The C word ..

After a brief comment on my previous blogpost on my nan being ill and in hospital its gotten much worse ..

On Wednesday afternoon I found out my nan has Myeloma! This is a form of blood cancer! Heartbroken & devasted are words which best describe how I felt at the time. Luckily enough now I can say although the hurt remains I also feel positive. My nan is a fighter!!

Myeloma has no cure at present (this has to change) but there are treatments that can manage the Myeloma. My nan started her chemo treatment on Thursday and also has to take steroids (around 35 pills per day). I dont think it has sunk it yet for anyone but especially nan, shes calm and seems nonchalant about the whole situation and this worries me, my nan is used to being strong for everyone else and not showing her emotions, this has to change!

Myeloma is known to effect peoples kindey function (guess we all have attention seeking kidneys right) and nan was initially addmitted into hospital with kidney failure, we now know this is because of the Myeloma, once nans kidneys have stabalised she can come home and contine her treatment as an outpatient. (cue the welcome home party)

I felt lost and afraid so god only knows what my nan must be feeling, but after meeting with my nans key worker (the lady who organises all of nans care and treatment) i feel much more positive and informed. (I guess knowledge is power after all) After doing some research of my own I found that Myeloma is usually but not exclusivly found in older people and that around 4,000 new cases are diagnosed each year.

As cliched as it sounds life is to short and maybe this is the wake up call we needed to grab life with both hands and just have a ball. I want to help nan do as many fun things as she wants and just crank it up a gear and have a blast.

I am of course devastated to find out that there is no cure and straight away have thought of a few fundraising ideas to raise money for more research into this horrible disease & with Myeloma awareness month in March what better time to start so watch this space.

My weight loss & me (alot less of me than 18months ago i might add)

Quick apology for the break in posts .. I have a very poorly nanny in hospital & im finding it hard to juggle everything and fit things in. Never the less im back and thought I would do a post about my weight loss journey so here goes:

I have always been a chunky monkey & as a result ive found that I have always yo-yod with dieting. However when I got pregnant with my little boy I took the whole 'eating for two' thing way over board and in actual fact probably ended up eating for about 5 with minimal excersise.

I vowed to loose weight for good after giving birth and so after my 8 week maternity check up i joined bootcamp with 2 of my friends alongside weight watchers :) The 2 combined helped me battle the pounds as well as sculp my body shape into something I am actually beginning to like *shock horror never thought I would have said such a thing* 18 months down the line i am almost 6 stone lighter than when I started aswell as much fitter & healthier.

I find the whole Weight watchers plan has helped change the way i think about food and excersise and dare I say it, i dont feel like im on a diet at all i feel like my whole lifestyle has changed *i know how cheesy do i sound right* I love the safety net of weekly points aswell as my daily ones which mean i can have a splurge on the weekend with my family and as i love cooking i just love finding and making new low points recipes :)

Of course i have my bad days/weeks who doesnt but ultimatly i have found a passion for excersise i never knew exsisted and if you asked any of my PE teachers from school would probably laugh at me now being all excersise mad, and ive found that to loose weight its all about mindset and lifestyle adaptations and changes. Ban the word diet!!

So here goes im about to reveal my before and after pic eeeekkk :)

Kidneys (no not the bean type)

One kidney down and one playing up is not the best place to be in I guess, but hey ho nevertheless its the current situation I find myself in.
I was born with both kidneys, but one was really rubbish! Basically it was small, scarred & did nothing but cause me tons of pain & give me the never ending gift of recurrent infections, so that little bugger had to go!! Mr Lefty was removed in 2007 and seeing as Mrs Righty had been used to doing all of the work on her own anyway that was fine.
The operation process itself was dreadful, I couldnt get my head around having to have an operation (things i cant control freak me out) and when I came round my first words were "oh so im not dead then" who ever said i was pessimistic wasnt lying. Well operation done and recovery was hard. I felt so low emotionally and in so much pain physically, suffering an infection to one of the scar sites and i never thought i would get back to feeling ' normal' again. But I did with the support of my great family & friends I did it & 6 years later Mrs Righty must be feeling the pressure I guess because shes grown herself a little tumour (who knows maybe shes attention seeking LOL) The drs have said its cancerous but not life threatening *phew* so as it currently stands the plan is to be monitored every 6 months to check on Mrs Righty and make sure the tumour doesnt grow. It currently measures in at about 2cm (attention seeking size if you ask me) so if it doesnt grow i get to stay operation free which was music to my ears (still cant deal with the idea of going back under the knife especially more so now that I have a very active 18month old little boy) so as long as she behaves herself (yes Mrs Righty were fully aware your doing the job of 2 kidneys all on your own heres a medal now pipe down will ya) all will be fine. So i guess its just watch this space (no not the big space Mr.Lefty left oh never mind you guys know what i mean LOL...

Ready .. Steady .. Cook!! :)

I love to cook! Especially new recipes I haven't tried before and I came across a chocolate brownie recipe online the other day so thought I would give it ago! I tweeked it a bit and made it my own and made one at work on wednesday and then did another one for the family on Sunday night .. went down a treat so much so that after work yesterday i fancied a nice big slice only to find out my darling pesky other half had scoffed the lot that was left LOL not impressed but suppose it saves on the calories (& propoints in my weight watchers world) anyway heres the recipe and a pic of my one :)

115g plain chocolate (ive used 2 different types but found tescos plain one to be the best so far, but whatever tickles your chocolaty taste buds will do fine)
55g unsalted butter
3 eggs
225g castor sugar
40g plain flour
25g cocoa powder (i used bournville drinking chocolate both times)
55g natural yogurt

What i did:
Melted down the chocolate and butter in the microwave until it was all nice and silky
In a seperate bowl I mixed the eggs and sugar just with a good old manual whisk (who needs fandangled machines anyway)
Then added in the flour and cocoa powder, gave it another good mix up and finished by adding the yogurt and chocolate/butter mix :)
Put it in a pregreased baking tin and into a preheated oven at 160 and cooked for 40-45mins

P.S: If you have a go at making this yummy brownie id love to see a piccie of yours :)

Voila :)

New years resolutions!!

Disclaimer: It snowed yay LOL me & my little boy got to finally make use of his sledge ysterday as London got covered with snow :) Good times hence no blogpost LOL but hey ho today is a day for chilling indoors after all that snow indulging .. was pretty cool though :)

Anyway I thought I would write down my new years resoltions on here to refer back to and keep me motivated so here it goes:

1. Eat more fruit (Im a fruit aphobe their i said it all you fruit junkies out there cover your ears LOL) but seriously i love the look of all fruit i just think its an aquired taste anywho im going to be making more of an effort this year to eat more fruit especially fruit that varies in colour!

2. Keep fit .. I love working out so I want to keep that up & try some different excersise equipment, classes, DVDs that sort of thing, I learnt to love excersise since loosing 6stone with Weight Watchers (post to follow on this) and I havent looked back since, if im having the most downest of days excersise cheers me right up :)

3. Go on at least 3 holidays .. They dont necessarily have to be abroad but we have to take a break away from London at least 3 times this year preferably to somewhere nice and warm with nice beaches :)

4. Throw a big birthday bash for myself LOL i never usually do anything for my birthdays (what a bore i sound) but im going to be turning 25 this year eeeekk and after such a hurrendous 2012 ive decided im throwing myself a big party to celebrate my 25th!!

5. To reach my goal weight and become a weight watchers leader .. only 11lbs to go :) Weight Watchers really worked for me (cor dont i sounds like a cheesy advert already LOL) but it really did and i want to inspire others on their journey :)

So these are my resolutions pretty run of the mill bog standard but mine never the less and here for referal purposes just to keep me on track :) More importantly this year I just want to live life to the fullest grab every opportunity with both hands and have tons of fun with my family & friends!!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

So the gritters are out in full force tonight getting prepared for tomorrows downpour of snow were expecting everywhere! Im still very skeptical and me and my other half are debating about whether its actually going to happen or not.. maybe its because since buying my son a sledge on saturday ive been waiting for this so called snow downpour only to be left dissapointed when ive woken up to freezing cold weathers yet no snow. However ive only gone out and bought my car a car cover LOL its all wrapped up and snuggly ready for the snow so i now have a second reason to be not best pleased if i wake up to no snow yet again .. sooo i say let it snow let it snow let it snow!! :)

Welcome guys & dolls!

So here it goes, my 4th attempt at blogging. Hoping that this time is considerably more succesful and that im able to keep uptodate with my blog. *fingers crossed*

Who is LauraLou!?

Well my name is Laura & im a 24 year old busy mummy to a gorgeous toddler :)

I am very opinionated and have lots to say & figured blogging would be an ideal platform to express myself :) 

I will be blogging about anything and everything that takes my fancy, things that are at complete different ends of the life spectrum and whatever pops into my head at the time so beware LOL.
I have alot going on in my life that I could do with getting off my chest so here goes nothing :)

Thanks for having a little read & stay tuned for more :)