Beat The Heat challenge - Week Four

We're almost half way through the challenge! Almost but not quite...



1.       What have you done this week towards your goals? 

Rather than break them all down for you this week, I shall simply say "they're going as well as they had been." I completed my 28 day vitamin challenge to get me glugging them down and I have continued to take them since, the job hunt is, well, going. Still no word but it's still just Monday morning. Weight loss is none existant, but I have started working out again. I'm doubting whether I actually will loose ten pounds at all, but even if I break this bloody thing by the end of the ten weeks that'll be something! The xmas scarf is now starting to look like an actual scarf and not a raggy piece of woolen toilet roll (it really was terrible haha) and is growing longer every day, though I think it's seriously time to start thinking about my other gifts and putting some time towards them. The flat is looking better then ever. I even convinced Ben that it would be a good idea to put the Xbox and Wii on the TV stand as opposed to trailing their wires accross the lounge floor, which has meant that we can now get down to hoover in front of the tv and it has given us a suprising ammount of extra space. This weeks chorey challenge - break the corner of shame.

"The corner of shame?" I hear you say, "what is this corner of shame?"

This, my friends, is the corner of shame;

It's basically the heap of books and boxes and other...things...that we have no where else to put. On the far right hand side of that you can see the corner of the door into our lounge. Can I just say now that the rest of the lounge is practically spotless, it's just this wee corner of clutter. I mean, ultimately, we need another bookcase. Ben refuses to throw his books away and there just isn't the space to put them all. Even if I took the CD's off of the bookcase and put them into storage or something you'd only fit a couple extra books in there.

Aside from books, other interesting items you will find in the corner of shame include;

A dwarf
Statuettes of Annubis (who is missing an ear) and Bast (who is spattered with white paint from when my dad was redecorating...back when I still lived with my parents...whome I haven't lived with for 6 years now...)
A cauldron
A chinese syle sword
A violin
Beads
Body lotion that I started using then put on the bookshelf and forgot about
A Xmas tree and all of it's decorations
Lots and lots and lots of reusable ASDA bags.
A suitcase which is no longer in use (and will probably be transformed into extra book storage and hidden away in the bedroom. Eventually.)

Some of this rather interesting bric a brac can be chucked, and has only survived this long because once again Ben finds it difficult to part with anything that may carry any kind of sentimental value to any one at all (I do realise I'm perhaps being a little unfair to poor Ben, I too can "hoarde" things, but usually things that I think may one day be useful as opposed to things of sentimental value, and I do eventually throw these things away!)...the Egyptian Gods, for example, are actually mine, I filched them off of my dad, but Ben felt they were 'too important' to through away, even though he never knew I even had them till I pulled them out of my big suitcase when I decided that would be the travelling suitcase and not the storage one...he insisted they could probably be fixed up, and he's right they probably could...but we haven't anywhere to put them anyhow (hence why they are in the corner of shame).

So some of that will be finding its way to landfill, sad but true, some of it will have to be found a new home though God knows where (perhaps the sword can be hung up somewhere but I haven't the foggiest notion what to do with that violin). I promise to show you all how it ends up looking once I'm through with it, this time next week?

And now I remember this was a BTH blog post, not a "whinge about my clutter" post and I've completely gone off on a tangent. Sorry!

2.       What did you do to make yourself feel fabulous?

Pfff. Not an awful lot, I've been very focussed on getting things done. But perhaps being a do'er and not a sit around whinging'er is in itself cause to feel fabulous? I've not felt this motivated about my life in general as a whole (as opposed to feeling motivated in some aspects but totally demoralised in others) for a long time!

3.       Do you exercise? What is your favourite kind and why? 

I used to exercise, when I was a teenager, I did Taekwondo and our instructor was real big on general overall fitness. I was still big but it was good. Always felt great afterwards (though not so great during it has to be said!). When I had to stop going (for various reasons) I started going to the gym and I really enjoyed it when I could motivate myself to get there in the first place (going to a scheduled class is a lot different after all). I know a lot of people don't like the gym atmosphere, but I love it. The number crunching as much as anything else. Can I push myself to burn x number of calories etc. And the weights too, loved them. I do have an exercise bike (you may have noticed it hising in the corner of shame) and though it does indeed get used it's just not the same. It's an old and basic model, there's very little resistance in it to get your legs into and it just doesn't inspire me the way the big fancy number crunching things do. Sadly unless I get a lovely call from a lovely lady later today I can't afford the gym membership to be able to use said wonderful machines of glory. Walking around my neighbourhood does very little for me it has to be said. I want to start running eventually but once again, whilst some people find working out in a gym to be intimidating, the thought of going out there in front of the whole world (and specifically my busy little neighbourhood of Anfield) and running around infront of the crack heads and drunkards of this rather dusty and impoverished area of Liverpool intimidates the hell out of me. I'd rather be in the gym because, hey, that's what the gym is there for at the end of the day, and two fingers up to anyone who says otherwise!

4.       There are loads of fantastic bloggers here in the Beat the Heat competition, which blog or blogs have you discovered through the challenge that you particularly enjoy? Show that person some love! 

I've been trying to look up at least one new blog a week, I find it difficult to take in every blog at once, but in particular I've discovered and really gotten into Mary's Blog. A year ago she was about the same weight as me and now look at her! If I had as much will power as she...well, she's lost over 149lb's and I'm pretty much the same weight as I was...12 pounds down only (lol, a pound a month). She's very inspirational and she's the reason I've been thinking about getting into running. It's really made me realise that yes, I can do this.

5.       What song makes you want to dance at the moment?

Do I have to name one? I've been listening to Lady GaGa's latest album a lot lately as you might have seen on my twitter wall's "tweekly fm top three artists" chart that appears there every Friday. That album in general makes me want to try all kinds of dangerous stuff that I probably shouldn't unless I want a crazy dance related injury!

And finally the positive picture for the week...

From Five Words Tell a Story

I've been going on and on about this job interview and hearing back from them because I'll admit, the interviewer sold it good to me and she seemed so positive and all "yeah, it's all yours" afterwards. Yet still no official response. It may be early to say, or it may be that someone else better than me came in later. It may even be that she says that to everyone she interviews. Whatever. If it happens it happens. If it doesn't, it's not the end of the world. Nothing has changed, we're no worse off. Sure we'll have to spend longer saving up for our holiday and probably won't get to go for our anniversary next year, and we won't be able to move out of here until I find something else. But you know what? No better, no worse, I've learned some valuable lessons from the experience anyhow. The whole thing has also given me the thirst to get back into work again. I mean a real, biting hunger for it. Before I looked and applied because "I need a job" but I've been out of it for so long that I've almost settled into my routine of being housebound. Now I've had a taste of the possibilites even a few part time hours could have brought us I'm seriously raring to go, I don't just need a job anymore, I want one, anything at all, and I want to work hard at it. So that's most definitely something good to come out of this. Whatever happens, it's for a reason.