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My car went in for a service yesterday and they returned it to me vacuumed and pristine! I’m not worried about the oil change, brake fluid or other such crap. I can never get the inside of my car that clean! My vacuum must not suck as well as theirs. I love it. They even put in some of that new car smell. Heh.

In other news, I played tennis last night at about 6.00pm and nearly died! Oh my god it was hot! 28*C. Tennis is not a smart idea in the searing heat. But I should have lost weight, it was like a sauna!

Off to weigh-in now!

I love Summer. You can’t beat it, it’s the best season!
We started our weekend off on Friday night by driving to the movie theatre to see a movie. The only movies on were scary ones, like Saw 4. I’m so not a fan of those movies. Who ever came up with the idea for them is brilliant, but they’re a bit gruesome for me!
So since there was nothing on we headed up the road to That’s Asian, a food court type place with lots of different types of Asian restaurants. I had my usual Thai King Prawns (about six) in Cracked Pepper Sauce with vegies and rice. Really good on weight watchers points as long as you don’t eat all the rice! Rob stole all the sweet and sour chicken from the serve-your-own-Chinese buffet.
We took our food to go and picked up I now pronounce you Chuck & Larry from the video store to watch at home. Very relaxing Friday.

Saturday morning we headed to South Auckland for Rob’s cricket game. It’s two-day cricket, so we don’t know who’s won until next weekend. I hate two-day cricket.
But my friend Natalie and I got a real good tan out in the sun for the day. After cricket Natalie and I headed to her house for a swim and the boys went to the cricket club for some social drinking. We were starving after swimming heaps of laps in the pool so we text the boys to pick us up KFC for dinner. I KNOW! KFC on weight watchers?! Nat and I worked out the points and it’s four points for a piece of chicken with skin, so I took my skin off and guesstimated it would be three points because surely the skin is the fattiest bit! But that was a one-off, I’m not eating KFC every weekend! I’m not even a fan of it, we were just starving.
By the time the boys finally arrived at 10pm with our dinner, I wasn’t even hungry, but still had some chicken.

On Sunday Nat and Dylan threw a BBQ/pool party so we headed over to see them again at 1pm. After swimming and playing pool volley ball all day I came out like a beetroot. I may get the guts to post a photo. It was a great day though. A few bubbly wines, swimming, BBQ, hot sun and good friends. After the sun went down, Buzz came out. Oh so much fun! I’m addicted to the game now.

We were very fortunate to have a long weekend this weekend, Auckland Anniversary day, so yesterday which was also my mum’s birthday we had another gorgeous, relaxing day. Mum suggested we went for a swim at the beach and try build the tan on our legs. Excellent idea. I sunblocked my shoulders, face and back really well so as not to become a boiled beetroot. Of course tanning your legs takes ages!! The skin doesn’t absorb the colour as easily. But we took our books and had a swim then lay on the sand reading for a bit. It was lovely.
Rob and I also rented a Buzz game (fueling the addiction) and when the family came over for a BBQ for mum’s birthday we had a round. Good family fun.

So today is Tuesday and I’m back at work. I also had my last Summer School Uni lecture this morning. But it’s wonderful that we have a short week!
Next Tuesday is Waitangi Day, another day off and short week! It better stay sunny!

Me: “Babe…”
I nudge his leg with the heel of my foot.

Him: “Yeah?”

Me: “Oh. You were snoring and I was trying to make you stop.”

Him: “No. I’m awake.”

Me: “No, you were snoring.”

Him: “Then I was dreaming that I was lying here in bed awake.”

EDIT: They’re saying it was accidental and he took more sleeping pills than he should have. That makes it worse, he didn’t mean or want to die. A tragic accident.

I couldn’t believe it when I heard Heath Ledger was dead, too crazy. He’s so sexy, only 28 and at the height of his career! I feel bad for his daughter, Matilda, surely he wasn’t suicidal - it’s too weird!

They’re saying it was a drug overdose but nothing is confirmed.

I love all his movies. Now I feel I should go out and rent one in his honour. We’ve lost a sex God.

Finally some good news regarding my car! I walked down on Friday morning (no other way to get there and good exercise!) to collect and pay for my car. All up it cost $573.53, which was not too bad I was expecting a lot more!
I spoke to the guy who owned the place about being a student and it’s just so expensive these days and I can’t afford to keep fixing my car and does he think I should downsize to a smaller engine car? He could relate to me because his daughter is a student at the same University as me, so from a father’s point-of-view I think he felt bad for me. He was so lovely to offer me a cheap price to fix my drivers side window of $135 + GST, which normally could cost over $200. So I said I’d be back as soon as I got paid!
I also mentioned that my cambelt would need replacing soon and could he recommend anyone? Yes! He gave me the name of a guy who will do it for $300 + GST. So I will make sure I get that done before going back to Uni. So I’m pretty happy with the end result and I don’t think I will sell my car, I’ve made the decision that I will bus to Uni 2-3 times a week. That’ll cut down my petrol costs.

In other news, today we have an Open Home for our house again. Damnit! I hate these. You have to clean the house within an inch of it’s life for a whole 40 minutes of people walking through! Such a pain in the ass.
I wouldn’t bother, but it’s my mum’s house and she’d lose the plot if I left a dirty coffee cup out for ‘potential buyers’ to see.

1. Lose weight - very top of the list. It’s going to happen by December 1st, 2008.

2. Pass all my University papers. Therefore having only one more paper to complete to get my degree.

3. Read 10 books. I have so many lined up!

4. Improve my photography skills and use my new tripod numerous times.

5. Save money for my trip to Europe at the end of 2009.

6. Learn how to make paella.

7. Change my whole wardrobe for all new clothes, once the weight loss has kicked in. Well I guess I can change items along the way. Can’t wait to throw out a whole lot!

8. Drink two litres of water a day at least four times a week. I did it yesterday!

9. Brunch with friends from school every month. We can be slack and not catch up for months! But we have sorted that we now catch up for brunch the first Saturday of every month. Looking forward to it!

10. Keep attending all Weight Watchers meetings.

11. Do five good things/deeds for the community, family or friends.

12. Stop spending money on random stuff I don’t need. I waste so much money!

13. Increase my hits to my site. Not sure how to achieve this? Any tips? Maybe I have to write about my sex life? haha. Whenever anything happens (sexual or not), Rob always asks me; “are you going to blog about that?”.

I’m sick of my car. I want a brand new one that is so new that it’s never been used and all the parts are brand-spanking new!
You may remember my last car issues? Now it’s worse!
This morning the damn thing starts fine and I start heading down the road. It then starts doing some weird shuddering stuff and stops. Luckily I had felt the shuddering and pulled to the side of the road.I call Rob who picks me up in his work truck to take me to my finance test. I was planning to catch the bus (I hate buses!!) back, but luckily a friend offered to drop me.

So after my test, which sucked, I am standing on the side of the road waiting for AA man to come and check it out. He turns up and tells me he can’t do anything. He offers to call a tow truck for me, oh no, that means serious.

So now, forty minutes later, I’m sitting waiting for the tow truck, trying not to burst into tears. The guy arrives and takes it to my auto electrician. I do not want to see the bill!

I text my sister, who is Whangamata on holiday, to see if I could borrow her car this week while she’s away. She said it was no problem which is awesome because I need to get out to her house to feed her fish and water her plants everyday.

As I said to Rob, everything in my life is never all aligned at once. I’m finally on track with my weight loss and keeping track of it, I’m enjoying a well deserved break from work and Uni and of course something has to go bust. I told Rob that tomorrow I’ll eat a big, fatty pie and then my car will be miraculously fixed. Haha.. just kidding!

At least The Hills is on tonight, the thought of that is keeping me sane.

As if weight loss wasn’t hard enough!! You try so hard and yet someone always tries to kill your buzz and put a damper on your mood. So anyone who has visited my blog in the last few weeks will know I’m on weight watchers (and happened to have had a successful week last week! yay!) and have the goal of losing weight. Which is the norm for weight watchers members.
I have been on track now for four weeks, with a few hiccups, but generally doing well.
You may have also noted my new addiction to diet coke. I have been drinking bottles and cans of it daily. Now according to weight watchers you can drink as much diet soft drink as you want, it’s point free! Which thrilled and fed my addiction.

Then today, I go shopping to the supermarket with my sister, we are standing in the aisle staring at all the weight watchers products trying to pick a sweetener for my coffee. An old(er) lady walks up as I’m holding one of the many sweetener options and says, “you shouldn’t use that it contains phenylalanine, you’re better off using real sugar”.
“What?”
Yes, I have heard of this phenylalanine stuff and I’ve heard it can give you cancer, just like everything else in the world that doesn’t prevent cancer.
My sister pipes up, “yeah it’s in diet coke and other diet products too”.
Oh thanks Mads! Who’s team are you on?
The women then goes on with her stories about how there’s been a big issue with this phenylalanine stuff on the news lately and I just need to learn to drink coffee with no sugar or sweetener. Hmm.. I have no idea how successful that will be!

So now I’m a tad confused. I vaguely remember my weight watchers leader having a discussion about this and saying it was all OK.

So I thought I’d wikipedia it to see what it says. It was all a load of gobbledy goop except this bit:

Phenylalanine uses the same active transport channel as tryptophan to cross the blood-brain barrier, and, in large quantities, interferes with the production of serotonin.

In the central nervous system, serotonin is believed to play an important role as a neurotransmitter, in the regulation of anger, aggression, body temperature, mood, sleep, vomiting, sexuality, and appetite.

Nowhere does it mention cancer? Of course I know I shouldn’t completely rely on wikipedia but this is all I could really find.
If someone knows more, please enlighten me. I have decided to cut back on my diet coke though as I was drinking excessive amounts.
Today I managed to drink 1.5ltrs of water! Much healthier. I did mow the lawn in the sweltering heat, so that explains my thirst.

I did manage to find one exciting thing at the supermarket that has made my week! Little tubs of Cookies & Cream ice cream. YUM! It’s only 1.5 points a tub! And considering I get 21 points a day it’s not bad at all. It’s so good too!!
And before you ask, I checked, no phenylalanine present. Cancer free ice cream!