Health Kick.

I've decided to try and get started on a bit of a health kick.
Last year I was diagnosed with Coeliac Disease - basically an allergy to gluten, which when left untreated can lead to malnutrition, weight loss, nausea, abdominal pain, altered bowel habits and a lot of other annoying symptoms. At the time of diagnosis, I weighed 48 (sometimes 49 or 47 ) kg, and I had been this weight for the best part of 6 years, 6 years which I'd experienced a variety of vague gastrointestinal symptoms with no specific or (at least in my mind) identifiable trigger. The treatment for this disease is a 'gluten-free diet' - to which my first reaction was devastation!!

Luckily, I've got a wonderful friend: Lavender's Green who has a very serious gluten intolerance, so she and I have a wonderful time exchanging GF ideas and recommendations. In fact a large amount of our conversations centres around food. But as a result of going gluten free and treating my coeliac disease, I've managed to put weight back on which don't get me wrong is a wonderful thing but I'd like to put that weight on in a healthy manner so my aim is to increase my fitness, my strength and my tone.

My aim:
6/7 nights of stretches, shoulder exercises and abdominals.
4+ sessions of cardio - cycling, running, walking or fitness videos.
Increasing fruit and vegetable intake - at least a serve of each a day.

Christmas Blog.

5th December, 2010.

Today I went with my family (minus my sister) and my boy to meet my new baby cousin F and see the rest of my family.

These flowers greeted us when we arrived at my parents.



We piled into the backseat of my parents 4WD where I proceeded to become car-sick from reading the GPS coordinations. This part of my family lived a good 40min drive out of the city - it's a gorgeous little country town where the local pub is frequented by bikers and the farm yards are filled with random bath-tubs. As my mum said: The place where bathtubs go to die.



My gorgeous little cousin C - he is only 2yo but if he's anything like his father and uncles, he'll end up 6ft plus. His parents are expecting a little sibling in 2 weeks time.



The newest addition to our family - baby F.



After an evening snooze following a fantastic lunch and another long drive home, the boy and I settled down to reacquaint ourselves with the TV show of our adolescence - The OC.

Christmas Blog.

4th December, 2010.

Met up with one of my friends for breakfast this morning. It started off as a bit of a rush since I forgot to set my alarm but I managed to arrive only 20min late. I hate being late so this was really embarrassing! I did some christmas and birthday shopping for various people and then headed home to spend another afternoon lying in bed watching tv shows.

I love the store T2 - they always have the most delightful selection of teapots and teacups! Last christmas they had these beautiful turkish-styled glass teacups which I purchased for my friend and this year they have a gorgeous range of turkish-styled china teacups.



I also did some shopping of my own.



And finally - this is the 4th day of summer. We are yet to see the sun...



A minute later it started pouring with rain. This is a shot from my bedroom window to the abandoned property next door. One sunny afternoon when it has been mowed, my housemates and I hope to take a picnic blanket and work on our vitamin D levels.

Christmas Blog.

I've missed the first 3 days but I intend to update my blog daily until christmas with a daily photo shoot of what I'm getting up to these holidays.

1st December, 2010.
I went to Karaoke with my boy and our friends. These are my two closest friends in Med singing to one another.



2nd December, 2010.
Disappointingly, I didn't take any photos of this day despite it being the first time that my boy sat down with my parents, my brother and his fiancee, and my sister and her boyfriend. My mum cooked a fantastic roast lamb with roast vegetables and an apple crumble and bread-n-butter pudding for desert. It was superb.

3rd December, 2010.
I again didn't take any spontaneous photos today but I did discover that I passed my third year exams and am thus set to become a 4th year (and more importantly a final year) medical student. Only twelve more months. Here is a shot of me still feeling excited (despite appearing somewhat forced).

My sister, on seeing a movie..

Jess: So we'll go see that movie... I- I ... in-
Me: Inception?
Jess: Yeah that's the one. We'll go see that one Tuesday next week.
Me: You mean the tuesday next week, because there's only one tuesday.
Jess: Hi - I'm Tuesday and I'm a day of the week.

Lets stop fighting and make out - an interpretation of Alexander.

My housemate's interpretation of the movie Alexander:

Me: What are you watching?
Housemate (HM): Alexander... I'm not quite sure what's going on?
Me: Where's colin farrell
HM: I'm not sure who's side he's on... I think the persians are wearing multiple colours...
Me: And the persians are not Alexander? Is he Greek?
HM: No... Alexander was macedonian... that's north of Greece.
Me: Don't judge me... I learnt all I know about history through ancient history and like most of school - I've forgotten it all.
HM: I learnt everything I know from those fictional history books.
Me: Oh! Those ones where they were pedophiles...
HM: I don't think caesar was a pedophile... but some of the other Romans were...
Me: Was alexander one?
HM: No - I think he was a homosexual...
Me: Ooh! Have their been any sexy moments between Colin Farrell and sexy male co-stars...
I proceed to mimic a sexy kiss for some reason.
HM: No! But there was a moment before he went to war-
Me (Interrupting): and they sexy man kissed!
HM: No... they were like:


"If you die, I will avenge you"


And then they hugged.

HM: They wear very short shorts... maybe that's why they were homosexuals.
Me: Possibly...
HM: Actually - they're more like skirts. Perhaps they were like the Scottish and wore no underwear and so they were all a little turned onafter the war.
HM: Perhaps they were like 'Lets stop fighting and make out.'

The mechanic lied...

So I was reading back over my blog a little and stumbled across this entry:


So with regards to my car, turned out I had a hole in my exhaust pipe. I found this out at one of my services where I had this conversation with the mechanic.

Mechanic: So it turns out that you have a hole in your exhaust pipe.
Me: Oh gosh, do I really? Is that dangerous...
Mechanic: Oh no... not really...
Me: So I'm not likely to die from it.
Mechanic: ... well no, probably not...
Me: Then in that case, how long can I leave it.
Mechanic: I'd say you have till about 110,000km
Considering the car still has 10,000 till then.
Me: And you say it will cost how much.
Mechanic: X-dollars.
Me: See you in 10,000km.

For the next 7,000km my car became increasingly louder as the hole got larger, until I was driving through an intersection one day and...



this dropped out of the bottom of my car.
I literally drove through it, heard a kind of crumple-crash, looked in my rear-view mirror to see that lying in the middle of the road. At which stage I pulled over and called my sister who was 300m away.

Me (No idea what it is): I think my engine just dropped out of the bottom of my car...