Happy New Year…

By golly time has gotten away from us hasn’t it I hope you had a wonderful Christmas whatever you were doing.  I was very spoilt by my husband and kids…I was presented with a beautiful MacBook Air So I have been going through this learning curve with it, I love it, and now I am ‘Apple’d out’ with all my appley gadgets  Whatever opportunity I have had I play around on my Mac discovering new things…the control/command function does take a bit of getting used to.

Regarding Clyde our elf…with the kids off school, blogging about Clyde was a bit difficult, so I will just do a quick blast of pictures

Husband received a lovely hamper full of yummy goodies from a client, which Clyde could not resist!

Clyde trying to built his own Christmas Grotto

Brave Clyde

My Favourite…I had a special photo album on my personal Facebook page that had various pics of Clyde and the Kids (for obvious reasons the ones of my kids won’t be published here), lots of family and friends had been following Clyde, and if I had not got a picture up of him I would have a wall full of messages wondering whats happened to him…so, I posted this one on his last night with us and I was hit with lots of messages pleading with Clyde not to leave

This was a special one for the kids I also got lots of pics of them with Clyde saying goodbye to him, the blue child was really upset to see Clyde go back to the North Pole…but, it was short-lived due to the fact that the big red man was not only taking Clyde home but will be arriving with presents.

And boy, did they get presents!! Christmas was a case as for most, a time for over indulging on food and drink, wishing the family would get back to work and school by the 2nd.

I haven’t made any new years resolutions, it was my 1yr anniversary of quitting smoking That I am super proud of, it’s still difficult at times, and boy after the year I have had I don’t know how the heck I managed to stay of the cigarettes!

I look back at the year with much sadness and trauma, between my Bells Palsy, the Rheumatoid Arthritis diagnosis, which was then changed to Lupus, and also the loss of my beautiful fur baby Molly….This year I am determined to make 2012 a better year, obviously those things that happened to me last year were unavoidable, it was going to happen regardless and, although I went through a grieving process with my Lupus diagnosis, towards the end of the year, and mainly thanks to many other Auto-Immune advocates out there, I am learning to live with the illness.  2012 for me continues to be a year where I will keep practicing my taekwondo, and possibly will do another 10k run.

Other than that, I am also starting work next week, I was approached by my TKD instructor, who is rapidly expanding his classes and locations to become his Marketing and IT Manager, he wants to now focus purely on his classes and have a small team work alongside him.  It will be nice to get back into the working environment, and I also get to work during school hours, during school holidays he runs a camp for the kids and my kids go to them anyway so childcare at work is an added bonus

Anyway, whoever you are and wherever you are, I sincerely wish you a happy healthy 2012 and thank you for following me for another year

Sorry for going AWOL

It was totally unintentional!

As you know I am a mummy to two kids, and both my kids have after school activities.  My daughter is a cheerleader and has training twice a week, and, my son attends Taekwondo also twice a week.

On top of that, I have been busy trying to up my fitness levels.  I attend my gym 5 times a week.  Monday, I have attended Body Balance

It’s a fabulous class, it incorporates Tai-Chi, Yoga and Pilates.  My fitness instructor suggested I try it to help regain my core stability which I lost when I had to quit running due to my injury And as I have practiced Yoga, on and off for about 5 yrs I thought I would give it a go.  And honestly, I am evaluating my relationship with yoga now as I flipping loved my Body Balance class.

My son’s Taekwondo instructor has started a kickboxing class, so now I attend that on Tuesdays and Thursday morning, I run on Wednesday and Fridays, and on a Friday night, my daughters cheerleading coach started a mummy’s evening of Cheerleading, which is a blast, great cardio workout, although us mummys don’t do the stunts, particularly the throwing of one another!

So yes, I have been pretty manic for the past couple of weeks!

And, I have been smoke free for 1 month this Saturday.

Just as well I quit smoking as my gas bill for my car has increased with all the running around!

Oh…Mommys of the world….I have a giveaway coming up, so stay tuned

Do you mind if I DON’T smoke?

I have become a statistic of a better reason.

Go Me!!!!

I am 2wks smoke free as of yesterday, apparently, I have beaten 60%  of people who try to give up without help (Source, text message from Nicorette Active Stop).

I am not going to say its been a walk in the park, because it hasn’t.  I will admit there were times when I really wanted to throw in the towel and just go to the corner shop to get a packet of my old favourites, but I never.

I am also going to throw my hands in the air and say, ‘Yes, I am Proud, and smug, and glad I kept going’

My cravings are now far and few between.  I discovered drinking icy cold water takes away the craving.  I think I am actually freezing my brain, but it does work!

I think I feel strong enough to say, I am a non smoker now

I could bitch slap someone…anyone…takers??

I have not been in the best mood for a couple of days.  You’d think with the kids going back to school and, Mr Hunter Gatherer going back to work, I would be delighted, wouldn’t you?!

I need a cigarette!

Sigh, Sigh, Sigh, Sigh

I am now on my 12th day as a non-smoker, everything was going fine, in fact, I thought it was going too well, and there is a reason for it.

Because, sometime later on, the image of a cigarette will constantly pop into your head on the 10th day, and will taunt you.  No amount of orange peeling, or sucking on inhalers take that annoying crave away, and you get to a point that everything and everyone will annoy the crap out of you where you could quite literally just punch them to make you feel better!!

4 minutes, apparently, is how long a crave last for.

Reader, 4 minutes is a long..long..long time.

The NRT (Nicotine Replacement Therapy) of my choice is the Nicorette Inhalator and, of course, peeling oranges.

In the past, I have tried other NRT’s, patches, gum, lozenges.  (I have also tried Cold Turkey,that lasted one day!) the NRT’s of past days did not help me at all.  For me, I miss the hand to mouth action.  And, honestly, that’s all that I have been missing.

Reader, I was in my supermarket on Sunday, I walked past someone who had obviously just had a smoke, he smelled….I did what every ex smoker does…..looked at that person in utter disgust!

Do you know what else I noticed, both my kids have their own distinct smell, and its so sweet.  For 7yrs, I have been blinded to that fact.  I am seeing and sensing now, all the benefits of quitting smoking.  But for some reason, nearly 2wks in the cigarette is still trying to trip me up.

I am finding it really, really hard, but I am determined to stay an ex-smoker.

I cant even be bothered with a title!

I am getting grumpy, I am not going to go on and on about my quitting smoking…

Day 6, in case you are interested.

Eating as if I am going to deplete the world’s food rations..

My fingers are now orange, not with nicotine, I have pealed nearly 60 satsumas in 6 days.

I think not having any nicotine, zero bad chemicals, nil gases…in my body, has mushed up my thinking cells.  I complained on my twitter that I am having blogger block, and that I am going to fail the WordPress challenge of posting everyday in 2011.

One of my twitter friends said ‘Post a picture. After all, they *are* worth 1,000 words. ‘

So here goes,

What Are They Thinking?

This is my son, and my furbaby, so, a picture tells a 1000 words?  I think they are planning to escape the hell fest that is, the Queen of the house giving up smoking!