Monday 30 November 2009: Another day, nothing much to report...

Sarah says:
What a Monday it was today! I didn't get enough sleep this weekend and man did I feel it today! My eyes even hurt the whole afternoon. I was busy though and I like being busy, busy busy! I need to get back on the diet wagon as I fell off thanks to Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving leftovers - twice! Tonight I got on the cross trainer and thanks to Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti album I did 32 whole minutes without pain! I just got so into the music. It was great!

Look who we have here below! Good old Marv! I'm always trying to get his attention!

Saturday and Sunday 28 and 29 November 2009: Sarah is finally done with Westtalent and had a great time doing it!

Above is Ayla and me today - Sunday the 29th of November. It was a nice and lazy day with some good friends - eating a Thanksgiving-like meal and watching a bad movie...

Above is a photo from about 2:30 am this morning right after the last Westtalent 2009 final was finished! Almost every Friday and Saturday night since October I have been going out and seeing 8 West-Flemish bands each time as part of the jury. It's been great fun and I have seen loads of talent! It was nice getting to know the other jury people and the whole Westtalent team and all the bands! But I am sort of glad it' now done because I can make other plans now on Fridays and Saturdays! I would do it again though for sure!

Above you can see me and my fellow Westtalent jury members backstage at the finals at De Kreun last night! The band Lovely Gazbaby won. You can see a photo of me with them below. They were good throughout and consistant. I wish them lots of luck! They deserve it!

Friday 27 November 2009: Heidi got a special free make-up treat in the local Pharmacy :-)

Heidi says: and I like it! Very natural but clean and fresh and beautiful!

Thursday 26 November 2009: HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!!

Sarah says:
Happy Thanksgiving! Can't wait to celebrate it with some expat friends tonight and with Ayla. I'm glad she'll come too. That's one holiday she's certainly missed out on growing up here in Belgium. I have missed out on it too of course - and have missed it. It must be more than 15 years ago that I actually celebrated Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving day itself in a more traditional way. I enjoyed making cranberry sauce last night and will enjoy eating it with turkey and other good stuff tonight!

And boy do I have a lot to be thankful for! Mostly good people I lucked out with getting to have in my life - that's what I am thankful for! So thanks very much to all you good people in my life!You know who you are I hope!

I'm also thankful for my health and home and job. I feel pretty lucky most of the time and I am thankful for that!!!

Wednesday 25 November 2009: HAPPY 31ST BIRTHDAY HEIDI!!!! Go back in time all the way to 2005 and see what Heidi has looked like on her birthday...

Heidi says: It was a good birthday. One year older. Where will that end? :-)

Above you will eventually be able to see Heidi today on her 31st birthday if she gets around to uploading a photo!!!! In the meantime, I have put a message for Heidi above :-)! Happy Birthday Heidi! Have a great day and year!!!

Above is a photo from last year on this when Heidi turned 30 years old! Via this link you can go back to that day and see what Heidi was up to...
There's Heidi above and below two years ago today when she turned 29 in 2007!

Via this link you can go back to that day and check Heidi out!

That's Heidi above three years ago on 25 November 2006 blowing out her candles! She had given birth to Yma a couple of months before. If you want to check out exactly what she was up to on that day three years ago, you can via this link.
That's Heidi four years ago celebrating her birthday on 26 November 2005. If you want to know the details, check out what she was up to that day via this link and on her birthday itself in 2005 via this link.

And below you can see me and Ayla today - the 25th of November 2009, happy to have just received season 5 of the Gilmore Girls in the mail as we love that show and have been waiting a while since season 4 ended. Now we know what we'l be doing each night after work and school for a while! Fun! We like to pretend we are Lorelei and Rory - a great mom and daughter team - and then Tom comes home from work and the bubble bursts! :-)


Above are CRANBERRIES I am making into sauce for the Thanksgiving dinner Ayla and I will actually go to on Thanksgiving itself here in Belgium with a bunch of expat friends! Can't wait!
And that's me above yesterday - Tuesday the 24th of November - 1 kilo lighter than the last weigh-in - which isn't a lot but still makes me happy because I am at the halfway mark having lost 5 kilos in just under three months - that's a bit more than 11 pounds and I want to lose 20 pounds, which means about 10 kilos - so by March that might be the case! I sure hope so! I'm trying and trying though on Thanksgiving I will stop trying for the night and just enjoy!!!

Monday 23 November 2009: Sarah tries to stay dry!

Sarah says:
That's my new hat to stay dry in the rain but it doesn't work really! It does protect my eyes and all, which is good, and the top of my head - but my lower face got so wet in the rain today! Viva Belgium! I kind of liked it though! It's a good way to wake up. Kind of refreshing in a weird way.

I think the above photo is also from Monday - yep it is - right after I did 24 minutes on the cross-trainer! Sweaty but good! Tonight (Tuesday) I get weighed! Fingers crossed! I see the difference in my face and body and in the way clothes feel but I'm not sure the scales will show that! I hope so! I need that kind of encouragement at this stage!

Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 November 2009: Sinterklaas and Yma and a rainbow... and Sarah and The Lool have smiles for you...

Heidi says: Yma was very good with the Sint!

Sarah says: The above and below photos are the only ones I have from today - Sunday the 22nd of November. At least you get some smiles. Not sure why I am smiling - I'm feeling kind of blue today thanks to some sad news I got yesterday that broke my heart for some friends a little. I did see the film This Is It today with Ayla and it made both of us want to sing and dance and cry and smile. I loved all the talent in it. Truly. Not a great weekend, this one.... Hope the week is better... I feel like punching a wall right now to be honest - for several reasons I won't get into on here... That's life I guess. Time to blow off some steam on the cross-trainer...

Above photo of me is from yesterday the 21st of November? Was happy then too. The pictures lie. I don't feel happy right now. Yesterday I did for a little while...
I haven't put a fave Post Secret on here in a while so here's the one above, which I love!

Friday 20 November 2009: Heidi suffers from pregnancy dementia and Sarah suffers from being out of condition...

Heidi says: really, I do, even worse now than when I was pregnant with Yma. I forget, I cannot think, I am dumb, I cannot concentrate, I am sleepy... Let's hope it doesn't stay like that. :-)

Sarah says: Above and below pics are of me just after I did 22 minutes on the cross-trainer. Man it is hard. Doesn't really get easier! I will try to do at least 20 minutes five days a week. I see the impact already. That and bike-riding are making my body make the click. I feel it and I see it and I am happy for the progress because I am working hard at it and trying to really eat well. Not feeling as guilty when I cheat a little with a piece of chocolate or extra piece of bread. I guess that is the reward of exercise! I'm all for that! Can't wait till the sales in January because I'll have a great excuse to buy some new clothes - pants anyway! Mine are all staring to fall off a bit, which makes me happy! But my already calf muscles are getting even bigger from biking and that's not a good thing! Oh well - I'm just curios about my weight. I go for a weigh-in after three weeks of not being weighed next Tuesday night. Fingers crossed!

Nothing big planned for the weekend just got to clean up the mess of the house! The bottom photo is a combo of my tow latest obsessions - my shrinking silhouette and our new windows... :-)

Wednesday and Thursday 18 and 19 November 2009: a nice day for Heidi!

Heidi says: before - after
(when you have nothing else to do :-) )

Sarah says: Above photo is from today - 19 November - my kid tried to get in the shot as you can see. The below one perhaps shows some diet and exercise progress. Sometimes I see progress, sometimes I don't so it is hard to know what is in the mind and what isn't. In any event, I feel good and I am moving my body a lot so that can only be good. Right now, in fact, I am going to go on the cross-trainer! It hurts and it is hard and I am already tired from riding my bike in the wind today but I will go for it! It makes me feel less guilty about having a piece of chocolate every now and then!

Sarah says: Me and The Lool and one of our new windows on Wednesday the 18th of November... A day like any other...

Monday and Tuesday 16 and 17 November 2009: Sarah's head is shot....

Above photo is from today - Tuesday the 17th - just after a sweaty bike ride! My head hurts a bit these days! I have been using the cross-trainer and I find it very challenging - yet I like it a lot! When on it, around minute 18 or 19, I feel like I will keel over. But I already see changes and I can breath better each time. When I have pain in my legs or arms I just keep going and the pain fades. If I can keep this up along with the diet, I am certain I will see good results - and that makes me feel great - but my head aches! Maybe that is from riding my bike in the wind, in which case, there's nothing I can really do about that!

Friday, Saturday and Sunday 13, 14 and 15 November 2009: Check out Heidi!

That's me and Heidi above on Sunday the 15th of November and you can see each of our daughters in the background!

Check out Heidi above! That baby is growing well! That's also a photo from Sunday the 15th as is the below one of me.

The photo above is of me and Marv - remember him? Just after the Morrissey concert Saturday night the 14th. The concert wasn't that great thanks to Morrissey having voice trouble but we had a good time together anyway!

Above photo is from Friday the 13th of November just after I came home at around 2 am - so really it is the 14th - from Westtalent, where we chose the last 8 bands to compete in the finals. It isn't easy going out almost every Friday and Saturday till around 2 am and watching 8 bands each time but it sure has been fun and I have seen and heard some really great music.

Friday 13 November 2009: Friday the thirteenth, a lucky day!

Heidi says: My luck today will be if I see that my mother is okay. She is in the hospital after a small operation yesterday and I can't wait to go and see her!

Thursday 12 November 2009: Heidi and Sarah meet up with their old colleague and friend Nancy and check out the damage at the old office they shared...

Sarah says:
It was good to get together with Heidi and Nancy today and strange to see our old Sound Performance office, which burnt down a little while ago. Strange feeling. Hard to explain. Confusion mostly. Ughhhh. Anyway - life goes on for all of us and it's good we shared that past - we all worked together at not one but two different companies...

The below picture doesn't show much but I like it. It's as if Sound Performance is cutting through the whole Pottelberg like a knife. No hidden meaning there. Just the beauty of a photo...

Heidi's large and beautiful plant is still in the office and is still alive and looked fine! The office is full of water, ash and what looks like mildew. It's so sad to see. We chose all that furniture with love. It's a little heart-breaking. We could only look in through the glass so we couldn't see much. But there was a lot of stuff all over the place. Weird....

Tuesday and Wednesday 10 and 11 November 2009: Morrissey!!!!

Above photo is from today the 11th and below from yesterday the 10th just after the Morrissey concert in Lille, where The Mozzer played 6!!!!! Smith songs! It was a goody and I can't wait to see him perform yet again this coming Saturday in Brussels. It's great fun because Tom and I both enjoy the music so much. It's something we have in common these days so it makes for a great date for us! I wish I were as skinny is real life as I look in the above and below photos but truth be told - I'm nowhere near it!!!! It's going slow now and getting harder and harder! It's cold here and dark and that makes me want to eat more and be lazier! It's a constant battle! When does this whole weight-loss thing just click and become a lifestyle rather than such a mind and body controlling effort! Ughhhh.... Anyway - at least Morrissey appreciates fat girls! "You're the one for me fatty"! That's my husband's love song to me thanks to Morrissey. (Joking :-)
Today is a holiday in Belgium and we are all putting our weapons down! The world is a messed up place! The 9th of November and today the 11th both make me think about war and power and control and loss of freedom and all those horrid things that often do make the world go round! Can you imagine all those soldiers fighting WWI here in Belgium in the rain and trenches... Horrid thought. Today - the 11th - must have been so very meaningful...

Tuesday 10 November 2009: Heidi continues

Heidi says: And my picture comes a day late :-). I can't believe that we are in the month that I am turning 31. 31!!! That is amazing. It sounds so different than 30. 30 is just the beginning. 31 is being in your thirties. Two more weeks to enjoy my 30.

Monday 9 November 2009: Heidi's positive feelings are coming... slowly and Sarah can only show you her good-bad side as opposed to her bad-bad side...

Heidi says: At least one thing to be happy about today: I just received an Amazon package with five CD's in it! 'Sometimes I wish we were an eagle' by Bill Callahan, 'Veckatimest' by Grizzly Bear, 'Bone of my bones' by Ebony Bones, 'Sunny side up' by Paolo Nuttini and 'Music for men' by Gossip. Nice nice nice! At noon I am meeting with Sarah at the soup place. I don't know if my stomach will be happy with soup, but we'll figure that out soon enough. I am starting to have that typical annoying stomach ache that pregnant women have. It's disgusting. It makes me vomit when I am not standing straight up or when I am coughing. Brr. I am also really having this bad cold for more than two weeks now. It just won't go away. I hope I don't get the Mexican flue before Thursday. Thursday is when I get my vaccination! Three more days to go... Three more days to fight those ugly filthy beasts! Tomorrow I go to the gynaecologist again. Excited to see what our boy has been up to.

Sarah says: Saw Heidi today and brought my camera knowing I would but forgot to bring it to lunch! A pity! But as you can see, she already wrote something above so we can expect a photo of her soon too.. As for me, I'm only showing you the right side of my face because the wrong side - otherwise known as the left side has an alien living on it that just won't go away! I think it has a brain and everything... Anyway - my face is all wrong these days - a mess! It's the heat and the cold and the biking and the grease and the dryness. I need a new face I think.... As for the body - still busy with the diet but it is now going very slow! I did try on a bunch of too-small clothes tucked away in the back of my closet and I am happy to see I have gone down a size. But that has happened before so I won't get too excited! I need to work this forever - otherwise I'll just yo-yo around forever and I am sick of that! Sunday, thanks to my friend Carmen, I learned how to do exercises on a ball that supports my back and thanks to Aimee I now have such a ball so from now on I am going to try to have a ball with my ball! This week my cross-trainer should be set up too as it's been tucked away in the garage while our windows have been being replaced... So the future looks bright for my body but what about my face?! I think I should start charging this alien rent!