Where has the time gone to ?

I can’t believe that it is over two weeks since I posted - where has the time gone to ??????

Get a cup of coffee and sit down if you would like to catch up on what I have been up to.

The last week of work was absolutely hectic - I can’t believe that they waited until my last day before deciding that I should show our business analyst (who has no financial back-ground whatsoever) what I do (like I could teach him much in one day anyway !!!) It was frustrating as he could have sat with me for 4 weeks prior to that and have been a lot more capable than he was when I left him. They had a lovely morning tea to say farewell and gave me a huge bunch of flowers, a photo frame with a comical picture of all the people in my department and a voucher for Anaconda - all in all I was very spoilt but I have to say that I was pleased to finish up there. The ladies in my department were not so happy and have phoned to see how my new job is going and whether I would like to come back !!!!!

Last Saturday we said goodbye to our little baby who was off on an Outward Bound adventure for 9 days. I have wondered so many times during these past 9 days as to how she is going. I am sure that she is having a ball during the days as she really is game for most things that are happening but I think she would battle a little at night when she is cold. They were going out to the Kyogle area (northern NSW) but she is due home tomorrow at lunch time and we are all really looking forward to having her home again. I am sure that she will be a lot more appreciative of what she has after not having running water and electricity and having to carry everything and take turns cooking for the 9 days !!!

Saturday and Sunday saw me vegging out catching up on some TV programmes I had taped and just trying to unwind a little - we were both really exhausted for some unknown reason as we hadn’t really done anything different during the week. Saturday night we went to some friends to watch the rugby game between Australia and South Africa - needless to say I was very happy that we whipped their butts but I was definitely in the minority !!!

Monday was my last day at work and that seemed to rush past in such a blur - I was exhausted when I finally left there at about 5.30. Got home and neither of us felt like cooking so we went to one of the local taverns with my folks and had a great evening - Al and I shared a chicken parmigana and calamari. The calamari was some of the best I have ever had. For dessert I had sticky date pudding which was just delicious !!!

Tuesday saw me have a short lie in before I was off for a massage which was just what I needed. I really should make the effort to go more often because I feel so good afterwards. Then I went and helped my folks fold the local newspaper before they went off to deliver them and I took myself off to the local shopping centre where I was walking past the beauty salon and thought “I’m going to see if they have a free appointment for a deep cleanse - if they have, I’ll take it and if not, I’m not meant to have it.” Well I had to wait about 10 minutes (I could live with that) before she could take me - again, this is something that I should try to have more often. My eating on Tuesday could have been better - stopped off at the bakery around the corner from where I used to work for an apple muffin as I had to go into Southport to buy a part for the washing machine (why is it that Al waited until I wasn’t working near Southport any longer before asking me to get the spare part for the machine ?????) Can’t remember what I had for lunch but got home and watched Grey’s from the night before. Al got home and we didn’t feel like left overs from the weekend so we got some Thai from a local restaurant.

Wednesday saw me start my new job (sans my child who was very upset that she wasn’t going to be able to come to school with me on my first day and wanted to know if I would be alright without her !!) - what a lovely group of people I now work with. I was made to feel so welcome - I was just amazed at how friendly everyone was. I have made the decision not to load bloglines or access any blogs or gmail from work so if you want to contact me, I am happy to give you my work e-mail address - just mail me on g-mail and I will give you my work address. This will obviously mean that I will be blogging less as I don’t have that much time at home to blog plus we are having umpteen problems with our home PC which I would like to replace but until we have the outside renovations completed, that isn’t going to happen. I will still be around - just maybe not as frequently as I used to be. Once we got home from work I did manage to get out for a 45 minute walk but then when I got home, neither of us could be bothered with the leftovers so Wednesday night saw us going out for pizzas. (Do you see a tragic pattern beginning to form ??)

Thursday evening I went and did another 45 minute hill walk - well it was a couple of hills which I went up and down. I want to try to take some photos of the one really big hill but I don’t know if they will come out as you can’t see the top of the hill from the bottom !!!! It took me just over 8 minutes to walk up it - boy was I pleased to see the downhill on the other side. We finally got around to eating the leftovers on Thursday night - plus some chips which we had bought on the way home !!!!!

Friday I woke up and Al had my presents all wrapped and waiting for me to open. My folks were going to pop over but didn’t as it was a little fresh and they were still in bed !!!! I had a lovely day at work with the admin and accounts department throwing a morning tea for me - and they all sang Happy Birthday just for good measure !!!! I had lots of phone calls and e-mails - it was just amazing. Al sent me the most beautiful bouquet of flowers to work - made all the more lovely because they were totally unexpected. We had made plans to go to dinner with my folks and, when I look back now, I can see a few tell tale signs of what was going on but at the time, I had no idea. We got to this lovely little Malaysian restaurant and as we walked in I saw some friends and then turned and there were another couple of friends and another couple of friends - Al had organised a surprise birthday dinner for me !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was just fantastic and I was so spoilt with another two bouquets of flowers and lots of nice smellies plus a beautiful photo frame which, as soon as I can get some decent photos of K and Al, will be going in my new office. What an amazing day I had - I can’t believe that it was a year ago I was celebrating my 40th - what made it better was I got to share it with Al this year. Unfortunately, K couldn’t share it with me but I have kept her present and will open it tomorrow when she gets home.

This morning we woke up early (why is it that when you have the chance to have a sleep in your body says “No - there is no sleep in this morning. You are wasting precious time - get up and do something !!!!” ???) We went to the Mudgeeraba farmers markets and got some lovely veggies. Unfortunately we also went into the little hall area where all the freshly baked goodies were - breakfast turned out to be a nut danish and a don-nut - they were absolutely delicious !!!!!! Then onto some friends where I had a piece of freshly baked chocolate cake (because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings by saying no thank you - Al was happy to say no though !) We were going to go for a cycle during the day but the weather turned nasty and so we landed up taking the car - maybe tomorrow if the weather holds although it is still raining as I am typing this so who knows. Lunch turned out to be biscuits and the dips we had bought this morning and dinner was soup with the lovely crusty bread we had also bought this morning !!!! Then, to make things worse, I had to pack chocolates and lollies for 2 hours tonight - that was absolute torture !!!!!! I would have given my right arm for some chocolate when we got home only to find that there was none to be found in the house - or the garage - nothing, nada, zilch - absolutely bugger all chocolate in the house !!!!!!!!!! How did that happen - there is ALWAYS chocolate in our house !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyway a soak in the bath and a Coke Zero had to satisfy me.

Well, if you have read all this you definitely deserve a medal. This has been very good for me because it has shown me how far out of control I have let things go - how much I have lost the plot and how much I am going to have to do so that my work pants will feel a little more comfortable than what they feel at the moment. The next step is to take the bigger pants I had put in the cupboard out to wear and I REALLY don’t want to have to do that. Why is it that it is so easy to let things get out of control rather than be in control ? Why is it that it is so hard to lose weight but so easy to put it back on again ? Why is it that I can’t seem to get back on track when I was doing so well a few months ago ? I guess if I knew the answers to any of those I would be able to help a lot of people and make myself a lot of money. Sadly, I will have to continue to ask these questions of myself and try to work out some sort of answer - as well as some way to counteract the downward spiral that I feel myself in right now. It is almost as if I don’t care what I put in my mouth and what it is doing to me - I feel like I am in self-destruct mode and I don’t like feeling like this. I like how I felt when I was in control - when I cared about what I ate and what I put into my mouth - when I made the healthy choices because I wanted to. I know that tomorrow is another day and I have to take a long hard look at myself and where I am heading. I have to change that around so that I head in the opposite direction because I am dreadfully unhappy going the way that I am going.

I hope that everyone has a great Sunday and that the week ahead brings you all that you wish for. Take care and be good !!