Bad Bad Blogger.

*slaps hand* I know, its been a long time since my last entry. Naughty Steph.

A lot has happened!

The main thing that has been keeping me busy is summer school, literature professors sure know how to drain the life out of a person. The good news is that this is the last unit for my Bachelors degree, and after clearing a mountain of paperwork I will officially be a Registered Nurse!

Being an RN will really come in handy too seeing today I accepted a job as a nurse at my local town's biggest hospital! I told you, its been action central in the house of Steph.

My last assignment is due in on Monday February 13th and I start my new job on Monday March 5th. This means I'll have 3 weeks to catch up on blogging about whats been going on.

Here are a few things you can look forward to hearing about:

Wedding related:
My visit to the florist
Meeting our celebrant
Meeting a photographer
Tutorial on making pomanders
Bridesmaid dresses
How I plan to DIY my veil
My plans to learn calligraphy
Budgeting for a wedding

Health and Fitness related:
Starting Weight Watchers meetings
My doctors visit to review my Mirena IUD
Speaking to my doctor about dealing with binge eating and achieving healthy weight loss
Signing up for a 5k run

Random Posts:
Balancing our household budget
Credit card debt
Creating healthy habits
Recipes

Hopefully someone is reading, I must admit I get so excited when I see I have followers. I vow I will learn to follow you all back and comment on the blog of anyone who comments. Share the love people.

Confession Time.

Remember my wonderful fitness corner I wrote about 12 days ago here?

Well, I've been on that treadmill exactly zero times since then. Major fail.

Something just isn't clicking, and I don't know what it is. I seem to be self sabotaging at every opportunity. Why? How? I don't have the answers.

The only thing I can think of is that maybe subconciously afraid of reaching my potential and being a fit healthy person. For a few days I eat healthy with no trouble, and I see the scales shift downwards. Next thing I know I'm eating hot chips and chocolate. How do I get the strength to say 'NO!' to that loud little voice in my head that directs me to buy and binge on unhealthy foods.

Surely I'm not the only one struggling with this problem. Do you struggle with eating healthily and exercising? Do you have great self control and if so how did you get it?

A room of one's own. (Well, a corner actually.)

Welcome to my dining room.



Well, actually, it’s not a dining room so much as a 'dining area'



Please excuse the mess in this photo; it’s an old one from when we had just moved in, hence the boxes everywhere. Also please try to ignore the hideous curtains, that’s what I do.

This corner of our open plan house has had a lot of different roles. Once upon a time my treadmill was here, (until Sam moved it, grr.). We put our Christmas tree in this corner. Sometimes we even, wait for it, dine in our dining corner. Only if we are being fancy-pants though. We are more eat-off-your-lap-in-from-of-the-TV sort of people.

In my quest to lose weight and gain fitness, I have commandeered this corner. I have put the treadmill back, and added some motivational elements to the walls. Now it looks like this!



Let me talk you through it. On the left you can see a tub full of sports equipment. Sam and I like to take a ball or Frisbee on our walks to mix things up a bit. There is also my yoga mat and some (too heavy for me) weights. Now it’s all neatly in one place instead of sprawled throughout the house.



On the right, I have taped up 3 motivational stories from my Weight Watchers magazine. I tried to pick women who were similar height to me and had similar starting weights and goal weight to me. They have a variety of ages though, 27, 55, and 63. The 63 year old lost over 20 kilograms! I figure if a woman nearly 3 times my age can lose 20kg then I definitely can.



Straight ahead I have a mirror, and some before photos, surrounded by inspirational quotes. I'm anti 'thinspiration', so I chose purely motivational words. In case you can't read them, they say:

-If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten.
-A year from now you will wish you had started today.
-Victory is measured not in miles, but in inches. Win a little now, hold your ground, and later, win a little more.
-No matter how slow you go, you are still lapping everyone on the couch.
And my favourite, and the most important:
-Be kind to yourself.

One thing you can't see well in the above photo is the snapshot stuck to the corner of the mirror. It’s of me at school in 2003, and in the photo I am blissfully happy and carefree. It’s my favourite photo of me because it reminds me of how happy I can be if I give myself permission.



And what is that in the bottom right hand corner? My very own star chart! It has weight loss milestones written on, and rewards scattered in 2.5kg increments. All I need now are some star stickers, the love hearts ones I found in my desk will do for now.

Now to be honest, I haven't been for a run or walk on the treadmill yet. I have been admiring it from afar all day though. Maybe tomorrow I'll jump on for a bit. For now though, Cleo has inspected the area and given her approval.



Isn't she the cutest little thing?

So that’s my very own fitness corner! What do you think? Do you have a dedicated area for fitness at your house or do you prefer the gym or local park?

New Year Resolute.

I do not have a good track record when it comes to New Year Resolutions. For example, I cannot even remember what my resolutions were last year. I don't think I've ever actually completed a resolution that was challenging rather than inevitable. I don't think "Turn 18" is a resolution as much as it is a natural aging progression, great goal setting 17-year-old self.

2011 was a hard year for my partner and I. We moved away from friends and family to a new city 90 minutes away. It has been lonely and isolating for me at times, especially when Sam has to work in Melbourne 4 days a week due to the lack of jobs in Ballarat. My final year of studying for my nursing degree has been stressful and anxiety producing, to the point where I sometimes need sleeping tablets to doze off.

If 2011 did one good thing for me though, it was inspiring me that I CAN lose weight if I am willing to work hard. Two of my close friends have lose a significant amout of weight in the last 12 months, one has gone from a size 18-20 to a 12-14, the other has lost about 15 kilos (33 pounds) and is around a size 8-10. Neither of them did any crazy diets; they both watched what they ate, moved their bodies more, and stayed focused on their goal. What an inspiration!

I have one and a half resolutions for 2012. Sam and I are sharing a common goal to pay off all our credit card debt. (All $8,000 of it! Stay tuned for more details.) Sam's personal resolution is to kick those last few cigarettes and officially quit smoking. My resolution for 2012 is to lose weight, 12 kilos to be precise. (26.5 pounds.)

I have posted previously about Weight Watchers and my plans to lose weight here. Since that post, with the holiday season I have actually gained 2 kilos. The 3 4 wonderfully delicious chocolate brownies I have eaten just today haven't helped. Needless to say I haven't actually been following the Weight Watchers program properly.

So my resolution is to lose 12 kilos by eating foods that are better for me, and moving my body more. I'm planning to blog about my progress, so check in and see how I'm going as 2012 progresses!

Also, if you are reading, please leave me a comment. It would really make my day, and I'd love to return the favour!

Do you have a new years resolution?

Holidays Schmolidays

It has been 3 days since my last christmas party, and I still haven't decided if I had a good time or not. There were a few great moments over the long weekend, but also some horrible ones.

I'd consider the following to be good points:
-We got some great gifts.
-The food was amazing.
-I got to spend some quality time with my baby sister Bella.
-We weren't rushing around nearly as much as we were last year.

And the not-so-good points:
-Sam and I had a couple of big fights about going to multiple family parties.
-After going to a lot of effort to give a nice personalised gift to my Kris Kringle recipient, I got a gift card from my KK, which is really just lazy.
-Staying with Sam's parents for the weekend was awkward at times when his parents would argue.
-I had a splitting headache on Christmas Day that just wouldn't go away.
-We didn't get to spend any time with Sam's extended family.

So in summary, it was an ok weekend, but if I want to have good memories of Christmas 2011 I need to focus on remembering Bella sitting on my knee eating the 'tanas' out of my plum pudding, and not the fuming silences after Sam told me he didn't want to spend time with my family.

I'll leave you now with a modern christmas song by one of my favourite comedians Tim Minchin. This song made me cry twice, and pretty much sums up a typical Aussie Christmas like the ones I grew up with.

Its nearly two in the morning, and I cannot sleep. Either Sam is snoring in my ear, or there is a cat trying to sleep in the crook of my neck. Or Sam will have an episode of sleep apnea and stop breathing altogether, in which case I thump him on the back until the obnoxiously loud snoring starts again, all the while lamenting that I will make him get a referral to an Ear/Nose/Throat specialist in the morning.

So now, after three and a half hours of trying to sleep, I'm wide awake in a deathly quiet little town where everyone else is sleeping. Except of course for the cats, who are having a mad half hour and darting around the lounge room chasing the shadows cast by the dimmed lights.

Its a funny thing being awake in the middle of the night. I feel like I can do anything, even though there is actually only a small amount of things I can accomplish. Washing the dishes would be too noisy, Its too dark out to go for a run, I'm too tired to bake anything. But now is the perfect time to write a blog post.

When I started this blog I told myself 'I'll post 10 times a week!' and 'I'll take heaps of interesting photographs for my blog!' and 'I'll have a strict schedule of blogging topics to cover!'. Now I realise that I was setting myself up for failure. I'm not going to post everyday all the time. I'm not a great photographer. Schedules of topics kill my muse. So my new goals are these:

-Take the time to write a post about the things I find interesting.
-Try to blog at least once a week.
-Try to get into the habit of taking more photos.

Hopefully the things I find interesting will interest my readers too, if there are any out there.

I think I am getting drowsy now, and should tuck myself back into bed. But who knows, there may be a 3am post if I have no luck drifting off.

Brain Overload

Do you ever feel like there is so much information rolling around in your head that you can't even begin to process it?

Thats how I've felt the last few days.

The past few days have been jam packed with studying, exams, a job interview, frantic house cleaning, going out for dinner, seeing Twilight Breaking Dawn part 1, and packing for my 2 week stay with my Dad in Melbourne. And to top it all off I think I might be getting sick.

Talking about stress, I know everyone reacts to stress differently. For me stress means I'm always tired but I can't sleep, I've been moody and unmotivated, feeling nauseous and turned off food.

I'm home alone tonight, Sam is working in Melbourne. The house is a mess again, and I still have so much to do before I leave for 2 weeks nursing placement in Melbourne. But for now, I'm just going to snuggle with my kitties, drink tea (a magical drink) and watch Friends. The rest can wait.

What is stressing you out at the moment? Do you have any stress busting techniques?