Merry Christmas And Almost Happy New Year!

Well another Christmas has passed and what a lovely one it was too!

I got some lovely Kris Kringle presents and pressies from some of the patients at work as well as seen in the picture.





Christmas day was lovely and was spent at my brother Duncan and his family's place. It was a wonderful afternoon. The table looked lovely as you will see from the photos. The children all got on really well and we all got some fantastic presents. I love getting together with my gorgeous family!






Here are a couple of pics of Santa's missing reindeer. Jessica, Erin and Lexie all used the stickers from the crackers very interestingly indeed.











We had some very festive food, we did have other food besides what is in the pictures! Of course we had turkey, ham, vegies and salads. We also had the fantastic flaming pudding which always delights the children. My brother Stuart made the brandy butter...definitely the best yet Stu! It was rather potent and included not just brandy but cointreau and spices as well. Very yummo!













Erin had end of year activities at school and one of the activities was to cook a biscuit hamper. It was really beautifully packaged..and quite yummy! She made the truffles.



I got some lovely pressies including the lovely drink set and tray from my bosses at work. Thanks Ann and Sue I absolutely love it!



I got 6 new charms for my "getting heavier all the time" Pandora Charm bracelet. The owl from Dale, the hanging heart from Erin, the shell and bow spacer from my Mum and Dad and the gorgeous glass bead and leaf spacer from my sister Louise, who was my Kris Kringle! I love them all and will soon be able to use it for weight training! I will only need to change wrists to get an even workout.



So I decided to buy myself a pressie as well...a new bike! Heather's husband David put it together for me (thanks David), then Heather and I went for a ride. I managed a ride around her block which was 2kms long. I am not too sure how long it took us but I am very proud of the fact that I actually made it without falling off...David was going to get the ambulances on standby just in case though! Here is a picture of me before the ride...and yes I was still smiling after it, my legs however were suddenly made of jelly! I did end up with a somewhat sore behind though!



Craig, if by some chance you read this...not quite the Tour de Boronia yet but I am working on it! I did stay upright though!

Ok hope you enjoyed my Christmas. I will post more next year...hopefully with a smaller time between posts than I have been allowing. Please leave a comment, I would love to hear from everyone.

Chelle xx

Craig Harper RYL, a pressie, GYST and retail therapy!

Hi all this has been a long time coming...sorry about that!

I have been doing some great reading lately, Craig Harper's books Fattitude, So...you've decided to get in shape (again) and Food...for thought available from www.craigharper.com.au. I have also read Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom...all excellent reads.




After much planning and looking forward to, November 2nd finally rolled around. I met Linda from the Weight Watchers boards and chatted with on msn for about 6 months and we both went to Craig Harper's Renovate Your Life workshop. It was a half day course down at Craig's gym Harper's in Brighton. Linda and I met up outside and I took a cheesecake for Craig...he has cheesecake issues lol! We sat in the front row and I saw him and took the cheesecake over to him...he seemed really happy with that. I wound up out the front doing a rollercoaster example which was awesome!!! We had a fabulous time and all got an accountability partner. I also learnt a lot and feel extremely inspired. Thanks Craig!!!



I bought the diary to use for my exercise etc.





Linda gave me a really lovely pressie as seen in the picture. I used the book immediately for my notes and my lovely new pen as well. Thanks so much Linda!


The tag refers to GYST which was a challenge Craig ran called Get Your Shit Together which is something Linda and I have both decided to do and are now accountability partners and swap menus to try to help us both lose weight...seems to be working so far. Heather and Dorothy and a few others have also joined in and our Weight Watchers thread is now called GYST Gals! Go Us!!!!


We then went into DFO at Southern Cross and had some lunch and a bit of retail therapy and got some pretty good steps on my pedometer as well! Here is what I got from DFO!



I hope to not leave it so long next time!!!

Chelle x

The Big Day Arrives.....

Ok a few weeks ago I entered a competition to win Craig Harper for a week of personal training and mentoring. Alas I didn't win, a lovely lady from South Australia named Jo won. Craig decided, however to run a mentoring session for those of us who entered but didn't win. Of course I put up my hand like a shot lol. The decided date was the 30th of August...yep today!

I have my weigh in on a Saturday, so I went to that and woo hoo had lost 1.2kg which now brings the total lost to 23.7kg. I then went home, had breakfast and changed ready to leave on the drive to Brighton where his training facility, Harpers is situated. (I thought I was going to be late but I got there just before him.) He came toward me and held out his hand and said "Michelle?" There were about 9 including Jo and I sat at the front. He chatted about accountability and creating changes to make your life better. Needing to be proactive rather than reactive.

There was question time then hug time (yay) I asked if I could have my photo taken with him and he said rather surprised.."you want a photo...did you bring a camera" I told him "of course." This is the picture.



Then I got my lovely hug. So lucky lol.

I also had a lovely long chat with Jo in the car park. Good luck with everything Jo.

I have had an awesome day.

Chelle

Birthday, Lunch and Telstra Dome and a loss

Ok firstly I celebrated my birthday on the 29th of July, I turned 46. I had a lovely day, starting with getting a lovely pair if silver earrings from Dale (my son) and a beautiful teddybear and glass butterfly from Erin (daughter). My Mum and Dad came up to work with a beautiful arrangement of camellias and 3 charms for my Pandora bracelet. (I will post birthday pictures in the next post) The people I work with got a cake for me...yum!




I went to lunch with the lovely ladies from the Weight Watchers threads again. After much confusion as to where at Southern Cross Station we would meet up, Heather and I did find Marg and we wandered over to Docklands past Telstra Dome. When we got there we had to wait for Dorothy. All of a sudden Heather got a call on her mobile and it turned out Dorothy had walked straight past us. She was about 50m away from us and Heather started describing what Dorothy had on and as she turned there were the 3 of us waving at her. We wandered through New Quay and settled on lunch at Hot Chocolate restaurant. Heather, Dorothy and I had a lovely Caesar salad and Marg had yummy looking egg and ham on toast. In the pic it is L-R Marg and Heather (back) and Dorothy and me in the front.

After lunch Dorothy left us and we walked back to Telstra Dome where the AFL match between St Kilda and Port Adelaide had just begun. As you can see the ground at Telstra Dome from the gates we did a lap of the ground looking in each gate as we passed it.




In this picture we found a Krispy Kreme donut place and we thought it would be funny to show 2 weight watcher people being barred from it by a fence, I was actually roaring with laughter at the time of the photo.





These two photos show(if you look closely enough) the actual ground at Telstra Dome.

We had a lovely day and after leaving Telstra Dome we had a wander through DFO, said goodbye to Marg, had another cuppa and made the train with a minute to spare (well timed)I had such a lovely day. (lots of steps on the pedometer too!!!)





Oh by the way I also had another loss this week...1.5kg which is now 21.9kg all up.

till next time

Chelle

New Picture, a lovely lunch and stars!!

>





The picture on the right was taken on the 14th of July with me having lost 20kg. I did actually achieve the 20kg mark a couple of weeks ago but just needed to hve my photo done. I have since lost another kg to bring the total to 21kgs lost in 26 weeks. (Gotta love that right...Woo Hoo!)





On Sunday the 20th of July I went to lunch with 2 lovely ladies from Weight Watchers; Heather who is the weigher/recorder and now money taker/counter at my own meeting and Marg who I met through the Weight Watchers boards. After much to-ing and fro-ing with the plans we decided to meet at Berwick. After a 30 minute walk we drove into Berwick and after yet more walking decided to have lunch at the first place we looked at...Moods. The food was lovely, Heather and I had a chicken souvlaki with tzatsiki on the side and Marg had a lovely looking Hawaiian omelette. What we didn't expect was the serve of chips we also each got. We did eat a couple but not all. We also avoided the "evil" cake selection. 20 Weight Watchers points just to take a look at them hehe. We took our photos to show each other and chatted a lot. Our waiter was delightful and joined in a couple of funny converstions with us and a waitress agreed to take our photo. The end result is below. Such a good day with fabulous company, thanks Heather and Marg. (Hopefully next time we can have all the ladies on our thread attend that would be great!!)



I am on the right, Heather in the middle and Marg on the left.


I have joined the 12 week star team challenge on the Weight Watchers boards, along with abaout 480 other people. So far I have completed my first week and earned myself a green star for completing the week one challenge of drinking 6 - 8 glasses of water 6 out of 7 days. I got a blue star for losing 300gms in the first week. (See left of screen) Week 2 challenge is 2 fruit and 5 vegies. Bring it on...yayayay

Michelle

A Quick Update

Well it has been a while and Yay me I have been going really well. I achieved my 20kg loss and I got a job. I am a Medical Receptionist for a Neuro Physio Group, and I am loving it so far. A lot to learn but I am very happy.

I had an awesome lunch with the lovely people I worked with at PFO on Saturday the 5th of July and got loads of compliments about my weight loss, which made me feel great. Everyone looks fabulous and so much happier.



books and scale surprises


The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed. Well let's see.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who've only read 6 and force books upon them ;-)

01. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen my favourite book
02. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
03. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
04. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling I've read the whole series and loved it!!
05. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
06. The Bible - the bits we were made to read at school (which was quite a bit)
07. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
08. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
09. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare -
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwel
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery – Have read the whole series of Anne books
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. The Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist- Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Colour Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet- William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Till next time

Chelle

Life Is Hectic.....

Wow, yes I know it has been a while between posts, but I have been busy looking for work and embarking on a Centrelink required Jobsearch course. I hope you enjoy the pictures of the beautiful spider webs on some of my trees taken the other morning.




After not many interviews, suddenly they are coming thick and fast. I actually have 2 different 2nd round interviews this coming week. (wouldn't it be funny to have a choice of jobs after all this time...lol).




Dale is off to driver training at school...a two day course. I hope it goes well, they do have dual control so I should feel ok about it, right? He is also about to do a week's work experience with his Dad. Should be exciting...would love to be a fly on the wall there!




Erin is happy as usual and enjoying school now the bullying seems to have been brought under control.




I have been losing weight, I wanted to lose 700gms this week to get to the 20kg milestone but alas i lost 200gms instead. I am happy with the loss but would have loved the extra 500g to go too. Never mind I am happy with my loss so far and the smaller clothes I have had to buy as a result...gotta love that right?

On the Weight Watchers boards we have a lot of challenges and for the months of April and May we had our own version of The Biggest Loser. I managed to come 2nd...I lost the most weight but not the most body fat. So YAY ME!!! I am doing it again and thankfully survived the 1st week of the challenge.

I have also been doing Craig Harper's Shove with Love challenge. I have been lucky enough to have a few personal replies from him which has spurred me on immensely. Had the chance to meet him today for coffee (with a big group of people) but alas I had a prior engagement and had to give it a miss...maybe next time. So I guess it is back to his daily posts and Tuesday 6:45am segments on Gold104.3FM.

I have also spent some time on MSN with a great bunch of people, Chrissy, Sue, Mia, Robyn, Elaine (in Scotland) and her son Andy, Caz and Linda. We have a ball and it is sometimes hard to keep up. Erin often gets on from her Dad's place and chats too.

So I hope this updates you all a bit on what I have been up to and I will try to post...next week when I reach 20kg!!!!(fingers crossed I may even have an update on the job front too.)

Chelle

The Story So Far....

Wow, I have just completed week 16 of my Weight Watchers journey, so I decided to show some photos of my progress so far. (See if you can see the difference)

The first photo is from my mum's birthday celebrations and for now has dictated what
I will wear in the photos.(Well until they literally fall of me!)



The second photo was taken on Easter Sunday and after 9 weeks on the journey. I was pretty pleased with the 11.7 kg loss I had achieved at that point.



This next photo was taken this morning after my Weight Watchers meeting and after having a 1.7kg loss taking the total to 17kgs lost. (As you can see from the rainbow tracker above I have lost over 6% BMI as well.



I am so pleased with my progress so far and would love to have some feedback so please if you have a look at this blog click on the comments at the bottom of this post and leave a comment, would love top hear from you.

Till next time

Michelle

Woo Hoo More Losses

Firstly on the 12th of April I lost 2kg and finally achieved my 10% weight loss goal. I got my beautiful little gold star as seen in the picture. I also got a big round of applause from the incredibly supportive people at my meeting. (And also the wonderful people from the Weight Watchers message boards - Thank you)




In the photo is also my 10 week achievement pin and the special goal keyring I am making. I had a loss of 300gms on the 19th April, so the total so far is 14.5kgs.The next to go on will be the 20kg loss, which is only 5.5kg away.

For a bit of fun I had a bit of a play on www.mvm.com, I entered my start and goal weight details and created a before and after shot for inspiration. Wow, what a difference, that is what I am striving for.





I have also downloaded msn messenger and have been having a lot of fun with some of the Weight Watchers board users. I was even in conversation with Erin on msn while she was at her Dad's place. We have been having such a good time.

It's been a while....

We have had a birthday. Erin turned 13. She had a lovely birthday and we had a lovely cake and balloons. Nana and Granddad came for an afternoon tea party.


These two were in the packet stuck together. It was rather funny blowing the two of them up. It felt really wierd blowing up the second balloon with the first one attached.




I have lost more weight and also last week had a gain so the total as of today is a loss of 12.2kg. I am back on track and feel the problem was not enough water or exercise. I am so close to my 10% goal.Do you love my rainbow. I am chasing my own pot of gold at the end of my own rainbow!



I finally got a job interview. It was with an agency and apparently I made quite an impression and the lady interviewing me said she'd like to put me up for the job. so fingers crossed. I got my neighbour to photograph me in my interview outfit.



I will hear back from the agency about when my interview with the company is. It is for a receptionist position. I felt really good about todays interview.

Loss and Motivation

Wow, this has been a really good week. I had another loss, 1.9kg that takes the total to 11.7kg. I received my 10 week achievement pin, and another star for my bookmark.

I joined Craig Harper's email list and receive his motivational newsletters. I was even lucky enough to receive a personal email in reply to my email to him.

I have been having computer problems so this is a short post. (Even this line has frozen about 5 times)

Hopefully a bigger post next time.

chelle

I had a loss...

Today I weighed in at weight watchers and I have lost another 1.3kg. That takes the total now to 9.8kg. Sooo close to 10kg!!

I went to the Stitches and Craft show with my friend, Lisa and her daughter, Leah. Of course the lovely ladies of Audrey and Maude were not there. So sad I missed them. I did meet the lovely Jenny from Amitie though and we had a lovely chat, along with the lovely lady who made gorgeous button jewellery (not too sure of her name though). I sat in on a very amusing framing workshop and then a paper tole workshop. I entered heaps of competitions and joined the Stitches and Craft club. Oh and the CWA tried to recruit us. It was a lovely day.

Love chelles

I spent this morning watching "Mornings with Kerri-Anne" to see my lovely sister Louise and her Audrey and Maude partner Cathy. You two looked really great. I hope you are enjoying the stitches and craft show. Your work is brilliant. Cathy thanks for the comment and I too wish you luck with your weight. You are doing really well. I don't know how much you have to lose but keep up the good work.

The above picture was taken of me by my son Dale on the 11 th of March. I have been trying to do loads of walking, but this awful heatwave has made it a little difficult . Now I know how to add pics I can add more as I take them.

I am still applying for jobs. I have applied for about 20 had 3 no thanks letters, no interviews and I am registered with about 13 sites like seek.com.au and now a couple of agencies. Hopefully things will start happening soon.



Take care everyone till next time...

This is where it all begins

Well, here we go. I have created this blog with no idea of what it is about. I am currently looking for employment after being made redundant at the end of November last year. I am applying for Medical Reception positions, but so far no luck. I am also a member of Weight Watchers. I joined on January 19th this year. I have just completed week 7 and have lost the "grand" sum of 8.5kg. Go Me!!! As time goes by and with any comments I can streamline this blog. I have also been given some fabric by my lovely sister Louise who has her own totally amazing blog- http://lululollylegs.blogspot.com She started a quilt for her daughter, Lucinda and decided to go in another direction. So now it is mine. I haven't done any quilts as yet, but Louise and Mum have done heaps. I post on the Weight Watchers message boards as ellehcim62. This is all a bit jumbled as I get started.