What's your favorite thing to drink when it's cold outside?
Vodka. Conveniently this is also my favourite thing to drink when it's hot outside. Or rainy. Or slightly balmy with light cloud cover for that matter.
Damn I love vodka.
Not sure if any of the other Aussies have posted this yet, but this is proof that multiculturalism is a bloody good thing.
Link to news article about the dance troop behind it.
Now we can consider ourselves totally festive.
I managed to find a vase yesterday to put my home make Christmas Tree in. I wanted a nice white minimalist ceramic pot with some florist's foam to support it, but I couldn't find either a nice white pot or any florist's foam. So I got a glass vase that will at least match our other vases once Christmas is over and filled it with black pebbles that we already had. It worked okay. The important thing is that it's standing on its own now.
The Evil Wombat Castle has been Grinch Central for the last five years. Whether it was due to our being profound atheists, rebellious or just plain cheap we never bothered with any form of Christmas decoration in any way, shape or form. The only reason we celebrated Christmas at all was because it was a good excuse to buy each other the computer games we'd been gagging to get all year.
But now the drought has finally ended! This year I decided we were going to get a Christmas Tree. Since we have a tiny little flat, and are pretty much skint, a big fir tree was out of the question. And little plastic ones from the $2 shop look a bit tacky to me. So I decided to make my own.
I went to the local craft shop, got some aluminium wire, some weird plastic silver foliage with jewels set in it and a widdle birdie ornament. I still have to find something to stick it in to keep it upright on our coffee table because I'll be damned if I'm going to stand in the middle of the lounge-room holding it in my hand until Christmas. I'm also going to get a dangly ornament. I told EWK that I was only going to buy one fancy-schmancy ornament per year and the birdie was it for 2007. At the time it seemed better than spending a bundle on cheap crappy tinsel and Christmas balls that we have no room to store for the other 11 months. The problem is it currently looks less like an avant-garde Christmas tree and more like what Martha Stewart would do after too much LSD. Since nothing says 'Christmas Tree' like a dangly bauble, a dangly bauble is what I must get to complete the picture.
So now I have an excuse to buy one incredibly fabulous dangly Christmas ornament in the next few weeks. Yay!
(EWK voted for turning our Star Wars figurines into Christmas Tree ornaments instead. I objected. Not because I thought it was in bad taste, but because 'our' Star Wars figurines are actually 'my' Star Wars figurines. And if he thinks he's drilling a hole in Yoda's head to pull a loop of string through just to celebrate our holiday cheer he's got another think coming.)
A few people have blogged recently about body image, so I thought I'd stop filling their comments sections with my rants and unleash my diatribe on my own blog instead.
We are supposed to be a nation of tolerance. If you criticise someone for being gay, for being fat, for being black or being female you will (quite rightly) cop a severe tongue lashing for your lack of empathy.
However apparently it's quite okay to criticise people for being thin.
The phrase 'real women have curves' springs to mind. A lot of people have been saying it in response to Jennifer Love Hewitt's bikini photos. Initially it sounds great, after all real women are allowed to have curves and still be real women. Huzzah! What a great idea! But the problem is it doesn't say real women can have curves. It decrees that real women and curves are inextricably linked. Real women have curves. If you have no curves, sorry, no amount of menstruation, ovulation, lactation or possession of a vagina is going to make up for it and bring you back to Real Woman Status. Too bad.
I have a friend who is model thin and drop dead gorgeous. She is also just as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. She never judged anyone by their appearance but sadly rarely got the same consideration in response. Often other women would complain to her about feeling fat and then add a snarky "Not that you'd ever have that problem". Wow. Imagine if someone thin complained about being unable to gain weight (a condition that is more common than you think) and turned to a fat woman and said the same thing. I doubt anyone would see that as acceptable, so why is it acceptable to be a bitch to someone just because they're thin?
And if you have a skinny friend who is desperately trying to gain weight, please do not say "I wish I had that problem!" There are millions of weight-loss plans, support groups and advice columns for people trying to lose weight. People are more than happy to support you in your quest for weight loss and offer their own advice and support. There is however a woeful lack of support or advice for people trying to gain weight in a healthy manner. It's not a nice problem to have and there are many medical conditions linked to being underweight, so it would be more appropriate to show a little compassion.
And lastly I want to have a whinge about the topic of guys who prefer skinny girls. More specifically the condemnation of guys who prefer skinny girls. Honestly, it's like society sees it as a huge insult to curvy women everywhere if a guy has a preference for thin women. If a man admits he likes a petite lady he is accused of being brainwashed by the media, of being shallow and of only seeing a woman as an arm ornament. For heaven's sake people, it's just a personal preference! No-one accuses guys of insulting white women if they prefer Latina girls. Or of insulting blondes if they have a preference for redheads. No-one says that liking girls with pretty faces is only because of media manipulation. No-one divides boob-men and leg-men along some kind of imaginary moral divide. And of course no-one suggests that voicing a preference for curvy girls may hurt the feelings of their thinner companions. (Which it may well do but, let's face it, society doesn't care if skinny girls get their feelings hurt.)
You know what, world? It's okay to have personal preferences! If a woman likes skinny guys no-one bats an eyelid. If someone likes brunettes, good on 'em. If you're a bloke (or a chick) and you like women with a bit of meat on their bones, go for it. And if you like thin women, yay you!
Thankfully the world needs all types. Some people are attracted to curvy girls, which is great for us curvy girls because they're the ones we usually end up with. And some people like thin girls, which is great for them because they're just as deserving of love as anyone else.
So next time you look at a skinny girl and think 'bitch', or tell a guy who likes petite chicks that he is shallow, remember that no-one should be judged just because of their weight. Skinny girls are real women too. They have real feelings. And those feelings get hurt when they're treated in a bitchy manner, when their problems are dismissed or when guys are told they shouldn't find them attractive.
Show us something you recently wrote.
This.
Audio: What's your favorite carol or holiday song?
Sadly I have no recording of this, so I'll just have to post the lyrics. A friend taught me this carol, such to the tune of 'Deck the Halls'. It's classy.
Take your clothes off worship Satan
Fa-la-la-la-laaaa, la la la la
For your soul our demon lord's waitin'
Fa-la-la-la-laaaa, la la la la
Come and join the undead legions
Fa-la-laaa, la-la-laaaa, la la la
Lubricate your nether regions
Fa-la-la-la-laaaaaa, la la la laaaaa.
Not surprisingly during my Vox hiatus I didn't lose any weight. Having no time to exercise and being stuck in front of the computer working for every waking hour has that effect on you. So now I'm on annual leave (WOO HOO!) I'm forcing my lardy body back into a healthier regime. To this end I've found some fabulous new toys to play with.
Firstly I've started checking out a weight loss forum. Talking to other people online about weight loss has a twofold effect. Firstly it keeps me focused. No 'forgetting' I'm on a diet and eating a whole packet of Tim Tams (not sure if this is a good thing). Secondly it means that I won't be bugging all you poor people on Vox constantly about my diet. Let's face it, dieters can be worse than born again Christians when it comes to ranting on about their salvation.* So I'm going to try to preach to the converted 90% of the time and only bug you guys with periodic updates. Consider yourselves having dodged a bullet with this one.
I've been working on improving my diet. I started eating healthier by dividing my plate up into sections for my meals. 50% vegetables, 25% carbs and 25% protein and healthy fat. So far it hasn't helped me lose any weight, but I have been craving fruit and veg instead of chips and chocolate so I still count this as a win.
Also I've been put onto this site and I love it! There are many sites that help you track your calories during the day, but most of them are from the US or the UK. Not a problem until you try and find out how many kilojoules in a Herbert Adams Vegetable Pastie, or how much fat is in a Tim Tam (probably best not to look, really). CalorieKing.com.au is an Australian site which means it's full of nutritional values of Australian foods (handy if you're Australian, next to useless for the rest of you) and it makes it really easy to track your kilojoules and exercise. You enter your height and starting weight and whether you want to lose, gain or maintain your weight. It works out your recommended calorie/kilojoule intake per day. It also provides a food and exercise diary. You can search for different foods or enter your own custom foods if they're not in the database. You can also record you exercise, the calories of which are removed from your intake for the day showing you how much more you can eat (or drink) before hitting your calorie limit. It's like a shiny new toy and I'm completely obsessed! The scary thing is I've realised how much exercise I do when I have free time. By limiting my food and running for 45 minutes, and walking briskly for over an hour all up today I've technically only consumed about half of the calories I'm allowed. Since eating too few calories can have a detrimental effect on your metabolism that means that I have to make up the difference. Thankfully I have a bottle of wine in the fridge. I have consulted the wine and it's willing to help. So, sadly, I must drink to - and for - my health tonight. Hey, I'm willing to suffer for weight loss!
As I mentioned before, I've started running again. One good thing about my enforced rest period is that my plantar fasciitis seems to have cleared up. I started by running for ten minutes, then twenty and today I ran all the way around Albert Park Lake! That's nearly 5km, and I worked up to that over only three days! Previously I'd stop when my feet played up, but now I'm running with no pain and discovering that I have a lot more endurance than I thought I had. Yay me!
And speaking of plantar fasciitis, I have a new pair of thongs ('flip-flops' to those poor bastards who immediately had visions of me in limited underwear). They're called FitFlops and they're designed with destabilising soles so that they work your muscles more when you walk. They're supposed to help tone your legs and burn more calories, but they have the added benefit of working the muscles of the foot and as a result they can eliminate plantar fasciitis. Not sure if they're going to fix my feet forever, but I can certainly feel them working my legs when I walk. Plus they're nice and comfy and I needed a pair of thongs. Even if they are $90 thongs.
So that's my fitness and weight-loss update. Wish me luck!
* No offense to the Vox dieting groups I've cross posted this to. Other dieters always find stories about diets fascinating, which is why I've subscribed to those groups so that I can share in other people's misery. Others, however, find our tales of woe tedious in the extreme. In the interest of not alienating my entire non-dieting neighbourhood I'm only going to babble for hours on end per day about my fitness regime to a completely captive audience who are also crapping on for hours a day about their weight loss journeys.
The freelance job is pretty much done.
I'm on four weeks' annual leave from uni.
I have BIG glass of red wine sitting beside me right now.
Yessirree, I am BACK people! :-)
