Sterling silver spray paint love!



My new favourite product

I have been looking at so many faux mercury glass tutorials on peoples blogs that I thought I'd like to try it. I knew where I could get some hurricane candle holders for $2 each so all I had to do was source the Krylon paint. Knowing that Spotlight stocks Krylon, I thought I'd look there. No luck but I did see some silver paints - there was the Krylon one that all the aficionados said wouldn't work and Champion Sterling Silver. I hadn't read anything about Champion so I thought I'd by some. It was under $20 and I can always use a bit of silver paint. Cut to a couple of hours later. It didn't work for mercury glass, but I did note what a gorgeous rich silver it was. So in the hunt for something to try it out on. I had a couple of blue plastic baskets in my craft room that I spray painted as an experiment - brilliant - they now look like chrome baskets. I was instantly in love. I contemplated spraying other furnishing items around the house - picture frames, a bronze lamp base - but couldn't find what else I wanted to paint. My house is a more tarnished silver house than a bright silver, so I decided to leave well enough alone.



The end result



A couple of weeks later as I was going through the stuff from my craft room, I was contemplating sending a small blue halogen desk lamp off to charity. It had been pretty when it was first new with a translucent blue case however it hadn't aged well and the pretty blue had faded and now had yellowish cast to it. I then wondered how it would look silver. The answer - fabulous. I wish I had taken photos of how dowdy the poor lamp had looked before. I found a photo of the lamp in a catalogue as a "before photo" but of course it is all fresh and blue not dingy and faded as mine had been. It was hard to get a good photo as this thing is just so shiny!

I do want to give it just one more coat. I touched it when it wasn't quite dry and have now got a 1 cm area that looks like a smudge that I'm not entirely happy with. The trouble is I love it so much that I don't want to have to turn it off to do it and wait for it to dry



Cream lamp before

 I also found a cream version this morning that had been in my daughter's room (she now has a cool black lamp and doesn't want it)  and it is currently out in the carport drying from a new silver treatment so I will have a cute almost matching pair for my desk.

Mid spray. I also found a couple more plastic baskets to spray!





Pretty silver though!

 Watch this space for the cream lamp after!

Lessons learned. When people say other brands don't work, don't be afraid to try - they may not work, but you may make other wonderful discoveries. Don't be too hasty waiting for paint to dry. Wear gloves when spray painting!





How do I love the Wall Mates... Let me count the ways

The trusty little Wall Mate

One of the best discoveries I have made in the past 2 years was Wall Mates. When the new library was built I expressed a desire to hang paintings and the builder introduced me to them. I had seen them in places like Bunnings but never actually used them but now I am in LOVE! Previously if I wanted to hang anything more substantial than a small painting, it was a laboured process involving much banging of walls and using the electronic stud finder which seems to have the same accurate hit rate of a drunken person at a bar looking for a potential mate - only about one in every 10 possible hits seems to be an actual stud!!


Before: and this was after I got rid of some of the 9/10ths empties

 I am in the process of hanging some display boxes/niches in the bathroom to take the overflow of hair products, face products etc that crowd out the sink, make it a pain to clean and just clutter up my very ordinary unattractive 1980s sink.
The wall I am mounting the niches on was originally to have floating shelves, but they were too deep for the space and would have interfered with the medicine caninet opening , so I comandeered the three niches that I had bought for Caitlin's room. They cost next to nothing ( $10.00 from KMart) and are not terribly well made (I have already reinforced the largest one with bigger screws and will possibly do the same with the other two, but all the things that will live on the shelves are light so I have faith they will hold.

(What am I doing blogging now instead of drilling?) I said "in the process" because I have only just cleaned the wall, measured it up and placed the first wall mate when Michael came in wanting a shower. He has been outside welding a frame for Caitlin's A/C and was so sweaty it looked like he had actually already been in the shower! So I left him to a peaceful shower and decided to write about it.

Some 2 hours or so later....


The new shelving



The clear bench!



Back to the bathroom..shelving is now up and filled

and sink is now decluttered. Now to keep it that way!

Craftgawker

craftgawker look to inspire I could spend hours on this site (and already have!) Another great discover I have made courtesy of Pinterest! There was a gorgeous little felt bird pinned. I clicked on the link to look more closely and it led me to Craftgawker. What a cool site - so many ideas and inspirations!

Cleaning the AC

We have been turning our air con down by a couple of notches regularly for about 2 months now and just can't seem to get the cooling power we know it is capable of. Certainly when you come inside from the heat and humidity you can notice that it is working, but not as well as it could. I did all the usual maintenance things, cleaned the filters, dusted the unit, but it was still not pumping out the air.

Last night as I was trying to get cool, I remembered that just over two years ago, we thought the AC needed gas as it didn't seem to be working. Called out the ac guys - gas was fine , it was the little rotating fan drum unit inside the ac that pumps out the air was clogged and dirty. Some two hours and a couple of hundred dollars later it was working again.
My brain started ticking over I wonder if it was the same issue.

1. Turned it off at the mains.
2. Up on a kitchen chair and armed with a screwdriver I set to work. Off came the cover and into the bath for a scrub.
3. Wiped the condenser down gently with a microfibre cloth - Ew!
4. Then to maneuver something in to clean out the little fan. I'm sure the ac guy used a banister brush... but I couldn't see how I could do that without taking it further apart. First I tried our swiffer - it came out filthy but didn't seem to be moving the dirt. Next I tried a chopstick. Not really effective. Then I tried an old toothbrush, suddenly chunks of black fluff started to come out - like tiny evil dust bunnies coated in black oil. I managed to get most of the dust off the outside but still it looked filthy inside. So next I tried a plastic knife. At last it was really shifting the gunk. I painstakingly tried to scrape every little blade in that drum. I scraped and prodded for two hours. I'd get all excited when there didn't seem to be any more stuff coming out and think I was done when all of a sudden I'd be literally showering in the stuff. I decided eventually to give it up for the day and see how it went.



EW - look at the colour of the swiffer and the dirty fluff stuff. We were breathing THAT!

5. Cover back on and screwed up, filters back in and on at the mains.
6. More garbage floated out as we turned it on, but sucess at last. It's working efficiently again.

Our beautiful clean COOL a/c

My bill will  be in the mail.

Post Script: My husband suggested next time a try a small bottle brush, so I'll give it another go in a months time. For now we are pleasantly frezzing and have been able to put the temperature back up a few degrees

Alphabetising the spice rack

There are small pockets of sanity in my otherwise disorganised house at present, my linen closet is all orderly, my saucepan drawer is back in order and my spice rack is in alphabetical order. now there are some unkind people fairly closely related to me who think that this is actually a mark of insanity or maybe bordering on the edge of obsessive compulsive....
So why alphabetical order? I have tried other methods.

• Group into herbs and spices,  but then I start getting caught up in the Whole what's a herb and What's a spice debate. They all come from plants  - the leaves are the herbs and the bark the spices... but what about seeds - I regard fennel and caraway seeds as herbs, but nutmeg and aniseed as spices. No - all too difficult.
• Group according to recipe - so rosemary, thyme and sage etc go together, but what about those multipurpose herbs and spices like paprika, oregano, chilli and turmeric that seem to pop up in all styles of cooking?
• Group according to maker of bottle the herbs are in - looks nicer... but pretty useless
• Random shelving - most used at the top, least used at the bottom. This was how they were arranged but if you suddenly have a passion for Thai or Cajun flavours  for a month or so, but you normally cook mostly Italian and Greek this system gets wrecked.



Interestingly as I sorted my spices I found 3 bottles of paprika, one almost empty, one almost full and one so old that the paprika was brown, so clearly organisation is necessary.

My new labels - very traditional... but I may yet design something a bit funkier

Now all the spices are shelved alphabetically, I can see where the gaps have occurred (I realised my turmeric must be all gone as there was no bottle) and I can also see that the assorted bottles don't look all that pretty. I tend to reuse bottles and refill with packet herbs so I have created a template in word and I intend to soak the labels off my old herb containers and relabel them so that even if the bottles aren't uniform the labels are. I think I like the labels I have designed but if I get bored, it's a quick job to redo them.

Tadpoles

I love frogs.

When we first bought this house with its barren yard of weeds and a few dying native trees we were excited rather than daunted by the challenge of creating a lush oasis. 23 years later we have that oasis.  The trees have provided food, shade and leaf litter to attract wild life. Our yard now provides refuge to bird life, lots of lizards, insects, spiders, the occasional possum and to my delight frogs
We noticed that the frogs arrived soon after we began planting and watering the yard. Who knows where they came from, but soon we had some  rather large green frogs sitting on our windowsills eating insects. Every so often the population would drop, presumably when we have had visiting snakes but we noticed a gradual increase in numbers.
When the kids were younger we tried raising tadpoles. We tried to be responsible about it, only getting tadpoles from the local area and only taking them from puddles that were drying up. We had limited success but what I really wanted was for frogs to choose our yard to breed in. We installed a pond quite a few years back. We found we had to put fish in and maintain fish very quickly unless we wanted mosquitoes breeding. The fish population grew quickly and I put in water plants and lots of rocks with spaces under them to create a haven for frogs and we would frequently see frogs around the pond, but no tadpoles. After cyclone Yasi last year the pond developed a crack, drained and we lost all the fish.
I still wanted the pond, so I bought a liner to re-establish it. I had kept a bucket of sludge from the bottom of the old pond and all the rocks had a healthy coating of slime so it didn't take long for the pond to balance out,  and I noticed one day the pond was alive with mosquito larvae, so I bought new fish. It was hard getting any that I wanted. The cyclone had caused a large number of ponds and aquariums to lose fish, so there was very little to chose from. I wanted guppies but had to settle for mollies. They cleaned up the mossies in  a day and they looked to be doing well but within a fortnight I had lost all but one. We lost one in the first day but then had a sudden drop of temperature overnight. At the same time as I was restoring the pond we had a large coconut tree removed from the yard and this had effectively shaded the pond. Now the pond was getting afternoon sun and the algae was going mad so I decided that I would replace the mollies with goldfish in an effort to keep down the slime. 6 months later and one by one I was seeing the goldfish die. At the same time we were getting a number of very emaciated toads dead in the pond. We suspect that the toads either had a virus or more likely were eating the ratsak that our neighbour was putting out in his shed and they were coming to us for water. We then suspect that the goldfish were nibbling on the dead toads and ingesting the toad poison. Eventually we had no goldfish left, so this time I went back to guppies. The goldfish hadn't really solved the algae problem and I still really wanted tadpoles and I knew that I'd have no chance with goldfish.
Jump forward another 2 months. I noticed that a water spider had moved in and that we were still getting toad fatalities but the guppies were doing fine. One day we noticed a clump of eggs. A week later I walked by the pond and thought that I saw a guppy swimming strangely. I looked again - it was a tadpole. I looked closer, there were at least 30 tadpoles in there.  I was concerned that they were toad tadpoles, but after some research I decided that they were most likely frogs. I was overjoyed. Last night as I went to water the plants there were two tiny baby frogs sitting on the papyrus, still with a remaining stub of tail, still mostly brown, but definitely froglets. Success at last. Our pond is a worthy breeding spot.

2012 things to do

Well it feels like I have 2012 things I want to accomplish... not resolutions as such but little jobs (and some quite big ones), things that have been bugging me, things I really want to happen and things that must happen around Casa Cataldo this year. I'm not listing things that will need expert help (like the fans and the hot water system that need to be replaced, or the powerpoints and switches that need to be done) So here they are... in no particular order.

• Cover the old chair that the dog destroyed, fix up the arms and paint them black (have to disguise the tooth marks left by the dog and then  move it into the lounge.

  

  This will live again!

  
• Recover the arm chair currently in the lounge and it's mate out in the "family room" Repaint their arms and legs
• Make slip covers/buy slip covers for the sofas
• Refurbish the vanity in the bathroom. I plan to make a new door for it and take out the drawers, add shelves and pop in baskets.
• Put up shelving in the bathroom. The shelves are there... it's just a matter of putting them up.
• Rearrange my laundry.
• Put up shelving in my craft/spare room
• Organise my craft/spare room
• Restore the bed in the craft/spare room
• Repaint Duncan's room, our room, the craft room, laundry, kitchen ... in fact every room except Caitlin's.
• Paint Caitlin's floor white.
• Paint the pine "feature wall"
• Paint the bronze light fittings either black or white.
• Paint the patio table
• Paint the old kitchen cupboards out in the patio.



Sand and paint the green black.

• Finish restoring the chairs for the patio. Two are done... just 2 more to sand and paint.
• Re-organise and cull electrical items in the kitchen
• Re-alphabetise and cull books and CDs
• Refurbish the set of drawers out in the carport
• Try and get some sort of garden happening around the side yard that the dog won't lie in . (pointy things that will grow in shade!)
• Revamp my herbs in pots - fertilise and replace any past their prime.
• Investigate the cost of new cupboard doors for the kitchen
• Repair the wonky leg in the dining table.
• Paint the dining table legs white.
• Paint my rocking chair, the TV stand and the pine chest in the lounge room white.
• Finish the paint effects on the coffee table in the patio.
• Clean the patio and carport ceilings.
• Paint the front door something dramatic.
• Reinstall my stained glass window in the bathroom.
• Have an ornament/nick nack cull
• Recover/replace the lamp shades in the lounge, my bedroom and the craft/spare room.
• Thin out the plants in the front garden, prune and generally tidy a bit.
• Get a vege garden going again.
• Replace broken/ rotting garden edging

I'm sure there are things I have forgotten. I know that not everything on this list will be accomplished. I am anticipating that other things will crop up that need attending to. But it's a start of a plan!

Sleeping around.

It is said that cats sleep between 13 and 16 hours a day. I'm not sure how many hours of zzzs that Miss Daisy clocks up, but the ginger bombshell likes to share herself around as she does. Like most other cats, she considers newspapers, books and keyboards to be very desirable beds but in the absence of those items, she loves to sleep in a wide variety of spaces.


Keeping an eye on the neighbourhood



When she first came to live with us she came with a fur covered cat perch that I placed beside the 2 seater sofa. She would lie across the perch, oozing onto the arm. When one of Duncan's mates decided it would make a "boy perch" and broke it, she simply migrated just to the arm of that couch. She is there at present, having a little late afternoon bath. Later she will move onto the couch itself and woe betide anyone audacious enough to actually go and sit where she has vacated after she gets up for one of her frequent meal breaks. Not only will you end up with pants covered in ginger hairs, but you will be faced by a pair of golden eyes glaring at you, tail twitching subtly until either you move or you find her perched on the back of the chair behind you. She often spends the night on this couch, but another favourite night time spot is on the bath mat in the bathroom. She finds towelling irresistible and I think she enjoys the cool of the bathroom.

Another favoured floor position is just tucked under Caitlin's bed right where she gets out of bed. Caitlin now knows not to step in that spot so it really isn't all that hazardous. It's another story however when she sleeps in the hallway. Unfortunately she is perfectly camouflaged on our beige tiles!

Snoozing at the foot of my bed

As well as hiding under beds she is also partial to lying on a bed. She loves Caitlin's bed. Strangely, despite her love of towelling, she doesn't want to sleep on Caitlin's fur throw, preferring to create her own fur doona cover! She likes to sleep on our bed as well. Unlike other cats  she doesn't feel the need to nestle in, preferring to maintain a slightly distant proximity at the foot of the bed, alternating sides. She has tried Duncan's bed, but as his door is often closed, she rarely goes in there. She finds the spare bed comfortable but she only seems to doze in there when we have visitors.

She doesn't spend a large amount of time outside but has a position on top of a cupboard right outside the lounge room window where she will perch and eventually nod off.

Strangely she is the first cat I have lived with who doesn't want to sleep on our dining chairs, preferring to keep an eye on us from the three  seater couch back, though no doubt if we let her she would prefer to swap this arrangement to the centre of the table.

Is it 12 days yet? and other family Christmas customs

EEK yesterday was January the 6th! Our Christmas tree is still up and the decorations are still out so my aim for the day is to put them all away.

About an hour's work to dismantle. Another 2 hours to pack away!

I love family customs - both my own and hearing about other people's. It is fabulous when you find something that you thought was a common custom may just be something unique to your family,just as it can be quite reassuring when you find a quaint or even eccentric custom is shared by others.

Take Christmas trees. When I was a child the tree was fresh, I think we got our first plastic tree when I was in my late teens. Generally it was put up and the house decorated on Christmas Eve (maybe one or two days earlier) and was generally taken down before January 6th, often earlier if we were heading off on a holiday. I always assumed that the fact that the tree was up for just under a fortnight was because by that stage, particularly in our unairconditioned Australian Summer, that by the time the tree was taken down, it was pretty crispy and Mum was complaining about dropped needles. A little research though reveals that the 12 days of Christmas are actually the days after Christmas and January 6th is Epiphany (certainly for Catholics) - the last day.

Now it seems that decorations go up so much earlier, I am assuming that is inspired by the fact that shops get their Christmas kit on early. We begin to see Christmas lights twinkling in yards in mid-November. Trees are often put up on December 1st or earlier (and with a plastic tree there is no reason why not I guess) I've often heard people say how late they were in getting their trees up when it's still only the first week in December.

I don't let the kids put ours up until after December 5th. Why? That's my birthday and I selfishly don't want to share it with anyone. I often worry that we still have the decorations up on Duncan's birthday on the 30th... but unless he objects they stay until the 6th.

I also don't put on the tree lights after Boxing Day. No reason for that apart from the fact that after Boxing day there seems no reason to!

So off to dismantle the tree and ponder why, once it is all packed away, decorations boxed up and lights wound up, that we always find something we have completely overlooked that helps us keep celebrating Christmas right into autumn!

Last year's decoration escapees - the angels were up all year bestowing faith, hope and charity

Displacement Activity AKA Avoiding things

According to Wikipedia  a displacement activity is the result of two contradicting instincts in a particular situation. Birds, for example, may peck at grass when uncertain whether to attack or flee from an opponent; similarly, a human may scratch his or her head when they do not know which of two options to choose.
Displacement activities often involve actions to bring comfort such as scratching, drinking or feeding.
I decided that this week that I would go through my clothing to get rid of the baskets of clothes that do not fit in cupboards. I want beautifully organised shelves, drawers and hanging space. I want to be able to do a load of washing and fold or iron it and put it away without having to cram things in. I also want to lie on my bed and read 11/22/63 (how I will ever memorise that title is beyond me). I also want to recover my arm chair in the delicious velour fabric that looks like an Indian rug. I also want to reorganise my craft storage.
So here I am with 4 conflicting desires and what do I do? Go searching on the Internet for storage ideas.
After an hour or so of that I mentally shake my head and  head off to my room. First go to get the t-hub so I can listen to some pod casts while I work. It's  in Duncan's room and flat. Put it in the cradle thingy to charge and look for a CD to play instead spend 15 minutes arranging them in alphabetical order.
Time to start on the clothes... well actually I begin to sort my shoes. I am quite proud of my efforts.

I get one bag ready for charity and start stacking the others on my shoe rack. Not enough space. I start to ponder the problem and drift into the craft room to find some boxes for the shoe overflow and get distracted by rearranging my desk in my craft room. As I do that I notice the time. Lunch.

Daisy taking up sorting space on the bed

Lunch over and back in my room. Spend 15 minutes lying on the bed next to the cat talking to her, then my hand grabs  11/22/63.  I read a chapter. Caitlin pops into the room and joins me on the bed talking to the cat. I start thinking about tea. We both decide to go down to the local shopping centre.

Back at home groceries unpacked. Dishwasher on. Maybe I'll clean the fridge? No back to the clothes. I'll start soon. Take the bag of shoes out to the car to deliver to a charity bin (darn should have done that while we went to the shopping centre). Back into the bedroom. Spot a stain on one of the cushions and take it into the laundry to spray with stain remover. I realise the washing hasn't been put on. Do that.

Make a cup of coffee, sit down to have it and decide to blog about displacement activities. Once I have done this I will begin again!?! No. Husband has just arrived home from work and lays down on the bed for a rest - he says it will only be for half an hour but past experience tells me he will be snoring in 5 minutes and asleep until dinner goes on the table. Opportunity lost as I really need the bed to make piles on.
So what is the issue with the clothes? I really quite enjoy the end result and don't mind the process of relining the drawers and stacking them. It's just such a mammoth job. I think one of my stumbling blocks is that so much of  it is separates, so if I decide to keep out a bottom I have to make sure it also has a top and vice versa. Then the decisions on arranging them... by style, colour, separates together, do I put the camisole top with the sheer shirt or have all my shirts together and camisoles together. I wish I had a professional organiser who will make those decisions for me!

Up garden paths, around fences and down rabbit holes

I love following random leads and making serendipitous discoveries that you would have not known about otherwise and the internet (my drug of choice) is the ideal place to do it.
Blogs have lead to so many discoveries. I follow a number of blogs (at last count 20 that I read regularly) If I find a blog I enjoy, I will look at the blogs they read on the assumption that if their blog interests me, then the blogs they follow may also interest me.
I began to notice a Pinterest pin appearing on a couple of blogs. I clicked on it, joined and discovered the joys of "Pinning" stuff. Love it. In the past I had a list of favourites as long as your arm mainly because there was one idea, one illustration or one article that I wanted to refer back to. I had tried Delicious to bookmark and tag these, but it never quite jelled because a lot of what I wanted to save were the visuals that Pinterest accommodates so well.
So now when someone repins one of my posts I look at their pinterest boards to see if they are someone I want to follow. Well this morning I found a Rory Gilmore reading list pinned on Jerica Starkweather Goodwin's Books Worth Reading board (as an aside I do love Jerika's name - she sounds like she should be a heroine in a Lemony Snicket story or attending Hogwarts)
The idea of the list intrigued me. I do love literary lists and though I only watched the occasional episode of Gilmore girls, knowing what I knew of Rory's character, thought the list may be a good one. I was surprised at how many on her list I wanted to read, thought I had read or ought to have read and hadn't. There are apparently book groups setting up the challenge to read them all. I will do no such thing. I have no desire to read The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan. I'm sure it is a worthy book but I don't want to read it and there are a number of others that I'm more than likely not going to chase up. I have tried to track the original compiler of the list, but haven't managed it. The trail of breadcrumbs seems to peter out.
As I read the list I was surprised to see how many I had read in my late teens and early 20s - perhaps because that is the time we are most concerned about self improvement, or perhaps that is because as we get older and more busy, we need less demanding reads not that I would have classed some of the titles demanding reads. Far from it - some are delightful escapes (Charlotte's Web, Encyclopedia Brown) and others escapist fantasy (Carrie and The daVinci Code)
So here is Rory's List (in alphabetical order) (the ones in red I have read, the ones in green are ones I think I have read or at least started but don't think I finished)

1984 by George Orwell
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Archidamian War by Donald Kagan
The Art of Fiction by Henry James
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Babe by Dick King-Smith
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney
The Bhagava Gita
The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy
Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner
Candide by Voltaire
The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
The Children's Hour by Lillian Hellman
Christine by Stephen King
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
The Collected Short Stories by Eudora Welty
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Cousin Bette by Honor'e de Balzac
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Cujo by Stephen King
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Da Vinci -Code by Dan Brown
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Deenie by Judy Blume
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
The Divine Comedy by Dante
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
Don Quijote by Cervantes
Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
Eloise by Kay Thompson
Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
Emma by Jane Austen
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. SobolEthan Frome by Edith Wharton
Ethics by Spinoza
Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves
Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Extravagance by Gary Krist
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
The Fellowship of the Ring: Book 1 of The Lord of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch AlbomFinnegan's Wake by James Joyce
Fletch by Gregory McDonald
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
Gidget by Fredrick Kohner
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
The Gospel According to Judy Bloom
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Hamlet by William Shakespeare
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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. RowlingA Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
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Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry
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Henry V by William Shakespeare
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
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The Iliad by Homer
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Inferno by Dante
Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy
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The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
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The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
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The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
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Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Love Story by Erich Segal
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Manticore by Robertson Davies
Marathon Man by William Goldman
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
Mencken's Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken
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Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It's Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken
My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
Myra Waldo's Travel and Motoring Guide to Europe, 1978 by Myra Waldo
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi PicoultThe Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin
Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Night by Elie Wiesel
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan
Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Old School by Tobias Wolff
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
Oracle Night by Paul Auster
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Othello by Shakespeare
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
Out of Africa by Isac Dineson
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche
The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill by Ron Suskind
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
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Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Quattrocento by James Mckean
A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
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The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset MaughamReading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas WigginThe Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
The Return of the King: The Lord of the Rings Book 3 by J. R. R. Tolkien (TBR)
R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
Rita Hayworth by Stephen King
Robert's Rules of Order by Henry Robert
Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin
The Rough Guide to Europe, 2003 Edition
Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller by Henry James
The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel HawthorneSeabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
Selected Hotels of Europe
Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Several Biographies of Winston Churchill
Sexus by Henry Miller
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Shane by Jack Shaefer
The Shining by Stephen King
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton
Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Small Island by Andrea Levy
Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers
Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
Songbook by Nick Hornby
The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sophie's Choice by William Styron
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams
Stuart Little by E. B. White
Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
Time and Again by Jack Finney
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper LeeThe Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Trial by Franz Kafka
The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
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Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
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The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
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Work Life Balance Resolution

Another biggie I worked on last year... and it's still a work in progress! Having one of those jobs you can never quite finish makes it hard to draw a line under each day and quit. At the end of the day there's always a job undone - a pile of books still to catalogue, planning that is still to be finished, teaching resources to be created, a policy in need of attention or some adjustment to the school website, and sometimes it is all of those and more. For me, the temptation is to do just one more thing and more often than not I have had the cleaners kick me out at 5.30. I'd then go home and put in another couple of hours after 10 at night. Each morning I'll walk in and it's as if the work waiting for me was the magic pudding, though I'd bitten off a large chunk the night before, there was another chunk to replace it. I have always worked late at school. It started in my first years of teaching when it was not uncommon that my car was the last in the car park and the cleaners were telling me to go (not a lot has changed). As a young single woman and even as a young married one this wasn't an issue. I only had myself, the cat and later my husband to answer for and as long as a meal appeared at some stage of the evening all three of us were happy. It became an issue when I had children. As a full time working mother my time with them was precious (and still is) I knew that I wanted and needed to spend as much time as possible with them, however I would feel guilty walking out "early" (as I termed it). Some of this guilt stemmed from a passing comment made by a principal one afternoon in the late 80s. At that stage I generally worked until 6 most days. On this particular day I was leaving "early" to get to the shops to buy some new shoes. As I walked through the office at 4.00pm he said "Hmm Leaving early???" "Yes I have to buy new work shoes" I said - indicating my very worn out shoes "That's what the weekends are for" was his reply. His tone said "I would have expected better of you". Now despite the fact that I was well within my rights to leave then, in fact the majority of staff had already left (including the deputy) I felt incredibly guilty. Stupid wasn't I? Slip forward some 18 years in time... Still working late. Still feeling guilty if I had to leave early. When I embarked on my weight loss and get fit program, I began to realise was that in order to become fit, I would either have to start getting up earlier or knock off work earlier. Getting up earlier meant bed earlier. Some of my best thinking is done after 10.00pm and I am not a morning person, so I figured the answer was that I have to leave work earlier. I have now set myself a finishing time of 4.00 (4.30 on staff meeting days). School has been over for over an hour at that point. Nearly everyone else has also left, so it means that it is highly unlikely that someone will want to use the library at that time. Leaving at 4 means that I can do half an hour in the gym, talk with a consultant if I need, pop into the shops on my way home to pick up meat or veges and still be home by 6.00pm. That gives me time to prepare dinner, spend a few minutes in the garden before dark and just generally unwind. I have the option of still doing some work in the evenings, but am finding that I often just need to veg out and recharge. I have found that one of the benefits of having a definite finishing time is that I am using that hour in the afternoon more efficiently. I set myself one task to complete that is "do-able" for that time allocation and because I hate coming back to things, I think it motivates me to work just that little bit faster and harder. I now refuse to feel guilty as I walk out the door on time. It took me a long time to realise as I walked out the deserted car park at 5.30 that no-one knew or cared what time I was leaving. No-one was handing out medals to the last person to leave the site. If I didn't ever return for whatever reason tomorrow, no-one was going to say, well I'm glad she stayed back to finish that job as I sure didn't want to - no-one would notice!

Hoarders....

New Year's Resolution - get organised.
Just finished watching Hoarders. It's a guilty pleasure - possibly because these people have more stuff and disorder in their lives than I do, so that even when the house is in a state of utter chaos (as it is at present) at least it's not as bad as some of those homes.
What is the attraction of the show Hoarders? Perhaps it's a feeling of superiority -my place may be messy but after all no-one's ever found a mummified cat in my house! Is it that vicarious interest in other people's lives?
I really feel for these people - most want order and a clean home (some don't though) but don't seem to know where to start. The physical and emotional pain they display when their stuff is removed is palpable.
I know I have difficulty in getting rid of stuff, half of me thinks that it is good stuff, I should hang onto it for a garage sale, but another part of me thinks - be realistic, when do you have time for a garage sale - just get rid of it! Let a charity benefit from the good stuff and ditch the rest.
A big issue is the sorting. Some stuff is good, some is purely trash. It can be quite draining just making those decisions - Let me show you how my mind works. I have a broken crystal wine glass in the kitchen. Can I throw it out? Maybe after typing this I will!. Why have I kept it? Well for one even in it's broken state, it's still quite pretty. There are sentimental reasons. It was one of a pair bought to celebrate Michael coming to Brisbane to help me move to Townsville. They were the first really good glasses I had bought. One broke quite early in our marriage. They were used at all of our major celebrations. Throwing it out would not destroy the memory of those times. I don't need it as a story telling prop to retell about those times, so when it broke, why didn't I just feel regret and throw it out like I had for the partner? Well for one it was the sole remaining one(is that tautilogical?) I had an attachment to it. I also had seen a craft idea where broken stemware was used to mount highly embroidered beautiful pincushions and I thought that this would be a gorgeous way to create a memento of a treasured item. To repurpose it and help it live again. Who am I kidding? It has sat in my kitchen for a couple of years now, I haven't even gathered the velvet, beads and other stuff to turn it into a gorgeous pincushion. Will I turn it into a gorgeous pincushion in the next month? Will I ever sit down to make a gorgeous pincushion and say, gee I wish I hadn't thrown that stem out? No. Get real Sharon!
So that leads to my issue of sorting. Take my craft stuff. (please!!!) There is stuff I want to keep: scrapbooking stuff, paint, paint brushes and a small amount of fabric and wool. All the rest can go - some stuff should be donated to charity and some stuff - faded things, small things, things that have broken should be sorted. I don't want to burden charities with unsaleable stuff, nor do I want to send stuff to landfills that is still useable. This is what takes the time - making the three piles because you can sometimes spend too much time making decisions about trivial things. Take a 5cm scrap of lace - still good, not stained or ripped. Do I keep it for scrapbooking, donate to charity or throw it out? The rational person says throw it out, but I have to agonise over it!The same process may happen over a small scrap of gorgeous fabric - perhaps that could be used in a crazy patch quilt, or made into a fabulous flower.
I am getting better at lightening the load. I have over the past two years started applying the William Morris principle to my stuff "If you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it: Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." Great words to live buy and such a simple test.
I started in my kitchen. An example - I had 6 rolling pins. I had my original rolling pin, a decorative one painted by my father, a miniature one given to me by a friend, another bought for icing cakes (it didn't have the dints of my everyday rolling pin) and 2 other wooden rolling pins bought for the kids to use when they were little and liked to play with play dough. 3 went to charity immediately. My original, and the two kids play ones. I no longer iced cakes, so the dintless one would be the one I kept. I kept the other two decorative ones. I will be getting rid of the minature one later this month when I tackle the kitchen again. The one Dad painted will have a stay of execution, but I may need to find a function for it.
I have found I work better when I do things in small chunks. One cupboard in room at a time.
Even though my craft room is desperate, of more immediate concern is my clothing. As I am losing weight so much of my clothing is not fitting me and I have to buy more. I have so much that I fill my wardrobe, armoire, dressing table and half of the wardrobe in my craft room and still have some stuff in baskets. I want to get everything to fit into the one wardrobe and my cupboards.
I have done an initial prune. I sent all of my winter gear to charity 3 weeks ago. I now need to try on my summer gear.In this case I need to adjust the William Morris quote to be "Beautiful and useful" Clothes that are too big now need to be sent to charity. The top I wore today is a bit too baggy now to be stylish (it is still beautiful, but on me is not beautiful and is certainly no longer useful). It needs to be washed and put into a charity bag by the end of the week.
I need to rationalise the clothing that fits. I sorted it the other day. I have over 10 black blouses. I know I don't need that many. I have to decide which ones are beautiful and not just useful and cull the others. If it doesn't have a matching top or bottom, it may be beautiful but it is not useful and so must go. So my aim this week is to get that sorted.
So back to Hoarders. I think I am a recovering hoarder. How do I know?
I can now pass up a bargain if I don't need it.
I no longer feel the need to hang onto household stuff because the kids may need it if they ever move out of home.
Just because something was given to me by someone I love, I don't need to keep it just for that reason. I know that someone who loves me may feel a little pang if they know I gave something away that they gave me, but they will still love me.
I don't need to keep jars, plastic containers and boxes because they may come in handy. If I can't see an immediate use - into the recycling it goes.
I have come to realise I don't need 45 pretty mugs. If 45 of my closest friends ever drop around, they better bring their own mugs because I have less than 20!

Losing weight and getting fit or how the weight loss fairy failed to materialise.

Another 2011 resolution - lose weight and get fit.
When your youngest child will shortly turn 15 you have to face the fact that you can't claim your excess weight is just "baby" fat. It may have begun that way, but after 14 and a half years, it should not still be there. I was fat and unfit. Stairs would leave me puffing and I was certainly not as limber as I had been. I had tried a couple of times to lose weight. Joined a gym and loved it. I felt fit and a lot happier. The weight slowly started to move but I found I was having to spend longer and longer at the gym and my 3 days a week for 1/2 an hour was turning into 5 days for an hour and as I often didn't leave work until 5.30 that was cutting into my family time, getting home starving at 7.00 to cook something quick and simple like pasta. I couldn't sustain it. The kids were suffering lack of attention and I was missing that lovely evening time when I pop into my garden for 15 minutes or so to water the plants and just "power down" for a bit.
I tried shakes and limited calorie diets. A few of the girls at school had had great results. Once again success for a while but I love good food and enjoy eating and was so bored with it. On the shakes I constantly craved carbs and it was an effort not to sneak a spoonful of mashed potato or a slice of bread and eventually when I fell of the wagon, I felt great! The limited calorie diets were just a pain - two little quirks I have - I prefer not to read instructions and I don't weigh and measure (except roughly when I make cakes!)
Lately though, no matter what I did the weight kept creeping on. I ate less and less, felt perpetually lacking in energy at felt pretty rotten about myself. Still I did nothing about it apart from cutting my sugar intake. I was waiting for the weight loss fairy to wave her magic wand!
A trip to the doctor after some routine blood tests woke me up. My normally quite happy and accepting doctor was quite stern and basically "read me the riot act. She didn't mince her words - Another reading like this and you'll be classed as a diabetic. We talked. I talked about the issue of irregular meals and putting everyone else before me when it came to exercising - basically giving her a whole range of excuses. I'm not sure what I was thinking - perhaps that the weight loss fairy would pop out of her desk drawer and say "Oh Sharon. You've explained yourself perfectly - of course you can't lose weight. But I know that you are a good person so I will wave my magic wand and you will be thin." The weight loss fairy stayed resolutely hidden. Instead my doctor suggested things I could try. Join a support group, see a nutritionist, she knew of a weight loss centre that had been quite successful. She wanted me to have a blood test in 2 months time and we would see where we were. I thanked her and left feeling pretty depressed.
I did a lot of soul searching and decided no more excuses. I would put myself first and DO something about it. I want to be an old lady. I want to be a very old burden to my children!! Two days later I popped into the centre my doctor had mentioned just to make inquiries and as with many other things I jumped in with both boots.
That was the best thing I have done for myself. A lot of discussion about why I wanted to lose weight, what my goals were and who I could enlist as support people, an explanation of the eating and exercise plan and some very embarrassing photos and measurements later, I was ready to start. I couldn't start the circuit immediately as they needed a waver from the doctor, but I did start the eating plan and I ate and ate and ate. 3 meals and 2 snacks a day! Piles of food.I ate food that I had never eaten (except illegally) on a diet before - bacon, cheese, cream, avocado, mayonnaise! I ate mountains of spinach, zucchini, broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower. How could I possibly lose weight eating this amount? But I did.
I wondered how I would manage the no grains and no potatoes, particularly as they formed such a large part of my diet. I love bread, but haven't really missed it (apart from when I smell really fresh bread). I still serve pasta, rice and potatoes to the skinny members of my family, not as often as in the past. I just bulk my meal up with veges - spinach, zucchini and asparagus being my favourites. I have learned new ways to thicken stews and sauces. Have experimented with different foods (I am enjoying tofu for the first time in my life)
Some 3 months down the track I have lost 10kg and over 30cm. I have muscle tone in my arms and legs again and can see my old face emerging! I have a waistline again! My nails are strong and healthy and my skin looks a lot healthier. I can jog again and am enjoying exercise. I still have a long way to go. I am at 20% of my goal but this way of living is do-able, in fact enjoyable and I am in no hurry. I know there will be times when I will not lose weight and even put some on. I have faced this already. I have enjoyed morning teas, meals out, birthdays and Christmas (and we still have Christmas cake in the fridge untouched!) I am happy to keep up this amount of exercise and I can happily eat in this fashion for the rest of my life - it doesn't feel like a diet as I don't keep looking at things thinking I can eat you again when I lose weight.
On reflection maybe the weight loss fairy really was in the doctor's drawer that morning. She just needed me to join her as an active partner before she waved her wand.