I Wish I Could Blow Up The Telly... (okay, and the mobile phones)

A few things have been getting on my goat recently and I just gotta get it out there and say my piece, even if no-one reads it!...

Are you familiar with The Whitlams song "I wish I could blow up the pokies"?, that song has always held a special meaning to me, not because I have a gambling addiction but because I know so many who do, and unfortunately I have seen this addiction literally, “take the food off the table”! We all know the social problems as a result of a gambling addiction, and what are we doing about it? Nothing….

In fact it’s getting worse….”The pokies” are now in OUR HOMES in the form of television and the SCUM are targeting our teenagers!!!…On no less than two occasions this week I have had Ethan come to me asking to use my mobile phone to enter television competitions, one was for a $3000 prize, all you had to do was text the answer to the SUPER EASY question, play the multiple question quiz and you could win win win!…I asked him if he read the fine print on the ad, and he hadn’t. He simply saw a way of making a quick $3000 bucks. I asked him to consider the following multiple question quiz and how “easy” the next question may be, and then to consider the cost of sending these SMS messages, often the cost of receiving a response is just as much!

On the next occasion the television had a SMS competition for a reverse auction, the prize was a Plasma TV, the competition seemed quite simple, text your lowest bid to the number and if your bid is unique and the lowest you win the prize for your bid amount. Once again Ethan asked to use my mobile phone to place a bid, he was quite sure he had a unique bid amount and would win, I asked if he had read the fine print, and again he hadn’t. I waited until the ad played again (which not surprisingly, was the very next ad break) I read the fine print out loud to Ethan and he was surprised to discover placing a bid cost a tidy little sum of $5.00 for sending and 55 cents to receive a response. No doubt it would be very difficult to achieve a unique bid AND retain it for the life of the competition. Remember, it has to remain the LOWEST unique bid to win! How much money does one have to spend to attain the lowest unique bid in the first place?

Imagine the money these SCUM are making from our imprudent teens with access to a mobile phone!. As a mum I want to be able to provide my child with a mobile phone for safety reasons and safety reasons alone. Never in my wildest dreams did I think the mobile phone would introduce our children to something far more sinister than the dangers in society. This is only setting the foundations to a lifelong gambling problem!, Teaching our teens to gamble before they are legally allowed to! What happens when they are legally allowed to walk into a bar or a casino where the prizes are much bigger? How many of us are going to be feeding our grandchildren because Mum or Dad blew their pay at the casino?
Shame on these SCUM for running such “competitions” and shame on the television networks that promote them! Wake up…there’s a gambling epidemic headed our way!

Quick Update

This is just a quick update, the kidlets are on holidays and so is the other half, so not much time to do anything other than entertain, clean and cook...

We took the kid's to the show on Saturday, it was their first time so I was all excited, I mean really hyped about doing this big family day out, only to find it ended up quite a flop...Lesson learned, don't let the kids get their showbags till the end, they spent the remainder of the time complaining they wanted to go home and play with their new toys, not even another go on the bumper cars would persuade them! We did manage to see all the animals, did I ever mention I am terrified of horses?...I was walking down the path to the cow pavilion only to be confronted by a horse, of course it was on a lead with a person walking it but that didn't stop me doing a quick turn and running in the opposite direction...I'm sure everyone had a laugh because I stood there and watched quite a long procession of horses being lead out to the ring and refused to go down that way until Keiron went down and cleared the way for me...To get to showbag alley we had to walk past the stables also, should have seen me running my butt off to get past those stables, must have been quite a sight...lol

All in all it was a good day, except the kids wanting to leave bit, showbag alley definitely comes last next year!

Saturday!

Wow wow wow what a fun fun day we have had... We did a photo shoot today, for two reasons, I wanted some professional looking shots of the whole family for a photo wall I'm working on, and two I wanted some pics of me in my new clothes!...Yes I went out Thursday night and bought $210 worth of new skinny clothes, I had so much fun I think I tried just about everything on just to see if it fits...It's hard to believe sometimes, I hold up this tiny little shirt and think there's no way that's going to fit me, but often I surprise myself and it does..I guess I still think like a large girl!..Anyways here's some of today pics which will soon be gracing my new photo-wall...

Whew & Thankyou!

Man what a week it's been!..It's seems I'm finally getting caught up with things around the home, can you believe I let the paperwork pile up since December!..This week I have set myself a goal, I pick one cupboard a day and I'm sorting through and finding new homes for everything, I cant believe the amount of junk the family just toss in a cupboard!

On the fun front, I completed 3 projects this week, but again I can't share as they were for SM, but it's good to have done some scrapping again!

I would like to send out a big thankyou to all those who have sent messages of encouragement/support for my healthier lifestyle...I can't say its been easy, but when you put your mind to it and you really want it then you will just make it happen... In recent times I have come to realize that perhaps I was pushing myself a little too hard on the exercise front, previously I was jogging for an hour morning and night on a 10 incline at 7 kmph as well as weight training, 10 km on the exercise bike and floor exercises, I was easily burning up more than 1200 calories per day and leaving myself with little or no energy to cope with everyday life...After discussions with some lovely girls on a diet chat I have reassessed my schedule and from this week I have reduced training to 1.5 hours of a morning only, which includes cardio work and light weights, burning on average of 700-800 calories per day!..

On the diet front, I have spent many months reading what's good and what's not, at first I started with just buying and eating anything that said it was 97% fat free and that included my favorite lolly, Chico's, that was, until I realized that I could have so much more healthier choice foods for the same amount of calories that a 5 piece serving of Chico's would contain! Eventually, I moved on to skim milk and wholemeal bread, cut out lollies, chocolate and soft drinks, and at the end of the day, what they say is true, I do feel better for it! My system is regular, my skin has cleared and those dark bags under my eyes are lightening! I think the most important thing I have learnt are..

Eat breakfast no matter how much you hate it, by eating breakfast I don't find myself starving at 11am and pig into the quickest thing I can throw together...

Never let yourself get too hungry, if I get peckish I drink a glass of water first, often that takes away the desire to pick, if I'm still feeling hungry I have an apple or a light snack.

Portion size...I'm from a frightfully British family, we love our BIG meals so for me I found it best in the beginning to have heaps of salad and vegies with my small lean meat portions. Think of a regular dinner plate, half the plate to be filled with vegie's or salad, 1/4 with lean meat (fish and chicken are great) and the last 1/4 with your side dish such as potato, rice or pasta, speaking of which, I switched the whole family to wholemeal rice and pasta and no-one noticed, the truth is pasta is flavor-less, its the sauce that counts and you can do so much with that too! I do however, try to reduce the carb content from my evening meal.

Desert...Yes I still have desert every night, but in moderation. Cadbury make awesome light ice creams, I love the Turkish Delight and Vanilla Light, I have only one scoop and team it with fruit or lite Jelly which is really low in calories. During the day if I have a sweet tooth I occasionally suck on a Chuppa Chup or a hard boiled lolly, they take ages to get through and generally only 50 calories per serve.

Understanding...The Chico's thing was a real eye opener for me, especially when your a big eater like me, 5 tiny little chico's counts for the same amount of calories as a pack of rice wheel chips or low fat honey corn from the health food isle and they are much more filling!

BMR, BMI, Waist to hip ratio, body fat...Sound confusing?....I have been using these great Harris Benedict calculators which give you a great idea of what your body needs to maintain/lose weight...

So basically, I'm not really following any hardened diet plans, there's a wealth of information out there on the WWW and in today's supermarkets there's a healthier choice substitute for just about anything...

For me I think it basically boils down to what I always knew, I have to make the healthier choices for myself, and most importantly, take time out for me to work towards my goals, if we can spend hours in a salon getting our hair done then why cant we take an extra hour out of our day to look after the inside too?

Remember When?

Some of you may remember my weak attempt at cutting Mak's hair a few months ago? Well I've been at it again, only this time I was armed with hair dye!...A spur of the moment decision (I was really shopping for a disposable camera) I walked past the hair dyes, noticed the rinses and asked Mak if she would like to try being a redhead, just a rinse because I didn't want to damage her hair, while I was at it I thought I would have a go at streaking Ethan's hair and putting a few foils in my own. Ethan's hair looks awesome, because it's so short it looks like a leopard print and mine turned out okay too, a little blonder than I would have liked but oh well, you get that! So anyways with so much blonding cream left over I decided to put a few foils through Mak's hair, on top of the red, and oh boy am I impressed with how it turned out!..Talk about cheap too, I did 3 heads for under $15 and everyone is impressed with their new do's!

Hope to get some pics of mine and Ethan's just as soon as he wakes up from his "teeny-nap" and someone is available to take a pic of me!

ETA: Ethan has finally woken from his "teeny-nap", so here he is, Mr photogenic himself, had I known he was this photogenic I would have had the camera in his face all the time!
How cool does this leopard style look?










And of course his well practiced mirror pose :-)

We Did It!

Well we finally got the courage up to get our first tat's and it didn't hurt a bit!...This was my birthday present to myself and I am very pleased with it. I didn't want anything too big (I'm worried about old age and the look when I'm 60..lol) It's still a little raised and the lines aren't defined as the colours take a week to settle but the rose is turquoise entwined within a treble clef note, music is a big thing in our household so I thought this one was perfect....

Keiron on the other hand chose a much larger one, or should I say I chose it, after much debate we decided to sit for a while when I spotted the one we decided on right at the top of the wall, it is yet to be coloured but I kinda like it the way it is, without the colour! The colours he has chosen is a mix of blues and turquoise similar to my colours.

A friend and I were discussing getting tattoos quite some time back, I was a little hesitant because I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to pain so he scratched me on the arm quite hard to give me an idea of how painful, well I gotta say, I think the scratch hurt more!...lol

Some exciting news, I jumped on the scales this morning and I am 5 kilo's away from my goal weight and healthy weight range, I'm so excited as I begin to enter the maintenance phase of my healthy living plan, Keiron snapped this pic of me on Thursday and normally I wouldn't share because I wasn't even prepared or smiling, not to mention I tried a new face cream which burnt the clappers out of my skin and has left me with blotchy red raw skin! Anyways it's the most recent pic and inspires me to get that last 5 kilo's off so here it is for you all to see....









Big difference when you compare it to this!...


Yep that's me on the left, as incredibly embarrassed as I am to be sharing this pic, I think it shows just how hard I have worked and that's something to be proud of!

3 Days In A Row!

I scrapped again today, am quite pleased with this layout except I'm not so keen on the photo of the layout, there is so much more dimension to be seen yet it doesn't seem half as effective in this pic...Oh well here it is anyhows!

I Wanna Be A Big Star...(Miss Mak plans on being both and actress and a singer)