don't be offended if I turn down a wine, or something yummy to eat.  But also, please don't judge me when I DO have a wine, or a piece of cake.  I have probably allowed for it in my daily points allowance.

This last week has been hard.  I went out on Monday night and was surprised by some friends with a bottle of wine and a chocolate cake for supper (for my birthday).  I had to politely decline.  I have felt bad about it ever since.  But I need to try and stick to my guns.  It's too easy to give in.  To give up.  That's why I decided to let you know what I am doing.  I was going to 'go it alone' and not tell anyone.  But I think that is the wrong way to go about it.

Tonight is my first weigh-in since signing up.  If I'm being totally honest, I'm a bit anxious about it.  Here's hoping it goes ok, and that I'm on the right track.  I did Weight Watchers when J was a baby, and it worked then, so there's no reason that it shouldn't work for me now.  Although this time, I have a LOT more weight to lose.  30.2kg to be precise.  I know, it's a big number huh?  So here, on my blog, I will try to be honest and let you know how things are going.  I figure that if you lot are checking on my results each week, then there's plenty of incentive to try harder, right?  I'll be back tonight with the results.

SENZ, Shopping and Scrapping...

Yup, SENZ is done and dusted for another year. This one sure had it's highs and lows...

Highs?

1. Meeting bloggy friends IRL... here's me with Mandy and Heidi. We managed a fleeting coffee together inbetween classes and shopping. Was great to meet you guys, even only for a few minutes :)

2. Going to SENZ with Mum in the first place! She booked us a night with her FlyBuys points at the Hotel Ibis, on Hereford Street:

We stayed in a room on the 8th floor, with a view out to the Port Hills. SO pretty lit up at night. And we had a fab feed at Coyote (on The Strip). Very reasonable price too.

3. Watching Mum's enthusiasm grow with each class she took. I just KNEW she'd enjoy it, and her layouts were just awesome! I made her email photos of them to me so that I could show you. Check these out:

She MADE those flowers on the 'Grow' layout. Very cool. We also took a class together - a Bazzill Board Book, but neither of us have finished it yet, so I'll post photos of that after the weekend (we're hoping to get it finished on Saturday morning).

4. Meeting Jill Geraghty-Groves in person. We had chatted via email when I was organising Crop for a Cause, and she was one of the 'famous' peeps who signed the fabric squares for the autographed tote that I raffled off.

5. Buying my own cute little plushy - lots of polarfleece and felty goodness, and just TOO cute to leave behind! The stall owner asked as I handed him over 'so, where's my little man moving to?' !!! Ha ha ha. I haven't got a name for him yet - any suggestions?

6. Buying J his own Cuttlekids machine - they are being discontinued, so they were half price! He was SO excited about that once I got home. Much like his extremely patient mother, he had to try out EVERY cuttlekids die the minute they were out of their packets! Ha ha ha.

7. Finding this bread-cookie-cutter at Stevens in the Riccarton Mall. J has had Dinosaur toast for brekkie each morning since I came home, and he took dinosaur sammies to school in his lunchbox. For once, the sammies didn't come home again - he ate the lot! Gotta love that ;)

8. Getting to browse in Spotlight FOR AS LONG AS I WANTED, without two particular boys asking 'can we go now?' !!! I didn't really buy much at all (just a little bit of fabric), but it was nice to have a good, looong look around!

Lows?

1. Not as much shopping as there was last time in Chch, and certainly not a patch on the amount of shopping at the Auckland SENZ last year. TBH there wasn't much there that we can't already get from Rach.

2. Pretty ordinary food and drink available at the cafe. Again, not a patch on what they had to offer in Auckland. Can't help but think that there must be some shop or caterer out there that would love to handle the contract for feeding a shiteload of ladies, rather than us being given the option of sandwiches and cakes like you get at the gas station, made a few days earlier, that looked kind of cardboardy. Bummer.

3. Unfortunately my Mini Village Class with Jill was a bit of a low - I was looking forward to making cuties like these (the sneek peek shots)

But sadly our paper options for decorating the chipboard houses were pretty different to these examples. We didn't get a 'kit' as such, just the pack of chipboard houses to assemble, and a choice of paper, glitters, german scrap etc all plonked on one table for us to use/share with others. Kind of a 'first in, best dressed' scenario. And I wasn't first. I wanted little cuties like hers. But tbh that wasn't an option with the papers we had to choose from. Value for money wise, this class was a bit lacking. Maybe I was expecting a bit much? By the end of the class I had assembled and decorated one house, and partially assembled another. Out of a set of five. I think I'll re-paper the ones I have already done, and make the set look more like what I was after in the first place with my own papers etc. Love the mini houses, love the idea of decorating them, but would have loved to have an actual 'kit' of paper and embellishments to play with.

And that, ladies, is that. SENZ in a nutshell. It was nice to go up for Friday/Saturday, so that we still got to have Sunday at home, mooching around. I had a lovely doze in my chair, with my feet up, in front of the fire on Sunday afternoon :)

Then I made two bacon and egg pies and two chocolate cakes. It was D's birthday back on the 11th, and he was at home with J for the school holidays at the time. I made one pie and one cake for him to take to work on Monday as a morning tea shout for his workmates for his birthday. The other pie was for the freezer for D's lunches, and the other cake was SUPPOSED to make it to later this week when I shout for MY workmates, but I don't think it's gonna last that long :) J has taken to helping himself (after asking permission first of course). So, this is what I found in the cake tin after he'd been at it, cutting himself some for his lunchbox, and some for a snack...

Fuuunny! Just random cuttings, any old where. And the bottom of one piece never even made it out of the tin! Teehee. He's so funny!

Well, that's it from me for today. I have just sat through the finale of Grey's Anatomy...phew! Talk about exciting. And traumatic. GOOD program. Bummer it'll be off air for another 6 months again now...

I might see some of you on Saturday I guess... Sadly, Rach had to cancel her Crop due to low numbers. Bummer. Seeing as I had finally convinced Ma to come along to a Crop, I was having none of that... so I decided that the few who were keen could still have a crop day and split the hire between them, so that's what we're going to do. Well, what's a girl to do? Lucky that there are ways and means around these things :)

Toodles peeps,

Found more!

Here's another card made recently... our hairdresser wanted a 50th Wedding Anniversary card made to give to friends of hers. My only brief was 'not too lovey dovey, don't put hearts all over it'. So I decided to go with a tri-fold shutter card (cos they are dead easy, but look flash as), used some co-ordinating Basic Grey papers, and chucked some flowers on the front. Ta-da.....

And that, folks, is that for today :)

Another thing...

Found another photo that I meant to share last month. The second-last week of term, J got awarded 'Kea of the Week' for being well behaved, considerate, and using his manners. WHO IS THIS CHILD, and what have you done with OUR son?!!!!

Cute though huh? Teehee.

Awwwww....check it:

I scanned some photos for Mum a few weeks back, so that she could get some printed for SENZ classes. Look at this one:

Don't you just want to pinch Gem's chubby cheeks?! Sarah, as usual, has her mouth open. Ha ha ha, just kidding Squirt!!!! And yep, that's me in the middle, bowl cut and all. Gee thanks Mum. Lucky I love ya anyway!

ROFLMAO!

Spotted this on another blog earlier in the month... LOVE IT!

Feel free to pretend it applies to you! Ha ha ha ha

Toodles,

Bit of a catch-up...

So how are y'all? I have been sick. Yep, I got the MAN FLU. Seriously. I did. I even had a day off work, where all I did was pretty much sleep all day. Really, who does that when they pull a sickie off work? I mean, don't you usually pull a sickie so that you can get some scrapping/sewing/reading/tv watching done?! Nope, not me. Honest, I slept. A lot. How dull of me. And even now, 5 days into my antibiotics, I am still coughing like a mad thing, and have a nice gravelly voice that's about an octave lower than usual! SO not cool.

Mum and I are off to SENZ on Friday morning. She's taking three classes, and I'm taking two. I'm also hoping to catch up with two bloggy friends IRL for the first time - see you soon Heidi and Mandy! Should be fun - haven't had a girly trip away with my Mum since we went to a Chch SENZ about two years ago. And one of the best things about SENZ? There are lots and lots of other ladies in the same room as you, ooohing and aahing over paper and glitter and other assorted goodies, just like you! No-one thinks it's odd if you talk to yourself about whether or not that cardstock will match the patterned paper you already have at home! When I was at SENZ in Auckland last year, it was SO funny when the shopping started on the Thursday night. There were all these women waiting to be 'released' into the arena, and when we were given the word, there was this rush of excitement, mixed with panic, and all these ladies running (yes, RUNNING) from stall to stall yelling 'look at this, Sheila, what a bargain' or 'wow, I've been wanting one of these, perhaps I should buy two?' !!! Ha ha ha!

So tonight, instead of tidying my scrap table and packing my tools, I've been trawling through the photo files on my desktop as a form of procrastination! I found these ones of a card I made last month for my friend Rach (yep, that'd be the same person as my dealer Rach!). She has a thing for these lollies called 'Strawberry Bricks' from the dairy round the corner.

The card itself is pretty simple. In fact I knocked it together in about 20 minutes. I was on a bit of a timecrunch that day. Black and white spotted paper was sewn onto a pink mat the same size as my card front. I punched a border with my Fiskars Apron Lace punch from the same pink Bazzill cardstock and laid that across the middle of the card, overlaid that with a couple of layers of tulle, then hot-glued the fabric flowers (rolled fabric, kind of 'scrunched' together) and hand-cut felt leaves over the top. The finishing touch? A tiny tag held in place with a pink heart pin. Cute, I reckon!

Too easy! This is typical me... make a card at the last minute, in a rush, and just 'chuck' it together. I like fast, simple styles. When I try to spend time beautifully colouring a stamped image and placing it 'just right' on a carefully constructed card, it takes me AGES, and I'm usually not happy with the end product. Go figure. Think I'll stick with the fast and furious method from now on!

Might go and see what else is stored on the computer that I haven't blogged about yet...

Toodles,

Enough already......

.....seriously people, y'all need to GET A LIFE!!! Apparently I have made your lives a bore by not blogging lately. Oh boohoo. Surely you must have been doing SOMETHING interesting in the past fortnight that you could tell ME about? Ha ha ha!

Right - so what have WE been up to? Well.... we have had TWO road trips to Milton in the past two weeks, the boys had a wasted trip to Christchurch on Monday (long story), all three of us seem to have that nasty cold that hangs on for ages and makes you feel like crap, and it's the school holidays of course (D is at home with J for these hols, I stayed home for the last ones). I still have the sewing to complete for my Mum before we head off to SENZ in ten days, it's D's birthday on Sunday, and I just realised that next week's Greys Anatomy is part 1 of a 2 part FINALE for the season. Bummer. I love Greys.

What are your favourite TV shows? At the moment, I like to blob out in front of Desperate Housewives, Brothers & Sisters, Greys Anatomy, Private Practice, Packed to the Rafters and Dancing on Ice. LOVE Dancing on Ice. J watches delayed coverage on Saturday mornings, and likes to pass judgement on how well they are skating. SO cute!

Also, I've been thinking... Are you guys tired to cooking the same stuff, week after week, for dinner? I am. We seem to circulate through the same old recipes time and time again until we can't face them any longer. I want to know YOUR favourite 'go to' recipes. The ones you can whip up at a moment's notice, the family favourites. So here's the challenge... email me your suggestions. Share the love, people! There will be a little something something for anyone who takes the time to share. Not sure what yet, but it'll be something, promise!

And while I'm at it, do you have any tips and tricks to share? For example, here's one my Nan taught me:

The best mashed potato?... once the potatoes have boiled, drain them and put the pot back on the recently turned off element. Jiggle the pot to dry out the spuddies a little, then add the milk and let it warm a bit before you mash. Once mashed, whip the potatoes with a fork until smooth and creamy. Seriously good potato.

Want your lettuce to stay crispy in the fridge for as long as possible? Wash torn lettuce in a sink of cold water with a splash of vinegar. Shake lettuce dry and lay out on a clean tea-towel. Roll up the tea-towel and pat gently to dry the lettuce. Place lettuce in a sealed container in the fridge.

So give your grey matter a work out and get thinking peeps - email me (dazbeck@xtra.co.nz) your best recipes and/or tips and tricks. I'll make it worth your while :) (Oh and my family will thank you for a change in dinner menu, ha ha ha!)

Okey doke, time for me to head off to bed...

Toodles,