And What Have You Done?

I started out this year full of fire and fierce hopes, but like all years it's been a mixed bag.

Today, the novel stands at 51,867 words. That's not bad. It's more than double my previous total words written on a project. It's not finished, but it's more than half finished, so I think I'm content with my efforts given how difficult some parts of this year have been.

I've been on a mild SSRI anti-anxiety medication since shortly after my last post, and it has helped immensely with the panic and fight-or-flight responses I was having to my workload. I'm still not sure whether the not coping was due to a chemical imbalance, or whether the chemical imbalance was caused by the workload being absurd, but either way I'm coping a bit better.

The high points of this year included my brother-in-law's lovely wedding, seeing the house where my mother grew up in Nottingham, travelling around the UK a bit, celebrating our first wedding anniversary (I did a video but it's too long to post here, and I don't suppose you lot want to sit for 14 minutes looking at wedding and honeymoon pictures really!), Munchkin starting Year 1, finding the heritage-listed gravestones of my ancestors, spending an enchanted week with the SCA at Raglan Castle in Wales, and losing around a stone through Weight Watchers. 

Aha! Oho!

Australia Day is not quite the same in England.

Making friends at his uncle's wedding.

7 Magdala Road, Nottingham: my mother's childhood home.

Surprise awesome park stop in Yorkshire.

 

Robin Hood's Bay.

Bridge Farm in Almeley, Herefordshire. My great-great-grandfather, Arthur William Dew, was living here in 1871 aged 2.

In the ongoing storage fight in Munchkin's tiny bedroom, I sewed a bookshelf.

Theme park day.

Raglan Castle, Wales

Caution: Archery

Sightseeing in Chichester.

Boarding the plane in Dubai en route to Perth.

A park in Glen Forrest, Perth. My father and I sat on the play equipment, drank coffee and talked.

The graves of my direct ancestors and their relatives, Ashurst, Kent.

Apropos.

6:15am, 25/12/2013

It's been mild so far, but the frost will come.

The low point of the year was, of course, losing my grandmother Jean. Here's some photos of her, just because.

Aged 4, growing up in Liverpool.

Aged 19.

With my grandfather Paul, and their children: (back) Mark, Penny, Nicola; (front) Jonquil, David, Erica, Leonora.

Mum, me, Jean, about 2001.

My first university graduation, 2003.

Family Gathering in 2009.

 It's been a year of big events, lots of weddings and lots of driving - from Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the north east to Southampton on the south coast, west to Shropshire and Herefordshire and out to Raglan, and down in the south east to Kent... I've covered a lot of ground this year, and enjoyed it. There's been new babies (though alas still not one of my own yet) and a few people have left us. Certainly a memorable year.

I haven't got a lot of big goals for 2014. Keep writing the book until it is done, then edit it and start on something new. Keep losing weight, until I hit my goal. Try to get a masters application accepted and funded to start next October, on a Heritage theme. Cope at school. Write another Christmas play. Take more photographs. Go for more walks. See more of this amazing country. Make more garb. Sleep properly. Wear interesting clothes. Have some fun. Blog regularly?

Happy new year, everyone!

An Update...

It's been a while, and I've been neglecting this blog shamefully, so here's some things that have happened lately.

Munchkin turned 5. I made a cake.

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We added a new family member, Ophelia (also known as Feefee or Feely-Cat, or Get Out Of It You Stupid Git).

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My wife and I both finally accepted that we'd gained more weight than we were happy with in the long slide since the wedding, and we've joined Weight Watchers. It's working very well for us so far - they've changed the plan a lot and it's a lot more manageable and liveable than it was the last time I tried it. It's going well, and I'll update about it again when I reach goal - which I am going to this time, unlike the last few attempts!

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We also celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary. There is a mushy video of our wedding and honeymoon, but blogger won't let me upload it (probably because it's 14 minutes long and rather large)... I will look into putting it up on youtube or vimeo and linking it here.

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The day school finished we raced up to visit friends in Shropshire - an area we are falling in love with as a future home - and climbed The Wrekin, an achievement that made us both feel rather proud given how unfit we've both become!

That's the Munchkin and his best friend L in the foreground.

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The book currently stands at just over 43,000 words. Things got slow when the assessment end of the school year arrived at the same time as an unexpected plot twist, and I'm now trying to get back on track with daily writing over the summer. It's already more than double the length of my previous longest piece of work, so that is pretty satsifying. I have an idea for another, unrelated book on the backburner, so I want to finish this one by the end of the year, work on the other one in the first half of next year, then come back and edit this one next summer. The other one is aimed at primary school readers, so it will be shorter.

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I'm off to Wales in just over a week to a big SCA event. I've become reconciled with the SCA since inspirational equality was written in as acceptable, and was tried out by a same-sex couple appearing in the most recent crown tourney. They didn't win, but the precedent is now there and one day we will have a same-sex couple on the throne. That's been enough to entice me back!

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Late last year, I glanced back over my employment contract and realised that they'd made me a permanent, not one-year, offer. There was much rejoicing. There's been a bit of staff turnover and rearrangement ready for next year, but I am staying in Year 2. This is the first time I've ever stayed at the same school two years running, and the first time I've ever taught the same year two years running. Fancy that! I might almost begin to feel like I know what I'm doing.

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One of the reasons there's been a long gap on this blog is that I've found it hard to express many of the things I've been thinking about this year. I get very emotional about my hot-button topical issues - feminism, sexuality and education - and I sometimes feel too overwhelmed with  frustration to actually say anything sensible about them. However, I'm going to try, so my goal is to blog every weekend, and say something, whether it's an update or a few thoughts on something that matters.

I think that's everything. Back to the book...

Changing body, fixed image

My job is eating my life at the moment - 11-hour days are the norm (not counting time spent working at home in the evenings) and I still feel like I'm not getting everything done. It's intense and not leaving a lot of time for anything else. Nonetheless, I'm stealing a half-hour for blogging.

This is a post that has been nagging away in the back of my mind for some time. I spent Christmas with E's family at a wonderful holiday park which included a "sub-tropical swimming paradise" - ambient temperature 25 C inside the dome - so we all brought our swimming gear along.

My swimsuit is a simple name-brand racing one-piece, bought because it was cheap and it fitted and I had to have *something*. It's not designed to be flattering or concealing. I was hesitant about going in the pool at all, for a variety of excuses, all of which boiled down to "I don't want to be seen in a swimsuit".

On the last day, when my cold had finally subsided and I'd run out of excuses, I finally went with E to the pool. In the changing room I freaked out briefly, not sure I could actually walk out there with my arms & legs on show. E looked at me as if I'd gone a little mad, and pointed out that I was wearing a size 12 swimsuit and had just changed out of size 10 jeans. "YOU HAVE BELOW AVERAGE THIGHS! STOP WORRYING!".

She's right, of course. I may not have a super-toned body but once I looked around - really looked - I could see that it was true. For the first time in 12 years, I'm below average in weight & width. But when I look at myself in the mirror, I still don't see it.

Since late 2010 - my last recorded peak-weight measurements - I have lost 12.5cm off my waist, 18cm off my hips, 10.5cm off my thighs, 7cm off my calves, 3cm off my ankles, 4.5cm off my upper arms, and even 1.5cm off my wrists. Size 10 tops fit me comfortably, size 12 slacks fit me with room to spare, and size 10 jeans with a gentle waist are just perfect. I'm only 6.5lb away from a healthy BMI. I am doing very, very well and I'm not ashamed to point it out.

So why do I still look at myself in the mirror and imagine that my naked body is so much bigger than it actually is? How is there such a disconnect between what I know to be true about it and how I perceive it? Why do I look out of a size 10 body and see size 18 thighs in the mirror?

It's sad to think that perhaps I've become programmed to think the worst of my body and to see its most negative attributes so clearly. What is it about our minds that denies us the triumph of seeing what we know we have achieved?

Food for thought...

Where have they gone?

When I was sick last week I lost 4lb in 24 hours, and it showed - my tummy got quite flat, my neck and cheeks were a bit more sculpted and my fingers looked positively bony.

I've now gained back 3 of those 4lb, as I expected I would, but I can't for the life of me work out where I've put them. My fingers are still bony, my tummy and neck are still slimmed. My cheeks have lost the slight hollow they developed, but I can't imagine the whole 3lb has gone into them. A mystery!

Into the 130s!

My weight has been fluctuating around the 141lb mark for the past two weeks, so I was delighted to step on the scales this morning and see 139lb on it. This is a new low and very pleasing! It means I've lost 32lb, or 18.7% of my starting body weight, and have a mere 10lb left to lose before my BMI is back in the healthy zone.

I was blown away enough when I first put on a pair of size 12 jeans that fit, and I'm finding it hard to comprehend that I could get any smaller. Yet the 12s are getting looser, and yesterday in M&S - while buying a second pair of size 12s so that Ellie and I are no longer sharing hers! - I decided to try out the 10s. I slid into them thinking "they'll never go over my thighs", but they did. I pulled them on thinking "they'll never do up"... but they DID. I'm not quite there yet - they give me a muffin top - but that's where I was with size 12s only a few months ago. I know that by the time I've lost this last 10lb, I'll be fitting into size 10s easily. And I know I'm going to lose that 10lb. That feels amazing.

I had one of those serendipitous moments yesterday. It's time for me to start exercising every few days to burn up the last few pounds and tone my upper arms, tummy and thighs before they have a chance to get floppy. I knew I needed a sports bra as my next essential purchase: my old one was two dress sizes and one cup size larger than I am now (in Aussie sizes, I've gone from 16DD to 14D, and could probably go smaller again, I need to get measured). The old one offers no support whatsoever and my everyday bras aren't cut out for that. I had a £24 Debenhams voucher which was my leaving gift from my co-workers at my last school, so I headed there to see what I could find. In a moment of utter bizarreness, every sports bra in Debenhams was on special ... for £24 exactly!

So I have a nice new sports bra, and it's my first 'serious' sports bra as opposed to a reasonably well-structured and ventilated ordinary bra. What a difference it makes. I went for a jog today, and the support was amazing. Who knew jogging could be so comfortable?!

I only tried a short jog today, as it's been a year since I did regular high-cardio exercise and I'm definitely going to need to work back up to full fitness. I found it tough - my heart rate soared and I got short of breath - but I'll work on that. The good news is that my foot doesn't hurt, thanks to a better running style, flat trainers and the podiatrist's insoles. And I got a thrill when I checked the settings on my heart rate monitor and found that when I last used  it I'd had my weight set to 79kg. Resetting it to 63kg was a good moment.

It's all going very well at the moment, and I'm still amazed by it, particularly now that I'm reintroducing foods that were on the not allowed list for so long. I've brought back yoghurt, porridge, and a selection of fruits so far. And I'm still losing weight. And best of all - I'm allowed to bring back dark chocolate next. Just a little bit here and there, but... chocolate!

And it's easy to be content with only a little bit, when there's only 10lb to go :)

New look, proposal and more ...

As you can see, I have spent the past two hours giving the blog an overhaul. The old template had gone a bit wonky thanks to blogger updates, and it was time for something new. As well as installing the new template, I've refreshed my links list and added 'About' and 'Contact' pages at the top. I also now have my very own 'favicon' - if you un-favourite and re-favourite the blog you should see a teeny-tiny pink rose on the tab in your browser instead of the orange blogger symbol. I hope to eventually come up with a better favicon using my graphic art skills, but a miniature of my favourite photograph is good enough for now!

I had a request on facebook to blog about "the proposal". To be perfectly honest, it wasn't a big flashy moment, but a very quiet and private one. In true Christine-and-Ellie style it was quite pragmatic and ended with a shared laugh. We both know how special what we have is, and this was a logical step. We're in love, we're getting married... pretty much all there is to it!

We've now got a few things booked, and I have lots of paper samples on order. I've been busy designing our own wedding stationery, which we will either print ourselves (depending on printer prices) or get printed at a local print-shop using paper ordered from a supplier. I'm learning a lot about the paper types available in A5! Laid and wove and silk art and hammer effect... fascinating. Can't wait to see the samples.

School goes back next week, so I might be supplying again as early as Wednesday. I feel unready to go back, as I always do. I've been lucky enough to have a proper holiday this year, with only house reorganisation and cleaning to get done, and getting back into the swing of working is going to be hard. Having an income again will be nice, though!

Autumn is gathering pace here. We went for a ramble the other day, the three of us, to see what we could see. The first fallen leaves are gathering on the ground. Conkers and beechnuts are ripening and coming down. We spotted the berries of holly, yew, elder, bramble and numerous others as yet unidentified. We even ate some blackberries - D's first, and he was rather impressed (especially as I've been drumming the "wild berries are good for birdies not for people" lesson into him on our daily walk to nursery hehe). I had a few too, my first fruit since starting the low-carbohydrate diet in February. They were amazingly sweet (except the couple of not-quite-ripe ones I accidentally chose, which were delightfully tart). We had  a lovely time and D is becoming amazingly confident in his knowledge of plants. Hearing him describe how to treat a nettle sting with dock leaves is too precious!

I've now lost two stone (28lb/12.7kg), bringing my weight down to 143lb (65kg/10.2st). I have 14lb/6kg to go until my weight is back in the healthy BMI range. It's now time to start reintroducing a few of the restricted foods and seeing how my body copes with them. I have found low-carb eating so beneficial that I never want to go back to eating sugar and grains on a regular basis, but I will be glad to have fruit, plain yoghurt, carrots, sweet potato, legumes and dark chocolate back. They'll be reintroduced slowly and carefully with lots of monitoring, and in conjunction with an increase in exercise, specifically cross-fit style body-weight training. Prepare for a lot of moaning about sore muscles! But it will be worth it.

I think that's all the news for now. I am making it a goal to update once a week from now on!

Yes, yes, update...

Sorry it's been so long... I've been mired down in marking assessments and writing job applications, so getting a blog post out has seemed nearly impossible.

Today I'm just sitting around exhausted because I've spent the afternoon doing a demo lesson and being interviewed for a teaching position which, I learned an hour later, I didn't get. I'm not too disappointed - it was only my first interview of the job-hunting season, and I had very positive feedback despite not quite squeaking in to the position on offer. But I feel a bit deflated and thus blogging seems more appealing than the big pile of marking in my bag!

So... what's new...

E and I are moving in together in July/August, hence the job search. My current position ends at the close of the summer term, and it makes much better financial sense for me to move to her town rather than for her to move to London. I hate job applications and the whole process is making me quite fretful and cross, especially as I have to deal with the awkwardness of taking days off to go to interviews. I'm spending a lot of time quite exhausted and dreary, and can't wait for the half-term break next week. It will be a real relief to be getting all these things done without actual work getting in the way! I have piles of marking to do and reports to write and IEPs to renew and ARGH.

The good news is I've lost a stone and I'm back in size 14 clothes for the first time since I was about 23. I'm feeling rather good about that! Two stone to go (a stone is 14lb/6.3kg, for those not familiar with this quaint yet satisfying English unit of weight).

I have no inflammation according to the blood tests, so I'm just working on easing the pain at the moment. I need to go back to the doctor for another physio referral and to find out why the muscles in my upper arms have suddenly turned bumpy, but I think I'll now wait until I move to do that. For the time being, it's going alright.

So everything's ticking along, and hopefully I will manage not to drop with exhaustion before the summer holidays hit...

Welcome to 2009

As a child, I always felt that it was most unreasonable that the dates and days didn't relate directly to each other. The week starts on a Sunday, so the year ought to start on a Sunday too, right? The mismatch really bothered me as a kid, and I was reminded of it today because, damnit, it feels like Sunday and it's actually Thursday.

Anyway . . .

My Sunday weigh-ins are going to be augmented this year with other statistics. As well as weight-related stuff I'm going to be posting the number of fiction words I've written each week (I'm going for a minimum of 500/day, but over the holidays I hope to get some stored up against the busy times!). I have a vague idea about some other things I'm going to post as well, but we'll see about those later in the year when normal life gets started again.

I can't believe it's January quite yet . . . I start a new job in 28 days and have to move house before then . . . this is going to be an interesting month!

Sunday Weight

I managed to remember that it was Sunday today, despite the general holiday confusion over days and dates.

Weight Today: 72.4

I lost 200g over Christmas.

WTF

I guess this is because of how sick I've been feeling and my general inability to eat much, but still. I lost weight over Christmas. I must be sick.

Sunday Weigh-In

I haven't done one of these for ages - I haven't been dieting consistently or concentrating at all, so I didn't really feel up to it.

Yesterday evening I thought I was looking a little chubby around the chin, so although my clothes aren't tight or anything, I thought I'd better hop on the scales this morning to see whether I'd gained any back. Better to know!

But . . .

72.6

I've LOST weight! It's been fluctuating between 73 and 74 for a couple of months now, with the odd dip down into the 72s. This, however, is the lowest that it's been! I'm still losing!

I guess I'm looking chubby around the throat because I've lost weight from around there and changed the balance. That happens to me a lot as I lose weight randomly off different bits of me lol.

I won't make the 60s by Christmas but I'm still not gaining and that's the main thing. If I can avoid gaining through Christmas I'll be right on track to start back on the Core plan on the 1st of January, and stick to it.

10%!

When S and I broke up for real and I was on holidays, I fell off the weight-loss wagon a bit. I was doing alright, and I didn't put any back on, but I just couldn't quite get my act together. Ever since, I've been fluctuating maddeningly between 73.4 and 74, up and down like a yo-yo.

It started to drop in the last couple of weeks, dropping down to 73.2 a few times, but it still didn't feel like progress.

Today, FINALLY, I broke through, and weighed in at 72.8 Hurrah! I've also now lost 10% of my total body weight, which is AWESOME. I've lost 8.6kg. I only need to lose another 13kg to have a healthy BMI again, and another 20kg would make me stunning. Somewhere in between is probably where I'll end up!

So it's back on track and I'm feeling motivated again. I still want to reach my goal weight by July next year at the most, and Easter for preference. And I'm still hoping to be in the 60s by Christmas. I think I can I think I can . . .