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.
Monday, 18 August 2008
Wednesday, 13 August 2008
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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