Following Fordith: July 2014

Weekly weigh in plus some geek news

Posted by Fordith | Filed under Random Ramblings

Sooo… it’s that time of the week again, it seems to come round so quickly when you want a takeaway but have to think better of it!

Weighed in this week with a loss of 2lbs! YAY! Am super excited by this! This puts me over a stone lost with total since my heaviest being 15lbs lost. Jon has said that he can see the difference already but I am not so sure, I suppose it is all subjective but I should take measurements and keep track of it that way i think, then I can watch me change, not trying to be narcissistic or anything lol. It’s for science, damn it!!

Another reason for celebration is that Jon and I have finally set a date for the wedding! So get your big hats out ladies because it will be on 8th August 2015!! This means we can book our photographer and get really stuck in on the wedding planning! My fave part! Until the actual day of course

Luckily most of the time Jon and I are on the same page, although there are a few things I think I will have to fight him over but we shall see lol.

So here’s this weeks tally:

Current Weight: 19st 4lbs

Target weightloss by 11th August: 14 lbs

Pounds left until target: 9lbs

Weightloss so far: 5lbs

Which is looking pretty good so far! And I just wanted to say a quick thankyou to all who read this, those that I know well and those that I don’t. This blog is what is helping to keep me on the diet and think twice about what I am eating. It is great to know that there are some people reading it, even if you never tell me about it. I truly truly appreciate it so thank you!

Geek News

Superman is joining the Arrow tv series!

Ok, so its not actually Superman, but it is the guy who played him once! You might also know him from Chuck, like I do, well he has been added to the Season 3 cast of Arrow. He will be playing Ray Palmer, a physicist who comic book geeks know becomes the superhero Atom later on. For more info you can read the following articles:

http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/arrow/31214/brandon-routh-joins-arrow-season-3

http://www.themarysue.com/brandon-routh-cast-in-cw-arrow/

It is great to see them adding more and more of the characters in the DC universe, if only Wonder Woman could get in on that actioin but hey ho as long as she is done well in the upcoming film maybe she won’t need it. Talking to that film, there has been speculation about whether Stephen Amell (Green Arrow) will be appearing in the upcoming Justice League films, however he has confirmed on his twitter page that he has not been asked to be in it.

Another week another weigh in…

Posted by Fordith | Filed under Random Ramblings

I am feeling very positive this week, because I lost another 2lb!! If (or should I say when) I lose another lb that will be a whole stone lost since my heaviest!! YAY!! But in the meantime, the 2lb loss means I am almost back on track for my weightloss schedule and target.

I feel like I am finally getting back into the weightloss mindset, because I believe there is one, and hopefully this will carry on, as it is scary to think that the wedding is less than 12 months away now! I would like to be at most a size 16 by the time of the wedding, so I know I have a lot of hardwork ahead of me.

Here’s the running tally:

Current Weight: 19st 6lbs

Target weightloss by 11th August: 14 lbs

Pounds left until target: 11lbs

Weightloss so far: 3lbs

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

This weekend we did some very exciting things! (At least for me) Jon and I headed into the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham and pick out our wedding rings! Now I will not be uploading pictures of these, got to leave some things to be surprised over! But it was great we had a rough idea of what we wanted and we got looking, well the Jewellery Quarter is the best place for that! Hundreds of Jewellery shop windows full of glittering gems, and the second shop we actually went into and we found what we were looking for! http://www.warstonejewellers.com/

Jon got the Titanium ring he was looking for and Silver ring I wanted as well. Anyone who knows me well enough knows that I am hardly the girly girl that wants the big diamonds and the massive wedding dress and in fact I don’t wear jewellery other than the two rings Jon got me, but I would have been happy with Cubic Zirconia. After all it’s not the ring itself that is special but what it represents, now as it turns out they said that the diamond version of the ring I chose was the same price, so for that reason why the hell not

The Jewellery Quarter is a great place to go because they are all competive prices, we managed to bag our rings for a combined price of £280! Well under what we had budgeted for the rings which is great as it means more money for other stuff! But it has made it all more real, I will be a Mrs in 12 months!!! Tis crazy!

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

We also watched the F1 this weekend and it was Silverstone, the British GP, and what a race it was! The massive crash at the beginning was one of those heart stoppers, and I hate it when the driver doesn’t jump straight out, it makes me worry firstly if they are ok and whether they can get out! As it happens Kimi Raikkonen was fine with some bruising on his knees and ankles, hence why he needed help getting out of the car, but he experienced 47G in force in that crash, now 25G crashes means they have to see the Doctor so that shows you how bad it was and could have been. But after the excitement of that and an hour long delay whilst they fixed the barrier to strengthen it the race got underway again, and for the rest of the race my attention was on Jenson Button, who had climbed from 3rd to 2nd before the restart. After such a turmultous past couple of years it was great to see the McClarens back up there, but with the Mercedes team as it is this year there was no stopping them getting in front, as well as Bottas’ Williams which having started 14th surged round the tracked and by what felt like lap 3 was already behind Button, I think it was actually lap 12ish. Then Rosberg suddenly breaks down with a gearbox failure and has to retire moving everyone up, but at this point Button has only climbed back up to 4th after a pit stop and Ricciardo has got in front of him. The Hard tyres are supposed to be the slower tyres but on this day they were able to set amazing times, so Button started chasing him down for the 3rd place and first podium of the British GP that Jenson would have received after 14 attempts. It was tense at the end watching Jenson cutting away at the 10 second lead that Ricciardo had over him and with tyres that were 30+ laps old, but alas even down to the last corner Jenson couldn’t quite get there and ended up .8 of a second behind him. It was a great race, I wish they were all like that and not the snooze fest of a Mercedes 1-2 winning again and again, which I think this season will be now.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Last night we went to see ‘How to Train your Dragon 2′ a film that I was far too excited to wait until Cheap Tuesday or Orange Wednesday to see so we trundled on down to the Cinema and sat through the horrific Kids films trailers eagerly anticipating the start of the film. And then it started, and with a massive smile on my face I sat and watched as we were told that it had been 4 years since the first film and our lead characters were 20 years old and how they had intergrated Dragons into daily life. Hiccup was still Hiccup and doing his own thing, Stoic (his father) was still trying to get him to listen and stand up to his responsibilities, it seemed not much had changed, however, there were differences between the films. Although a kids film, it seemed a bit darker than the previous one, there were still the moments of humour and I found myself watching the dragons in the background rather than the conversation that was happening in the foreground.

But, and I will try no spoilers although this first bit is in the trailer, Hiccup meets his mother, someone who is just like him but left him and his father for 20 years to live with dragons. Now if that was me I would not be as forgiving as the pair of them, I would have a shout or two, but it is a kids film so I will let that slide. the villain, Drogo, is wanting world domination and will destroy anyone that gets in the way, and yet he seems to know exactly where the Mum is hiding, if he knew that why wait until Hiccup comes along to get their dragons, rather than waiting 20 odd years to do it. I felt that the Villain was not really used enough but that the other aspects were given more attention, the major plot point near the end of the movie was glossed over and I thought that really wasnt in keeping with the previous film or the characters, other than a few whispers it isn’t mentioned again…

Other people have said that Astrid is not the ass-kicker she was in the first, but I felt she got some good kicking in there, and maybe she was slightly moved into the typical girlfriend role but it is a coming-of-age story and although there are a few cliche’s in there they at least have dragons involved. The other Vikings are not used as heavily in the film as the first either, and although they may be favourites they still serve their purpose where necessary but they had to make room for the new characters, otherwise we would be complaining that it is just the same film all over again.

That being said, it was still a kids film and with those you do have to not overthink it, I loved the movie and the 3D is supposed to be great but I am not overly a fan of ’3D movies’ so we decided against it. I would easily give this film…

4 out of 5 Stars

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

SOME GEEK NEWS FROM LAST WEEK (forgot to post it oops):

So I was VERY excited to read on Nerdist about Sherlock returning! Yes, we will have to wait a while for it (as always) but it is coming! Possible spoilers in the second link so don’t read if you don’t want to know:

http://www.themarysue.com/steven-moffat-sherlock-season-4-shooting-details/

http://www.nerdist.com/2014/07/martin-freeman-talks-a-sherlock-christmas-return-but-not-so-fast/

It was odd to have two Sherlock’s come out at the same time (ish) and seems to happen a lot in hollywood, something will pop up and somehow there will be another film of the same subject matter or story at the same time. Usually varying in results and more often than not one does a lot better than the other! I watched both Sherlock (BBC) and Elementary (Sky Living) and I have to say that Sherlock is my favourite of the two, yes there are less of them and they take aaages to release new ones but I think they are worth the wait! The casting is brilliant and I think Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman have a great chemistry together, however I wasn’t overly keen on Mary’s involvement in the latest series, and thought that there wasn’t actually that many ‘mysteries’ for him to solve in Series 3. But if there was a better ending for Series 3 then I don’t know what it is! Sherlock Holmes is supposed to be a character able to join the dots in every day situations that we ‘idiots’ can’t, and I feel that the series did that.

Do not get me wrong I like Elementary, but it seems more about his drug problem and relationship with Watson than his talents. I understand that they are trying something new and have turned it on it’s head in some ways (in New York and no Baker Street) and more faithful to the original characters in others (BBC version he was only addicted to cigarettes…). The latest season was a lot better than previous with the over-arcing plot throughout, but I find Rhys Ifans as Mycroft an odd choice, if you said suave Brit, he would not be on my list let alone top of it lol. They also dealt with Moriarty already, and as before shes now a woman, but she seemed more ‘well connected’ than Criminal Mastermind. Oddly I think my favourite character is the turtle… not sure what that says about me lol. I am not sure where they can come back from this end of season story and how it will progress in the new one, but hey they are the writers not me!

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

In other TV news, we have this: http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/arrow/31150/arrow-season-3-casting-news

They have cast and added another known Comic book character, Katana, another ass kicking female, which I love! I have always enjoyed this series, and I find it really interesting how they have their ‘no super heroes’ policy. It makes it a bit more interesting and, in actual fact, more relatable, because you know with a touch of hard work and ‘some’ training anyone could be these hero/villains in the show. Now some of it is abit more extreme than real life but honestly you have to kind of take that with a pinch of salt but otherwise what is he going to do, go after bankers and politicians?? Although.. I suppose he kind of does… but nonetheless it is a great TV show, with moments of humour as well as drama. My favourite character is probably Felicity, she may not be an arse kicker but she has talents of other kinds, like her brains! She is not relying on her looks (although I do think she is pretty) to get through life or tough situations and she actually has a purpose in the show. Laurel however… I feel that she is just a character that should have been killed with Tommy, because once her and Oliver were no more her storyline became boring and insignificant, what is her role in the show exactly? Except getting kidnapped all the time that is!

Tags: Arrow, Elementary, Film Review, Geek News, Nerdist, Sherlock, The Mary Sue,Wedding Diet, Weightloss

Read more | Comments (0) | July 7th, 2014
Week 1 weigh in!

Posted by Fordith | Filed under Random Ramblings

So the moment of truth came this morning and…. I’ve lost 1lb so could be better but with a weekend away its still a loss!! I am not quite on track for my stone weight loss so far, but a good start and one I plan to continue..hopefully! Looking at Bridesmaid dresses with the girls this weekend and finding a dress I realllllllly liked but couldn’t try on, has only made me more determined to lose the weight. There was a woman in there getting fitted whilst we were in there and she looked stunning! I hope that when people see me in my dress they think the same and not.. wow that makes her look huge’ or even ‘I hope I don’t look that big on my wedding day’ as even I have said when I have seen some photos. I don’t compare myself to the skinny minnies of this world because I honestly think I will not get to that point, yes people keep telling me it is possible but for now I would just like to be thinner full stop and not a specific dress size that will only make me depressed if I don’t reach it! And even if it comes to the wedding day and I’m still bigger I would like to carry on with the weight loss until I am a healthy size again, something I probably haven’t been since I was a child.

Now… the bridesmaids… pains in the arses the lot of them

I love them really! But found it hard to find something they liked, liked on them, looked good on all, bur we shall persevere! We are now going to the Newmarket Wedding Fayre in August so hopefully will find something there that catches our eye! But at least it was a good jumping off point! This has spurred me into more thoughts of getting fitter quicker lol so I can try on the things I like and not worry about whether they will have something my size that I can actually try on! It was a very pretty dress! However when the actual wedding dress hunt begins I want my mum, sisters and Jon’s mum to be there so I will have to start organising that in a few months, maybe once I have the dress it will spur me on further knowing I have to fit into it? Let’s hope so! I just want to set a date now lol!!

Exercise is my downfall and I think if I step that up even a little it will help my weightloss immensely, so I plan to go for a walk at least 3 times a week, and if Jon is around or isn’t becuase of work I need to try and not be lazy and do it without him. Sometimes it is harder when you don’t have that someone to push you and get you off your arse! I am also going to show you just two of my most hated pictures of me due to my size that I think I should print out and stick on my fridge and cupboard doors to encourage me not to overeat! I will add them in my gallery as well so that it reminds me my fat is EVERYWHERE!!! lol!

This photo was taken after the Colour Run in Manchester in 2013, it was great fun and I really enjoyed it, I managed to do the whole 5km in less than an hour, which may not sound like much in the world of fitness but to someone who was twenty stone at the time it was a great achievement at the time and some of the run we were actually running for the rest was a quick walk, I owuld have loved to do it again this year but alas finances did not allow, but maybe it is something to train for next year? It did not feel like a 5km because every km there was a different colour being thrown at you so it broke it up. Although this years is not until august, finances means its not possible this year but it will be something to look forward to next year!

The second photo is from our holiday in New York, and yes I am leaning back because this french woman was telling me to but I find it a horrible photo.

These are the things that motivate me at the moment! Maybe one day we will go back to New York and can restage all of our pictures so I look better lol.

So here goes:

Current Weight: 19st 8lbs

Target weightloss by 11th August: 14 lbs

Pounds left until target: 13lbs

Weightloss so far: 1lb

Read more | Comments (0) | July 1st, 2014
A little less worrying for the next 6 months…

Posted by Fordith | Filed under Random Ramblings

Because I still have a job!!!! My contract has been extended.. YAYYYYY!!!

This is great news, and hopefully it will get extended another 6 months after that depending on a couple of things! I love what I am doing at the moment so this really makes me happy! This job may not be exactly what I want to do in my life and its very unlikely that I’ll be here until I retire but I am still learning how to do stuff and whilst I am here it is all experience and looks much better on a CV that I have been here for 1+ year than just 6 months. And whilst I enjoy it why not!

Busy weekend for me! This weekend I am heading back to the Shire to go Bridesmaid window/bridesmaid dress shopping with my besties Taz, Em and Sarah. I love these ladies and can’t wait to see them all!!! Sometimes the distance is hard, and from my family, but the sign of the best friendships are that it doesn’t affect them, and you can maybe not talk for a few weeks (or worst cases months) but nothing has changed! And that’s what I have and that’s why I love them! I wish I could spend more time with them but unfortunately as you grow older you realise how lucky you were to spend that amount of time with friends when you were a kid.

I JUST LOVE THEM!!!

And then on Sunday Jon and I have tickets to Hollywood Babble-On with Ralph Garman and Kevin Smith which we are super excited about! Having listened to the podcasts for the last 3 or 4 years we finally get to watch it live! Cannot wait!

Then it’s back to work but hey ho lol and then we are off out to the Cinema to watch 3 days to Kill with Natalie and Chris and out to dinner! Being social is so nice, I like having someone to go out with in Birmingham as really when I look back it has been quite lonely here, don’t get me wrong, Jon’s family are amazing and accepted me as one of their own and I love spending time with them. But when I was working for SR I was at home everyday on my own not meeting anyone (until we got an office and I met the medics

) and I love Jon but it would have been nice to be able to say, I am off out with so and so in the past 2 years of living here lol. But at the same time I wouldn’t change living with Jon for the world, and I hate it when hes not there and I’m alone.

I promised I would tell you about Maleficent, well, it’s ok, because it is quite close to the original Sleeping Beauty in places it kind of looks weird in Real Life lol The ‘Horns’ were fine, and explained in the beginning however towards the middle she starts wrapping up her hair in leather, snakes skin.. other random materials and that looks ridiculous, to me anyway to symbolise evil… and her crown, I think I would have chosen something shinier.

The story is good, a little predictable especially after other recent films that have come out, but there are some chuckle moments, but she is kind of portrayed as a crazy, bunny boiler, stalker woman rather than just an evil person. The motives are explained more in this film than the original Sleeping Beauty but they still seem strange to curse a baby 16 years in the future when you could just curse the person or even the baby there and then and get it down with, but no give them time to try and beat the curse.

And if you are going to burn all the spinning needles in the kingdom,, make sure they are all burnt and don’t keep the massive piles of slightly singed spinning needles in your own bloody castle…. at least make sure its just ash!

Jolie was ok as maleficent, I thought the younger girl who plays her was really good, but when Jolie starts shouting and ordering people about I just laughed because it seemed so odd. I still don’t understand the cheekbones….

There also is a major plot hole with the story in general of her changing a crow into a man and back again, so she could have done that to Aurora so she didn’t have fingers to prick….. just saying

All in all I would probably watch it again but I am not sure that I would feel the need to add it to our Blu Ray collection.

Read more | Comments (2) | June 27th, 2014
Things in the pipeline..

Posted by Fordith | Filed under Random Ramblings

So a new week and (hopefully) a new attitude! Realising that time is really running out before the wedding I am trying to get myself into the mindset of weightloss and more exercise! Now not liking to exercise in front of people (or the thing itself) doesn’t really help but I really do not want to be a fat bride that looks back on her wedding day and thinks, I could have looked so much better if I stopped having the takeaways!

So! New target is to lose a stone in the next 7 weeks, that gives me a target of 2lb per week, and hopefully some weeks I will lose more! So I will update weekly on ‘weigh in mondays’ and hopefully you will not have to read depressed Fordith but happy Fordith! I hope that this also gives me more of an urge to lose as I will tell you my weight at the bottom.

In the meantime I am about to make a doll of my friends character @Snow, from my beloved City of Heroes game and then a friend has asked me to make her some funky knitting needles! Now obviously I will be buying the knitting needles then decorating them, a whittler I am not! I have some funky ideas for them though so think its going to be a ‘what works’ situation.

Yes soaps and candles are still on my brain (bought some of the fragrances ready, sssh don’t tell Jon!) but as Jon said i need to finish what I start first! I think I will also start stockpiling the baubles later in the year so they are ready for the xmas period! Although I did sell the CoH blanket recently so that has gone off to its new owner and I hope he is cuddly and warm!

I have decided traditional soaps and candles may be the way to go first and get the process down and sorted and then from there try out the different styles…. sometimes I do think I am quite ADD about craft projects picking them up and putting them down again so don’t worry you are not the only one to think it! But I just find so many interesting I just need to find the ones that I like the most and then stick to it! Who knows maybe one day I will settle on it!

In other news, have made a friend in Birmingham, Natalie, and we are off to the cinema and out to dinner tomorrow! It will be nice to get out of the house with someone other than Jon (no offence Jon!) We are off to see Maleficent, because we can and we are that cool! Let’s hope it’s not shite!

So finally the weight…..*deep breath Jess*……

Current Weight: 19st 9lbs

Target weightloss by 11th August: 14 lbs

Pounds left until target: 14lbs

Read more | Comments (2) | June 23rd, 2014
I think I’m obsessed…..

Posted by Fordith | Filed under Random Ramblings

All I have in my mind is soap making sand candle making today! I really want to try it but I’m not sure, my other half is aware of the fact it’s another crafty thing I want to spend money on…it’s not like I’ve stopped the bauble making but it’s the wrong time of year so I should be stockpiling.

I love my job in events but a lot of the time I really wish I could make money and live off a crafting business! That would be awesome!! But with so many about these days the market is flooded and I am not sure there’s room for me or my ideas in this world. There’s probably more money in what my current career is headed too, but I think a bit part of my heart will always be with crafts. I enjoy doing it and when it’s finished sitting back and thinking wow I did that! ‘It looks cool!!’ Or ‘I could do this better by…’

Maybe one day I could, or maybe I do both? It would be cool to get a load of stuff together and go to some fairs or craft fairs or even a village fair and see what the interest is like?! It would obviously need to be more generic at first, but to the geeky themed stuff would be great too! But that’s a smaller market and more likely an online one too.

I have a couple of projects to do first and then maybe there will be room for the new type of crafting in my life…but at this rate we need to move so I can have a craft room….pretty sure Jon doesn’t NEED a study….or a kitchen

Following Fordith

Tabs

Monday 28 July 2014

An odd week..

Monday 21 July 2014

A few new projects...

Sunday 20 July 2014

Weekly weigh in plus some geek news