Beat The Heat challenge - Week Eight

It's week eight...only two more weeks to go before the end of our summer challenge and then it's only a matter of time before autumn is here...where has this year gone to?


1 - What did you do this week towards your goals?


I completed my weightloss bracelet, and oddly enough it's been a help to keep me focussed. I hit the one stone lost mark on Thursday but I think I've scuppered it this weekend with bad, bad eating of the bad bad things. I'm not sweating over it as this has become a regular thing and each time I seem to lose even more than I began with, but I must work on not overdoing it at weekends because it is obviously getting in my way. It's been a bit of a tradition that on weekends we pretty much do as we please but from the past years weight loss performance I think we can honestly say it isn't something thats worked for either of us so it's got to stop, limit any treats to Friday alone and treat the weekend as the rest of the week. I start WeightWatchers this Friday and from my research their 49 a week extra points to be used wherever you like can accomodate a Friday treat, so that should be quite easy to incorporate, and may even help keep me on the straight and narrow on Saturday and Sunday.


Going off on a tangent again now! As for my other goals, they've kind of fizzled out into obscurity. Obviously some have been completed already, but others such as work out every day for 30 minutes for a month I don't even have the time to do now before the end of the challenge. I think I have to admit that I was maybe pushing myself too far on that particular one considering I barely moved an inch for days on end before the challenge started. Nevertheless, I have been working out, just not every day! The keeping up with the chores goal is going well, the place is still clean and tidy and I'm getting rid of more and more clutter every week. I still haven't gotten round to finishing the scarf I started eight weeks ago, things keep coming up and getting in my way of being able to sit down and knit. I didn't expect that to become a problem when I started the challenge!


2 - What did you do this week to make yourself feel fabulous?


My wardrobe clearout. Which was in itself a chore and now I have barely a weeks worth of clothes to get by on at a time, so you might think well, how does that make you feel fabulous? But it was full of things that were ill fitting, frumpy, repaired beyond recognition, things that just aren't my style anymore. I mean I had a jumper that was my favourite but I'd had it since I was thirteen...and yes it fit but only because it had been stretched beyond all recognition, and there were about ten places I could see where I'd had to do repair jobs on it. Why wear cothes that make me look and feel like some poor old Cinderella?

I never ask for new clothes of my own; as much as I love my mum and dad to bits and pieces I grew up watching the arguments that spawned from mum maxing out her Evans card a couple of times (not just on herself, as I was a big girl it was easier just to go straight there for my clothes and not trapse around looking for other plus sized sections in 'regular' clothes shop...they exist now but then they were few and far between), and whenever I asked my mum for new clothes there'd be the obvious huffing and puffing and I'd have to justify every last penny spent..I wouldn't dare ask for a new top that was over £30, so would have to wait for the sales. I have to reiterate here that money was tighter back when I was a teenager so there is good reason, I wasn't just being picked on.


Anyway, the point is that I now have this issue where I just can't bring myself to buy new clothes unless it's 100% justified, and as a result most of my wardrobe (until Saturday anyway) was stuff that I've had since before I even set foot in Liverpool for the first time (why buy new clothes when you have a wardrobe full of clothes that fit well enough to cover your naked shame?), or hand me downs from my mum or even my Granny (why buy new clothes when you can get them for free?). Once again, my own limited budget up until now has been a factor in this, but the only new clothes I've bought myself over the past six years I had to justify because I "needed them for work" or because "my jeans are beyond repair" or "We're dressing up to go out but I haven't anything to wear". That last one was the reason I got a pretty frock from Ben last Xmas and I felt gutted and guilty for weeks on end about it. It's one of the reasons I have a few clothes related goals on my day zero list. I shouldn't have to feel guilty for having nice clothes that don't look terrible on me and that I actually like to wear. I should be able to have my own style and not have to wait for my mothers old cast offs and pray I like them.


But now I've cleared away all of those horrid old clothes I have room and even justification to fill my otoman up with lovely new things that I've chosen for myself and not bought because I have a practical requirement for a shirt of this or that description. I'll never be one of those women who buys a whole new wardrobe every season or a new outfit every week (and that's probably a very good thing!), but now I can determine my own style and be picky about it too. And just the knowlege that I can finally do that makes me feel more fabulous than you'll ever know!


3 - What has been your biggest challenge this week?


Keeping up with my commitments. Things have gotten hectic and this next week looks even more so. I have commitments from work or ChildLine now that mean I'll be out every day this week and not be back home until after 10pm until Saturday, when I finish at 4pm. But then Ben's mum is coming to visit so I'll be getting in and rushing out again! I think of it as making up for the very unhectic initial seven months of 2011 however. And I haven't slept so well in a long time!


4 - Do you need neatness and order to feel good or does a bit of untidiness not bother you?

Hmmm. Good question. Anyone who saw my flat at its worst would have said that obviously untidiness doesn't bother me...and to an extent they'd be right, I can function when things are unorganized. However it isn't the preference, and I know I function at my best in clean, ordered, tidy surroundings. From my own experience, I think disorder breeds disorder, and the worse you let it get the less likely you are to get up on any given day and do something about it. Take our bedroom for example...it's more like a storeroom for things that have no where else to go, and despite its small size is by far the worst room in the house. I've been building myself up to doing something about it for two months now, but I can't bring myself to do it. Next time I have a couple of days off togther however I may well bottle down to it, because it really does need it, and it's the last area of the flat that really does need to be done.


5 - Would you rather be attacked by 20 duck sized horses or 20 horse sized ducks


Having been bitten and chased by duck sized ducks multiple times in my life, I can safely say that I would not want to get on the bad side of a whole heard of horse sized ducks. Duck sized horses could be nasty little nibblers too but I'd rather face my chances with them...at least at that size they're not going to bowl me over and stampede me to death! Besides, even fully grown horses are skittish and flighty if scare them, ducks are gutsy little buggers. Imagine gutsy big horse sized ones!


Finally my positive picture for the week;

Because this just really sums up how I feel at the minute. Yes I'm finding it sometimes annoying to be in the position where I have to try and squeeze things into ever smaller and restricted time slots, however everything I'm doing is in its own way worthwhile and beneficial to me and my life, whether it be a job to fund my fun, volunteering to both help kids who need it and progress my skills and get me to where I want to be, seeing my friends and family or making little knick knacks and keeping house...I don't see anything that I do right now as a frivolous, meaningless task. Everything fits into place and has a purpose now. This is indeed a very good thing :)