Christmas Prep

It's Christmas next week.  It seems it has just crept up on us and like an alarm the beeping is getting louder; it's almost here!

I have many pre-Christmas memories.  Some years I was caught wrapping presents until the wee hours of Christmas morning.  Yes but not anymore.  All our presents are wrapped days in advance if not weeks!

I have previously been the one seen wandering the aisles of department stores unable to decide between the ladies pamper pack and the manicure set as they close the doors on Christmas Eve.  In haste I pick up both and scoop up numerous other gifts while bolting for the check out!

Like the wrapping that has also been sorted.  Yes all the presents have been bought, sorted and wrapped and placed under the tree.

The small tree complete with optic fibre branches which sparkle and change colour, keeps our attention.  The paper chains have been strategically arranged.  An interesting array of singing and talking Christmas animals and Santa adorn the buffet where the Christmas cards fall off at the whisper of a breeze through the window.

It promises to be a hot Christmas.  The weather bureau suggests it will be 35 degrees.  Stinking hot, I am not impressed.

I have a problem with everything almost done my mind is in overdrive and today after attending my second Christmas party in two days I am washing windows.  Not just the inside but also the outside.  My reason?  They are dirty, dusty and other descriptive words.

I washed all the windows and doors at the back of the house.  Tomorrow I will do the front of the house. It is only one storey, thank goodness!

Tomorrow it will be 40 degrees (Celsius), I am not looking forward to it.  You can't have dirty front windows and clean back windows.  Can you?

Then I figured the dead ants which I sprayed two years ago with fly spray are still stuck on the cornice above the exhaust fan and should be finally laid to rest.  (If you visit pretend you can't see them, no one else have mentioned them).  It means a ladder job and balancing all of me on the gas hob.  Not looking forward to that either.  Clean windows, clean cornices. 

I refuse to think about cleaning the pantry.  It will have to wait hopefully until next Christmas!

After the cleaning comes the cooking.  Shortbread star cookies, more cakes to try and lots of yummy Christmas food!

      

Wine Tasting Diet

My poor health resulted in no exercise and a more than healthy appetite.   My scales snickered at me, it wasn't good! With Christmas parties and get togethers looming there was nothing to do but admit defeat and begin dieting.

I began the day yesterday by taking Merv to the local shops which had advertised a full-on market in the car park.  My first stop was wine tasting.  Not a good start to the diet.  During the rest of the day I munched through salad veggies, delighted in lean protein and finished the day with a chocolate biscuit.  I lost 600 grams, I was stoked.

I began to think about the whole dieting thing.  When did it begin for me?  I remember the kids were only toddlers when I bought my first fad diet book, 'New Beverley Hills Diet.'  It was crazy.  I can't remember if I got results.  I can only remember buying fruit from the farmers market.  The owner offered me some fruit to taste and I refused it because it wasn't an allowable fruit that day.  He questioned my diet and shook his head.  If only I had done the same.

In 2012 I began a committed relationship with protein shakes, mainly the OPTIFAST ones.  I didn't like the taste but I did lose 5kgs.  I plateaued and Dustin suggested, 'Body Trim.'  He had recently lost 5kgs on it.  I dug in my heels and also lost 5kgs but I became bored with eating so much protein. 

Mel was also on a weight loss regime and had joined Weight Watchers.  It was a god-send for her.  She has lost over 18kgs since February 2013.  I also put into practice the pro-points program and lost further weight.  Before 2012 I would lose 5kgs or more but after whatever reason I lost it for I soon stacked it back on.  I needed a better plan and stopped making the goal an upcoming event but a life long commitment.

I lost 12kgs in total and though I have put on a kilo or two over the last couple of years it is not difficult to become inspired and lose it and get back to my goal weight.  The hard work was losing the 12kgs and committing to keep it off.
I wrote a list of the crazy diets I have tried in the last thirty years, fifteen altogether.
The Cabbage Soup Diet was a community craze.  There wasn't a cabbage to be bought anywhere and while we gobbled down our soup we craved for food we could chew instead of slurp.  The craze was short lived.

Then I stumbled accidentally on the Blood Type Diet.  It said lamb was good for me.  Lamb and I are close friends; roast lamb, lamb chops whatever comes my way.  The diet didn't make sense to me so I gave this one away as well.

The Low GI diet seemed a sensible diet which wouldn't change my habits to the extreme.  It, like many of the others was short lived.  I returned to munching on chocolate and sipping numerous glasses of wine.

I have thrown out all my ‘big’ clothes and promised myself not to return to my former 2012 weight.  So far so good.  As for all those crazy diets, they provided me with a laugh, crazy memories and the authors; a better bank account!