Happy Birthday to Me

The children are all wondering when the party will be, of course when one is turing 39 one chooses to do so very quietly. Now that may suprise some of you who have experienced my daily countdown to my birthday in the past (i.e. on the 29th septemebr it is 364 days to my birthday etc). This time I am a little less inclined to rave on about it so much I think becasue the last 9 years have gone by way to fast and I am fearfull that tomorrow (or so it will seem) I will be facing 50. I am also aware that I have passed the half way point (I hope not too long ago) and that is food for thought too.

Any way, since the event is over and I just can't help myself I could not let it pass without marking it with a post.

On Friday (THE DAY) the children and I took the train into the city where Doug met us at the front of the platform at joined us for the shuttle shuffle to Times Square, we had afternoon tea (fruit and fruit juice - I am determined to find healthy options in this city/country) in a 'restaurant/cafe' right next door to the theatre. Then we joined the other children, parents and grand parents (and some old dears that Doug was sure were a buch of happy and 'gay' old friends!) for the very cool performance of "Comet in Moominland". After the show we went back to the same cafe and had pizza (ok so helathy options did not extend themselves to dinner - at least every one ate).

The show was fabulous, we all had to sit on the floor, the set was all around and as they moved from one section to the next we swivelled around on our bottoms, there were a couple of suprising scary puppets and the children (us too) were kept totally entertained for the full 55 minutes of the performance.

The Moomin stories were written over 50 years ago by a swedish speaking Finish woman in 1951, I had never heard of them but threee of my English friends had so perhaps they made it onto British TV.

On Saturday night Grandma baby sat for us and D and I went out to dinner. I spent some time on Friday trying to decide where to go and what to do with this rare opportunity of free babysitting. Actually it was quite a difficult decision and since you all know I am a Libran I need not dwell any longer on my indecisive nature. Finally I chose a restaurant just a few minutes up the road (after thinking about a broadway show, dinner in the city, dinner in the next town, dinner theatre about 30 min away I settled on the closest restaurant to home and could have saved myself hours of searching, bah!). It is called the Eastchester Fish Gormet and it was the most delicious meal I have eaten out in America in my whole life. (that is something that M would say - 'mummy this is the best day in my whole life' or conversely 'mummy, you have ruined my whole life' when he has to eat his sandwich before his cake).

I had crispy Octopus, herb taglietelle with muscles, prawns, clams and spicy tomatoes and a soufle made with Baileys Irish Cream, D had (not deep fried - oh happy day)calamari and Surf and Turf that had fillet mignon, lobster tail and prawns and he shared the soufle with me. It was my special treat weekend, so before we went out I had a glass of wine, then another with dinner and goodness me a BIG glass of baileys and ice and a couple of pieces of turkish delight when we got home. Whilst you may be wondering what the special treat was I have to explain that since the 16th May I have been very very careful about what and how much I eat and drink. I have been exercising every day and it is really depressing when the food I eat (just for fun) means hours of pounding on 'the beast' jsut to break even, so I try to control the intake and it has paid off, although I will take a week to balance out the excess of the weekend. I have avoided speaking too much about my weight loss although I did make a brief mention in a post about buying bathing suits (which I still have not accomplished so will have to wait until next summer now). The great news is that I have lost over 6 kilos (Friday it was 7 kilos, but as I said the weekend happened) and last night I wore the 'little black dress' that my mum bought for me for my 23rd birthday and my first 'date' with D!!! 16 years ago. The unfortunate thing is there are a few really nice pieces of clothing that I left in storage because I didn't think I would ever fit into them again, now of course I do and almost everything I brought is too big - what a dilemma! I am too nervous about buying more clothes though because I have to keep up the exercise and food watching to maintain this weight and all I need is another overseas deployment (one where D goes without us - which means to somewhere scary) and I fear I'll slip into the black place again and life as I know it will be no more.

For now, today is sunny, the leaves are starting to change and I am not looking forward to winter. I am so glad that Autumn so far is lovley, I would kind of like to see the colours on the trees but the next step after that is months (it seems like such a long time) without leaves at all on the trees, weak sun, cold wind, snow and sleet. Snow may be fun for the children and possibly this year for us too if we get to go skiing but I would swap winter for Townsville's two seasons in a heart beat. I am hoping for another few weeks of nice weather becasue so far it seems that less than half the year has what I would say is 'nice weather'.

Better go, I need to do some prep for the nest week.