WOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wasn’t going to post tonight but after the night I had - how can I not tell all of you !!!! (This is going to be a lengthy one (especially for you Kate !) so if you want to go and get something to drink before you start - now is the time to go,
You will have realised by now that I am the queen of the exclamation mark - my e-mails to my folks (or anyone else for that matter) would have been half the length if I had left those pesky exclamation marks out but how would I have been able to express myself without them ???????
Anyway - the title to this post says it all so well !!!
I’ll start at the beginning of the day - actually - I’ll start at yesterday after having got to bed at about 3am - was rudely awakened at 7.45 with a call from my mother-in-law to wish me happy birthday. So, my sleep in for Saturday went out the door. Last night I got to bed at about 2.30am - and was awakened at 7.15 by an SMS someone sent to Al to say Hi - how are you doing even though this person knew he was in Taiwan !!! So, my sleep in for Sunday went out the door as well. Never mind, we got up and went for our walk to Paradise Point - an hour round trip. Stopped to see my folks at the market (they had a dreadful day and didn’t even sell enough stock to pay for their table) and then came home and did my ab exercises (courtesy of M) and my fit ball work out. Then put a load of washing on and after that was out the machine went off to Coles as I had to pick up some safety things from the office.
After that we went to drop off a thank you present for a friends daughter who had given me a whole lot of clothes (Billabong / Roxy / Rusty) for Kaitlin and then to see my friend who had twins in November and a little boy of 2 and a bit - so three kids under the age of 2 ½ (rather her than me !!!!)
Then we came home and I had to sort out some finances before finally having a bath and being able to use my nice new smellies - what a lovely time I had - soaking away (last night I did have a bath but it wasn’t the nice long soak I had been anticipating !!!!!) and reading my book.
Going back about 10 days - Kaitlin asked if we could go out for my birthday - I thought something was up when she asked if we could go out for my birthday on Sunday 24th to Arundel Tavern at 6.30pm - bit too much information for something so far in advance. So I guessed something was up but didn’t know what to expect. Anyway, we were going with my folks and so there was the 4 of us and I thought that she may have invited my brother and his wife and my brother-in-law and his wife. When we got there, she had invited them plus 3 other good friends of mine and their partners and children !!!!!!!!!!! What a surprise I got when we got there and I walked in a saw everyone - it was just lovely !!! We had a fantastic evening - my brother’s wife had helped K organise most of it - there were “40” glitter things on the table - she had a lovely arrangement of flowers on the table - she had got e-mail addresses from a lot of our friends and mailed them asking if they would like to say anything and had printed their replies out - everyone around the table was given one to read and they all read them out for us. It was just amazing. She had made table mats using a collage of photos of me from when I was born to a few years ago when I graduated. My Dad took quite a few photos so when he has downloaded them I will post them for you all to see - have I said this before - it was an amazing evening !!!! She had also arranged for a birthday cake which we cut up and ate after dinner after everyone had sung happy birthday to me and I had blown out the candles (at least I never had to blow out 40 candles - think that there were about 20 on the cake !!!)
It was such a great evening !!! Kaitlin was so pleased with herself for helping to organise it and for keeping it a secret - she really has done such a tremendous job for making my birthday such a special one this year. I, who hate public speaking, felt I wanted to make a speech to thank my sister-in-law for what she had done but more importantly to acknowledge the pride that I felt for Kaitlin and what she had accomplished by herself. While I hate using clichés - she really did step up to the plate while Alan hasn’t been here, in terms of making my 40th birthday one I won’t ever forget. I hope that those of you with children out there are as blessed as I am with my child.
As you can imagine my points will all over the place again today BUT I am determined to be back on track tomorrow. I will be going to weigh in and face the scale (and the gain) and work towards getting it off again at the next weigh in. There were some people there tonight whom I haven’t seen for a while and they couldn’t stop saying how good I was looking - just what I needed to hear BUT I don’t want to become complacent about what I have achieved because I am so close to achieving my long term goal of getting to goal.
On that note I am off to make lunches for tomorrow and will try to have a reasonably early night - at this rate I should be in bed by 12 or 12.30 which will be good ! Will start my damage control tomorrow as I have just realised that I had three birthday lunches, three birthday dinners and three birthday cakes !!! So much for a ‘no fuss 40th birthday’ !!!!! Having said that - I have so enjoyed turning 40 - BRING ON MY 50th !!!!!!!!! (This is the last time I will mention my 40th birthday - I am sure that by now you are all sick and tired of reading about it !!!)

TFTG : You are only young once, the length of time it lasts is up to you.

TIAGF : Our wonderful child who, while she can drive me totally insane at times, has shown me just how much she has grown up and has made me proud of the young lady that she is turning into. I am proud to say she is my daughter.