So, things had slowed down on the slimming front. It was inevitable, really. A continuous run of a stone a month only happens to people when they’re sick or named Kevin (sorry, group in-joke there). On Katrina’s advice I became an interim target member a few weeks ago which really took the pressure off me for a while. And since then, with only one exception, things have improved. Last night I celebrated my first two-week consecutive run of weight loss, and for the first time in months, brought home the fruit basket as the Slimmer of the Week.

And as if that wasn’t enough of a boost, my friends in my new group voted me their Woman of the Year last night. For the second year running! Last year I was at Frankie’s group, and I have to say that if anything winning this year means more to me. I feel inspired to keep on going, and it’s just the boost I needed. Thanks everyone!

Congratulations to Tiverton’s other Women of the Year – Su Bowler, Sue Prior, Vicky Bellamy and Carol Hawkins. All well deserved – best of luck in the district final Vicky!

*Looks around*

Cor. What pigpogm lacks in real world decorating skills he more than makes up for around these parts. I am loving this new layout, and it’s really nice to be back with WordPress. In making the decision as to where to take the site next, Michael contemplated many different options, but I’m glad he chose this one.

So, time for a catch-up…

Work

Gah. My least favourite four-letter word. My quest to find exciting, fulfilling employment continues, and although I have found what I think will be my ideal job, it’s going to be a little while before I can go for it. In the meantime, I needed to get out of the job I had for personal reasons. We all have our dark times, moments in our lives that we really don’t need to be reminded of. The job I had reminded me of some personal bad times all the time. It didn’t make sense to stay. I am very grateful to Carol, my line manager, and Ann, my co-worker, for their understanding and support, and I will miss them. Tomorrow, I return to the job I had before – phone numpty. Oh dear. At least it’s only temporary.

Slimming World

This has not been going well. My motivation has been way off, and I’ve been more interested in eating chocolate and drinking wine than sticking to plan and losing weight. Fortunately, the wonderful Katrina gave me a few suggestions on how to get through this and on Thursday I became a Target Member. I have been acting as if I’ve been at target for a long time, this just makes it official, but it is only temporary. At Slimming World you have your final target, and two or three interim targets. I didn’t know when I passed my first interim target back in December that I could do this, take a breather, and go back to it when I was ready. Had I known that I may have saved myself a fair amount of hassle. So I’m now having some time to sit back and enjoy the fact that I am still over 130lb lighter than when I started, and gently taking myself back to plan. I’m hoping that moving back to my old job will help with this, the ability to switch off at the end of a day should help me to calm down a bit. The journey, as ever, continues…!

Other stuff

I’m looking forward to September. So many great things happening:

• I’m going to help out with some promotion stuff for Slimming World.

• It’s been a long time coming, but they’ve finally cracked it:

Metallica’s first album with Rob on bass.  From the footage on Mission Metallica it sounds like the boys are in fine fettle and Mr Hetfield is as gloriously growly as ever.  Can’t wait to hear it! \m/

• And there’s a slight possibility of some worthwhile telly again as Team Glenister begin their squee training in preparation for The Last Van Helsing, due in ‘Autumn’.  Unfortunately ITV seem more keen on announcing when the new series of X-Factor starts than telling us any more information than that.

• While we’re talking about Mr Glenister, we’re all excited over at Luigi’s because in September, filming starts on series 2 of Ashes to Ashes.  Hopefully Deano will keep us updated on that lovely blog of his.

Alright, that’s enough blether from me for now.  Off for a walk across town now to see Senorita Kat Hootas give it the (flugal) ‘orn at West Exe Park.  Rock, and indeed, roll.

Latest Update: The date is set – see the bottom of the post

(It’s no good – I can’t wait until tomorrow to post this – our anniversary is actually on the 13th…)

Personal stuff ahead, and it’s all mushy – you might want to skip this one if you don’t like that sort of thing.

In case you’re not aware of it already, PigPog consists of two people – I’m Michael, and my partner is Sam. Today is our anniversary – she’s been with me for ten years, and it seems like a good time to explain just why I love her so much, and why she’s so important to me.

Friendship

I once said that our relationship was more like Bill and Ted than a ‘normal’ couple – we’re best friends before anything else. We get on well together. So well, that in ten years, we’ve never really had an argument. Can you believe that? Two people who get on so well that they could be together for ten years, and never really argue? Well, it’s true. We just love to spend all of our time together, at home, out and about, anywhere. We’ve never run out of things to talk about, things to laugh about.

Humour

We’re silly, and it’s a pretty good way to be. We can spend hours just being silly and having fun together, even with nothing much to entertain us. Sam has a wonderful sense of humour – full of strangeness. There’s things we find joy in that nobody else would, and that’s a great thing to share. The delight of seeing someone yawning whilst driving in the other direction to us. The joy of seeing a dog having a poo in the morning.

Support

Sam has always been supportive to me. She’s helped me out in any way she can for as long as I’ve known her. When my work got tough, she supported me through it. When I crashed our car, and it was written off, she helped me to get everything sorted out. When my work became too much for me to deal with, she encouraged me to quit and look elsewhere for happiness. She even wrote my resignation letter for me. I think if I’d hesitated much longer, she’d have caught the bus there and delivered it for me, and that would have been unpleasant for all concerned.

Now, she goes out to work to bring in money, so I don’t have to. I don’t go to work any more – I just stay at home and work on PigPog, and whatever else I want to do. We don’t really know how long we’ll be able to manage to keep this going financially before the money runs too low, but could anyone give a better gift than not having to go out to work?

When we were both working, we made a reasonable amount of money. I usually wanted to spend it on new gadgets and toys. Not only did Sam never stop me or complain, but when I had trouble finding somewhere that stocked the VGA iPaq I wanted, she rang around shops until she tracked one down, and ordered it for me.

Creativity

PigPog is all about creativity, but long before it was, Sam was. Her creativity inspired me as much as anything else to relaunch the site as it is now. She plays and enjoys playing more than almost anyone I’ve met.

So Why…?

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking – if all this is true and she’s so damn great, why haven’t you married her yet? I think Mil Millington explains it pretty well…

>What is it with you Americans and marriage? You seem to have some kind of confusion that makes a ritual inseparable from the thing it announces. I’m sorry to be the one to break this to you, but if you don’t have a funeral, you’re still dead, OK? No, we’re never going to get married. And we’ve spent the money it would have cost us on a loft conversion.

It’s not that we don’t want to be attached, it’s just that we’re happy to be together without any legal or religious matters getting involved.

We like to stay together because we choose to be together, not because a divorce would be too much like hard work.

We kind of like things the way they are.

Oh, never mind.

If you’re still reading at this point, you probably are Sam. (And if Sam got bored and stopped reading a couple of paragraphs ago, I guess I really blew it.)

And this may be my one and only chance to be as geeky as CmdrTaco.

So.

Sam.

kneels

I love you.

Will you marry me?

(Oh and if she says ‘yes’, does anyone know a good howto for making a ring? We need to do this thing creatively)

Update: See the comments – she said yes! W00t. So, we had to go shopping today. Turned out she didn’t want something made from soldered guitar strings. I guess I have a lot to learn…

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Update 2: She doesn’t hang around. The wedding is now booked – Monday April 24th, at 11:30.