Challenge Accepted Day 37

Well, I finally worked up the courage to do yesterday’s workout and I honestly nearly threw up a number of times. My body just isn’t feeling too good yet, so no double workout today unless something dramatically changes. I’m going to take each day as it comes with whatever this weird thing is that has hit me. I’ll definitely be working out everyday (aside from yesterday of course) so I’ll be a day behind and will need to catch up somewhere this week, but not today. Today is going to be a day about art. My kids are doing a project for their grandma and grandpa and I am going to continue to paint. I wish I had started painting in Hawaii, other than a wall mural for my daughter that is. It would have been nice to sit out on the beach and paint. Yesterday, had it not been windy, would have been so inspiring to paint. Like I said, water calms me down and takes me to a place of serenity like nothing. So I finished my workout and began to feel normal enough to eat so I made myself a yummy lunch: 

  

Dear son did come in and steal some of my haloumi though, the kids loves it as much as Mummy! I cleaned the entire kitchen and had to immediately make all children more food as there is some instinct inside of kids that says as soon as the kitchen is clean, they require snacks and/or food that will use as many plates as possible. As I looked around at the new mess, I thought, “Why not?” I had bought a number of ingredients to make what looked like an amazing (super rich, bad, fattening, omg, I’m going to have a heart attack) dessert a while back and before everything went bad, thought I should make it. So I did! And it was just as good in taste as I suspected it would be. Yum. If you are a cheesecake lover, then this is for you! We ate it still warm out of the oven, but I’m suspecting cold it would be just as nice! I don’t know what would be an equivalent in Australia to crescent roll pastry but you could experiment with both puff and pie pastry and see which one works best for your taste buds. The rich center is what makes this divine. I’ve shared the link to the recipe on my Facebook page: aussiemumsadventures – check it out! 

    

The kids and I started working on the project for Grandma and Grandpa and the dessert was Hunter’s reward for listening and doing what I say, yes I’m that Mummy, the one who bribes when necessary with all sorts of things including food! They all did exactly what they were told and Hunter didn’t scream or anything and he hates anything gooey, messy, yucky, on him, so this was definitely a win! Can’t tell you too much about the project until it has arrived at its destined home. 
It was whilst we were waiting for part of it to dry that I sat down and caught up on Facebook posts and was greeted only with bad news. It has started with my friend’s husband, my hubby’s former soldier, who has been in a terrible motorcycle accident and may have a severe spinal injury. They have been operating on him for hours and have just induced a coma as he had to have part of his lung removed and a rib and so many other things. They don’t know the extent of his spinal injury but he couldn’t feel his legs. I called my husband to tell him and neither of us knew what to say other than the usual claims of, “Oh my God!” We never expect tragedy to strike and when it does, we don’t know how to express every emotion we go through. My friend is located in Germany, a long way from her family and his family. They have two little boys, they’re lives are before them. It’s unfair. They are good people. How come crap like this doesn’t happen to child molesters and murderers, why doesn’t karma work in obvious ways? 
The second thing I read is that Cayleb Hough’s remains have been found. I have been following and sharing Cayleb’s parents’ websites and sharing their desperate pleas to find him for months. He was last seen alive at 7am on Sunday, December 20th, 2015 in Highett, Victoria, Australia. I didn’t know Cayleb or his family, but I am a mother, so the heartache of not knowing the whereabouts of my children would be my worst nightmare. And now, their worst nightmare has come true. Cayleb was 17. The same age as my nephew. 
Sometimes, life sucks! We must appreciate every single moment we have with our loved ones. Right now I have let my girls go out and ride their bikes in our little ‘ville’ but I always worry about them getting hit by a car. Even though there’s only three streets, sometimes people come in here way too fast. But what should I do? Let them sit inside on their Ipads all day? Wrap them up in cotton wool? I’d like to do that, but they have to gain some independence too. They have to know their own boundaries. They have to learn to do some things without Mummy watching their every move. Being a parent is tough. Finding that happy medium between ensuring they have the skills required to make the right decisions through being independent learners and your need to protect them, is a fine line. 
So, I lay down for a while this afternoon and snuggled with my kiddos (after they’d safely come back in from riding their bikes) and we watched an episode of my now favourite go-to show on Netflix: Doc Martin. Brilliant. My headache was back in full force and my vision started to blur so it was a good way to hang out and snuggle and use excuses not to do anything. 

Finally I realized I hadn’t yet been to see the kitties today so we all went and saw them and patted them, well one of them anyway, the other one doesn’t like little people and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t like me by extension. It was funny when I went by myself the other night, just how different she was, she came over to me, rubbed her head on my leg and let me pat her, today she just sat in her chair looking very regal (she’s part Siamese) and wondering why I bought those hellions back with me! Oh well, they love her even if she’s not a fan of them. 
It was refreshing to take a walk after almost vomiting when I completed my earlier exercise. I kid you not, I took a selfie but I look absolutely awful in it, not sure I should share a ‘trying not to be sick, after-workout selfie’ with you all! Oh, what the hell! 

  

Tonight though I started feeling almost normal. I made a 7 layered dip that was absolutely sensational, my friend who’s cats I’m looking after had some avos (Aussie for avocados) that needed to be used – she told me to grab them – so I made my own guacamole and my own salsa, they both worked so well in this dish as the salsa was really spicy and the guacamole had too much lime juice on it, making the whole thing come together like a star! Given it was taco Tuesday, it was only fair to incorporate it all with our dinner. Hubby was absolutely delighted, in fact I think the quote was “Best taco ever!” I skipped the tortilla but did have another small piece of heaven (the dessert I made earlier) so can’t really say I cut any calories today, may have added quite a few extra on though! Oh well, sometimes one also has to remember that life is short and we need to take advantage of every single day we have! 

Remember, you’ll never be younger than you are right now! Have an amazing day or night, wherever you are. And if you have time, maybe spare a thought or two for a family who tonight are coming to terms with the fact they shall never see their son again and another family who are hoping for a full recovery for their loved one. 

Challenge Accepted Day 33

Hello and happy Friday! First things first, today was supposed to be a sleep in day but instead I awoke before hubby’s alarm, needing to go to the toilet but not wanting to get up! Isn’t it crazy how we do that? You lay there thinking it might pass because you don’t want to get out of your warm, cozy bed, never fully comprehending (no matter how many years you’ve been on earth) that the urge isn’t going anywhere and eventually you will have to give in to it. Today I held out for over an hour! Unfortunately meaning I didn’t ever go back to sleep, but somehow won the battle with my bladder because I did stay in bed! So, got up to the pitter patter of little feet at about 7 and got on with our day, me in desperate need of coffee before being the nice Mummy I can be sometimes. Madison unfortunately tested me before coffee intake and lost that battle! I gave her two chocolate doughnuts, she wanted the last three, I told her she could have two, she went on about how unfair it was, I sent her to her room and told her to come back downstairs when she had lost the attitude and to start again, this time without any doughnuts! So she did. Seriously, pick your battles with Mummy! And don’t even begin them when Mummy hasn’t had coffee, on top of holding her bladder for forever! 😜

We breakfasted without further incident and I finally willed myself to go upstairs and work out leaving the children playing on their tablets. Again, I could have used any excuse under the sun not to workout and I was thinking of them all. Even when I pressed play on ‘Cardio’ (no TBC today) I was thinking of excuses as to why I couldn’t do a second workout today, but I ignored them and I did lower focus. I did have a little half-chuckle to myself at my very brief notion last night of doing some extra squats and lunges. Bwahaha! After lower focus, there was no way in hell this body was capable of any extra lunges or squats! But it was good, and I was thankful to have not listened to my inner voice and to have done both workouts today and, given I am now about halfway through the T25 challenge, I wanted to show you my results:

  
Well, what do you think? I’d love some feedback! Madison told me I look a lot more muscular in the after shots. So I’ll take that as a win. I know the scales are only saying about a one pound difference (that’s about half a kilo) but the body is actually speaking (minor changes, I know) in these pictures. Thank god! As far as my face is concerned, I know you really want to see some photos of me without makeup as a halfway point for the R+F challenge, but I’m just not sure the photos are capturing the differences so I’m going to keep you in suspense until the due date for those results. If you look closely on the body photos, I’m not wearing any makeup and there is definitely a difference, you may just have to trust me on that one for right now. 
I followed my workout with my morning regime with Rodan and Fields and guess what? No irritation after using the AMP MD last night! Please ignore everything I said about using the AMP MD in the morning, the ‘night’ renewing serum is meant for just that and my skin felt amazing again this morning when I awoke and amazing after my morning regime. Back on track, I am. Yes, please call me Yoda. 😆 
I walked out of the bathroom with fresh skin, knowing what I wanted to do today; I wanted to paint and I wanted to be inspired by nature and by beauty. I dragged the kids and the dog down to the rice paddies and snapped some photos and collected some small branches and got a little inspired. I really like the ‘Southwest’ (USA) painting style and I am ok at it, whereas water inspired stuff, doesn’t work for me, as much as I love it. Now, please understand, I am on painting number 5 in my life. I’ve never had any training, not even art in school after grade 8, so this is a reasonably new hobby. I’m practicing my painting of water scenes but I did one painting of a Southwest scene and gave it to a friend and their daughter-in-law wanted to commission me to paint something similar for her family once they bought a new house, unfortunately (or fortunately depending upon how one looks at it) we moved over here and they moved into their house at about the same time. Anyway, back to the painting today, I wanted to try something different. When we were in Australia, I saw a lot of 3D art and thought today I would attempt to make my own. It didn’t quite come out like I had pictured it, well no, let me rephrase, I had no idea what I was planning on so I guess it came out as it was meant to….

  
(This was my second painting ever (well aside from finger painting I guess).

  
My abstract 3D painting from today…..

The afternoon was followed with drawing another ‘Southwest’ picture, I may just start painting it shortly. We’ll see. I have to go with the vibe when it hits me and I know I’m accountable to all of you each and every day as far as my blog is concerned, so that takes priority, well, after my family of course. Our dinner was a wonderful roast beef, I’ve finally mastered the 110 voltage converters here we live out in town rather than on the base/post and there are 110v and 220v plugs with a built in converter somewhere), they aren’t very good and for whatever reason, the 110v are very slow, even the toaster spits out bread rather than toast. So the 110V slow cooker has to have a couple of hours added on to the time, today’s meal took 10 hours whereas stateside it would have taken 8 on low cook. At least I know and can be prepared from now on. Anyway, the dinner was wonderful, a very lean, tender roast beef, with a gravy made from tomatoes, onions, celery, carrot, organic chicken and beef stock as well as vegetable stock and a light red wine, actually ‘Le card Bordeaux’, Alessandra couldn’t stop saying how wonderful the gravy was! We had Costco bread rolls, broccoli, mashed potato and homemade oven chips (fries) with chicken salt. Wonderful. All five plates clean. So, it’s Friday night, and I am going to say adieu because I haven’t really seen my hubby for a few days and finally he is here and doesn’t have his nose buried in paperwork, have a great day or night depending upon where you are and I’ll see you on Saturday! I’ll leave you with some more photos from our walk today:

  
  
  
  
  

Challenge Accepted Day 33

Hello and happy Friday! First things first, today was supposed to be a sleep in day but instead I awoke before hubby’s alarm, needing to go to the toilet but not wanting to get up! Isn’t it crazy how we do that? You lay there thinking it might pass because you don’t want to get out of your warm, cozy bed, never fully comprehending (no matter how many years you’ve been on earth) that the urge isn’t going anywhere and eventually you will have to give in to it. Today I held out for over an hour! Unfortunately meaning I didn’t ever go back to sleep, but somehow won the battle with my bladder because I did stay in bed! So, got up to the pitter patter of little feet at about 7 and got on with our day, me in desperate need of coffee before being the nice Mummy I can be sometimes. Madison unfortunately tested me before coffee intake and lost that battle! I gave her two chocolate doughnuts, she wanted the last three, I told her she could have two, she went on about how unfair it was, I sent her to her room and told her to come back downstairs when she had lost the attitude and to start again, this time without any doughnuts! So she did. Seriously, pick your battles with Mummy! And don’t even begin them when Mummy hasn’t had coffee, on top of holding her bladder for forever! 😜

We breakfasted without further incident and I finally willed myself to go upstairs and work out leaving the children playing on their tablets. Again, I could have used any excuse under the sun not to workout and I was thinking of them all. Even when I pressed play on ‘Cardio’ (no TBC today) I was thinking of excuses as to why I couldn’t do a second workout today, but I ignored them and I did lower focus. I did have a little half-chuckle to myself at my very brief notion last night of doing some extra squats and lunges. Bwahaha! After lower focus, there was no way in hell this body was capable of any extra lunges or squats! But it was good, and I was thankful to have not listened to my inner voice and to have done both workouts today and, given I am now about halfway through the T25 challenge, I wanted to show you my results:

  
Well, what do you think? I’d love some feedback! Madison told me I look a lot more muscular in the after shots. So I’ll take that as a win. I know the scales are only saying about a one pound difference (that’s about half a kilo) but the body is actually speaking (minor changes, I know) in these pictures. Thank god! As far as my face is concerned, I know you really want to see some photos of me without makeup as a halfway point for the R+F challenge, but I’m just not sure the photos are capturing the differences so I’m going to keep you in suspense until the due date for those results. If you look closely on the body photos, I’m not wearing any makeup and there is definitely a difference, you may just have to trust me on that one for right now. 
I followed my workout with my morning regime with Rodan and Fields and guess what? No irritation after using the AMP MD last night! Please ignore everything I said about using the AMP MD in the morning, the ‘night’ renewing serum is meant for just that and my skin felt amazing again this morning when I awoke and amazing after my morning regime. Back on track, I am. Yes, please call me Yoda. 😆 
I walked out of the bathroom with fresh skin, knowing what I wanted to do today; I wanted to paint and I wanted to be inspired by nature and by beauty. I dragged the kids and the dog down to the rice paddies and snapped some photos and collected some small branches and got a little inspired. I really like the ‘Southwest’ (USA) painting style and I am ok at it, whereas water inspired stuff, doesn’t work for me, as much as I love it. Now, please understand, I am on painting number 5 in my life. I’ve never had any training, not even art in school after grade 8, so this is a reasonably new hobby. I’m practicing my painting of water scenes but I did one painting of a Southwest scene and gave it to a friend and their daughter-in-law wanted to commission me to paint something similar for her family once they bought a new house, unfortunately (or fortunately depending upon how one looks at it) we moved over here and they moved into their house at about the same time. Anyway, back to the painting today, I wanted to try something different. When we were in Australia, I saw a lot of 3D art and thought today I would attempt to make my own. It didn’t quite come out like I had pictured it, well no, let me rephrase, I had no idea what I was planning on so I guess it came out as it was meant to….

  
(This was my second painting ever (well aside from finger painting I guess).

  
My abstract 3D painting from today…..

The afternoon was followed with drawing another ‘Southwest’ picture, I may just start painting it shortly. We’ll see. I have to go with the vibe when it hits me and I know I’m accountable to all of you each and every day as far as my blog is concerned, so that takes priority, well, after my family of course. Our dinner was a wonderful roast beef, I’ve finally mastered the 110 voltage converters here we live out in town rather than on the base/post and there are 110v and 220v plugs with a built in converter somewhere), they aren’t very good and for whatever reason, the 110v are very slow, even the toaster spits out bread rather than toast. So the 110V slow cooker has to have a couple of hours added on to the time, today’s meal took 10 hours whereas stateside it would have taken 8 on low cook. At least I know and can be prepared from now on. Anyway, the dinner was wonderful, a very lean, tender roast beef, with a gravy made from tomatoes, onions, celery, carrot, organic chicken and beef stock as well as vegetable stock and a light red wine, actually ‘Le card Bordeaux’, Alessandra couldn’t stop saying how wonderful the gravy was! We had Costco bread rolls, broccoli, mashed potato and homemade oven chips (fries) with chicken salt. Wonderful. All five plates clean. So, it’s Friday night, and I am going to say adieu because I haven’t really seen my hubby for a few days and finally he is here and doesn’t have his nose buried in paperwork, have a great day or night depending upon where you are and I’ll see you on Saturday! I’ll leave you with some more photos from our walk today:

Challenge Accepted Day 21

 Happy Easter! Hope the bunny came and you’ve all had an amazing day or are about to anyway! We’ve had a quiet one. For me, things didn’t quite go as I had planned last night, which in turn effected how my day has gone today. So, I finished my blog last night and went and played Uno with the family. I got the munchies and had one slice of cheese, just one. What I didn’t realise was the mistake I made by doing that! I forgot all about chewing only on the left, eating my piece of cheese quickly only realising shortly after I had swallowed it that my temporary filling had obviously gotten stuck to it and I had swallowed it. Oh the pain if something goes in there! Ouch! It’s awful! I’ve never experienced anything like that! So I went to Dr Google this morning to research a temporary fix until I return to the dentist on Friday & had I been in the States, it would have been an easy fix,m; just pop down to the local pharmacy, pick up a temporary filling kit and you’re as good as gold. If that’s not handy, grab some bees wax and use that temporarily. Here in South Korea, neither of those things are easy to locate and are not normally something spoken about in conversational English. Not sure what I’m going to do to get through the incredible pain when either a hot or cold liquid comes into touch with it sending terrors down to the nerve that could easily help me win any screaming contest! Not fun. And that doesn’t even begin to explain what happens when a tiny sliver of chocolate gets in there, as just happened. Holy wow!
So my Easter Sunday consisted of waking up at literally the crack of dawn and freaking out because Luna (our dog) may have gotten to the chocolate; the Easter Bunny didn’t pull a very bright move and left 3 baskets outside of middle daughter’s room as they all had a camp out together in there with the dog. All we could think about was if dear son had opened the door and allowed said dog to feast on all the chocolates in their baskets (I’m a worrier, I think worst case scenario and imagine it has happened). Luckily, he hadn’t. Instead middle child, Madison, had everything under control. She had picked all baskets up before allowing Luna out of the room and had even divvied them out to each child! 
I let hubby go back to bed and I got up and made milos (we discussed these the other day) and washed up the few dishes. Meanwhile, Madison comes running downstairs saying Luna has thrown up everywhere in her room. I double, triple, quadruple check that she didn’t get to any chocolate and they are all sure she hasn’t had any. I put her outside and we watch her and wait. She starts running around the yard as happy as Larry! Although a tad cold. I can’t go and deal with dog vomit until I’ve had a coffee. Oh, the water filter has been unplugged, there’s no hot water. Yay! Happy Easter! Finally, everyone gets their hot drink and I go and deal with the dog vomit. It’s not that bad but I still don’t know why she did it. She did have her first bath last night and I rubbed a little bit of organic coconut oil with a drop of lavender essential oil in it (I looked up the mix ratio and it should have been well under anything that could have hurt her, literally one small drop and about a 1/4 cup of coconut oil, well mixed. I only rubbed a small amount on her rump too. Anyway, as I’ve been writing this I thought I was going to have to rush her to a veterinary hospital as she started doing this weird thing I have never seen before. Thanks to Doc Google once again, I now know it was ‘reverse sneezing’! I’ve never even heard of that. I literally googled dog looking like their having an asthma attack & there it was. It was only that her tail was still wagging that I wasn’t freaking out too much. Oh that and I didn’t even have a car as hubby had to go into work, so I knew I was going to have to figure out something. I guess it’s quite a common thing. She’s perfectly fine now and it literally lasted about 2 minutes and she was fine! Talk about scary, especially after this morning’s happenings! Never a dull moment in this house.
  
So our Easter Sunday has been eventful, yet not so eventful. I ducked out to try to find something for my tooth this morning but was unsuccessful. We did happen to walk right past the Krispy Kreme donut shop and I said to my daughter that we should get some for breakfast. I’m not a donut fan but lots of people have said to me just in the last couple of weeks that I should taste them so I thought why not. Well I got a dozen mixed donuts and I tried something called the New York Cheese and OMG! It was wonderful! Like really good. I’m not a cake fan so when there’s a surprise inside, then that makes for a good donut and there was a wonderful, cheesecake-type filling inside. Yum. Not good for the weight loss though! Oh well, we are all allowed our little treats every now and again aren’t we. 
We had an Easter egg hunt for the three kiddos, with each of them hiding eggs for the other one. It was great and they loved it. They didn’t get to participate in any other egg hunts this year but they certainly didn’t suffer with each of them having about 65 eggs each to find!!! Like seriously! It started with Ally hiding for Madison whilst we were out searching for a temporary filling solution. 
 
   
Then Madison, Hunter and I hid for Ally upstairs whilst hubby and Ally hid for Hunter downstairs. We had Hunter’s egg hunt next (with the eggs hidden in a tad easier spots than those of Madison). He had a ball though, giggling and absolutely loving finding each and every egg. This year the eggs were filled with junk but next year we are going to fill them with coins too. I don’t support buying made in China rubbish so think this is a good idea especially when the kids have to save at least 1/4 of what they get and put aside 10% to buy others something, leaving them whatever is leftover to spend wisely on themselves. See my blog about the big talk to find out more. 

  
Ally’s was the final egg hunt and Madison and I did our best to really hide some. She thought at first she had it in the bag but soon realised it may have been a tad more difficult than she thought. It was fun though for her, she had to open things, look under, inside and around. It was a good lesson for her that things may not be as easy as she thinks they are. 

  

That was followed by a ham, mashed potatoes, broccoli, French bread and gravy lunch that got 5/5! I’ll take that as a win! Then hubby went to work, kids all sat down to relax after doing their homework and I started writing my blog. When hubby got home, I encouraged him to do the stretching DVD of T25 with me and it was actually enjoyable. It was great to just stretch. It wasn’t overly exertive or too much, especially when my body felt like it had to rest today & it did. I’ve also done the morning Redefine Rodan + Fields regimen and will be using the MACRO Exfoliator tonight as it’s Sunday night once again, meaning tonight’s the night! (Love the Macro Exfoliator)! Looking forward to giving my skin a good vacuum! By the way, if you’re interested in starting your own challenge with Rodan + Fields please go to:

 https://slongmorescott.myrandf.com/Home
If you click on ‘shop skincare’, then select ‘Get Advice’, you can find out which products are just right for you and take your own 60 day challenge. The challenges I have taken are to reinforce my own belief in both R+F and the BeachBody programs. I am not affiliated with BeachBody in any way, shape or form, but I am a Rodan + Fields Consultant and I had lost heart with the products because I had never really given them the dedication they deserved. I saw results immediately the first time I used them and intermittently since, but I’ve never dedicated myself to following the regimen Doctors Rodan and Fields set out. I am doing that now, and have reached 21 days or 3 weeks into the challenges. My skin feels amazing, I am finally not struggling with every exercise DVD that I do. The only way is up from here. 
Please also remember to like my Facebook page: aussiemumsadventures. I hope you have an amazing Easter Sunday filled with absolutely no drama! As always, please share my blog if you find it interesting and give me feedback! I love feedback! 

Challenge accepted Day 16

Today, is hubby’s birthday. He’s not feeling well unfortunately but he’s one of those people who won’t just rest when he can and has never had a sick day in his life! Today he did rest a little though because I forced him to! What are wives for, right? 😉
We also went out for an early, quick dinner with the family because that’s a tradition in our house, not necessarily the early & quick part, but the birthday person gets to choose where they want to go for dinner. We went to an American restaurant on the Air Force base – Chilis – the kids were good, the food was decent, the service great, all in all, a nice meal out and sometimes, you just don’t get that when you have three fussy kiddos! Or just when you have three kids in general! I had a Southwest chicken salad and water. I also ate quite a few chips and salsa, it was all very nice though and I could only eat half of my salad but it had lots of tortilla strips so it definitely wasn’t healthy!

I feel like all I’ve done is eat today! I worked out this morning (Speed 1.0) luckily that workout isn’t yet affected by the big scratch that has taken the last few minutes of Total Body Circuit, so here’s hoping with some special love and affection, I can maintain that DVD for at least a little while yet! I ran for just over a mile afterwards but I didn’t want to overdo it either after not feeling so great last night. My workout was followed by some cake making (hubby had requested chocolate cake and chocolate marble cake with triple chocolate icing (blught- yes I made that word up and tried to spell it exactly the way I say it)! That’s a little too much for my liking but hubby loves this on his birthday! I can make beautiful, fancy cakes and this is what he wants! 🙂 There was no pavlova today. I think just given general unwellness, he was thankful to have a cake at all! By the way, I opted not to have cake for dessert, instead I had some local strawberries with some vanilla Greek yoghurt on top- not necessarily low in calories but it was yummy and good for you! 
  
Going back to food from earlier in the day, I had the most amazing lunch! Local lettuce combined with local tomatoes, organic spinach, a little bit of pre-mixed salad, carrots, a little bit of avocado, some of the Costco chicken from the can heated up in a little bit of balsamic vinegarette all with some grilled haloumi! Yum! What is haloumi I hear some of you ask? It is a cheese you can actually grill directly. It originated in Cypress and has become a key element in many Mediterranean & Middle Eastern cooking recipes. I haven’t had it for years but saw it at Costco on Sunday and got so excited! I was a bit concerned it wouldn’t be as good as I remembered it, but I wasn’t disappointed. This is the best salad I’ve had in years- it could definitely compete with some of the salads from ‘Aloha Salads’ in Hawaii! Definitely! 
  
Whatever it was that was going on with my jaw and teeth last night, well, I’ve got no idea. Hubby has been fighting off whatever has gotten to him for a while and I think it finally won the battle. He’s all heady. Lots of congestion, headache, you know. Just blah! As for me, I felt like anything I was feeling was all being felt in my jaw and in all of my teeth. Really bizarre! Then I made the mistake of going to Google Doc and got told I was having a heart attack! Ha! I think I’m going to make it! 😉 I do however have an appointment with my dentist tomorrow night to check on everything so we’ll just hope for the best. 
A funny thing that did happen today (well today and every time we go anywhere in Korea using our Korean/English GPS) our Korean lady GPS tells us about school zones, speed cameras, parking infringement regulations, sharp curves. She’s very helpful and annoying. Apparently there are huge fines for speeding in Korea and cameras everywhere- Australia, you thought you had it bad! She also says this thing, and we’re not sure why because it doesn’t look that bad to us, but she says, “Warning, danger zone!” Every time she says it, hubby and I immediately start singing: “Highway to the danger zone!” The kids at first just thought we were weird, then I told them it was a song, then they found it amusing, now they normally just ignore us, until today when Hunter asked if he could sing that song too. We laughed and assured him he could but I don’t think he’s hearing her cues or registering that the cues come from the GPS. It was funny to hear him sing it though and next time, well who knows.
Back to the Challenge:

So I just had a long talk with my sister tonight and realised that perhaps I needed to explain the 60 day challenge a little better. That will require a little bit of insight into me. I am a bull at the gate kind of person. I guess being Taurus doesn’t help if you believe all that. Anyway, I have little to no patience and am terrible at following through for the long term when it comes to some things. This 60 day challenge was the concept of my husband months ago, when I first became a Rodan & Fields Consultant. As you can imagine, I jumped in head first without really knowing the products but feeling like my skin had come alive within just a few days! I could only begin to imagine how great it would look if I stuck with this amazing regimen. Hubby said to write a blog about my journey. But I didn’t do either (stick to my regimen or write the blog that is). I used it inconsistently, I didn’t follow all directions. I tried to cut corners. I used a mishmash of products and the results didn’t continue to happen. I lost heart. I lost my oomph! I wasn’t so sure I believed in the products anymore and I’m not a sales-type person. I have a really hard time selling anything. I just wanted the products to speak for themselves and at first they did. Then they didn’t. My friend who got me started was disappointed, I know. Life got in the way too. It just wasn’t working out. When our household goods finally arrived here in South Korea, I realised I had to make a decision, believe in the products once again and let my skin do the talking or walk away from it all, once again. Obviously, I chose to take on Rodan + Field’s 60 day challenge (try the product and if you’re not happy within 60 days you will get a refund, empty jars and all). I needed to commit for 60 days and so I did. 
Today, I looked at my skin after my workout and wondered if there had been any changes yet and I really couldn’t see any and I started to once again feel disheartened, disillusioned, ready to quit, but no! I’m sharing this challenge with all of you so I have to be accountable. I can’t quit. Just like I can’t ‘not’ workout. I have made a promise to you. I’m not going to let you down! I’ve even gone on an AFW! That’s an Alcohol Free Week for those of you don’t know 😜 we (my Aussie family) have AFD’s (Day) & AFW’s & this is an AFW. The exercise is a whole different story that also got me down today! And the weight thing, but we’ll talk more on that another day. 
I think the main thing I have to remember is to ensure I consistently follow directions and to remember that the damage to my skin didn’t happen overnight so I can’t expect change to happen overnight either! It is just frustrating and I really want to turn back the hands of time! One other thing I need to remember is that I am only using one of the regimens. I should be using Redefine in the morning and Reverse at night. Reverse is what is going to get rid of or at least decrease the sun damage, melasma, that sort of thing. But I don’t have any Reverse regimen left and I can’t invest anything more until I believe in the products again. I can’t ask anyone else to invest anything more until I start seeing those results I saw in the first few weeks when I first started using the products! So here I am. Day 16. Not seeing miracles, but knowing it’s a process. It’s going to take time. Just like the exercise will take time and consistency & I’m going to need every ounce of patience I can get! 
  
(This photo was taken straight after my workout this morning). 

Challenge Accepted Day 12

Oh what a difference a day makes! By the end of last night, I was in tears and ready to leave South Korea! Things went from bad to worse after I posted yesterday’s blog, but I am happy to say that today has been fantastic. 

Let me give you a rundown on the happenings of last night, right after I posted my blog; I went outside to locate my daughters and tell them it was time to come in (love that they can play on the streets with their friends in our little neighbourhood) I found them, only three of them were outside playing and told them it was time to come in, they went to collect their scooters and were to follow me back to the house shortly, except the 7yo’s scooter was nowhere to be found. She’s OCD combined with lack of common sense at times, so I asked her if she remembered where she left it, she and Ally (eldest daughter) both tell me she left it on the other side of the pole where Ally left hers, I tell them they had better find it. They do, in the garbage! Seriously? So I put a note on the village neighbourhood FB page summing up how unimpressed I am. It read like this:

“To whomever threw my daughter’s scooter in the garbage, thank you. That was a really nice welcome to the neighborhood! She is a good kid. She got reprimanded for leaving it leaning up against a pole but the fact that you thought you would teach her a lesson by throwing it into the trash was really, really thoughtful and kind and considerate of you! Well done! You just won the neighbor of the year award! Oh and what a good way to teach a 7 yr old a lesson, not.”

So, perhaps I was a little passive aggressive, but I was really angry and thought this was the best I could do since I seriously wanted to punch whoever did that. I know, little things, but I was at the end of my wits yesterday, it was not a good day for that to happen! On top of that, the workmen left my bathroom sink clogged, the bathroom floor tiles covered in crap, the towels I laid out for them filled with crap, crap all over my floor leading to and from the bathroom, the sink plug stuck because the grout had glued it down and various other little annoying things. I made them coffee! 😩 there were other little things too including the fact that my painting looks like crap! By the time I sat down to watch He Named Me Malala, i was feeling very sorry for myself! What a great movie to watch when you’re in that state! Um, excuse me, I’ve been shot in the head by the Taliban just for being a girl and you want to complain about your problems? No, I don’t, I just needed perspective and you gave it to me, thank you!

Today: I wake up realizing just how lucky I am to wake up and be me! I get the kids off to school and I do both my workouts! Yes! Both! Yay me! The run however, doesn’t work out quite as successful, by the time I run half a mile my legs are done! (It was abs and lower focus today). I’m ok with that. And I’ve definitely made up for it throughout the day, so I’m not going to feel bad. 

At 10 am we head out on our adventure, 3 girls (ok ladies) & a boy! What a fun day! Thank you to my new friend and neighbour for taking both myself and another new neighbour! And what a great introductuction it was! I am Australian, I have lived all over the world, I have travelled to over 100 countries, yet here I am, stating it blatantly, I am not quite au fait with the Korean culture and I am very thankful for any help I can get! And these ladies gave me my first real introduction to it. I was mesmerized walking down the street of the market, all those fresh fruit and vegetables I have been longing to see were here. All the fresh seafood I have heard about is here, my son was so taken with the octopus in a bucket that we literally stopped and stared at them for what seemed like an eternity. My new friend Leigh-Ann then shared with him the intelligence of the octopus and it was wonderful to take a step back and see him learn from someone else! In fact, my entire day was spent both wondering at the new Korean cultural experience and seeing other mothers with my little boy and them sharing with him their knowledge! Listening to his conversation with my other new found friend Sara, who was so obliging and sat in the back so willingly after me saying I was too old to sit there and then so willingly kept up conversation with my son about anything and everything throughout our entire day – the kid constantly talks!! It was truly wonderful on so many levels!

To top it all off we headed for Korean BBQ, something I thought I was familiar with, but hell no! It was wonderful and an entirely new world. I am so glad I went with two ladies who were familiar so I can take my family there – then others later- and we can all become familiar with it. Here are a few photos to try to share with you the experience:

   
   
Oh how wonderful it was having people there who knew a little of what to do, oh how disastrous it could have been having no one who knew anything! Thank goodness I was with the former not the latter! Needless to say, this is a meal of trust; you trust the beef is beef (once you taste it you know), you trust the sauce is going to be palatable, you trust the beef wrapped in lettuce will taste good,  you trust the bean sprouts will be in a nice sauce, you trust the green onions will be ok and you throw them all together and you trust your mouth is going to be big enough to fit that entire lettuce stuffed with beef and everything else inside of it! And somehow it is! Not only is there all of that trust, but somehow when it is all thrust together, it’s wonderful! Ok, so my lunch was fantastic but there’s more….. As we were walking get through the market earlier, one friend mentioned how incredible Korean sweet potatoes were; seriously? I hate sweet potatoes! She bought them, hot out of the oven, I was curious. The were six or seven in a bag, I wasn’t that curious. Eventually I asked a tad more about them, she offered me one.

   Oh My  God! Those are the most incredible roasted thing I have ever tasted! Wow! My parents have always loved sweet potatoes, they used to go on and on about cow-cow! I don’t ever remember being a fan, but tonight I do remember something; banana frittas! Korean sweet potato, cooked like it is in the market is exactly like the taste my mum used to make when she made banana frittas! I tried to explain this to my kids, but there is no comparison. I wish my Mum and Dad were here to share this taste with me because it is so amazingly similar to when my Mum would make banana frittas! I’m not sure how much I can inference this taste and if any American has ever tasted it, other than here, but it took me until I got home and tried another one, that I really understood it. 

  
Wow! Wow! Wow! 

This isn’t even half of my day, yet I know I’m infringing on your time. There is a tad more to say of importance, but I shan’t keep you for too much longer, I promise! 

So, I had this amazing lunch, then came home to our village ‘maintenance’ guy trying to clean up the mess these silly people had made, then went  to pick up my children, then to go and meet another lady with whom  I had volunteered to look after her cats (online), only to find that she seems like this awesome person that my kids and I all immediately liked immensely and I was like, “Well you said you would pay in wine and now I want wine and your company because you’re pretty damn cool & I think we could actually be friends!” Then to find myself out on our little deck writing my blog, to be greeted by my neighbour from yesterday, who wanted to bring her children over and play and with whom I also took an immediate liking to and no, I don’t regret it it, anyway, she came over, hung out, had a sangria, ok, maybe two (or a tad more) and we discussed yesterday’s happenings, and it was all a misunderstanding! Yay, I’m not going crazy! It seriously was a misunderstanding! I love just being open and honest with people. It always makes things better! Seriously! 

Anyway, my day has ended on a positive note. I’m happy. I wish you all such happiness. May we all look at Malala and realize just how good we’ve got it! 

PS: I’m still yet to do tonight’s regimen, it will happen.. Have an amazing night!

Challenge Accepted Day 10 – round 2

Ok, so I just wrote my entire blog, and it’s all gone! Gone! Hubby just proofread it and it was all good to go but for some reason, the pics weren’t uploading so I chose to delete media and that in turn deleted my entire blog! To say it has been that sort of day, I think sums it up. 

So, now it shall definitely be short and sweet! We’ve not had much news from my brother-in-law, awaiting for the time to hit a decent hour so we can call him and hope that all is well.

My workout this morning was the absolute worst, I was tired, due to no sleep once again and do not even think about buying this rubbish:

  
It doesn’t work in the slightest, well it didn’t for me, I should say. On top of being tired, I drank some bottled white wine last night that obviously went straight to my head and I ate chocolate, lots of chocolate! Naughty me! It was even the good kind of chocolate; dark with pumpkin seeds, but still my body betrayed me this morning during Speed 1.0! It was awful. I truly struggled. I did however force myself to slow jog a mile afterwards so we shall call that a little victory!

Another victory for us today as a family was for our daughter’s parent teacher conference, not only is she doing so well on a social level, in the words of her teacher, “She is the sweetest, most polite student, and a joy to have in my class.” She picks up on new math concepts and strategies , is on grade par with her writing, reading and comprehension and is just a well-rounded kid! Such a huge leap from where we were just a few years ago and especially given she has just gone through her first change of schools and to top it all off, it was a mid-year move! This kid has been through hospital stays, physical challenges, years of pain and crippling (at times) illness, yet here she is, almost at 100% good health and such a beautiful soul! We couldn’t be prouder! 

Hunter and I had a great brunch, he had the fruit, I had the chicken/avocado/spinach salad, we cleansed the house of much useless paperwork, the girls actually got to play out side for almost 2 hours!!! All in all, though my challenges felt at times overwhelming, the day was a success, now all we can do is hope that my brother-in-law had a similar night. May your day or night, be filled with only good challenges and may you stay safe and dry!

   
 On a side note: My skin is feeling amazing, I have just done my nightly regimen and am feeling like my skin is growing younger daily. Seriously! You will see 😊 Au revoir for now, tomorrow shall be a new day! 

Challenge Accepted Day 7

Good Sunday to you! How is it Sunday night already? Feels like my weekend flew by as per usual! I hope you have made the most of yours. I’ve been doing quite a few different things this weekend, trying to really get into my new life here as well as my want to treat my body somewhat better, nonetheless, I have an Aussie friend who lives in England and has been drinking a turmeric hot drink for a very long time, she has told me about it before and I’ve thought about making it but never actually gotten there, until today. I made the base for it late last night then drank the turmeric latte this morning. It was actually quite lovely. I can assure you, I was very skeptical given the ingredients and I over compensated on the honey, try it with only one teaspoon full of honey before you add a second. I also used regular ground turmeric (that was all I had) but I did have organic coconut oil so used that. No non-dairy milk either, so regular cows milk it was. I’m going to look next weekend at Costco to see if they have any cashew milk so I can just drink it with this drink, but I wasn’t too concerned, it was really the health benefits of the turmeric I was looking for. It is also known as golden milk or turmeric tea and you can find a great recipe for it here:

http://kellybroganmd.com/so-long-coffee-hello-turmeric-latte/

And here’s my cup this morning:

  
There are plenty of recipes out there though and as I was searching for my cardamom this morning, I came across ginger and thought oh I bet that would be a lovely addition to it also, I think the key thing is to get the incredible benefits of the polyphenol antioxidant curcumin that is known to help many different ailments and what is also the key factor in giving turmeric its golden colour. 

Whilst on my turmeric kick, another recipe came across my newsfeed for turmeric toothpaste (isn’t it weird when Facebook reads your mind like that). Apparently Indian dentists swear by it so I thought why not give that a try too? Here’s a link to that recipe:

Turmeric toothpaste
  
It doesn’t look pretty, but it didn’t taste too bad when I used it this morning, I followed it with my regular toothpaste brushing as I didn’t see the harm in using both methods either, so we’ll wait and see. I will take my 1 week photo tomorrow smiling so we can look at how my teeth are in another week after using this method. 

Okay, let’s get to talking about my favourite thing I’ve done today, macro exfoliation! Rodan + Fields have this amazing tool called the Redefine Macro Exfoliator and I LOVE it! It is honestly the best 5 minutes of my skincare regimen all week, especially when I haven’t done it in over two months! Anyway, I think last Monday I had mentioned that I had found the empty box but not the tool, well I found the tool a couple of days later and had to charge it up so I decided Sunday night was going to be my macro night. 

How does it work? Well it’s this handheld personal tool (it’s the main photo for this article) that works using some great patent-pending technology called DOC-SMART, where the level  and length of time varies depending on which part of your face you are exfoliating. It is basically like your at-home microdermabrasion but with med spa quality results and all for a fraction of the price. It is a big investment to start with, retailing for $279 + tax & shipping but it is so worth it in my humble opinion. I seriously love this product. I used it tonight and my face feels amazing, I almost took a photo of all the yucky dead skin and crap that came off my face into the filter but I couldn’t bring myself to, it really wasn’t a pretty site! Instead I took a couple of close ups for you of the diamond tip head and the little picture on it that shows you how the DOC-SMART technology works, she literally shows you where to go next with the force of the exfoliation adjusted to the sensitivity of that area of your face and neck. I do go against her recommendation when it comes to the neck and I go with upwards strokes rather than downward and then I switch it to manual to use on the back of my hands every now and again, and it really shows when I do.  Everything just feels much softer and lighter and happier! 
 
  
Now onto the T25 side of the challenge, I must say that both hubby and I really enjoyed the stretching today! It was amazing how it felt to relieve some of the tension in your body after working it so hard! I have never done that side of it before and I should have, it definitely gives you hope that the week to come will not be anywhere near as hellish as last week! I did want to do more exercise today as I felt I was slacking off a little but I also knew my body had worked hard all week and it was ok to give it some rest today. Our original plan was that the  family would bike ride through the rice paddies but it was overcast and cold and hubby hurt his back last night so it just seemed like the best idea was to hang out with each other and watch movies (well the kids and hubby did this afternoon whilst I pottered about). We had a really nice pot roast beef for dinner tonight but I’m feeling a bit blah right now as I definitely ate too much! And I have to do a personal weigh-in in the morning 😩 oh well, them’s the breaks right?

Have an amazing day/night, no matter where in the world you are and I’ll see you on Monday for another great week of challenge fun! 

Challenge Accepted Day 4

Well here we are, day 4 already and I’m yet to see any results! Too soon you think? I know, I know, it won’t happen overnight, but bloody hell, I’d really like it to! I’m a bit over Shawn T. “In and out,” “Feel it in your core, are you good?” No I’m not bloody good, my core is telling me to stop torturing it! And you and your fit sidekicks can all piss off! Ok, that only happens for about 24 minutes, the rest of the time I love it! 😜

I did notice this morning a big scratch on my neck that stung when I was doing my morning R+F Redefine routine, but it wasn’t from the products, obviously either my kids, or my dog, or myself during sleep, someone/something scratched me and man did it sting when I was cleaning my face. Anyway, I did put a little bit of the Soothe Sensitive Skin Treatment on the scrape so in the interests of keeping you guys informed, I just wanted you to know of any products I use. I’ll let you know how it feels tonight when I do my nightly Redefine routine, but I was once burned quite badly by a woman in Colorado Springs when I bought a Groupon for laser hair removal and unfortunately in this instance, cheaper isn’t always better, I honestly thought I was going to be scarred for life, my Dad told me to sue her, it was all crazy, anyway, my friend Sue suggested I use the Soothe Sensitive Skin Treatment for the burns so I did and that combined with vitamin E, completely got rid of my burn marks. 

  

  
 
These marks were immediately visible when I got home from having the laser hair removal, I wasn’t happy and it hurt like hell, but thank god, my skin healed after about 3 weeks. Here is a more recent photo of my yucky, white, hairy legs (please forgive my candidness) I wish they were tanned and lovely but I feel like my winter has been never ending with living in Colorado where it snowed up until June (with some nice days in between) then we went to Australia in July/August and had just a tad more winter, followed by Autumn (Fall) upon returning to Colorado, with Winter starting all over again in October (yay! – Oh how I wish sarcasm could come through in writing without having to point it out!) at least we had some nice days where light jackets were ok. To top it all off, we saved to go on a cruise before moving to South Korea and Texas decided to go from 80 odd degrees Fahrenheit the day before we got there to 40! Houston had the coldest, windiest, most overcast miserable day it had had, the day we boarded our ‘warm’ cruise! (Ok, maybe a little exaggerated) but you can see how rugged up we were! 

  
 
So back to today, my son & I went on our first adventure together here in South Korea, it was only over to the Airforce base at Osan to get our visas for our extended stay here, but we did park the car at the gate and wander through the market that is at the front of the AFB. We had some wonderful Thai food from an authentic Thai restaurant there and I got to practice my very little Thai with the lovely hostess/waitress named Juree. On top of that, I got to eat one of my most favorite meals in the entire world, Tom Kha Gai – the scrumptious Thai soup with lemongrass, coconut milk and chicken and it was made to perfection! I’ve attempted it many times and it just never tastes as good. 
We wandered around, ate Baskin Robbins ice cream (oops) and had a lovely time together. Then it was time to get back to our little village to get Madison from the bus. We’re also only allowed one car here unless we can prove we need another one (we can’t just yet ), so I had to be back for child pickup, hubby pickup, dinner prep, you name it! Unfortunately that didn’t end my day; we all (the kids and I) need to follow up on our Japanese Encephalitis Vaccination (JEV) so we went to the immunization clinic on post, thinking it couldn’t be too difficult (but knowing in my heart of hearts that nothing’s ever too easy either) only to be told that they don’t see dependents there! What? Why would you have dependents here and not vaccinate them? “Ok, so where do we go to get vaccinations?” “I think Osan takes dependents…” You think? Seriously, you’re not sure? Oh my. Oh well, luckily I haven’t dragged my three children to the immunization clinic, waited for 20 minutes only to be told after telling them the entire way there and parking the car etcetera, etcetera, that they were going to get another shot! Luckily, winter has ended and it’s a balmy 3C  (37.4F) outside, so the kiddos frolicked in the warm gusts blowing in the carpark….not! But, such is life.

I know, I know, this is an exercise/makeup regimen 60 day challenge, but my life is literally ‘always an adventure’ and as I’ve already said, there hasn’t been any changes yet so I’m not going to inundate you with pictures of my face or body, instead, I’m going to take you on my adventurous journey on a daily basis and throw in the challenges that I face daily! Hopefully you’ll stick with me as I’m thoroughly enjoying this side of it (the writing that is, not necessarily the exercise) & I can’t wait to see not only where the exercise and Rodan + Fields regimen take me, but where each day takes us! Sweet dreams! 

PS I didn’t run today! But I did say 5 days/week! 

PPS My abs are killing me!