Look what I made!!!!

It's a lily!!!!

Made from pettinice (a.k.a plastic icing)...

How awesome?????

Next week we will learn how to colour them. I think it is quite nice in white.
It was a busy class this week. Started making daisies as well - those are real cute. We made calyxes (is this a word???? it is more than one calyx) for our roses (alas my battery lasted long enough to take the pic of the lily and then it shut down - so no pic of the finished roses (they not so awesome anyways :-))

Tell me the lily doesn't look awesome??? For a first attempt I think I rocked it! My fellow students think these are easier than roses - me not so sure. These are very "finnicky".

What I am sure of is that I need to start practicing...... Maybe from Sunday..... Hopefully..... Else next weekend for shizzle!

Things at work are going along. For some reason it is really quite busy at the mo.... Work is really starting to get in the way of my trawling the world wide web for recipes.....

It's My German's dad's birthday today and so we are going to the most fantabulous Japanese place for the most fantabulous sushi! Yum yum yum. Try it out next time you are in the Rivonia area - it is called Japa. Cheap is different - so please don't say I didn't warn you....

I really need to get cracking with some work so I will holler at you later!

Me

Hanging on by my finger tips....

The wagon is racing along - been a bumpy ride and I have been bashed around, at this point I am still on the wagon - hanging on by my finger tips. What wagon you may ask??? The weight loss wagon....

Eish - i am crying out for a gym session. I have not been since Friday eve and the gardening marathon on Sunday. Was not feeling so hot last night and so didn't go. Tonight is Cake Decorating so tomorrow morning it will be on like donkey kong. Feeling a bit frustated with all of this at the mo... Well tomorrow is on like donkey kong - if my colleague and I (we may have erred on the side of hypochondia - ismshmish) are incorrect in our diagnosis of me currently suffering from appendicitis.... Ok - so I am pretty confident that it isn't. I will be all kind of frustrated if it is - then they must just take my tonsils while they are at it. Gall bladder already gone. Any other useless/unnecessary organs that are not on this list - please let me know....

I have done zero/nada/zilch/nothing in the practice department for cake decorating either. Time is so limited. Am hoping that My German or I soon win the lottery (not the silly SA one, lets go EURO) and I can become a home executive. I always thought I would be bored but no way - I would keep myself busy with all kinds of jazz and work on opening that foodie place I so dream of. Need practice and working full time means very little practice time....

Anyways, let me go and Carpe Diem (seize the day)!

Keep it real,
Me

39th week of 2011. Really???

Another weekend has drawn to a close and another week begins. Hope you had a good weekend. Mine was good. This morning I just feel like I need another....

Got the weekend off to a good start - I kicked off with a Friday evening gym session! :-) Saturday morning the alarm clock tried it's best to get me out of bed at 05:30 to get to gym at 06:00. Like I said, tried. Got up at 06:00 anyways and had a fabulous day with my mommy - we found the most fantastic shops that I didn't even know existed in Jozi. Soooo cool!

It was the cousin's bachelorette party on Saturday afternoon. Wow - that's kinda when I fell off the wagon a little, there was sooooooo much food. so much of yummy food. And I had wine - more than a glass or even 2 :-). Such exciting times - start of a new life and adventure together....

Mommy slept over on Saturday night and helped me kick start my gardening endeavour. Sjoe wee - it is hard work! No gym for the rest of the weekend but I reckon from the way my body is feeling this morning - it was a close tie... We have so much to do in our garden but really taking shape. My German and I went to the nursery (wow, we like all grown up) and bought some plants and he bought me a hippo (yeah for real, well not a real one but sooo cute). Our labrobear (labrador) reckoned said hippo was alive and an hour of barking ensued..... Annoying! :-) Labrobears are not always very smart.....

This week I wont let these clowns at the office get to me! I have set up a meeting with the big boss to let him know what is what and what REALLY goes on in this office. Not that he isn't one of the main problems either....Whether I actually do this, you will have to wait until Wednesday to hear - meeting set up for Tuesday afternoon.

Looking forward to a week of healthy eating and exercising. The cousin's wedding is in less than a month and I need to be in tip top shape (or at least as best as I can be) by then. Some of fandamily (I refer to them as ex-family) will be there. Haven't seen them in almost 4 years and when I do I wanna look my best - cause when you look your best, you feel your best, right????

Hope the 39th week of the year is a good one,
Me

It's the weekend baaaaaaby!!!

Whoo hoo the weekend is upon us. 4 work hours of this day to go. At this point I am not sure that is of much solace in that fact - half an hour longer at work is too much. Geez Louise am feeling drained today. I think I need to adhere to that "TOO" story that I keep referring to. I think that I may have been pushing it TOO much at gym and now I am TOO tired and feeling TOO hungover (which am not actually) to think of anything other than want to nap TOO much. Moderation is key but when you wanna lose weight and you love food I think that the risk can be there of over-doing it in the exercise department. I should try out this moderation story.

On another front, I am actually sick of work. I am so tired of the politics, the games and the conniving that goes on. You can't believe the sh*t that goes down everyday. People trying to take credit for other people's work while being the laziest person on the planet is probably my biggest gripe. It's a bloody joke. And you can tell me that I am in charge of my own destiny but I will prob tell you to go fly a kite (maybe not so eloquently). Hell, some things you just can't control! This would be one of them. I have tried every approach under the sun with these clowns - nothing. It's the problem when a company buys another company and tries to integrate staff of totally different corporate cultures. Pity I was last man standing....

Anyways - looking forward to a busy weekend. It's the cousin's kitchen tea this weekend. Mommy and I are galavanting around town and when I say around town I mean around town - west rand, northern suburbs, east rand etc. My German is running 50km on Sunday... Crazy man!

Hope you have a slamming weekend!

Me

Type A personality on a step machine....

For those of you who are on Discovery medical aid and some that aren’t a member will know about Vitality. The point of vitality is to get as many points as you can, either through exercise, healthy eating/shopping, health check-ups or on-line questionnaires. To bump myself up to the next level I did some of the stress questionnaires – I did one and the result (from 20 questions I need to add) was as follows:

Moderate Type A: You are often impatient and/or annoyed by your own or, mostly, behaviour other people’s behaviour. You generate a lot of unnecessary stress for yourself, which might be affecting your health now or in the future. 

Bhahahahaha – that is funny. Funny that I get irritated by every little thing? Nope – funny that 20 questions can be quite so spot on. This is not something is new to me , nor is it the first time that I have been made aware of this. It something that I bury and just get more and more tense until I snap at someone, as miserable biatches do....

The good news is – is that I am aware of this. Admitting something is the first step right? So, what am I doing about it? Well, I can’t help what I am and my natural tendancies. I am however, working on letting things go. I can’t control every situation, nor can I control how someone else will react. This is an ongoing process. I do believe that exercise is the most important tool for me to manage this – it helps relieve some of this pent up stress and tension..... Am loooooving gym at the moment and feeling waaaay calmer and happier about life.

My next step in all of this is to try out yoga.... I have been told by various people on various courses etc i.e. EQ course, personality assessments etc. According to these “professionals”, I would benefit immensely from something like yoga to centre and ground me blah blah blah.... So I am going to try it out.... I am also getting My German to join the gym and start yoga with me, think he can benefit from it too..... He is a runner - a mother father runner.... Runs and runs and runs and runs.... Also, no he is not a control freak like me but he has a very stressful job and also could do with learning to de-stress J hey my bear????? J

Gym last night was epic. Ok, so maybe not exactly epic but I enjoyed it. I try to use basically all of the cardio equipment in the gym during the week - the treadmill, bike, cross-trainer, ski machine and rowing machine but the one piece of equipment that for some reason I have never bothered with, is the step machine.

The last few visits to Uncle Jim, I have been paying attention while wishing away my 20min on the bike. I have discovered a very well kept secret – or maybe not a secret but I wasn’t listening... Look around the gym – there is every kind of size person from super-built, normal to over-weight, basically on the treadmill, bike and cross-trainer. Now, look at the chicks (or guys) on the stepper, the majority of them are built like machines (this means good)!!! Could it be the stepper????? Hmmmm. I decided to get my a$$ onto one of those to see what is what. I think I now understand. 10 min of pain.... Hello my new frenemy, Mr Step Machine. I endeavour to have a meet at greet with you as often as I can going forward.

Have a wonderful day and keep it real,

Me

Roses, sweet roses

You may have guessed from the title - finally, cake decorating class was fun again! We finished our roses, we started making lilies. Much like when we started the roses - I still have no idea how those lilies are going to come together but hey I have no doubt they are going to be super complicated....

I would like to present you with my first roses made out of icing. The colour is a bit of a misnomer, the dark purple part dried blue - it appears this dye was a genetic throwback in terms of colouring but my teacher she is now aware of this. Colouring aside, just look at these babies (remember these are my first):

Not too shabby, hey nigel? Can I hear a whoop whoop? Put your hands up in the air and wave 'em around like you just don't care - ok I will stop now. But really, I am well impressed...

Not anywhere near ready to make that two-tier wedding cake story but hey. Hmmm, that would be for end of October - ha, I could make my cousin's wedding cake. Thinking about this maybe I should stick to what I do best and that is - join in the P-A-R-T-Y with my hands up in the air :-)

Mini-Me Anna is as irritating as ever but there are some really nice girls in the class. Sjoe, teaches you once again, never judge a book by its cover. I imagined that they were all a bunch of "poppies". Hell, one of the "students" is a medical doctor in her second year of medical  government service and another is busy with her PhD in Genetics. Not just your average run of the mill girls. Miss PhD is probably on my level when it comes to cake decorating technique, maybe even slightly worse :-) (in the patience department  she kicks my a$$ down town). Back to Miss PhD,  she is making her brother's wedding cake. Brave girl. Even braver the fact that the wedding is in November and we are no where near pro's yet.....

I am happy to report that it appears that gym and exercise are back in my life and an important part of it. I don't exercise on Tuesday's due to class but I have begun to miss it and come Wednesday morning, I can't wait for gym.... Yay for me! At this point I need it to. I have come to realise that I become one miserable (and round) biatch if I don't exercise. Hopefully I have learnt my lesson and Uncle Jim and I will continue to have a flourishing relationship till the end of time.....

The weekend is coming up and it is going to be busy but I am hoping to attempt to make my first homemade pasta this weekend - along with a crumble cake. All things I have not done before.... I am looking for the "dummies guide to making pasta" while trying to get some work done. I may want to eat my words later but so far, the whole basic pasta idea does not seem too difficult! And if I don't eat too much, I hope to make My German some Creme Brulee - dying to try out my blow torch (behave, as per wikipedia a blowtorch is "A blowtorch (US), blow torch (US), or blowlamp (UK) is a tool for applying lower-intensity and more diffuse flame and heat for various applications, than the oxyacetylene torch. ")


ME

Troublesome Tuesday

Today is one of those days where I would rather not write. however, in the interests of persevering with this blog here goes much about nothing....

Let's see... Hmmm, well the good news is that I have lost 4kg! Whoop whoop! Thank you scale, thank you world, thank you me!!!! My pants no longer feel like they want to slice my internal organs in half....

Am feeling quite chuffed about the whole thing. This with some vino, cookies and chocolate at the weekend. See, one can enjoy the good things but in moderation....

I go back to the TOO much, TOO little, anything in life with a TOO in front of it - like my momma says - cant be good for you... Ain't that true....

The bad news is I am at a bit of a cross roads today and rather than sit at work, I would like to sit in a dark corner and maybe nap till Christmas. I guess that life will always throw challenges your way - life is a b*tch like that... You can chose one of two ways and what you chose sometimes will define the path that your life will follow.... Eish - deep for a Tuesday morning... Then you start thinking about the "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" cliches - holey smokes, some of us have got to be really strong then by now I guess.

Got the cake decorating class tonight. It is the 4th one of 8 and to be honest I was hoping to get a little more from this. It's pretty expensive and feel like so far we haven't done anything that I couldn't have looked at YouTube for or even a couple of images on the web... Maybe it's cause it's all new and we have to go slower but I am really hoping that tonight we get going now.... C'mon team cake decorating!!!!!

May the force be with you!
B