new toy!

We bought ourselves a new toy on the weekend. No, not that sort of toy. A lovely new digital camera. We used my Christmas bonus money, so we got a much better one than we would have otherwise. Its a Panasonic Lumix. Its got a 10 x optical zoom and about a zillion different settings. But it takes good pictures in "even a dummy could use this" mode. so it suits us nicely! If we had waited to buy it we apparently could have gotten it duty free from the same shop, but we want a good amount of time to get used to driving it before we go away. Suffice it to say that Jaspa, Jeya & Monty have been getting sick of being told to sit and look cute for the camera.


We went and saw the movie "Juno" on Saturday arvo, we both enjoyed it. And we saw some previews for movies that we actually want to see, so thats good for a change!!

I went for a good run yesterday arvo. Good in that I actually went! No, it was also good, because I like to run. Once I am doing it. Its the getting out the door part that causes me the most difficulty. Once I am out there its fantastic.

all ok

Well the cat is not starving any longer. She is all better now. I suspect she would have been all better without the $60 visit to the vet, but I wouldn't want to take the chance really. Better to be safe.

Not much else going on really. Still not getting up in the morning. Still pedalling in the evening. Still addicted to vegie burgers and salad for dinner. And still counting down till the big trip in April!!! Its getting much closer now!!

the cat is starving!!!

Yes, the vet told us we have to "starve" Monty for 24 hours. Now I think that is a terrible way to put it. Poor Monty is being very affectionate, thinking that if she is nice to us, we will feed her. It was an added challenge to let Jaspa have her dinner without Monty getting any. So Jaspa was fed in the lounge room, and then music room....how exciting for her! Just likke getting take-away. Tonight we are allowed to feed Monty some chicken. So I get to cook a meal for the cat! The vet doesn't think anything serious is wrong with her - possibly just an infection. He was going to give us some antibiotic tablets to give to her, but fortunately for us gave her an injection instead. Saved much blood-shed I am sure! Monty is not the easiest of creatures to get a tablet into and has many sharp bits.

still not!

Yes, that right, I still haven't gotten myself out of bed to go for a run this year. I think I need someone to volunteer to drag me out. Any takers?? nope. What I need to do is just that. GET UP AND GO!!

I've been pedalling away on the exercise bike in the evenings, and boy it gets hot! I feel like I am melting away. If only!!

We are taking Miss Monty to the vet this afternoon. She is having a problem in the kitty litter area which is not pleasant. Hopefully there is nothing major wrong with her. She is 10 though, so who knows. She seems fine in every other way though, so maybe its something easy to fix.

I created some Breakfast Muffins the other night. We bought the biggest box of Uncle Toby's Fibre Plus I have ever seen, and I seem to have been eating my way through it forever. So I decided to turn some of it into experimental muffins. Yes, I did not follow a recipe. Fortunately they turned out to be quite edible. Probably needed a bit more something to make them delicious, but that something would probably be butter & maybe extra flour. I was trying to keep them relatively healthy. They ended up at 143 calories each, which I guess isn't bad for a muffin. I wouldn't try and serve them up to anyone else, but for me, they are fine!

its still raining!

Yes!!! lovely lovely rain is falling. I took this photo out our front window last night. I think it looks kind of cool!

And this is a layout I did the other night. Photos that we took at the Kate Miller-Heidke concert at the Tivoli in December (I think it was December anyway...)

I redeemed myself slightly last night by getting on the exercise bike and peddaling away for a while. Well for 35 minutes and 210 calories actually. I don't stay on the bike the whole time I get off and jump around also. It helps get the heart rate up a bit higher and keeps things interesting! I might look slightly demented, but it works!

I am Slack - big suprise!

yeah yeah. So I have started the year with much slackness. My intentions to get up each morning and exercise have come to nothing. Yes, its only the 3rd of January, so I still have time to get myself into gear. I have to remind myself of all those winter mornings that I was up and out the door running when there was frost on the ground and I couldn't feel my fingers. Running at the moment would be positively delightful compared to that! So I just have to do it!

I have been playing around with some scrapbooking and have done a few pages now. Nothing too great, but I am learning how to manouvre around in photoshop, which is the hardest part.

We have a new addition to the family. George. We love him. The Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine is what I am talking about. Revolutionising the kitchen! It means I will be enjoying a delicious mountain bread wrap filled with grilled capsicum, zucchinni & eggplant, with some fresh lettuce and my newly invented pesto-hommus. Delicious!

The pesto-hommus is quite something. And has nothing to do with George. It is my own invention, and I do not know why I didn't ever think to try it before. All it involves is throwing a large handful of fresh herbs into the whizzer when making the usual hommus (I use a can of chick peas, a big spoon of crushed garlic, a big squeeze of lemon juice, a drizzle of oil and a dollop of tahini (although I have been substituting macadamia paste recently - good move!). The herbs make it taste supremely good!

Another good addition to your basic hommus is some roasted capsicum. I tried this last week. Makes the hommus a lovely colour and adds a delicious sweetness!

I'm finally updating!

well, nearly the end of the year. Next year I will try and keep much more up to date with this blog! (so says I now!) I had some photos ready to post, but they are at home and I am at work, so we shall have to do that later!

Since its nearly 2008, here is some of the things I want to do in 2008

* play around with digital scrapbooking. Actually do something with the billions of photos we have sitting around on our computer.
* do some actual scrapbooking also. DO something with the billions of photos we have had printed!
* get back into my running routine!!! I will run the Bridge to Brisbane this year.
* go on our lovely trip to Canada & the US. (this will happen, since we have booked the flights!! YAY!!!!! April 1 off we go!!)
*Cook from recipe books more often.
*get to 65 kg
*ride my bike

and that is that for now!!

Some Sleep would be nice!

Well, its been a crap week for getting any sleep! What will happen tonight? Sunday night I couldn't sleep. Probably because I had a little sleep in the afternoon. oops. So despite my best efforts to keep still, I managed to keep miss Janet awake also. Then last night little trouble maker Jaspa decided that the middle of the night was a good time to play and kept meowing at our door! I feel that it is now my duty to meow at her whenever she is trying to sleep.

I am very unfit!

far out. I did a bit of running on the weekend. I took Miss Jeya with me, so it was definitely not fast running, which is good because fast running may just kill me at the moment! it was slow stop-start running. But running non-the-less. SO now i just have to work my way back up to where I was. Dog-free running will be the order of the day. I ran just to the post box and backon my own yesterday and my heart rate was way up. SO I have definitely lost a lot of fitness by not running for so long. It sucks. Oh well, I'll get there again!

me = slack!

so its now October. well time flies! Still not running. Maybe this weekend. Janet is away this weekend for 4 days, so I will be home alone. What mischief can I get up to? hmmmmmm!

I'm at work and I am starving. 20 minutes till lunch. But I'm planning on a 30 minute walk before I can eat.

theres a lake in our backyard!!

Now ordinarily this wouldn't be good news, but what the hey! We haven't had enough rain to have a lake in our backyard for ages!!!! Now, if only we had a water tank......

Haven't been for a work walk all week, since it has been rainy and windy and not at all weather for being outside! I have however been pedalling my bike a bit in front of Seinfeld Season 8 dvd's, and have burned 858 calories so far this week. More to go yet.

Weighed in at 69kg this morning, so have just broken through the 70's barrier!! Three cheers for me! hahaha.

its a snake!!

These are some pictures of the wildlife in my parents backyard. And the result of what happens when you mix a carpet python with a Jack Russell. Yep a Jack Russell with a swollen face from being bitten by the snake. Poor Lochie

tomorrow is a holiday!

Yay for holidays!!

We get tomorrow (wednesday) off for the Ekka. We already went to the Ekka, and it would be crazy to go on the holiday, because thats when everyone else will be going. So...a free day!! ot sure what we shall get up to yet - I'd like to go somewhere and walk up a mountain or through the bush or something like that. We will probably stay home, so I will at least take Jeya for a walk!

I have my lovely new Polar F11 heart rate monitor to play with! My parents gave it to me for my birthday. It is the coolest thing on earth! Now I can accurately know how many calories I am burning when I exercise. It also keeps a record of each session and heaps more stuff I haven't worked out yet! So super cool!

Its nearly lunch time, so i will be popping out for a half hour walk. Too bad this office isn't somewhere less industrial - walking would be much more pleasant! I still can't run on my ankle, but walking seems to be ok, so I am stickng with that for a bit!

We went to the Ekka!

Yes, we risked the deadly flu and went to the Ekka. And we are both still alive and kicking (well so far!!). We caught the train in and shared our carriage with a class of primary school kids. VERY NOISY!! And they seemed ot have the most disorganised teachers who didn't even know that the train went directly to the Ekka? Oh well, they made it there - can't say if they all made it home or not!!

The Ekka hasn't changed much since the last time I was there, in fact it probably hasn't changed much since the FIRST time I was there. Which is really cool! So we wandered sideshow alley, we had a go on the clowns and got the "every player wins a prize" prize. We sat in the sunshine and watched some woodchopping - and were amazed at how fast those guys can get through a log!

The Ekka may be one of the only places where you will see a bunch of cows being given a shampoo!

We saw lots and lots of cows.

33!

Happy Birthday to me!!!

had as nice a birthday that is possible on a work day!

Miss Janet gave me some lovely new cargo pants that fit me perfectly! (no more saggy baggy pants for me!) And I also got a lovely supply of sparkly Bonds undies. I love Bonds undies.

We will go on Sunday to my parents place for lunch! yummmmmm!

Excellent birthday weigh in of 70kg! Happy am I!

Tomorrow we go to the Ekka! We are catching a train!!!! Haven't been for years and years! Must remember the camera! And the germ repellent!!

Newspaper

Jetty 2 Jetty

Sunday July 22 2007 - the Jetty to Jetty Fun Run at Redcliffe. This was my first ever race, and it was meant to be part of my training for the upcoming Bridge to Brisbane Fun Run on August 5.

I started well, and made it to the 6K mark in 38 minutes which I was happy with. It was just after this that it all went wrong. I went over on my left ankle somehow and stacked it! Yes, I fell flat on the ground. And as you do when you fall down in public, I jumped right back up and told all the concerned people around me that I was ok. (I didn't want people stopping their run because of me!) . I peeked under my sock and saw that my ankle was swelling up, but I could still walk on it. I went to an official who told me the next chewck point was 500m up the road, so I headed that way. When I got there, they didn't have any ice, but offered to drive me to the finish. I decided I wanted to finish, so I kept going. I walked the final 4K's, except for the final 500m which I slowly ran - I wanted to look good crossing the finish line. (well at least like I as trying!). I finished in 1:25:02. I came 746th, or 109th in my age group. So next race I guess I have an easy mark to beat.

We went to the medical centre Sunday afternoon, and had x-rays. I can get the x-ray results today. I am really annoyed at myself for falling. I was looking foward to finishing this race properly. And running the whole way! Oh well - next time I guess!

Friday

Friday! Yay! Fridays always seem to go so slowly. Oh well!!

Dragged myself out of bed this morning for a 5.1K run. It took me 35 minutes. Its the first run I've done since i ran 7.5K on Sunday. I should have also gone on Wednesday morning, but I umm forgot to get out of bed. I've got a plan in place to get me to, and through the Bridge to Brisbane on August 5. I'm increasing my long runs (my Sunday runs) by 1K each week. And on the 22nd of July will do the Jetty to Jetty 10K fun run. The only other thing I have to do is GET OUT OF BED 2 mornings mid-week and run 5K. Cool bananas.

14 Kilos down so far. So all is going well. My BMI now falls into the healthy weight range.

We are planning to go overseas next year! We want to go to San Francisco, Vancouver, Ottawa, Toronto, and also to visit our friend Ronda. We have yet to visit a travel agent to investigate how many times we need to win the lotto in order to pay for this little trip.

Here's a picture of us taken on the Queens Birthday long weekend...

getting there!

So I have now finished the c25K program, and now I am out there running on my own! Its quite nice to be running to my own music thats for sure! My plan of attack for the Bridge to Brisbane 12K run, is to keep up my 5K runs on Wednesdays & Fridays and then do a longer run on Sundays. I plan to run 7.5k this coming Sunday. So we shall see how that goes!!

I can't explain how good it feels as I walk home in the morning after finishing a run. The air is crisp and everything is goooood!!