Indestructible Flying Goldfish

The shot on the left was taken on September 1st, 1999, the day I first joined Weight Watchers in Junee.  That night I weighed in at a shocking 107.4kg (236.3lbs).  Shocking because as I have said, I was in total denial about my weight.  I had NEVER had a weight problem, I was always known as the slim girl, all my life.  Tall and leggy and envied by my sister who only had to look at food to gain weight. (Who is that little urchin peeking out the window there?)
The second photo was taken on the day I reached my goal weight which was about 73 kg (160lbs).  I couldn't find the one of me on my own, but look how cute my babies were?  It was taken in Gunnedah towards the end of 2000.  I managed to keep the weight off pretty much for a couple of years, although I don't think I ever did squeeze into that little polka dot dress again.  I learned lessons about health and lifestyle though, that will last me throughout my life.  I also met some really, really peculiar people in the online weight loss community.  I'm talking seriously disturbed folk.
Yes well the fish can't fly obviously but it made the title sound more interesting.  I envy bloggers who throw titles to the wind and just get down to the important part, blogging.  The frustrated print journalist in me can't help trying to come up with a title each post though.
We bought five goldfish not long after we moved back to Junee and set them up in an old cement double laundry tub outside.  Two of the fish mysteriously disappeared without a trace but three grew to freakishly large proportions and have not only survived searing heat, freezing Winters, curious cats and chickens, and self emptying tanks where we'd find them laying on their sides until we filled the tank up again, they managed to reproduce.  Once I even found one lying beside the tank on the gravel and was about to give it a decent burial until Phill came out and just picked it up, flipped it back into the tank and off it swam.  I thought fish were delicate creatures?  We've never been able to keep them inside in tanks, they always died on us.  So this morning I went out to feed them early, I'm an early to bed, early to rise girl these days, and thank goodness I did as the tank was blocked with algae and the hose skewiff, and the big fish lying on their fat sides, the little ones frantically trying to stay under the centimetre or so of water that was left.  I quickly grabbed the hose and filled up their side of the tank, then cleaned the pump and hose a bit so it was flowing again.  I couldn't believe how they just started swimming about again and ate a hearty breakfast straight after.  The tank needs a good clean which I will try to do today delegate someone else to do today.
Phill went to the tip on Monday and got a whole lot of timber to build a chicken coop.  Book's open on how long said timber will sit in the garage before being moved out to the stables (by me sick of looking at them), before sitting there for a few months before finally being taken back to the tip. 
I finally downloaded Skype yesterday and had a great video chat with my old friend Peggy in Michigan USA.  I couldn't believe how clear the vision was and the audio was just like talking on the phone.  She was amazed to see the kids, we've been friends online since January 1998, when Josh was a newborn and Em just a toddler.  I was thinking yesterday about how we met in a chat room, and marvelled that we could chat in real time from opposite ends of the world.  We grew our friendship through the wonders of AOL instant chat, ICQ (remember that what ever happened to it?) where we would talk pretty much every day, and the two of us, with our husbands would get online at the weekend over a few beers.  Initially neither of us had a scanner, gosh just having a computer was fancy in those days, so we sent photos of each other and our families through the post.  As well as packages of local sweets and stuff.  I had my first affair with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and she loved our honey baked ham potato chips.
We finally got a scanner, what modern technology!  So we scanned and emailed photos back and forth, of various things, learning about resizing along the way after crashing our email accounts with huge bytes of images.  How things have changed.  Now I can take a photo with my digital camera and upload it to my computer instantly, and even better, we can see each other and talk to each other through our webcams.
Took Josh to the "new" hairdresser for a haircut yesterday and she did a great job, nicest cut he's had, but it makes him look older.  My baby is growing up, he'll be a teenager in six weeks or so.
So Phill's on holidays and we haven't killed each other.  Yet.  He's been trying to get all of our old home videos onto dvd with some contraption he got off Ebay that he plugs into something or other.  It does have some interesting software that puts pretty titles and stuff on them that I'm going to have a go at later.  We're going to take our wedding video down to the computer shop and get them to put it onto dvd and compare the results to how our own efforts are turning out.  We didn't have a video camera when we got married and Phill's niece kindly recorded our wedding and gave us a copy.  Every year, for many  years, we tacked footage from our anniversaries onto the end of it.  We stopped doing it a few years ago but now we have our new camera we might start it up again. 
Every so often the thought of Christmas pops onto my radar.  So different now.  When the three kids were small I'd start planning in about July or August and Christmas would be a wonderful, lavish affair.  I'm so glad now (in spite of being told every year that I overdid it) that I did that, the children have lovely memories of their childhood Christmases.  But what now?  Santa stopped visiting a couple of years ago and the magic has gone out of it for me.  The kids want the usual big ticket electronic stuff and I'm happy to do that for them, and I even manage to get some little surprises for them to unwrap but it's just not the same.  I considered going across to Mum's but there are all sorts of reasons why that won't really work.  We also looked into booking into a nice resort for the few days but we've always had Christmas at home.......I just don't know.  We aren't religious so we don't even have that spiritual side to enjoy.  My ideal Christmas would be for all the extended family, my sisters,their children and families, my children and their families, to get together somewhere, but the logistics of that, and taking into account THEIR extended families.....it all seems too hard.  And I can't even get drunk this year!  When I mentioned to Emily how I felt about Christmas these days she was horrified and I realised they are still kids for all their apparent worldliness and they still love all the hype and the tradition (and the presents!) and I can't drop the ball now, I just have to kind of reinvent it to suit our circumstances.
I went through my wardrobe the other day and got rid of a whole lot of clothes that are too big and/or have seen better days.  I put on a fitted shirt yesterday that was a bit snug the last time I wore it, it's an Autumn/Spring sort of thing, and it hung off me and looked silly.  And my pyjama pants are falling down.