Baby steps for weightloss 1

Well I have decided that I will embark on the journey for weightloss, and I will do that with baby steps as "every little helps". Whoever wants to join me please leave your comments and we can start the baby steps together. So first week of baby steps is to drink water, drink water whenever possible, when I wake up, before snacks, before meals. First I will drink water and then see how I feel, so end result is either I am thirsty and I will be ok or I am really hungry then I would have to feed the deamons ;)

So please whoever is joining me remember the water, a cup of water before anything you want to literally put in your mouth !! So I will keep you updated till next week for baby steps 2 !!  So till then I will challenge myself and START !!!!

Yummy Mummy Hater !!

Ah well, i know it's been really long, I don't know where time goes, i think I lost all sense of time, our maybe it goes back to my african genes. Let's talk a little about "diet". Frankly i read around maybe 1000 of articles for weightloss, I hate calorie counting so was looking for ways to become Fab without the need to count anything !!!

I realised that I have turned into a bitter old bag/yummy mummy hater when I stumbled upon a yummy mummy and said to myself " It's people like you who make us look BAD, probably she is a horrible person and can't even smile from the hunger pangs !!! " Oooh I could not believe the bitter bag i turned into and it got even worse when she held the door for me with the sweetest smile I have ever seen just to rub it in my face. Crushed my last hope so I had to admit she is "Yummy and NICE !!!"

So now my quest is to remove the diet word and replace it with healthy life style, sounds more sophisticated anyways. So now to chocolate or not to chocolate will be a choice I have to make, and that means to chocolate 10 bars of KITKAT or one ;) sorry but just can't part with the buggers yet!!!

I will start the healthy life style and share how that works out so wish me luck.

 

Marriage Saver

Well I don't know about you but what I think is that if its possible having separate rooms is a marriage saver !!!!! I am not saying separate lives I am just saying separate rooms during the weekdays at least !!! I will just sum up my day for you, I wake up at 6:20 AM (no alarm) leave home at 6:45ish everyday, I drop off my daughter at school and with all the traffic I am at work by 8:20 AM and then back home by 5:00 PM, kids and the works till 9:00 PM, then TV time for an hour then a shower and off to bed by 10:30 PM - 11 PM.  I take a shower before bed since I am not a morning person so waking up extra early to take showers in the morning is a big NO NO for me .So simple right ?? NOOOOOOO it would have been a perfect schedule if I don't have a room-mate that has an alarm that rings at 5:00 AM and is put on snooze till 5:45 so rings in my head every 5 minutes !!!, then followed but a truck or could be an elephant invasion) I could 't figure out which one until he is ready by 6:15 AM which almost time for me to get up so I loose 1 Hour and 20 minutes of precious sleep time by the room-mate. So that is in the morning !!!

Night time is another issue, as I mentioned earlier I go to bed by 10:30 - 11 ish PM. The room-mate on the other hand does not have a fixed time, could be from 12:00 AM - 3:00 AM it depends on the sports event or some other conditions that are self inflicted !!! seriously I don't know how he does it. He does take a nap during the afternoon as half of the week he finishes work at 2:00 PM so the nap time could be from 3:30 PM till 7:30 - 8:00 PM.  SO anyway, when the room-mate invades the room to go to bed along with the elephants then I automatically wake up from the alien invasion which includes lights on as well !!!! And if that's not enough I am also attacked by cold hands on me to make me jump followed by evil laughter !!!!
SO I loose another 2 hours or so until I can get back to sleep again !!! So the room-mate total damages are 3 Hours and 20 minutes worth of SLEEEEEEP !!!! How can anyone compensate that !!!!! Seriously now wouldn't I be better off having my own room with a double bed and my own bathroom? Life would be so heavenly then !!!

SO that's is why I would recommend the separate room !!! You can always get together whenever you need company ;-) but the thing is you can also be rested enough so you would be in the mood for getting together so its a win win situation !!! Think about it and let me know !!!

Work or Home but don't settle !!

Its something that has been on my mind lately, I have an 8 to 4 job not a very satisfying job, and sometimes I even feel its a waste of time except for the paycheck of course. I day dream a lot about staying at home and hugging and kissing my 2 year old all day (its not all pink and flowery like that).

What if I just quit? what if I just don't show up to work tomorrow or better yet walk out of the office right now? (yes I am writing this from the office but during my break off course ;-) )  What would happen? Would my world crumble, would I feel dependent, am I working to satisfy myself or is it peer pressure that women have to work these days and provide. Yes I do have responsibilities, I have to pay for things like school and nanny plus my own needs and wants. Would Hubby take care of me if I stay home. Would I have my needs and my kids needs all catered for while I stay at home and take care of my family?

OK I stayed home? Would I be bored? Would I feel useless? Would I feel that all my education has gone to waste? Would I have the patience to be with my 2 year old all day? Would I be a good Mama? (Since I blame work and not having time for all my motherly screw ups)

I only have questions and lots of questions, I don't think there is a right or wrong thing to do. Both has their negative and positive and it depends upon the individual to know where will the scale tip and at what point. So no black or white, just a grey area all over. Ooh I miss pink ;-)

Good luck in whatever you decide and just do what makes you happy and don't settle. A quote from Steve Jobs, may he rest in peace.

You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.
As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

Don't feel like doing anything

Today I am having one of those days where I don't feel like doing anything " reminds me of The Lazy Song by Bruno Mars, go figure I heard it today first thing on radio. 

Heeeeef, Heeeeeef  just wanna lay on a couch, watch me some TV and that's it no more anything. Have a remote control and do lots of clicks like

• Pause the demanding Boss (sorry boss but today everything is high on the scale even impressions)
• Pause the whining cries
• Pause the nagging hubby
• Pause that commercial of the guy with the 6 pack !!

Since there is no way to find such a remote control then I would opt for the alternative therapies

• Call a friend and bore them to death about how I don't feel like doing anything
• Nag back at the hubby
• Take 5 minutes to Ooosa and deep breathe
• have a chocolate bar and not feel guilty about it
• Listen to a song that makes you happy not " The Lazy Song" of course

Try them maybe they would work for you too. Happy not doing anything !!

WF6V9B9NK3US

Office friendly packed lunch

Quinoa Aubergine Salad

I take my own packed lunch from home everyday. My packed lunch might consists of the following

• Leftovers from the night before (e.g okra with minced meat, fish, chicken dishes)
• Salads e.g (quinoa with aubergine and roasted pepper)

I usually eat on my desk, so on salad days usually its uneventful, on non salad days as soon as I heat up my food and start eating then I hear " Phsssst Phsssssssssst Phsst" at first I thought its a coincidence but I had non salad meals for the past 3 days and I have been hearing the sounds regularly so I ruled out the coincidence part. I am blessed with sinuses so my sense of smell is as powerful as a quarter of a human !!! 

So finally I walked by my colleagues desk and was wondering should I ask him about the sound, so I was there and before I spoke I noticed the culprit, a can of AIR FRESHENER and then it hit me, my food stinks to some people. He was actually covering the smell of my delicious homemade packed lunches!!  As soon as I realised that, I put on my best smile and asked him whether he had a pen instead. How embarrassing is that ? How long have he been spraying? And what scent has he been spraying (I couldn't guess from the back of the can)

Anyway, i felt bad for a moment but since there is no other way around this situation as our office doesn't have a place where I could eat lunch except for my desk (not that I know off anyway) I decided that there was no problem, I will keep my stinky food coming and he would just keep refilling his can. I guess its an unspoken war and a silent peace treaty. So whoever brings their stinky packs to work (I will have to concentrate on salads now) then I guess they would also have to bring a complementary can of air freshener so that the rest of the human race would not suffer with them. Kudos to that ;-)

* P.S You can find the recipe for the above great quinoa salad  here (office friendly food)

http://noredmeat.com/index.php/2010/05/quinoa-and-aubergine-salad-to-kick-off-national-vegetarian-week/

Simply Africa

Spices In Souq (Sudan)

Imagine a neighborhood of brick houses surrounded by lush green gardens, small waterways to irrigate the gardens all over the lawn, a unicorn coming down from the sky ( Oops getting a bit carried away here). Anyway until the unicorn bit its true, imagine being able to navigate the whole neighborhood consisting of more than 100 houses through the bushes. Imagine spending your summer holidays playing

• Hide and seek,
• Cambalete( a game where two players stand at each side and their goal is to hit you with a socks ball handmade by an older family member) 
• Volley ball all day with the neighbor's kids
• Following paper boats along the waterways 
• Hunting for fruits from the neighbor's houses ( detective work which house has the best fruits list !!)

As for food, eating fresh organic food (at that time I didn't have a clue how healthy I was eating). My favorites were mangoes, oranges, grapefruit, clementines and guavas(from my own tree), aromatic spices, fresh fish and meat meat meat !!

As soon as the evening would come you it would be time to take a bath, and go outside to water the plants (over hundred pots), wet the brick yard with water to cool down the area, enjoying the fresh scent of wet bricks, earth and mud mixed with a cool gentle breeze while enjoying the sun go down. The sound of your mum preparing the evening tea and biscuits (or cake) and sitting outside in the fresh air to enjoy your tea time which would be pleasantly interrupted by neighbors dropping in and chit chatting which eventually end up in hide and seek game or cops and robbers since at night they are much more fun, since you would be very hard to spot !!!

When I look back at the life I had in Africa, I can easily say it was the best time of my life. I had a childhood which I would have to work very very hard to provide it for my kids (if I ever could). Something that came natural to me or I had it naturally my kids would never have the ability to enjoy a simple relaxed and full of joy childhood, I feel sorry for them !!! But I guess we all do what we can do and they don't know what they are missing !! I am sure they would think of me as some freak of nature if I told them this is how I grew up and they would brush me off and say winningly " BUT you didn't have IPAD'S what a boring life you must have had !!! " and go on with their thing.