a little catch up

Just a quickie - scrapped this for the Scrapgoddessses monthly challenge:

and this for this week's SLYMI:

Went back to Rosemary Conley (the club, not Rosemary personally) and I lost 2lb in weight. It's OK, but I would expect to lose more this week since I have halved the calories I was consuming and doubled the exercise.... Think this is probably the healthiest 'diet' I have ever used, since there is a close eye on fat content - not just calories. Also would like to point out that I am not a diet freak counting every calorie - and neither do I advocate that - I pig on food - not binge, I am basically very greedy. And I cannot bear the idea of not drinking wine of an evening, so I have not denied myself that.

I cannot even begin to describe the utter joy I experienced in the supermarket this week when chancing upon a low calorie/low fat (and no doubt low flavour) pizza. I sang my way to the checkout I can tell you. Chef's critique to follow.

my life in calories

Last Thursday I deicded I could no longer go on with my high-alcohol massive food portion lifestyle, so I joined Rosemary Conley's Diet & Fitness Club. I am finding it hard to get my head around since I love cooking, and watching my calorie/fat intake impacts seriously on my interest in food. I find that all I can think about is when/what I will be eating next and how many calories I will have left at the end of the day to treat myself to wine.

Anyway, I was motivated to get on the cross trainer for 22 minutes this morning, which is a record - and I now have a further 200 calories for today! I know, I know, those calories are meant to be unconsumed and a bonus, but man cannot live on diet alone. It is Saturday night, and I want wine heh heh heh.

Scrapwise - did manage the week 17 SLYMI - I got to use my photo from a few posts back (I am still pissed at the week 16 failure) and will be working on week 18 later. Also have set the monthly challenge on my UKS team thread so will have that to show v. soon.

Week 17: scrap with lace & layers:

bits and bobs

weeellll, I finished Katie's jewellery -

Apparently she was very pleased with it but wasn't convinced I had actually made them myself. I take this as a compliment but advised that she would quite happily believe that I had made them when the bits start falling off.

What else....Oliver had his Judo weekend and found it all a bit long and tiring I think. He is so slight and easily worn out, bless.

Have been a bit sulky with the scrapping this week - last week's SLYMI was to 'scrap in the morning' which pissed me off somewhat, since the morning is not really an option for me to sidle off and indulge my need to fiddle with paper. So I spent the week sulking. Like a spoilt brat because the challenge didn't suit me. Really, you'd think Shimelle would give me a little more personal consideration.

This week's is a nice one, so have nearly finished a layout there. I will do the 'morning' challenge at my crop which I haven't been able to attend since December. (more sulking).

We celebrated our 10th - that's tenth wedding anniversary this week, which is a pretty amazing thing taking into account that it is a second marriage for the both of us, and it has not been a smooth path steering through sullen stepchildren and vengeful exes.

Anyway - Mark bought me these lovely flowers:

And we went out for a meal in Princesshay - La Strada. Where I got right ripped off for a measly 'glass' (note the inverted commas there) of Prosecco. I will be complaining in the strongest terms.

C'est tout.

A few things to share....

It is Katie's birthday next week & she will be 12. Have always liked buying Katie presents - she is quite easy to buy for, but not so sure of her taste lately so have decided to make her pressies. Have made this:
And am halfway through this:

And will make earrings to match. Finished my bracelet too, here it is:

Looks a bit of a mess like this to tell you the truth, but I like the way it clicks and rattles on my wrist and the colours are really very pretty in real life.

And - news flash - am up to 14 minutes on the cross trainer, AND - where did this come from??!!!!

I do refer, of course, to the bruise from hell, not the fat lardy arse cheeks surrounding it ha ha. Oh - and those lines on my legs are jeans creases, not some serious circulation problem. I woke up feeling a bit sore and asked Mark did I have a bruise or something and lo - the purple patch of power! Bit concerning that.... I reckon he pokes me in the buttocks with a sharp stick out of spite throughout the night....

A bad workman always blames his tools...?

I think this saying is absolute tripe when in the kitchen. My Mum hated cooking, and so, as a consequence, there was a distinct lack of equipment (let alone ingredients) at home to cook with when the urge struck. I had to 'make do', and it is only of later years that I have realised that you cannot make do when cooking if you expect your food to vaguely resemble the picture in the recipe. (And taste remotely edible).

Of course you can get away with some things: measuring in rough tablespoons, using a medium egg when a large one is specified etc etc, but you canNOT - NOT - I have found to my huge detriment get away with skimping on equipment. And here is the proof:

In the recipe, the top of this cake is supposed to be 'flawlessly smooth.' I am tempted to call Nigella Lawson a lying bitch, but, this is Saint Nigella of the giant fridge we are talking about, so I have looked back over my method and found that she prepared her chocolate in a food processor - and I hand chopped mine with a big knife. I don't have a food processor. Herein lies my point. With a food processor, my choc would have been in tiny pieces. With the big knife method I had large lumps which showed no inclination to melt in the hot cream. I cannot even print what Mark said when he clapped eyes on it and I casually mentioned the term 'flawlessly smooth'.

Gotta laugh.

So, on to scrapping where I do have the right equipment lol. Week 15 of SLYMI - living on the edge. I had originally wanted to scrap this photo:

Cropped deliberately to be 'on the edge' by the way, but when I got it printed out I liked it so much that I decided I wanted it bigger to scrap at a later date.

This is what I did in the end:

Oliver took this photo of me and Mark at Lands End in May 2007. It is probably the only decent one of the two of us with less than four chins apiece. I have formed a frame around it by ripping back double sided paper and stapled back the corner for added 'interest' (!) I am pleased with the result.

Oh, and beading. It was good - went over some pretty dull basics, but very, very valuable to me taking into account my attention to detail problem. I am awaiting a delivery of some findings to finish off a bracelet, so will post pics when I have finished it.

Been playing around with a new blog look. This will do for now. I am no computer genius by any stretch of the imagination so it is always a bit of a surprise when it turns out looking anything like one imagines a blog to look.....

Got the old cross-trainer assembled single-handedly I might add. Took a fair old while, but I am no expert with nuts and bolts. (beginning to wonder what I am an expert in to be fair). I have been on it every day since last Thursday - it's hard. So far I have only managed a maximum of 6 minutes!! Wimp. Have found that it is marginally easier with the tension taken down from 8 to 3 though ha ha.

Finished this for the week 14 SLYMI -

The challenge this week is to scrap something hidden, so have done this layout with hidden journalling detailing my 'hidden desire' that my Mum had felt more able as I was growing up to be a little more interested in my femininity, so I could have been more of a 'girl'.

No blame there - just a bit sad things could have been a bit different for me and her.

Off beading tomorrow night with niece Georgie - I have a box of beading 'stuff' which I dip into sporadically, but I would love to do more. What lets me down (in all aspects of my life I have realised) is my lack of attention to detail. Hopefully having realised this failing, I can make a few tweaks and achieve more.

Who I am trying to kid - I am forty years old already.....

cross-training (well, maybe a bit-annoyed-training)

Got my cross-trainer! I have been thinking about this for ages - I used to exercise big-style - first with athletics/running and then latterly netball and competitive badminton and therefore have never really had weight 'issues'. Then I had a serious knee injury a couple of years ago at a netball match, and then took up an evening job and - gradually, weight has gathered nicely around my midriff, thighs and arse cheeks. And chin.




Over the last couple of years I have bought and sold every piece of sports equipment known to the western world (and a few hailing from the old Eastern Bloc too) and have failed spectacularly to keep any of them up regularly for more than embarrassingly short periods of time. The most successful was a dead posh running machine (endorsed by the lovely Roger Black) which, because of my knee, I could only use for walking in the end, but still it was a pain in the arse because I had it out in the 'sun-lounge' (draughty glass area attached to the house) and unless I got up at stupid o'clock to exercise (bloody freezing outside of the height of summer) I was in full view of any interested allotment holder or next-door neighbour. Not nice for either party really.


The least successful was the Kettlebell (endorsed by the airhead Geri Halliwell) which was so unbelievably shite it beggars belief - it was basically an extraordinarily heavy lump of metal with an inbuilt handle which you grasped firmly and then performed impossible exercises with. One of them involved almost flinging it through the TV, and another almost putting myself in traction. That one went straight to ebay without passing Go.


soooo - the cross-trainer, after tentative negotiations and passionate pleas, is going into our bedroom where I am convinced I will be hugely motivated to flop out of bed, into my trainers and puff my way into the day. I have visions of bringing in a DVD player and a radio to assist with things, but we'll have to see. Then I'll set up a minibar and jacuzzi and I'll be well sorted ha ha.