Week 2...oh and a note to anonymous

Well I have to say before I write anything that to the person who wrote the "anonymous" comment after my last post....I hope life is good for you and by making stupid comments your day is happier! It seems a nice person left a rather rude remark in the comments, thanks to Ails for noticing and being nice! Life is tough enough without silly people trying to knock others down.

Anyway good news, I lost 5lbs in week one! Yeah....really thrilled. Weight Watchers is sensible and I certainly haven't been starving myself this week. Amn't going to get too excited for next week as usually a decent loss happens week 1 then much less week 2 but hey it's going that's all that matters.

to have and to hold

Well it came and now it's gone.

what a day , started off very relaxed, hairdressers make up artist all going according to plan. She was so laid back the whole time until she actually left the house and got into the car . The nerves suddenly kicked in god love her she was shaking at the church door and then she got to the alter and tom and the looked of love that passed between the two of them she stopped shaking and smiled . It was lovely to see two people so happy ceremony went well I actually walked in high heels .

Speech's went really well food was fab, then the fun began they had organised game's in the anti room like hungry hippo's , operation , buckeroo , etc bowl's of sweets everyone had a great time. Was exhausted after all the dancing lost my voice with talking too much .

We stayed for a long weekend and had a great time with kate's new family , will end now and look forward to seeing the new mrs Ryan soon.

Book Club June 09

This is how it will work. Below I will list all the books that people have tweeted to me as an option, I will then ask people, and it can be random to choose a book and then direct message me with the choice. If a choice is picked by more than one person then that is the book we shall go for. If none of the books are chosen outright I shall randomly choose two books off the list and then tweet somebody with the titles and ask them if they would choose for us - this person is likely to be not a person in the book club.

The book club is totally for fun you can choose to read that month's book or you can choose to skip any month or never read one of our choices again, you can also take more than a month to read the choice if you wish.

We shall be tweeting online on the last day of the month about your thoughts on the book just read and then towards that date I shall once again ask for choices for next month and so on .

 

So here goes the book choices for the month of June are

Safe area Gorazde - Joe Sacco ( Graphic novel )

Happy ever after - Patricia Scanlan

Random Magic -Sasha Soren

A  Spot of Bother - Mark Haddon

This is all - Aiden Chambers 

The God of small things - Andrati Ray

How to talk to a widdower - Jonathan Tropper

The big over easy - Jaspe Fforde 

You will need to tweet me with your choice as soon as possible @Anjeebaby

it has to go!

the excess weight I have on me I mean! :)

Re-joined weight watchers last week. I have to shift the 2stone that is lurking around me, I can't get clothes to fit and feeling very sad about going shopping. It's so demoralising going into a shop buying clothes these days. The sizing varies sooooo much it's crazy - bought a top size 14 and a waistcoat size 20 in the same H&M store....tell me the logic!

I did WW a number of years ago and lost 2 stone so have done it and know it works. Why did I put it back on? Well I lost it didn't I, sure doesn't it go for ever then!!! Yeah right! Also was working in a sports job and thought sure I'm exercising the weight off....yeah right again.

So need some moral support in my quest, will keep you posted of the highs and hopefully very few lows of my quest.

Lost....and I don't mean the TV show!

Do you ever feel a bit lost? Drifting, time passing quickly and seemingly getting sod all done?? Please tell me there are others out there!

Am back in Ireland three and a half weeks, time has flown by catching up with people but am feeling strangely lost in nowhere. I've noticed big changes with people - each to their own like never before - it's sad but hey suppose its a symptom of the current climate. Friends are friends but even they are all a bit lost too.

Can anyone find us??

Oh yeah Baby

Make The Girl Dance "Baby Baby Baby" ( official video )
Uploaded by placeblancherec. - Explore more music videos.

Just watch and enjoy, blokes!

The do's and dont's of wedding photography

There are no do's

but one big

DONT

Well my little baby sister got married and what a great day was had by everyone. I was asked to bring my camera to take some pictures since they were not getting a professional wedding photographer, so I took it upon myself to act as the professional, now dont get me wrong my sister wanted simple shots from me but I saw this as a challenge.

I have heard if you can take photos at a wedding you can take photos anywhere, I now understand why. It is a relentless day, all rush rush rush, making sure you get that shot of Aunt Maud and 5th cousin twice removed Paddy. You have 150 photos that you must take according to all the research I had done, and then the rest are bonus photos. You should have an assistant with you if possible to relieve some of the pressure, and have a damn good lens on the front of your camera. Make sure you have a mega amount of memory cards, spare batteries for camera and flash gun. Bring a laptop so you can start the backing up of all those images as soon as you can. Get violent if needs be with the point and shooters etc etc.

How on earth could I enjoy the day with all that shit going on in my head!!!

Well after the first photo was taken and I looked at it and saw how well it looked, my mind was put at ease, it was then that I remembered, I have been taking pictures for many years and this was just another day at the end of the day. So what an experience for me, and 2700 images later I now have to go through them and decide which to bin, which to be honest is going to be hard but has to be done.

Would I do a wedding again, not sure, it really is hard work, but if I did 2 or 3 a year it would pay for that nice lens I did manage to get a loan off!

Congrats again to my little Sis and her hubby!

Walking sticks

Have just got back from four days away, I went to my mother in laws who three weeks ago had a knee replacement operation. 

I went up to Newcastle with the idea of looking after her for a few days in order to help her out with the house as she wasn't getting around that well ..... allegedly

What I actually found when i got there was a very determined seventy seven year old who in a matter of days had gone from walking with a Zimmer frame to walking with two sticks to actually not needing anything to walk  around the house with, she is doing amazingly well and i am incredibly envious of her fighting spirit, that even though she is still in pain refused to sit there and instead decided she was going to get better come what may.

The Geordie's are indeed made of tough  stuff and on more than one occasion it bought it home to me what a wuss i can be.

As it was i had a lovely few days of quiet, calm, chatting, eating and sleeping and in fact i think the break helped me possibly more than it did her.

Everything I did for her was received with gratitude and charm, she was a pleasure to be around and i am indeed lucky to have her in my life.

Diabetes

After six months of feeling very tired, never ending thirst, weeing lots and change in my eyesight, I was diagnosed yesterday as having Type 2 Diabetes. I knew it was coming so it was quite a relief really. Diabetes runs in my family, my dad was Type 1 and mum Type 2, and my grandmother was a Type 1. Plus with me being overweight, doesn’t help. Good factors are I’m a non smoker and only drink a couple of units of alcohol per week. Doc has told me that I will also need to have medication in time for blood pressure. So I’m booked in to see the Nurse in two weeks, and I’m sure she will give me more details and advice.

Ive been put on the half dose of Metformin as it does have yucky side effects tummy wise, and once I’m used to it to go up to the full dose. I’m fully on board to altering my diet and eating less sugar products and eating more healthily and taking on a bit more exercise. I do like my curves though so dont want to loose them all. Although even when I was in my 20’s and a size 12 I was still curvy. It will do me good to loose a bit of weight and tone up a bit. Plus good excuse to buy new sexy undies and clothes.

I’m now meant to make sure I eat three healthy meals a day, at regular intervals. This I will find a problem as im always rushing around. Ive had a good search online and have found a good Diabetic website with info and also a forum, so can get some advice and support there too.
So in time you might be seeing a bit less of me lol. However, I don’t tend to be a skinny minny, that’s just not me.

Will keep you posted.

x x x

U.S. Mother's Day

This past Sunday was Mother's Day here in the States. This is a tribute.

Can you guess who?
(Sorry about the ad but it's worth sitting through.)

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pretty pictures

I came across this artist last week and find his stuff pretty and so I thought I'd share it with you.

It's a Polish artist called Kazimierz Sichulski. Nope I can't pronounce it nor remember his name and I don't expect you to. There's nothing on the web about him in English, just this Polish wiki page, which I tried to translate online but didn't get far.

A sad day for a few of us here.

Sunday I got a call from my mum, strangely I knew what was coming when Paula answered the phone.



Muffin our family dog for 16 years had to be put to sleep. People dont understand how hard this can be for folk, it is like a family member passing away.

Think Ails post sums up how all my family are feeling about this loss, but the person I am most worried about is my almost 3 year old daughter who goes down to Carlow to see Muffin first then nana and grandad. We have said nothing to her yet about this and probably wont until the next time we go down, hopefully her young age will mean she wont get to upset.

The end of an era

Well I have been married for thirty eight years and in most of that time I have had a dog. Even as a child we had dogs they were a big part of our lives .

We had a wonderful mongrel for 18 years , she was a great dog , minded us all would check that everyone was in bed before she would settle down for the night . As she got older we decided to get another dog so arrived our first king charles who would lie across my shoulders as we watched telly. She got out of the house and was killed on the road I was distraught but we went ahead and got another king charles .

When our old dog died after 18 years not only were we in bits but rags went into a depression she sat looking at all the places her friend sat so we decided to get another buddy for her so along came muffin . A really lively puppy so cute and would look up at us with her lady diana eyes . However at the same time our son found a kitten very sick but with the help of the older king charles we nursed her back to health . Rags took the cat by the scruff of the neck if it was raining and would take him inside and lick him dry.

About eleven years ago we moved to the country along with two dogs and a cat where we all enjoyed the country life big garden and all however 3 years ago rags died very quietly lying beside me on my bed she was 16 . Again we were very upset but we still had muffin and she always looked like a puppy but over the last few months we saw that she was getting older and not breathing very well she had a heart murmur .

Hubby and I went on holidays for a week and our youngest son and his fiance looked after her they are both kind and loving to animals they had to go away for a night so our daughter took the dog and brought her everywhere with them so I knew she was well looked after.

When we arrived back last saturday muffin greeted us tail wagging and we took her home she kept looking at me and the breathing i noticed had got worse so we stayed with her all night saturday and thought there was a bit of an improvement on sunday but that night she was really struggling so we rang the vet on monday and she went to sleep she was also 16.

Sorry for letting all this out but it is the first time we have been without a dog , the house is so quiet and I am not tripping up over her at my feet. I know we will get used to it but at the moment we miss her

Some pictures from Tralee (Fenit) and Ballyheigue

Tour Guide Duties

This week I was asked if I would be a driver/tour guide for a friend of a friend visiting locally from Denmark. As Im self employed its quite easy for me to juggle my working time and get time off during the week if I need to. Plus my friend thought that I would enjoy it, and so did I.

It was arranged a few weeks ago, and I was really looking forward to it. I cleaned my car in preparation (god did it really need it). I collected my new friend from the train station and it was really nice to meet him at last after all the correspondence. He had two specific places he wanted to visit and I added a few more to the list, but we didn’t want to rush our day. I had already programmed the destinations into my loyal Sat Nav, and I’m really pleased I had it. It took us down lots of gorgeous country lanes, through the Kent countryside, and it was such a sunny beautiful day.

Our first stop was Downe House, where Darwin and his family lived. A beautiful house surrounded by lovely gardens. I believe more in Creation than Evolution, as it was the way I was brought up. But the exhibitions in the house were lovely, especially his voyage on HMS Beagle. I also liked the very personal story of how he met his wife, and about his children.

Next to visit was Knole House and Park. Its somewhere Ive always wanted to visit. You can just enjoy the grounds with the deer, or you can go inside the house. Well I say house, its more of a huge mansion, and well worth a visit. Its still lived in, which gives it an added magic. The house and buildings show the history of the Sackville family, lots of portrait paintings and rooms set out with furniture from the Tudor times. We stopped and had lunch here, the sun had gone behind the clouds but it was still nice to eat outside.

Last visit of the day was to Chartwell, Winston Churchill’s family home. I think this was my favourite. Maybe because its recent history. I only recently learnt that Churchill was a painter, as well as an author and there are displays of both at Chartwell. The gardens here are beautiful, lots of ponds, waterfalls and a couple of lakes, as well as a round outdoor swimming pool Churchill had put in. After looking round the house, we sat for a little while just taking in the beauty of the place.

My new friend was very easy to get on with, we chatted and laughed like old friends (well not so much of the old lol). The day had gone so quickly, it seemed like no time at all I had to drop him back off to the train station. When I got home I noticed that I had caught the sun a little, my freckles were much in evidence, and I certainly slept really well due to the walking and the fresh air.