The Wolf Conservation Trust open day 27/08/12

Today I went to The Wolf Conservation Trust open day with my brother and Niece#1. We saw wolves, birds of prey, huskies, and various other stalls and entertainments.

Camping

We went to the New Forrest last week for a few days camping.

We = Me, Mum, Sis, Sis-in-law, Nieces 1&2, Nephews 1&2, Tarka and Sis-in-law's dog Trixie.

Despite the cold wet summer we've had so far, the sun shone and we had great weather! We spent Friday on the beach and swimming in the sea, Saturday we went into Lymington them went crabbing, and on Sunday we went into Lyndhurst on the way home.We cooked on the fire, and I went running Friday and Saturday mornings. My GPS watch seems to have got a tad confused though, I'm sure I didn't go running through the sea!!

My new pal!

Well, not a real pal, it's my fitness pal, www.myfitnesspal.com

It's basically a calorie counter.

Every now and then I get slack with my diet, and then I start to gain weight. I don't want to gain weight, when that happens my clothes don't fit properly, I lose fitness and struggle with running, and I just generally feel bleugh!!

So, I use My Fitness Pal to help me keep on top of things.

I have entered my details so it has worked out how many calories I need per day.
I enter my food intake and it tells me my calorie intake.
I enter my exercise and it tells me my calories burned.
It offsets my calorie intake against my calories burned, and I can make sure I stay below my daily net allowance.

Easy as that! It means that I stay in control of my weight and feel good about myself.

Right now I'm using a month free gym membership that I won in a raffle. So far I've only really done swimming and used the sauna etc, I'll use the gym at the weekend I think. I'm doing this on top of my usual exercise. I don't input my regular walking that I do at work but I'm still always well within my calorie allowance on work days. I do need to watch it at weekends though since I don't do as much exercise.

Adventures in nail polish.

I've started painting my nails!

That shouldn't be such a surprise, except that anyone who knows me in real life will tell you how totally un-girly I am, and how you'd think that nail polish would be the very last thing on this earth I would have any interest in!

Well, times have changed, and I'm learning how to paint and care for my nails. Actually I do think that nice hands and nails are a sign of a person who takes care of themselves. I'm not doing anything flashy, no nail art or fancy bits and pieces, just plain solid colour. (Most of the time...).

My current favourite is a lavender colour. I also have an aqua and a bright blue that I like too. I'm not so keen on red, but pastel pink is nice, and I've got a couple of neutral colours too for less bold days.

Unfortunately, applying nail varnish is a learnt technique and I'm still learning, although I have improved a lot since seeking advice on a forum and watching youtube videos. You also do just have to practice, especially with your 'wrong' hand.

I've gone from this - look how badly I've gone over the cuticles!

To this - my jubilee nails with a little playing around with nails art before I took the polish off, still a bad paint job!

To this - getting better but air bubbles in the polish

To this - starting to get better but still not there yet

And finally, this is where I am now. Better, but still a way to go.

I also need to do huge amounts of work on the condition of my nails and cuticles. I've tried so many different treatments over the years but I still have nails and cuticles like this:

So, I have been back to the internet, sought advice and am now waiting for some new and highly recommended products to arrive from amazon.... well, I had a gift voucher to spend so why not?!!

I have also treated myself to a black nail art pen, so had a play with that recently for our work open day.

It's nice to finally have a girly hobby. I wonder how long it will last! Although with nails that look like mine, it's good to keep them covered up!!

More books!

I finished reading ‘The Notebook’. Actually, I found it a bit disappointing as nothing much really happened! It was a pleasant enough tale of two people who fall in love and live happily ever after, but that really was about it.

However, my copies of ‘The Hunger Games’ trilogy arrived on Friday, so I’ve been happily immersed in those since then. I had already read the first one, so started on the second straight away and am now about ¾ through the last one. I love these books! 

3rd in the series.

And, after that I’ve still got ‘The Time Travellers Wife’ and the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy to read! 

Another bank holiday!

Actually, this was a double bank holiday! We had an extra day off to celebrate the Queen's diamond Jubilee. She has reigned over us now for 60 years, and I recon she's done a pretty good job of it.

So, my extra long weekend consisted of:
Saturday - Shopping with niece #2 and BBQ with friends
Sunday - Dinner at Mum and Dads
Monday - Sister-in-Law's birthday party
Tuesday - Sleep, dog walk and running!

My one nod to the jubilee was that I painted my nails alternately red white and blue. I'm not clever enough for fancy designs so it was the best I could do!

Back to work tomorrow, this has been a really nice break though.

May Day bank holiday

I went to stay with a friend and her children for the bank holiday weekend. She lives about 200 miles away so I don't get there very often, although I should go more often than I do!

We had a lovely weekend. The weather wasn't great, but we went to the beach on Saturday, for a walk on Sunday and to visit her parents on Monday, which was on my way home.

It was a lovely weekend.