The cleanup.

Wow, two posts today!

I decided that since I didn't fit any of my clothes any more I best get them out of my room.

In my room, I have a really lovely chest of drawers, and two open hanging racks, no wardrobe.

Now, about 5 months ago, just before I went on this programme, I decided that I had too many clothes for my chest of drawers, so I bought a mass of BIG tubs to keep my clothes in. I sorted my clothes into the tubs, and labelled them: Shorts, Long pants, t-shirts, Long sleeved tops, Dresses/nighties and odds and ends.

I've lived around these boxes, not really using anything in them and not being able to GET to anything behind them (the hanging racks) for the last 5 months. It's got so bad that I only had a tiny track around the side of them to get into my bed. It was driving me nuts.

I decided to flylady my room.

I started yesterday, and am about 80% through now (I'm taking a break!).

I started by emptying all the tubs onto the bed. Then I emptied out the drawers onto the bed, as the drawers were full of stuff I never wore... Which I never took out in case I wanted it, but was stopping me putting the stuff that was in the tubs into the drawers. Anyway, it was ALL emptied out onto the bed.

Then I started going through it all, I put anything that no longer fits (clothes from size 22 to 30) folded into tubs newly marked "eBay", then I put anything that still fit or that will fit and can be used to paint in soon, into the drawers. And there's HEAPS of room left over.

The only clothes still in a tub are my T-Shirts, which still sorta fit, (well, they're all too big and hangey-downey, but they'll do till they fall off). I now have three tubs of ebayable stuff, not including my suits. Some larger gals will have a bonanza soon.

It's funny, as I folded my clothes, I felt a tinge of sadness, because I just love the colours and fabrics of my shirts. My mum made almost all of the clothes there, so they were tailored and fit perfectly, she even adapted patterns to my arm size. But as I put them into the sale tubs I felt a mixture of loss and exhillaration. I had to try a few things on as they went in. One shirt a friend gave me for my birthday 5 years ago still hanging up with the tags attached, it's the most gorgeous purple with silver thread through it, and 3/4 sleeves, but it never fit in the arms. The body would have just fit, but never the arms. Well, it fit today. Well, the arms fit today, the rest of it was far too large. :D

I've cleaned out my hanging racks, and one's gone. The other one's going to have to hold my clothes until I move. still, at least I will be able to HANG things, there's space and I can get to them! I also have a WHOLE box of coathangers now!!!

I have to take one pair of shorts in to Sue at the Cohens Clinic. She wants a pair of shorts from before I started the diet, to hang on her wall, then she'll add a pair in the size I finish in to the wall too! I think it's pretty cool. Scary but cool.

Can't wait to see what that size will be. I sure hope it's 14 or less :D

I still have to go through another couple of piles of clothes, which I'll do shortly, and have to sort some linen which was sitting in the bottom of the hanging rack.

I have another couple of boxes of linen to go through, and will do that next week. Lifeline may just be a winner there!

Photo day.

Nah, not photos of me!!!

Today I took my kids' school's school photos. Not the formal every child ones, but the sports teams and special groups (like band and choir and school leaders, etc).

The school wanted something a little different for these photos, and knew I did quite a bit of photography, so they asked me.

I took some 160 odd photos, of about 25 different groups of kids, ranging from 2 kids to 23 kids in a group. We took the photos in the playground, with the kids on the fort, even some groups with the kids in trees! I'm thrilled with how they came out, and the best thing is, it cost the school nothing. They'll make 100% of the sale funds (after printing costs) which the school will keep!

But, I couldn't believe how sick I was after it. I haven't felt this sick in ages. I took water with me, and drank about a litre and a half in the 3 hours I was there, plus I had Salada with me, but I could only eat a half (2 little squares). I did have a break at recess, about 2 hours into the ordeal.

I had a headache, stomach ache, felt awfully nauseous and was nearly ready to chuck.

I think it was exhaustion. I really must get to bed before 3am.

Anyway, I came home and had a shower and a nap and feel much better. Only had a small lunch (the cheese option) and it was yum. I feel much better now.

I'm stressed as anything at the moment (due to ex-husband issues) and not sleeping well even when I DO get there, and it didn't help to be woken up at 6.30 by my daughter coz she wanted to get all the cameras etc to school early ;)

Still, I lived, and it means I've only had 1 crispbread serving today, so with 2 serves for arvo smoko, that leaves TWO serves for supper instead of the usual 1!!!

HOORAY. There's always a silver lining isn't there!

Nearly Half Way.

Went for a weigh in today, and I lost another 5kg this fortnight.

That's 44.5kg total now. One kilo off HALF WAY.

I can't believe it. It's fantastic. Just under four months, and pretty darned close to 45kg GONE!

I'm hoping to be finished by my birthday at the end of March. Next year I want to have a BIG birthday party, I haven't had one since 2001 and my life has been all over the place since then, so, I think, it'll be cool to celebrate 5 years of limbo, and getting my life back on track. Also we should be just about ready to move into the Farm by then, so it'd be supercool if we could have a housewarming party at the same time.

5 years ago, my birthday party was also a 'Seeya Melbourne' party, and I feel the farm is my 'real home', so it's quite fitting.

Roll on March.

asy :D

Miss Cranky Pants Rides Again

Well, the weight loss forum I participate in has changed a little (see link on right).

We used to have just the one really REALLY long thread, it was about 320 pages long with thousands of posts, and now the moderators have VERY kindly given us our own board.

I voted for it, and was really thrilled, I thought FANTASTIC, now we can get into indepth organised discussions about the programme and our results and have a really good camraderie going.

Now, there's an unexpected side-effect that's really bugging me.

Other forum members, who aren't on the Cohen plan, and know nothing ABOUT the Cohen plan, are posting on our threads. Not only that (coz that wouldn't be so bad) but they're posting stuff totally contrary to our plan!!!

Someone posted a recipe with potatoes in it (but she's really nice, so we'll forgive her and I don't think she'll do it again), and someone else suggested that people eat beans to combat constipation. I replied, and yeah, maybe I went in a little hard, but sheesh, they have the WHOLE board to play in, we only have our little area.

I wonder whether the Forum's Admin can make our board read-only unless people can email the moderators and show they're on the programme, then they can post too. I know it's possible in the VB Software to do that, but I wonder if they'd be so inclined. It would certainly fix things.

We don't seem to have a moderator on our Board, but one of the Super Mods seems to have 'adopted' us, which is good because she seems very nice. She started out very slightly bigger than I was, and her goal is only slightly under what mine is (so she must be shorter than I am!) so we have almost the same amount to lose, it'll be interesting to see how our journey goes. She's lost 35kg, and I've lost 40kg. I must email her and ask when she started!!!

Well, that's it, that was my cranky pantsness for the day. Thanks for listening.