Sydney is "The Best!"

Princess and I have just spent 4 days together in Sydney, and she tells me it was "The Best!".

We needed to (1) attend a birthday party and (2) see an eye specialist, so we made it into a long fun weekend.

On Saturday morning we drove an uneventful 3 hours (hooray for cruise control and seatback media players) to get to my goddaughter's birthday party which was held at the Concordia German bowls/croquet club in Tempe. The food and wine was cheap and plentiful and there was lots of space for the kids to run around and kick a ball.

After the party we went to stay over with J&B and their son H who is the same age as Princess. Princess and H played nicely together, shared a bath and stayed up late talking while I caught up with J&B. It was a very pleasant evening.

On Sunday morning everyone was up at dawn, and after breakfast we all headed to Doll's Point on Botany Bay for some beach time. It is winter here, but with enough layers and some sunshine the kids were happy to build sandcastles and paddle. Another friend with an 18 month old boy who I hadn't yet met came to see us briefly too, and it was fun watching the little guy toddling along determined to get into the sea!

We had a nice lunch in the restaurant at Doll's Point and then H and Princess played in the rather awesome playground there for a couple of hours. Princess was having so much fun that we stayed on for an extra hour after H and his folks left, and then we went to B&A's house for the night.

B&A have 2 kids, D who is Princess' age and L (my goddaughter) who is now 3. They played well together, especially on their trampoline, and after squeezing all 3 of them in the quite small bath (!) Princess slept in D's room and they chatted until late.

On Monday we were up at dawn again, D went to school, A went to work and B and L had errands to run. Princess and I took a walk to the train station and caught a train into the center of Sydney. We got off at Town Hall and walked down the hill to Darling Harbour and the Chinese Gardens, which is a gorgeous oasis of ponds, waterfalls and pavilions in the middle of the city. Princess loved it, and I was able to allow her to disappear exploring as the whole place is walled in and safe for a sensible kid. Another old friend came to meet us there with her 18 month old daughter whom I had not yet met, and we had a cup of tea and then the kids fed the koi before we left.

Walking in the direction of the Aquarium I met up with other old friend, and we stopped at a seafood restaurant for lunch before Princess and I continued to the Aquarium.

Princess adored the Aquarium! I hadn't taken her there before for various reasons, so it was a new experience and she is definitely the right age to really enjoy it. We ogled at fishtanks, saw a reclusive platypus, glowing jellyfish, lots of seahorses, and of course the shark tunnels and the dugongs. We even saw fish :-)

When we finished at the Aquarium it was late afternoon and Princess was a bit weary, so we took a taxi back to the train station and caught a train back to B&A's. We stayed another night and the kids stayed up late yet again.

On Tuesday morning we were all exhausted, but B&A had to get to work and D and L had to get to school and daycare, so up everyone got at dawn again. Princess and I didn't have to rush off so we had a quiet morning after everyone left, and at 10 we headed out to do a little shopping and then to Princess' eye specialist.

Princess was born with strabismus, or a squint, in both eyes. She has had surgery twice to fix it, and now her eyes are 99% straight but she is still not using both eyes together. She also needs glasses for slight astigmatism. I thought I'd take her back to the specialist for a check up.

Princess didn't do all that well in the eye test, but part of me wonders if that isn't because she was just so very tired! The doctor gave me a new glasses prescription too, as she didn't agree with the script the local ophthalmologist gave us. There isn't anything we can do for the eyes working independently, unfortunately, but it isn't going to impact on Princess' life too much. She just won't be a great tennis player or be able to watch a 3D movie.

After the eye testing was finally over Princess and I got on the road back to Canberra. We stopped for burgers on the way and got home after dark, not long before bedtime.

It was lovely to be home in our own beds, and after 2 sleeps Princess and I are pretty much back to normal.

Sydney is certainly "The Best!"

Desk

At my new job I have the biggest desk I've had in years! We are annoyingly restricted to only one monitor for eco-bongo reasons so that gives me more room than usual I suppose, but it is still a huge space.

We are open plan, but have quite high dividing "walls" - I have to stand up to see the person opposite me.

From left to right:

• A small hanging shelf bearing:
  1. A pink and white African violet. This gets a few comments, they are quite unusual in Australia.
  2. Hand sanitiser
  3. Handcream
  4. A box of tissues
  5. A tin of sugarfree mints


• A water bottle and a glass, and my coffee mug (with a red poppy pattern)


• Desk phone


• A pad of paper and a pen


• My iPhone


• In front of me: A computer, monitor and keyboard and mouse. I have a set of bud earphones plugged in to the computer and a small pot of lip balm sitting of top of it. Also a postit note with my user id (but never my password!!!)


• A postit note pad, with a shopping list in progress on it.


• A digital photo frame, which changes the picture every hour (currently showing King and Princess playing with toy golf clubs in a park). This turns itself off overnight and on weekends, good for the eco-bongos too!


• Another small hanging shelf bearing:
  1. A box of teabags (being a government department we have to bring in our own tea, coffee, milk etc)
  2. A tube of Nespresso pods (although they do supply a Nespresso machine!)
  3. A fruit fly trap in a white coffee mug. I have seen no flies in the last 2 days!
  4. A blue plastic mesh bowl containing apples and bananas


• Some detritus - an apple core and tissues - waiting to be taken to the kitchen bin. We have no rubbish bins at our desks.


• A set of drawers containing handbag, flat shoes and muesli bars


• Under my desk is a backpack with my gym kit

What does your desk look like?

Fruit Flies!

My new office has a fruit fly problem.

After a couple of days of having oodles of the little buggers turn up every time I ate something fruity at my desk I googled for a solution, and this has definitely worked for me:

Take a mug (or a used takeaway coffee cup or whatever. Not something glass unless you want to see dead flies... well, maybe you do!). Pour in an inch of vinegar or fruit juice (I am currently using cider vinegar. It just has to smell sweet and fermenty). Squirt in a little dishwashing liquid and stir. Fashion an inverted cone from paper and make a small hole at the bottom. Tape this over the top of your container.

The flies are attracted to the smell of the juice and enter through the hole in the cone (and will find it hard to find their way out again). If they land on the liquid then the soap will have reduced the surface tension so that they fall in and drown.

I went from 20 flies arriving per snack to perhaps one (sometimes none) within 2 weeks.

Pro tip: if you have something the flies adore (like a banana peel), leave it next to your fly trap for half an hour before throwing it away. The flies will hone in on the trap once they are in the area.

IsoWhey Verdict

IsoWhey verdict after 4 days: Fail.

I seem to have lost no weight at all, and I've been very well behaved except for some wine on Wednesday. I far prefer WeightWatchers where I always lose weight if I stick to my points and I can eat real food rather than sweet shakes and bars.

If you love sugar and starchy carbs and are very overweight then this will probably work for you, but if you are already on a low-starch high-protein diet and are only a bit overweight then it probably won't do much.

PS. I know 4 days is a short time for a trial, but I also know that on WeightWatchers I would have lost at least half a kilo in 4 days. I was expecting better than that from IsoWhey.

PPS. After a bit of Google research I have found info that indicates that ingesting protein as a liquid does not make you feel full, which is why I was struggling so much when I replaced 5 points of chicken for lunch with 5 points of shake. Our bodies do not register liquid calories and still want solid food. The body building folk use protein shakes to bulk up! So be careful...

IsoWhey Day 4

This morning the scale said I was back down to my weight from day 2, so yesterday was just bloating. I did eat a few rather salty things again yesterday, and I cracked and had half a bottle of wine last night too (I made it to 8pm but the scent of Milord's glass of wine eventually broke me. I have no willpower!) so perhaps if I avoid all salt and alcohol today I will actually see a loss tomorrow? We shall see.

Really, I'd just like to fit comfortably into my jeans for the weekend, when Princess and I are driving 3 hours to Sydney and staying with friends for a few days. Princess needs to see her Sydney eye specialist again next Tuesday, and the timing coincides with a party this Saturday for my goddaughter and her mum, so Girlie Trip here we come! I'm really looking forward to catching up with friends after so long, and doing a few touristy things with my daughter. 5 is such a lovely age.

Anyway, regarding the IsoWhey, this is probably my last day on it unless I see more than a half kilo loss tomorrow. I far prefer Weightwatchers.

Today:

7am: Coffee shot with skimmed milk at home (2pt)
Breakfast: Chocolate IsoWhey bar, eaten slowly between 8:30 and 9:30 (6pt)
11am: Banana (2pt) and carrot sticks
Lunch: Light salad, carrot sticks and celery sticks
3pm: IsoWhey Vanilla shake with skimmed milk (5pt)
Dinner: TBA but I have 11 points over (Mom is doing a grocery shop today. I never know what I'm going to be cooking on shopping day until I get home!)

Still Sunny

I am still here, and life is still good! I really must get back into the blogging habit - I have plenty of time to do it...

My new job is great, even though I have gone backward in terms of technology and methodologies (it is a legacy system). Good money, great working environment and friendly people. Sadly, I'm in a state of limbo because they are finishing off a major release and the bugs are too ephemeral for me to help out much, so I spend a lot of time picking unimportant bugs out of the backlog and investigating them. It's pretty mindless, and they say we won't start new development until JULY!!!

I think I was hired to justify the budget going into the new financial year (I'm working for a government department) - just a bum in a seat. Oh well, I'm being paid a lot to do nothing!

Since I last wrote Milord had a birthday, we had a wedding anniversary and Easter. Lots of dinners and wine, lovely.

Which means I have put back on all the weight I lost coming up to my birthday. I'm trying to shake it off. I am closer to my gym at this job, so I am getting back into my 2 or 3 times a week workout routine.

I also decided to give a crash diet an attempt, instead of my usual Weightwatchers. "They" say that they lose like half a kilo a day on the protein shake diets, so that would be awesome, right? I should lose a dress size in a week! So, here I review Optifast and IsoWhey.

If you have arrived here to compare WW to IsoWhey, I used the old points for fruit to keep it fair. So that's 2 for a banana and 1 for an apple.
Optifast and Isowhey bars are both about 6 points. The IsoWhey shakes are 3 points before you add milk.
My WW points allowance is 26.

Last week I tried swapping out my breakfast for Optifast bars. These were disgusting - incredibly sweet and dense - and I was hungry again within a couple of hours! I thought the whole point of the protein meal-replacements was that you wouldn't be hungry until the next mealtime? The Optifast bars were so nasty that I didn't even try the shakes!

This week I'm trying IsoWhey products.

• On Monday I had coffee at home (espresso shot with skimmed milk, 2 pt), then I had a shake with skimmed milk (5pt) for breakfast at 8:30am (coffee-flavor, quite nice) and I was tummy-growling hungry by 9:30am.
  I had a banana (2pt) and stuck it out until 1pm when I had a light salad and the berry-flavor protein bar (6pt. very nice, like an oversize normal muesli bar) and that kept me going until about 4pm when I ate 2 apples (2pt).
  I was bite-your-head-off hangry by the time I got home! Dinner was a lamb shank (9pt yum) and vegetables.
  Using the Weightwatchers points calculator I had used my normal points allowance of 26.


• On Tuesday I had coffee at home (2pt), then half the chocolate protein bar (nice) at 8:30 and the other half at 9:30 (6pt).
  At 11am I was very hungry and I had a banana (2pt) and some carrot sticks. At 1pm I had a light salad and a soup made from the lamb shank sauce (2pt yum!).
  At 4pm I had the strawberry protein shake (5pt not bad) and an apple and I wasn't hangry when I got home.
  Dinner was a small portion of roast chicken (5pt) and lots of spicy roasted butternut pumpkin and peas (3pt).
  Again I used my normal points allowance.


• Today: Coffee, berry protein bar, banana, carrot sticks.
  I am currently eating the light salad and will shortly go and heat up my lamb shank sauce soup.
  I will have a shake and an apple late afternoon and dinner will be a slice of two of roast lamb with veggies.
  This will take me to my normal points allowance.
  Edited to add: the banana shake is vile!

Verdict so far:

1. I haven't seen any dramatic weight loss (the scale actually told me I'd gained half a kilo since Monday! I hope it is just the salty soups and veggies making me bloat).


2. According to my Weightwatchers calculator I would have been consuming the same "points" anyway.


3. I am WAY hungrier on these protein bars and shakes than I normally am when I eat eggs or chicken for breakfast and lunch.


4. I seem to have less energy, but I'm not sure about this - it could be normal don't-feel-like-gymitis!

So, I am not very impressed yet. Weightwatchers would have had me eating the same amount of calories/nutrients/protein but in a far more satisfying way.

I wonder if this only works for the seriously overweight who normally overeat on mostly carbs? I am overweight by "only" 10kg and I normally eat a high-protein low-carb diet, so perhaps that's why I feel so hungry. I'm actually taking in less protein and more carbs with the shakes and bars!

If I don't see more than a half kilo loss on the scale on Friday (which sticking to Weightwatchers would have given me) then I'll have to call these protein crash diets a real dud. I'll let you know!

Newsletter March 2015

Hi all,

 

I have one hour left at my crappy job and then I am free! I have landed a new contracting job just a couple of blocks away. Double the money! Hourly pay! Paid overtime! I can't wait - it has been a very long 19 months. I start my new job on Monday so I will have a couple of days off to relax before jumping in the deep end again. 

 

So what else is news?

 

Milord got a promotion to COO a month ago and he is Very Happy. Lots more money too... we are both finally back to where we were before we had kids :-) 

 

We are celebrating by replacing everything that has worn out around the house during our dark time. New pots and pans! Whee! New lounge suite. Towels. Perhaps a car upgrade shortly from my poor scuffed and leaky runabout... awesome.

 

The kids are well. Princess started school in Feb (year 0) and she Loves It. 8 weeks along and she is picking up reading and writing at an amazing rate. King has moved into the oldest room of his daycare and we hope this will help him along with his speech and counting - he just isn't interested. It's funny how different siblings can be.

 

Milord has also joined the local golf club and plays a couple of times a week. His handicap is creeping down which pleases him a lot! And I am contemplating finding art or sculpture classes on the weekends - it's been years since I touched a paintbrush!

 

Since I last wrote:

 

We had a wonderful Christmas break. 4 days at home over Christmas and then a week at the coast. Christmas was just us at home with pressies and too much food. New Years Eve we were asleep by 10, woken briefly by fireworks at midnight, and then again by some idiot setting theirs off at 4am! The kids (and the fucking kookaburras!) get up at dawn no matter what, so you learn to sleep when you can. The kids loved the beach - we all did. Lots of sand and sea and sunshine and white wine spritzers. This year we hope to get a place with a pool too and perhaps stay an extra week. 

 

Work has been mental. I've been working long 6-day weeks for months now. Half an hour to go now... LOL.

 

Princess got glasses. We are little worried that she might still not be using both eyes at the same time, I will be taking her back to the specialist in May.

 

For my birthday Milord and I took the day off and spent the day around Canberra, visiting art galleries and eating good food with lots of fine wine, and we ended by spending the night in a posh hotel. Most decadent and it took a few days to recover!

 

Canberra is being good to us. I have a good feeling about the rest of the year!

 

Walking on Sunshine

I am happy.

1. I have a new job! I start in just over 2 weeks. I had a wonderful feeling from the people interviewing me and I am feeling very excited about this one.


2. My income is going to double!


3. Milord has negotiated a promotion and huge raise and a cut of profits.


4. Princess is still loving school and she got a merit award last week. Nerd child - just like her mummy! She is so close to reading and writing already, it is awesome.


5. I have been slowly losing some weight this year. I am back in my "fat" jeans LOL.


6. Work is still very busy, but as I am leaving the project in 14 days I am spending more time documenting stuff than coding, and I am not working overtime any more!


7. My birthday was yesterday. Milord and I took the day off and spent the day around Canberra, visiting art galleries and eating good food with lots of fine wine, and we ended by spending the night in a posh hotel.

Life is good! We are out of the long dark tunnel of the past 2 years.

Hmm, what else?

• I bought Milord a golf club membership as an early birthday present, and he is happily getting back into the swing of it. It is nice not to have him moping around the house all weekend!


• Princess now has glasses. And the optometrist reckons she still isn't using her eyes together, so we are off to the specialist again. wah.


• King has made a BFF at daycare. The other day his BFF didn't come to daycare (they have cut his days because he is getting a baby sibling) and King cried himself to sleep about it. I am trying to set up playdates for the poor little blokes.


• Mom and I have started doing jigsaws - the kids are finally old enough to leave them alone. We are enjoying them enormously.

Princess and I had some quality time the other day. Haircut, chocolate cake, eye test...

On the day of my interview I met Mom and King for lunch afterwards.

Me on a post-interview high!

Princess with her new glasses. "Just like yours Mummy!"

Milord and me at the Very Posh Hotel for my birthday evening.

And the view this morning - if you look carefully you can see 17 hot air balloons in the morning sunshine!

Start of an Era

Princess started Big School on Monday!

She thoroughly enjoys it and looks forward to it every day far, and crashes off to sleep immediately each night! 4 days down, 13 years to go...

In other news I have been on 2 job interviews. The first I wouldn't have minded getting, but my skills weren't right for the role. The second I wouldn't want, as their setup is even most stressful and chaotic that I am in now!

There is not much around in Canberra at the moment, I suppose it will pick up towards the end of the financial year as the departments get their new budgets... I hope so anyway!

Happy New Year!

Sorry for the radio silence. Deadlines and too much overtime sapped me completely.

We had a wonderful Christmas break. 4 days at home over Christmas and then a week at the coast. Christmas was just us at home with pressies and too much food. New Years Eve we were asleep by 10, woken briefly by fireworks at midnight, and then again by some idiot setting theirs off at 4am! The kids (and the fucking kookaburras!) get up at dawn no matter what, so you learn to sleep when you can.

The kids loved the beach - we all did. Lots of sand and sea and sunshine and white wine spritzers. It is good to be home though. The kids were exhausted - they shared a room and stayed up late every night playing. King slept 12 hours straight the first night we were home!

Next year we hope to get a place with a pool too and perhaps stay an extra week. That's if we get more money, anyway!

Work has been mental. I've been working long 6-day weeks for months now. It is a killer project, but the skills I am getting (I'm a Team Lead on it) will be great on my CV. I plan to shop around over the next couple of months to see what is out there, then either leave or ask for a monster raise. I would love to go contracting again...

Milord is in the process of negotiating a big raise at his place. If we both get raises then we can start paying off the principal on the mortgage for the first time in years! And plan better holidays - why else do we work? Oh, and better schools LOL

On that subject Princess will be starting Big School in February and is very excited. She looks so cute in her first school uniform!

I probably have lots of stuff to tell you since October, but if I wait to write them down it'll never happen!

The whole household is now doing a booze-free stint. Day 4 and I feel like crap: tired, fuzzy, achey, spotty and sleeping badly. Hopefully this will settle down soon!

A holiday Royal Fix: