Tag: military spouse

Challenge Accepted Day 13

It has been a long day and I’m not going to lie, I haven’t been feeling very well; self inflicted unfortunately. Far too much wine last night, but an amazing conversation with one of my dearest friends until 3:30am! 

Hubby had a work thing followed by a barbecue and we all had to attend – well we didn’t have to but it’s complicated. Nonetheless, I woke up to the doorbell at 8am (kids aren’t allowed to answer it unless I’m there) & was feeling like death. Couldn’t really move, yet I knew all of my kids were up! Summed up some sort of super hangover power and managed to fall out of bed. I even made them all milos (pronounced /ˈmaɪloʊ/ – an Australian malted milk drink created by Thomas Mayne in Sydney in 1934) they did have to get their own cereal and I quickly lost my superpower and laid down on the couch where I could not move from for the next few hours. 

Hubby called to say he was on his way home and I was nowhere near being ready! Crap. I got into the shower as quickly as I could, which given the circumstances, was rather more at the pace of a tortoise not trying to win any race. I was slow-moving in both physical action and mental agility. I showered as quickly as I could and did my morning Rodan + Fields regimen of course (a little later than normal though) I asked hubby what the weather was doing and he told me it was quite a nice day – 15C and sunny. I dressed in 3/4 pants and a light shirt and very light cardigan. It wasn’t enough as I later found out when I stood shivering at the bbq! 

Hubby hasn’t yet gone into his job so he’s sort of living in limbo at work and feels a little like a third wheel. This is where it got a bit weird today, we wanted to talk and establish relationships with soldiers and their families but the person that hubby is replacing is still there and we felt like it should have been a little more about him than us and there’s 5 of us, it’s not like we don’t immediately have presence when we go anywhere – 3 kids who have two volumes; loud and asleep! So we went then sort of left quietly because they were doing speeches and presentations and it was time. We felt bad about leaving and bad about staying. But I will tell you one funny story, we got out of the car upon arring and started walking to where everyone was standing when I looked down and realised that I had the hairiest legs! That doesn’t help when you’re going to meet lots of new people! To say I was mortified was putting it lightly! From then on I just wanted to hide my legs and the goosebumps were not helping at all! 

We grabbed some items from the store (which is when our boy fell sound asleep – Who knew driving through the supermarket could be so exhausting) and came home where kids and I made chocolate brownies, salsa and a pavlova. Yum! Had to practice for hubby’s birthday on Tuesday, pavlova is his favourite. This is an Australian dessert (though there is some controversy from New Zealanders saying it originated there) that tastes like marshmallows stuffed inside of meringue shell. It’s heavenly. Here is the product from the oven, I’ll decorate it tomorrow.

  
Well, that’s all from me for today. It’s time to have a turmeric latte, do my evening regimen and fall into bed. By the way, today was the rest day for T25, thank goodness, & no, there wasn’t any running happening today! Sweet dreams! 

Challenge Accepted Day 9

Well, what a day! It all started with a message from my brother-in-law this morning upon waking; “call me asap!” Ok, what is going on? This cannot be good. So hubby calls him, asap! The news isn’t good. Parts of Texas are expecting massive flooding by Wednesday, they’re expecting to have to evacuate. He is raising everything in the house to ensure it stays as dry as possible, and he won’t leave until the last possible minute in case there’s looters, but it’s not looking good. He has hubby’s truck, so will drive that out of there but will leave behind his own car (shit)! Hubby offered to pay for him to drive his car somewhere to high ground just in case, but I think he said no (I’m not really sure to be honest, I’m hoping he has got a plan for it)! The other thing is he’s got some boxes of ours filled with some crap plus three or four special bottles of wine I’ve been collecting over the years, plus he has two paintings of ours, that were only just delivered to him last week after months of bullshit going back and forth between us and the stupid gallery! More about that in a minute. So the plan is to put those on besser blocks as high as he can, if he does have to evacuate. The worst part about it is that he’s got his own stuff to look after as well as ensuring he and his daughter fair safely through the next couple of days and we are nowhere near him to be able to help! Shit! 

Alright, back to the paintings: Hubby and I picked up a beautiful oil painting at an art auction in Hawaii, we got it for so cheap and it’s stunning! Since then we’ve had it valued and it’s worth a lot more than we paid for it, and we feel like we appreciate paintings a little more. In the meantime, I started painting with acrylics, not oils unfortunately, and I’m not great, but I really enjoy it when I have free time. Whilst we were on our cruise, we purchased two more paintings and we feel like we got a great deal, unfortunately though, the art director, Boris, blatantly lied to us when he told us they would deliver it to an APO address (we were mid move, so didn’t actually have our new address at the time). The minute we got an address here, we called the bastards at Park West Gallery who did nothing but give us the runaround for the last 6 weeks! Finally, I said to hubby to ask his brother if we could just send them to him and the paintings arrived there last Wednesday! Timing couldn’t be worse as it now seems, just one more thing for him to worry about that doesn’t belong to him. To say we are frustrated is an understatement, to say we are concerned about his and our nieces safety, is to put it mildly, all in all, not good. To the people of Texas and Louisiana who are already enduring or are about to endure flooding and more devastation, my heart goes out to you! We lived in Texas during Katrina, in San Antonio, so well away from it, but we saw the devastation close enough and had family in Southeastrn Texas who were effected by hurricane’s Rita and Humberto. One of whom was my brother in law! It’s like enough is enough! Let these people be would you! 

Alright, I know I’ve said this is more than a blog about an exercise and skincare product challenge, it’s about all the craziness that goes on in our lives at any given time! But getting back to the exercise side of it. Total Body Circuit was a killer again today! When will it get easier my body keeps asking!  But I did manage to the run a mile with a 5 minute warmup and 6 minute cooldown afterwards, so I felt like I pushed myself beyond this morning!  Here is a photo I took just having completed today’s work out but before doing the cooldown part of it then jumping on the treadmill:

  
It’s the only selfie that’s happening today! I took another one after I had showered and thought I was ok, but my face was still so red in it from the work out, then I had to go out so threw on just a little bit of loose powder but didn’t want a photo like that and here I am, have to go and pick hubby up shortly, dinner is on (it’s spaghetti night, we alternate from taco Tuesday to spaghetti Tuesday and tonight’s the latter) I was planning on having a nice healthy chicken salad once again for lunch today but my little man asked for a cheeseburger when we were out and both girls were having school lunch – something that happens once a fortnight (every two weeks) so I said yes and he didn’t eat half of it because they piled it with mustard and I was hungry so I ate it. Big mistake for us Mummy’s! We seem to do that a lot. Then we wonder where the extra calories came from, so even though I wasn’t satisfied with my half of a kid’s cheeseburger, I knew that the calorie count would be high and thought I probably shouldn’t eat anything else but some fruit until dinner. Needless to say, we shall be having an early dinner tonight because I’m hungry! 

As far as my skin and skincare regimen is concerned, I wanted to let you know that I did start one other thing last night and it was very last minute  (literally as I was lying in bed, I spotted my brand new box that I had found during my big cleanup yesterday) Redefine Acute Care. 

  
Now I’ve used these before but never properly (if I’m totally honest, I cut them in half and tried to skimp and save but never got the results that I did even just this morning – obviously because I wasn’t following directions) so if I’m adamant about removing the line that runs vertically between my brows then I should probably throw everything at it I’ve got, right? Anyway, these patches are Rodan + Fields’ solution to injectable fillers. With people reporting similar results to using injectables without having to worry about any of the other side effects. They erase lines whilst you sleep and the results last for about the same time as Botox. So let’s give it a try and you can experience this with me too. I am really excited about sharing this experience with you.

On the up side weather wise here, it was actually quite a lovely day in South Korea, with the temperature gauge hitting 10C! That’s huge! I actually took off my big coat and walked around for a little while with just a long sleeved shirt on! The sun was shining, the birds were singing, it was like Mother Nature was saying, well, I’m shitting on other people, but you should be happy because I’ve finally brought my winter wrath to an end here! 

I guess today has ended on a note of impending unsuredness. The only thing that matters at the end of the day are human lives and we especially favour my husband’s brother and our niece and our other family members in the area. May everyone in the region get out safely or, even better, let’s just hope those flood waters dissipate somehow! My challenge, our paintings, every other material possession, all mean nothing when compared to loss of human life but I am hopeful all can be saved including (selfish me) stuff! 

Keep them in your thoughts….

Challenge Accepted Day 6

Super short and sweet today. My skin felt amazing this morning when I did my morning regimen, so my break from the Amp MD roller did me the world of good, it also felt quite lovely and velvety, so I’m definitely happy with how it’s feeling. I’m also looking forward to doing the macro exfoliation tomorrow night, more on that to come.

It warmed up here to a balmy 3C so it was actually warm enough to go for a quick run with my darling eldest daughter (who did nothing but complain the entire time) & my crazy, lovable puppy dog, you know the ‘golden doodle’, who thinks that anything short of a three minute mile is slow, therefore pretty much ripped my arm out of its socket throughout the run! Anyway it was a short but sweet run, maybe 3/4 mile, I’ll have to borrow hubby’s Fitbit equivalent and see what it says as far as distance goes. It was a day off from T25 (YES) so my body has been thanking me all day! 😜

I went out with the family and did some grocery shopping and finally got some potting mix so I could repot some plants we bought when first got here. Cannot wait until it starts really warming up and we can spend some more time outside. I also started a little project I saw on Pinterest, spray painting any tin cans we use so we can line them all up on the railing interspersed with spaghetti sauce mason jars with tea candles in them so we can give a little bit of colour and life to our little patio (photos to come when that project is finished). I think it will look really cute and if it means I can upcycle and stop the copious amounts of waste we seem to be putting out along with everyone else here in South Korea, then that will be something. I’m not going to be taking any of it with me when we leave but I can always just try to give them to someone else can’t I. It’ll be really nice to see it all come together. 

  
Alright, it’s pizza night tonight, I told you guys I wasn’t dieting right? I’m too old for that, but I do need to get into shape again so that’s the whole point of this. Normally our pizza night is Sunday night, but we didn’t have a roast in the freezer so we did a swap (I bought a roast today) so I can get the roast on early tomorrow in the crock pot so it literally melts in your mouth. We’ll do a salad with pizza I think too. Otherwise, it’s all about trying to put this never-ending mess of a house together. I feel like we take two steps forward and three steps back on some days! I just want everything to have a place and I have done such an amazing job of throwing so many things out and still the crap seems to be everywhere! Yes, my hoarding problem has had to come to an end and I’m pretty sure I’ve already gotten rid of at least 400 pounds of extra stuff and I have at least another 200 pounds ready to sell at a garage sale in the near future! So everything is a big thumbs up from my hubby at the moment. Again, we’ll have a deep & meaningful (D&M) about my real hoarding problem that I’ve had to deal with over these past few weeks on another day. 

We are going to go for a family bike ride tomorrow through the rice paddies, so that will be really fun! I’ll make sure to take some photos so you can get an idea of what I’m seeing. Have a great night/morning, whatever the time may be in your neck of the woods!