Wii Fit Revolution

OK, after much umming & aaahing over whether or not to waste spend the money on the Wii Fit, I decided to take the plunge.

I was a bit hesitant, particularly because I didn't want it to scream OBESE at me in big orange letters as a number of people have commented on and although I am not fat, some of these types of things can be a bit touchy.

Apparently I have bought what could be the last one in Townsville at the moment. It took me a bit to track one down, but I found one , it came in a couple of days ago & was the only one the shop got, even though they had ordered several. I took that as a sign I was meant to have it (OK that's stretching it a bit).

Got it home & I MISERABLY FAILED the VERY FIRST TEST - (setting it up).

I didn't pay attention to the board when I was setting it up & just assumed that the switch with the blue light on it would face the Wii console.

Turns out the board was actually back to front & this is why I was only getting every second step when I tried aerobics & why I had to lean in the opposite direction to the one I wanted to go in the Ski slalom. Finally worked out the problem when Mummy McTavish was trying to head butt soccer balls & she would lean left & her Mii (the computer figure that she was controlling) would lean right.

The board even has "Wii" written on it which was upside down when the board was in the wrong position, but as I said, I wasn't paying that much attention at the time I set it up.


That fixed, we tried out a few of the activities. I can imagine Hula Hooping being a great party game, particularly after a few glasses of wine.

I didn't do too badly at aerobics after the board was turned around. Apparently it's just not Mummy McTavish's "cup of tea" though (in the words of the Wii).

Presently I find the sugar coated insults amusing. I don't think it will take me long to find them antagonistic & patronising.

Turns out Mummy McT & I are both in the "ideal" weight range. We are both "unbalanced" & apparently I have "good posture". (In real life my posture is atrocious but as long as I can make the red dot stay in the yellow circle while inhaling & exhaling in time with the pulsing blue circle & doing yoga, then I have it fooled :-)

My review so far of the Wii - I have had fun today, the exercises are much more vigorous than you would expect (or at least more than I expected) & once you are playing, it would be easy to get 30 minutes or more a day.

The exercises may get a bit boring or tedious in future, but as I am very very much a beginner in almost all of them it'll be a while yet.

Mummy McT has threatened to bring her video camera around next week. I will be the one behind the video camera I think. She can have her big hula hooping butt waggling around on the video.

So much for doing some housework today!

Comments Issue Fixed

Sorry about that - after asking for your comments on my new blog, the new format wouldn't allow them.

I have fixed that up now. Comment away :-)

WELCOME

Just so you know, I am not going to make a habit of this.

I haven't really been happy with the name of my original blog (Castle in the Air) since I created it. I just couldn't think of a better name at the time. The URL also wasn't that catchy either.

(I could have made things simple & just changed the name, not the URL but I don't like to do things by halves & as I don't have dozens of followers - yet - the best time to update was now).

I chose the new name for many reasons.

It is a name often associated with people with impairments, particularly mental impairments and particularly autism. Initially I was reluctant to use it because of those associations. However I couldn't get away from the fact that although I am not mentally impaired (although some might argue that), this phrase describes both what I am & what I aspire to be.

It is now after midnight & have written, deleted, re-written & deleted again, many times over this next paragraph. So many of the reasons I feel that this phrase describes me so perfectly are a bit too personal for me to share on the world wide web, so I shall leave this paragraph without explanation tonight. Who knows, if you read my blog for long enough you might just find the explanations within.

I hope you like my new look blog. Please leave me comments & tell me what you think.

It will be changing over the coming weeks but nothing as major as the overhaul it has just been through.

Good night & God Bless

Gramatically Incorrect

Here is one for Mummy McT who was feeling a bit hurt at someone critisizing her grammer when it was just a typo.

DH is currently playing Wii Golf. His score is quite good & he just hit a great shot that landed about a foot away from the hole.

DH: "Ooooooohhhhh!!! You couldn't get any more perfecter than that !!"

Me: "Well your grammer could !"

DH: "What?"

Me: "Your grammer could be better."

DH: "You leave my grandma out of this !!!"

Lovely weather .... for ducks that is !

Yet another exciting day in the life of us.


OK, maybe not ... but it had it's moments.


Today it rained again ! Yesterday DH mowed most of our yard (it took him over 1/2 hour just to mow the footpath the grass was that thick & the ground that mucky). It looks a bit better, but because of the conditions, it also looks very interesting. Lots of brown muddy grass & some of the grass seems to be mown at different heights.


With the rain comes the black cockatoos and the ducks.


Today I witnessed a rather surreal moment. I had Mummy McT & Dragon in the car, as well as Little Bear, & we were on our way to pick up Cheetah from school. On a 4 lane road with a traffic island in the middle, the car two ahead of us suddenly stopped. Thankfully everyone was driving carefully (unusual in Townsville) & there were no crashes, but next thing a family of little ducks waddles out from in front of that first car. They made it safely to the traffic island, but some of the littlest had a bit of trouble getting up on the island. It was so cute watching them flap their wings & try to run & propel their fluffy little bodies over the step. They then slid down the sloping traffic island to the two lanes heading in the opposite direction to us. I am happy to report they made it safely across the road & into the gully on the other side. Let's hope the water really is wetter on the other side of the road & they stay there.


Unfortunately that incident happened so quickly that M.McT & I did not have time to even grab our camera phones to take a pic.


Here is something I did manage to capture though. Little Bear throwing one of her tantrums. There was about 2 seconds of crying followed by this....

(Sorry it's a bit dark. I don't have a video camera, only the video option on my regular camera).


Most of her tantrums at home are very similar. There is usually a bit of crying, sometimes screaming, and very very occasionally she might stamp a foot or two, but it almost always ends like this. What you don't see in the video is her crying as she lies herself prostrate on the floor, pulls her hands in & starts sucking her thumb, & then crawls her legs in towards her tummy so her bum is sticking up in the air.


In the shops it's a different matter. She can scream for as long as it takes to change Mummy's mind & as mummy doesn't give in to tantrums, that's a lot of screaming !!! I stood in line one time at the checkouts for 20 minutes with her screaming for at least 15 of them because the nasty mummy that I am, I wouldn't let her jump all over my fruit & vege's in the bottom of the trolley. (I tried to lift the bags out of her way, but she would grab them & actually put them on the floor of the trolley specifically to jump on them. Charming child).




Something that was much more charming than tantrums in supermarkets was Little Bear looking after her dolly at lunch time. My little girl is only a baby herself and yet she is so gentle & loving of her baby. She wraps the baby up in a blankie, pats the baby on the head, brushes her 'hair', kisses her (lots & lots & lots & lots), and makes sure that baby is well fed.

Today baby got given a bowl of Macca's fries. Little Bear is only 19 months old, but no-one else had anything whatsoever to do with this setup.

Much as she loves her baby, Little Bear quickly decided that she couldn't let baby gorge herself on all those chippies alone so Baby was lifted up to the coffee table to share with Little Bear.

Don't you think baby is looking very expectantly at that chippy?

Little Bear thought so too, so offers the next one to her.

"Chippies are all gone baby, but you can suck the salt of my fingers now"

(OK, so she didn't really say that, but she might have been thinking it)

Raindrops keep falling on my head... and everywhere else

For your viewing pleasure, this is what the weather is like every day lately.

Actually these video's are mind deadening a bit boring but they give you an idea of what it is like to live in North Queensland during the wet season.

In the first video, I was trying to capture how full & slightly cloudy coloured the pool is. Hard to see through the window, but you can see the puddles in our gravel driveway & the big puddle in the gutter.

In the other videos, it is hard to see just how deep the water is in the yard, because the grass is so long because of the constant rain. You can also see the HUGE weeds that have invaded every single garden bed (we don't get a lot of time to garden, but our yard rarely looks like an overgrown vacant block as it does at the moment).

No Crocs in our pool yet, but given that we are starting to turn into the river of Townsville instead of the City of Townsville & croc's are beginning to end up as Road Kill, it probably won't be long. Then again, as they don't have opposable thumbs, they probably won't be able to get past the childsafe latch. Maybe they'll just take up residence in the puddles under our house!

Dancing Bear

This video was taken on Friday when Dragon & M.McT were visiting.

I turned on a Veggie Tales CD for the kids. Little Bear likes their version of 'Modern Major General', sung by Archibald Asparagus, and began dancing wildly as soon as that song started.

Unfortunately by the time I got out the camera, she had been dancing for long enough that she was starting to slow down, but you can still get the gist of her dance.

We tried to encourage Dragon to dance too, but obviously he just isn't a Gilbert & Sullivan fan. (I'll have to keep working on that one).