Had a long hot day yesterday, did get a little respite when Thomas and a friend wanted to go to the movies which meant I had to drive them to the shopping centre. Cassie and I wandered around the centre for 2 hours, I wanted to look for clothes to buy with the money Mum gave me for my birthday on Thursday, Cassie wanted to look at books, videos and ds games (so surprising - NOT). Didn't find anything - not in my price range, size or just didn't look good on, but did buy a gardening book.

The day ended with a stint in the canteen at soccer, manning (womanning?) the BBQ, such fun in the heat. Next week I am insisting on the BBQ being put outdoors. Though I don't think it will make that much difference, there are still 2 fridges and a chest freezer adding heat to the room.

After the fun (again...NOT) of trying on clothing I decided that I really have to do something about my weight, have made half hearted attempts in the past but then gone back to my old ways. Before bed last night I listened to Jon Gabriel's cd (Gabriel Method), I've tried hypnosis in the past but always got stuck on trying to visualise myself slim. Instead of trying to visualise he says to find a picture of how you want to look and to look at that for 20 - 30 seconds before starting on the second part. I tried looking in magazines but many of the shots are of underweight, anorexic celebrities and models, and if one of those start gaining weight that makes them look healthy - the magazine writers start on how they are pigging out and show the most unflattering shots. No wonder we have so much trouble with body image.

My own body image has been undermined and virtually destroyed. Looking back to my childhood I was an average sized child but all of my siblings were small for their ages. I was called the fat one, because they compared me to my elder sister. I am the tallest (apart from Dad, who isn't much taller than me), the others are all under 5 foot. Anyway onto what I wanted to talk about, recently I was going through old photos and found some from my sister's wedding, I was in my late teens and I couldn't get over how slim I looked or how pretty, I thought I was fat and ugly. So last night I used those photos as my visualisation tools and found the session worked so well. Afterwards I slept like a baby, waking at the time I had visualised as well.




I love the outfit, everything from the hat to the flowers were all made by my Grandmother, she was extremely talented. The flowers were made from wired ribbon. She made 5 of these dresses for the wedding party - I have no idea where they are now, such a pity, as well as the bridal gown. When I took up sewing at 21 I remember how pleased she was to finally have someone take after her. Neither of her daughters enjoyed sewing. My mother only sewed for us because they didn't have the money to buy clothing but as soon as she got a job she gave it up, my Aunt refused to even try. Until she had an accident 21 years ago, she needed to do something for therapy to strengthen her hands so took up quilting, which now is her passion. Mum too was bitten by the quilting bug after she retired. I'd rather not wait that long - I'll get my kick out of creating things now.

Right now I should be cutting out a top for myself, instead I'm typing this, so I'd better get to it.

Take care