Tag: Rodan and Fields

Challenge Accepted Day 24

Well hello Wednesday and hello to feeling sooooo much better! I had a good night’s sleep and everything just feels good today! The T25 program today was Lower Focus but I ran an 81/2 minute mile prior to that on the ‘dreadmill’ and it felt great! I’m starting to recover so much better now which means my fitness level is finally on the increase. This is going to sound weird but the other thing I felt when I was running was like my bottom was becoming firmer. Do you know what I mean? You know, you can feel it shake, rattle & roll as a female, particularly when you’re running and you’ve got a little bit extra there, but today it felt like it was shaking and rolling, with no rattling! 😉 it felt good! The lower focus portion of it sucked, but Shawn T likes to take you to hell and back with lunges and squats in these workouts and I ‘hate’ lunges and squats! Yuck. Talk about making for some torturous moves. If anyone ever wanted to seriously torture me, they could just make me squat then lunge then squat and so on and so forth and I would probably give away my first born! (I’m just kidding child 😜) 

I had a shower and did my usual regimen with Redefine and AMP MD, I know I had mentioned to you that I had started using the AMP MD in the morning routine because it works out better for me than at night but today I learnt that you shouldn’t use it in the morning if you’re going to be wearing makeup (shows how often I wear makeup doesn’t it?) It stings a little. I shan’t be doing the AMP MD tomorrow morning given it is a big day and I will be wearing makeup once again. I also put the Rodan + Fields Essentials Foaming Sunless Tanner on and it is looking good. I would show you a picture but honestly, I was so white beforehand and it gives you such a natural looking tan, that you wouldn’t be able to tell I even had it on. I did however, go from zombie to healthy in one swoop! And there’s no streaking and no funky fake tan smell. All prejudice aside, this is the best fake tan I’ve ever used. Let me know if you’re interested in ordering some. It sells out quickly! 
So, I had to also get in and clean today given my slack-arsery yesterday. This place is crazy when it comes to dust bunnies! Our dog doesn’t even shed and yet we end up with dust bunnies every day! I’ve never seen anything like it, even in Bahrain (where the sand comes in off the desert plains and causes a fine dust to settle on everything) it was never this bad. I have a roomba (a robot vacuum cleaner) dear son is obsessed with Robbie (yes, the vacuum cleaner has a name). We got Robbie when Hunter was about 3 months old and here we are (he turns 4 at the end of May) and he is still obsessed. I am talking like crazy, obsessive! We arrived here and got our house and moved in but our household goods hadn’t yet arrived and rather than asking for his toys and his bed, every day he would instead ask me when Robbie and Roberta were getting here. I didn’t mention Roberta, but she’s our robotic mop. Not quite as good as Robbie as far as accomplishments go, but she’ll do. Hunter doesn’t love Roberta quite as much as Robbie, but it’s close. Going back to the dust, I run Robbie daily and hand vacuum twice a week in all the nooks and crannies and still I find so much dust. That’s one of the reasons why I ordered an air purifier, well that and the impending yellow dust and the smog and the pollution and the fact that I am mildly asthmatic and dear son may well be too. You know, all those lovely things that come with living in South Korea. I’m understanding the masks so much better now! 

 
   
Last night my air purifier arrived. Yippee. I had bought one already from the Post Exchange (PX) our almost department store on the base, but I wanted another one for upstairs. Honestly, in an ideal world I would have one in every room, but that’s not going to happen, so this was the compromise. So hubby came home last night with all sorts of goodies for me including the air purifier, 4 extra carbon filters, a diffuser as per the recommendation of one of my Aussie friends, Sarah, who owns a health food store. You see not only does South Korea have some pretty serious pollution problems, it also has some weird, funky smells. Smells that I cannot really describe. Smells located somewhere between a rotting corpse, excrement, fire and soil/manure/fertilizer. So as you can imagine, it’s pretty pungent at times, hence the need for a diffuser. I didn’t realize it when I ordered it, thinking I had just bought a plain one, but I guess I got a retro diffuser that changes colour. Everyone else in the house loves it and I’m loving the essential oils, so it’s a win/win situation. So today I cleaned, vacuumed and set everything up ensuring the house smells lovely and has some fresh air. And it is as good as it can be right now. In fact, after yesterday, today has been really lovely; hubby came home early because tomorrow he actually starts work in his proper role, our eldest stayed at school and will meet us later when we go and see her perform at the school’s concert tonight. She has a solo, so we are really excited for her. She has a great voice, it could do with a little bit of training should she want to pursue a career, but it’s good nonetheless. That’s where we are off to. I made chicken tortilla soup, it was very nice too, and now we shall be off. I’ll finish the blog upon our return and be able to let you know how it all went then. 

  
Ok so concert was a bit of a bust, not because of a lack of talent but because we couldn’t hear. The band sounded great but the choir and all of the speakers needed microphones and there weren’t any to be found, bar the one in the centre of the stage (that you can see in the photo)  

 focused only on hearing the instruments. Oh well. The people in the front row cheered so they must have sounded good, right? There wasn’t really a solo either. From then on it was just the band and normally I would have been all about the music, but middle school/high school kids aren’t all necessarily super talented and when the program is a couple of hours long and your child’s only role is for 5 minutes at the beginning, and you have a 3yo and a 7yo along with you and a big day tomorrow, well sometimes you just have to call it and we did just that. In fact hubby made his way out super early leaving Madison and I to try to finagle our way out of this and get Ally along the way who was at the complete opposite side of the theatre to us. Sometimes being a parent is rough! And Madison is a very special child (& I mean that in a 100% caring, lovable way that only a parent can talk about their own child), she’s sweet and different. I explained to her that I wanted her to go over to the other side of the auditorium to get her sister and tell her that we were going and to come over to me. She runs (& I mean runs, full pelt) and can’t find her, so she runs back – this all while the band players are changing – I say to her that she’s definitely there and to go back and find her. So she runs back, full pelt, finds her and runs back to me saying she found her. I stop her and say, “Madison, what was it I asked you to do once you found Ally?” “I don’t know!” “I asked you to tell Ally we were leaving and to come here.” She runs back once again and finally gets Ally who comes over and tells me she needs to go back to a room and get her stuff., I tell her to go and get it and that we are leaving (the next band members are now walking up on stage and finding their seats) and to meet me in the front of the auditorium. She moves it and finally I feel like we are able to leave. 
I see hubby out front with dear son and he’s looking concerned; “I forgot to pick up the roses!” He exclaims. Oh crap! The Army is all about ritual and ceremony and the roses play a part in tomorrow’s ceremony, he’s already paid for them and we’re not sure what time the flower shop opens in the morning. We ‘book’ it over there (meaning go with haste) and he runs in to find the lovely lady has been waiting for him to come in and collect them for the past hour! You wouldn’t find that in either Australia or the USA! We may be limited for shopping venues for roses here in South Korea and they may be super expensive but they take care of you once you’ve ordered them. To say I’m impressed is to say the least. I pictured myself leaving the house at O dark thirty searching for yellow roses! 
Ok, now for the other bad news. I have this little mark on my face and last night I had this not so bright idea to put some of the ‘Reverse Skin Lightening treatment (from the accelerator pack) on this mark, hoping it would go away quickly. Don’t ask me why I did it, sometimes, we just don’t think, sometimes, I just don’t think. Anyway, I put it on there underneath a silicone scar bandage (again not sure what the hell I was thinking, just hoping for a quick fix because I wanted to look really nice for tomorrow) and now I’ve got a big red mark on my face – not sure if I’ve burnt it, or exacerbated it by using the AMP MD roller this morning, or what I’ve done, it’s sore and tender and I’ve had to give the Redefine regimen a miss tonight and use the Rodan + Fields Soothe regimen instead. I promised I would be honest with you, so I’m trying to be honest, even when I make mistakes. Now I’m feeling not only like an idiot, but also pretty upset at this mark that is now lingering underneath my left eye. Just in time to make an appearance for tomorrow when I’m still feeling overweight and yucky and we have this thing, this important thing that I wanted to look beautiful for. Shallow and egotistical, I know, but I have so few opportunities to look really nice, so when I do I want to make the most of it. 
That’s it for me today. Another crazy day in my life. I’ll update you on how the red mark looks tomorrow and how everything else goes. Have a great day or night, wherever you are!

Challenge Accepted Day 22

Good Easter Monday to you! I have something to confess: I did not use my MACRO Exfoliator last night. I fell asleep watching a movie and was too tired when I got up to do it. 😦 I know, I know. Nor did I use the ACUTE Care. So I am doing both tonight and will use ACUTE Care both tonight and tomorrow night as I am supposed to use them on Day 1, Day 4 & Day 7. I missed Day 7 so will use it instead this week on Day 1, Day 2, Day 4 & Day 7, returning back to the program next week. I think it will be ok. Anyway, tonight, as soon as dinner was finished, I used the Macro and shall return back to Sunday night on Sunday night. I’m sure that a 6 day interval this week won’t make too much of a difference either, it felt great! 
Hubby had today off so he let me sleep in this morning! Yay. It was so nice as I was really tired. I forgot to have my thyroid medication over the weekend and it’s amazing how fast you feel it! He got both girls ready for school, got their lunch, did their hair, it was great. The only thing was I didn’t get to say goodbye to them, but he told them not to disturb me, thinking that’s what I wanted, but I like saying goodbye to them in the morning. I’m grateful to have slept in though, so I’ll take it as a win. 
Hubby and I worked out together afterwards. It was a cardio day today and for the first time, here we are on Day 22, I can honestly say that I nailed it!! Yes I did! The only thing I can’t do is the jumping and slapping your thighs at the same time. For some reason this really hurts my knees, but I do Tania’s modification for it and today I was quick, going faster than even she! It felt fabulous! 

  
We showered and dressed and headed off to the local market as hubby hadn’t been yet. It wasn’t quite as good today as far as fresh produce is concerned but there were more little stores open today than before because it’s slowly warming up and it wasn’t raining. We had fun, we went in to the little pet store and my heart broke at seeing all those little puppies in there! It makes you wonder what happens to them all if they don’t sell. There were so many and they were soooo cute! We looked at the fresh fish, the plants, the produce, the clothes. And just wandered. Hubby has been craving a kebab so we found a kebab shop and got one to share. It was ok but they used the tzatziki sauce (the one with cucumbers in it) and I much prefer tahini sauce or even a garlic aioli. Like I said, it was ok & the owner/servers were very nice, so no regrets. Except cheese. Cheddar cheese. That would have been a good addition!

  
  
We still had some free time before Madison came home on the bus so we drove to, and wandered around a ‘hypermarket’ (the commerce definition of a mix between a supermarket and a department store) called EMart. It’s always interesting to wander around a store in a foreign country, I find it even more fascinating when you can’t read what anything is. I almost grabbed a bag of what I thought was dried coconut pieces because it had a picture of a coconut on it, thankfully it had written in English (in minute writing mind you) that it was actually dried fish! Why would you put a picture of a coconut on a packet of dried fish? There was not a fish in sight on the packaging! Something else we found was that there was nothing in the store that would fit my husband. He’s 6ft with fairly broad shoulders. Not a small guy by any means. He found a really nice dress shirt & we asked about a bigger size but the girl just looked at him like he was crazy. It was actually quite funny. She started looking through the box like she was hoping one was going to appear out of thin air, all the while knowing no such shirt existed! Then he looked at a pair of shoes and found a pair he really liked but this sales assistant just started shaking her head like he was dreaming. She did however write the style number down in case we won the Korean Hush Puppy lottery and could find a pair in his size. Needless to say, we walked away from the menswear section empty handed.

Our day didn’t end there though. We collected dear Madison from the bus stop and it was a glorious day so I suggested we go down to the rice paddies and the two kiddos we had home could ride their bikes. Now Madison, though 7, has never really had the opportunity to learn to ride without her training wheels. In Colorado, we lived in a fairly hilly area and the only flat space was on a half size basketball court where she had to turn every 5 seconds, so it just didn’t work out, but today it did. She was amazing! Hubby spent some quality time with her teaching her to ride (he has so much more patience than I do), whilst I took Hunter and Luna along a different path. Honestly it took about 15minutes and she was going for it! She even greeted Ally when she got home on her bus by riding her bike!

  
After she had mastered it and hubby was concerned about her safety because of the 3-5ft drop beside the paths on the rice paddies, they along with Hunter headed back to the house and I used the opportunity to go for a mile run. It felt great and Luna was very happy too. It’s just so nice with the weather warming up and being able to get outside. My only concern now is the air quality; apparently today it was borderline and will continue to get worse as the yellow dust comes in over Spring? According to the website http://www.korea4expats.com the definition of yellow sand/dust is this:

“Known more commonly as yellow dust by most of the foreign community, it is basically inhalable particles that originate from the dry desert regions of China and Mongolia. There has been yellow dust coming from these regions to Korea for many generations. However, due to the deforestation that has occurred in Mongolia and China, along with the increased industrialization and resulting pollution in China, the yellow dust storms have been occurring with increasing frequency and with greater and greater negative effects. For the past few years, the dust storms often carry oxides (aluminium, calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium and silicon) and toxic waste thus increasing the risks of respiratory and skin reactions.”

OMG! What have we gotten in to? Yellow dust? Monsoons? Typhoons? Why did we agree to come here? No, I’m sure it’s not so bad. Right? I’ll keep you posted on the yellow dust situation, I just wish my dog could use a treadmill! 
Well, I’m sitting here finishing my blog knowing I have the end of a movie to finish because I fell asleep through it last night. My skin feels fresh and lovely, I am showered and about to have a cup of herbal tea and about to see the end of Spectre (I’m a James Bond fan) and hubby has to go to bed so I shall once again say adieu! Have a wonderful day or night!

Challenge Accepted Day 14

Normally, we have some excitement in the day, there is truly never a boring day in our household, but today may have come close to being that. We got up, I did some clothes washing, made biscuits and gravy for the husband and two of the kiddos (myself and Madison aren’t huge fans). She had bacon, I had coffe and a yakult (the probiotic drinking yoghurt).

We got ready and went to Costco, I did my morning regimen beforehand of course but left the T25 stretching until tonight. I do have to mention something else I’ve been doing religiously for the past 14 days and that is moisturizing. When I get out of the shower, I really massage the tops of my thighs and buttocks with moisturizer, I also pay special attention to that little flappy bit under each arm (aka ‘bat wings’). I’m fairly muscular in my upper arms, always have been, people always thought I was a swimmer, but I’m getting older and need to take care of them now, before it’s too late. Anyway, back to the moisturizing, in a roundabout way of course; I’ve spoken a lot about my hoarding but haven’t really gone into detail, one of the things I have done throughout my life is collect shampoo bottles, moisturizer, conditioner, shower caps (you name it) but anything that says the name of a cool hotel I’ve ever stayed at. I was a flight attendant for a while so I got to stay at some wonderful hotels throughout the world. I’ve left these in baskets in our guest rooms or guest bathrooms over the years but they never got used and I’ve consistently packed them and brought them with us everywhere. It was like a link to my cool traveling days or something. Anyway, we’ve moved to a house at least half the size of our previous house, so all the little crap needs to go! And rather than just throwing it away I am slowly but surely using every little bottle, cake of soap, you name it and throwing the empty ones away! And each use feels good, I am finally putting this stuff to use and helping clear my house of all the little shit that is all adding up to be too much! When planning on regularly using this, I thought I could incorporate it into this challenge; every time I have a shower, I get out and I massage those above mentioned bits with the moisturizer and I knead it pretty hard and try to get in the there and help my body circulate and dispose of any extra fatty tissue from problem areas, it can’t hurt can it? And I’m disposing of this other ‘stuff’. 

Ok, back to today, we go to Costco and spend a small fortune, as you do at any Costco upon entering. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb here and call a conspiracy theory; Costco is using some sort of high range frequency the minute you enter their store to make you buy things, anything, lots of it too! 😉 ok, maybe not, but I find it very hard to walk out of Costco without spending at least $200! Today was even worse! We bought a small island. Not the kind surrounded by water unfortunately, but a small kitchen island. We needed some extra bench space in this little kitchen and I hated using my antique table for anything, so this was our solution, but we got home and hubby put it together only to attach the top and find this:

  
Not happy! So I guess we’ll have to return to Costco on Saturday and see how the Korean Costco return process compares to everywhere else. Here’s hoping it is as exceptional as we’ve experienced before! If not, I’m not going to be happy, as it is it’s going to be a pain in the you know what! And here I was so excited to have at least a tiny little bit more space. We’ll use it until we return I guess, we certainly don’t have anywhere to keep it other than where it is, so, que sera sera! For now anyway.

Alright, hubby and I went up to do the stretch video, two daughters went out to play and son was happily playing downstairs (so we thought) until he came up asking for pavlova. I told him we would all have some after dinner, but I had left it sitting on the aforementioned island, not yet covered in anything, including protection from little fingers. We came downstairs to start food prep when we spotted the pavlova which had a little finger poke in it that had acted like a tiny tremor precluding a cataclysmic event sending solid cracks all over one half of the pav (Australian for pavlova of course). I tried to rectify the damage using a lot of cream but it didn’t quite work out the way I intended it to and the cool whip wasn’t a huge hit with the girls and I (we prefer real cream whipped up, but hubby prefers that rubbish so I gave in to his wishes given it is his birthday week. 

   
 
  
I took that last photo to try to show you what it looks like inside, this one unfortunately got a little too cooked underneath but we have this super hot, tiny gas oven so I’m trying to think of anything I can do differently on Tuesday when I make another pav to prevent it from getting too cooked on the bottom, it shouldn’t even be brown, it should be a light malt colour and it does affect the flavour. 

My one success tonight was an amazing smoothie, strawberries, mango, chia seeds (a Costco purchase from today as was the organic, frozen mango) & cranberry juice – that’s about the only good healthy thing I had today, but at least I did that! 

Tonight, I am drinking my ‘sleepy time’ tea and I’m about to go and do my Sunday night Rodan + Fields regimen which includes the macro exfoliating! Yay! Well, have a great night/day and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

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 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 11

I’ve got to say I didn’t feel like writing today. It has been one of those days and I am in one of those moods! I got up ready to start a new day and found myself finishing it on a not-so-high note. My workout (cardio) was fabulous! I enjoyed it and only needed Tania’s assistance on one thing! Yay me! I even enjoyed myself whilst doing it! 

Hubby left shortly after I finished the T25 workout and I was ready to have a quick run before heading out to a potential school for dear son, with my neighbour at 10. The phone rang just as I was getting set up to run and it was my brother-in-law giving me an update on the situation there – the water has risen to its highest peak and he is good as long as the don’t open the floodgates from another dam (that would put him plum out of luck), I’m not sure why there’s talk of opening another gate opening from a dam but I guess the water is that high that they are looking at every option, all we can do is keep our fingers crossed that there is no need to do so. But we’ll take a victory for now! He is safe, our niece is safe, his house is safe, hubby’s truck is just fine, his car is just fine and all goods contained within the house/garage are just fine too! Let’s hope it stays that way! 

Ok, so got off the phone to him and thought I’d better have a shower and get ready as it was 9:15, phone rang again, it was our realtor (Korea is weird, but when you’re an expat, your realtor pretty much takes care of everything for you – bills, parking tickets, you name it) anyway, she said the men working on our patio needed access to water and electricity so could I open the upstairs door? Fine, no probs. Then they needed something on the floor to protect it so I found old towels and said they would have to figure the rest out, looked at time again, crap, need to rush now. I race around to get ready, hubby calls, I fill him in on what his brother has said. Get the son ready and run over to the neighbour’s house because we had talked about 10. Well, I guess it was only me who thought we had plans. Because she wasn’t home. She got back just after two with her husband and they had gone for a drive and visited a naval station and had a lovely day out. Just me then! Weird. 

Tried to call the doctor to get my son in for an appointment as we think he is developing asthma because of the pollution here. I have exercise induced asthma (yes, I know that’s weird too, but it only happens if I really exert myself and because I got fairly fit in Hawaii then Colorado (where the elevation is over a mile above sea level) I’m pretty good with it, I know what my triggers are and when I need to slow down, but it’s a bit scary to think he might have it because of the dirty air here. Honestly, it’s awful! The smells, the pollution! Yuck! I ordered an air purifier today and an infuser because I need to do what I can to protect my kids and apparently it’s only going to get worse over the next few weeks when the red dust comes in??? Seriously? So, I’m also keeping an eye out for a couple of air purifiers on secondhand websites here. Back to the call to the doctor; I ask for an appointment, not urgently, but sooner, rather than later and was told that the next available ‘same day’ appointment is on March 22nd but I won’t be able to book it until March 21st, right…. All makes perfect sense to someone!

Then, it was quite a nice day, no wind, so I collected all my painting stuff and about 30 minutes later, had everything set up outside ready to go, it was as I took my seat, the wind decided to blow and blew my canvas away! Then knocked over my water cup holding my brushes then calmed down for a bit, just long enough for me to put a first layer down before blowing again, this time blowing my wet canvas onto me! Crap! I possibly swore a little. The small boy then decided it was the perfect time to go number two. 

“Mummy, can you wipe my bottom?”

Oh, your timing is perfect child! Just perfect! Then another neighbour’s dog got loose and came running to our fence where my dog went ballistic knocking over all of my paints! Some would call it comical, something the three stooges might have gone through. The painting really wasn’t going so well anyway and clouds had come over my once beautiful day, so I proceeded to move everything back inside, only to see the time was nearing bus pick up. Needless to say, my kitchen is filled with painting stuff, because upstairs is filled with all the stuff from outside where they are re-tiling, and we have too much stuff for this little house as it is and now I have to somehow make dinner but I would really like to accomplish something with my painting, but I think I’ve taken on more than I can chew and I’m frustrated and just plain worn out! 

  
On the up side. My face actually looked a little bit better for the first time this morning. I’m not going to lie, I was starting to wonder if the products were actually going to do Anything this time round, when I saw a small glimmer of difference! I know, I know, you want an up close and personal photo, you’ll get one, I promise. I just don’t know when, as I want you to understand the small changes that are taking place but before and afters only look dramatic when you see huge differences! So you may just have to wait. Patience is a virtue and all that! I tell you what, I’ll even post a picture of my painting if it ever comes out ok! 

That’s all for me on this St Patrick’s Day, I’m off to drink some green wine (just kidding, can’t do it!) some red wine and see if grapes can assist in my art endeavors. Ciao for now! 

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 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! 

Challenge Accepted Day 5

I am smoked! Today’s workout has been a killer. Not one but two! Legs and cardio! Seriously! I’m not sure which one should be done first, today I did lower focus followed by cardio but when good old Shawn T asked me to do some outrageous squats in the cardio routine, my legs started screaming in pain! So next Friday, I shall switch it around and let you know how that goes. I even managed to do a mile run afterwards, there wasn’t much of a warm-up or cool-down for the run, but I was already pretty warm so I didn’t feel too badly. 😜

As for the regimen, well my neck is feeling great but I think I’ve pushed it too soon by using the Amp MP daily so quickly, I should have heeded the Doctor’s advice (Dr Katie Rodan & Dr Kathy Fields) and started out a little slower, so tonight I’m going to give the roller a miss and go back to it tomorrow night. I’m still not seeing any radical changes but I’ll do a photo on Monday side by side with my first photo and we can have a looksy, I really want to share this journey with you, so let’s see if we can find any difference already & if not, then that’s ok too, I’m not expecting anything radical just yet.

I did realize that I should have had my eyebrows done before I took my first ‘before’ photo but I’ve had such a hard time finding somewhere that does threading (something I fell in love with in the Middle East and have managed to find in Italy, Texas, Hawaii and Colorado Springs, but not here in South Korea (apparently there was a spa at the first hotel that we stayed in upon arrival in Seoul that did it, but I was jet-lagged, concerned about my animals, absolutely freezing – the temperature ranged from -28 to -32C when we first arrived here, that’s -18.4F to -25.6F! Aka: hell freezing over! So I didn’t do a whole lot). Anyway, I gave up yesterday after searching and ended up having my brows waxed at a little salon outside of Osan AFB. It was ok, my brows looked wonderful, but then again any grooming they had would have been marvelous and my mono brow – after 2 months of no grooming, was definitely asking to see a professional! My apologies for the shock brow photo, they will look a tad better upon Monday’s photo release, I promise.

I also have to tell you about another area I dilly dally in, and that is being a Bzz Agent. What is a Bzz Agent I hear you ask? Well, it’s this fantastic job where you get to test products for free or almost free and share your opinions online and in person. So I just got my first product, Covergirl Lashblast Volume mascara in very black. My first impression when opening the packaging was a little disappointing because they use a plastic bottle cap that is to be disposed of as soon as you open it, the environmentalist in me, doesn’t like such waste when the brush has worked just fine thus far for so many previous products. I do like the thickness of the mascara though as it goes on smoothly without clumping. And the color is a nice black, black, sounds weird I know, but it’s not a blue-black, or a brown-black, it’s exactly what it says it is. The brush is possibly not quite pointy enough for my liking, I have sort of squinty eyes and found when nearing the end of my eyes where they meet my nose, I ended up with a little dollop of mascara on my nose, so I had to be more careful on the other side. I really like the texture of the mascara though and all in all would have to say that it goes on nicely, doesn’t clump and makes my lashes look a little more voluminous.

Ok, funny thing for the day and once again it is my son who just cracked me up; his favourite movie is Pixels and the character Ludlow gets the girl, Lady Lisa, in the end. Hunter has just finished watching it for the umpteenth time and came over to me very seriously and said, “She’s a lovely girl, I want to be Ludlow so I get the girl!” Three and a half years old! There’s probably going to be a lot of Hunterisms throughout this blog as he cracks me up daily! You have to watch the movie to understand why that’s hilarious! 

So my afternoon has been interesting, my new neighbor came over and asked if I wanted to go for a walk with her through the rice paddies (everyone has told me that it’s a great walk with the kids and dog) unfortunately, given my double work out earlier this morning, the last thing I could think about was doing more walking! As I was heading to the bus stop a couple of hours later though, I decided to call in there and see if she wanted to come over for a glass of wine and yay, she did. It was really nice to have some female conversation, she seems like my sort of person too, sadly, she’s leaving in May, but that’s ok, I’ll enjoy her company whilst I can and she has a lot of knowledge about local things so we’re going shopping next week to a local market where I can finally get some nice fresh fruit and vegetables, I was starting to wonder where the good, fresh produce was hiding, as it certainly isn’t at the commissary, or even Costco, or Emart. Anyway, to say I’m excited is a little bit of an understatement, we’re going to get lunch at a local Korean restaurant she knows and just enjoy getting out of the house. I don’t get to do that very often now given the one car situation, so it will be really nice! 

Alright, well it’s  Friday night here, the family have all started watching The Good Dinosaur – let me just digress a little about that movie; not what I was expecting at all! Hubby bought it when he went back to the States a couple of weeks ago thinking it was going to be this great feel good movie for us all (& there might be a spoiler alert here if you haven’t seen it) but wow! Not what I was expecting at all! I like the different take on the human, just wasn’t quite ready for it, but I wasn’t expecting so much sadness, nor the tripping out on whatever those berries were! Anyway, can’t wait to see Finding Dory, that one will definitely be worth it’s wait! 

Ok, I’m going to say sayonara. Have a great day or night depending on where you are and don’t forget to share your thoughts with me on my blog. I’ll give you details next week on my website if you’re looking to take the Rodan + Fields challenge with me, there is a 60 day money back guarantee, so spend your weekend giving it some serious thought, oh and my Aussie friends, I know a few of you loved Proactiv and these products were created by those same two doctors who created those amazing products, they just decided to move to an age group reflecting their own ages, ie, anyone over the age of 20! 😉 nonetheless, they are launching the Rodan and Fields line in Australia, so if you’re interested, it will soon be there.

 Happy travels