Back to Blogging!

I haven't posted in a few months as I was busy with a new project at work and getting lots of things done. I started my Italian evening course to work on my language skills and it's going very well. I do find it hard to commit the time to doing my homework and extra study each week, my tutor reckons we need to be doing at least 3 hours on top of the 3 hours of class each week. Luckily next week is half term so I don't have a class and can catch up. I started reading an Italian newspaper online to practice my reading and comprehension skills and have printed off some articles that are related to the topics we study on the course.

I've achieved a few more tasks from my 101, number 50 to give up Diet Coke was tough going the first few days I was exhausted, constantly yawning and my head was so sore. But I worked through it and now I am the most frequent visitor to the office water cooler. I'm hoping this will have benefits soon - after all magazines are always telling me people who drink litres of water a day have clear skin and shiny hair. So bring on the supermodel looks! It'll save me a fortune too as I was spending at least £5 a week on my Diet Coke habit and water is free! I have a water filter at home and use no added sugar squash to liven up the water a bit, and now it's winter I can have lots of hot lemon and blackcurrant. I also stocked up on vitamins to make sure my diet is even more well balanced, and to help regulate my hormones so I feel even better.

I have a healthcare plan through my employer and actually took the time to read it a few weeks ago and found it included a whole range of alternative treatments. I'd been having problems with one of my feet since I bought new shoes in the correct size, that didn't hurt my feet. So I went to a podiatrist and he was amazing! Apart from my feet getting totally pampered and all the hard skin removed, nails cut and filed properly, I mentioned my foot pain. The podiatrist explained that now my foot has room to spread out the ligaments aren't getting enough support and he sorted me out with an insole. It has completely fixed my foot pain - I was starting to despait as walking around barefoot was painful and I was struggling to walk after sitting for any length of time. My insole supports the middle of my foot as well as the arch so all the muscles and ligaments are in the correct place. And I've painted my toes in a glamorous red to celebrate my new good looking feet!!

I started a proper home cleaning routine last week when we had a dinner party and I had to take a day off work to clean the house before I could invite friends over! So I made a little chart of what needs to be done and when and who is responsible for making sure each task is done. Less than 20 minutes a day each will keep the house and cars looking great and avoid any embaarassing incidents when friends land on the doorstep. It also demonstrated that we need to sort out some proper storage for our living room as there were some things that just don't have a home. Our house is quite minimal, we don't have much furniture, or many homely touches and it's beginning to look a little too stark for my nesting instincts, so I'm going to have a think about what we'd like to have in the room and how to make it fit with the existing dimensions and colour scheme.