Curves...Update

I had my second weigh in and measurements done on Saturday. How does the following sound?

Bust - +1 cm
Waist - -8.00 cm
Abdomen - -3.00 cm
Hips - -3.50 cm
Arms - -3.00 cm
Weight - -2.50 kg's
Body fat - -2.5%

I think I will call it progress. Slow, but still progress. At least I am getting somewhere. Maybe I will take a picture of myself and publish the new look me. Then again, maybe I will wait a while. I have dropped a dress size already and that is award enough for me for now.

I miss...

I miss my friend!!! I miss the way we used to talk. I miss the call saying "I'm on my way, let's do something". I miss the hours she spent giving me massages and leg waxes. I miss just lazing on the couch watching movies. I miss inventing shooters in the pub. I miss telling her my secrets. I miss sharing my children growing up with her. I miss crying with her. I miss laughing with her. I miss the rallies. I miss Tuesdays at the Owl with her. I miss my soulmate. I am coming to visit you this year. I don't know how, but I shall make a plan.

If you wish to make donations to the Help-Buddess-visit-her-friend-this-year-Fund, kindly leave a comment and I shall forward further instructions.

Houseguests ...

I don't have a clue how long or intense this is going to get. If you don't want to listen to a good old rant then please stop reading now. I have this huge thing hanging over me and simply can't cope with it anymore.

We have had my partner's father living with us for almost a year now. We have supported him through all this time. He is a heavy smoker, drinker and he is not employed. Only one rule was laid down that merely requested him not to smoke in the house. He smokes in his bedroom and thinks we don't know. The pungent smell from the room could be a clue.

Ok, my problem is this. This old man is talking about me in a very non-flattering manner. Everywhere he goes, he is telling people horrible things about me and the other people who live in the house. He is manufacturing and creating stories faster than he can tell them. He spoiled my birthday last year by getting horribly drunk and took me on in a verbally abusive ranting session. Words like "you are to stupid to argue with", "you think you are better than others" and "I live with my son, not with you" and "my son pays for everything" were said. Because my parents taught me to respect older people, I told him that I don't want to argue with him. My partner tried to get him to stop, but the old man continued staring, no glaring at me for the rest of the evening until he eventually went to bed and passed out. The next day, he acted as if nothing had happened. For a while things calmed down, because my partner told him that he will not allow the old man to speak to me like that ever again but boy is he back with a vengeance. I think he is going insane. He is by no means old. I think he is only 58 or thereabouts. I am just thinking that if I am such a bitch to live with, why is he still here? If he is not being fed, like he says, why is he still alive? Why would I be wasting his son's money by shopping all the time, if I hate shopping? Who says a session at the gym should be longer than an hour. I go to Curves. A session around the circuit takes on average 30 minutes. The gym is around the corner and I am normally away from home for about 40 minutes. He doesn't understand that and reckons I am visiting a lover when I say that I am going to the gym and therefore lying to his son. Not a very good lover come to think if I am home so quickly again. I apparently don't pay attention to my babies and he has to look after them while I sit and watch tv all day or sit in the pub with my partner. The list goes on. And on!! Some of it I won't even mention here because it is not fit for public broadcast. Including allegations of me being a good old "Ho".

Why is he still living in our house I hear you scream? Wow, that is the question that I want answered. He is so stupid that he thinks that people believe him. He is stupid enough to think that they aren't coming straight to me and telling me what he is saying. He has caused such bad blood between my partner and his brother that they are not even talking to each other any more. His own grandchildren don't want him around, because they reckon that he looks and smells like a tramp. He uses offensive and obscene language as if it is a new official language. He can't put a sentence together without it containing profanity. They are embarrassed by him if they have friends visiting. He showers twice a day, but still smells heavily of smoke and alcohol. If he picks up one of the little ones, I change their clothes because they then smell like cigarette smoke. Nasty I know, but well within my rights as a parent. It is in their best interest. I stopped smoking for their sakes damnit!!! He was told to move out on Monday, but he is still here. I have given my partner an ultimatum. He has to be out tonight or I will pack his bags and throw him out myself. I honestly don't care what becomes of him. We took him in when he had nowhere to go. We clothed him, fed him and gave him a room of his own. This while 5 teenagers shared the other small bedroom and we have the two babies in our bedroom with us. The school holidays just finished. The teenagers used to sleep in the lounge on mattresses and the couches. We buy his smokes and beer for him and put money on his phone. We even found a job for him that he absconded from in the third week of being employed there. Not even his girlfriend wants him to stay with her.

I know this is all garbled and born out of frustration but I just don't know what to do anymore. I feel I need to bare my soul and maybe I just want someone to say that it is not that bad. Or that I can't possibly be that bad. I am all out of patience. I don't want to carry this hatred around any more. I am just not that type of a person. I just want peace restored in my home. I want to be able to entertain people like we did before and not have to worry if he is going to bare secrets to them like he does with everyone who visits our house. I understand that it is difficult for my partner because the man is still his father. Maybe I want him to put me first for a change? Maybe I want him to protect me from his father and his verbal abuse? Is that wrong? I just want this to stop.

Houseguest.

Isn't it amazing what influence a houseguest can have on a family? I received this from one of my friends this morning.

THE STRANGER
Author Unknown

A few months before I was born, my dad met a stranger who was new to our town.
From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer and soon
invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around to welcome me into the world a few months later. As I grew up I never questioned his
place in our family. Mom taught me to love the Word of God, and Dad taught me to
obey it, but the stranger was our storyteller. He could weave the most fascinating tales. Adventures, mysteries and comedies were daily conversations. He could hold our whole
family spellbound for hours each evening. He was like a friend to the whole family. He
took Dad, Bill and me to our first major league baseball game. He was always
encouraging us to see the movies, and he even made arrangements to introduce
us to several movie stars. The stranger was an incessant talker. Dad didn't seem to mind,
but sometimes Mom would quietly get up while the rest of us were enthralled with one of
his stories of faraway places, go to her room, read her Bible and pray. I wonder now if
she ever prayed that the stranger would leave. You see, my dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, but this stranger never felt an obligation to honor them.
Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our house-not from us, from our friends,
or adults. Our longtime visitor, however, used occasional four-letter words that burned
my ears and made Dad squirm. To my knowledge the stranger was never confronted.
My Dad was a teetotaler who didn't permit alcohol in his home, not even for cooking,
but the stranger felt like we needed exposure and enlightened us to other ways of life.
He offered us beer and other alcoholic beverages often. He talked freely (much too freely)
about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive and generally embarrassing. I know now that my early concepts of the man/woman relationship were influenced by the stranger. As I look back, I believe it was because of the grace of God
that the stranger did not influence us more. Time after time he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom rebuked and never asked to leave. More than thirty years have passed since the stranger moved in with the young family on Morningside Drive. But if
I were to walk into my parents' den today, you would still see him sitting over in a corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures.

His name?

We always just called him TV.

I have a situation at the moment with a houseguest but I will have to tell you about it at a later stage. I just had to share the above piece with you and when you read my next post, you will probably understand more.

She's b-a-c-k!!!!!!

Hi all. As some of you might have noticed, I haven't been around here much lately. Well, I was on leave!!! Supposedly. Unsuccessfully. You see, seeing that I was going to be on holiday, my maid decided that it would be a good time for her to take holiday. Well, for the past 3 weeks, I have been working my butt off. Figuratively speaking. If only it was literally. Actually, almost literally. I have been very good with going to the gym. It was my only escape every day and boy, did I take advantage of it. In the last 5 weeks, I have lost 6 cm around my waist and 3cm around the abdomen and 4 cm around the hips. I have also lost 5 kilo's and lost 2% body fat. That is according to my measurement sheet from the gym. Yes, you actually get a print out and it stares you in the face if you haven't been good. I am impressed. So are my instructors.

Apart from the dishes, washing, house cleaning and looking after the babies, it wasn't too bad. Christmas came and went without too much fuss. I was the only one who fussed and spent a whole 16 hours cooking and preparing the best Christmas lunch ever and the family proceeded to stuff themselves and didn't even offer to help with the dishes. So much for Christmas spirit. I wonder if I will do that again this year. I don't like starting the New Year with a hangover, so we made a fire at home and had a good old South African braai. We all went to bed just after the stroke of midnight and after all the fireworks in the neighborhood had died down.

I hope and trust that all of my cyberfriends had a wonderful and blessed Christmas and that your New Year started well. May 2006 be the mother of all years!!!!!!!!