Invisible weight loss

No one can see my weight loss any more. Wah.

The first couple of kilos came off my waist and it was very obvious when that spare tyre melted away. Now my butt is shrinking, but it is not as obvious. So the compliments have stopped... in fact I get looks of disbelief when I tell folk I've lost over 4kg since the start of the year - I can tell they think I'm deluded. Humph.

Ah well. The tape measure and my belt say my hips and bum are getting smaller even if no one can see it! Yesterday I tried on all the dresses in my cupboard and I can get into all of them at last. One is still too tight to wear, but the rest fit me again - yay! When I hit goal that one dress will be ok too - I need a couple more centimetres off my hips to wear it. A few months back I couldn't actually get it on!

I tried on my wedding dress again too, and it now fits perfectly. It was a tiny bit tight when I bought it. Excellent, that's what I was hoping for.

I've been comfort eating for the last couple of days while at home with a cold, so I've probably put a little flab back on. I haven't been to the gym once this week and only walked home once. I will have to be good this weekend to make up for it!

Yeah right ;-).

Leap Year

Feb 29th. Happy leap year and all that.

I proposed to Milord this morning... because I'd been threatening to do so for all of last year ;-).

He laughed.

Meme

Yup, post #3 today. I'm home with a cold and it is still raining. Yawn.

Stole this meme off Lara's (go read her, she makes you feel 20-something again).

What color is your bra?
I don't wear them if I can help it, but generally black, white or blah. Today I'm in slobby clothes and bra-less.

Do you straighten your hair everyday?
I blow-dry usually but I have actually never straightened my hair. How do you guys manage those red hot straighteners anyway? Isn't it really bad for your hair? A friend of mine keeps singeing her upper arms when she straightens her hair. Does that happen to you? Lately my hair is long enough to leave to dry naturally with a bit of leave-in conditioner to stop the frizzies.

Do you worry about the size of your boobs?
When I was very young I wanted them bigger. These days I want them smaller. It's a weight/gravity thing.

What’s your favorite girly magazine?
I hate girly magazines. I prefer reading FHM but it doesn't half get you wierd looks on the aeroplane.

Would you kill for chocolate?
Chocolate, no. Cheese, maybe.

Jeans or Skirts?
Until a few years ago it was all jeans. Now I prefer skirts but my office is so cold I tend to end up in slacks. Skirts on a summer weekend for sure.

Do you wear clothes/shoes/jewelry that’s uncomfortable?
Almost never.

Did you ever spend all day/night getting pretty for a guy?
Yes of course... a long time ago in a galaxy far away. Does slimming down for my wedding and planning hair, makeup and dress count?

Did you ever cry during a romantic movie?:
Yep, still do. And during a book, or song, or documentary... I'm soft like that.

Would you leave the house without makeup on?:
Not often. It is the highest compliment if I allow you to see me without makeup.

Do you consider making out “unladylike”?
Unladylike? Who wants to be ladylike? I lurve making out. I could make out all day and all night and not have enough. I miss being that young - now it's all wham bam thank you mam. *sigh*

On a scale of 1-10, how fun is shopping?:
For about half an hour 7. Then a big fat zero.

Are you spoiled?
I'm too independant to be spoiled... but Milord is doing a damn good job of spoiling me.

Do you think lip gloss is the best?:
I hate lip gloss - why is it so sticky?

Do you freak out if you miss your favorite show?
Nope. Don't have a favourite show.

Do you yell a lot?
I don't yell much. The angrier I am the quieter I get. Then boom!

How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?
If I shower - 20 min. If I blow dry too - 30 min. On weekends - 5 min!

Do you wear sweatpants/pajama pants to school/work?
What? Who does this?

Accessories make the outfit; true or false?
False. Attitude makes the outfit.

Is pink truly the best color in the entire universe?
Yuck, false.

Lip gloss a must?:
See above. No. But I will go mental without lip balm.

Status?
Status? Um, upper middle class high achiever? Soon to be married wanna-be-mom?

Have you ever dressed unlike yourself to impress a guy?
No.

Do you often wish there were something you could change about yourself?
Not often, no.

Gold or silver?:
Both, thanks. And don't skimp on the platinum darlink.

The guy that you like/love/whatever, what does his name begin with?
Milord's name starts with "R".

Do you dress up too much for holidays?
I've never dressed as Santa or the Easter Bunny... I've tarted up for New Years but who hasn't?

Do you like wearing dresses?
Sure.

Do you write a lot of mushy love poems?
I wrote all sorts of poems when I was younger. I sent a mushy love poem to Milord when we were dating and he dissed it... when he found out it was actually mine he was very embarrassed.

What makeup could you not live without?
Not live without? That's a big question, I almost always wear foundation and powder, but if I had to choose I'd pick mascara as my #1 augmentation.

House hunting - death house

Milord and I are house hunting. We will be moving out of our rental just before we fly to South Africa to marry, and will be crashing with friends until we find a new home. I miss owning my own home, renting is so annoying! Our current house has a damp problem, and needs new carpets, and a new bathroom etc etc, and we can't do anything about it because it doesn't belong to us.

We went looking at houses last weekend. In Sydney you can only look at a house for sale for a specified window of time (usually 45 min) on a Saturday. So we get the papers delivered, and in bed with a cup of coffee we make a list of possibilities and order them by time, then we charge out to look at them. Last Saturday we had 10 on the list in Marrickville. We viewed 6 of them (the other 4 were a "No" from the street), and sort of liked 3 of them. #1 I liked, but Milord didn't. #2 he liked, but I didn't (you'd have to go out of the house and down a flight of steps into the garden to get to the toilet. No no no. Seriously. No). #3 was horrible but we both see potential.

Horrible horrible *shudder*. When the agent was opening the house for its 45 minutes of fame we were standing in the front yard... I lifted my head and said "My god can you smell that?". I swear some old person died in there. The carpets date from - I dunno - the 60s? When was the busy floral/swirly pattern in vogue? Ew. The floors give as you walk on them and in some rooms sag a good half foot below the floor line. The kichen is disgusting. The "bathroom" (uck) is truely vile.

But it is structurally sound and we reckon we can afford to buy it and do it up, at least to a liveable standard. And the toilet is indoors - bonus. It is a stone's throw from a very nice high street thronging with restaurants and pubs and funky shops. It is very close to the centre of the city - and it will appreciate so much in value with not much work. The auction is on the 8th March and Milord is already playing mind games with me to make me think about spending rather a large amount of money on this shell of a dead house.

That's just over a week away and we're quite excited.

5 Weeks

I'm at home with a cold. I woke up yesterday with a sore throat, and by midday I was achey all over so I left work at lunchtime and went home. I had an afternoon nap and Milord brought me lots of comfort food for dinner... This morning I could probably have taken my germs into the office but chose to stay home instead. I'm not chasing any deadlines so not being there today won't matter.

It's a perfect day for being at home - cool and wet. This is the Sydney rain radar right now:


Yes, that is a wall of thunderstorms marching at the city from the west. Marvellous. It's gone really gloomy and even with all the lights on I am having trouble reading my book! I can hear the thunder in the distance...

On a good note, I hit my weight target this week - 67.5kg! That is one hell of a loss since last week... turns out I was pre-menstrual. I lost 1.5kg on Friday, the day before I "came on". Took me totally by surprise...

"How can that be?" I hear the girls thinking. Well, I have been on the Implanon contrceptive implant for the last few years. This suppresses all periods for the first year, after which you get random spotting every few months for a year, and apparently in the final year you can start having periods again. They're not exactly regular though - my last one was in October! Hopefully this means I won't be having one over my wedding or honeymoon. I'll be taking the implant out after the wedding to try for a baby, but I intend to whack one back in as soon it's born. What a fabulous contraceptive - no periods for 2.5 years? Works for me! You can breastfeed on it too. Magic.

Last week was jolly hard work. I was so annoyed with my weight gain that I cut right back on food and worked out or walked for at least 2 hours a day. Plus I was cranky with PMS but didn't know it. Poor Milord didn't know what to do - he's not seen PMS in me before!

It's starting to rain heavily now, and the thunder is almost overhead. The cat is not amused - she hates thunderstorms! A good day to stay in bed I say ;-).

6 Weeks

68.8kg. sigh

Another wicked weekend, another week undoing the damage, another disappointing result.

Get a grip, girl!

Best Friends

The last company I worked at in the UK was part of a massive US conglomerate, and periodically we would have to fill out a survey on our working conditions which management used to determine the morale or something... There was always one question which had to be clearly explained before we could begin: "Do you have a best friend at work?"

In the UK a best friend is someone you'd walk through fire for, spend holidays with and ask to your wedding. Not many of us work with someone like that! So we'd all answer "No" and our company morale would look bad! It seems the definition of best friend in the US is just someone you can gossip with and maybe vent about your boyfriend from time to time... once this was explained our stats looked much better!

I am lucky enough to have a few best friends (UK version). One has known me forever (hi Mom!). One transitioned from "friend of boyfriend" to "my friend" as we both moved from Cape Town to London in the same week (hi Tara!). One bought a house around the corner and travelled Europe with me (hi Kat). And one is simply my best friend in all the world (hi Shane). I also have a number of very good friends who I'm not going to list here (if you got a wedding invite you know who you are!).

Shane was here last weekend. Sadly a very flying visit as she and her husband are not so much on holiday as a on a fact finding mission to see if they want to emigrate to Australia. I had her for a day and a half - and you'd swear we'd been apart a week not however long it's been! It's so nice being around someone who has so much history with you. Shane's known me since I was 17... and she knows the good and the bad and doesn't judge me.

When I left school I wanted to be a graphic designer, so I went to the local technikon to study art. My class had about 30 people and I remember noticing this tall, beautiful, glamorous and perfectly groomed girl among us. I hated her on sight. A day or so later I ended up next to her in pottery class - and by the end of the lesson I had made a friend for life! These days Shane runs her own graphic design company from home, has two little girls and a lovely husband, and is still tall, beautiful, glamorous and perfectly groomed. I'd probably hate her on sight if I met her today! Dunno why she's hanging with the short, scruffy rude girl... lol.

I ended up dropping out of the course, leaving her city a year later, then her country 5 years after that, and her timezone a couple of years ago, but we've never lost touch and we see each other when we can. Shane knows I'm a cat person, she tells stories about the sandwiches I used to make for us after class, she remembers weeding my mom's lawn in the winter sun, and having frozen jelly tots on ice cream cones... I took her on a London open-top bus in freezing weather, I held her baby when she had her ears pierced for the first time at 32, and we used a picnic blanket as a makeshift rain umbrella in a park last year - sitting under it drinking champagne and gossiping.

God I miss my best friends.

Spinster?

While I was on BlogHer I came across this article too about modern spinsters...

Just a quick note from my perspective - when I was filling out a questionaire for my wedding planner there was an entry marked "Divorced/Spinster?". I looked at it for a long time then wrote "never married"...

Quote Me Happy

Hey I'm famous!

I've just noticed that a BlogHer blogger has quoted me in an article called "What Draws People to You". It's kind of about how we learn to accept ourselves as we grow up into our own skin... I had been wondering why I had a couple of search hits on "comfortable with myself" ;-).

I have a good friend who makes me happy to be myself... that came out wrong. What I mean is that the other day she was complaining about herself and I said "Ok, name me one thing about yourself that you like!". She had nothing. Nothing! This is someone I consider highly intelligent, educated, travelled, adventurous, loving, fit and sexy. She's doing well in her career and is in a solid relationship... this is not that poor fat woman on Australia's Biggest Loser the other day who had nothing nice to say about herself, but rather someone you'd cross the road to meet. How is it possible that she doesn't like one single thing? I started listing her assets for her and she shot each one down, refusing to accept a single compliment. Gawd, how sad to be so uncomfortable in your own skin - it must be like being 13 every day of your life.

I was reading a post the other day on my blogroll - I'm not sure who but it might have been Ms Grumpy - where the blogger dismissed every compliment about her home until her guest stopped giving them. Why is it so hard sometimes to just say "Thanks" when somebody has good things to say about us and our achievements?

Boy Logic

A bit of a slow start today... Yesterday was Valentine's Day, and Milord and I celebrated by cooking each other dinner. I made the starter of Scallops with Pancetta and Sage on salad leaves, and Milord made the main of Beef Wellington with Horseradish Potato Cakes. It all turned out lovely and we had fun watching each other cook.

We shared a bottle of champagne while cooking, then moved on to red and white wine with the meal (I don't handle red well so avoid it). Milord started on white wine when he finished the red of course... We ended up having one of those deep and meaningful conversations, finally resolved at 1 in the morning after a bit of a rollercoaster. Ugh, first one of those this year and I hadn't missed it, but I suppose it was good to clear the air!

You know what sparked it? Milord had put a floating candle in the centre of the dining table and mentioned that he'd looked for a flower or two to float with it but we don't have any right now. I answered that this was because he doesn't "do" flowers since I dumped a bouquet on the floor 2 years ago after a fight, and that the way he carries a grudge was a bit wierd, and when was he going to let the damn thing go anyway...

What flummoxed me then was that he said he wished I'd asked him for flowers yesterday, because he'd seen all the other men carrying home bunches of roses and he wanted to bring me some, but he couldn't unless I asked for them... Now why on earth would I ask for flowers when for 2 years he has absolutely refused to bring me so much as a daisy?! Boys! I don't understand how they think.

(He ended up raiding the neighbour's garden at midnight drunk as a lord to get me a flower - I guess we're over the grudge!)