This pretty much sums up my life right now.

Time and effort is all it will take. I WILL do it.

I wasn’t going to say anything on here but after thinking about it for a week I figure..why not just say it? Why is it so hard?This is why I have a blog after all. I’ve only told two people in real life, my husband and a friend the day it happened. Even saying it to my friend was hard.

I have officially lost 40kg’s (88lbs). In fact I’m closer to 41kgs lost than 40 now, so watch this space. The journey is far from over.

It’s hard to believe really. I’ve pretty much lost a Kourtney Kardashian or a Mila Kunis (apparently they weigh 43kg’s):

The thing is, even though to say it out loud sounds kind of impressive, in real life I’ve been struggling to see the difference. Like really struggling. Don’t get me wrong, there are moments I’ll walk past something and see my reflection and catch myself off guard and think “What in the hell? Is that me? Where’s the rest of me? What happened to the massive roll there that was there?” It’s just hard to get my brain caught up with reality.  I’m my own biggest critic.

After talking with my husband about it last night he said something that made a lot of sense to me. I don’t care about the number because it’s not what motivates me. I’ve spent the last year working my butt off and not focusing on a relationship with my scales so I’ve learned to love other results instead.  I need to physically see change happening and when I look front on, it’s hard for me to see that. From that conversation came these photos:

Please don’t judge me by my excess fat, loose skin and full belly. Despite all those things (which I’m working on) I’m proud because look closely…

Those shadowy dents you see there? That is muscle. It bulges and it’s solid. You can’t see it too well in the photos but through touch the most obvious muscle is my triceps. It feels like a  thick line running through my arm when I run my hand over it. I have never had this before but I love it.

This photo below is my favourite photo to date of a woman with trapezius muscles. In fact I have this labelled in my folder as ‘Traps for days’. Jessica Biel in general has amazing definition.

I know, I know, I’m probably going to have a lot of people with words like butch, manly, too much, eww, gross etc but this is the direction I’m choosing to go and I’ve never felt more feminine.

These photos my husband took for me to look at make me a hundred times happier than any number the scale doesn’t say anymore. These photos show how much effort I put in on any given day to make a positive change in my life. Thank you Andrew for helping me wrap my head around how I want to measure my progress.

I’m building a good foundation and I’ve got some very clear set goals – and so far since making them, I have been kicking their butt. I’m on track!

I don’t know what my body will look like by the time I’m done, I have a vision that I hope to make a reality but I’ve never been the athletic type so this will be completely new to me. I don’t know what to expect. What I do know is that the end result will represent the hard work, dedication and perseverance I am putting in to achieve it. Stretch marks, saggy skin and all, I love and appreciate my body.

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I live away from family, so as any good daughter/daughter-in-law would do, I’m making a post for the grandparents to see how Nas – my eldest son, went at his very first Karate grading.

He’s been so excited to take part in a grading to hopefully move up a belt. He’s been extra vigilant about mastering his Kata since he found out two weeks ago that this was coming up. The first words out of his mouth after school were “Grading tonight Mum!”.

He did so well, it was really fun to watch. It was great to see him walk away from the grading on such a high, he absolutely loves Karate! Since starting Karate he’s come out of his shell a lot more, he’s more confident and disciplined. Watching him grow like this is really heart warming. He’s always been a very shy and quiet child. Capable and athletic but far too shy to do much about it.

Everyone in class did all their Kata, the higher belts knew more of course and they had some really impressive moves. I hope Nas stays long enough to learn them. I’m sure he will.  Throughout the evening they went through a lot of other exercises, went through one on one routines, some light sparring and then to finish they did this:

Push ups

Sit ups

Burpees

Star jumps

Lining up

All finished

Yeah.. I said to finish.

Well done to my boy for doing what he loves with absolutely no fear. Here’s a short video of some of his ‘sparring’. It’s really just play fighting at this age. After tonight, my daughter is asking to join too. They’ve also asked me if they’re old enough to do kickboxing. We’ll see how this story plays out…

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I got it today guys!! And I couldn’t be happier I think the last time I got given a certificate for anything I was in primary school. He called me up, gave me a proud smile and “Osu!” and said “It’s about time you got your belt.”. As much as I think my sensei is evil because he takes great pleasure in watching us go through pain, he’s really an awesome guy and knows how to make you feel good about yourself, so it kind of balances out.

Apparently I have great technique, which is good to know because I’d need to be pretty damn precise with my hits and kicks if I were to last in any sort of a fight coz I’m still so freakin unfit. I better pray I can get someone down on that mat quick fast lol. But hey, moral of the story is I did it!

If you read the last post, you’ll remember I mentioned that I had to go to the advanced class to get my grubby little hands on this bad boy. So to answer your question, yes I did go. How did it go? Well, I survived… and my lungs have only just stopped burning. I have no idea how I’m meant to mentally psych myself into attending 90 minutes of torture, I mean training sessions twice a week. I heard one of the girls from my beginners class saying that she thought she might die too,  before class started, and I burst out with “Oh thank God, you too!”  because I have to say, I thought that might just be a fat girl thing lol.

I’m at the dojo 3 other days a week taking my son to his karate training and I’m around the corner at the gym 6 days a week… well it’ll only be 4 now that kickboxing is taking over. If this weight doesn’t fall off as the next year goes by I have gone terribly wrong somewhere. Sensei told me and the other newbies to give it a year or two before classes didn’t feel like torture...and then he laughed at us. Cheers buddy. I about died right there on the spot. I honestly felt like crawling up in a ball and rocking back and forth. Give me strength!

Oh and just for comparison because it’s been a while:

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One of the greatest lessons I’m learning this year has to do with the issue of fear. I don’t recall myself being the overly fearful type, as a child I was quiet, some would say shy… for a little while anyway until I was comfortable; a trait that has followed me through to adulthood but I was never really afraid to do things that sounded fun. Heck, I was the first kid at camp to flip myself upside down, let go of the rope and go abseiling down the side of a wall. I’ve always really enjoyed doing things a little out of my comfort zone!

Skip forward to a year ago and one of the things I’d noticed about myself was that because I was still suffering repercussions from the injury I sustained during Boston’s birth, that for the better part of a year I’d been barely able to leave the house. I confessed to my husband that even the thought of going out to get the groceries was getting scary and that I didn’t like where that was leading me mentally. The first step for me was to focus on my 21 days…which I am SO glad I did because that one little decision to get through those 21 days changed my life entirely. As with anything though, the more you do something, the easier it gets and my beloved gym just wasn’t cutting it anymore.

What I haven’t told many people (a few here and there will have picked up on it) is that I signed up to do the beginners kickboxing course with Toa Fighting Systems. You have to do the course to be inducted into their advanced classes that run the rest of the time. Today, I passed grading! Which basically means I get a certificate to say I can do some moves, earn a red belt and become a member of Toa Fighting Systems and WAKO (NZ).

Now this probably means absolutely nothing to 99% of you out there reading this but this means so much to me. Kickboxing is something I’ve been fascinated with for as long as I can remember. It probably comes from my lifelong obsession with kung fu movies and martial arts. Also, while other kids were playing with their barbies and eating fairy bread, my grandfather was lecturing me on how to throw a punch which then led to buying a boxing bag for my brother and I to ‘play’ on which then led to bruised knuckles and popped blood vessels. So yes, learning how to fight properly has been something I have wanted to do for as long as I can remember.

The class was huge at the beginning of the course but today there was just those of us who had realised that showing up for these classes meant you were throwing out all excuses to give up and were prepared for the brutal – and I don’t mean brutal in the ‘oh this is hard’ sense, I mean it in the OH MY F**KING G*D WTF I CAN’T FEEL MY LEGS/ARMS/SHOULDERS/LUNGS, AM I DYING?! – sense (my body is still shaking 4 hours later).

Taking this course, for me, meant freedom. Freedom from my self imposed ‘worthless me’ beliefs. Freedom from ‘what if’. Freedom from feeling trapped in my mind, in my body and in my home.

I did it.

I believed I could and I did.

I cried almost every week for three months – and you all know I’m not a crier.

But I did it.

I overcame my fear of not being good enough.

Now I have to attend next weeks advanced class to receive my belt… I see what he’s doing there. Nice way to push me to get over my new fear sensei.

Advanced class here I come.

Not bad for a girl who wasn’t even allowed to walk her kids to school a year ago because it was too much, huh?

And because every post needs a photo and I don’t have my hands on my first belt yet, here’s one I took from the Toa website. Blue trunks is my sensei. Osu!

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It’s another fun filled weekend here at the Kinloch residence – well, for kids at least. As one of the two adults that will be present while 7 kids take over till tomorrow, I’m not exactly the most excited person in the world but a parent’s got to do what a parent’s got to do.

We found ourselves hanging out in Miss V’s bedroom as we monitored ‘bedroom tidying’ in preparation for sleepovers and I realised that I’ve never actually given you an update on the space she’s got right now.

Her bedroom isn’t finished, art isn’t on the walls, curtains aren’t up, furnture is still missing but it’s still such a fun space to hang out in…hence why we all ended up in there hehe.

Take your first glimpse into what’s happened in the bedroom makeover so far.

So much colour and fun! Memories and activities everywhere. No wonder she’s started disappearing into her bedroom more often. P.S. I apologise for the quality of the photos, I was snapping away on my phone.

Check out the rest of Miss V’s bedroom makeover so far here:

DIY Lampshade Makeover

I Spy With My Little Eye

Metallic Table Makeover

In the Beginning

You can see my own bedroom one day makeover here:

Bedroom Organisation

Then you can check out Boston’s Bedroom Makeover Progress:

The Start

Beginning again

The inspiration

Starting to paint

Looking bright

One step closer

DIY Chair – Part 1

DIY Chair – Part 2

DIY Cot Blanket

Designer Lampshade

Comic Book Drawers

DIY Log – Part 1

A Photo Update

B is for Boston

A Couple of Shots

Winning

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Are you missing me? Because I’m missing you. I have been thinking of you all out there in the big wide world and I think ‘Oh I should write today!’ and then something like this happens when I get distracted:

So I figure it’s just easier to not ignore my two year old. It kind of helps that he’s super cute and gives me big cuddles. I like cuddles, so he wins.

PLUS, I keep telling myself I’ll come back in full force when I finally relaunch my redesign for Creating My Reality but then I haven’t been working on it for weeks because the only time I can get to it is late at night and I’m basically like this by then:

But minus the skates. And on my couch instead.

^^ I was taught at primary school to never start a sentence with either but or and. Glad to see I use my knowledge to it’s full potential.

So I’m alive. I actually had a giveaway to do for US based readers but wasn’t sure if anyone was interested. Let me know if you are though and I’ll run it. You have 1 day to say so though!

I told you I have nothing to report. Thinking I may just leave you with this oh so very intriguing and probably extremely offensive conversation I just had with my husband. Don’t be scared to come back, I just have a warped sense of humour.

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The sun is finally shining upon us here down in the deep south and I am LOVING it. Apparently it’s disappearing again come Tuesday but I’m sure all of Southland is with me when I say I’m crossing my fingers that it doesn’t stay away for long.

I was fortunate enough last week to be the winner of two tickets to a Stags vs BOP rugby game for Sunday afternoon; so I passed those tickets on to my husband so that he and our eldest son could go have some father-son bonding time. While they were gone I chilled out on the deck getting some much needed vitamin D onto my not-so-brown-anymore skin and caught up on my latest Your Home and Garden magazine. I also tackled rearranging and deep cleaning Bostons bedroom. After all these winter months those windows were in need of some thorough cleaning! Here’s what our Sunday looked like:

Photo A: Miss fashionista scootering up a storm. B: Fixing up a damaged frame so I could use it again. C: Brought in one of the kids bookshelves to store some books and puzzles in Bostons’ room. D: Boss likes to use the foam puzzles pieces as a hopscotch game. 

E: The most amazing gifts arrived for me in the post on Thursday. I’ve been dying to share them with you since then but I’m only just charging my camera batteries now (2011 Queen of procrastination). All of these shots were taken with my phone. The incredibly talented Joanna of Applique Today made these just for me! The photos do not do them justice. First we have a V (in the frame that I just fixed) which I can’t wait to put up in Miss V’s bedroom – she loves it, and then there is the most amazing cushion cover I’ve ever had the pleasure of owning. It has a crown on it! Can I just say I LOVE love my friends for remembering little details about me; like how I’m obsessed with crowns. Not only that but in the surrounds of the cushion she has embroidered words such as beautiful, grow and artist. I can’t rave about it enough. My daughter has claimed it for now and it’s taken pride of place on her bed. F: My Davis (5) has an obsession of his own…Angry Birds. He drew little angry bird characters on the back of each of these old business cards and then proceeded to make large letters with them.

I caught Vahnija practicing dance moves on the back of her brothers boogie board and it was too cute not to shoot. I wish I’d made her pose ‘flexing’ her arms. This girl has the best muscles! Every single one of them is defined. Shoulders, biceps & triceps. Gosh…if only. She’s actually really proud of them, that’s how I know about them. She was bragging to me lol. I think my new goal is to be more cut than my own daughter.

Andrew and Nas got back from the game around 4:30pm and we decided we’d all go get one of those new frozen L & P drinks they’re selling at McDonald’s now. Ummm yum. I best be avoiding that place like the plague because I really liked them and I can’t afford to backtrack on all my hard work! I still have a long way to go.

It was still so sunny out that we decided to head to the beach with our drinks, which then developed into family runs up the sand dunes and getting dirty from head to toe. Bliss!

This photo is of Andrew running down the sand dunes about to attack me with kisses hehe.

In the background of the middle photo you can see Stewart Island. Please excuse those boogers in the above photo. I hate boogers but I rarely ever get a photo of Boston’s face. His eyes always look brown in pics but he’s my only blue eyed baby. Mucky puppy.

Uhh, don’t really know what was going on in these photos. Why am I looking away, why didn’t he say he was actually taking a photo when I pulled that face? Don’t give my husband the camera. Also, why does it look like I have an inverted nipple? These are the questions I ponder.

The sun was setting as we headed home. So beautiful to see the sky red/purple again.

Saturday was just as fun but we didn’t get any photo’s. Probably a good thing because this post is crazy full of them.

How was your weekend? Did you get sun too? Or are you on the other side of the world having to prepare for the opposite weather now?

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I know I’ve been a bit quiet on this healthy me tip – well, on my blog at least. Some may have taken that to mean that I’ve fallen off the wagon. The truth is I’m still going strong and I am literally stronger than ever. To make this quick, here are some mentionables:

Two nights ago I was chatting with the woman who came over from Australia to take over launching my gym here in Invercargill. While we were chatting not only did she ask me to tell her about a couple of the exercises I was doing and which muscle groups they target, she also said that she had to ask how much weight I had lost because in the couple of weeks (3 or 4?) since I’d joined this new gym I’d changed a lot. She went on to say that in the three months she’s been here she hadn’t seen anyone else change so much.

So drum roll please…would you know how much weight I lost?

None. Zilch, zip, zero. Ok, well maybe not zilch but not even a kilo so I didn’t really have much to say about anything. I don’t care though, pretty sure what’s happening is I’m replacing fat with muscle which is more than welcome and I’m quite proud because look at what has happened:

I wore this outfit. Size 14! Sure still fat for a lot of people but for me that’s a 7 size drop. Big ups to my daughter for pointing out the labels read a size smaller than I thought they were. Bonus! To be clear I am not size 14, I just happened to be able to fit some clothes from 10 years ago that are. Gives me hope.

I grew a lot of muscle. A lot. My legs and right behind my shoulders also look like this but I figure this is more than enough of my freakishly stretched body for you to look at. This was taken while I was getting dressed one morning and I was like WTF is that? Is that my arm? Whoa! Fat chick with muscles, awesome. What I really like is that in that first photo up there ^^^ you can actually see the shape of them through the sleeves of my top. Nice going there thanks workouts, you’re doing me proud.

Now for a second I wasn’t too sure what to think about my husband. He said to me the other day that he was a little bit worried because apparently my butt turned flat a couple of weeks back (umm gee thanks hun lol) but that within a week he saw it return and this time it was even better. (All is forgiven right?) My miracle worker?

This:

All that weight adds up to 130kg and that is what I am now pressing. It’s likely I can do more but seeing as I have no spotter I’m playing it safe; for now.  Oh and also squats, lunges, more squats, kicks, more lunges, skipping, dead leg lifts, good mornings, walking, some more squats, running, did I mention lunges? And dancing, they help too..*arrrgh*

I do wish my body was smaller already, I work out 6 days a week and have boundless energy…unless I’m sleeping to recover which is quite often… you can see why I’m tired right?

I did in fact get asked if I lived at the gym by a trainer the other day too. I just answered “Pretty much.” I also had another trainer say “You’re here a lot!” to which I could only reply “I need to be” because trust me.. if you’ve ever been as fat as me, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Last night I ended up doing a quick little workout with the woman I mentioned at the start of this post and we did this cool routine that works all the different ab muscles and when you’re through it you’ve just done 120 sit ups/crunches in 2 minutes..with a 7kg weight. Just sayin! I kept up and aside from 1 exercise it was all relatively easy. I now feel like a fit person trapped in a fat body but I’ll get there. Every day’s a new challenge.

So that’s where I’m at. All up I’ve now dropped 32kg. Plenty more to go, ugh.

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Life’s going well at the moment. That’s always welcome, right? It’s freezing all over the country and we’ve been snowed in with tales that severe frosts are headed our way so today for the first time in my entire life, I shoveled a driveway. Very nostalgic. We did it in the hopes that the entire driveway wouldn’t turn into ice and thus have us stuck at home forever in fear that we might die as we try to reverse out onto the road.

Before the snow hit though, children had their faces painted and I rearranged my bedroom. The rest of my home is usually kept tidyish (I do have children) but my room gets left to suffer as I just don’t have any energy left to deal with it. I’m a firm believer in “A place for everything and everything in it’s place” so that’s what I did with my Saturday night. Living the life I tells ya!

They had free face painting last weekend at The Warehouse, my kids were all over that.

Boston didn’t get out to play in the snow last year but he’s not missing out this time around!

Our warm wee home.

All of us

I took off the doors to my wardrobe, stripped it of clothes and made it a shoe closet. Eventually I’ll redo this whole room and pimp this thing out but for now it’s neat, tidy and done for free.

With Vahnija’s bedroom makeover she doesn’t need this shelf anymore so I took out the baskets and put my high heels on that!

Accessorising with what I have on hand.

The lamp cost $8 from Briscoes
Flower clip for your hair but I’ve worn it as a brooch too. $5 from Pagani Factory Outlet in Auckland
Brown jewellery box – a gift from Andrew. Bought at Trade Aid I think.
Blue floral dish (can’t think what they’re called) – a gift from Andrew’s Grandmother

Close up

Inside I’m storing rings in one and nail polish in the other.

I’m notorious for losing my earrings. I just take them off and leave them around. I obviously LOVE earrings so I needed somewhere to put them all where they wouldn’t get ruined and could be kept out of range of little fingers. You all know I’m stingey so I took the back of a weetbix box, pierced holes in it and threaded my earrings through. Works perfectly! I haven’t lost any earrings in months.

I love bags but control myself (for now) when purchasing/not purchasing them. I used to go through handbags like nothing because I’d only buy $20-$30 ones. The one in the middle cost 10 times that and it’s still in brand new condition many years later, totally worth the investment. The top and bottom bags in the picture were both under $5 and I use them just as much though. No label snobbery here.

I put up lots of hooks going up the wall to hang our belts on. Ok so they’re ALL my belts but Andrew can join in if he wants to as well. At least those are his suits in the background.

Can’t forget about the scarves. Andrews ties are on the opposite wall, arranged exactly the same way. Wish I had flash hangers.

A little bit of art.

From the top left going clockwise:
A canvas print of our oldest two children – a gift for Creating My Reality
Kiss From a Rose – Painting by Chavah Kinloch
I Keep Your Kisses Close – Painting by Chavah Kinloch
Wire Heart – Purchased at some boutique store way up north
The Impermanence of Form – Painting by Melissa Muirhead, received through an art swap
Wisdom #17 – Painting by Sophia Elise, a gift from a friend

We don’t have any drawers believe it or not so everything is hanging up. Once again, wish I had cute hangers because this looks a little messy but it’s super easy to find stuff now. One third of that lower rack is Andrews.

I was meant to get more of a shot of the fan but I think this is just me posing lol. The fan was brought back from China and given to us as a gift. I love it. Also I moved this full length mirror into our bedroom so I don’t have to keep walking through to the living room to see if I look normal enough to leave the house.

I put up hooks for my hair gear! It only took 4 years. Now to hang that towel rail you can see in the corner…

Some of my perfumes. Most are gifts. Perfect gift!

Candles, make up and a little silver frame with my little girl as a little girl.

The little corner next to my side of the bed. Candles, storage for the jewellery I’ll take off at the end of a day and a notebook to jot down the things that pop into my head in the middle of the night. Also love that Japanese print that I picked up for $2 one day when thrifting.

P.S. Sorry the photos are grainy, I didn’t bother using the flash. Also no photo of my bed because our linen is in the laundry. I posted previously about our bedroom a few years back when we first painted the wall green, I’m ready to wallpaper it white now.

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I probably shouldn’t be writing at 12:40am, I should be resting my eyes like the rest of the normal world would be but for some reason tonight I’m feeling ranty so lets get to it.

I thought I might take a moment to enlighten everyone on what I’m doing right now. For 2011 I’ve done nothing to bring in any income. Yep, nothing. On purpose. Even the projects I’ve worked on art-wise have been purely to satisfy my creative urges.

Did you know that for six years straight I set goal after goal and worked day and night to reach them? Yep I did. If you’re one of my regular readers you’d definitely know this. If not well..now you know.

And then I got tired.

So, I’ve been doing nothing.

I’ve still been having ideas. Crap loads of them. That’s not something I can just shut off. You should see all the plans I have in different folders. There’s one for something called Charli Valentina, another for a place called Toasted, there’s a travel plan, a 5 year financial plan, blog re-design/growth plans, plans for exhibitions and three more ideas that I don’t really even know how to put into words without giving too much away to cyberspace.

The bad thing is they all make so much sense. It seems I’m actually very detail oriented. Ask anyone close to me and they’ll tell you that if you need something done, ask me to do it because I won’t stop until I see a project all the way through from beginning to end and every single detail in between. For some reason people always seem shocked to learn this. Really? Am I that laid back in person? Most likely; I’m not intrusive like most type A personality types would be.

The worse thing is I really don’t give a stuff about doing any of it right now because I’m too happy just being Mum.

Do you remember at the beginning of last year when I went through that turmoil of whether or not to go study or stay at home and continue being a full time SAHM? Sooo much of me wanted to go study to get a move on with the next stage of life but I had some amazing words of wisdom sent through to me from Mothers that have been there, done that  (you know who you are, thank you) and the overwhelming response I got pointed out that these years would pass very quickly. Oh how right they were. It’s not that I haven’t experienced these years before a child starts school before, but at the time, I had forgotten just how much I love these years. My time at home with my littlest guy (and then the big ones when they arrive home) is just the best. Yes I could be doing more but right now I’m satisfied that investing all my time playing with playdough, doing endless loads of laundry and vacuuming the house multiples times a day is exactly what I need to be doing with my life at this very moment. The pay is rubbish but the kisses make up for it.

Taking this time off has really helped me learn how to relax again. I’m actually a really fun person, I’d forgotten that. I’ve relearned how to get time out for myself which is probably the best thing to come out from this break. I’m really happy about this. My one new years resolution was to have more fun and I have been!

My schedule of nothing is about to expire shortly but just for a moment and it’s something I’m quite excited about. I have one painting in the works that is due to head up to Auckland next month, I’ll have more on that for you at a later date.

For now though, I’m spending weekends at rugby games and weekdays picking up bits of food from the floor… and I find it wonderful.

Look at those smiling faces. Being their Mum is definitely the best job in the world.

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