BMX

Spent two half days photographing at the BMX Indoor at Hawera this weekend.  Man they are fast!  I ended up taking over 2000 photos, which is pretty much A LOT so surely I have some good ones in there. So far I have only sorted through, and uploaded, 400 of them.  Hopefully I get them all done this week.

Of course, whenever I am at an event I do the 'Oh I WISH we had kids!!!!!' internal whine.  I know we are getting closer, even if it is through 'Home for Life' foster care, where we will have to 'share' them with the birth parents.  But kids are kids, hey, and if we have them for the majority of the time then all is sweet.    Home for Life is where kids are taken out of their birth parents home as it is unsafe, and has been deemed unsafe 'for life', thus a permanent home is found, but they are not able to be adopted so guardianship is joint between birth and foster carers.  The social workers we are dealing with put it a great way though.  Treat it like a marriage breakup, and you end up sharing joint custody with your ex.  Not ideal, but better than nothing.

One more training session with the social workers on Thursday, and an assessment, then hopefully it is all on!

Second seminar re Adoption or Foster Care

We had our second seminar for adoption and/or foster care today.  It started the same way as the introduction one, and day one ... badly.  For the induction day, the power went off with one row of cows left to milk, and took AGES to come back on, so I got stressed, we were a bit late.  Induction day one, we had a relief milker who stayed the night so we thought he might help TJL out in the morning ... um NUP.  So I went down and hosed out, and bada bing bada bang, the flaming heifers got out, so I got stressed, and we were a little bit late.  Today, day 2, no cows to milk, no stress, but TJL got up late, felt unwell, dawdled, I got stressed, and we were a tiny bit late, but not too bad.

Today was much better than day 1, not quite so clinical and dry.  Even TJL survived it a lot better, which is fortunate, as to be a foster care provider we have one more seminar day to go.  Originally we didn't have to attend it as we had only planned to adopt, but since we are looking at the foster care route we have to, and fortunately TJL is on board for this one (he dislikes sitting, inside, learning stuff).

Today they had a panel of 3 people who are currently in the system.  One guy has been involved in looking after teenage boys for 9 years (he had been a youth worker), one lady has two kids for lifetime placement, and has just had another two placed with her and is going through the system to get them placed with her for lifetime.  The third lady has an adopted daughter (aged 5) and has just had a boy placed with her for lifetime (currently going through the system).

So it was good.

And now we might be looking at local adoption rather than inter-country, or 'care for life', which is a placement for life, where we are legal guardians but not 'parents' for life.  No rush to make a choice as yet, time will tell us what direction we need to be heading in.

Losing weight, AGAIN

So I am once again on the weighloss trail.  *sigh*  How many times do I beat on this drum?

Anyway, I have begun a new blog, Losing it with MJ as the programme I am attempting to follow is Losing it with April, a celeb and TV presenter here in NZ, who currently weighs in at around 100kg.  That was HER wake-up call, mine is the 90kg mark.  Damn disgusting!

What I like about the programme

1.  Its FREE to follow along!
2.  The food is NORMAL!
3.  The exercises can all be done at HOME!

Nothing fancy, nothing schmancy.

I have had a couple of other wakeup calls, not just the figure on the scale.

1.  I wasn't in the mood to play with my friends young children, I was shy, reserved, and self conscious about my appearance.
2.  Despite what I 'see' in the mirror (akin to being the opposite of an anorexic, ie I see 'NORMAL') photos actually show me that I am 'HUGE'.  People, who I see and think that they are big, I AM BIGGER THAN THEM!  C'MON!)
3.  My appearance is terrible.  In photos I look like the people who I have judged all my life as being fat, ugly, lazy, and stupid.  The kind of people you think, 'How could you let yourself get like that?  Get a haircut.  Get some decent clothes.  Lose some weight.  Get some dang pride!'

Thats me at the moment, and I HATE this.  I have zero confidence, and when I am feeling ok, I see a photo of myself and hate myself all over again.  I think I need to keep the photo image of myself in my head, as that sure as heck puts me off eating TOO much rubbish.

I really hope and pray that I can make it work this time.