Do you clean your teenager’s bedroom?

William has his own bedroom and Tiesha and Madeline share a bedroom. All three of them complain when I go in there to clean up their rooms because “we can’t find anything once you’ve been in here!” You’d think that, with the way they carried on, they were going to run out and get identity theft protection against me or something!

I’m surprised that they can find anything at all at the best of times!

I’ve tried leaving it thinking they’ll do it on their own when they can’t see the carpet anymore. I’ve tried just shutting their doors so I can see the junk site when I walk past….

….but it’s coming. I can feel a big clean up coming on and I can put money on the fact that there will be facebook and myspace statuses about me! LOL

But I don’t care because I’ll be able to see what colour the carpet is again and know that they’re all sleeping on nice, clean sheets in nice clean bedrooms.

Chronic? Maybe! But this chronic will be able to sleep better knowing that the WHOLE house is tidy! LOL

A box of Biggest Loser meal replacements. A half box of Celebrity Slim. And a few sachets of KicStart.

That is what I found in my pantry and so I’m starting today on a “liquid diet”.

I had one of the KicStart ones this morning for breakfast and thanks to a fellow blogger, I have a list of “free food” that I can eat while on the KicStart plan. Going to stock up on diet jelly and lots of vegies.

Feeling optimistic and inspired

We’ve seen the ad for the ab circle pro on tv a few hundred times and each time we discussed whether it would be any good for us. We both have bad backs – Bill more so than me – so doing sit ups and crunches is too painful of an option so we needed to find something that would still work but be a little more kinder on our backs.

I’m participating in a 12 week weight loss challenge at We Are Slimming at the moment and I thought I’d make use of the ab circle pro as part of my daily routine instead of the many weight loss products I’ve bought and found were a waste of money!

It was easy to set up…even I could do it! You know how when they say “only 3 minutes a day!”? Well I was a bit sceptical and didn’t think that that was going to be enough but let me tell you…3 minutes on that machine and you get off it feeling like you’ve just done 100 crunches!

I like that I’m off the ground and I can watch tv while I’m doing it – makes the time go quicker. And it’s actually more fun! Much more fun that trying to do sit ups!

I’ve noted down my waist measurements when I started the challenge and will be measuring again at the end of the challenge so I’ll share with you how much this machine actually helps me.

I think the only complaint I’d have about this machine is that it’s a bit hard on the knees but adding a folded washcloth to each makes it a little more cushier and more comfortable.

As for Bill – he’s also been using it every day and is happy that he’s found a way to help him strengthen his core up without hurting his back too much.

So far, I’m liking it!

Starting…again! One of these days I will get rid of this excess weight and keep it off! Bill and I bought one of those ab circle pro things and have both been using it daily. I’ll be blogging my thoughts about it soon

In the mean time, I’m scrapping my weight loss journey – a page a month, me thinks. Had some free time yesterday so (instead of decrapifying the bathroom like I was going to because I happened to find prenatal vitamins in the bottom of the bathroom cupboard and I haven’t been pregnant for nearly 3 years!) I decided to do some scrapping while it was quiet…..

That is the number of years Bill and I have been married…almost….our anniversary is on Friday. Why so close to Valentine’s Day, you ask? Is it because Bill is such a romantic and wanted to get married on Valentine’s Day but it happened to fall on a weekday that year? Nope! Is it because with all the hype of Valentine’s Day, it would remind him each year of our anniversary? Maybe! LOL

Or maybe it was that I had decided that there was no way I was going into hospital to have our second child and still not be married to him? Yep! We got married while I was 8 months pregnant with Tiesha…and yes, I was terrified that with all the excitement, that she would want to be there as one of the guests! LOL

Oh, and darling, the appointment I have booked for a skin id does not count as a pamper session so there had better be a little “sumthin sumthin” with my name on it! ;P

Anyone who knows me would know that I occasionally sleepwalk and sleep talk. Definitely not as funny as the Sleep Talking Man (is he for real or is it just a clever marketing idea?), but apparently I have been quite entertaining especially when I saw glow in the dark spiders on my wall, or the time I was waiting for the Queen because she was coming over to buy our Mazda MPV!

I find that the sleepwalking and talking increases when I’m stressed out. Bill can easily tell if I’m worrying abut something because he wakes up to me staring at him, telling him that I know about the plan for him and our friends to knock me off….or when I had to go buy a tube of acne cream for the cat because she was in pain…or to me sitting up in bed looking for the safety pins that I’d dropped (that episode involved all the bed sheets being pulled off and me trying to push Bill off the bed!)

Most of the time I don’t remember doing or saying any of these things but there have been times where I’ve woken up in the middle of an “episode” and thinking why the hell am I saying/doing this?!

It’s okay – the nice men in the white coats are coming soon! LOL

Did you know that tomorrow, Feb 8, is Clean out your computer day? And as far as I’m concerned, it’s classed as housework so if I don’t get any washing or vacuuming done, it’s because I was heaps busy cleaning out my laptop ;P

So I’ll be uninstalling programs that I don’t use anymore, make sure I have all of 2009’s photos backed up and saved to disc, run a full system scan, a defrag and maybe even change my desktop wallpaper….I’ll be using my System mechanic to try and get it running a bit faster too.

Do you remember when I posted about System Mechanic? System Mechanic automatically finds and repairs errors and fragmentation and cleans out clutter — so your PC operates smoothly, reliably, and up to 300% faster!

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I have another 5 copies of System Mechanic to give away to 5 lucky Mummified Times Five readers!

For your chance to win, leave me a comment and tell me WHY you need to win a copy of System Mechanic….

Open to everyone worldwide!

Giveaway finishes Feb 21, 2010

My dearest Nuffnang,

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways!

You  call me Tina and not “MUUuuuuuuummmmmmmm!”

You’re content to do your thing on my sidebar instead of needing my attention 24/7 and whining “Muuuuummmmm, I can’t dooooo ittttttttt!”.

You give me movie tickets instead of some green furry thing that used to be a sandwich.

You fill my purse instead of emptying it!

Ahh, yes, Nuffnang, I {heart} you! Happy Valentine’s Day!

Oh, and since I’m spreading the love….sending a little to 3 of my favourite bloggers:

• Peta @ 7 little heads on 7 little beds
• Tash @ Where The Wild Things Are
• Erin @ Because I’m Mum! 

My oldest child, my only boy, will be 18 in just over a month.

I have tried writing this post a number of times but each time I break down in tears while trying to express how much he has impacted my life. Everything I write just doesn’t seem to express how proud I am of him.

So instead, while I’m going searching for the best anti aging products because apparently I’m old now, I’m going to share a conversation that happened in the Mummified house:

Me: *bawling my eyes out*

Bill: what’s wrong with you?

Me: *still bawling my eyes out* William isn’t a baby anymore!

Bill: Umm, sweetheart, he hasn’t been a baby for 17 years

Me: *bawling my eyes out even more*

Yes, I’m married to Captain Obvious.

You all know how I love my lists and charts…and you might remember when I blogged about Annabelle using her Little Billies routine chart. That works well for her so she knows what we’re going to do through the day.

But we seem to be hearing a bit of quarrelling  from the older babes going on when it comes to chores so instead of confiscating the xbox and all the xbox accessories, I’m thinking of introducing a chore chart again. We’ve used one a few times and it seemed to work for a couple of weeks but then the novelty wears off and even I get a bit slack in making sure that the kids are doing their chores when they’re meant to.

So I’ve been checking out the different chore chart ideas online. There are so many sites offering charts that basically do the same thing but these ones caught my eye.

I found a Aussie site called Chore Charts for Kids that sells cute charts that can be personalised and used as learning tools to teach colour, letter and word recognition as well.

Then there’s DLTK’s chore charts that you can personalise yourself and print out for free. It’s got some cute themes to choose from or you can add your own picture.

But since four out of five of the Mummified babes have their own email address, I’m thinking that Chore Buster might be one to try. It’s free to sign up and it can help you with all of these problems by automatically creating a fair chore chart or schedule for you and others that you live with! I like that the older kids can receive an email of their chores….because we’re hip that way! LOL