round 2...

so, tonight has been a bit more eventful than today. I have been to do my delivery tonight and that took at least 30 minutes less than normal thanks to me coming back from Edinburgh via the motorway instead of the back roads. So I had dinner then got a call from my mm asking me if I wanted to go out with her on another job. For the past few weeks I have been working on Saturday mornings in a depot waiting on the telephone to ring and then to arrange the courier to deliver the part but tonight we were the courier. I went with her as I have not done anything yet whilst I have been there working and did not know what the procedure was for when everything got exciting and the calls started coming in at the weekend. Typically now though I am not working this weekend as we are splitting the work between ourselves and another courier so it will be another week before I put into practice what I learnt tonight. That is unless I get called out tonight. I have volunteered to be on call tonight so I can get called out any time between 5pm tonight and 8am tomorrow morning.

Going to try and get some sleep now, in case I get called out at some stupid time of the morning.

Night
x

Day Off, the first in ages.

Today has been good. I turned up for work to find out that the delivery wasn't going until later this afternoon. After talking to my step-dad I managed to get him to cover it so that I could get a day off, and just cover the evening delivery tonight. So today has turned me into a domestic goddess. I have cooked dinner, made a pot of soup and cleaned out the dishwasher before lunch today.

Going to get ready for work just now, but will post another blog entry when I get back tonight. Got loads more to write about.

x

Week 3: the results are in

so, we have got to the end of the third week, and I weighed in tonight.
I joined the queue at Slimming World, stepped onto the scales and was told that I had put on 2.5lbs! I suppose with the amount of eating I have done since Thursday night it should be no surprise and really it wasn't, in fact in reflection of all the food that I have eaten (chinese takeaway, sandwiches, sausage rolls, meals out etc) it is lucky that I haven't put on more weight this week.

David is being so supportive of me, he is going to make sure that I stay on the straight and narrow this week and the ones following. Got to aim for the big weight losses this week and the following weeks to come.

x

the busiest weekend ever

I am absolutely shattered. over the last 4 days I have been running around like a mad person. On Thursday and Friday we had a family funeral so that was tiring in an emotional way. On Saturday I was working in the morning then went out to the theatre at night. It sounds dead posh, but we had a girlie night in Edinburgh seeing "the Vagina Monologues". It was great. What a giggle we all had. There was a group of 6 of us, we started at my friend's house having dinner which was so yummy then we all travelled into the city centre for the show.
Yesterday me and Michelle went into Glasgow for a make over and photo shoot. We were made up to look so glam, then had photos taken in various different poses, some sexy and some in evening gowns. The photos were great, I didn't actually purchase any of my photos, they were priced quite high but Michelle - who had won the competition to go - got her photos, so looking forward to getting them and having a proper look at them.

Did you have a good weekend?

x

check out the chef, sharing recipes

I have just finished the yummy-est veg chilli. I made it my self, out of my head and it was good.
David is trying to stop eating as much meat as he has been doing recently so I have been experimenting with some veggie meals. I got some beans (from a tin, it was a mixed bean selection so had kidney beans and stuff in it) and added that to some onion, garlic, cumin, sliced peppers and a couple of fresh chillies. once they have all cooked for a few minutes, add a tin of chopped tomatoes, half a tub of passata, tomato puree and some soy sauce. Let it cook for about half an hour, stirring occasionally and there you have it. It is really filling, and so good for you.

Let me know if you have any good veggie recipes, could do with a range of different things to try, all low fat though.

x

Week 2: The Results Are In

Okay, so it clear that I am absolutely rubbish at Maths. I did manage to lose weight, but only half a pound. I did think that I wasn't going to get to Slimming World tonight as I had to do a delivery and so I had my lunch which I don't normally do but I managed to get there and found out I had lost half a pound. Got to admit that I am a bit gutted, thought I had managed to keep everything in check but will need to work harder through the next weekend and the rest of the time.

Week 2: anticipation is rising

Okay, so this is me a t the end of week 2 on my diet. Everything went ok, I think anyway. I think I have been good enough to counterbalance the badness that was Valentine's night.

Will come back and let you know how things go tonight.

x

Good Morning

Hi, How are we this fine morning?
Okay so not that fine, but this little sunshine should add some happiness to your day. I hope so anyway.

Was just coming to say hi before going out to work. Just about to leave the house and take David to his work. Then go round to my mum's house until about 10.30 when I start work.

x

Love Is In The Air

So, after a really romantic day yesterday my thoughts have turned once again to the wedding. David and I were discussing it quite a bit last night. Things we are willing to not have, things we don't want or need and things we absolutely have to have. Now I have turned my attention back to the bridesmaids dresses. I have already said that I have the colour picked out and that is never going to change, at least not in a major way as the invitations have already been made to match them, but I am rethinking the idea of having the girls pick dresses that they want and may not be identical. I have been looking at wedding photos recently, and I have to admit that dresses that are the same looked a lot smarter in the photo than different dresses. There is however one exception to this. This is when the dresses are all the same from the waist down, but the neck lines are all different. One is strapless, another may be halterneck, another have a V-neck etc. This does go along with the idea of making sure the dresses are all the same length and the same material so that could be a possibility.

Also I have been looking at poems and readings for during the service. At the minute though they are all really good so can decide, might let David have a look (it is after all his wedding day too). Originally the plan was not to have any readings or poems or singing during the ceremony as we wanted to get through it as quickly as possible. This is not because we are not looking forward to it, it is simply because the wedding is a day spent with family and friends and to be honest we have all been to weddings where they drag on and on for ages, and people, especially the children (of which there will be about 8 of them) start to get bored and lose interest in what is going on. David and I have talked though about having maybe one or two readings through the ceremony, as a little interlude in the proceeding.

Anyway enjoy what is left of Sunday, and Valentine's weekend.

x

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone.
Hope you have received some fabulous gifts from those that love you.

Today has been a great day for me so far. I went into work to find out I wasn't required so came home again, on full pay! Then David arranged a little surprise delivery for me. I received a dozen red roses and a chocolate scented teddy bear. I was stunned, it is the first time that he has given my flowers in all the time that we have been together. The bear is also a great idea. He is making sure that I don't put on weight this week by making sure the chocolate is calorie free, and inedible.

We are going to have an early dinner today, probably around 4ish once he comes back from his weekly morning outing with his friends, today they have gone rock climbing! Too energetic for me but each to their own.

I hope you have a nice day, and get pampered as you deserve it.

x

Valentine's Dinner from M&S

David & I had decided not to really do Valentine's this year, we had decided to put the money towards the wedding but David has surprised me with a delivery coming on Saturday morning. I am excited but also feeling a bit rubbish as I haven't arranged anything for him.

We did go to Marks and Spencers tonight though and buy our dinner for Saturday night. They are doing a deal for 6 items for £20. We got a starter of scallops in their shells covered with mash potatoes and cheese. For our main course we got rump steaks with pepper sauce and a side dish of roast veg. Pudding is going to be melt in the middle chocolate puddings. As well as all that we got a bottle of rosé cava and a single stem pink rose, although you can choose your colour of rose - be it red, white or pink. I chose the pink rose as they were bigger. It is such a good deal, and there are lots of different choices for each course. The deal is on until Sunday so well worth it - much cheaper then going out for dinner and you won't be rushed by the waiters wanted to get the table cleared before the next batch of loved up customers come in wanting fed.

Constant Wedding Chatter

So, is it me or is it true that as soon as you get engaged, all of a sudden so does everyone else, or there is more weddings than ever before? When David and I announced we were engaged, my younger cousin also announced she was engaged. Then around the same time I am reading on people's bebo and facebook accounts that they are either planning their weddings or are planning to be involved in a wedding in some way, eg bridesmaid/bestman.
Is it that once you focus your mind on organising your wedding that you notice more people discussing weddings be it online or in person?

Now this sounds like I am complaining, and I definitely am not, in fact I love it. I just find it funny how once you set your mind to do something, be it plan a wedding or get a new job you start to hear about all these other people who are near to you doing the same thing. Would it be as noticeable if you weren't doing the same thing?

Just my little tit bit for today.
Might be back later tonight but got to go back to work just now.

x

Slimming Update

Today has been a successful day in the slimming plan. I have loads to eat, but most of it has been free food, only eaten 9 of my 15 daily syn allocation. I am trying to keep a lot of my syns for the weekend so that when I cook dinner for me and David for Valentine's Day we can enjoy a bottle of wine with it. Obviously if I decide to be bad then it means no wine with dinner, just sparkling water which would also be good but not as good as a glass of cava to celebrate the special day.

Speaking of Valentine's Day, David has just informed me to expect a Delivery on Saturday. Now I am working, and he is going climbing with his friends so he is going to have to organise someone to stay in our house in case the delivery comes before I finish work at 12, the delivery is between 8am and 4pm.
I thought that we had decided not to get each other gifts for Valentine's Day, so really don't know what it could be.

x

Wedding Dresses

So, been thinking more about my wedding dress today.
I have been asked so many times over the weekend when I think I will be ready to go and try on wedding dresses - each time I replied that I will be doing it around Christmas time, giving myself some time to get a bit of weight off, and get some money saved so I can actually pay for it. Bearing in mind that we don't actually get married until August 2010, over a year away yet it is surprising how many wedding dress shops want you to go in now. I had always believed that you didn't need to go dress shopping until about 10 months before the wedding - 2-3 months to find the dress and 6 months for the shop to order it in. Now though they are saying that they have already had orders processed for December 2010. Surely people are not that organised - even I have not got myself that prepared.
How long before your wedding did you start dress shopping?

x

Week 1, the weigh in

So, just back from Slimming World and luckily I have managed to maintain my weight this week. After the weekend I have just had though this is a good thing. I honestly thought I was going to have to walk in and announce that on my first week I had put on weight.
After eating all the cake and drinking All the wine, champagne and cocktails at the wedding fayre on Sunday, not to mention all the snacks and things on the Saturday night it is actually a miracle that I didn't put any weight on.
We all managed to eat our way round the wedding fair. From the many different wedding cake stands to the chocolate fountain stands to the wine and champagne stands (and the Tesco wine tasting tutorial) to the fudge/shortbread/tablet stands. Obviously there were other stands that we were interested in, such as the harpist, and the sugar flowers that could be used to decorate the wedding cake but the food and drink were definitely an appealing distraction from all the important, overwhelming wedding planning stuff.

Have fun, enjoy Tuesday night. I an going to finish my glass of Rosé that has been just been poured for me.

x

Week 1 finished, pre-weigh in entry

Getting weighed tonight at Slimming World. I am scared after all the over indulging I did at the weekend at the wedding fair and also in my house on Saturday night. I started with all the best intentions, we had a dinner that was almost completely free on the slimming world plan, only the meringues were syns but then the pringles came out and they looked so much nicer than the carrot sticks and yogurt dip that had been put out for us slimmers.

Oh well, will let you know how it goes tonight when I get back.

Enjoy your day

x

Whoops

Ignore the next post, the flickr trial post.

I was trying to get the wedding show slide show sorted out and ended up posting a trial blog.

Whoops

x

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Wedding Fair News

So, the weekend was great. On Saturday night I had the girls round for some dinner and drinks. We had fun, and managed to get through a few bottles of wine, and even more pringles and dips. What a change from the norm to just be able to relax enjoy myself with my friends without having to worry about work the next morning. Mum was also round and she seemed to really enjoy herself as well. It was good that she did, seeing as it was my bridal party that was here, as well as my brother's girlfriend. Everyone really liked her and my mum (those that hadn't met them) and we were all looking forward to the following day and the wedding fair.

So, on Sunday we all headed off to the wedding fair at Ingliston in Edinburgh. David and I were able to meet with some people that we are definitely wanting to speak with again. The fashion show was really good too, and I was able to see things that I definitely don't want and things that could be adapted to what I do want. I did see a couple of dresses that I wouldn't mind trying when the time comes.
Mum was looking at the Mother of the Bride outfits, and I was really uncomplimentary about 1 that she had looked at. I was knackered, and a bit grumpy cause David kept disappearing after telling me that he wanted me to see a tartan that he liked so when we were looking at mother of the bride outfits I said it looked like someone had thrown up on it - which so wasn't true, and it was actually nice, and would have went really well with the colour of bridesmaid dresses that I have picked out. Sorry mum, I will be more supportive when we do actually go outfit shopping for you, promise.

x

It's Friday..... Next It's The Weekend...

How fab has the weather been today?
Yeah okay, it is cold (very very cold) but it is lovely and sunny. Proper sunshine and blue skies. Who would have thought it after the last few days?

Today I have had a proper pamper day, been and had my hair cut which was great. I last had my hair cut in October (I had to cancel my appointment in December due to being too busy cooking Christmas dinner) so it was great today to go and sit and chill out for about 40 minutes. I love getting my hair washed at the hairdressers. I love the scalp massage you get when they are applying the conditioner. I went from having a mullet-style cut (well it was after the previous cut had grown out) to a slinky, long bob style which I really like. My hairdresser Michael is great. He is about the only person I trust to cut my hair without having to oversee every movement that they make. There was only one other hairdresser that before Michael that I could literally just say "cut my hair, I am fed up of it" and end up with a great cut, nothing which I could have expected either.

Tonight David and I are going shopping to Ikea. We are going to get a computer table and some other stuff for the spare bedroom before we have people over to stay tomorrow night. Looking forward to having everyone over tomorrow. David is going out to his friends for the night so it will truly be a girls night, and we are going to have fun. Then the excitement builds towards Sunday when we are all going to the wedding fayre. Looking forward to this weekend.

x

Happy Anniversary

So, today is day 1 of the Slimming World eating plan. I have really enjoyed today, we have just finished dinner of fishcakes, potatoes and baked beans. All of that food is not only allowed, but also actively encouraged as the potatoes, the contents of the fishcakes and the baked beans are all "free" foods. That means that pretty much I can eat as much of them as I want.

Looking forward to this week, and getting on the scales next week. Will keep yo posted on my weight battle.

Also today is my mum and Robert's wedding anniversary. They have been married for 4 years now. Happy Anniversary Mum and Robert

x

So, the dieting starts again....

Tonight I went back to my old haunt of Slimming World. I have to get myself back onto some kind of healthy eating plan, and Slimming World is probably the best one for doing that for me.
They have a new eating plan called extra easy, which is exactly that. No more Red or Green days but a happy mixture of the 2 with no weighing or measuring of either veg or meat, it is all about living life whilst losing weight. Just what I want.
My aunt has been a Slimming World consultant for a few years now, and has lost so much weight on the plan, but even she is losing more weight by following the new eating plan, so if she can find it way to lose weight then surely I will as I have much more weight than her to lose now.

Anyway with the time as it is, this is a short entry as I am off to bed.
Speak soon

x

It Snowed...

So, this is what we woke up to this morning.
Great isn't it?

Today work has been a nightmare, it took me over 4 hours to do a job that normally only takes 2 hours. Then one of the jobs we normally do at night was cancelled as the flight that comes up to Edinburgh from London to collect the mail was cancelled.
I was talking to David today, we were wondering why it is that Britain comes to a complete standstill after 1 night of snow and countries like Norway, Canada and the States can survive for months on end with no let up in the snow.

How badly impacted were you this morning?
Anyone get sent home early 'cause of the snow?

x

More Wedding Talk

Okay, so I am now in the mood to talk more about the wedding.

This is our venue:


It is the Macdonald Houstoun House Hotel in Uphall. This is also where David's sister held her wedding reception, in fact it was in exactly the same reception room as we have booked but the minute we saw it we totally fell in love with it so it just had to be booked.
We are hoping to get married outside in the grounds, but obviously that is weather dependent.

We have booked a local photographer and videographer and although we didn't know it at the time, they are the recommended photographer for the hotel.

We also have bought all of the flowergirls' dresses. Now I know I have already discussed whether or not bridesmaids should be all dressed the same, but I absolutely, definitely believe that little flowergirls should look identical. They are so cute, and having them all dressed the same will just add to the cuteness of them all.

Adorable, no?
There are little faux fur shrugs as well but I forgot to photograph these as they were bought as an afterthought but they totally work. We also have little white hairbands for them to wear in their hair that have a bow on them to match the bow around the dress.
We still have to go shoe shopping for them but that will happen in the week before the wedding as one of them currently lives in Germany, the other is is Cyprus and the other 3 are here so we will all go shopping together.

We have also bought our table centre pieces but as these are just candle sticks they aren't really exciting enough to put a picture up here, anyway I need to keep something a surprise for those of you that are coming to the wedding.

Bridesmaid dresses debate..

Me and my mum have had this discussion a few times - each time coming to the same conclusion - we don't agree.
I want to decide the colour of the bridesmaid dresses, but let them pick the style and length of the dresses. Each one of my bridesmaids is a different size, shape and height so to try and get them all in the same dress is going to be a nightmare. (if they choose the same dress though then it isn't a problem) but my mum thinks that they should all be the same and all be in long dresses.

Obviously the decision comes down to me, cause I am (well me and David are) paying for them so I know that I am going to get it my way but I just wondered what you think. Should bridesmaids be uniform and identical?

I don't think that it will effect the photos in anyway - I actually like the differences. Also the dresses are going to be given to them as their gift for being there for me on the most important day of my life so surely it should be something they like and will want to wear again.

I like something like this:


What do you think?

x

Sunday 1st February......Already!

So, today I am sitting at work . The TV isn't working because we are having to use the small generator instead of the big one. Just been catching up with all my emails, all 200 of them (received in 2 days) and then though I would have a look at the blogs and websites I normally read, and I stumbled across my own website.

So, you ask, what have I been up to since the last blog entry? Well, yesterday morning I was working, but in a new job. I was sat in the dispatch office for one of the companies we work for, waiting on engineers coming in to collect items. I then had to scan them out through the computer system, and that's about it. I did no work at all - no one came in. Then I had the joy of going for an eyebrow wax. My friend Sara is a qualified beauty therapist so I go to her, normally every 2 or 3 weeks to tame the wild beasts that insist on crawling across my face, always trying to expand down to my eyes and join in the middle.
Just before my eyebrow wax though I went to talk with my Lighterlife consultant about coming off the diet. This past couple of weeks have been really difficult and I don't want to be miserable when losing weight, because I will end up rewarding myself with food at the end and piling it all back on again. I am not in the right place just now for it Willy Russell's "Blood Brothers". It was fantastic. If you are ever in the area and get the chance, get tickets to go and see the Livingston Players, they are great. They are already working on their next production, a musical so I am looking forward to seeing that.

As well as all that, yesterday the tickets for the Scottish Wedding fair arrived. We are going next Sunday, all 7 of us and it is going to be great. Almost all my bridesmaids are going, unfortunately one of them has to work, but hopefully we can all get together again soon. So, anyway we are going to have a bit of a girlie night on the Saturday with everyone coming round to mine for dinner and drinks before heading off to the show the next day. Even David is coming (although I think that has much more to do with the free booze and cake than the wedding dresses and favors). I am really looking forward to next weekend.

Enjoy what is left of Sunday.

x