The results are in

On Friday last week, D went for a sperm test to see whether anything had changed.

This is, of course, after the first two sperm tests where test 1 said the count and motility were fine, test 2 said only the motility was fine and so you can see why I wanted another test.

The doctor said that if the count and motility was fine this time, then we could try AI.

Anyway, I get a voicemail on my phone yesterday from the nurse to say the results are in and can we please phone her. And oh, by the way, she loves my voicemail. (I have something like this at the end - "and remember, small changes, compounded over time, produce huge results. So take action today")

We didn't phone her (he can't talk from work and I was HECTICALLY busy - I mean, 8 meetings in 1 day is just crazy AND THEN I had a coaching appointment after work, so I was finished!) so she phoned us at home this morning.

Okay, I'll put you out of your suspense. The results are better than test 2 but not good enough so looks like we have to go for IVF if we're going to go that route.

I was remarkably calm when D told me. Or maybe it hadn't fully hit me yet.

So this weekend we have serious discussions!

I am so sore!

okay, so I'm less than 3 kg away from goal weight. It's so close I can almost feel it.

So I decided to do what I can to get me there quicker (ideally by 1 March since that's when I started Weigh-Less).

I eat very well (lots of veggies and fruit, water, the whole shebang) and that doesn't really change all that much for me from week to week. Of course 5 - 10% of the time I do snack, have the odd bit of cake, and so on!

Anyway, I had this bright idea to add some weights to my normal routine just to accelerate the metabolism.

The idea is to do an extra 10 minutes, 6 days a week, totally doable.

I think I managed 3 sessions last week. It seemed to be working because I noticed about a 0.4kg drop in weight.

So I thought if I go to a Body Conditioning/ Toning class where they do use weights, I can get it all done in one go! Yippee! (I really don't enjoy getting all hot and sweaty). And if I feel like doing the 10-minute sessions 3 times on top of that, I'll be just fine.

So today I went. And I am dead on my feet. I could barely move my legs down the stairs after that Low and Tone class.

And I don't even want to think about how sore I'll be tomorrow.

But I feel great and that scale better agree with me this week.

Thursday Thirteen #9 - some of my passions/ obsessions

I used to think that my passions/ obsessions were normal until I found out that not many people have the same excitement about these things.

1. Handbags – this is a severe sickness. I admit it and that’s that. But people, I hear them calling out to me “buy me, buy me”

My latest buy

2. Wallets – this has to a certain degree stopped since I found my most recent one in October. I love, love. Love it and everywhere I go, people comment on my gorgeous wallet.

3. Watches – bad one. We had a burglary about 18 months ago and all 13 were stolen except the one I was wearing to work (obviously LOL). I since started again and I have about 8 to 10. Too scared to start counting…

4. Slops – this is a new one. A certain local department store just kept bringing out such comfortable and lovely slops and I kept buying and buying. Bad, I know.

5. Mugs – I’m getting better with this one too. Now I buy to give away. Lots of my friends get 4 – 6 mugs for gifts. I can’t resist buying pretty ones!

6. Notebooks – I was really into spiral-bound ones until I discovered some new ones with the satin bookmark inside and an envelope at the back to hold loose papers. They came in pink, lilac and mint-green so I bought a couple of each. Still on my pink one at the moment. And they’re so cute – small enough to keep in your handbag.

7. Pens – ooh, gel pens, normal pens, they’re all delicious. Only prerequisite is they must be medium point.

8. Diaries/ planners – I buy about 2 to 3 every year while I’m deciding which one I like best. Then I give the others away as Christmas gifts.

9. To-do lists and other organizing tools – I am a total sucker for good forms. I make my own too and I recently packaged my household forms into a downloadable file for sale on my web. Contact me if you want to buy it.

10. Bookmarks – the good thing here is that I go through them regularly. And this is another thing – if I see a nice one, I’ll buy it and give it to someone when I buy them a book as a gift.

11. Books – enough said. I had to clean out my bookshelf and get rid of about two bags to make space for those acquired over December!

12. Cleaning products, especially new ones on the market. My husband says I’m a marketer’s dream because I’ll try anything once.

13. Keyrings – I have such a big collection that I have two on each of my house and car sets, and I now use them on the handbag zips too.

And those are some of my passions. Am I weird?

What are yours?

P.S. My toolbar is missing so I can't post pictures of my wallet or cute notebook. Anybody know how to fix it?

Update - looks like the toolbar only disappears at work. I'm going to try clearing my browser there. But as you can see the pictures are up.

How to get your boss to respond to your emails

Send him an email and tell him the legal guy who does all your work has resigned.

A response just a few seconds later is guaranteed – trust me!


It is going to get interesting around here after the end of the month. My company takes their own sweet time to re-employ and it took us 3 months before they hired him last time around.




And in other work news, I clicked onto a blog yesterday and what do I see?

Huge security warnings.

We now have quotas on reading anything in the category “newsgroups/ blogs”.

I suppose I should be grateful that I still get limited access (30 minutes a day). But it’s annoying – everytime you get a message saying x minutes used, so many remaining.

However I don’t want to push the envelope as I’ve had two security warnings already, one for too many hits in the day and the other for sending out a big mail attachment to lots of friends :o

So what does that mean? I’m too scared to read all your blogs in case I get busted. So it’ll have to be a quick squiz around once I’ve done my own blogging.

I have dial-up at home so it literally takes me hours to do anything. I need to get fast access!!!

On the bright side, I'm really doing exceptionally well at work now as I have no choice but to actually work : o )

Thursday Thirteen # 8 - work to do on my business

Thursday Thirteen #7 Business stuff I need to do


1. Figure out Bloglines so I don't spend so much time looking through my favourites seeing which blogs are updated

2. Get professional headshots done

3. Start submitting all my articles to article directories

4. RSS feeder – what the *&^* is this anyway?!

5. Update my customer list – remember the computer problems I had? Well, the virus wiped out my customer file and the last time I did a total back-up was 1 March last year!

6. Email all my clients and offer them my new goals programme

7. SEO – rewrite a lot of my site and put in major keywords

8. Google adsense – another thing I need to sort out on my blog

9. Write a "why I am perfect to speak at your organisation" marketing brochure and load the pdf to my site

10. Contact the radio station that interviewed me last year to see if they'll consider a weekly "ask the organiser" segment.

11. Go through all posts on my three business blogs and make tags/ labels on all posts to make searching easy. Now that I've converted to Beta Blogger.

12. Investigate hiring a virtual assistant (web person) or maybe swop coaching for web services with someone to do the fancy stuff I want to do on my site

13. Check http://www.surveymonkey.com/ for results of my latest survey


Oh my word, now I feel excited but a bit overwhelmed too!!!!!

ungrateful pregnant people - UPDATED

I work with someone who is currently 5 months pregnant.

She moans continually. And I mean continually. Every single word out of her mouth the whole day is complaining about various things about the pregnancy. I've taken to putting my music on the minute she walks in. I don't think I can take it anymore!

It wouldn't be so bad if she was a normal fertile person, but she battled for 4 years to fall pregnant, had a miscarriage in 2005 and then got it right last year. You'd think she'd be grateful, right? Wrong!

Sadly, her sensitivity is severely lacking.

And worse? She knows that I am battling to conceive. She used to keep coming to tell me every little thing about the pregnancy before but thank goodness, she's now reading my body language and staying away. One of my things to do this year was to have a talk with her if she didn't stop.

now, I might have to have the talk about her complaining.

Updated
Well, I had the talk with her on Friday afternoon. I can't remember exactly what I said but it was something along the lines of, "you know, you should be grateful that you're pregnant at all". God's given you a huge gift.

She paused a bit and then said, "you're right. I actually am very grateful".

And that was that, people. I have heard no complaining for 2 whole days! Wow.

ever get the feeling you're going nuts?

yesterday i requested a report from IT. They send me an email today saying i can find what I'm looking for on a specific place on the system. i battle the whole day to get into said system. Finally I get in, see that the information is not there in the way i want it so i phone them.

he tells me my request wasn't specific enough. really now? that's the way i always send them through. no, you don't. yes, I do. Oh and why aren't you copying me on your requests? I'm supposed to copy you? you know that and you always used to. no, i didn't.

oooh, it makes my blood boil when people talk down to me.

and when they act like they know it all. i am not losing my mind and i know full well i haven't been copying him but for the sake of peace (and wanting my report!), i just shut up!

i feel a lot better getting that all out. and not worrying about punctuation LOL

Thursday Thirteen # 7 - some of my goals for 2007

Did you set any goals for this year? Or resolutions? Or intentions? Or focus areas?

Here are 13 of my goals, in no particular order...

1. Grow closer to God this year. I have let the baby thing come between us and I actually miss being close to God, so this year I'm getting my act together.

2. Continue to have a harmonious, peaceful, loving relationship with my husband. We are both stubborn and want to be right, so that's why harmonious because sometimes we forget that we want to be happy and just focus on the being right part. LOL

3. Take a 4 - day cruise (at least - I wouldn't mind a longer one) to the Portuguese islands for New Year's next year.

4. Do at least 5 hours of quality work every day before blogging/ messing around with personal emails, etc. Am I alone here???

5. Get to my goal weigh - that means I have to lose another 3 kg. So close but so far...

6. Increase my exercise - I currently do two dance classes every week (hip hop and salsa) and I need to add a body conditioning/ toning type of class 'cos I don't want flabby arms...

7. Sign up at least 2 new coaching clients every month for a 3-month period, but overall the goal is to coach 50 clients this year (I understand that there will be those who just want a laser coaching session).

8. Get more media exposure by getting articles published online and in print magazines. Also, I'm not limiting God - TV and radio segments would also be good. A new client emailed to ask me if I'd been on a talk show and I said, "not yet, but that's one of my goals" LOL

9. Ministry-wise, I'd like to help at least 15 people to discover their passion and run at least one Consultants Course.

10. Meet up with at least 2 friends for a lunch or supper social on a monthly basis - whether girlfriends or couple friends.

11. Attend 4 networking events and 2 workshops for my own personal development.

12. Read 7 books every month. How am I going to do this? Read at least 10 non-fiction pages every day. On the weekends, I indulge in my beloved fiction totally for hours so that is not the problem...

13. And last but most definitely not least, I would love it if we could have a baby this year. So please pray with me, Internet!

Post some of your goals in the comments - I'm insanely curious!

Bad computer karma

Hi everybody

Happy New Year!!!!

My prayer for all of you is health, wealth and happiness this year. And, of course, a baby for me and for Boho!

I've had a nice blogging break. Totally unasked-for, by the way.

On Monday 18th Dec, I tried logging on and my computer logged right back off.

We took it in and it turns out there was a virus. And after MANY days, we got feedback that they were not able to recover any programmes but would be able to save all files. Not!

Well, we only got it back on the 29th!!!!! I immediately noticed that lots of pictures were missing. And my entire contacts in Outlook was missing and all the emails in the Inbox, Sent Items and individual folders.

Not too serious, I thought, because most of the pertinent information I have on my flash drive.

But here's when I know I have really bad karma (and I don't even believe in this stuff)...

An entire folder on my flash drive is missing. One day there, the next missing. It really is a mystery to me.

This folder had basically everything in it. You see, I do email maintenance about twice a year and as I sort out folders, I put them in a big one called Folders already sorted out (just to be nice and clear). And I was nearly done - thank God I'm a bit of a procrastinator because my Work to do and Website folders were not done yet, and are therefore still on the disc.

Yes, so the whole thing is gone. My customer contact details were in there, together with client coaching details and my Good ideas folder. Thank goodness I have a really good memory so I can remember lots of email addresses offhand.

So, guess who'll be working hard this week???


Sorry for the long, rambly nature of this post. I just had to get it out.