my body....

Time for a body update post...
With three weeks left of my challenge, time to give you a little bit of an update...

Weight - down by 2.3kg
Chest - Down by 6cm
Waist - down by 6cm
Hips - down by 8cm
Thighs - Down by 4cm

So.. HAPPY with this so far...

Over the past week I have been involved with a little self-imposed experiment that I am going to call "Project Sodium"....

Over the past week or so I have weighed each day (I don't normally do this) and with Calorie King, I have tracked my sodium intake and firstly discovered a LOT of sodium hidden in so many foods and drinks... (usually processed foods - perfect example is corn flakes, they use salt to process the corn which results in a serving of 30 grams of these have 246mg of sodium!!! FFS and more sodium than the same size serving of potato chips - 138mg sodium!!)

Anyway... my weight chart pretty much followed the sodium intake chart... when I had high sodium in my diet, my weight the next day was higher!

Fluid retention sucks... I have reviewed my diet and found where most of the hidden sodium lies (coke zero was one) and reduced my intake further! Project sodium will continue... just from personal interest point of view.. interesting how the body works hey!

Anyway... harvest is going well! I am a Little tired today. Jack came in last at about 9.30pm, earliest he has been in all week, and heads to bed early! Great.. a little catch up!! But no... he heads back out to the header at 2am!!!!!! Got home a little after 7 to find all three of his kids riding bikes int he drive way while their mother is still asleep !

have a great day!

Big fire in little desert...

Impressed????
These photos where just taken prior to sunset by my neighbour from the front gate!... freaky grey sky that is all smoke!

I do a 'proper' post soon.. just busy with harvest..just having tea myself now (9pm)!! Late for me!

Busy days...

Just a real quick photo post... header has pulled into our barley... Jack... in the header
Jack and his support crew... and yep! You can fit a family of five in a case header
Emilie climbing up!

And Emilie had her first orientation day at primary school.. her at the gate. I was the mother with tears hiding behind my sunnies...

have a great weekend!

To eat like a child....

My middle child in sitting on the couch, rubbing her tummy telling me that she ate to much breakfast, I am sitting here admiring her intuition on how she interrupts how her belly feels...

If only we could all get that back, i think we would be a thinner and healthier society!

Little Laura asked for Pancakes for breakfast this morning, she wanted two, one yellow and one brown (a little burnt.. - do you know how hard it is to burn a pancake when you are trying to??) with Golden syrup.

I made my little possum her request and she ate almost all of them, leaving maybe half a pancake. Many mothers would insist that she finish her plate off.. "come on there girly.. I just made all of this mess for your pancakes, the least you can do is eat it all!"

But, Laura knows when to stop, when her tummy is full! Most adults would ignore this feeling and just keep on eating, because they taste nice or the effort that went into making them, or "I might be hungry later"

Who am I to override her own hungry signals... I really hope she can kept them!

Remembrance Day

In 1915, Major John McCrae, brigade-surgeon, First Brigade Canadian Forces Artillery, was working in a dressing station on the front line to the north of Ieper, Belgium, when he wrote In Flanders Fields:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved,

and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe;

To you, from failing hands, we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

In 1918 Moira Michael, an American, wrote a poem in reply, We shall keep the faith, in which she promised to wear a poppy 'in honour of our dead' and so began the tradition of wearing a poppy in remembrance.

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It isn't even half way through November and the headers are rolling into paddocks! This is early but it will be well and truely over before chirstmas, so that is great!

Jack is like the local spare at harvest time... when ever someone needs an extra pair of hands Jack is called upon! So, hense, he has spent his weekend in a header for friends of ours. Hughie spent a couple of hours in there with him yesterday afternoon after swimming then we had tea (the kids and I ) with the wife of the farmer Jack was helping out.



This is quite usual over harvest, the wives get together and feed the kids and have a few drinks while their husbands work.. sort of breaks it up a little for the harvest widows!

The header will pull into our crops tomorrow sometime, so will post photos.

I started the day with a nice walk, before Jack left. Well, it was nice until my neighbour scared the shit out of me.. curse the MP3 player...

OK... time to clean!

We've been makin' hay...

You have to say my heading with a country twang... while chewing a piece of grass....

Just a quick post with some photos of what has been going on here! Jack and his dad have been busy making hay (HUGE bales between 600 - 800kg each) and stacking hay!

The kids sitting on the back of the old truck we used to stack the hay...
Sitting in the shade of the hay stack, Pardie (Jack's Dad) and the kids
Jack with his 2IC.. hugh loves driving the tractor
Pardie.. a little puffed! He is flying home in the morning.. for a break!
The final stack!

Have been flat out! Will be back with more soon... and Jules.. I had to laugh at the McLeod's daughter comment! It is as flat as a pancake here! Not a hill in site.. or a horse for that matter!!! Much prettier at "Drovers run"!

Rain and road side assistance.....

For all of your roadside assistance, please call 1800 JACK!!!

Not once, but twice! Jack had to come to my rescue over the weekend! I am so lucky he gets a laugh at my expensive!

It all started with the rain that I spoke about in my previous post! We DID get rain... quite a bit (just over a inch for those playing at home...) and it came down quite quickly! Here is our front drive.. it has been as dry as chips (that is just for you chris :-) for months and months then it hits hard with hail... the works! You would think that I would be excited that it FINALLY decided to rain, but with thousand of dollars of hay on the ground... I was so worried that it would be fucked. And then it hailed!!! When crop is ripe (which ours is) hail can knock the seed from the plant and your yield is reduced. Lucky for us, the hail didn't hang around long.

Anyway, back to my road side assistance. Jack was helping out in a shearing at our neighbours and after the rain had passed, went to take the kids down for a look, but I didn't quite get there. I took out normal 'short-cut' not thinking twice about the state of the road and I got bogged! I slid for about 50 or 60 metres before coming to rest at the side of the road. You can see how close I was to a tree.. and yes.. i did have my ute in 4wd!So I tried to get it out myself, but with the three little kids, I decided to call Jack to come to my rescue! He nearly got suck himself, but eventually got me out.

No need to ask how I spent my next hour... cleaning the mud off the ute before it set! The blokes in the shearing shed had a great laugh at my expensive, wanting to know why it took me 2 hours to get to the shed from home...

My second roadside assistance call wasn't really my fault! Yesterday morning i packed and got ready for the fun run In horsham. Jack's dad is flying into the Horsham airport tomorrow, so I was taking a spare ute over to Horsham so he could get back to us tomorrow. Anyway, the ute needed fuel and on my way into town before heading to Horsham I ran out of fuel!!!!! So Jack, bless him, raced into town and towed me the km to the fuel station. Filled up but by this stage it was pissing down again and I decided that it was too wet to run.. so I pulled the pin! Back home again and went over to Horsham a little later and left the ute at the airport for FIL...

The hay.. well, jack has just left to rack it! Fingers and toes crossed that it isn't too wet. Poor jack will be pulling an all nighter and hopefully they will be able to bale sometime tomorrow! It will be one less thing to worry about with that gone!

My PT is doing me a new program.. about time!!! so will be busting to get to gym on Wed! I am going to work more on strength and resistance training at gym and continue cardio at home! I can only get to gym twice a week, with the kids schedule, so it will work for me.

OK... time to get kids to bed!

Happy Birthday Hughie....

My baby.. 3 days old in this picture... notice his black curls.. they soon fell out and was replaced my his blonde mop!
At Granny's today.. granny thinks that she is so funny. When any of us has a birthday, she buys a cake from safeway and pretends that she made it... funny granny... really funny....
Hugh with his "Paddock John Deere Cake" at playgroup yesterday...half the paddock is ploughed up..

My little man turned three this morning... and telling anyone that will listen!!! it took he several days to work out how to hold just three fingers up, without the pinkie sticking up!!

we went out for tea last night and he didn't get to bed until after 10, so the girls woke him to get him to open his presents!! He was a very excited boy!!

Then we headed over to Horsham for swimming and lunch with Mum... little man is asleep at the moment. Resting.. neighbours are shearing, so once he is awake I have to take him over to watch. A perfect day for him!

Rain.... today... on the way back from Horsham, we drove through the HEAVIEST fall of rain I think I have seen all year. Both Jack and I thought Shit... just when we don't need it to rain, it friggin' pisses down. We have hay on the ground that is nearly ready to bale and it is gets too wet, it gets downgraded and not worth as much. But, getting closer to home and it is as dry as chips!!! Fingers and toes crossed for once, we hope that it DOESN'T rain too much. I can still hear thunder...

If the weather is good there is a fun run in Horsham tomorrow morning and I hope to head over for it. Will post if I do!

Last night at tea, we had wood fired pizzas with a salad.. a came home and entered it all into Calorie king and in the reports it told me that "an average person could expect to maintain there weight with what I eat and did for the day".. so I thought.. I wonder what it would tell me if I ate crap... so I entered...

- Toast (full fat marg & vegemite)

- McDonalds Egg & Bacon meal (muffin, hash brown & Coffee)

- Hungry Jack's Whopper Meal (burger, fried and DIET coke...)

-KFC two piece feast

-Two large slices of Cheesecake shop cheesecake...

And the result...

3413 caloires eaten for the day "On a average person these figures would lead to a gain of 6.5kg over the next month..."

That wouldn't be so bad if I didn't actually once eat all of that IN ONE DAY!!!! I went to Ballarat with a friend for a day shopping (several years ago.. just prior to starting WW) and that is what we ate! I can't remember the snacks, but I have a feeling a couple of packets of Starburst lollies where also consumed!

yucko...

"If not dieting, than what" has me thinking a lot.. about guilt associated with food... will talk more once I have finished the book!

I shouldn't have said too much about the rain.. just started again now.. just not as heavy! At least I will have more rain water!

HRM...

It arrived!!!!! I dragged jack through the streets of Melbourne on our lightening visit over the weekend looking for this... couldn't find one. Got home and googled it Monday morning and brought it online and it was here yesterday!

The reason I wanted this one??? It doesn't need a chest strap... and being to obsessive person that I am, I wouldn't want to take if off. I can remember going to a wedding once and strapping my pedometer into my handbag... just to count the steps I took there..** I KNOW.. I just said that I am obsessive**

But, I couldn't go to gym yesterday!! The two little ones go to occasional care here on a Wednesday morning. I pulled up out the front and one of the girls that looks after the kids was out the front, letting us know that the session was cancelled.

Fair enough... sure... I have been going there for nearly five years and this is the first time this has happened... how can I go to gym with the kids... can't...

I was a little pissed, then the centre manager came out to let me know that one of the carers collapsed while setting up.... she is ok... but I bundled my tribe back up and went home!

So, i couldn't give my HRM a workout there and then. I put the kids down for a nap in the arvo and couldn't wait any longer.. put them on their bikes and I ran while they rode. I should take a picture of this one day.. fuck it looks funny! Little Hughie plays games with me and pretends that be can't ride any further, so I jog back to him and as soon as I get close he gives me the biggest smile and takes off! And Laura.. middle child, she loves wearing skirts.. and long ones most of the time.. or princess dresses. My mum taught her to tuck her skirt of dress into her undies so it doesn't get caught in the wheels or chain.... great look!

So managed to get in my training zone!! cool and very happy with it!

The book.. "If not dieting, then what?" also arrived (finally) and have read a few chapters of it. The fitnation course refers to it, as well as several bloggers, so thought it might be worth the read. Will post about it soon!

And my other exciting discovery.. Calorie king... Thanks to CKK... it is so cool! I have downloaded the Australian version of the program (after initially downloading the US version) and it so cool.

**just re-read my post and I post about CK and If not dieting, then what? in the same post... ha ha ha**

Tried to bale hay yesterday but the moisture is still up at 18%, so it will be another few days before they will try again and harvest is going to be going in about a week as well! Busy times, but I guess it will be over quickly again!

My baby turns three on Saturday... little Hughie... so a party at playgroup and after swimming on Saturday, McDonald's for lunch and mum is making him another cake! Little monster...

Back soon...