Sunday 31 August 2008

The Benifits of Being Married

So it started out as a joke, when my husband would do things I disliked or was not good at I would make a comment about well that the real reason I got married so I would never have to pick out fresh fruit and veg again. I realized the other day that marriage has come with a number of benefits.

1. I suck at picking out fresh fruit and veg Mr Y in E is excellent. Score.

2. I never have to pack the groceries or wheel around the really heavy cart.

3. Anything really heavy I just leave at the bottom of the stair and Mr Y in E brings up

4. I no longer have to change light bulbs.

5. I simply report any minor or major plumbing and electrical issues and these are fixed by Mr Y in E.

6. Trash is taken out on the appropriate day.

7. Mr Y in E is absolutely amazing at vacuuming. I have studied and watched his technique but no matter how hard I try my vacuuming is never as nice.

8. Mr. Y in E is a chef so when we have dinner parties I choose the menus invite the guests and host, Mr Y in E cooks. That is my kind of dinner party.

9. Mr. Y in E is amazing at putting garland on the Christmas tree. Try as I might mine just never looks good. Mr Y in E could work for Martha Stewart.

10. Being a chef Mr Y in E knows about all the best restaurants and at most know some one at the top working there so we always have a nice place to eat and either get stuff taken off the bill or get a great table.

11. Mr Y in E knows lots about cars and has many friends who know even more about car so I no longer have to worry about it.

12. Flat packs stress me out. I can do them just fine but then I need a fifth of vodka and a trip the the psychiatric ward. Mr Y in E is more than happy to put together flat pack while I am far far away.

I on the other hand am good at organizational stuff, I keep track of the finances, not because Mr Y in E i s not good at it he is just fine, however my love of spread sheets and graphs means in some really sick way I enjoy it.

I also organize the grocery shopping, winter and summer clothing rotation, decide when things are ready to go the charity shop and make sure that neither one of us run out of socks or underwear.

I also do things like keep our address book up to date, remember all family and friends birthdays and organize the Christmas card mailing. I should note that while I do remember all birthdays any cards that require going to the post office to mail ie international mailing tend the be late as I hate to go to the post office.

I usually do most or all of the Christmas and birthday shopping with input from Mr Y in E.

I set up appointments that we both need to get to and make sure he is aware of them.

I tend to organize vacations once a location has been chosen.

I tend to research large purchases or purchases where there are multiply options like phone service providers and appliances.

I think it all works well. You would have to ask Mr Y in E if he agrees but I think early on he learned it was just easier to agree with the majority of things because it just made life easier when you were married to a control freak.

Saturday 30 August 2008

Sleep Glorious Sleep

So I have decided what the worst thing about getting up between 5:15 and 5:45 am during the week is. No it is not getting up at the crack of dawn amazingly this does not really bother me. I give myself 10-15 min to stumble around like a retard while I wake up but I normally had to do that even when I woke up later.

The worst thing is that on the weekends I wake up at 6:30 and feel like I have had a lay in. There is something so wrong with being awake at 6:30 on the weekend but to feel like you have gotten to sleep in is even more wrong.

Kitty has a new toy/hideout. Mr Y in E did not break down his beer box when he emptied it and now Kitty has decided it is a great place to hang out. It make me laugh though because it was only a 12 can box so it is not that big, he curl all up in it and waits for you to walk by and pounces on you. I am still trying to get a picture but the little !*$% knows when you have the camera and refuses to be photographed.

It was payday yesterday and now I am off to the bank to pay the few bills that do no come out direct debit woo hoo can you hear the glorious sucking sound.

The really irritating thing is that we get our gas and electric bill quarterly and the last one came just as Mr Y in E was changing job so he did not get a pay check for a month and a half because of the fact that you get paid monthly over here, we called up the gas and electric company to explain this and ask if we could pay it the first of July instead of the end of May which they were kind enough to allow us to do since we had always payed our bills on time. The down side of this is since we payed late it is already time for another bill ick. Next quarter should be even more exciting as gas bills have all just gone up 30%. I already told Mr. Y in E that this winter the thermostat will not be going above 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Put another sweater on.

Thursday 28 August 2008

Me and My Fit Flops

I bought a pair of Fit Flops http://www.thefitflop.com at the beginning of the summer because well I could. They were going to change my life and I was going to drop 10 dress sizes and all that good stuff. So three months later what are the results

As far as weight loss and toning up I think they have failed miserably. As far as I can tell they do nothing, I saw no weight loss until I started to do WW. On the upside they are the most comfortable sandal I have ever worn. I had to stand on the train for almost an hour one day and my feet had never felt so good. I have worn them almost exclusively all summer with the exception of when I needed to dress up which was seldom. I wear them back and forth to work every day as well. I have also been using them for when I walk as exercise and they are really comfortable. I have to say that they are also still in really great shape for a pair of shoes that have been worn almost exclusively for three months. I am sure they will make it through next summer at least if not beyond. That ain't half bad for £36.

Wednesday 27 August 2008

WW update

Start Weight: 13st 13lb(195lb)
1st Weigh in: 13st 09lb(191lb) -4
2nd Weigh in. 13st 07lb(189lb)-2
3rd Weigh in: 13st 5.5lb(187.5)-1.5
4th Weigh in: 13st 2.5lb(184.5)-3

Total Weight Loss 10.5lb

Wordless Wednesdays


Tuesday 26 August 2008

The Anderson-Moore Wish List 2009

So the first rough draft of the Anderson-Moore 2009 Wish List has been drawn up. Mr. Y in E and I found that we were always saying we should do X or wouldn’t it be fun to go to Y but when free time and or money was around damned us if we could remember what it was that we wanted to do or buy and we seemed to buy stupid little things instead of saving for the big stuff. So here it is in all of it uncut glory divided by joint and personal. No item too small not item too big that is what the drafts 2-37 are for.

Joint:

Tuna

Lettuce

Cucumber

Oh wait that was the shopping list written on the back lets try this again

Joint:

Change Flats
-ours it just too small for two people

New wardrobe- Huge double wardrobe with vanity between the two wardrobes will set us back £348 being able to have a dedicated make up space, priceless.

A weekend trip to Alton Towers-the largest theme park in the UK

A brother for kitty-this one comes and goes depending on how much kitty is pissing me off on any particular day. Plus now that the worst of the kitty stage is over and we are in the awkward teenage phase I wonder do I really want to start over with another kitten?

Weekend in the Lake District-causes its pretty and there is water, Emma likes water.

New mattress for bed-because Mr. Y in E bought a really cheap one before Mrs Y in E moved in with him. You could already feel the springs popping through when I moved in now it is just beyond sad.

Trip to South Africa-Mr. Y in E’s best mate is living down there he has been up twice since I have moved over to England we have been down zip. Plus when else are we going to go, if we wait to much longer there will be children to think about or what ever excuse so SA here we come.

New DVD player-ours is going on 6 years and sometimes just decides it does not like a DVD and will not play it. It does not seem to be prejudice in its choice and can go weeks with out doing it and then choose not to play a DVD it was playing the day before.

New TV-because hey we are getting a new DVD player so we must need a new TV, I think this is actually an excuse to get a giant mahungus flat screen HD enabled television that will cost more than any car I have ever purchased it may even cost more than all the cars I have ever owned put together, but as I said in the intro that is what drafts 2-37 are for.

Sky subscription-we tend to disagree on this one. There is never anything to watch on the five basic channels over here so why would there be something on the other three hundred I am more than happy to just have my online DVD rental which costs about the same a month and then I get to choose what I want to watch.

Phone with wireless head set- This is my WTF contribution. I have never been a sit and talk to someone on the phone kind of person and I want a wireless head set so that I can wander around the house and have my hands free to do as I please.

Mr Y in E’s list:

New car-why? Because he can

Go to a couple of car shows-why? Because it gets him out of the house a few weekends a year and that mean I have the bed all to myself.

Mrs Y in E’s list:

IPhone- cause I want one cause I want one. I have really struggled with this I have wanted a touch phone since they very first came out and I also want an IPlayer which I don’t have yet. If you had asked me last year any decent Mp3 player would have done but since then my husband has gotten an IPlayer and it just seems it would be easier to use the same programs. I do feel that my desire for an IPhone is totally consumerist so the jury on this is still out.

Cuttlebug-crafting accessory that embosses and does die cuts

Folding Table and chair- to use in crafting

Crafting Studio-my answer to Mr. Y in E’s new car


In totally unrelated new

We bought two new duck feather pillows. We had two nice ones but the other two pillows on our bed looked like there were one left around from before the Great War. They made a single sheet of paper look nice and fluffy. While we were doing a deep clean of the living room on Saturday we found a gift certificate from our wedding and decided that 11 months after we got married was as good a time as any to use it. Ah sleep was blissful last night.

Rat boy has decided that every one would love it if he slept on their heads. It make sense to him he can’t quite understand why no one else enjoys it.

Hoping that restaurant reservations at super secret restaurant in super secret location will be confirmed this week!!!! Very excited. I am not sure how Mr Y in E has not figured it out yet but he says he wants it too be a surprise.

A Christmas card design has been chosen and stamps have been ordered I just need to choose the paper I want to use on them this weekend! Watch my craft blog and hopefully I can keep it updated.

I have been working at a sight that uses a two computer screen system so you can have at least two windows up while you are working and you can drag between the two screens. This has changed my life like nothing else has since they invented those tab things on the internet so you did not have to have multiple windows open. The only problem with this is that I have only seen it at this one site and really I don’t think I could add a two screen system to our 2009 wish list. A girl can dream.

Things you could do with out knowing:

I finally figured where I lost the 7.5 pounds from this morning when I went to put on a figure hugging top and it did not hug my chest as much as it use to. Well beggars can’t be choosers.

Thursday 21 August 2008

Update on the Pepsi Challege and WW

A few weeks ago I realized that I had not had a Pepsi Max for 3 days and the only caffeine I'd had was a cup of tea that my Mother in Law had made me and it seemed rude not to drink it. When I realized that I had not had any ill fated 6pm snooze fests I decided to actually make a conscious effort not to drink diet cola with the exception of it being my drink of choice for pub outings. I was amazed at how easy it seemed for the first week or so. I was getting an average of two skinny lattes a week and replacing my Pepsi Max consumption with sparking water.



I some what fell of the band wagon this week when I had to do an 8 am shift at a site that was a two hour commute from my house. By lunch I was fading fast and my quick hop into a news agent to pick of ciggies with my defences down and all of a sudden I had a Pepsi Max in my bag. The next day I was at the same site and another Pepsi Max seemed in order. The site I am at today provides sparking water for the staff and I have seemed to resist the temptation of caffeine, hopeful it is just one slip and now I am back on the band wagon.



WW



At first I was reluctant to post about my Weight Watchers experiences but the more I read and see it seems like the more support and accountability you have the greater your chances of success. I don't think that anyone myself include would enjoy or want a blow by blow account buy I would like to post my weigh in results each week so here goes



Start Weight: 13st 13lb(195lb)

1st Weigh in: 13st 09lb(191lb) -4

2nd Weigh in. 13st 07lb(189lb)-2

3rd Weigh in: 13st 5.5lb(187.5)-1.5



Total weight lost 7.5 or just over half a stone.

Totally unrelated

I realized tonight for the first time maybe in all my working history I am working to live and not living to work. It is such a great feeling to be able to do things I have wanted to do for so long and not been able to afford or have time for. Is my job perfect? No, but it is close enough I can over look the small things. It has given me the time and energy to get back into paper craft and to take back control of my eating habits and weight. That is a wonderful feeling.

Wednesday 20 August 2008

Monday 18 August 2008

Catching up

I have been neglecting my poor blog. It has been a busy couple of weeks. So what have I been up to instead of keeping my blog up to date you ask? Well here’s the list.

Spending lots of money

My plane ticket for my visit home at Christmas was purchased and I waved goodbye to £555. It seems like an insane amount but as I have not seen my parents since last September at the wedding and the rest of my family since last June I guess it will all be worth it. It is unfortunate that Mr Yank in England has to work over Christmas but to be honest we could not both afford to go home. This was my Christmas present from Mr. Y in E.

Hotel accommodations for the trip to a super secret location for our 1st anniversary were paid for. It is a surprise for Mr. Y in E so sorry dear blog readers but you will have to wait until we get back to find out where it is I promise lots of pictures though.

Finishing Mother in Law’s Birthday gift

Last weekend saw me putting the finishing touches on MIL scrapbook, and then cleaning up the big huge mess I had made in the process. Mr. Y in E is probably happy to have the big fold out table put away and all the accoutrements tucked neatly back in their boxes.

Joining Weight Watchers

I have struggled with my weight all my life while I don’t believe there is a fat gene I do believe there are genetic factors and if I look at both sides of my family I have the cards stacked against me. I reached an all time low and an all time high on the scale and decided I needed help in changing my life style. I went in as a sceptic and was adamant that I was not going to live with being hungry to loose weight to WW’s credit I have not. I have been very impressed with the program so far I am only in my third weeks but I can already see how they are building me up to learn how to live a healthy lifestyle. While there are WW meals and snacks you do not have to buy anything special and can follow the program very easily with normal foods you buy from your local supermarket. I have been to 3 weigh ins so far and have lost 6lbs and can honestly say I don’t miss anything. I do use some of their ready meals just for ease and convience for lunches but they tend to be cheaper than a sandwich and soda from sandwich shops so I can’t complain. I also use some of there goodies for when I get a sweet tooth other than that I just make better choices in regular food. It has been very easy to follow the plan and augment meals so that both Mr Y in E and I can have basically the same dinner. I am hoping that by the time we take our anniversary trip the end of September I will have lost a stone, for those of you not use to using Imperial that is 14lbs. I am very much on track if I can continue on the same track I have been.

Watching the Olympics

I am lucky that the site I have been at over the last few weeks has a TB in the lobby directly across from the reception desk that is set on BBC1. It has been so nice to be able to keep up with all the going on. Since the TV is on mute this has lead to some very comical commentating by my colleagues and I when we are board.

I am so impressed by Michael Phelps what an amazing human being. I was on the train on my way into work on Friday and privy to the conversation of a group of friends behind me. One brought up Michael Phelps and gave a monologue on how she thought he was inhuman and they should put a limit on how many metals a person could win. I was dumb struck. This was not a beauty contest; he was not getting any where based on something he was born with. I will concede that athletes may be born with a predisposition to do well in sport but most of them work extremely had at their talent. Michael Phelps spends 6hours a day in the pool everyday plus all the other weight training and such. I don’t care if he wins every gold medal in the summer Olympics if he puts in the effort to be able to do it. Nothing made me happier than to log on this morning and find out he had won his eighth gold medal. Yeah that V sign is for you lady on the train.

Making myself beautiful

I knew when I took this job that looks were very important I just did not realize how long it would take me to make myself look they way they wanted. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy looking nice but I was use to rolling out of bed and pulling on comfy clothes and heading out the door. Now I roll out of bed into my six minute shower then on to 20 min of hair styling another 15 min of face prep and make up and then there is all the other matinance. All the crap I put on my face has to come off at night. The nails have to be done at least once a week plus maintained during the week. Uniforms have to be washed and pressed and then lint rolled once on as black does not go well with white kitty hair. Shoes have to be polished though I know have a pair of black patent leather pair as well as a normal black leather pair so that cuts down some of the time. I feel very high maitaince. I look forward to the weekend when sometime I don’t even wash my hair yeah I know I am a rebel.

Finding the bed room

I don’t know why but our bedroom seems to be the dumping ground for everything we can’t figure out where else to put. This means every six months or so we have do dig it out reorganize it and get rid of all the crap we no longer need, no longer fits, or looks like it has been attacked by a shark. That day was today. Mr. Y in E and I changed sides of the bed a few months ago but did not swap over bedside drawers so I figured in the process of moving them we could move all the small stuff out of the bed room give it a good vacuum and a reorganization. This took less time than I thought but made a world of difference. I was also able to actually get to the bottom of both laundry hampers this weekend. Mr. Y in E was off on Friday so was able to get all of his work stuff done Friday during the day so that I had more washer time this weekend. The weather has also been perfect for drying on our clothes rack. I was able to get both bathrobes and the mattress cover through the wash.

Wednesday 6 August 2008

Things being owned by a kitty have taught me

It is a good idea to put away all toys with bell before turning in for the night. Least one should be awoken at a god awful hour to the sound of death of toy mouse with bell attached.

Tuesday 5 August 2008

Wordless Wednesdays


I took the Pepsi Challenge

I know what your thinking but no I did not take the Pepsi Taste challenge. Michael5000 (check out his blog it’s on my blog list) blogged last Thursday about his diet cola habit. Apparently he goes through two 44oz cups a day, I was shocked at this amount and then I realized it is not uncommon for me to go through two 20oz bottles a day and a few glasses if I go out to the pub with my husband. While this is still shy of the 88oz mark it is still a shocking amount of Pepsi Max. I thought of seeing what might happen if I went 24 hours without caffeine so no swapping my Pepsi Max for Starbuck’s grande latte. My last Pepsi Max was finished at 7pm on Sunday night, Monday morning I got up as usual even though I had only had 4 ½ hours of sleep due to late night road works the next road over. I feared the fuzzy brain and the desire to put my head down on my desk and die but neither came. I did enjoy a lovely caffeine withdrawal headache around 1pm but two Advil but this in its place in about 15min.

By the time I was walking home from the station after work I was lagging quite a bit and since it was quarter to seven I decided to stop by the gas station and pick up a Pepsi Max to enjoy when the clock stuck 7pm. When I got up to the drink fridge there was a huge advertisement all 20oz Pepsi products 3 for £1.50, I took this as a sign that I was meant to drink Pepsi Max and grabbed my three bottles. Who could resist them at 50p a piece?

I finished my walk home, made myself some dinner and ate it. I then opened my Pepsi Max and took my first refreshing sip in 24 hours; sadly it was also my last. Less than 15min later I had fallen asleep while watching the evening news (This leads to some very interesting dreams in case you were wondering. I dreamed I was part of a protest to shut down a coal burning electric plant.) not to be woken until my husband got home from work around 11pm and I stumbled into bed mumbling something about needing to buy ink cartridges for the printer.

While I don’t think I can totally blame my lack of caffeine for the fact that I was out like a light bulb at 7:30pm I really don’t think it has help. Now that I have proven to myself that I can go 24 hours with out Pepsi and I don’t die, the world does not come to and end, and no one has unleashed their nuclear weapon I think it might be time to cut down my intake. I think I will cut down to one 20oz bottle a day lest my new permanent bed time be 7:30pm.

Sunday 3 August 2008

By the way

I have decided to get back into scrapbooking and card making. I like how this blog is set up and did not really want to clutter it up with crafting things so I started a new blog that just follows my crafting adventures. so for anyone who wants to jump on over http://www.yankeecraftsinengland.blogspot.com/

Post will probably be few and far between as I want to try and keep posting at least 3-5 times a week here. Hope you enjoy.

Weeekend Rambling

Online grocery shopping

I ordered our big grocery shop online this month. Dear Husband (DH) is working really weird schedule for the next week or so and it was too much for me to walk home as I don’t drive over here yet. This lead to a number of interesting observations:


1. It is amazing how few items your get for £62.56. Once the driver has unloaded everything it really just seems like you should have more for that price. The single most expensive item was 4.69 and the average spend per item was 2.09

2. I have plastic bags and I am not sure what to do with them. When I first moved over here I would buy one or two reusable canvas shopping bags every month and now we have enough that when we do the shopping we don’t have to use the plastic ones anymore. I almost always have my backpack with me so even small trips to the grocery store just get thrown in my backpack instead of a plastic bag. I guess I will use these to line the bathroom trash can until they are gone. I am sort of peeved because I ticked the box at check out that said not to use plastic bags if possible but everything still showed up in plastic bags. This brought to my mind that a BBC journalist is doing a month without plastic challenge http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7508321.stm please jump over and take a look I know that it might be impossible to entirely cut out plastic in our lives but any small change we make has a ripple effect. The plastic bag issue alone probably means I will hesitate from ordering groceries online again.

3. Have I truly become completely disconnected with the food I eat if I no longer even take the time to go into the grocery store and pick it out myself? This was truly a one off as DH was working so no one to drive to grocery store but it makes you wonder when you can jump online, throw some items on a shopping list, book a delivery spot, and have them show up at your doorstep sometime in your chosen two hour time slot. I only purchased staples such as toiletries and pantry items I will still stop off at local grocery store to pick up fruit and veg(sorry I just can’t degrade to the point that I allow someone else to choose fresh produce for me) or whatever items I did not think we needed for a particular meal.

4. This particular shopping trip also made me realize that my DH and I needed to sit down and have a discussion about semantics and word choice. While making the grocery list this month he mentioned that we NEEDED two particular items, which in my mind meant we had enough to get through for the rest of the week but were running low. I realized through out the week at inopportune times that the reason we NEEDED these particular items was because we were OUT of them. One such inopportune time was also socially awkward as I had offered my Mother in Law a cup of tea only to realize we had not one single tea bag. This was particularly embarrassing as while it might be true that I am not the best person at keeping my house I don’t necessarily want my Mother in Law to know this.

So now that I have single handedly ruined the world buy receiving my grocery shopping in plastic bags I am going to go use them to line my bathroom garbage cans.