Heading in the right direction!!!

Tonight I lost 1 1/2 lbs, bit slower than the last two weeks, but its still weight off, grand total now of 15 lbs. I'm happy !!!

Today I have Won !!!

I received a little white envelope in the post this morning and when I opened it I had won a draw in a competition run by our local MP.
So Tom and I will be having lunch at the Auberge du Lac at Brocket Hall sometime soon. Way out of our normal league!!
Off to google it now to take a look!

I have tagged

Good evening, (to all my fans where ever you are!!!)
I have been tagged by the lovely Maria. She would like to know 6 things about me that are weird, so here goes............

1. I am ambidextrous, not in all things, but in a few, I can write with both hands,I can use my left as well as my right. (doh, that what ambidextrous means !!)

2. I suffer from deja vue, I frequently notice something only to have it turn up out of the blue a few days later,its actually a very useful skill to have.

3. I can touch my toes, in fact I can put my hands flat on the floor without bending my knees!!

4. I drive a cute little van which is white and covered in multi coloured flowers. (My kids consider that to be Really Really weird!!)

5. When swimming if I do breast stroke arms, but keep my legs perfectly straight, I make an enormous amount of waves which can actually make the water choppy enough to leap out of the pool!!!

6. I can recite every state in the USA in alphabetical order!!


I tag Shirleen!!!

Still broken !!

Got up thinking perhaps my computer had relented and decided that with a rest it would work again. No such luck I'm afraid, still misbehaving. So I have phoned the engineer and explained and he said that he should be able to access the files and save them, but it depends just how badly sick it is. So fingers crossed, he is coming out on Tuesday to try and breath life into it again.

Today we have been around to mum and dads and repaired their fence, I have also watered in weed killer to their garden path, dad is not able to walk and water at the same time, its amazing ow many little things are affected, at least he is up and running and it was an easy job for me.

Its a beautiful windy day and our shed roof is holding up ok. (fingers crossed!!)

I would like to take a trip out, just to blow the cobwebs away!!

Upset

My pc has died and chose the moment that I was transferring my pictures to cd's to do it, I am distraught. I hope that they can be rescued. I will need to get someone to look at it and clonethe hard drive and rescue them if possible.
The other bad news is that I will have lost all of my outlook contacts. So any of my friends reading this will have to email me, so I can pick up their addresses again.
Oh bugger, I want my phtos back.
sob sob.

Fence Fixing.

Yesterday Tom and I were both off of work, the plan was to fix the fence that had come down in the storm, we also needed to fix the roof of the alley way lean too, which had also blown off in places.
We went to all the DIY places and a the builders merchants to try and buy an angle iron. We decided that this was the only way to repair it as the post had broken off level with the ground, unfortunately the post is surrounded 6 foot on all sides by concrete paths and patios, so digging it out would have been near impossible. As it turns out the quest to buy an angle iron was harder. In the end we had to get two specially made for us at a local metal smiths!!
This morning we went out to hammer it into the ground with the aid of my recently purchased sledge hammer. It worked like a dream until we came to the part where we needed to screw the post to the angle iron, it was then that Tom realised that he hadn't charged his screwdriver or drill. That slowed things up considerably.
Anyway several hours later we finished it and it now looks as good a new and we hope that this time things will survive the winds.

We popped around to see mum and dad and have arranged to go back tomorrow to do the same to their fence, also a victim of the winds.

Tom and I did the weekly shop at Lidls, another slog. Tom ha now taken Beth on a bike ride. Time to think about dinner.

Week 2.

Just got back from Slimming World and tonight I lost 4 1/2 pounds!! 1/2 lb off of a stone, so I am well pleased. I also won slimmer of the week and the weekly raffle, so a very very good night!!
Next week I hope to have shifted the 1/2 lb to get my 1 stone sticker.
Fingers crossed that I will keep the faith and stick with it until I weigh 10 stone!! (no Pressure there!)

Here we Snow!!!!

Beth got up early and was ready, washed,fed and hair brushed 15 minutes before school started so that she could go outside and play in the snow!

The snow was not very deep and it looked as if it would not last too long, so she got out there and made a few balls and chucked some of them at me!! I was pleased to catch the shots of her in action!

We got to school early and she played with her friends in the playground.

Tonight there is none left, but more forecast for tomorrow!! Hurrah!!

The weather is turning Wintery.

It looks like bang on schedule we are getting our winter weather. Its seems every time we approach the end of January, we get a few days of snow, great for my photos and as long as its just a couple of days that will be fine. Its pretty cold with the forecast of snow for Wednesday.

Yesterday I took Beth over the field for a play on the swings, by the time we arrived there it was dark, its some how more exciting playing on the swings in the dark!!

Missed the swimming.

Unfortunately Thursday night was a bit of a wash out, the weather was terrible, windy and raining, so I decided that it would be safer to stay at home rather than risk the roads and all the fallen trees. Today we have had more of the same so its a real wintry weekend.

As a result of the wind we have damage to our side fence, so next weekend we will have to replace a fence post and the roof on the alleyway shed!

This morning I collected a dozen jigsaw puzzles for mum from a Freecycler in Welwyn Garden City. This is a fantastic idea, its a yahoo group, where people advertise what they are throwing away and people can ask for it. It saves stuff going into landfill and it is useful. So mum now has an extra dozen big jigsaws and the donor now has a clear shelf!! I have managed to get rid of a load of stuff including the partition wall from the bedroom, a bike , odd furniture etc. I have rehomed a set of pine drawers, a Dr Who sticker book, a vintage suitcase, a tumble dryer condenser. Its a really great idea.

Carl has gone to the pictures with a mate at the Galleria, and Beth is at home playing doctors with her babies.She is all dressed up and even has rubber gloves!

I feel at a loose end, waiting to do something but I know not what !!

First Weigh in.

I am pleased to say that my first weigh in resulted in a 9 pounds loss. Hurrah!! At the moment I feel so positive, so I have to make the most of that and hope that the feeling stays.

Tonight at Slimmers world I was given a book to track my journey so I have got Carl to take a couple of photos and I am going to do the same every month until I weigh 10 stone (thank god for digital, or it would be very very expensive!!!)

As an added bonus Wendy lost 2 1/2 lbs . We are going swimming tomorrow night again so I will try and do another 30 lengths, It would be great if I could do a stone in two weeks !!

Had a tough morning

Poor Beth had a bit of toothache yesterday and during the night. When I looked at her tooth it looked fine but there was a huge lump on the side with what looked like half a tooth in it. I could not work out where that had come from and if it was part of a new or old tooth. Anyway phoned the dentist and took the day off of work to get her sorted.

The dentist took a look and spotted the start of a small hole in one of her bottom teeth and when he checked out the top one, found that the odd thing was in fact the remains of her baby tooth, possibly the root. So in the blink of an eye he got his probe under it and flicked it out. Beth hit the roof. He then had to put a bit of a filling in the bottom tooth to cover that up and by then she was wailing.

We are now home with the root in a tooth fairy sachet, she has been dosed up on Calpol and she is now examining her half a dozen Pirates of the Caribbean stickers that they gave her. (to get her out of the place before all the waiting patients run away)

On the plus side I get an unexpected day to do some of my own thing!!

I've been again.

This afternoon I went swimming again. Took Beth,Heather,Alasdair and Emma. We bought a family ticket which was good value, even though we were not a family, they never queried it!
Anyway the girls played around with Ali for a bit and then when the diving boards opened they went on them. I think they were very keen and a bit mad. It was freezing once you were out of the water and they had to queue up for some time to get a turn.

Heather and I swam lengths, Heather must have done a million, but I decided to take it easier today fearing a return of my aching shoulders, so I did 20. I am pleased with that.

So this week I have swam 50 lengths or 1650 metres !! Whoopee!!

I was right!

Well my predicted aching became a reality in the middle of the night, a combination of sleeping and a cold bedroom, made sure that my shoulders really ached. Being a wimp I could not get back to sleep, so I got up took a couple of pain killers and went back with my hot water bottle.

By mid morning at work I was fine, and now its as if I had never swam!! Stupidly I have agreed to go tomorrow afternoon with my friend Heather and the girls, I may yet chicken out, no point aggravating things!!

Food wise it seems to be going well. Slimming world, is quite an easy plan to follow. My danger point is in the evening when I want to nibble, somehow fruit is not as satisfying as a nice biscuit or bar of chocolate. Tonight to beat the munchies I took the decision to eat a tin of baked beans!!! Not quite the same but it meant that I had something to eat and that I was able to make them last a long time.

So its early days, but I have now done the first 2 days which is where the cravings are, perhaps once I get to the week I will have got over the desire to eat chocolate! (I am an optimist!)

I've Started.

Tonight I went swimming for the first time in ages and I swam 30 lengths of the pool in Hatfield. (It is 33 metres long so I swam 990 metres, wish I had realised I was so close to the thousand, and I would have done a couple more!)
I was quite tired but I am glad I have done it. I expect my arms and shoulders will be protesting in the morning !

Not much happening

Apart from the fact that I have decided to go back to slimming world. I want to lose weight before we go on holiday in October. I was encouraged when I weighted in to find that I weighted less than the last time I went (June 06) So although its ages since I last went, I am no worse off.

I decided to go back to one of Sue's classes. She is such a nice lady and really encourages everyone. It was so odd to go back and see lots of people that were there the last time. Lots of them have been very successful. Mum decided to come as well, so I collected mum and Wendy and we headed off. The only problem was we couldn't find the school, eventually 30 minutes late we arrived. We joined the new people bit, except the people weren't new. There was a lady called Diana who had been at the last class. Dina was there with Ryanne!

Today has been a good day fingers crossed it continues!

Great News

Well after a month of turmoil, things have turned around quite dramatically. On Friday Laura had her appraisal at work where it was decided that she would be offered a full time position. She went into the appraisal expecting the worse, having had a bad result from a mystery shopper, but her boss asked her to tell her why she should be kept on. So Laura got out her 'don't sack me' folder and told them of all her achievements. She said this made her boss laugh so much that she thought that she was going to expire with all the coughing she was doing!
She was so relieved to be signed on and become a full member of staff, with all the benefits that it brings (pay rise!!)

Yesterday Scott phoned to say that he had finally signed his contract as a full time member of staff for John Lewis. He has been there for 9 months, there was an understanding that he would be made permanent at the end of the first three months, but for some reason that didn't happen. He did not chase them. They renewed his contract a further 2 times as a temporary employee. This was getting Laura down and it worried me. Once he had been there for 12 months he would have employment rights, so I was worried that they might just not renew the next time and leave him without a job and then that would affect their ability to stay in the flat.

So within the space of 2 days they have both gone from temporary to full time members of staff. Its a huge relief for everyone!!

Again on the plus side, Scotts permenant status gives him a share in the staff discount scheme, he gets the staff bonus and he can put his name on the waiting list for one of the flats to rent above Welwyn Department Stores. These flats are lovely and have the added bonus of a reasonable rent, plus free water rates and free heating. They would be better off all round. So fingers crossed for continuing happiness!

Happy Skating !!

On New years day Beth and Emma went skating on the rink in town. The previous visit had been called off due to terrible weather, we had torrential rain so they closed the rink.

We went at 4pm and the girls and Heather got booted up, they hit the rink and hated it !! Beth said that it hurt her ankles, Emma said that it was too slippy and the large white tiles made of plastic kept coming apart and they got stuck in the grooves!

We had booked for an hour but they only managed 30 minutes before giving up on it.

Great idea but everyone on there said that real ice was easier!! Which made me wonder, if they all went on a real ice rink, if they would turn into Torville and Dean!!!