Safari

This weekend I did 2 things are creating an equal mix of pride and shame, well maybe not pride for both possibly pride for one, satisfaction for the other but definitely a little bit of shame for both.

On saturday I took the chunky monkey and mighty midget out for the day and we had lunch at Macca's. OMG maccas how does that fit into a clean whole foods eating plan?? In short it doesn't. While at Macca's however I ordered a grilled chicken salad wrap and a bottle of water-enter pride. I gave myself a little pat on the back for showing such restraint amongst all of that oily plastic cheesy goodness. At the same time I hate myself a little. who the fuck goes to Macca's to eat healthy? I almost ordered a coffee kick frappe when the kids were getting their soft serves but again a I refrained. I really want that frappe, I have been thinking about that missed frappe for 2 days and no amount of back patting is making it go away. The only thing stopping me from driving the 20mins to the nearest macca's to buy that stupid frappe is that Its not pay day til wednesday and I would have to refill my car before wednesday if I did that.
This means that I'm probably going to buy a frappe on the way to work Thursday morning....stupid frappe.

On sunday I gardened, it had to be done, we have a pebbled area down the side of the house that was a jungle of knee to waist high thistle, and other weeds I don't know the names of. To hang the washing out I had to wear long sleeves, jeans and enclosed shoes. Big Daddy's been saying he's going to do it for months but it's understandably difficult to follow through with those promises while working full time night shifts. I was hoping that by seeing me do it it would guilt him into coming out to help me because I couldn't imagine it was going to be a particularly enjoyable task.
So out I went all gloved up and prepared to tackle the thistle jungle. While I was safari-ing through the jungle I discovered some things;

• Thistles hurt....ok so I already knew this but did you know that the bigger they get the longer and harder the spikes get and it is damn near impossible to get to the non spiky base of the stalk without getting thistle spikes in your arms, face, nostrils hair etc. These spikes were so strong that I have scratches and got kinda tingly and itchy for a while.
• There are a lot of earwigs in my garden of thistles, at least thats what I think they're called, those long skinny beetle with long pincers on their backside. I hate earwigs, they scare me, I'm not scared of much in the way of creepy crawlies but earwigs give the proper willies. Every time a fly landed on my face I was certain it was an earwig deviously trying to make its way into my ear. In fact even now if my ear is itchy Im convinced its a sneaky earwig that made its way in undetected. I don't even know if earwigs really do go into peoples ears but they give me the willies any way.
• There are almost as many lady bugs (or pretty coloured man bugs) in my back yard, this makes me happy who doesn't love lady bugs?
• Here comes the shame, I really fucking enjoyed gardening. I know 5 people that really enjoy Gardening, they are all over 50. I hate myself I am a hot pink haired, tattooed, pierced gardening granny at the ripe old age of 28. I now have all these plans of little no dig vegie and herb gardens that I want to set up all over the place, right after I'm finished applying for the old age pension. I also hate myself because although I've never been an avid gardener I have on occasion been gifted with plant like offerings, herb gardens, flowers in pots etc. to date the only one I've managed to keep alive is a potted, not in dirt but glued down pebbles, cactus. Im thrilled each spring when my cactus sprouts cute little flowers. I water my cactus maybe 3 times a year if I'm lucky. Sometimes big daddy waters it if he's standing next to it while having a drink of water. Long story short I'm possibly going to spend crap loads of money getting this little garden started only to kill it a few months later. I've already bought little kids grow kits of tomatoes and strawberries for christmas for my munchkins. Those presents are so much ore for me than them.

So there we go I am a lame chicken wrap eating gardening blue rinse crazy lady. Lord help me.

This Moment

Young and funky...maybe

I turned 28 just over 2 weeks ago. I feel like I'm doing alright for a woman inching closer and closer to 30. I have a career that is taking off I have 2 gorgeous children and aside from allowing to let myself get monstrously fat over the last 2-3 years Physically I think I look o.k my skins pretty good I don't have a lot of wrinkles and I have a total of 2 silver hairs.
So I'm o.k with being 28...mostly...I think.
I have noticed a particular patten over the last 3-4 years however. Every year, just after my birthday I do something a little bit out there to my hair, each year its a little more out there than the last.
One year I chopped my long hair into a severe concave bob with a chunky blunt fringe. For the record, I'm not a fan of chunky blunt fringes, Big Daddy hates chunky blunt fringes I can think of no other reason for doing this than some 'it girl' must have been rocking one at the time and I decided that I was also young and funky enough to pull this off. Throughout the year I let it grow out and swept the fringe to the side, that wasn't so bad.
The next year I chopped it right off, like super short and swept to one side, again pretty sure the inspiration for this cut came from some gorgeous young thing that I'd come across online. Luckily this look worked for me and I'd recently lost some weight so was feeling fabulous all over. Short hair cuts require a surprising amount of upkeep however, it doesn't them too long to start looking messy and uneven. Throughout the year I played around with different coloured foils and went blonde all over for awhile (I'm naturally dark brown) but it stayed pretty much the same length.
Last year 3 weeks after my 27th birthday I clippered my hair to about a number 6 and dyed it bright purple....yep I loved this haircut, made me feel like a rock star.
About 6 months ago I decided to try and grow my hair out again. Growing out a short hair cut sucks, I've got a bit of a Carol Brady flick going on around the back and a bit of a shaggy mess everywhere else so naturally this friday I decided I needed something to update my look.
Guess what I went with....bright pink. Not a little bit pink, not pink foils no, my entire head is luminescent hot pink/ and I love it!

I've decided that ridiculously coloured hair makes me look younger and cooler. I don't know if this is true or not, I could very well look like one of those crazy old ladies that used to come into the shop I worked in when I was 14.
I used to laugh and laugh when they left wondering if they had any idea how silly they looked with their blue rinse or strange reddy orange with white regrowth.

I'm wondering if my hair is like my twisted version of a pre- mid life crisis, a pink one! Do I really look cool or do I look like a frumpy, nearly 30 mum who got stuck in a fairy floss machine?
Maybe the crazy old ladies I used to laugh at used to be 28 year old women desperately trying to regain their youth through interesting hair colours.

Me in 30 years

Confessions

Confession1. I'm kinda rubbish at this whole blog thing, I mean 2 a bit years between posts, seriously, who's going to stick around to read that? But I've been thinking about getting back to it for awhile now and 1 week on from my 28th birthday seemed as good a time as any. A lot has happened in the last 2 and a bit years...obviously.

Confession 2. I caved on my whole 'I am woman here me roar I will be an educated SAHM and everyone else can go to hell' vibe and I went back to work full time.

Confession 3. I love being back at work full time, in that time I have been promoted twice and started studying again and no matter how hard I try I don't feel that guilty about it... I'm quite possibly a terrible mother. Going to back to work started off being a financial decision, Big Daddy was hugely unhappy in his job due to having a complete knob head as a boss and it was more financially viable for me to go back and climb the ladder than have him trawling for cooking jobs that barely paid minimum wage.
Big Daddy spent around 18 months as a stay at home dad and loved it (and yes he got worse with the whole nazi cleaning attitude before he got better). He's now working as a youth worker at the same place as me except Im now in a management position, that has been an interesting minefield to navigate let me tell you, but thats a story for another day.

Confession 4. This is the big one. I. Got. Fat..... not just a little bit chubby no no no that I could handle. I got fat enough for the Mighty Midget (who's now 4 yrs old!) to say to me one morning while I was getting dressed 'Mummy you've got a tummy like the big losers'...wow thanks kid.
I got fat enough that my 'Biggest loser' tummy started making an interesting slapping noise against my thunder thighs during certain aerobic activities.(Seriously if you're going to read this blog you'd wanna get use to TMI moments).
I got fat enough to have a ghetto booty, but not in a good 'yeah she squats' kinda way but more a 'why do thinks keep getting knocked off desks and shelves when I turn around' kinda way.
No one seems to believe me when I talk about this, no body seems to think I'm any bigger than a size 14, trust me, I am.

Confession 5. I care more about the fact that I'm fat than anything else at the moment, pathetic right? whatever.
I'm more 'gets voted out in the first week' rather than 'makes it to the Biggest loser finals' but still its big enough for me.

I realised how fat I'd gotten several months ago but couldn't maintain the motivation to do something about it. I was that tragically irritating fat girl that complained about being fat all the while stuffing her face with cake. Any healthy eating plan would last no longer than 2-3 days tops.

Confession 6. (last one I promise) I'm now one of those irritating 'I'm intolerant' types who claims food intolerances without ever having being tested. However I have it on good authority that its highly likely that I am actually lactose intolerant, sensitive to heavy wheat based products and extremely sensitive to high levels of sugar.
How do I know this? Well after having stomach cramps on and off for the last 6 months, regularly having severe headaches that would last several days and just generally feeling shit someone suggested I keep a food journal, so I did.
Heres what I found. When I drink milk and eat cream I have wicked stomach cramps anywhere from 2-12 hrs later that can last half a day or more I usually also get the runs.
When I eat bread, weet bix etc I get cramps, headaches and get blocked up.
When I eat a lot of sugar I get headaches that last 2-4 days and don't go away when I take nurofen.
All of this has made it incredibly easy for me to completely change my attitude to food and retrain my tastebuds to eating 90-95% completely clean unprocessed simple whole foods and I.FEEL.AMAZING.

So in the interest of keeping myself on track some of my posts will probably be about my progress, I'm tracking my progress through photos and how my clothes fit. I'm so ashamed by my week 1 photo though that I won't be sharing that until I've got a really banging progress photo to put up next to it.

Other than my posts will be my usual working mum style ramblings and updates on my almost (but not really) grown up children.
 Peace out.

P.s I'm 2.5 weeks in and totally don't get that belly slapping noise anymore :p