Thoughts

Its been a while since my last post.  Lent by association went well.  I succeeded.  Well, almost.  I succumbed to the call of pancakes.  and started Lent by association all over again. from scratch.  In total I went 9 weeks without chocolate, cake, sweets etc. (apart from the pancakes).  So in the end I succeeded.  Well done me.  It was great, I felt great.  Then I went hog wild on cakes, sweets, chocolate etc for the next two weeks until I felt like an utter fat goober.  so.  I then decided.  no more cakes, sweets, chocolate etc again for another 2 months. LOL.  I just love to punish myself I guess.  so I'm doing that at the moment and its going rather well.   but that's not the purpose of my post.

Life.  Thoughts?  I'm confused.  i thought I'd found myself and bam, life throws a curve ball to make me re-assess my entire being and what I was put on this earth to do.  I just finished a teaching degree and was so certain that's what i wanted to do. then i start a job teaching 7 y.o's and I didn't enjoy it. Realised I wanted to pursue older grades, high school.  so now next week I'm about to start a small job teaching high school kids and what am I... ? scared shitless?  I met the class, and learned that this is not the idealistic world I had imagined.  its going to be tough.  a kid threw a bin at a teacher for christsake.  this is not what I became a teacher for!!!   So if I don't want to teach primary, but I don't want to put up with this bullshit in high school, what does that leave me as a teacher? I don't know. who am I as a teacher? Where do I fit? am i even meant to do this? these are questions I have. I'm confused.  What is your story?

Lent by Association. Part 4.

Today was my first day of being completely and utterly healthy.  And I did it.  It was hard though.  omg, was it hard.  I want chocolate so bad.  Everyone on facebook is talking about Easter eggs and all I want is a Red Tulip Easter egg!!  I can smell it.  I can taste it.  I want it!  But.  No.  I won't give in.  I won't cave.  I want to prove that I can do this.  I want to earn my best buddy's respect for going 6 weeks without a temptation.  Why oh why did I have to make it all temptations???!!!!  Man, I make things hard for myself!  And a glass of red wine would be so nice.  But no, I decided to eliminate wine for the next 5 weeks too.  Now that one, I'm not sure I'll stick too....  I'm only doing that bit for me, to get on the healthy kick.  I figure if I force myself to stick to this , then it might help me to overhaul my diet for the long-term.  Who knows. I could be full of shit.  Time will tell.  In the meantime?  I have tomorrow to get through and avoid all things tempting.  Honestly.  I don't know how I'm going to do this for another 5 weeks.  Chocolate I can.  But everything else......?

Lent by Association. Part 3.

Its day 5.  And although I haven't succumbed to cake, pastries, chocolate and the like, I have still, nonetheless, ate a muffin, too many of those bloody digestive biscuits (which I think now even tho they are 'light' and low in sugar, are really quite crap for me and I shouldn't be eating them), and today...  scones.  Yes.  Scones.  I was thinking 'yeah they don't fall into my banished cake, pastries or chocolate category....'.  Hmm.. regret them much bottleshop girl?  No more scones, Playfish muffins, fattening yoghurt or red wine (after this bottle of course).  All temptations are now banished!! Vitaweet biscuits and green tea are about to become my new best friends.

At the near close of day 5 I am realising that in my desire to avoid tempting foods, I have eaten way too much of other things.  In fact, I don't think I've stopped eating.  No more.  It stops now.  And the exercise needs to increase because, basically, I feel crap.  and that's without the cakes!!

So, bottleshop girl, this lent challenge is going to become a complete diet overhaul for the remaining of the 6 weeks.  I can do this.  Can't I?

Lent by Association. Part 2.

Success.  No chocolate.  No cakes.  No sweets.  No sweet pastries.  I have survived days 2, 3, 4 and 5.  However.  I was tempted.  But I think it was my brain playing tricks on me.  You know when you say you can’t have something and you just want it?  Its like telling a kid you can’t touch that, what do they do?  They touch it.  Well...   I was thinking about chocolate.  I touched chocolate (from the packaging).  I even bought chocolate!!  Don’t get to gaspy yet, I didn’t buy it with the intention of eating it.  Well.,  YET.  I bought myself an additional Red Tulip elegant rabbit Easter egg for the end of my successful lent.  I have stashed said Mr Bunny away, high in the cupboard for safe keeping, ready to be opened and eaten in 6 weeks time.   Less 2 days. 

My diet thus far, however, has consisted of some excessive eating.  Excessive in a mad, desperate attempt to avoid giving into the temptation of (on day 2) buying a date scone.  Now, just a sidebar on that note.  Date scones.  Would they fall into my category of sweets?  They are full of carbs.  They have some sugar in them.  But they aren’t cake.  So I guess I could eat a date scone... However.  I decided to resist the urge because 1) I love date scones.  I mean, I have been addicted to date scones in the past. Which means 2) if I allow myself date scones on this new healthy eating plan, then I will eat them everyday because ‘hey I’m allowed to’.  So. In saying that, I’ve decided, I’m not allowed to.  But I guess if I ate one a week it wouldn’t hurt ,... lol  anyway, where was I.  Oh yes.  What I ate on day 2.  Gee this is riveting stuff. Breakfast.  Weetbix with bran, pear and cranberries with skim milk.  Looking good so far. Then I had a cup of tea with a wholemeal slice of toast with honey.  But no butter!  Well done bottleshop girl on the no butter.  High five.  Admittedly, I didn’t really need to have the slice of toast as well.  I got a bit crazy there.  Late morning I ate some health nut bar made by Uncle Tobys.  They are low in fat and low in sugar.  I know  because I checked the label.  therefore.  It must be true.  And they are a something or rather of my daily fibre intake.  They are quite nice actually.  After that I went to Coles to buy food.  Healthy stuff of course.  I was most disappointed to discover that they had no Weight Watchers biscuits!!!!  This had me in quite a dilemma.  I want a treat.  But I want one that is good, well, better.  Low in sugar.  In the end I settled on some low fat, low sugar ‘light’ McVities digestive wheat biscuits.  I was feeling a bit ravenous (not sure why, I had a big breakfast!), and ate two in the car.  Hmmm.  Not too bad tho really. Its not like I sat there scoffing into a date scone right?

So off I went home and made a beautiful healthy sandwich – wholemeal bread, spinach, celery, carrot, cucumber, red onion, tomato, a slice of ‘light’ cheese and tuna.  It was yum.  Oh and a tiny smither of butter...  Later I had a cup of green tea (high five) with a fruit bun.  Yes i know what you’re thinking.  I probably shouldn’t have the fruit bun?  But, wouldn’t a fruit bun fall into the same category as the date scone?  It doesn’t quite fall into my ‘sugar temptations’ list that I have decided to avoid for 6 weeks.  Like for example: cake, cake, cake,....  tarts, custard Danish, choc chip buns, desserts.... apple pie... oh god. Yum, how I love these treats!  So a measly fruit bun.  Its worth 1 point on the Weight Watchers program so I figure a fruit bun here or there doesn’t bloody hurt too much...  now if I sat and ate mud cake. That’s a different story. 

So then I went to work and packed an apple, carrot sticks, celery sticks and a mix of nuts/cranberries/prunes.  And boy did I hoe into those to avoid the date scone temptation.  However.  Alas.  I did cave.  But not for sugar.  But for fat.  Chips.  Hot chips. In a bowl with tomato sauce.  Regretted it after, but at least I didn’t break my lent.  So then I had steak with it, and later a cup of tea and two Weight Watchers jam droplet biscuits.   I ate too much.  In fact, my stomach ached.  

On Day 3, I started with a 6 am bootcamp session followed by one latte and weekly muffin.  How did I feel?  Well, of course I felt good after some exercise but, surprisingly, I didn’t enjoy the muffin as much as I thought I would.  Perhaps its the guilt I am experiencing from those hot chips, or the guilt that I am ‘letting’ myself have a muffin.  Funny, as I ate the muffin (which was very yummy I might add), all I could taste was sugar.  Sweetness.  Calories.  Hmmm.  So, in my wise ways I have decided to make my challenge harder.  No more weekly muffins.  My one rule exception – out the window!  Could I really go 6 weeks with no sweet treats AT ALL?  I guess we shall see!  I did however, buy some Weight Watchers fruit slice biscuits (yes found some at the opposition). They will be my treat, and I think a couple of those here and there is nothing too bad to feel guilty about.  Right?  Right.   I also bought some beautiful fattening yoghurt.  In small treat sizes, that is my dairy treat.   Needless to say, the muffin and coffee was my breakfast.  No need to overeat now is there?  When I came home , I did have a cup of tea and a piece of dark rye toast with a smidgen, I repeat smidgen, of butter and vegemite.  So good and yummy.  And guess what?!  I'm going to see if in this 6 week period of bottleshopgirl’s version of lent, I can cut back on coffee.  This is something I never thought I would do.  But, hey, it seems I am up for a challenge at the moment.  You may care to ask me again about this particular aspect of the challenge in a couple of weeks’ time.  Perhaps two coffees per week?  And the rest of the time, tea galore.  I do actually enjoy a good cup of strong tea.  It seems I’m about to enjoy it a whole lot more.

About Me

Hi, I am bottleshop girl.  I work in a bottleshop.   I sell copious amounts of alcohol and cigarettes to the local legends, workers and bogans of my town, with the odd good looking fella thrown in here and there.  I love my job.  Its fun, its social, its easy, non-stressful and I go home and leave it there.  Work is not work for me and that’s the way I like it.  I have been there for one year now and I still love it.  Recently, I even got my forklift licence so I can move pallets of beer.  How cool is that?  (btw, its fun).  The people I work with are fantastic.  We laugh, we joke and make jokes and each others’ expense.  Even in front of the customers and they laugh with us.  We have our regular customers and they love us too because we are happy and provide fun and efficient service.  in one year, my work buddies have become some of the best friends in my life.  In fact, the bottleshop saved me.  It saved me from depression after the end of my marriage.  Suddenly, my work buddies lit up my life and now, I couldn’t imagine my life without them.   The bottelshop is my life.  Hence my name, bottleshopgirl.

I haven’t blogged before.  I don’t know what to expect or what I should do other than string together some rather interesting words in a concise sentences to form a somewhat amusing blog for you to read.  I will try and hope I succeed.  Let me know what you think.  Please.  I do like to write.  I love words.  the English language and the way you can express yourself through words, written for a particular intent or feeling.  I haven’t played much with writing before.  Its always been there, ever since high school but I’ve never tapped into it.  Not quite sure why.  At times I have in my previous career and then at University.  But, perhaps I never had the right avenue, as I hate journal writing and don’t know much on how to write a book (although have often had the fantasy to do so).  I can touch type.  I love to type and I love to talk.  So there you have it.  I’m hoping the perfect ingredients for a blog.  There is lot of things I’d love to share and write about so I’ll start with some current things happening now.  I apologise if it begins rather boring.  stick with me and I am sure I will amuse and entertain you with lots of stories, anecdotes and rather random thoughts.

Thank you for reading.  Enjoy.

Lent by Association

I’m doing Lent.  Yes I know its a bit late, but nevertheless, i’m doing it.  This is how I came to do this. 

One of my best friends is Catholic.  I am not.  Almost 6 weeks ago he told me he was doing lent and that he was giving up his temptation of chocolate.   This was the first I’d ever heard of Lent or what it was.  Now that his time is almost up, I asked him when he gets to eat chocolate again (this Saturday night).  Now, before I continue, I should enlighten you on some background information to this story.  Short story: I want to lose 5 kg.  I’ve been ‘trying’ to eat well and resist all temptations (you can see where this is going...) but I haven’t done so very successfully.  After a weekend of pigging out on cakes and the like, I had decided that enough was enough and I was going on a ‘diet’ or ‘changing my eating habits’ for good!  So Monday was the first day of my new healthy eating regime.  Ok.  Back to the original story.  Lent.   So I was working with my buddy on Monday and we were talking about the chocolate.  I stood there and thought for a moment and then said ‘What if I go without chocolate for 6 weeks?’.  [quiet].  ‘What would you give me?’.  We pondered this and I said to him, ok, So if I can go 6 weeks without chocolate, you give me a Red Tulip elegant rabbit easter egg.  Deal?  Yep deal.  We then discussed that this ‘bet’ shall we say, has to be based on honesty... of course....  if I cheated with chocolate I could never live with the guilt anyway.  We agreed that if I cave and eat chocolate, that he gets to eat MY elegant rabbit in front of me!  Deal done.  The challenge was set.

But.  I began to think more about this.  No chocolate.  For 6 weeks.  Hmmmmm.   Well..... that’s not really THAT hard is it?  I mean, I love chocolate as much as the next girl carrying an extra 5 kg who can’t resist the temptation of melting chocolate in her mouth, but, I don’t always eat it.  Perhaps 6 weeks without chocolate won’t be that hard of a challenge I wondered.  So, in my new resolution to eat healthy and not give in to all things good that are tempting, I decided that. No.  My challenge will not be just chocolate!  It will be all of it!  All things sweet.  Cakes.  Desserts.  Sweet pastries.   All of those too.  I can’t eat ANY for 6 weeks!!!!   BUT , I have allowed one exception to the 6 week challenge.  I am allowed ONE muffin per week from my favourite coffee spot. (they have THE BEST muffins).  I mean, these muffins are so good, I just can’t resist.  To give up those muffins for 6 weeks, I know I couldn’t do that !!  Yes, yes, I know what you are thinking.  What is the point of this lent challenge if I am going to allow myself a sweet treat?  Well.  This is my defence.  Before the challenge was set, I had already in my own mind decided I would ‘do my best’ to avoid these sugary temptations.  And I had actually already decided I would allow myself one muffin per week as a treat.  To... you know... keep me going!  Because I know myself all too well.  If I restrict myself totally, I will cave.  I will want it.  I will need it.  I will have to have it.  And I will.  So I figure, I could set myself up for success with this small scaffold to help me along the way.   Get it?  I mean, its just one muffin.  I have to avoid EVERYTHING else!  And I did extend the challenge from chocolate to include sweets too so... I think its a pretty good deal.  And of course, the whole 6 weeks I will still be ‘doing my best’ to eat well, healthy, avoid all other fatty foods and exercise lots.  So...

Challenge accepted.

I am doing lent for 6 weeks commencing Monday.  At least the first day was easy :)