My Muse came home...

Finally! She has returned!
My friend Maria showed me a site of amazing artwork by FABIO J NAPOLEONI. His stuff is cute, has lots of feeling and yes some of it is dark, but it makes you just want to reach into the drawing and hug them. After viewing his artwork, my muse decided to come back, after seeing the amazing colour combinations and things to do, she decided it was time to come home to mama!
Yes... now all I need is the time to get at the torch! Think I might go turn it on now!

One of my many favourites of his drawings:

Pinkie Swearers!

So far so good! 5 days into the diet and I haven't caved, and after having a few trying times this week I'm really proud of myself.
Now I just have to get back to my beadmaking!
Where is my muse?
Has anyone seen her?

She has wild firey hair, tends to wear blue/green watery type clothes, and has these most gorgeous wings, they remind me a lot of the artist Amy Brown's Fairy Wings. The top is firey like her hair and the bottom wings are watery colours! I miss her! If you see her, please send her home!

Pinkie swear...

I have pinkie sworn with my friend Heather.
From today right this moment. Health time! Diet and workouts.
I will be starting a new job as of 1 September and I will be going to a gym as of August 28th. Its a place I felt comfortable at, and they have a sauna to help relax muscles after your workout. So I will be doing this to improve my body. No one has told me I have to do this, and I am doing it for myself. In fact one guy at a place a work told me point blank that there was NOTHING wrong with me. Course I can't take his opinion as non-biased his wife is a big woman too. He did give me another compliment though, telling me I did not look as heavy as I am. He guessed I was 105 kilos for which I am 126 kilos. When I get down to 105 kilos I think I'll give him a big thank you.

Life has been busy busy busy...
Kids are now a week back in school and me a week back at work.
I don't really want to be, but have to put food on the table for the kids and healthy food for me.

Breakfast - 750 ml water, one nectarine, one banana, cup of green tea with a teaspoon of local beekeeper honey.

Back after a month...

of not posting. I had gotten really good into my diet, then had a bad week. A really bad week... talk about stress eating to make the bears eating for hibernation embarrassed...

So now its back on the bandwagon time!

This morning a banana and a glass of water. Now as I sit typing this I am eating a handful of grapes and 5 strawberries with a cup of green tea with orange and mint, using local beekeeper honey for sweetening. The local honey is hopefully going to help me get over my hayfever. Right now it is terrible and I don't want to spend my life taking medicines to be able to survive. I know it will take a while to take effect, but I'm willing to try anything that will help.

Today's lunch will be two slices of dark brown, multi-grain bread with pesto and goat's cheese, with some cucumber and tomato on the side. Prolly a glass of juice and water to go with it.

I'll prolly have a snack of carrots or celery later in the afternoon.

Dinner will be Soup made from chestnut mushrooms, spinach, vermicelli, tofu and boullion and to go with it a homemade bread with olives, spring onions and sundried tomatos.

I really want this weight to go away and stay away!
All encouragement is great, my husband is supportive but has hit doubts about my willpower. My mom and sister are my biggest cheerleaders. Mom-in-law is supportive but doesn't believe I can do it.

But for now I am off to find my crimpers to work on my daughter's first communion rosary and jewelry.

Why is water so boring tasting?

I'm drinking my water like a good girl. But why is it everything else tastes so much better and water so bland and boring... It was really difficult today after the phone call from my boss telling me I can't have friday off, and getting a throbbing pounding headache. I did do some floor exercises, crunches, and stretching, but after my boss called, it was like instant, some button in my head said must have bad food, chocolate or candy corn or the junk food... it took a lot of will power to not raid the cupboard...

my head still hurts and water still tastes bland and boring, but I am just thinking about my goal. The faster I get to my goal the better it is for me, my body, my family, and I can get my reward. :D

Clean slate...

Time to start over again, after the past month of being sick, it is time to get started on my diet again.
I weighed in this morning, luckily I haven't gained back the 5 kilos I had lost before, so I am good to continue on from here. I have a goal now too, and it is something I've wanted for many years.

Bead making has been on the back burner as well for the last month, but now I am getting some energy back and taking my life back into my control so I will be able to get more of them made. Good news on that front, I have been approved to sale via ebay here, so I can soon start listing beads on my own. Which is a good thing cause then I don't have to worry if anyone else has time when I do and such, so if I don't post, its my fault and no one elses. Have to do some research still into delivery confirmation and costs and such outside of the netherlands, but I feel this is the only way I can safely and securely get things delivered to people.

Now off to do some stretches and crunches. I have to keep this up, cause hubby doesn't think I can do it. So, I'm gonna prove him wrong and do it.

Big hugs to anyone and everyone who needs them in their lives. Feel free at anytime to contact me, about anything.

Cleaning...

Oki I'm tired of the mess. There is so much stuff in this little house its not funny. TOO much stuff. So I am working on it all now. What is no good, broken, missing parts, old is getting thrown out, the other stuff that has to have more looking into will get boxed in the attic until mid march when I have more time to go through, sort better, box things that can go to salvation army or something else. I wish they did yard sales here... i'd be having one thats for sure.

Anyways back to the cleaning...

beads beads beads

The lentils and goddess I will work into a necklace and earrings for carnaval.

I feel like I'm getting cabin fever...

Early friday I went out and then friday for work. But I've been inside since then. Making beads yes, but inside none the less. Its been raining all weekend and I'm ready for some sunshine.
Judy has been sick all weekend and is once again home today. She's got a slight fever, is very white and coughing a lot. Been feeding her cough syrup and cough drops to help reduce the coughing. And with this rain wallking outside is out of the question. Not to mention today I feel like I'm gonna be sick. This is not good. I can't be sick, Carnaval is friday!

Rain, rain go away!

If there is anything I dislike about living in the Netherlands, it has to be the amount of rain that we get. On days like today when it is raining, and raining and raining... what is one to do for exercise? Walking the children to school is a good thing, but not at a speed to get my heart rate up. So I did some crunches and leg lifts. Man that hurt... guess I need to do them more often.

Now I'm sleepy and could sleep all afternoon but the children want to go to the library and turn in their books and go to this play afternoon. I don't know if I want to go out in the rain again. I told them if they clean up their stuff and help me get the upstairs sorted a bit then we might go.

I wish I could stop working and just concentrate in the evenings making beads. Someday I guess.

Happy Valentine's Day!

This morning I woke up to this on my computer screen!
Sometimes he can be VERY sweet and thoughtful!



My mom had sent gifts to the girls for Valentine's Day and they were all very surprised this morning when they came downstairs to this:



I wish everyone a very Happy Valentine's Day.
Oh and btw I don't care if it was created by the card companies, valentine's day has always been special to me from the time I was little and in school where we would decorate shoe boxes in red, white, pink and silver and give all of our class mates valentine cards and eat candy and be dressed in red, white and pinks. Next to Halloween, valentine's day is one of my favourite holidays. I am teaching my children to keep it a special day as well so that they learn that everyone deserves to be loved and cared for even if you aren't 'in love' with them.

Long weekend

After the kids had a long weekend, which consisted of Kristel being sick. Its time for a new week, finally. Kristel is still sick and now I'm not feeling so honkey dorey...

But tomorrow is another day. The eating part of my diet is still going strong, the walking has been put on hold. I know I shouldnt use the kids as an excuse, but I can not expect them to be able to walk fast enough to keep up and with Kristel sick, that just didn't seem like the smart thing to do. So tomorrow hopefully she will be feeling up to going to school and then I can go for my walk again.

Sunday was the open day for my nail specialist and it went pretty good. :D She used me as a demo for a facial and eyebrown shaping and colouring. Its kinda odd to be able to see really see my eyebrows.

http://www.magicalbody.tk is her website which she is still working on.
Here is a picture of my valentine nails and a picture of me with my new formed and coloured eyebrows.

Headaches...

They hardly stop anymore with or without tylenol/paracetomal, not even my walking and vitamins are helping to reduce them. I hope its this odd weather, and not migraines. They aren't terribly painful, but they just throb on and on and on and don't go away. Sometimes sleeping helps, but who has time for that during the day? Too many things to do and not enough time to do it all.

Sometimes I feel like I'm going to turn into a piece of fruit or a head of lettuce, or some other vegetable. I eat so much of it you would think I'd be looking like one soon.

Well I gotta finish my salad and get ready to go help my nail specialist stuff mailboxes with flyers.

Open Day - 12 Feb 2006 - 12pm - 5pm
Magical Body Beauty Salon
van Hogendorpstraat 55-05
Tilburg

A busy busy busy day today

Just got home from my walk. After having a VERY stressful morning with the kids it was nice to walk off my anger at them. They aren't that bad but we were running late and they were more interested in the tv than finding their shoes.

But anyways, today is a full day.
Walk, shower, groceries, finish tacking hubby's costume and put the sewing stuff away, and then clean the house, at least start on it. For some reason when I go into sewing mode I don't pay attention to anything else and of course everyone else lets things go too. So of course the house looks like a bomb went off in it. Even though I swept on saturday. The kids have not been keeping their stuff cleaned up, guess it is time to throw things away again. And hubby is leaving his stuff all over the place again too. Then he whines at me when I ask him to get me toilet paper cause someone else empty the roll and didn't fill the holder afterwards. Why am I the only one in the whole house who knows how to do this? Is it really soooo difficult to put a new roll on the toiletpaper holder and if the extra holder is empty fill it up when you take the last roll off it? Urgh!

Oki no more time for chitchat, I must get my shower and get busy today.
I want to try and make beads tonight to go with my costume. Costume you ask? Oh its nearly time for Carnaval (the dutch version of Mardi Gras)
Here is what I have made.

The Devils in Angel Disguises (aka my daughters)




The Devilish Dad





And the Flaming Hot Devil Mama







The only thing I've noticed with mine, is that I think I will add a piece of elastic across the back to make it more form fitting around my waist, but still have the give for movement, normally I would make such a costume out of stretchy fabric but this stuff was awesomely priced. 3 meters for 5 euros. :)

Could it be colder?

Man talk about reasons to avoid the walking round. Which I have NOT! Even though by the time I get home from the 30min walk I'm freezing and need a hot shower, just to get warmed up. The dog loves the walks as well as I'm enjoying them. I walked on tuesday without the dog and talk about lonely walking. So she comes with me everytime. I haven't had a chance to make it to the wandelbos to check out how long it would take to walk around there, but if I do that then I can't take the dog. I keep wanting to go to the woods to walk, but each time I plan to go it rains or snows or I have to do the shopping, so I just do the 30min round the neighbourhood instead. Course the wood walk would be better cause its also a 15 min bike ride away. So I'd actually be having an hour work out. Guess I need to get my butt in gear and go do that.

Yesterday when shopping for dinner with the girls, sometimes it is just SOOOOOOOOOOO hard to walk through the cookies, chips, candies and ignore them. I'm doing pretty good with that, my real downfall is ice cream. When it gets close to that time of the month. MAN... I MUST have Ben & Jerry's New York Chocolate Fudge Chunk ice cream. NOTHING else fixes the need. But I'm doing good now... 2 months no ice cream. Talk about killer when you walk past it in the store.

Well anyways the costumes are coming along slowly but surely. The girls costumes are complete aside for the devil tails. Hubby's is being a real pain in the butt with my stupid idea of applying the left over flames on his sleeves and front of the shirt. I'm having to stitch them on by hand cause the machine isn't letting me keep them flat enough.

Today for dinner is left over pea soup cause with all the sewing I have yet to get done I am SOOO not in the mood to cook anything else. Tomorrow will prolly be pizza. During the day I try very hard to be good, take my vitamins, which is just the local drugstore brand specially for women, and some apple cider vinegar tablets that will supposedly help increase my metabolism. I'm hoping, they also seem to be a type of hunger suppressant, cause I take 1 in the morning and one 30min before dinner and I'm fine with one bowl or one plate of something. And most importantly, I'm enjoying my salads (veggie or fruit) much more now. I have more energy if I stick to the fruit and veggies during the day than if I have a cheese sandwich or meat sandwich. Don't get me wrong I'm turing into a vegetarian or anything, I LIKE meat. I'm just trying to stay away from too many pasta, potato, rice or bread products. I do get my whole grains, I'll have some whole grain crackers or a piece of bread and I do eat pasta and stuff, just not as often. I have noticed when I do, that I feel sluggish and slow. So, I eat the foods that make feel better. Its also VERY hard to not drink cola and drink water or tea instead. But its getting easier. Even though I do enjoy a glass of cola once in a while. I've noticed if I have a small urge for it and I allow myself to have one glass, then I am satisfied for another few days, and each time the craving takes longer to come around. I did notice the other day, hubby had rolos in the house, and so I had some, but it was just not the same. I wasnt wanting chocolate and it didn't taste all that delicious like it used to. Know what I mean?

Well anyways, back to the sewing I go...

I've had my nails redone...

two times since my last posting about them.

Here are some pictures of them

Its been a busy few days

I've been keeping up with my walking and being busy with my beads.
I am borrowing from a friend in Alaska a torch called the National 8M, and I'm loving it! Its soooo quiet and soOOOOO hot!
Went to the market today and found the girls some new clothes, but most importantly...
I found myself some new good sturdy bras for 8 euros a piece and normally I pay 50 euros a piece and the same style bra has gone up 20 euros, so 70 euros for ONE bra I find a bit outrageous!
Eating so much fruit and drinking so much water, I spend a LOT of time in the bathroom. But there are results so far, 3 kilos are gone, where from I have no clue, but the scale keeps telling me its true even when I get on the scale 4 or 5 times standing in different positions to make sure its not lying to me.

But now I must get the pea soup finished, get a shower and this evening will be sewing costumes for carnaval.

Good Monday morning Sunshines!

It is a crisp and beautiful winter morning, here in little ole Tilburg. My friend Chuanita came for the walk with me this morning and so we had a nice little visit too. Cup of tea and some mango. This weekend was oki, saturday i did absolutely NOTHING. And Sunday I wanted to torch, and found the children's stuff stacked a mile high behind my chair, so I started throwing out. I've decided I want my house back, not a garbage dump! So I am going through things, tossing things that are messes up, missing pieces, cut, coloured all up, out they went. Next project my clothes, I know there are clothes in my closet I will NEVER wear and why I keep them I do not know. I have clothes from before I came to the Netherlands, thats 10 years ago and they still have their tags on them. I never wore them. But I hold onto them in hopes that I will be able to fit into them once again. I highly doubt it, but I can dream right? Well no more, if I haven't worn it in 1 year... it is gone! I don't have the space or the energy to wash 50million things anymore.
Now that all the christmas stuff is down and gone, my house is looking kinda empty. I think I need to get a drill and hang up some pictures. But for now I will try and get the house clean. One step at a time as with my diet. One step at a time...

A poem

It kept me occupied all day trying to get it just right and now it is completed.


Gentle hands slowly brush
Agonizingly soft temptations
Caressing tender bare flesh
Coaxing and gently coercing
Knowing hands inspire and caress
Satin flesh heats with fervor
Innocent hands tentatively explore
Stroking heated velvety softness
Fevered crescendo of needs
Softly soothed with butterfly kisses
Whispered words of passion
Limbs entwining tempestuously
Adept fingers stoke passion's fires
Trembling bodies harmonize
Hearts and souls, seductively ensnared
Frantic caresses inflame and incite
Heated bodies tussle in the night
Souls merge and dreams explode
Exquisite pleasure shattering sanity
Slowly, spent bodies collapse trembling
Racing hearts subside
Glowing warmth eminates and surrounds
Tender words whispered intimately
Passion's fire banked and smoldering
Bodies entwine in replenishing sleep
First light will stoke passion's fire once more

Five days - Done myself proud....

I am VERY proud of myself. I have walked 30 minutes each day this week so far. I am planning on doing it also in the weekend, but will not bash myself if I don't make it. Heck I might just take the girls to the Wandelbos and walk around there instead. I'm thinking of doing that next week anyways. Mon/Wed/Fri walk around the neighbourhood with Beau and Tues/Thurs walk in the woods. It will be a nice change of scenery and I bet its really peaceful there early in the mornings. I remember when I went looking for pine greenery to make gifts for the teachers, there wasn't hardly anyone in the woods. So I'm thinking it will be a nice walk, and who knows, I may change the route to 3 days the woods and 2 days the neighbourhood.

Tonight I am SOOOOO going to be on the torch. Man it feels like FOREVER and a day since I actually sat down and played. I do have some back orders I need to get done. But I haven't heard from my costumer since I took a 'sabbatical'.

Thursday... nearly weekend

I so wanted to play on the torch last night and was mad at myself for breaking my nail. Oh well, it gets fixed today. I've got the broken piece still bandaided on.

This morning my walking partner Beau, was very reluctant to leave the house. Wonder why... but I got her out the door and then she took forever sniffing around the doggie area and finally we could get our walk started. I forgot to time myself today, but I am back about normal time, so I figured it took just about the same amount of time.

Since I started taking my vitamins and doing this walking stuff, I've felt a whole lot better. I'm not as tired during the day, and actually can get myself out of bed when the alarm goes off for the third time and still have enough time to get ready nice and easy instead of rush rush rush like it used to be. I am enjoying this taking care of myself for once thing. It makes life nice and makes me want to look forward to tomorrow instead of dreading it.

In fact yesterday when my project leader at work was upset because my other co-workers hadn't helped her on tuesday when I was off, I couldn't even get upset. So I thought about it for a while, and I told her, to let it roll off her. They have I think something like 1.5 months left before they stop. Why would she want to risk being upset and stressed out for that long, when they won't matter anymore once they are gone. She agreed with me, that it wasn't worth the energy to stress about it.

But now it is time for a bit of mango and banana, I think I will have an apple too. Then its into the shower I go, and then I am going to my mom-in-law, to have her help me get the patterns ready for my outfit and Kees' for carnaval. The girls I will use a halloween pattern that my mom gave to me years ago.

WAH!

I broke a nail!
My purty acrylic nails that I got done for new years!







I was opening a box, and it fell out of my hands. The corner of it caught my thumbnail just 'right' and broke it from just down to my nail and up to the corner. So I ended up with a piece and a dagger point. So I figured I'd get smart. I bandaided the whole thing back on. Called my manicurist and she will fix me up tomorrow afternoon. I feel SOOOO stupid!

But I do know that next week I will need to make an appointment to get new ones done, and I will go for something natural and plain and then the time after that I'm going for black sparkles with flames!

Damn Mango...

Well here I was sitting, enjoying my fruit after my 30min walk with Beau this morning and eat my mandarine and my apple, and get out the mango. Supposedly its REALLY good for you to eat mangos, something about glycemic index and glycemic load.... Which has to do with how fast the body responds to whatever you are eating to make the blood sugar level rise. So a mango has a GI of 51 (which is low and good) and GL of 8, which is really good too. And for 120 grams of mango you fill up pretty fast, so I sit here slicing it in half thinking, peach like effect, you know? Slice in half pull the one half off the pit, well seems that mangos don't like doing that so I got squirted in the face and down my shirt (its a good thing it was just my shirt from walking and not clean new clothes). So I figured I'd peel half of it and eat it by slicing off bits, well it seems the dang thing has gone all yicky. Oh well... I have to go shopping in a bit anyways so I will get some new ones, they were on sale too. Which is a good thing. I need more bananas too, the kids take fruit daily to school too. I wondder what I will eat for lunch today, prolly a sandwich with cheese and mustard (which is supposedly really good too cause it ups the metabolism or something for several hours after just a small amount)> According to the negativecaloriesfood diet, mustard is an after meal metabolism booster. It can raise your metabolism by as much as 20-25% for several hours. Thats a GOOD thing, especially seen as I LOVE mustard and my metabolism can most definitely use all the boosting it can get.

My neice had her birthday yesterday and is celebrating the party today, so the kids will get out of school and we will have to hurry home for lunch because Oma will be here around 2pm to pick us up for the party. I can't forget to get something easy for dinner, I'm thinking lasagna from the cooler section of the store, just this once, I do still have the salad stuff that I had planned for dinner yesterday, but with soup, meatballs and carrots yesterday, no one was in the mood for salad. So I think that solves my problem for dinner this evening. Lasagna and salad it shall be tonight.

But anyways... now shower time and shopping time... sometimes I really hate doing the grocery shopping. I think next week wednesday I need to make a trip to the market and get fabric for the carnival clothes. I need red for hubby, and black for me and and white for the kids...

Hubby and I will be devils, him in red outfit and me in black with bits of this really awesomely cool flame fabric to accent it. The children will be my 'Devils in angel disguises' They will have little white dresses and red horns and red tails and a halo. I am gonna have to get some white spraypaint, because for some odd reason I don't think angels, even devils in disguises, don't have purple wings... ;)

Day 2 of Lose Weight Plan - Still going strong

Yesterday I actually felt really good all day.
For my breakfast throughout the morning I ate a banana, 2 mandarines, and a kiwi and had two half liter bottles of water. Lunch consisted of two pieces of dark multi-grain bread toasted with a thin smearing of hummus and a half liter bottle of water. Dinner had to have been the best, it is from a diet my husband and I have done off and on over the years. Its called 'Fit for Life' and this particular recipe consists of grilled mustard, garlic, lemon juice marinaded chicken breasts, lemon butter mushrooms and a mustard, basil, olive oil, lemon juice marinaded courgettes and paprikas. Yum Yum! Oh and a glass of water. I was then at work and had three more glasses of water and came home and had one more half liter of water. But man, the chippies in the cupboard were calling to me. Hubby had bought them while I was away this past weekend at a friend's house.

Today has consisted of my vitamin, a banana and a bottle of water so far, but the day is still new. So I have kiwis and apples and mandarines that I can munch on, some pineapple juice I think I will enjoy a small glass of that this morning. For lunch I have a nice salad with pinenuts and a pesto dressing. Dinner tonight will be meatballs with carrots and a nice big salad with feta cheese and green olives (at least that way I know I can force the kids to eat a little bit of it, they are absolutely crazy about feta cheese and olives).

I still didn't get my christmas tree down, so I will do that either today during the day or this evening. I have the evening off, because I was supposed to be going to Rotterdam, but I've not heard from the woman I was gonna meet there, so I'm not gonna go hop on a train for an hour ride to just have to turn around and come home. Not to mention, I have no one who can watch the kiddos after school.

Another annoying bit of information, for Christmas hubby bought me (read US) an MP3 player, well within the first week the one of the earphones stopped working. And now... the stupid thing won't turn on even with brand new batteries. *boggle* So off to downtown I have to go again. But I can have a good excuse to stop off by my glass suppliers and see how things are going with my borrowed torch.

Here is a picture of my walking buddy, her name is Beau:

Happy New Year!

First off, Happy New Year.
Secondly, I am going to use this as a sort of exercise/diet journal for myself.

Today, the kids went back to school after Christmas break. So I decided, I will take advantage of the time they are gone and start myself on a walking schedule. Get up, take the kids to school, come home, get dog and go for a 30 min walk. I said I would do it, asked a friend to join me, she backed out today, but I went on anyways.

I am proud of myself for taking the first steps for myself to get some of this excess weight off. I have a Large goal of 50 kilos, but will work with smaller goals along the way. For each 5 kilos I lose I will put 50 euros into a pot. So when I lose all 50 kilos that will be 500 euros in the pot that I will use for something special. Maybe new clothes, or new shoes, or keep saving for a trip to the states, who knows. But I have set this up for myself, for no one else, no one has told me this time i have to do it. I am doing it, because I am tired of feeling like I am 60+ years old and I am just almost 32. I have my two lovely daughters who I want to see grow up into the beautiful women I am sure they will be, and be able to play with grandbabies when and if they decide to have children of their own.

I am also reading up on the www.negativecaloriesfood.com and it seems to be a good 'diet' cause its not really diet food, just making myself more aware of which foods are better for me to eat than others.

Now it is time to get this christmas tree out of my house and to get my house back in order and prepare it for Imbolc.