Weddings and weight loss

I fail at weight loss in the general scheme of things.  I start out with well meaning thoughts, and I am good for the first couple of days - sometimes even the first few weeks - before relapsing into bad habits.

 

However, my brother and his fiancee have now set the date for their wedding.  March 2010.  That's nine months away from now.  ARGH!  They told me they were looking at 2011!  Now that the wedding has come forward, quite substantially, weight loss is at the forefront of my thoughts.  I would like to attend J's wedding looking svelte and graceful rather than like a rather dumpy giraffe.

With this in mind, I have spent the past couple of days on a Food Deprivation Diet.  This means I eat...not very much.  Oh, I eat enough to survive; I am not foolish and have no wish to venture into danger territory.  However, in the past two days I have eated four slices of toast, one packet of crisps, one healthy ham sandwich, a ham salad, a jacket potato with a sprinkling of cheese and a chocolate biscuit.  I am working on the assumption that chocolate and crisps are okay in very limited amounts, in case you were wondering. 

 

On top of that, I have listened to Paul McKenna's rather growly voice suggesting I visualise myself in my new, thinner, happier body.  I am to imagine myself exercising and enjoying exercise.  I am to focus on every mouthful, savouring food like a gourmet.  I remain sceptical as to whether this will work, but I am willing to try most things.

 

This evening I plan to break out the old Wii Fit and get going with some step and maybe some yoga and some toning stretches.  It depends on how I feel (the stretches and yoga - I will definitely do the step). 

 

I crave spaghetti and tomato sauce for my dinner...  Is that normal?

Feel Good Friday - Amateur Transplants

I have a very guilty confession to make: I love these guys. Some of their stuff is rather...dodgy and in bad taste, but, much as I hate to admit it, I am one of those people who is amused by toilet humour even as they are disgusted by it!

As I may have mentioned, I am currently working as a Medical Secretary (a REAL one - I am acting up), and the brains behing Amateur Transplants are both doctors. And since starting work in the hospital I have to admit that I have found them even more humorous than I did before - I first came across some of their work when I was at university and a friend of mine played one of their more offensive songs to shock me. My friend, R, was dutifully appalled, but I creased up. Terrible, but true.

Anyway, my feel good Friday today has been watching videos of them performing live. I am quite tempted to go and see them live, actually. They have excellent stage presence, and I reckon my brother would come with me...

Throwback Thursday - Graduation

It seems apropos, given that my sister graduated last week, to use this photograph from my own graduation for Throwback Thursday.

I graduated on 28th June 2006 at Senate House, Cambridge. Because I went to Trinity, one of the 'Royal' colleges, I graduated on the first of three days. Graduation, Cambridge style, is not to be missed!

At 9:00 in the morning we all assembled in the Hall. With our founder, Henry VIII, looking on looking rather...grumpy...we were instructed to line up in alphabetical order, and then various people took it upon themselves to faff about with our gowns and hoods to ensure that we were appropriately attired. We were then released to have a bracing cup of tea (or whatever).

In the interval between the 'dress rehearsal' and the real thing, my mum decided that actually, my hair would look better in a different style, and got the hairpins out. Thus it is that I am unique in having graduation photographs with not one, not two, but three different hair-dos (I only had two on the day, but I had official photographs taken before the event and my hair is completely upswept in those).

Finally the moment arrived, and, all attired like particularly expensive waiters (one must wear black and white to graduate in Cambridge, and one's shirt must have sleeves which are AT LEAST 3/4 length) we paraded behind the Head Porter down the street. Because my surname begins with U, I was diverted to Great St Mary's where I whiled away an interminable period whilst my more fortuitously named counterparts became BA (Hons) Cantab.

Finally it was my turn. En mass we trooped over to Senate House, where we were stood in rows of 6. To be honest, it was almost military in its precision. We were summonsed to the front and one by one we were introduced to the Master (Lord Rees, in case you were wondering) by the Proctor. One then proceeds to kneel before said Master and adopt a praying post. The master places his hands over yours and announces something in Latin (it could have been anything, but as Latin is studied at university I have to assume that it was along the lines of 'I now pronounce you a newly minted Graduate').

What I remember most about my moment of glory is that Lord Rees has REALLY blue eyes, and he really held my gaze. It was surprisingly moving, not least because I nearly flunked out due to sickness.

Afterwards we convened on the lawn and joined the queues for 'official' photographs and such. I will be honest and say that this was slightly disappointing; the photograph of myself and my parents involved me sitting down, and is consequently slightly off kilter in contrast to the photographs of my siblings.

Finally, we wandered back to College, and the FOOD! In terms of value for money, my graduation was by far the best (although I suppose one ought to factor in the cost of petrol and the fact that my parents had so sleep on a punctured airbed (I didn't realise it was punctured)). Food and drink was unlimited, and it was GOOD too - there were quiches and there was salmon and strawberries and cream and various other goodies. Also, Trinity is fabulous for scenery, so we got some really lovely photographs.

Of course, nearly three years down the line, I conclude that currently my status as a graduate is not actually furthering my career in any way; I'm still at the bottom of the career pile. But there's time for things to move up, and I would not trade my years at university for everything. As a round-off, it has to be said that my graduation was pretty impressive!

Treat Yourself Tuesday - The virtues of a day off

I have the day off of work today, at the request of my mum, who wants to spring clean my bedroom cupboards. This should not take too long, as I suspect she wants me to throw a lot of it away. Actually, I do not object to this plan entirely - if I can clear the top shelf of my cupboard then I will have an additional bookshelf! Mum is quite keen to rid us of some of my reading material, but I am resisting that plan. I re-read books many times, you see, and what if I want to read a book that is no longer there!

Anyway, our cunning cleaning plan has been kyboshed a little by one of Mum's good friends phoning just after I got up (a lie-in is one of the treats of a day off). So I am sitting here, guinea pigs on my lap, still in my pyjamas, thinking that life could be a LOT worse right now.

As an interesting aside, it transpires that my guinea pigs like Classical music. I am playing the Waltz of the Snowflakes, and they are lapping it up.

We plan to go swimming this afternoon with Princess Pickle and Gorgeous Boy. Princess Pickle is very excited by this, and informs me that I have never been swimming with her before. This is not entirely true, as we went swimming together whilst on holiday, but she tells me that I have not been swimming at the gym with her. I did when she was smaller and I was a member, but I have not seen her since she became a little fish, so I am rather looking forward to the experience.

Gorgeous Boy

Gorgeous Boy is eight months old on Monday. After eight months of having him, life 'before Gorgeous Boy' is a distant memory. He is possibly the cutest baby around (although I will admit that I am biased). Gorgeous Boy has fuzzy hair, like a duckling; it stands on end and is baby fine. He has the biggest smile and the cutest laugh. He is full of character and knows exactly what he wants - and how to get it! He does not really crawl, but he likes to roll and he is really keen to mobilise on his feet rather than on all fours! He adores his Grampy and gets very cross when his sister takes Grampy's attention away from him.

Gorgeous Boy is perfect. But life is not. And, as Gorgeous Boy gets older, it becomes more apparent that we have a problem. Our little boy is allergic to what seems like everything. There is no rhyme or reason to it; my sister followed all of the instructions during pregnancy and whilst breastfeeding. Unlike me, she was never allergic herself. But Gorgeous Boy is. Very allergic.

He had chicken for lunch today - a small piece of chicken breast no larger than a £2 coin. My mum (who looks after him when my sister is at work) put him in creche whilst she took my niece for her swimming lesson, only to be summoned by the creche because he had projectile vomited. The vomit apparently looked like 'green jelly' and the Nursery Nurse had never seen anything like it.

By the time I got home from work at 5:30 this evening, he had come out in what looked like hives and his mouth was swelling. With no antihistamine available for babies, my sister phoned the doctor, before deciding that he needed to be seen and piling into the car with her eight month old and my mother and heading for the local A&E.

The verdict? A severe allergic reaction. To chicken. We already knew that eggs were a no-go, as he reacted badly when my sister ate those whilst breastfeeding, but how do you wean a child who is allergic to so much? He cannot have any dairy products because he is allergic to those. Tomatoes and onions are out. He does not like lamb. Rice causes a reaction. Thus far, we have established that he CAN eat bread, but we did have difficulty when feeding him pasta.

My sister has gone from being mother of a child who will eat anything to being mother of two children, a daughter who will eat anything and a son who would LIKE to eat anything, but sadly cannot. Gorgeous Boy's diet consists primarily of vegetables - sweet potato, carrot, butternut squash and broccoli, and fruit. On an average day he will have Quinoa with prunes for breakfast (he is on a Soya formula which can have a constipating effect). For lunch he will have sweet potato, carrot and butternut squash. For dinner he will have much the same.

Considering his diet, Gorgeous Boy is quite the bruiser - he weighs more at 8 months than his sister did at 15. But it is worrying to see how badly he reacts to things.

We have been advised to take him straight to A&E if he has a similar reaction again. I hope that he doesn't, but I'm fairly sure that before he hits a year old (when he will go back to the paediatrician for tests) we will probably have to visit the hospital again.

Praying for Stellan

Happy Easter

From Guinea Pigs

From Guinea Pigs

Sooty, Sweep and I wish you all a very Happy Easter.*

*Please note: No guinea pigs were harmed in the making of this post.