Tag: Insanity

May the fourteenth be with you! Ok, we’ll take the force! 

It’s been a few days now since I last wrote a blog and things have been a little all over the place. The local police called me to ensure there were no injuries in my car as this guy is obviously still insisting that he is injured, even though it was such a minor accident for his truck anyway, having no damage whatsoever, not so minor for my car that hit the corner of his truck bed, that was literally made of steel, yet we have no injuries and he is saying he was injured. I don’t think so! I am just hoping he was caught on camera unloading somewhat heavy items from the back of his truck after the accident. If there is one thing I don’t like it is people who try to to take advantage of the system and of situations. I had three children all under the age of 5 in my car, all in the back where the impact was, and they are all just fine. Seriously, just fine and this dude wants to try to sue me? Again, I don’t think so. 
Ok, let’s not focus on the negative, there were some positives from this week, the dentist was amazing and has said that he will continue with Ally’s treatment free of charge! Yes, free! Would any dentist in Australia or USA do that? No is the definitive answer. Very happy with that. Also, I finished the first 4 weeks of Insanity. Here are my photos so far (now the first one in the blue actually goes back to the beginning of the whole thing when I started T25, the second one is from 4 weeks ago when I began Insanity and the third is from tonight):


I can see some results. Not as many as I would have liked given how hard and how long I’ve been working out but also given that I haven’t been on a diet as such, I think it definitely shows that working out is helping me get toned. Oh and I’ve lost somewhere between 6-7.5lbs depending upon the time of day I weigh myself and the day of the week of course 😜 (who knew scales could be so bloody temperamental??). 
It has been a somewhat subdued week, I guess. Hunter went back to school on Thursday and Friday, but Thursday I ran around and did errands, we did get a new (old) car finally. It’s something from 2002. It was cheap. It runs well & has AC and heated seats and a heater of course. All the basics and it means some independence for me, although given how shitty last Monday went, I’m not too keen on driving just yet. It’s weird, I have always been a reasonably confident driver yet this accident has thrown me for a six. 
Friday was spent doing odds and ends at home, Maddy had a half day for some reason, so I couldn’t go get the Lipolysis shots either as I didn’t want to traumatize her, but she helped me so much around the house and got to play and hang out with her friends so it was a really nice day for the most part. We did happen to go to the grocery store and witness a man collapse and gash his head quite severely on his way down. The whole thing was all a little overwhelming with the ambulance getting called and this man literally out cold. It was obviously quite traumatic for her as she didn’t want to go back to the commissary on Saturday (I forgot to get milk) until I reassured her he was ok and that it wasn’t going to happen again whilst we were there. How do I know he’s ok? Well, we had some friends come over for dinner and drinks on Friday night and one of them happened to work with this guy, so when I started telling the story, she chimed in with how she had been the first person they called from the hospital because she was the last to speak with him on his phone. It really is a small community over here and I’m finding this out more and more on a daily basis. 
Saturday morning, we decided to purchase the entire collection of Star Wars movies with copious amounts of junk food (ok, maybe not copious but certainly more than we would normally ever consume in a week, let alone a weekend) and stay in for the weekend and have a Star Wars marathon. I had already worked out Saturday morning so I wasn’t feeling guilty about not doing too much for the rest of the day and the kids seemed to be onboard (until their friends came door knocking wanting to play with them outside). It ended up being hubby and I who really watched the movies with children grazing on junk food and watching bits and pieces then wanting all the blanks filled in because they were somewhat lost. We did make the ‘best parents ever’ stigma for a short time, given there were no set meals over the weekend and food consisted of very few ‘healthy’ things! Honestly, you may think I’m the worst, but every now and again one just has to go with the flow and let your kids just eat crap. They stayed up late interspersing their time throughout Saturday and Sunday with playing outside on their bikes and watching the movies with us. On Sunday afternoon we all went for another family bike ride and it was so enjoyable. This time Hunter didn’t complain at all and his little legs kept pedaling the entire time. It was truly fun, even when it started to rain, there was no complaining from anyone. The rain gave us a good excuse to watch one more Star Wars movie (yes, we made it through the first 5 in order, throughout the weekend). It was just a nice, low-key weekend, with no need to be anywhere at a particular time and no one demanding our attention outside of our family. 


Monday (today) has already been successful. I am now on the recovery week of Insanity, which means doing Core Cardio and Balance every day, starting today. And it felt good. I am still trying to kick this nasal, sinus, chest thingy I’ve got going on but I’m now guessing it’s from the yellow dust coming in from China. From what everyone has told me, it sticks with you for a while until you get used to it. Shit! If I wanted to deal with crap coming into my lungs killing me, I would have kept smoking. This is ridiculous. And poor Ally just cannot get rid of her cough! I’m thinking I will definitely have to take her to make sure she is not asthmatic or suffering from bronchitis or who knows what! This place is not agreeing with her lungs either. She is the worst of us all. One of her teachers actually made me so angry last week. Ally is always coughing, always blowing her nose, it is literally like she is allergic to this place, she gets into coughing fits and almost throws up at times. I have her doing a nasal rinse daily and we make sure she spits out all of the yucky stuff when she’s home, but the poor kid just doesn’t seem to be getting better. Back to this teacher. Ally came into her class and started coughing, the teacher stopped talking until Ally was done (as she apparently does when anyone makes any noise in her classroom that she hasn’t approved of). Then Ally’s nose started running and she had to use the roll of toilet paper this teacher had in her classroom for just such occasions. I can’t remember exactly what she said but she basically singled Ally out and ridiculed her then got mad at her for using too much of this roll of toilet paper. On top of that, Ally’s voice was a tad croaky last week because she has had this thing going on for so long, this teacher then made fun of her because she couldn’t reach the notes she had to reach in the class (it was choir class). Ally came home devastated. I was furious! I thought and thought about the best way to react to this. Ally didn’t want me to make a big scene and she didn’t want this teacher to pick on her further, and I completely understood where she was coming from. I know sometimes teachers will take it out further on the children if the parent intervenes, especially those teachers who don’t offer a nurturing environment to their pupils. That was the last thing our daughter needed in her life right now. So, I didn’t do anything until after I had calmed down immensely. When hubby got home, I asked Ally to tell him about it so I could gauge his reaction to the whole thing and was surprised at how angry it made him too. I told him my idea and as always he suggested I wait until I was calm to do it. Now a part of me would have liked to storm in there and grab this woman and shake her a bit until she came to her senses and stopped being such a bitch, but the more practical, sensible side of me knew that wasn’t anyway to show my child how to resolve conflict, instead I wrote her a letter and gave her a new roll of toilet paper. And yes, the toilet paper was my cheap shot, but at least this way, Ally can use it as much as she likes and this woman can never make her feel bad about it. 


She never gave Ally a reaction, but she hasn’t picked on her again, so I’ll take it as a win for my little (big) girl who needs all the wins she can get right now given her health and her friendship situation. More on that another day. 
Back to today, I went with my friend Rebecca back to see our favourite dermatologist spouse (again, hoping she’s actually a nurse) and to get our Lipolysis shots. This time, I actually took a photo of her sticking a shot into my belly. So weird. She and her husband only realized today that I’m actually Australian, even though I told them the first time I met them. Anyway, they were both excited today because their sons (yes, there are 2 of them) both live and study in Adelaide, Australia, and they have both been there. This was followed with, “it’s pretty, but it’s too hot and too dry.” I felt like saying in return that I could completely understand their distaste as this place is too cold and too wet, as well as too hot and too humid, (and yes, I do mean wet & humid independently of each other) for my liking. On top of that there’s the yellow dust and the monsoon season. Um, hello! Give me Australia’s weather any day! 


 Right, I think I’ve caught you up on all our exciting happenings. The days are definitely getting warmer here in South Korea, we are supposed to hit 33C on Saturday, That’s about my perfect temperature right there, although I think that’s hotter than it ever got whilst we were in Colorado Springs! A sprinkler may be in order though, just in case. 
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I hope you have a wonderful day or night, wherever you are in the world. This Aussie Mum plans on doing so! 😊

May 9 – Car accident

Day 21 of the Insanity Challenge

Always an adventure, right? Certainly was today and not a good one! I got into a car accident. I had three young children in my car! It was awful. No one was injured thank god but it was scary and awful and totally my fault. We had to stand there for over two hours whilst they found footage to show that it was my fault. No one spoke English. It was just awful. I didn’t think it was my fault to begin with and I’m still not 100% convinced. But, oh well, so be it. Of course the truck I hit is made of steel so does some pretty major damage to my car. Again, so thankful none of the kids were hurt. 
I am now curling up in bed feeling sorry for myself. I don’t want to play anymore. Pity party for one basically. I’m a little bit over South Korea with its tight streets and people who park anywhere and pedestrians who just walk in the middle of the street. My car is too big here. 
My activities for the day came to a complete halt. My pity party consumed me. Hubby called because he knew I was feeling angry and sorry at/for myself. It’s only a car. I should be just grateful that we are all ok & that I didn’t get cited. I did get breathalyzed however, and that was weird too. The breathalyzer was weird. It sort of looked like a square metal speaker with a hole in the middle of it. He told me to blow. I couldn’t figure out where I was supposed to blow as in Australia you have a straw type thing that you blow in, right? I haven’t been breathalyzed for years. Anyway, he didn’t get the Korean to do it, just me. Then he looked down at it and quickly put it in his pocket, “OK.” I’m assuming the OK meant all was good as I hadn’t had anything to drink (at 10:30am) nor had I any cough medicine (which I actually thought about having just before I left the house at 10am). 
Here’s what else I thought about, I think everything happens for a reason, I have to assume there was a reason. Perhaps had we gone in Rebecca’s car, we would have been killed or maimed? Perhaps something else horrible awaited us and this was the best case scenario? I don’t know, it’s only a car. I used to have a perfect driving record, I guess that’s why I’m so pissed off too. I made a couple of mistakes as a teenager but from then on I have been a great driver. I can’t say that anymore. It was my fault. It’s a tough pill to swallow. And there were so many people who flocked around. I was the morning entertainment for all the local Koreans on that street! 
I did over half of my Pure Cardio workout & was planning on doing the rest when I got home (I didn’t). I think tomorrow is going to be my better day. I’m not intending on driving anywhere, so that’s the first plus and secondly, I’m going to perhaps garden a little, maybe paint with my son, I shall do some interval exercises if it works out and I’m not wheezing away (as I was this morning when I had to stop and take a break). As the famous line from ‘Gone With the Wind’ goes, “After all, tomorrow is another day.” 
So, for now I’m going to get lost in some tv drama and forget about my crappy day. 
I hope yours has been so much better!
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Birthday/Mother’s Day Weekend – May 7&8

Day 19

The drive to our gala ball was long and filled with traffic delays. Some people who came from the Area 1 region were stuck in traffic for over 8 hours so I can’t really complain about our three hour drive! It just felt like forever. When you’re stuck in traffic, it was always does. 
We arrived and raced into the bathrooms to change because last year anyone who was late was apparently locked out until the official ceremony portion was finished, luckily for us, so many must have been delayed that they pushed back the formal portion for a bit and all was good. I have to say that I looked very nice. Yes, I just said that. But here’s the catch, firstly, I bought some blue contact lenses for about $10 here. I wanted light blue but couldn’t find any so a darker blue they were. Well yesterday morning I decided to put them on. It had always been the plan since I had decided on my blue dress, to wear the contacts. I bought a beautiful blue eyeliner as well. I had put them in before going to have my hair done, but hubby and I had crossed paths very quickly in the am whilst I raced out to get to my appointment thinking we were in a hurry. I got home from the hairdresser and as he was looking at my hair, my darling husband exclaimed, in a not so promising tone, “Oh, what happened?” I looked at him and he at me and his look was one of almost horror! I laughed because I knew what he was now referring to, the damn things were uncomfortable, so I was very aware of them at all times. “I don’t like them at all! In fact, they make you look soulless!” Wow! Ok, didn’t see that coming, but it was too late, my mind had been decided. I was wearing the dark blue contacts. I ended up having time to put my makeup on before we headed off for the mammoth journey and off we went. So firstly let me explain that these contacts are different to ones I had bought years ago, they didn’t quite cover my entire eye, so my eyes went from dark blue to green to black pupils. They also impeded my vision somewhat, making everything have a greyish hue. It wasn’t like I was blind, but reading anything small was even more difficult. And they were a bit uncomfortable. So we get into the social area and hubby knows a few people and is talking away to them and here’s the other thing going back to yes, I looked nice, but…. I am that girl, the one who looks like she’s all held together and I speak very properly, but I am an absolute spastic! I know it. My husband knows and still loves me for it. So he is introducing my to one of his colleagues (who happens to be a lawyer and he holds out his hand to shake mine and I go to shake his and my greyish hue isn’t helping matters, nor is the tiny part of my hem that seems to have come undone a tad, and as I step forward I miscalculate where the hem is and trip on it and my glass of wine is literally mid transition from right to left hand so I can shake his hand with my right and somehow I save my glass but a large quantity of wine jumps out, not getting anyone else mind you, just me, but lands all over this hand that is reaching for his. It was comical and I just saw that look on hubby’s face, the one that says, “I know you’re a spastic and I love you for it, but sometimes, I really wonder.” There was no hand shake. 😜 thank god, the east of the night was uneventful as far as calamitous events go. The great thing was that my friend Michelle that I met on our crazy journey here to South Korea, was actually there at the ball. It was so good to see her. On top of that, there were many people we knew from Hawaii and Colorado. The Army is a small place. I met some really good people. It was a bit of a strange ball, we were greeted by a man on stilts as we descended on the escalator, but it was nice nonetheless. Unfortunately, we couldn’t hear a lot of the speeches because of the echo in the back corner, but it was entertaining. I just wish we hadn’t had to drive so far to get there and back. I also wish we had known about the childcare option. Oh well, next time.


Saturday May 7 was a beautiful day in South Korea, a nice day to celebrate being 21 (x2) and definitely time for us to get out of the house. We decided to head out for lunch and I was in the mood for Mexican. So off we headed. We found what looked to be ok Mexican restaurant up on the second floor in the main Vill outside of Osan. The service was a bit shoddy but the food was actually really good and they did a frozen kiwi margarita, that was great. We even got the kiddos one virgin mango margarita to share and she put it evenly in three plastic margarita type glasses for them too. The first thing I ordered unfortunately was not to my liking at all, I guess South Korean mole and I don’t see eye to eye, though I’m sure I’ve had it (true Mexican style) a few times before and liked it, but this particular mole enchiladas was awful! My darling husband went and talked to them and got them to switch it over to the burrito that he was having that looked and tasted absolutely amazing! Thank you husband! That was the best move you, and I, could have made today. 


Then it was time to go to the movies. Captain America, Civil War! Epic. Now, I didn’t like the whole civil war part of it, but the movie, the action, the everything, was awesome! What is really interesting about seeing a movie at an overseas military base (& we had completely forgotten because it had been years) is that the national anthem is played and everyone must stand. This would have been fine if that’s the way it had gone yesterday, instead, they started playing the Korean national anthem with no introduction whatsoever. I hear this music come on as I am beginning to write my blog on my phone and look up and it is some Koreans scaling a very picturesque mountainside (an advertisement for Korea, is what I thought) I go back to writing until my daughter says, “Mum, stand up!” I stand up before I even know what I’m doing and look around and everyone is standing. It’s the Korean National Anthem, followed but the US national anthem. Please, a little more introduction wouldn’t go astray, we haven’t all been here for a long time, we also aren’t all familiar with the protocol, it might be nice for our new spouses (and not-so-new spouses) and new soldiers for that matter, to at least know what’s going on, especially if you never go to the movies. 
The movie is over, it has been long, but fantastic. We are all getting up to walk out of the movie theater when I look down at my seat as something feels odd and low and behold, there is chewing gum everywhere! Someone has thought that putting chewing gum all over a movie theater seat is a really good idea, and I am the victim to it. Thanks! Like I’m not uncoordinated enough as it is. And, I’m wearing my new gladiator high heels as well, with a really cute, short dress. Yes, you are a winner! You got me! Gum all over the back of my dress, right on my bottom. Thank you! From the bottom of my heart, thank you, you super immature idiot! You put a big dampener on my birthday! Oh and I still haven’t gotten it off my dress, plus the fact that you germ infested that gum! Eeew! Disgusting in so many ways! 


Hubby and Maddy went in and got a birthday cake from Baskin Robbins after the movie as I didn’t want to go anywhere given the gum situation. We then headed home and spent a very quiet evening playing family games, and just enjoying each other’s company. I was very spoilt with a beautiful gift of a Colombian emerald necklace. My wonderful husband had bought it when we went on our cruise back in the beginning of January! I had tried this necklace on at least five times and it was magnificent but I had also said no. We couldn’t afford it. It was a great deal, but it was something frivolous that I didn’t need. My husband had snuck back there on our last day and had bought that necklace and had made secret payments (I pay all the bills from our main account). He is such an incredible trickster and awesome present buyer! He was sure I knew, but I had no iota! None whatsoever. I’m sure I’ve said before what a crappy present buyer I am, and how amazing he is, this once again proves it! 
Today is Mother’s Day in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Netherlands, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, Belgium and the United States. We were able to sleep in a little bit, but duty called eventually. I had some beautiful cards from the entire family, but yesterday’s present was an all inclusive one, just as it should have been. Hubby was going to make breakfast but soon realized that given last week’s crazy schedule, we had very few groceries. Breakfast soon came off the table. The kids ate whatever we could muster and hubby and I drank some good coffee. Neither of us were feeling so great, this bloody horrible thing ripping through our bodies, is leaving us drained and full of yuckiness! The coughing is getting old. Today was probably the worst it has been for me so far, but then again, I’ve been taking mucinex (an old prescription from Colorado that is for this exact type situation and wasn’t out of date) but hubby can’t take anything prescription based unless it was currently prescribed to him. So he’s had to suffer without. He didn’t really want to go anywhere but was willing to if I wanted to. I knew we needed to get some supplies in order to function tomorrow, so it was off to the bigger commissary we went. I told them all they could choose a restaurant for lunch given our limited food, and of course, they all chose Chilis. Thank god it was amazing today! The woman who served us was truly incredible. Our food was as good as it gets at that Chilis, no complaints though. We then went to the Commissary and grocery shopped. All very exciting I know. From there we came home, unpacked, called my mother to wish her a happy Mother’s Day (I had called her numerous times already but this time she actually picked up) and popped over to our friends’ house with a bottle of Champers to celebrate both my birthday and his birthday. We had a lovely time with them, but alas, it was a school night and we had to call it early. We got home, tried to finish our family card game after putting little man to bed, when I realized my emerald bracelet was no longer on my wrist! Let me give you some background on this bracelet; The husband had bought this for me last year when I came back from Australia to celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary. He had to go away and wanted it to be something special. He had found this bracelet at an estate sale at a well-renowned jewelry shop. He had gotten it for a bargain (an expensive bargain but it was incredible) but we had had it appraised for a whole lot more. My Christmas present was a beautiful emerald ring he had made to match the bracelet. This pendant (my birthday present yesterday) had matched both. Now my beautiful bracelet was gone and we hadn’t even had it insured. I’m not sure why, I think we were waiting for the paintings or to figure out the whole mess with the paintings not being here and the fact that we had to insure our stuff back in the US even though we are here and we just have had so much other shit to deal with, we hadn’t gotten around to it. This was literally a one of a kind bracelet. I was heartbroken. Let me go back one further. When we lived in San Antonio, our house had been robbed, these bastards had literally waited until the husband and I took my Mum and Dad to the airport, then went in and robbed us of all they could. They went through every draw, every cupboard, every everything they could in our bedroom. They did however, leave our baby’s (Ally’s) room alone, but they stole everything else of value that we had. My husband and I had saved up all we could, he had gotten out of he Navy and had joined the Army. We had just bought our first house, literally using our savings to pay for 1/3 of it because no one would give us a loan unless we could. We had lived in the Middle East and hubby had my sister get this beautiful emerald pendant handmade (in Saudi Arabia) for me for my birthday/our wedding. It too, was one of a kind. The bastards stole that. I just happened to be wearing the matching earrings, so they never got those. They got our Video camera with all of Ally’s 1st year of footage on it. They took everything we had worked for. It was a complete violation of us and made me very bitter towards San Antonio, for no other reason than I needed to blame something and I didn’t have a person/s. To come home and find your door kicked in and your baby’s entire first year of memories gone because some bastard thought it was worthwhile taking the video camera and you hadn’t even given it any thought to transfer those videos because you had it in a safe place and the ‘tape’ still had 20 hours of footage to go on it! Gone! Forever! Our baby girl’s first adventures in Italy that we filmed will never be found and we can never show her because some arsehole broke into our home and stole them from us, not only did they do that, but they took every piece of jewelry both my husband and I had ever saved up for! Long story short, I am bitter and the minute something goes missing, I completely freak out. That’s what happened tonight. I freaked out. I literally lost it. I was out with my torch (flashlight) and my neighbour, Geoff happened to be out there and asked if I had lost something and I couldn’t even talk, I just mumbled, “emerald bracelet! I’ve lost my emerald bracelet.” He asked if he could help me look and I couldn’t even answer. I just kept saying I don’t know, I don’t know. 
I called my friends and had them searching on the rooftop, I searched up and down the road, the girls and hubby were pulling everything apart searching inside. Nothing. I couldn’t even feel anything. All I could think was not again, what did I do to deserve this? Every part of you that has done the most minute thing wrong starts to wonder exactly what it was that you did to cause this. I know it’s only a material possession and as I said to my girls later on; “I got this upset over something materialistic, but something precious to me because Daddy bought it and it was very special, imagine that at the end of the day, that means nothing and you guys are everything, imagine just how devastated I would be if something happened to you when a bracelet means this much, but means nothing! They both seemed to understand and nodded and promised they would always be careful. They promised they would always let me know where they were, they promised they wouldn’t do anything stupid. I used the bracelet analogy to even mention that I didn’t actually ‘lose’ the bracelet, it fell off, so sometimes we don’t even mean to do anything but it happens, and told them they just always need to make good decisions. Very deep, I know, it was all I could do to keep my shit together after freaking out over my bracelet then realizing the only thing that is truly important is my family. 
The bracelet was found! Thank god! Hubby found it in my handbag. Either on our way to our friends’ house or on our way back, it fell into my handbag. I wasn’t being punished, just tested. I didn’t pass well, but afterwards I was able to draw on it to send a point home to my girls to let them know how much they mean to me. Happy Mother’s Day. The only thing that matters is your people. That’s it. We get involved with the material things and they are lovely things but the people are the most important. My people, your people, our people. 
Well, that’s all for me, today, I look forward to your feed back and as always:
I hope you have a wonderful day and/or night, wherever you are!

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Challenge Accepted Day 60 – End of Rodan + Fields Redefine Challenge

Yay, we’ve hit the 60 day mark and here are my results! What do you think. For me personally, I think my before photo was too flattering! It doesn’t show all the lines in my forehead that were definitely there, it also doesn’t show just how much less the vertical line has gotten. But oh well. Let me know your opinion please.

This is going to be short and sweet, I did my Insanity workout, then ran around like a mad hatter trying to get everything ready for tonight, then went and had my hair done and now we are about to head off on a three hour drive to get to the ball, where we shall have to change into our dress clothes and go from there.
The salon had the craziest car park I’ve yet to see in Korea! I was lucky to at least find a spot though I did have to climb in and out of the sliding door at the back! 


Well, that’s all for me, today, I look forward to your feed back and as always:
I hope you have a wonderful day and/or night, wherever you are!
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And if you are interested in Taking your own Rodan + Fields 60 day challenge, then let me know at the above mentioned email and we’ll get you sorted out with the right regimen for you. 

Challenge Accepted Day 59/Day 17

Wow! Only one more day until my Rodan + Fields 60 day Redefine challenge is over! How has it been 60 days already? I have a really busy day tomorrow, but I shall definitely find the time to post those ‘after’ photos before I put any make up on. I also have to find the time to work out super early, because tomorrow is already looking like it’s going to be a shambles! With the Korean holiday, Hunter will be home all day and Maddy doesn’t have a piano lesson! Thank goodness we have met good people here who have offered to help out until our babysitter can get here. Craziness! 

And today, well today has been all about the deep cleaning for me. The yellow dust has come in and even though I awoke feeling worse than yesterday, I just didn’t want to put anyone in the family in more jeopardy by not getting rid of all the dust in the house. Both air purifiers are on their max setting now and my house is, for just a short time, dust free. The bathrooms are clean, the washing is done, the floors are vacuumed and mopped and I am exhausted. 


I even made my own version of bulgogi for dinner. I had the meat marinating from this morning in a concoction of Asian pear, soy sauce, brown sugar, rice wine, and a couple of other things and I thought it was wonderful, so did Ally, unfortunately no one else in the family appreciated it. Yes the baby corn doesn’t go in traditional bulgogi, nor do the ramen noodles, but we I am all about compromise if the children will eat it and baby corn and noodles are some of their favourites! I even threw in cashews just for a little something extra and it was lovely. I’ve got my lunch tomorrow sorted out. 


I had to take Ally to her music lesson today as the bus wasn’t running but it was fun. Whilst waiting, Maddy was able to practice on one of the many pianos and her teacher (there were no classes today but her teacher was still there for some reason) even let her play on the grand piano! She thought it was wonderful. And I am amazed at how far she has come in two short weeks. She seems to be beginning to read music and has a natural talent when it comes to actually playing. Her teacher just kept praising her today saying how amazing she was. Then Ally was in there having her guitar lesson and her teacher was also impressed. I guess they have my Dad’s musical ability. 


We picked up hubby, tried to find a phone deal that would work with Ally (a phone seems somewhat necessary here as the kids are off doing their independent things) yet were shocked at how there is no basic option. Everything has to be fancy. Our daughter doesn’t need an iPhone or a Samsung Galaxy. She has a tablet and is very lucky to have that, there’s no need for anything else fancy, she just needs to be able to make and receive calls and text messages. Anyway, I haven’t had time to investigate it further, but there has to be a solution. We have an old iPhone 4 just sitting there but are not sure it is unlocked nor if the SIM cards here fit in it. Getting a working phone is just a lot of hassle and it shouldn’t be. 
Otherwise, I had cardio recovery this morning with the Insanity workout. That stretching is a killer! OMG! Those squats and lunges where the searing pain starts to blur your vision and its either stand up or fall arse over and never recover! I wanted to fall arse over, in fact, my body begged me to, but my mind didn’t want to play, so I stood up, relaxed for a few seconds and went back into it. Not fun! 
I’m am about to shower and do my second last Redefine regimen for this 60 day challenge. There is still a bit of all the products left over so I will use it in conjunction with the Reverse regimen until the products run out then continue just doing the Reverse Challenge for 60 days! I’m excited though. Just hoping this throat thing clears up for tomorrow night! Now hubby and the son seem to have it also. I can imagine us at the ball, that’s when my nose will decide to start running and my eyes will start watering and I’ll be coughing like someone with the Black Plague and my dress and hair will look wonderful but my makeup will have run because bodily fluids have enticed it to be anywhere but on my face! Hey, there’s a raccoon in a ball gown! Oh dear. This could literally be the worst night ever! Let’s keep the fingers crossed and hope that all my vitamin C and honey lemon tea, have worked their magic on me. Oh and hubby too. He’s the driver and there will be two of us in the car that have birthdays the next day! He’s already asked me to calm it down a notch on the way home. 😜 
I hope you have a wonderful day and/or night, wherever you are!
Please like my page on Facebook: Aussiemumsadventures 
Email me at: aussiemumsadventures@gmail.com
And if you are interested in Taking your own Rodan + Fields 60 day challenge, then let me know at the above mentioned email and we’ll get you sorted out with the right regimen for you. 

Challenge Accepted Day 57/ Day 15

Today has been a bit of a rubbish day. The weather has been crappy, I had very little sleep as our Vonage phone rang five different times between midnight and 0350! It was terrible! On top of that, my throat started hurting around 2am and has gotten progressively worse. So this blog shall be short and sweet so I can get to bed sooner rather than later. 

It’s a strange place, South Korea, there are so many wonderful things here but when you arrive in the dead of Winter and the place is both freezing cold and extremely barren and you find yourself and your family getting sick over and over again because of the polluted air, it makes it hard to fall in love with. I feel like we have all been sick here more times than anywhere else in our lives! Ally has this perpetual cough that will not leave her, hubby also has it, but not quite as bad, and I am constantly getting sick. Madison and Hunter are both doing fairly well since we brought in the air purifiers but even they complain of headaches and a variety of other ailments on a weekly basis. 
Anyway, enough of that, the day has been rush, rush, rush. Children off to school, including the small boy, followed by a super quick trip to get the Lipolysis shots -in teeming rain, where I had to run about a kilometer from where I had parked to get to the place, all after having done half of my workout. Then it was off to the bake sale, where we did really well, over US$500 raised!! But it was after that the medication started to wear off and I went downhill rapidly. I went and paid the rent, in the pouring rain once again and realized when I got home that I hadn’t eaten all day. I came home to a messy house with stuff everywhere. So the only thing to do was clean, wash, vacuum, you name it, then it was time to ensure Maddy had an event free ride on the bus and this young lady knew she should never bully her or anyone for that matter, again. All good there I think. I guess it didn’t happen on the music bus but on the actual school bus, so I spoke to the bus monitor about it and she is going to watch for anything further and report it if something else happens. 


I spoke to my other sis and caught up on all of her happenings and her drama, picked Hunter up and came back to continue cleaning/folding laundry (best job ever, said no one). We met with Ally and Maddy and had them do their regular chores and homework, shower etc. then I finally did the other half of my workout, with a quick warm up again. It was Plyometric Cardio. It was after that, I again realized that I hadn’t eaten today, so I whipped up some spaghetti, went and picked hubby up from work and we ate and now I am about to go to bed after having a shower and cleaning my face. I may take the phone off the hook tonight and try to rest peacefully after having a honey, lemon tea I bought at the local supermarket. It is amazing tasting stuff! 
I hope you have a wonderful day and/or night, wherever you are!
Please like my page on Facebook: Aussiemumsadventures 
Email me at: aussiemumsadventures@gmail.com
And if you are interested in Taking your own Rodan + Fields 60 day challenge, then let me know. At the above mentioned email and we’ll get you sorted out with the right regimen for you. 

Challenge Accepted Day 56/Day 14

The morning started out rough! I had all weekend to catch up on sleep, yet my body chooses Monday morning to fight with me about staying in bed! I only ‘snoozed’ once, but I’ve felt the pain all day. And today’s the day I had a food handler’s course and a variety of other things I had to get done. 

Then it was off to the bus stop to take Maddy to school and I hadn’t seen any dogs there for a while so thought I would take Luna. Big mistake! Of course today’s the day that this woman, with whom I’ve had bad doggy interactions with before, is there with one of her pups. That was all good, the puppy came over to say hi, Luna (who gets so excited at seeing any dogs, especially one smaller than her) jumps at her to say hi, the puppy backs away and I said “Luna, you can’t jump like that, she doesn’t know you’re playing!” She walked away to greet a friend, all was fine. Then her husband, who obviously was unaware of the previous incidents between the other dog and Luna, brought that dog out to the bus stop & straight over to Luna. The dog immediately started growling at her, then the wife pipes in saying, “come away, she doesn’t like Luna playing with other dogs!” Now before I even knew what I was doing, out of my mouth came the words “no, I don’t mind her playing with other dogs, it’s just your dog. She doesn’t like Luna. She wants to attack her.” I went on to talk about how I’ve been attacked by a dog and their dog scares me and, as I’m right in the middle of saying all of this, their dog growls then tries to bite Luna’s face! It was like the timing of my words couldn’t have been more coordinated with that dog’s temperament toward Luna. Luckily the husband had a hold of the leash, but I was pissed off. I said my goodbyes and walked away before I said anything further. It was only the beginning of my shitty day! 
I worked out – fit test today but I couldn’t find my previous results so just had to write it down and compare it to my results from 2 weeks ago:

Switch Kicks Day 1: 83 Day 14: 93

Power Jacks Day 1: 33 Day 14: 41

Power Knees Day 1: 61 Day 14: 75

Power Jumps Day 1: 33 Day 14: 39

Globe Jumps Day 1: 8 Day 14: 9

Suicide Jumps Day 1: 13 Day 14: 15

Push-up Jacks Day 1: 10 Day 14: 19

Oblique Push-ups Day 33 Day 14: 40
A big improvement in only two weeks! Yay me! Something went really well, so I shouldn’t call it a shitty day. I am only now just comparing my results to those of last week. Some light at the end of the tunnel 🙃

 From there it was time to drop the boy off and head off to help hubby with something he didn’t need help with at all! He had been told he would need extra hands to help him collect gas masks for all of us (his family). Yes, we all need to have gas masks when we live in South Korea, I guess because of that somewhat crazy guy who’s up to the north. Anyway, I had never been to CIF (the distribution place where they get all their kit) so it was an interesting experience nonetheless, but the information about needing help to carry the gas masks was most definitely false. So we stood in there, me feeling a tad out of place, hubby thinking there was going to be some full on suit for all of us, and these 2 small cases come out with 2 slightly larger cases. Nothing my husband couldn’t have handled by himself, yet three different people had told him he would need help. Anyway, it was an interesting experience. I now understand his frustration when he talks about getting his gear though, definitely an interesting setup. And I’m not really sure what the hell I’ll do if we actually do have to put the gas masks on. These are amazingly complicated! 


From there I dropped him off and went on my way to a Food Handler’s Course. We are having an FRG (Family Readiness Group) bake sale tomorrow and we have another big event coming up on May 21, so I wanted to be able to help out at both and decided to take this course so I could. Basically, it’s about food sanitation and general food hygiene. Most of it is common sense, but there are some good pieces of information as well, so I was very glad I took the refresher course, it had been a while. I was also very glad the class went for an hour and 15 minutes rather than the original four hours, I had thought it was going to go for. From there I picked up a new charger and some new foundation (had to choose from Revlon, Maybelline and Covergirl) and ended up with this one from Revlon, here’s hoping it’s nice.


The day got a tad boring with mundane stuff (although I did manage to put together a yummy, healthy lunch) until I was about to go and pick up Hunter and my phone rings. It’s a number I’m not familiar with but its local. Low and behold, it’s Madison. Trying to tell me something about how this girl on her piano bus has sprained her arm. I wasn’t really understanding, eventually I got the message that this girl had grabbed Madison and had hurt her, but she was ok. I say to her I will see her after her lesson and we can talk some more then and she can give me the whole story. I go to pick up Hunter, who has had another amazing day at school. And get another call, this time through Facebook, from a neighbour. All I can think is Luna has gotten out or been hurt or something. So I answer the phone and this Mummy tells me she’s at piano and Madison’s arm has been hurt by someone and Madison’s friend is very worried about her. WTH! So I tell her I’ll be there as quickly as I can. You can imagine everything going through my mind on the way over there! 


I walk in the door and the first person I see is Madison’s friend who was very concerned and I asked her to tell me very calmly, exactly what happened. She then proceeds to tell me how they were getting on the bus and this other girl was getting on and she wasn’t very talkative or anything, so Madison had asked her if she was ok, she didn’t answer I guess, so Madison again asked her if she was ok, apparently she then grabbed Madison’s wrist and twisted it and told her to shut up! To say I was furious, is to put it mildly. Madison then came out and I asked her to tell me the whole story independently from her friend. Her story was identical to her friend’s. I asked her if she was ok now and she said yes, it hurt a lot at the time but had stopped hurting now. Then I asked where this girl was and they showed me her practicing in one of the rooms. I went to the piano teacher, who doesn’t understand enough English to understand the entire story but who did tell me how amazing Madison is doing at piano. She is a natural. She then wanted to show me a piece she has learnt to play and I was very willing to listen whilst I calmed down a tad. She played very well and I couldn’t believe it. I am so happy we have her doing these lessons! I had calmed down when I knocked on the practice room door where this 5th grade girl (who looks like she could be in grade 8) was sitting at the piano. I very bluntly asked her if she had twisted Madison’s arm and told her to shut up. She was scared, I could see that. But I didn’t raise my voice, I just stared at her. Finally she nodded. I then told her if she ever touches my little girl again, not only will I go straight to her parents, I will also call the police. Then I walked away. Too much? Not enough? Hubby wanted to go and find her parents tonight and talk to them. I just thought we should give her a second chance. But now I’m sitting here thinking we should have found out where she lived and gone to see them. I will be there tomorrow when the bus comes. I want to see exactly what happens. I will also talk to the bus driver and ask him to keep an eye on the situation. This bullying bullshit is not ok. Which goes back to my blog on “The Unknown War in South Africa”. Parents can not stand by and do nothing when their children are hurt. Nor should they. Especially when the situations are so clear cut. We don’t have the racial tension here in South Korea that exists in both South Africa and the US, but bullying still happens and it is never ok. 
I came home and had to make lots of muffins for the bake sale tomorrow, then pick up hubby and drop him off at home, in time to get to the dentist once again. Madison and I went where I spent about 30 minutes in agony because they had asked if I could tolerate it without pain medication and I had said yes, trying to save on time, big mistake. Holy crap it hurt! But all bad things come to an end as well and eventually that torture did too. I said to Madaion that we had to run over to the dermatologist as well as I had made an appointment for Friday to get my lump lasered. So we ran in the pouring rain (neither of us with umbrellas or raincoats) a good three blocks, and told them I had to change my appointment to another day. Well she looks in her appointment book and low and behold, there is no appointment for me. Great. I said I would come back on another day and make an appointment as I just couldn’t deal with it all then and our conversation was all being transcribed either through Google translate or through another patient. I really need to learn some Korean! 
Finally, it was time to come home and bake some more, put kiddos to bed and write my blog. This week hasn’t started out so great. Here’s hoping tomorrow is much more positive with great interactions at the bake sale. Not sure I can take any more negativity. I have a lot of little things that I need to figure in order to make this week work and I’m just not sure how I’m going to do it, so that is also frustrating me some. I’ll worry about it tomorrow. For now, my skin is clean. My Rodan + Fields Reverse Regimen just arrived in the mail, so that’s exciting. Yes, that will be my next challenge. But for now, I shall finish this one and show the results to you on Friday. A very appropriate day given I am going to the ball that night and it’s the night before my big 21st (x2)! 😉
I hope you have a wonderful day and/or night, wherever you are!
Please like my page on Facebook: Aussiemumsadventures 
Email me at: aussiemumsadventures@gmail.com
And if you are interested in Taking your own Rodan + Fields 60 day challenge, then let me know at the above mentioned email and we’ll get you sorted out with the right regimen for you. 

Challenge Accepted Day 54/ Day 12

So today was a nice easy day for us. Maddy stayed home with me whilst everyone else went to school/work. For some reason, she has had Friday’s in April off. I worked out just after Ally left for school but before Hunter went to his school. It was Cardio Power & Resistance day and when I’m limited on time, it is of course a 37 minute (or something close) workout! It was tough but good. I have just noticed I’ve got a double workout tomorrow! Yuck! I’ll have to fit that in somewhere, as I’ve got my second round at the dermatologists in the am and we are car shopping in the pm. Cars are cheap here but they are also a bit used and abused! So we’ve opted to pay a few hundred bucks more to try to get a little more quality, but we’ll see where that gets us. 
Anyway, about the belly. I haven’t given you any updates on how that’s gone since my Lipolysis injections. For about 36 hours afterwards, my stomach was sore like I had done hundreds of sit-ups. I’m guessing this was from the electrical muscle stimulation machine, but whatever, it certainly wasn’t from me doing hundreds of sit-ups! I use my core in daily workouts, but not quite like that! It felt good, used, tired, like it had worked out! I did get a little bloated last night, was wondering if that was the fat doing whatever it is supposed to do, either way, I felt great today and ready to take on the world. I have one small bruise on my belly, but otherwise, all is good. 
Maddy and I raced home after dropping hubby off as that whole trip took a tad longer than expected whilst we discussed with the Naval LTC in charge of dentistry here what our options were as far as the dental insurance goes and I must say, we are a tad disappointed. We’ve paid a fair chunk of change into this dental program but really haven’t seen much in the way of return with so many things requiring such a huge copayment. Unfortunately, our timing for Ally’s dental procedures is not going to work out and we are going to get screwed any which way we look at it. We were really hoping to get a good deal but there just doesn’t seem to be a ‘right’ answer in sight. I think we are going to cancel further treatment for her and just have to bite the bullet and pay for the treatment ourselves once returning to the States or get new dental insurance and give the fairly crappy one we have now, a miss. I just don’t know. And I’m a bit mad at myself for jumping the gun. Unfortunately though, the wording is a tad deceptive for OCONUS military (that means Outside of the Continental United States) and there really is no black and white with everything dependent upon the provider. We are edging towards cancelling everything as far as Ally is concerned but I’ll keep you posted. 
Maddy and I then dropped Luna off at the only dog grooming place I could find yesterday that wanted to charge me an absolute fortune for grooming! Now we got her groomed in January but I gave her a bath about 5 weeks ago and brushed her hair, cleaned her ears etc. yet this guy was all about her being in a tangled mess. She definitely smelt and was in need of a good cut but ₩150,000 wasn’t going to cut it for me, that’s just under US$150! She has that hypoallergenic hair that doesn’t need to be brushed daily. I told him that I had her groomed in the States for between $60-$80 and he just laughed. Eventually we agreed upon ₩100,000 but that’s a hell of a lot of money and I wasn’t very happy about it. She does look cute but ‘I Like Dog’ will hopefully give me a better price with perhaps some better treatment next time. I don’t think she got any water for the 5+ hours she was at this groomer as she came home and drank so much, she vomited. We gave her extra love/snuggles/treats nonetheless and it was much easier to do, given how good she smelt! 


Then Maddy decided she wanted to have her hair cut and get ‘bangs’ (a fringe as we call it in Australia). I wouldn’t let her cut her hair too short, in fact I said she could just get all her split ends cut off, but if she really wanted a fringe, then she could do that. We had fun going out today with both of us dressed in matching skirts and high heels, so I put a little tiny bit of makeup on her eyes and boy did it stand out! The girl walks around as though she’s wearing mascara naturally, but with that one streak of purple/blue, she looked like she had full eye makeup on! I wasn’t sure I had made the best decision after seeing it on her, but hey, we were having a special day together and I just wanted to enjoy it with her. Anyway, after her haircut, she looked so much older than her seven years that I couldn’t believe it! Even big sis said it when we greeted her off the bus. Maddy’s attitude, her demeanor, everything changed after seeing those bangs, it was like she had literally aged right in front of me! This girl is going to be our trouble maker, I’m sure of it, yet she has the biggest, sweetest, kindest heart of any of our children. She just cares. And people know that she does, so they naturally like her but she’s also incredibly beautiful, I don’t think anyone has ever particularly disliked Maddy, though her strong-willed temperament may have turned them off a tad. 


After that, it was lunch with Daddy. It’s so nice to catch up with him during the day, especially when one of the girls can do it? They just love spending time with him. We returned home having done absolutely no grocery shopping or clothes shopping but just hanging out, then we spent about a half hour playing dress ups! Me for the ball and Maddy for the sake of it! It was fun. Sometimes it’s just fun to hang out with a kid and forget all about being grown up. All she wanted to do was try on every dress I tried on, and I let her. She even wore my shoes at one point. We picked out my dress and shoes and hairstyle and I’m now excited about this gala. I do still fit into my clothes! Then it was time for piano and for me to collect little man from school. The groomer also used that opportunity to let me know Luna was ready for pickup.
We came back in time for me to fold what seemed like a never ending pile of clean laundry before greeting both girls once again and popping over to dear Tawny’s house for just one (ok maybe two) glasses of vino. It was a lovely evening to sit and chat on her amazing rooftop, but nothing like the other day/night! I greeted hubby home, gave everyone their respective dinners (yes, it was that kind of night here) we put the kiddos to bed in a big slumber party type atmosphere upstairs where they could all camp out and watch Netflix to their hearts’ content. I cleaned my face and did my nightly Redefine regimen (the skin feels so lovely and soft) and we are going to watch something ourselves on Netflix. 
I hope you have a wonderful day and/or night, wherever you are!
Please like my page on Facebook: Aussiemumsadventures 
Email me at: aussiemumsadventures@gmail.com
And if you are interested I. Taking your own Rodan + Fields 60 day challenge, then let me know. I’m posting my 60 day pics in just a few short days!!!

Challenge Accepted Day 53/Day 11

Well there’s never a dull day in South Korea and today reaffirms that for me. My plans were changed this morning due to my friend not feeling well, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from doing anything as A; we really needed some groceries and B; I just didn’t feel like staying at home. A day out with my son would be nice. Then he decided he desperately wanted to go to school today. Oh well, Mummy will have a day to herself. That’s just fine with me.

And that’s what I did. Had a day to myself. I dropped son and hubby off then planned to come home and work out before heading out for the day. On my way home, I got a call from the travel agent confirming she could get the hotel and hire car for Memorial Day weekend at Jeju Island. Our first real adventure here in South Korea is now confirmed for that weekend! So off I went to pay for that. Well boy did she keep me waiting! No one else would/could help me so I had to wait for her and it was close to an hour before I was seen, delaying all plans for the day. I was finally able to finish up the business and get home only to realize I no longer had time to workout this morning and would have to dress and get on my way. With no real plan in mind, I headed to the International Market outside of the Air Force base. Only knowing I wanted to go back to this little Thai restaurant I had tried once before, to ensure the food was as wonderful as it was the first time I went with my darling son. 


I was not disappointed. If you head to the US Air Force base main gate, in Songtan Station, about 8km south of Osan City, you will find one of the best Thai restaurants I have ever been to, outside of Bangkok! I do not say that lightly. I got ‘stuck’ in Thailand for 3 months a long time ago and the only time I ate anything other than Thai food (mainly from street vendors) I regretted it. The Thai people are some of the most incredibly gentle, lovely people, I have ever come across. Not only are they sweet and generous, but they can also claim some of the most amazing food I have ever tasted, as part of their cultural heritage! I kid you not, you will find something on a Thai menu you will love. And this restaurant is no exception. From the main gate, head into the main entrance of the marketplace, you will see a number of Thai restaurants around you and I cannot vouch for any of the others as I have not been, but this one, “Yummy Thai Restaurant” is on the second floor, above a coffee house on the left hand side as you head into the market, but not too far down. You enter some stairs that lead to a small alleyway. It continues on to some very clean public toilets and a carpark and the restaurant is on your right hand side. It is very small but inviting. It is not opulent, but it is clean and the window seats look straight out over the Main Street, making people watching easy. Juree is the owner, head chef, head waitress and possibly the only waitress but on top of all that, she is the epitome of all I remember about all the Thai people I have met. She is kind and sweet and lovely and she can cook incredible, authentic Thai food! I believe she came from Bangkok but I could be mistaken. She is definitely Thai and welcomed my Thai greetings and thank you’s. Now, I also have to tell you that my favourite Thai food is Tom Kha Gai and that is what I have had both times but I have heard other patrons exclaiming wondrous words about their food. This little restaurant is truly a hidden gem. But hopefully not for much longer as she deserves to have her cooking shared with many.


After enjoying my solo lunch, I made my way through the ‘Ville’ to look for a hairdressing salon. I haven’t had my hair cut since January and with our ball being just over a week away, it desperately needed a good cut! I wound my way through the streets of the ville and ended back in front of the main gates at a salon called Yi Beaty Salon. Where Ms Yi gave me a very simple haircut and took a good four inches off. I told her to just get rid of the dead hair, and so she did. My hair feels so light, and so much better. The curl has come back to it too. I didn’t have time for her to do anything else, but it was nice to be able to get a haircut when I needed it. From there, I went to the ‘fish’ place – see my previous blog a few weeks ago – and got my eyebrows waxed. Obviously threading (where one who specializes in this skill, uses cotton thread to interweave through the eyebrow hairs to pull them out in rapid succession) is not a popular thing here and that is definitely my preference when it comes to taking care of my eyebrows, but waxing will do. I’m not so sure about this woman though. She didn’t speak the entire time she did my brows (she was European too) then I thought, maybe she doesn’t speak English, but at the end I asked her about reading and she completely understood and told me that no one does it. I guess I just didn’t get warm and fuzzies from her. 
I had to get the groceries in a reasonable hurry and I also went and bought a clear shower curtain from the other end of the base, as we are doing a bake sale next week and the area my hubby works in has these beautiful table cloths that have been handmade (I think) and we want to use one to advertise ourselves but they need to be protected and how better to protect them without spending a fortune than to use a clear plastic shower curtain. I guess we’ll test it out and see how it goes. 
Then it was a mad panic to get home with every possible red light, filling of potholes, crazy Koreans, getting in my way! What would normally take 20-30 minutes, took a good 50 minutes and I didn’t want my daughter getting home without me there. I was literally less than 5km away and moving at 0! Everything in me was trying not to panic/worry because that’s what I do, I took deep breaths, tried to stay calm and think if I was 5 minutes late, it would be ok. But in my heart of hearts, I knew I wouldn’t be ok if I was 5 minutes late. It’s just me. But I didn’t completely stress out either. When I finally came close to the house and saw the bus coming from the other direction, I was finally able to relax. Yay, somehow, I made it, even after the arsehole truck cut me off at a red light! 


We picked up Hunter, who had another great day at school but by the time he got the three steps from school to car, was completely exhausted and went into crazy preschool tired mode, where everything was an incredible drama, including the fact that I had brought Luna in the car with us and three of the boys at school were looking at her through the window. It only went down from there. Literally, three steps and the dynamics changed. But that’s how kids roll! Luckily he’s number three and I recognized all the signs. He’s still determined to go to school again tomorrow! In fact, this kid was so tired that at 7pm (we had almost finished dinner) he put his fork down and said, “can I please go to sleep!” Oh the pain of being three! 
When I was finally done with my day, including driving around trying to locate a dog groomer after doing an Internet search and finding most English speaking groomers have either stopped or are on maternity leave! Seriously, English speaking dog groomers could make a killing here! Anyway, randomly driving when I found one! Yay! I was stuck at a never-ending red light, so was even able to type the number in on my phone and make an appointment tomorrow! She so desperately needs it and I just cannot do it, don’t get me wrong, I’ve tried. I failed. Three hours of my time and I ended up just making her look like she was clean. Not cute and she’s the cutest dog, just clean! Grooming failure! I was sweaty, the house was covered in hypoallergenic dog hair, but dog hair nonetheless, the bathroom was a mess, the clippers were blunt, the dog was unhappy, I was unhappy. Three hours of both our lives gone with very little result! No, I’m good at lots of stuff but dog grooming is not one of them! So yay for appointment tomorrow. Unfortunately, the guy couldn’t give me a price, so let’s just hope it’s reasonable! Otherwise, I guess we’ll be driving around once again tomorrow looking for the original dog groomer I had been told about that obviously requires a treasure map with secret password to even locate them! 
Home. Children home from music lessons. Husband actually home reasonably early. Time to exercise. Didn’t want to! At all. It is really difficult to motivate yourself when your family is home and you want to hang out with them. It is so easy to come up with excuses but at the end of the day, the only person I’m doing this for, is me, so the excuses I give are to myself. That just doesn’t work if you look at the big picture. I’m letting myself down, no one else. I think that’s what a lot of people forget when they come up with excuses. They are only lying to themselves. My birthday is in nine days! Holy wow! There is no time for excuses, especially given how genetics have suddenly given up on me and age has taken over! The gala is in 8 days! My Rodan + Fields challenge comes to an end in 7 days! This is the big deal for me. I’ve worked hard for the majority of this challenge and I cannot give up now. So I didn’t. Thank god, it was cardio recovery, although some of those stretches are literally insane! Shaun T, I’m not sure what the hell you want from my thighs and buttocks, but they couldn’t play for the entire time today! Perhaps next time? 😜 I did my best! And there were only a couple of moves that I couldn’t continue to do for the crazy amount of time they were asking of me!
I made Alfredo pasta and Alfredo pizza for dinner for everyone and even Maddy had 4 (yes four) bowls of it! The pizza wasn’t that big so I had a small slice of it, as did Ally, and hubby ate the rest. But the pasta was a huge success. On top of that, I made myself a very nice, plain salad and finished off my Tom Kha Gai, that I had brought home. All in all, another great day, filled with mini adventures! 
I hope you are having a lovely day and/or night, no matter where in the world you might be. 
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Please email me at Aussiemumsadventures@gmail.com

And let me know if you are interested in taking your own Rodan + Fields 60 day challenge. I love having your feedback and really appreciate you taking the time to read my crazy blogs! 

Challenge Accepted Day 52/Day 10

Let me first start by apologizing for yesterday’s crazy blog! I wrote on three different mediums yesterday at four different times throughout the day then put it all together after a very long, wine-filled lunch! Not the best for sure. My chief proof reader (aka the husband) was asleep when I published and I didn’t proof read to ensure I hadn’t doubled up on anything, including jibberish that I’m not even sure how it got there! Anyway, none of that today. Just me writing on one IPad then copying directly to WordPress to publish and today’s blog is worth sticking around for! 

So, I did wake up with a hangover this morning. I tried to drink lots and lots of water last night before going to bed but, given we gave the water a miss during our 6 hour lunch session, I’m not sure it helped any! It was worth it though, what a fabulous time we had. Back to today. I got up and had a berocca (the Australian kind that actually helps with hangovers and doesn’t contain caffeine), then woke Maddy up nice and early. We actually had a nice breakfast and talked about the various happenings at school and it was great. I walked her to the bus stop, sent her on her way and dear son and I came back and woke Ally up. I reminded Hunter he was going to school today and he immediately ran upstairs to get dressed. I tried to do a quick tidy up and was very surprised when he came back downstairs to finish his breakfast dressed like so:


He cracks me up, this one. Ally and I had a great talk as well about being a girl, it didn’t actually start off so great though when she started talking about going on a diet! WTH! I don’t think so. That led us into this conversation about boys and how they are categorizing them at school! No! If you are a Mum to a boy, it is your job to stop this sort of shit from going on. No boy should be categorizing girls! More of this conversation is going to come in a separate blog, dedicated to this subject as this isn’t where this blog needs to go. 
We dropped him at school and I dropped hubby at work, I came home and spent a lot of time researching various things so by the time I was done, it was time to shower and get dressed for the outing today with my German friend, and what an outing it was! She had been telling me about this dermatologist she had been seeing and that she was going to see him today and did I want to tag along, I thought it would be a good idea to go and see another dermatologist about this lump on my forehead so I said yes. After driving around forever, we finally found a park down this little tiny alley. Luckily South Korea is the safest country and one can almost park anywhere and be just fine, the only concern is more the high parking tickets. Anyway, we made our way over there and My friend told them that I was just looking, just seeing what they had to offer. We went upstairs where the Doctor and his wife actually practice and it was all very bizarre with the wife telling me that I should have this full on face treatment that was ₩900,000 and I should get these shots for extra fat on my face and I should get fillers for the lines around my mouth. And Botox to stop my jaw looking so strong. It was rally strange. The South Koreans are literally obsessed with their looks. Plastic surgery has become a huge thing here and everyone who has enough money goes and has various treatments. They are also obsessed with being very thin. I mean very thin. 
I told her no to all the treatments that she offered and said I would think about it, then my friend invited me to come in whilst she had her ‘fat’ shots. Say what? I asked her what was in the fat shots and she had no idea. So I went in and watched as this woman injected her with numerous shots on every ‘fat’ bit of her body. Very interesting. Whilst she was getting that done, I thought I would try to look up what these fat shots are as the woman couldn’t explain to me in English. And here is what it is: Lipolysis shots. The active agent that’s injected is called phosphatidylcholine (PPC). PPC is produced naturally by the body. It is a component of all the cells in the body and is highly concentrated in liver cells, fat cells and the covering of nerve cells. The PPC used for fat dissolving injections is harvested from the soy plant. PPC has been used in other fields of medicine, usually intravenously, for treating fat embolisms in the lungs, for lowering cholesterol levels and as a liver protective substance. PPC injected into fat deposits supposedly has a detergent like effect, causing fat cells to rupture and dissolve. Fat released by the cell is metabolized by the liver and excreted by the body. There is also some tightening of the skin in treatment areas. It can be used all over the body: face, neck, arms, back fat rolls, abdomen, thighs, love handles and knees, well, what the hell! Why not give it a go? So I did.
The first thing the doctor did was put me on to a BMI machine where everything was calculated. It came up that my BMI is 22% a little more than I would like. In fact, he told me it was 3.5kg of fat too much. Ok. Then his wife came out and starting pinching my belly fat. Literally grabbing hold of it and saying, “Yes, you must get rid of this!” The Koreans are very honest when it comes to things like that. Just as she was very honest about everything I needed to do with my face. I said “ok, just my belly.” So that’s what we did. For ₩150,000 I’m going to have 8 weeks of treatments, 2 times a week. That’s not all. Here’s how it works: You go and lay down, and she pops the injections all over your fat bit, whatever area you want them to do. My friend is getting them all over. The shot goes into the subcutaneous fat layer, and starts to do its job. She doesn’t give you anything for the pain, she literally slaps you then puts the shot in. It’s weird. When she has finished doing all the shots, she straps you up to one of those machines that sends electric shocks to spasm your muscles an Electronic Muscle Stimulator (EMS). Now that is weird. But apparently it helps to break the fat up. It almost feels like contractions. We were sitting in that room, a German and an Aussie, literally pissing ourselves laughing with the shocks going through our body! The weirdest thing I’ve done in a long time, but definitely comical! I even took a photo of me as I was spasming.


Now I know plenty of you are probably thinking why on earth are you doing this, or you shouldn’t be doing that. But I’m here to say that something has happened to my metabolism. 6 months ago, I was able to maintain my weight, eating more than I am right now, just as long as I exercised on a regular basis. Now, I’ve put on this extra 10lbs (all of it seemingly in my stomach) and I’m doing some fairly hardcore exercise, even the 5 weeks of T25, and nothing is getting rid of this belly. I’m at my wit’s end. And no, I’m not going to go and get liposuction or anything, but I needed to do something to get rid of it. Three babies have taken their toll on my lower abdomen. And this girl was given the opportunity today to try something new that may just take care of this problem. So, why not? 


The whole thing honestly feels like a dream. Hopefully, this works and I’ll be an advocate for this method of fat trimming! Obviously you should do everything with diet and exercise, which I’m doing, so let’s hope for the best and I’ll keep you posted. 

From there, we went to one of the local stores and bought special ‘Korean’ shoes for the kids for their school (you can’t wear shoes inside). And it was just one of those days where things just went comical. There was a display in the lingerie section for both men and women that cracked us up. The South Koreans have very interesting taste in men’s lingerie, then there’s the matching stuff! Sometimes, one has to wonder. After all the children came home, I finally did the Insanity workout and really enjoyed it. Hunter and Madison finished it with me too. My belly did however feel like it was still pulsing throughout the Insanity workout, here’s hoping it got a double kind of workout. 


I finished the workout very sweaty and in desperate need of a shower, then it was time to do my nightly Rodan + Fields Redefine regimen. I also used the AMP MD as one of the things they were really pushing on me today was derma stamping. Basically, doing the same as the AMP MD roller but in a stamping form. It just reinforced the fact that I have this tool at home and need to consistently use it. My skin feels wonderful. My belly does have some bruising on it but it’s not sore or anything. Just tingling a little still. 
Anyway, I’d love to get your feedback on tonight’s blog! The day certainly went somewhere I never saw coming. Please remember to like my Facebook page: Aussiemumsadventures and email me directly at aussiemumsadventures@gmail.com. If you would like to try a Rodan and Fields regimen yourself, please let me know and I’ll be more than happy to help guide you through it. Thanks for reading my crazy blog and I hope you have an amazing day and/or night, wherever you are!