Friday 5 September 2008

a little story!

Some time ago I mentioned a contest that entailed writing a short romance scene in order to win a book or two! I have deliberately not read any of the other submissions as I find that I tend to absorb what I am reading and use them in my own stories and I didn't want to end up being accused of copying anyone!! Anyway, I am not entirely certain that what I have written is a romance scene if a romance scene is defined as lots of mushy kissing or all sugar and sweetness! Nevertheless I think that what I have could be defined as romance! I shall now let you all judge for youselves! (It is my first ever attempt at a story since I was about 13, so please be gentle!)

She glanced at him, wondering what he was thinking. Alex reached for the coffee whilst continuing to read, took a sip and grimaced when he realised that it was cold. Sara couldn’t bear it any longer and slipped out to the kitchen, and stood looking out over the garden and pressed a hand to her stomach and breathed deeply

As Sara leant on the kitchen counter to steady herself, her mind wandered......
The sun sparkled off Sara’s white wine as she listened to the Australian twang that filled the air and she smiled at the turn of fate that meant that she was having barbecues in January instead of battling the cold rain of a British winter.

After four months in Australia, she still felt a bit nervous about meeting new people but was glad that she’d accepted Mandy’s invitation to the barbecue. She listened carefully as Mandy introduced her to those nearest – “Emma, Simon, Alex, Ian, Natalie, Phil, Jo, and that’s my Ben is over at the barbecue”.

“uh, Hi...I hope I can remember all your names by the end of the evening!” They all laughed while Simon began to talk about ways of remembering who was who and Sara’s gaze swung back to Alex as Simon showed no sign of stopping “...and so if they have a large nose it puts me in mind of...”

Alex stared straight back at her and rolled his eyes making Sara smile and look away for fear of laughing. The shout “Grub’s up” came from the direction of the barbecue and everybody turned and made their way down the garden. Alex waited for Sara to come alongside him and said “So, what it is about me that you’re going to use to remember my name?!”

“oooh, I don’t know yet, I will have to--
Sara startled as she heard Alex walk through the kitchen door, but she didn’t turn round. She sighed as Alex wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her head “Sara, those vows are amazing and I wouldn’t change a thing, I’m so glad you’re marrying me”.

Monday 1 September 2008

Looking Fine for 2009

As mentioned yesterday, Looking Fine by 2009 is a bloggy challenge as set up by Daily Mish Mash - you can see the funky picture (complete with url) in the column on the right!

That lovely little rhyming sentence, Looking Fine by 2009, was catchy enough to get my attention as I like little sentences like that seeing as they are easy to remember! As you may have already gathered by the photograph and the words in challenge sentence, this is all about looking a little better in 2009 than we did in 2008!

As Jen from Daily Mish Mash says, this is not about faddy diets or starving ourselves, but simply treating ourselves a little better. There's a new acronym that I've been seeing in the last few months - HAES - Health At Every Size, which although the proponents of HAES would say does not fit with weight loss, I think that it suits me here because I am simply NOT healthy at the size that I am and by that I mean that I am not vastly overweight, but I AM overweight and not even healthy with it.

I doubt that I am actually making any sense here, but what HAES means is that you can be larger than the perceived norm and still healthy because you eat the right things and do the right exercise, just that due to a combination of factors, you are not the "normal" size 8 that "everyone" thinks that we should be.

My personal problem is that I am a lazy bum! On top of which, I eat far too much fatty foods - biscuits, ice cream, chocolate!! Therefore, any changes I do make are bound to have an effect on my waistline, so, while I have absolutely no plans to post a pic of me in my undies or bore you all by posting my daily food habits (fastest way to lose readers I reckon!!) I will be using Looking Fine by 2009 to give myself some much needed incentive and will be blogging alone with all the other Finers once a week.

And so, along with the Daily Mish Mash blogger, I say that I will eat more sensibly, exercise more, drink more fluids (I would say water, but I am NOT a fan of plain water, so this includes herbal teas and water with a drop of squash in it) and basically start taking more care of myself.

The first weekly weigh-in/measurements is actually today and so, I hereby begin with a scale busting weight of 11 stone, 10 pounds and 6 ounces. Which converts to 155 pounds for those that don't use the British scale of stones.