The ultimate incentive worked! Now onto phase two

wendz86

Sounds like a great plan, good that NIM gets to see all his family and friends as well too. Looks like you have thought of everything.

Well done on the weight loss as well

Dinah93

Have you tried putting what you're eating into food focus Tink? I was shocked at how much things added together to make scary calorie totals, when I thought I was eating really well!

Tete_en_l'Air

Evening everyone, sunday night blues here! Went for a lovely long walk yesterday (1400 calories apparently!) and an even lovelier big fat italian last night, feeling absolutely rubbish today though as I think I've either torn or very badly pulled a muscle in my thigh which is making me limp and I burnt my face a bit in the sun so am feeling a bit cold-y, think it may be sunstroke. Didn't weigh in this morning as was at OH's will do it tomorrow instead.

Sounds like a manic holiday Dinah, in a good way, will you book it tomorrow if NIM can get the time off?

Dinah93

Yep, well, we'll start booking it, hoping a hotels.com sale comes up soon so I can get a bit of money off the accomodation.

Lara44

Hey Ladies

Just got back, been away for a bit. Last weekend a long weekend at home with the family, which was very nice. Mum bought me 2 pairs of lovely shoes from Clarks clearance! What a star! Some black flats with a ruche and a little button, and some brown shoes with a small triange heel and a strap across and a little button. Very nice they are too. Then I also bought some undies from Dunnes too Dinah, reduced to £1.50, and a lovely dress from Next clearance - it's like a champagne coloured chiffon dress with big abstract print in grey and pink and a v-neck, for £13. So quite a spendy one although spending other people's money!

Then we went to the Big Chill festival as OH had a gig there. It was really nice, although super stressful before we left. OH is working so hard I have to do all the chores, shopping, preparation. I got soaked to the bone in that awful rain, and then had to get last minute wellies from Asda at 8am. So tired I forgot my bl*ody coat and we had to stop in Matalan in Cheltenham to buy a whole new coat. Aaaargh! I got a very nice houndstooth one for £35, but still. Nightmare.

The festival was brill, saw quite a few interesting people and the weather was amazing. Spent some nice time with OH. Took today and tomorrow off work, so just got to finish my proposal. I got my uni welcome pack through - eeeeek! It's all for real now I have accepted my place. Starting to get nervous again. So pleased I have nearly saved the money for fees, just got to wait for August pay and then I will be over my target. Thanks for all the info guys, I never could have done it so quickly without the MSing and MSE in general.

Cinny, I am so sorry to hear about your little cat, that is terrible. I hope you're feeling a bit better about things now. Birdie - hope your exile is going okay, sounds like it will do great things for your career.

Dinah you should definitely do New York. You've got some brilliant deals of prices and flights there. We went over Halloween and it was a great time to go - the city was crazy on Halloween night with a big costume parade. Well done on all the weight loss, sorry about the mini-novel!

L x

Dinah93

Glad to have you back Lara, sounds like you had a cracking week. New York was coming up at about £1300 for the two of us for the 8 days. So we've decided to go for Italy instead, New York will still be there in a few years. In a dream world we'd like to go to New York then fly down America and do a bit of a road trip at some point.

We also want to do the slightly cheaper option as we want to go to Japan in 2 or 3 years, and also we're talking about saving up for me to go on mission next year, which shouldn't be too expensive but it's still an extra trip to cover. That said next years holidays are looking to be a week in center parks, and 2 weeks in greece, with a few trips to ireland in the middle, so not overly expensive really!

We bought some tickets to see Delirious? farewell tour while we're in Birmingham, very excited - how sad is that?! But it does leave us with £28 spends for the month. I'm hoping we're going to come in under on petrol again, which would mean I can start giving us a little less petrol money and a bit more spending money every month as £250 does seem quite tight to get all clothes, socalising, shopping etc out of for two people. Doesn't help that we had friends for lunch yesterday (were meant to go to theirs but their loo is out of order!) and that cost us an extra £15, and we decided to be nice to mum and get a few groceries in, which was another £17 too.

Got in this morning to find an email demanding my professional integrity be investigated and I be brought up on disciplinary action, lovely way to start the week. And its raining. All fingers crossed NIM can get the time off for our Italy trip and I'll have something to look forward to. Oh, and mummy and daddy come home today, which is good as I've missed them and they'll bring scrummy treats from Italy!

Tete_en_l'Air

Morning all, Lara sounds like a very spendy few days but you have some lovely sounding clothes and shoes to show for it! And yay to uni being a reality, when do you start?

Am feeling a bit better today so am in work, though all my forehead and neck is itching like mad where I caught the sun and now my hair's on it Weigh in this morning and lost a pound again, but need to step it up a bit over the next couple of weeks as I'm having a couple of weekends away which will have a fair bit of eating and drinking involved

Work is soooo quiet again, when the phone rang earlier I neraly fell off my chair the sound has become so alien! So going to try and do a bit of dooyoo (I know I say this all the time). Was like winter this morning, all dark and rainy

ETA - what's that about professional integrity? Something everyone's had? Eek!

Dinah93

Oh a member of the public is baying for my blood, luckily my manager and certainly one of the councellors has been very vocal in their support of how I handled the case, still, its scary!

Tete_en_l'Air

Oh right, yes you are the baddies aren't you?

Dinah93

Yes, but we had to move out of the Deathstar into our shiny modern office to con the public that we're just like them.