Hello Monday

Hello very VERY VERY hot day!

Today's forecast is 40°C  (104°F)

Hello wonderful Air Conditioner!

Hello socks on my cold feet....



Hello cheeky dog sleeping on OUR bed!

Hello toy room tidy up.

Hello sort and organize lego from other crap toys.

Hello procrastinating son...

Hello back to work tomorrow.

Hello back to school this week.

Hello mini springrolls with sweet chilli sauce for lunch! Mmmmmm

Hello lazy day to end school holidays.



What will you be saying hello to this week?

Sage Words

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautiful tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with grass stains on my shoes from mowing Sister Schenk's lawn. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my nails from helping weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheek and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived." 

-Marjorie Pay Hinckley

(via I Am Momma, Hear Me Roar!)

Happy Australia Day!

What a wonderful country we live in! 

My Country 

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die-
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold-
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land-
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand-
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

Dorothea Mackellar
(1885 - 1968)

Hello Monday

Hello new week

Hello new beginnings

Hello last full week of school holidays

Hello day of sewing

Hello to my still tidy house :oD

Hello to the beautiful sound of rain as I wake up

Hello wet washing on the line (that I forgot to bring in last night - grrrrr!)

Hello wet dog who has been banished to her bed to dry off

Hello sunshine after the rain

What are you saying hello to today?

It's time

Time to diet.

Again....

UGH!


Oh well, it has to be done. I'm sick of carrying around an unnecessary 29kg! (64 pounds)

So I am starting today. I've just had a healthy breakfast and plan to drink lots of water today.

I've joined Spark People which is an online weight loss approach and the best bit - it's FREE!

My wonderful friend is going to join me and we'll keep each other accountable with food choices and exercise.  Accountability is a big part of being successful in losing weight.

Mark and I at my cousin's wedding in 2004. I was 52kg after losing 24kg over 6 months.

I've struggled with my weight since I was a teenager. Only, when I was a teenager, I had the opposite problem - I was under weight! When I finished secondary school and wasn't walking to and from school each day my weight started to creep up. Getting married and having a car to drive created new habits that might not have been the best for me. Slowly, over time, I went from a size 8 (when I was 16) to a 10 to a 12, to a 14. I have fluctuated between size 14 and 16 for many years.


Two months after the birth of our second child I decided that it was time to do something more serious and I went and saw a dietitian. Over nine months I lost 24kg - taking me to 52kg! I saw my dietitian every two weeks to be weighed and measured and have my food diary checked.


I swore I'd never go back to the size that I had been before. I said that I would not let myself go over 55kg. But there was always 'tomorrow'...


Unfortunately for me, not long after losing the weight and maintaining it for almost one year, I needed to go on medication. Whether it was the medication, the health problem I was facing, or just going back to old habits, I put on weight again... I have been on this medication for the past 6 years (with a time of about two years off it during that time).


But now I've decided that enough is enough! It's time to stop making excuses and 'just do it'!

Me now

 I am also going to blog about my weight loss on another blog I have called the Yummy Weigh. I began this blog last year when I was trying to lose weight, so it's time to get back to it and actually do it!

One Little Word - A Soul Resolution

One little word

One little reminder

One word, so many meanings

My word for this year is PEACE

..........

To remind me to hold on to God's Peace in all circumstances.

Peace for when I am feeling discontented with my home

Peace for a big decision we are making this year

Peace for any unexpected surprises that may happen

Peace for contentment

You can read more about Word of the Year here, here and here.

I'm thinking of ordering one of the Word of the Year necklaces as a way to remind myself about the peace that only God can provide.

www.lisaleonardonline.com

What will your Word of the Year be?

Thinking of others

The floods in Queensland have been quite devastating and I can't begin to imagine what some of my fellow Aussies are going through. It seems like the worst of the flooding has occurred, but now it's time for the clean up. A huge mess of mud, sewage, and all sorts of items.

When reading some of my fav blogs, I found that there are some wonderful women who are making dolls to give to the children in Queensland who have lost everything. I thought I'd join them and make a couple of dolls to send up.  If you are wanting more details, click on the picture below to read up on what you can do to help.

Baskets and an unusual visitor

Here's my pantry - almost all re-organized.  Just have to do the top and bottom shelves.

This morning as Mark was leaving for work, he noticed a small (large?) visitor!

Hello!

Mia was very interested in our visitor!

Yada, yada, blah, blah, whatever....

I always come home inspired from our time away. I come home with plans to stop procrastinating, to be more organized, keep the washing and ironing up to date, lose weight, eat better, spend more time with our boys, keep on top of the paper work and bills, have a regular quiet and prayer time, yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah, whatever....  In the past I have not been successful with my ideas and plans and resolutions.

This year I've come home with the same plans and dreams. But hopefully things will be different and won't end up being 'whatever'  This year I've made up a big long list of things I want to do around our home to get it ship-shape; whether that means re-organizing or finishing off things, or repainting. 

I'm going to work on the list in either a weekly approach (there are about 50 things on my list) or a monthly approach (12 different areas in our home).

I went to Target earlier today and bought some baskets that I found there. They were 40% off so I bought all they had in that particular range - 5 small, 2 medium and 1 large basket. I'll be putting them in my pantry to hold things like lunch boxes, drink bottles, medicines, etc... So I guess organizing the pantry will be the first thing I cross off on my list.

Now as to the other things on my resolutions list (losing weight, eating better, having a daily quiet time and spending more time with the boys), I will need a different approach too if they are things I am going to achieve... Now I just have to figure out how to do them successfully too!

2011 - the unknown

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year 

‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’ 

And he replied, ‘Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God 

That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!’

–from “The Gate of the Year” by Minnie Louise Haskins, 1908

2010 was an good year.


We began with our annual holiday to Beechworth.

I enjoyed teaching PE and IT this year, it was really nice not having a class of my own. At school we moved into four new classrooms and an indoor Gym! PE teaching is now much easier with not only being under cover, but having a hard court with lines!

We went on a whirl wind three week 'vacation' to the US - which included visiting LA, Disneyland, Chicago, the Creation Science Museum, Lancaster, New York and San Diego.

I made a new beautiful bed head and renovated our bedroom furniture. I absolutely love our bedroom now!

We've enjoyed getting to know some of our friends much better.

But 2010 ended on a sad note, I had an ectopic pregnancy. A pregnancy that was not planned, but once we knew there was a baby growing and developing, we wanted to have this baby very much. Unfortunately the baby was growing on my right ovary. So I had an injection of Methotrexate (which is a chemo drug) that would terminate the pregnancy.  I had weekly blood tests to monitor the pregnancy hormone levels and before Christmas I was given the 'all clear' and my pregnancy was 'officially' over.


So, 2011 - a year that has only just begun. I wonder what it will bring.

For many in our country, heartbreak is already occurring, as I type I'm watching the footage of the terrible floods in Queensland. So far 10 people have been found dead and there are over 70 people missing. Many thousands of people are currently evacuating their homes in the Brisbane area with the worst of the flooding to occur tomorrow.  My thoughts and prayers are with those in Qld who have lost loved ones, those who have lost their homes and belongings, the thousands of people who must evacuate, and for Emergency service people.


We do not know how this new year will unfold, but one thing I do know, my hand will be holding on to God's hand quite firmly and I will follow him.