Crazy Days

Saturday Dec 18

A sleep in until 8.20! Definitely an early Christmas present! S is looking much better after sleeping in her own bed. I reckon it's pretty tricky to get a good sleep in hospital. We had breakfast. Then her Grandma and Aunty from Brisbane rang to speak to S to make sure she was ok. She was very happy to hear from them!

Shower time! Got to get ready for the Christmas Picnic Party that S is hosting in her room. All of her stuffed animals have been invited. We even received hand-written invitations. S had a mini-princess make-over. We painted her fingernails and her toenails a soft princess pink! Then it was picnic time! S & G had Nutella on crackers and I had a slice of Burgen fruit bread with some tasty cheese. All of us enjoyed the picnic.

Then it was off to brave the shops to buy all the goodies that we need for our Christmas lunch tomorrow. Roast chicken, pasta salad, berries, mangos, bread rolls, prawns, berry pie and even vanilla ice cream! It's going to be amazing!!

S looked pretty tired after our outing, so we put her to bed for a 2 hour sleep.

Dinner for us. Then dinner for the Reindeer. S sprinkled it on the verge outside our flat so they would have something to snack on while Santa was inside delivering our presents. Then 'Candy Cane Lane' -well that's what we call it in Canada! There are a few streets in our neighbourhood that like to do up their houses with lights and decorations. Every year, we take S down to those streets and we walk through the neighbourhood to see all the lights! There's one house that is amazing! And every year, they hand out lollipops. This year was no exception! S was thrilled! After a couple of songs from Carols in the Domain, it was time for teeth brushing, preparing Santa's snack and then bed.

G & I still have a long night ahead preparing for Santa's arrival. Definitely 0 for 4!


Friday Dec 17

Today is the day. We're meeting in the city at lunch time to pick up S. Then we're off to Meyer to get her picture taken with Santa and ride the train. Well, that was until the phone rang at 6.23am. It's a phone call that no parent wants to get. S is in hospital. Apparently, she vomited all day Thursday, so they took her to the hospital in the early evening. She was very dehydrated and they needed to put her on an IV drip. Fortunately, I was able to speak to S. She sounded tired but ok. I still felt really bad that I couldn't be there with her.

Change of plan. At lunch we headed across the bridge to Hornsby Hospital to visit our little princess. She looked so small in the giant hospital bed. Prognosis was looking good. No vomiting since 7pm Thursday. Kept breakfast & lunch down and was sleeping when we arrived. C was looking pretty wrecked, so we stayed with Sophia and she headed home to have a shower and maybe a short nap. S was finally released at 7pm and we were able to take her home with us.

I assured her that I had emailed Santa at the North Pole and he had agreed to visit on Saturday night instead -just in case she hadn't been able to come home with us. S was very relieved. Straight to bed when we got home. I can't believe how very brave she was. Such a little trooper!

G & I were exhausted too. I crawled into bed at 10.30pm without eating dinner. 0 for 3.

Thursday Dec 16

I am SOO tired, but I know that I have to resist the snooze button, crawl out of bed and get organised for this morning's session with J. Can't face a banana, so I've packed a nectarine & an apricot instead. The apricot was a 'no goer', but the nectarine went down a treat.

Just the 2 of us today. J gives us 15 mins per circuit and she wants us to be able to get through it twice in that time. I'm closest to the tricep circuit, so I do that one first. Made it through TWICE before the time was up--and got through 15 extra hip extensions as well! Rock on!

Then on to the bicep circuit after a 1 min break. Dunno why, but that 1 minute sure seems to go by fast! The weights have been increased on the bicep curl bar, and I'm finding it more of a struggle than I used to. Plus, I think I'm still sore from the killer shoulder weights that J gives me on Tuesdays! I was not to be denied today, and made it through that circuit TWICE before our time was up! Even pushed myself to do 20 more bicep curls! I'm nuts! But the lure of 'arm definition' is irresistible!

Time for stretches and then 3 minutes of BLISS. I never get tired of that bit!

G and I need to get some last minute presents tonight. This weekend is our weekend to celebrate Christmas with S. We head home first so that G can go for a run on the treadmill, while I wrap the goodies from our last shopping trip. Neither of us really wanted to do it, but time-wise, we had no option!

Christmas crowds are not jolly. Mall parking lots are nightmarish. Sigh...but yet, here we are. We should have eaten before we left home, but we had hoped to pick up something at the shopping centre. Didn't quite work out that way. By the time we got home at 10.15, all I could manage was some yogurt. So much for my 4hr rule! A bit more wrapping and bed at 11.35pm. 0 for 2 so far this week.



Wednesday Dec 15

Oh my core! Those Tuesday sessions with J linger with me for a couple of days and today is no exception. But, no time for lolly-gagging. It's G's birthday today! And, it's Presentation Day! So much to do and so little time! I've got my 'props' bag packed and ready to go. I saved one present for today so that G would have something to open on her actual birthday. It's been a busy morning already, and it's not even 7am!

We had a branch meeting at work to discuss the sale and HR came in to give us an idea of the emotions that we might cycle through. That was probably the most helpful bit of the meeting. Unfortunately, management doesn't have much more information than we do. That will probably filter down to us over time. For now, it's business as usual or BAU.

Then it's off to college to prepare for our Debut! D and I set up the room as best we could with the props that we brought. One of our group members messaged to say they weren't well and couldn't make it to the presentation. And, M arrived a little late care of CityRail. The 3 of us had a quick run through, put out the last few props and decided it was 'now or never'.

It was FANTASTIC!! We had the class in stitches!! M and D were fabulous! It went off without a hitch! I love doing stuff like that and making people laugh. I get a real buzz out of it! The next group did a 'light' presentation too. A good night was had by all, marred only by the 'good-byes'. Some of the class will not be coming back next year.

Home to bed. No chance of bed before 10pm tonight!!

Sold

Tuesday Dec 14

11 Days until Xmas. Big announcement at work today. Our company has finally been sold. I'm not sure how to feel about it. I guess I'll have to wait until the 'official announcement' and see how things play out. It's a bit unnerving to hear about it online before we hear about it from our CEO. It's been a long time coming though- over 3 yrs in the making.

I'm secretly looking forward to tonight's workout with J. I say secretly because I'd hate for it to get out that I might be starting to...well, you know...like exercising. Look, on second thought, 'like' might be too strong a word!

I'm glad that I tried the workout at home on Saturday. The more times I do it the better I become at it.  Trust J to spice things up a bit and toss in a new exercise, nice and nonchalantly!! She sweet-talked me into it by telling me it would improve the muscle definition in my arms. Sigh...I'm a sucker for definition. Betcha I won't be able to life my arms tomorrow! Ahh well. Guess that's just the price I have to pay to get rid of these 'tuck shop arms'! *grins*

Curled on the couch, tea in hand, watching Oprah on TV. Can't believe she's HERE in SYDNEY!! Too cool!

Well, I'd best get some beauty sleep. Tomorrow is presentation day! Look out cuz our group is gonna rock the house!

Monday Dec 13

Hmmm 12 days until Christmas... Shall I break into song!? Naw, it used to be one of my favourite Christmas carols, but it isn't quite the same without my Dad accompanying me on the piano. Mostly finished my shopping-which is pretty awesome. Usually, I'm a 'last minute' kinda girl. I'm pleased that I'm more organised this year. Besides, by staying out of the shops I'm less tempted by lollies and food courts!!

Really got into the groove of things at work today and I felt like I accomplished a lot. I love days like this!

Off to exercise my emotional body with V. Some of these sessions are trickier than others. Today was one of the tricky ones! It's rather satisfying to identify a pattern that has existed since I can remember. I know once it's brought forward into the light (in both senses of the word) it can be transformed into something that truly serves me -regardless of how uncomfortable I might be feeling during the process!

I'm determined to get to bed before 10 tonight. So, at 9.30 I head to the bathroom to start my ablutions. By 9.50pm, I'm tucked up in bed. It's a WIN!

Gingerbread House

Sunday Dec 12th

I ducked out to pick up a few groceries. It's amazing to me how quickly we consume healthy food. I can't seem to keep the fridge stocked! And while I was out, I picked up a package of lollies (my weakness) to use to decorate our gingerbread house. It's a Christmas tradition.

When I got home, we celebrated G's birthday with a card that sings 'Supercalifragilisticexpealodocious' (she's a big fan of Julie Andrews and the card was a hit!) and a couple of pressies. Then it was definitely time to get down to the business of making and decorating our gingerbread house.

I mixed up the icing sugar and we set up the pieces of gingerbread on our white serving platter. We stuck the pieces together with toothpicks until the icing sugar hardened. Very cool! S was brilliant at putting the lollies on the house! G took photos and we compared it to last years masterpiece.

I escaped with a couple of licks of icing sugar mixture and only 2 lollies found their way out of the package and into my tummy. Pretty impressive! Normally, I'd be able to consume a whole bag without faltering. Maybe I'm finally starting to get the hang of this whole 'moderation' thing! Or maybe my body remembers what it's like after a workout. Either way, 2 lollies vs a whole package is fine by me!

And now to get ready for a new week!