Starting today... 2st to lose.

[owlets]

Whilst shopping with my super slim friend over the weekend I realised just how fat I feel - and getting on the scales provided proof. I've put on 2 stone - 1 stone of which has come on very recently ( think a month or two?!).
Other than looking lumpy and increasingly featureless, my legs are achy and I don't feel like I've woken up properly ever.
So, I'm going to start on the diet today. The plan is to eat lots of veg and fruits, lean meats, and limited carbs. I'm going to have 3 decent sized meals a day, and not snack unless I'm truely hungry.

I'm going to weigh myself and post on here every Tuesday. Anyone who wants to join in please do!

Starting weight; 11st 13.
(Target weight 10st so 1st 13lbs to lose)

fecking nhs. are they definitely new lesions, or is it poss they are the same ones?

well, i guess it's positive that she's being sensible and looking at it all pragmatically, and not insisting you drop everything right now. but in some ways that would at least get it over with. and she's being sensible amd making sure she covers all of the eventualities, which is good. i like thorough doctors, however worrying it is.

overall you have felt better though haven't you, recently? i know you've had a few wobbles, but mostly you haven't been as affected as you were a few months back? (i know you will be noticing everything for the next few weeks) so maybe concentrate on that and try not to think about all the other options until the rest of the tests are done. at least you will have plenty of other stuff to try and concentrate on.

and have a really good think how you will manage the in-patient thing. at least if they can let you know the day before you stand a chance.

thinking of you tonight, and sorry it wasn't better news x

Hi Overtired - lovely to hear from you - I think I've lost our other thread - must go and look for it. Glad you knee is on the mend and you will be pain free for Christmas.

Dcs are ok thanks. Well ds1 has his ongoing trials and tribulations, but that's par for the course really. I am still tweaking the damn parental advice form (on draft number 7 now! ) but will be delivering it by hand on Friday afternoon - whether it snows or not!

Madwoman, I think reading between the lines of what she said that they're pretty sure there are new lesions, but without the original scan they can't be 100% sure.

She is a really good doctor and as you say its good that she's getting every angle checked out.

I have felt a lot better recently, well since May really, but apparently that's not necessarily a comfort, as it fits in with the relapsing remitting nature of MS - as does an awful lot of my medical history.

My gut feeling is that its not MS. I think its ME and the fact that I've improved so much after starting taking high strength omegas and vitamin d3, as well as gradually increasing my exercise and stamina etc, would seem to back that up.

I did consider refusing the tests, but then decided that I've had these problems the whole of my adult life (first crisis was when I was 19), they've seriously affected my quality of life and jeopardised every job I've ever had and its probably about time I looked for some answers. Quite apart from anything else, if its something that has the potential to be hereditary - we need to know for the dcs.

Am knackered tonight and still have to make and decorate cupcakes for the boys' Christmas parties at school tomorrow!

oh bless you. can you get a packet mix and a pot of icing? for school stuff i always minimise effort - a bit of food colouring to jazz up the icing and plonk it on with a packet of multi-coloured jelly sweets and they are always the first cakes to vanish. i made about 5 batches in 25 minutes last year for a hockey fundraiser as they were running out of stuff on the cake stall. it was about -15 so they came straight out of the oven and got shoved on the doorstep to insta-cool so that i could ice them and run them back to the stall!

i think your instincts sound spot on, but you do need it confirmed. and whatever the medical explanation, you know that your current regime is working positively, so that's an extra boost to maintain it. i don't know much about me - are there other supplements you could look at adding in?

i feel a bit like i'm constantly riding a darn rollercoaster at the mo. you must be the exact same way.

i think come saturday i'm going to switch off the computer and have 2 weeks in rl. just a few things i need to get sorted out first!!!

Nope, never that simple. Ds1 gets upset that he can't eat all the lovely shop-bought goodies the other children have because of being gluten free. He told me last night that last year he was really upset that he couldn't have some particularly enticing snowman cupcakes. So that was my mission.

Was up till 1.00 am and made two batches for each child of snowman faces and santa hat cupcakes, employing half a tonne of buttercream and a pot of edible sprinkles in the process. Just realised I forgot to take a photograph of them though.

Then had to get up early to get dd ready so we could help transport them all to school this morning (dh usually walks the boys to school).

Ended up having to make little 'gluten free' cocktail stick flags for all ds1's cakes as well before school, because ds1 chose this morning to inform me that they are planning to put all the party food for the whole of the juniors in one room and as I didn't know and thought they'd be eating in their own classrooms, both the gluten and gf batches look identical - doh!

I was thinking along similar lines about going offline for a couple of weeks over Christmas. What with everything else that's been going on, I don't feel like I'm getting enough decent quality time with any of the dcs and have bought loads of christmas decorations and crafts etc for us to do together over the holidays. Quite apart from which, if I don't switch off and get on with things, there might not actually be a Christmas in this house. We haven't made one gift for friends and family yet and have 22 to do!

Speaking of which. Have finished my breakfast now, so no more excuses - need to get back to work.

Good luck to your ds for his psych session today. x

you are a veritable saint.

i remember one memorable birthday party where one of dd1's friends who was gluten and dairy free was coming. so somewhere in my addled brain i decided that it would just be easier to make everything dairy and gluten free.

it all worked out fine, (and none of the other kids even noticed!) but i did thank my lucky stars i didn't have to contend with that everyday. even ds1s half-gaps attempts are way easier by comparison. so you have my utmost respect!!

right, am finishing this cup of tea and then i have to go and wake up ds1 (who so far has slept through dh getting up and leaving, and then the girls getting up and leaving.... hmmmm. as suspected the child is clearly knackered.) and start getting our act together.

i have to collect my wedding rings from the jewellers today i finally found them in a shoe box a few weeks ago and have had them re-sized, as the whole falling down the stairs and spraining my hand thing and then not being able to find them for 8 mos meant i couldn't get them on! but yay - a bright spot (and just in time for mil to turn up on sunday they were still resolutely lost when she was here in the summer, so she will be much relieved that i've got them back on again! )

and then the drive into the city. still in the hire car, as my car is still in the shop. if i don't have the beast back for next week when the world and his wife is here, i have no idea how we will cope...

hope ds enjoys his party day x (and i'm sure ds1 will have a grand time with the psych. he was really chatty last night which was the first time in a long time - had just finished a book and literally wanted to recount the entire story to me. and it was a book he hadn't read before, which was amazing in itself. normally he will resist and resist new books and re-read the entire percy jackson series again. so he seems quite together, even though he looks like death warmed up. and he had remembered he wasn't going to school today, so don't know whether that was what put him in a good mood? )

not too violent a shred today for you. this week is 'be nice to me' week.

i

Dunno about a saint madwoman - I think I must have a screw loose to be honest! Still, the cakes were all very well received, so it was worth it really.

Was up till just before 2.00 am this morning working on the flipping SA form again. Finally finished it after the school Christmas service this morning and hand delivered it at lunch time. So relieved to have finally got rid of the blooming thing - feels like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

I feel positively sick with exhaustion now though. Haven't been to bed before 1.00 am all week and have skipped far too many meals. Mum picked me up and took me out to lunch today and I all but fainted in the car on the way there. She was totally freaked out. It was my own fault. All I had eaten was all day was a leftover cupcake. I was fine after a bowl of winter vegetable stew and a couple of cups of coffee though, so we picked up the boys from school and hit the garden centre to wander around the Christmas decorations and animatronic polar bear and penguin display.

Anyhoo, back to my reason for logging on. Weighed in this morning and amazingly I haven't gained this week, despite highly erratic and irresponsible eating habits and horrble lack of sleep.

Stats:

Starting weight 16/6: 14st 2lb
Weight 24/6: 13st 8lb
Weight 1/7: 13st 7lbs
Weight 2/7: 13st 5lbs
Weight 13/7: 13st 4lbs
Weight 14/7: 13st 1lb
Weight 21/7: 12st 13lbs
Weight 29/7: 12st 11lbs (and 6oz)
Weight 16/8: 12st 9lbs (weighed in Tues not Fri due to holidays)
Weight 19/8: 12st 8lbs
Weight 20/8: 12 st 7lbs
Weight 26/8: 12st 8lbs 4oz
Weight 2/9: 12st 6lbs
Weight 9/9: 12st 5lbs
Weight 15/9: 12st 2lbs - 2 stone off!
Weight 23/9: 12st 1lb
Weight: 30/9: 11st 13lb 6oz
Weight: 7/10: 11st 12lb 6oz
Weight: 8/10: 11st 11lb
Weight: 14/10: 11st 9lb 6oz
Weight: 21/10: 11st 8lb 6oz
Weight: 28/10: 11st 8lb 2oz hmm
Weight: 4/11: 11st 7lb exactly
Weight: 11/11: 11st 5lb
Weight: 18/11: 11st 3lb
Weight: 25/11: 11st 2lb 4oz
Weight: 2/12: 11st 1b 7oz
Weight: 9/12: 10st 13lbs 7oz
Weight: 16/12: 10st 12lbs 2oz

I'm not going to set myself any more targets now until the New Year and am at peace with the thought that I may well be half a stone heavier by then. I don't intend to go mad with Christmas goodies, but neither am I going to deny myself completely. Am hoping to enjoy plenty of treats, within reason and am planning to continue exercising regularly to balance things a bit.

My new workout DVD 'Ripped in 30' is due in the first week of January and I'm hoping that will help me to shift any Christmas accumulated poundage!

Hope all went well for your ds yesterday. Sounds like he's in good spirits at least.

i think you are being very sensible - and this is a definitely a time of year when you need to nourish yourself in all ways, particularly with the all of the background noise. put away your scales until the dvd arrives.

i lost only a pound, but my intention to up the exercise didn't pan out. i've been in discussions with college all week about whether they will let me complete my msc, (still ongoing ) so although kickboxing would have been an awesome way to take out the stress of it, i had too much to do. so spent my time e-mailing them and then doing end of term nonsense.

you have done sooooo well this year, you should be really proud of yourself. i'm about half a stone lighter (bit more) but hey, january isn't far away, and by signing up to some classes i have external pressure to succeed too! and mil and fil arrive tomorrow for 5/6 weeks, so i'll be skiing a lot, i think.

today is my last day on mn as i start my annual rl-a-thon (first did it over christmas yonks ago and missed the entire moldies saga. it took me until about march to work out wtf had happened. so i think it's healthy!!!)

i might pop on for a short period on tuesday, if the feedback meeting with the psych throws up anything unexpected (eek) but otherwise will probably just let it all soak in over the holiday whilst we work out what's next in a relaxed manner!!

if i don't catch you around today, have a great and relaxing christmas and try and take the pressure off for a bit.

happy holidays! xx

i'll find you in january - and try and resurrect the thread if you've been talking to yourself again

merry christmas, overtiredmum! try and get some sleep! x

Happy New Year folks!

No weighing in here as yet. Bit difficult when you're flat on your back after the blooming NHS screwed up your lumbar puncture!

Had a phonecall on Christmas Eve asking me to go in on the 29th, which was a bit of a shock, as I was expecting mid to end January.

Was bumped off the main ward onto the next ward and the guy who did my LP was anything but confident. Took him ages and several tries to get past the bone and it hurt like hell.

So, have been flat on my back since last Thursday. I have the worst back pain I have ever experienced with lots of ensuing tears and not even cocodamol touches it. I thought I'd escaped the post LP headaches though - until yesterday, when we had visitors so I had to sit up for a couple of hours and the mega brain pain finally arrived. So, am flat out again and now can't sit up without feeling like a sledge hammer hits me in the face.

On a more topical note - my weight dropped to 10 stone 10 lbs in the week before Christmas! Unfortunately it was mostly through stress and not having time to eat, so I didn't log it. As expected it went up again and after eating too much rubbish and having to lie still for days on end I am fully expecting to be well over 11 stone again next weigh-in.

Mum bought me some size 12 clothes for Christmas though and they still fit! I told her to take them back because 'there's no way I'm a 12' but she insisted I tried them on and they fitted perfectly! I was totally gobsmacked. I was an 18 squishing myself into large 16s when I started out here back in June. I can't quite believe I can wear a size 12 - I haven't even owned any size 12s since the early 90s!

Laughably, my new workout DVD arrived yesterday. Dh and I watched it in terror last night! Think I need to do a full 30 days of shredding before I could even think about attempting Ripped in 30! Lord knows when I'll be up to working out again though.

My new target is to be down to target and maintaining easily by July. We are planning a kind of vintage themed Mad Hatters Garden Party to celebrate 20 years married and 25 together and I am determined to buy something gorgeous and really special to wear.

Look forward to hearing from you soon and hoping you have had a better holiday than me and are all fired up for weightloss and fitness in 2012.

Hope all this makes sense - cocodamol might not help the pain, but it certainly does funny things to my head.

oh bless you, you have had a rough holiday!! (tis mwita btw, am currently locked out of my username for some unfathomable mn reason that tech is apparently trying to fix...)
at least you have had the lb done - when do they think you will get the results?
2012 sounds like it has lots of good things to offer you - your party sounds lovely!

i've bitten the bullet and registered for both cross country ski lessons and a rec centre 'ten pound challenge' which is weight room and aquacise stuff over six weeks, and both start next week when the kids are back at school. have also been skiing over the holiday period, but not gone near any scales. i think i won't bother until next week!!

hope you are feeling a bit better over the next couple of days. it doesn't sound like much fun at the mo. just popped on to say happy new year, but am going offline for another week - ds1's bday etc, so won't be back until school starts.

stay safe x

(ripped in 30 sounds like torture...)

Hi there, like the new name - very appropriate considering its not a name change by choice, iyswim.

Thanks for the good wishes.

They will get the results in within a couple of weeks, but I still have to go for 'evoked potential' testing before I see the neuro again. That's not scary at all, they just glue electrodes to your head and measure the speed of messages travelling from hands, feet and eyes to brain.

She asked for my next appointment to be booked early Feb, as she wasn't expecting my tests to be done until mid to late Jan.

Well done for booking the ski lessons and joining the challenge. We are so going to be gorgeous by the time the summer comes around.

I'm not here really either - boredom has driven me to my laptop I'm afraid.

Enjoy the rest of your holidays and I'll look forward to hearing from you again in a week or so.

Just quickly coming on to note my NY weigh-in, as at yesterday. Still off my feet with headaches and back pain at the moment and being terribly tearful and pathetic as a result, so won't bore you with my week.

Weight: 5/01: 11st 1lb 2oz

Not great, but not a disaster either, in fact about what I'd predicted. So I'm ok with that.

Still not in weightloss mode, being pretty much immobile and having to rely on Mum and dh to bring my whatever they have time to prepare at the moment and still resorting to the odd bit of comfort eating to boot.

First mini goal is to get back down to 10 stone 10 pounds, but do it sensibly this time.

Still not heard anything about ds1's SA request - their deadline for letting us know was last Monday - but given that that was a bank holiday , I wasn't expecting much. Am sure if I contact them they will claim at least a weeks' grace due to the holidays, so am planning to start chasing the middle of next week if I don't hear before. Fully expecting a flat out refusal first time out - but will of course reapply straight away.

that's not bad tbh... but awful that you're still feeling so sore and low.

i'm not weighing until next week - i think there will be some sort of horror-show weigh in at the beginning of this challenge thingy, so am trying not to think about it before then.

have been dashing here and there with the brown dog, who very cleverly put a thorn through her eyeball just after christmas. the local vet referred her off to the opthalmologist in the city, so she had surgery just before new year. today she can take her cone of shame off! yay! all seems to be fine today at her check-up, so fortunately we can just go back to the normal vet here now. all told that one little thorn has cost us close to £2000. happy new yeeeeaaaaaaarrrrrrrr indeed.

hope you are feeling better soon x

overtired, are you still here? how was christmas?

Hi - still not got your name back then?

I am starting to feel a little better in the back and head department now, but have the period from hell to make up for it. At least that means I might weigh a couple of pounds less in a few days though.

Poor brown dog and at £2,000! We used to do vet insurance but as ours got older the excess made it pointless, fortunately we never had anything over £500 bills though. Did they manage to save her sight? I hope she's feeling better now.

I am slightly buoyed today after receiving a letter from the LEA this morning to say they are going ahead with a Statutory Assessment of ds1. They don't want any more submissions from us after my enormous first submission, but they do want one from ds. Their deadline for telling us if he'll get a statement is 26 March. One hurdle down - countless more to go!

Oh, that's all great news - apart from the period from hell, but at least you know that's time limited! We did much the same thing with our immigration paperwork tbh. We supplied them with soooooo much information on dd2 that there was nothing left they could possibly think of to ask!
Vet thinks her sight should be fine. She's got two cloudy dots, one where the thorn went in, and one at the top where the vet had to go in to push it back out (Yerk) as she couldn't get hold of it to pull it back out the same way... She said with this type of injury the cloudiness will probably remain but not get any bigger, and that brown dog is probably blissfully unaware that she has a cloudy dot in her line of vision. She doesn't seem to care, tbh... Crazy lab. This is the same dog that chewed up a stick and some of it came out through her throat, leaving her with a huge abscess on her neck. Ridiculous animal.

Will try and post on Tuesday if I can still move.... Eek.

Well bugger and bollocks, really, is all I have to say today.

Last night at nine thirty the gym called to tell me they didn't have enough registrations for the course and were canceling that time slot. They are running the same thing in the evenings, but I can't make those. The tues and thurs morning times were brill. Feckity feck.

So I figured I'd do my own ten pound challenge instead. I'm still cross country skiing, I just need to replace the two hour cancelled sessions with some hardcore activity, and make good food choices, as this has slipped over Christmas.

So I hopped on the scales to get my starting weight and I'm back up to sodding twelve sodding stone again.

Aaaaaargh. I knew I had put weight back on, but I didn't realize how much. Bum bum bum.

It feels like starting all over again.

It should come off easier this time, surely?

I am so cross with myself. Gah.

Oh madwoman, I hate it when you are all geared up for something and then someone lets you down like that. What a total pita!

BUT, you can do it and you WILL do it and YES, it will come off easier this time - especially with all the cross-country skiing. (Y'know if you did a 20 min shred 5 days a week that would more than compensate for your cancelled gym class - and its only a fiver on Amazon ... )

I've been through a similar loop of being cross with myself for letting my resolve slip over Christmas and the New Year and gaining so much. It was always the intention to relax and not worry about it, but then it was never in the plan for me to be stuck in bed, unable to exercise and comfort eating for 10 days straight. I didn't eat too badly over the holiday - its since then, being stuck in bed bored and in pain that I've eaten nothing but crap.

I am also really p'd off that I seem to be craving sugar by the bucketload at the moment. That's always been my problem, I am a total sugar addict with chocolate being my biggest temptation. Problem is, the dcs still have bags of the stuff hanging around from Christmas and I keep going and grabbing a handful of chocolate buttons or a giant choc coin out of the fridge several times a day. I really need to get a grip, as I seem to have lost every scrap of willpower and can see myself undoing all my hard work if I can't get a handle on it soon.

Its dd's birthday this weekend though, so I've decided to make Monday my serious start day, with no excuses. Am finally done with all my neuro related tests, after a painful hour spent this afternoon with a poor neurobiologist desperately trying to make my reluctant big toe respond to electrical stimulus. OW! is all I have to say about that!

Back is still very sore, but at least I'm upright and mobile again. Planning to break myself in gently using my new exercise bike for a few days and then try to get back into shredding and other Jillian Michaels dvds of extreme torture.

Minor setback, that's all this is. We'll be back on track before you know it.

lol at the shred ad it's certainly worked for you!

it'll be fine. lessons start tomorrow so then i'll feel like i'm off again. i've just been cross and out of sorts all day as nothing was quite working out how it was supposed to (we had snowfall overnight and dh worked from home. he also lent my 4wd drive car to his dad this morning...) then i went to the scout hut to get a few jobs done and there was a group in there unexpectedly so i couldn't get in. then when i went back i slipped on the ice and literally crashed down full on comedy banana skin routine onto my back. i must have flown a mile up in the air and landed on my left buttock primarily. fortunately i'm reasonably padded . there was a bloke shovelling snow across the road and he didn't know whether to die laughing or come and help. he managed to keep the laughter under control and i got up in about half a second... of course everything i had been carrying (an entire box of christmas decorations, a bowl full of teeny tiny paint brushes, and my car keys) had flown up in the air and landed all around me in the snow. so then i had to do undignified scrabbling to get it all back together.

it must have been hilarious to watch tbh. real you-tube gold, but fortunately there were no cameras about!

i suspect by tomorrow lunchtime it will be a fond memory as i will have spent most of the morning on the ground...

nothing compared to a lumbar puncture lol, but my ego (as well as butt) is v sore...

Oh dear

I have a great mental picture - despite not actually knowing what you look like.

Sorry!

Yesterday was obviously what my Mum would call 'a monkey day' for you. I hope you have a better one today.

Good luck with the lesson - hope you manage to stay upright.

lordy, i feel like a slightly shaky and wobbly wet dish rag! no, i did not manage to stay upright. it was an hour and a half of complete public humiliation, but reasonably fun nevertheless.

i am soooo going to hurt in the morning. i think i used muscles that haven't been used in years - completely out of my comfort zone!!!

i'm glad i'm doing it though - it underlined that i really need to, iyswim. and i can't be crap forever.... (can i?)

we ended up skating on skis uphill ffs. with some of sort of complicated pole planting routine going on. in a beginner class. i can barely walk uphill.

better day today though. and some friends from where we used to live turned up unexpectedly, so that was nice, too. they are around until the weekend, so we might get the chance to meet up properly. no more monkeys.

Well done for getting through it! Sounds like it was a really good workout. Forget about all the er, groundwork today and just think how cool you'll look when you have finished the course and can swish along on your skis, the picture of grace and coordination.

I have never skied. Wasn't allowed to as a child due to funny hip and knee joints and was actually quite relieved, as I'm pretty sure I'd be hopeless at it.

Glad you've had a better day - its always nice to catch up with old friends.

We were supposed to be going to a party at the end of January with loads of our old friends from uni and when we were first married, but Mum has been called for an op on her foot the day before and she was having the dcs overnight. I'm surprised how upset I was about not being able to go - had bought a new skirt and boots with my Christmas money all ready for it though.

Called the hospital yesterday and discovered that I have an appointment with the neuro for my results next Thursday (19th). Good job I rang, because I haven't had a letter, so its probably gone awol in the post in much the same way as all my Christmas shopping did.

I'm surprised the appointment is that soon, she put on my form for me to booked in in early Feb. Trying to convince myself that they must just slot the next person on the list into cancellations before filling the new appointment slots and its doesn't mean anything. Also worried they won't have all my results and it'll be a waste of time, because the VEP people on Tuesday said it takes two weeks for the results to get to your doctor, as they post them. Of course then I find myself worrying that they found what they needed in the spinal fluid and bloodwork, so don't need the VEP results to draw their conclusions. Daft I know. I really must try not to think about it.

Exhausted today after a very restless night, so not planning to do much. Feel a bit guilty as I should be taking dd to toddlers and she is sooo bored at home, but I just can't face it. [bad mummy emoticon]

oh, bless you. so hard to stop your imagination running away with you, even if you know it doesn't necessarily mean anything! i've had my appointment through too. 3 Feb with the consultant, but i have to go and get a load more lab work done on the 20th so it's back for the appointment. i am ignoring it thus far. will allow it to squeak in on the 20th.

i am v sore today! (no kidding) but so busy i haven't got time to think about it, really. going to go and have a hot shower and plough on, but am going to try and make some time for a swim tomorrow morning...

try not to fret lots of avoidance tactics for the next week?

I'll hold your hand if you hold mine! We're a right pair aren't we?

Going on past experience the house will probably be spotless by next Thursday. I always clean when I'm stressed. Fortunately the everywhere really needs a good going over after Christmas and my recovery from the dreaded lumbar puncture, so yes, hopefully, I should be able to distract myself.

Am off to the theatre on a school trip with the boys next Wednesday as well, so that's good timing for distraction purposes as well.

that sounds very suitable.

sooo, was going to swim this morning, but apparently it's my turn for the period from hell. i don't think i was expecting it until next week, but hey ho. i'm now in a bit of a dither as the kids have a pool party this afternoon for 4 hours (!) and dd2 won't be able to go in unless i do, she's just not safe. there's only one day a month that i daren't swim, and apparently it's pool party day - yay!!! i'm sure it will be fine, but grr, bitch, whine.

i don't think i'm eating enough this week. was a bit manic yesterday and when i eventually stopped doing stuff at about half ten, i realised i'd had a bowl of oatmeal and two small slices of toast all day. not a vegetable in sight. so am trying to think about food instead of getting stuff done today!!

Oh you poor thing. I just had a text from my sister saying she's similarly afflicted today and cursing the whole of the male species for their lack of monthly pain and disruption. In a strange echo of what happened to me on Sunday morning, her dh had to pick her up off the bathroom floor when she fainted from it in the middle of the night. Hope you manage to get through the party ok.

It sounds like you and I both need to start taking better care of ourselves. I have been similarly erratic with my meals and when I do eat, my choice of food leaves a lot to be desired. I'm still planning not to worry too much about it until Monday, after dd's birthday on Sunday. Of course there is still likely to be cake and possibly left over party food in the house - which won't be good, but I'm determined to switch my willpower and common sense back on as of midnight Sunday!

I went to bed last night determined to feel better today and woke up feeling worse. Got the pins and needles back in my left hand and lower leg and am absolutely wiped out. I've literally spent the whole day just sitting in the living room messing about online and playing with dd from my chair. Well I did fill in all the school holidays and current appointments etc on my new super duper calendar and diary which arrived in the post today, so at least I did something useful.

Had a email notification from the lottery people telling me to check my account because they had news about my ticket! Got all excited - then found out I'd won £2.50 - 50p profit I suppose, but really, for a minute there I had visions of a whole house make-over complete with huge extension.