It always amazes me that you are amazed by the amount of things about me I share in this blog. I read a lot of blogs and online diaries. They are weight loss or cooking related. And in many of them I read at times that "if you don't like what you read stop reading this is my blog and I write it to manifest/monitor my feelings".

I write for the same reason too. When you are in any situation where you need to work on feelings and see their relation to patterns of behaviour, such as weight loss, or need to go back and see how things worked in the past and what might be the things that cause any kind of different outcome now, a blog is a magnificent tool.

But really, so is a little Moleskine notebook. So why I traded it for an internet blog?

But for the interaction of course!

Truth is I have been always amazed by other cultures. I had my first pen pal at the age of 10. An irish girl named Fiona. Back then my communication in english was very specific:

" Hello Fiona. New boy. Me love new boy. He red bicycle. You new
boy? My mom stupid. You mom? Swim too. Summer good."

Then, at around the age of 14, with a lot more words in my vocabulary to share, I was well into pen palling. George from Boston. Gina from Milan. Belen from Madrid. Jaquelin from Nice. Guy from London. I not only was writting to them at least every couple of days, but I slowly introduced them to each other and we became a group of friends, scattered in all corners of the globe.

Then at the age of 16 I begun my island hopping. My friends would gather sea shells, I would gather foreign friends. I was always drawn to the unknown. I was always amazed by different ways of eating. I was always intrigued by the different ways of expressing feelings. I was always curious about the way families functioned in different places of the world. I wanted to know how boyfriends treat their girlfriends in America, Australia, Italy, Germany, China, everywhere! I was even trying to see how people from different countries peel an orange. Such a thirst for knowledge for "the others".

And then, in 1997, I discovered chat rooms. I, of course, spent my first couple of months in all the sex related rooms. I was stunned at both the possibilities and the sickness. I was moved by the loniless. I was paralysed by the psycho's. And most of all, I was really very shocked about the lies. Then I spent a bit of time in different religions rooms. There I was shocked by both the strength in one's beliefs and the fanatism.

And then I got into a truth or dare room. Where I met my friends. My wonderful Englishman. My Danish sister. A wonderful Australian girl who spoke Greek and Indonesian and was brighter and more intelligent than any woman I know. A weird and lonely boy from Plymouth whom I cared a lot for and who hated me cos I called him Cornish. A wonderful middle aged man from the village of Elvis Presley who gave me his wife's secret recipe of Missisippi Chocolate Mud Cake. Liz from Newscastle who taught me how to make Pavlova. A gorgeous young man from England who lived in South Africa. A lonely boy from Ireland. A spunky woman from Lake Tahoe. The sweetest single mother from Canada. I begun to easily distinguish the poms from the aussies from the yanks. I learned different dialects. I used y'all with the southerns. I greeted the aussies with G'day. I could really spot a redneck in a minute! I was drooling over crumpets I never had. I ate vegemite. I made a danish mushroom pate. I have my Englishman's secret recipe for the most devine cheesecake. 42 grammars of butter. Such precision *smile*. I learned to drink and adore Guiness. In room temperature. Me, the ice cold drinks freak. I was sent several parcels. I was preparing more to send back. A magnificent new world with so many different colours, feelings, ways of life, smells.

Interaction. Interchange. Interrelation. Interdependence. Reciprocity.

This is why I started blogging. Not because I just miss all this. But for me, besides the support, the encourangement, the comradeship and the new information I receive on a daily basis, the most important thing I get from you all is the curtain you leave half open for me to see into the window of your hearts and lives.

I have been lucky to have grown up in a house where the curtains were wide open most of the time. Surely there is the closet with the sceletons..hehe. But the curtains are open. I just want you to know a bit more of who I am. Because I value your openness. I value the time you take to help and support me. And because I been a terrible weightloser lately (though a brilliant maintainer thankyouverymuch ;) and I still need to read from you and give you some of me to read, I been writting here about general stuff. Yesterday I actually started a new blog for more general things, like cooking and personal stuff, but I am certain I have such bad syntax in the title that till I work it our, you readers and frieds of 25 to Go will have to bare with my tendency to open the curtains of my windows a bit more and more.

After all...it is summer here :) Enjoy your weekend!

There are some days at the office that feel like time is not moving. Usually this means that at some point it will go crazy, but right now it is so quiet here that it is almost unreal.

Yesterday I had a lonely day. I was doing a lot of writing at work, which means that my office door was closed and the phone unhooked. No radio either. Mobile on silent too. I wrote 7 press releases for the theatre productions we will have on the fall. Crap I tell you. It took me eons to come up with brilliant sentenses like I should. My heart was not into it. Then I left, went to the dressmaker, picked up the rest of my clothes, then had my therapy session, and then I still had not decided what to do for the evening. Angelos has his night out with the boys, and as usual, when he goes out with the boys, he tries to make me go out too cos he hates feeling I am home alone.

I actually wanted to go home right after therapy, but I decided to go and see some clients of mine who have been bugging me for not going out for a drink with them.

So I was there and I am sure that at the end of the night they were thinking what a sociable and nice woman I am, while I was only physically present in reality. Sometimes I am really amazed by my ability to be nice and sociable in casual outings with clients, while in my mind I am making lists of things to do at home, recipes I should try, books I want to read, or simply am singing a song in my head by changing the lyrics to nauthy things about the situation I am in. Bad bad girl, I know!

Yesterday morning at home I searched in over 150 floppies to find the pictures of my niece's first 2 days. I had a digital camera back then and I had taken tons of pics. My sister in law remembered them and I tried to find them but they were nowhere. Who knows. They will kill me though.

What I found though were chat logs from my old chatting days. Pictures from my chat friends. Lots and lots of pictures of this particular someone. I met an Englishman online in 1997. An amazing creature of brightness, brilliantness (does this word exist? it should though to describe him), sensuality and colours. I loved him dearly. I lusted him burningly. And I miss him terribly.

You know sometimes you meet someone who really sees in you things you have never discovered about yourself. And yet, after some time, you realise that you were not meant to be together, and yet you will always be together.

There is not a day that I will see something or hear something and will think of him. But we barely speak anymore. And sometimes, like yesterday and today too, this hurts some.

He is a man who adores adjectives. Can you realise how much colour a person has to have in their souls to appreciate adjectives? He was the one who taught me that a handful of soil and a seed produces so much beauty and life. I still have seeds he sent me and I still plant his flowers each spring. On the winamp in my computers, both at home and work, I have the almost 7 or 8 hundrent songs he mp3'd for me for my birthday. I hear these songs every day

What we had was ideal, protected, in the sense that we had no bills to pay, no dinner to cook, he did not leave hair on my sink, I did not complain to him about forgeting to take the garbagge out. And back then I was really a lot more thin than I am today. Which made it really easy for him to bring out the fox in me a lot more than any other man.

He was not the love of my life. Angelos is. But he was a love I will always carry inside my heart for as long as I live, because he was indeed, and still is in a very personal way, the love I never know I was able for. A love that went beyond looks, beyond style, beyond nationalities, beyond cultures, beyond touch, beyond smell, beyond eyesight, beyond hearing. A love that conquered my heart and made it richer.

I really dunno why I am writing all this here. Maybe cos I reread so many of our chats yesterday morning, that today, with so much quietness here at work, I really ached for a chat with this witty, exceptionally unique man.

Have I ever told you that I read a lot? Since early childhood, the magical world of books have been my escape at times of trouble, sadness, boredom, happiness, bus & taxi rides, airplane trips, ferry trips, etc.

I read everything, from fiction to biographies, from romance to porn. But usually, I go through periods of preffering one kind over the other.

In my early teens, I fell into the Barbara Cartlant and general Harlequin trap. Pink novels with testimonials of eternal love lingering in passionate love affairs.

I remember being 13 and reading them in bulk in the quieteness of the late afternoon in our summer house. We would be back from the beach around 3, would eat lunch, and would then be sort of "forced" for an afternoon nap, with the compensation of yet another swim around 5. Between those hours I would first pretend I was asleep, and as soon as I was surrounded by the quietness of my family's sleepiness, I would reach for my book.

I would read about the gorgeous heroine. She always felt insecure, the poor possum. Besides her long legs, her shiny hair, her oceanic eyes, her great taste in clothes, she would be hurt, and unsure for the love of Him.

Magically, and due to the publisher's extreme intelligence, all the Harlequin books I used to buy in these summer months, had holiday scenes.

The gorgeous yet bashful heroine would always be in some exotic place, where the sun would give a golden glow on her skin, the tropical fruits would make her even more slender, the lonely swim while thinking of Him (the bastard who always turned out to be another hurt creature of love thus not so bastard) would make her calves even more lickable.

I was then dreaming of me being older (now I actually dream of the magic capsule that takes me back in time) and finally going on holidays on my own, meeting Him (in a less bastardious version of course), feeling my womanhood mature, getting the golden glow on my skin, live on pineapples and love, and making my calves the object of desire.

So when I went on holidays with just my friends for the first time ever, for the first couple of days I lived in peaches and watermelon, yogurt with honey, and sighs for the one I would meet *sigh*. Then, I met Him and after he flirted with me for a whole morning in the beach, he said casually (and brutally too) "I am starving, are you up for some pitta gyros?"

This ended my days on fruit and yogurt in holidays. But there was always this hidden desire of returning from holidays and hear my mom say "Oh honey look at you you lost weight in the islands!" Where usually she would say (even when I was thin and firm) "Oh you must have had a blast, you gained a bit of weight huh? Ah the good holiday life".

The last two summers, I went on holidays right after a long period of dieting. And with the diet being a routine, I always returned from holidays either having maintained my pre-hols weight, or even loosing a kilo or two.

But this summer is not the same. I realised last night as I was grilling gorgeous burgers that I am in a very "fragile" state. First, I am eating to maintain, which means that I go overboard during the weekends, and eat very sensibly during the week. This was not a conscious decision. It was something that just happened and then I realised that this could be a strategy. What was a conscious decision though was not to stress myself. I know I been nagging all the time, and that I become somehow tiring and totally uninspiring, but I have been through lots this year and my batteries are running in very low capacity. I do not want to gain any weight at all. And this is my aim. I need to stay at this weight for the summer, and then recharge, regroup, and lose the rest during the fall and winter.

But I have to tell you that the impersonification of an Harlequin heroine is getting a little attractive again.

Our holidays will be a mixture this year. Angelos and I will leave on the 5th, and spend the first 5 days alone. Then on the 10th till the 17th we will have our friends (the ones we went to Amsterdam with) with us. Then we will stay in the island till the 23 - 25, then return to Athens and go to Sofia's village and stay till the 29th. There is a possibility that we won't do the last bit and stay in the island till the 28th. When it is just him and me, food is easy. We usually share a cantaloupe with yogurt, honey and pine nuts for breakfast (Angelos also has about 6 slices of homemade bread with butter and honey), then we eat lots of fruits all day in the beach, then we return to our room around 8, he takes a shower while I am either writting cards or reading while having a coffee, then I shower, and by 10 we go out ravenous to have dinner. And we usually eat good stuff, like seafood or fish grilled in real charcoal (unbeatable flavour), and about twice a week we dive into the most devine pasta with lobster you have ever had!

But with more people things always get out of control. Cos hey, there is ouzo, and wine. And the more the people the more the food.

I really need to work on a strategy. I really want to be the forever wished for Harlequin heroine this summer. Any suggestions?

I need to whine a little. I know most of this need urges from a cumulative fatigue since fall actually, but I am really very tired of things just happening.

On Friday morning the folks from the phone company came to connect my phone. The electrician who did all the works in the building had not finalised the interan connection of the appartments, so although we all had lines, noone could use them!

My landlord told me that he spoke with the electrician, and arranged an appointment with him at 6 in the afternoon. But at 3 he called me really very upset to tell me that the electrician was already in our building, he had already finished the first two stories, and that unless we were both there in 30 minutes, he would go and would not be able to be back till August 10.

So I rushed home, carrying lots of stuff. I took a taxi. When I arrived home, I opened my wallet and saw I only had 3 one hundrent bills (money for our weekend away) and no change. So I looked at my bag and fished for some coins, paid the taxi driver, and went home. It took exactly 3 minutes for the electrician to finish off what he had left undone. So there I was, at home, with a phone line, a brand new gorgeous BBQ, relaxed after the doctor's visit, and eager to try both the phone and the bbq!

So I called Angelos, and asked him if he would like me to go buy some steaks and call his parents and his brother and invite them for the "inauguration" of the bbq. He was thrilled and so I called his parents, his brother, my mom, and our best man and then went to get money our of my wallet to go to the butcher's. It was then I realised I had lost my wallet.

Besides our weekend money, in that wallet I had:

Dinners card
Mastercard
Company's visa
Cash card
ID card
Driver's licence
Pictures of family
Silly notes from Angelos and friends
Paintings from my niece
1 authorisation for the bank on behalf of a client
Insurance card
And I still don't know what else.

I either dropped the wallet inside or outside the taxi right in front of my house!!!

My first reaction was all about the money really. We cannot afford to lose 300 euros. Plue they were the money for our weekly groceries and our little weekend getaway.

But then the real panic begun. Cancel all the credit and cash cards, freeze our savings acount since my id was stolen too, go to the police station and report the loss, call Angelos to find out he had used all the money he had paying a few bills earlier than usual, thus we had no cash at our hands, etc, etc, etc.

I managed to do all of the above, then called my mom and asked her to loan me a bit of money till Monday, and decided to stop feeling miserable and utterly stupid for the way I lost my wallet, and concentrate on finding the best meat for the bbq!

Friday night went great. The bbq grills magnificently, everyone enjoyed their meal, and we went spent to bed at 2 am, excited to wake up the next day and get on a ship to go away for the weekend to a small island near by.

The weekend went great, I came back a little tired but energised and relaxed, and the guy from the curtains' shop arrived this morning with my curtains made in a different design than I had asked for.

So really, I just want to scream. I am really very tired from all the silliness lately. Instead, I decided to whine a little here, and to write down again that these things are really small compared to the big and real problems life decides to throw at us at times.

But small or big, can you please make this series stop NOW?!

On Wednesday evening, I got home at 10.40 pm. I had been to the hospital to see Sofia after her surgery (which went great), to my brother in law's house to see how he was doing (fine), to the dressmaker, to have all my pants and skirts taken in a little, then to my therapy session, and then home.

The dressmaker was stunned because my clothes did not really need to get taken in. I mean they fitted comfortably, but there was no real need to do this now, it would make sense to do so after I lost a few more kilos, 3 to 5.

But I thought it was about time for a little trick. Because I am slagging in eating right and moving more. Comfortable in clothes for me some times translates into comfortably licking an icecream cone. Or comfortably sipping a second beer. But if the clothes are snug, there is really no room for beers and ice creams and second pitta breads, is there? So I sacrifised the money I had saved for some new "holiday" clothes, and got all my bottoms (do you say bottoms for pants and skirts in english like you say tops for blouses and shirts, or am I making yet another word up?) taken in. Yes, I really feel smart now ;)

Anyway, back to Wednesday. I had an intense therapy session, and when I went home, Angelos and our best man was there. We ate dinner, and we were chatting when I got some serious cramps. I thought it was really very weird, as my period was over just two days ago. I went to the bathroom and I saw I was bleeding big time. I panicked. I called my gyneo but he was nowhere to be found. Then yesterday morning, I was trying to find a gyneo to go to, since the bleeding continued, not as much, but enough to freak me out more.

Apparently nothing really serious happened. He said it was probably due to a cold, since everything looked perfect in the scan he did. I also did my annual pap exam and now I am a little anxious for the results.

I woke up this morning happy. Angelos said as we woke up that my face was bright. I felt bright inside. It takes just a little panic to realise that health is really and trully our only wealth. It takes just a little panic to realise that because we are lucky and still have our health while we still have our extra kilos, we should not push this luck further.

Life is one precious thing you know. And life exists because we have alive bodies. Because the blood runs through our veins. The very veins that exist below the skin we complain for. You know, the one I say that resembles the road map of Athens. Yep, it is the skin of my thighs and arms.

I am posting now because oxygen is being distributed to all my system because my lungs still function well.

I could go on for ever, and tell you what I do because of my body's ability to work well. And I will spare you this.

But I was reading Shauna's post a bit earlier and also the article about her. Have you read it? If not go now, stop reading this entry, really go NOW and read her post and congratulate a hero, a gorgeous hero, inside and out!!!!

In page three, shauna says these wise words:

Instead of seeing my body as useless and ugly, I felt pride in what it was now capable of.

This is it you know. This is all. And I am really, really, really pleading with you to:

Look at your arms - flabby or not - with love. These are the arms that hug your lover, your family, your children, your friends.

Thank your thighs - huge or slender - honestly. These are the thighs you sit on to rest ladies. You wouldn't want to miss them, would you?

Appreciate your calves, and legs and feet. They walk you everywhere you know, even if this is just the fridge for now!

Caress your breasts - saggy or perky - with love. Because not only they fill you with sensations, but they will nurture your children if they have not already!

Stay in awe in front of your bellies. Not only they protect your most vital organs, but they will protect and provide the first home to your babies!

And please, don't forget, that before the western world decided that skinny is beautiful, Renoir who is still considered one of the masters in painting, used this model to depict sensuality and beauty.

I am not saying not to lose the weight! But to lose it because we want healthier and stronger bodies. Not because we despise and detest the ones we have.

Now please, raise your glass to Life and Shauna. Because they are both beautiful and they both give us so much!!!

I got THE phonecall today! The phone company employee called me to tell me that on Friday, July 22, between 8am and noon someone will come to connect our phoneline. 9 weeks after we moved!!! I was a bit sarcastic to them, but excited all the same.

You know, all this time without a phone line and internet at home has taught me a few things.

Routines can change. Since 1997, my morning routine had been the same. Wake up around 8, make my coffee, go to my study, turn on the puter, and surf the first few months, chat for years, and blog for the last couple of years. Then, after 2003 some morning exercise followed, then the shower, and the dressing etc for work.

What happens in the mornings in chez AA is a totally different story! I still get up around 7.30 to 8, though I could sleep in, but it really took me months to get used to wake up at that time, and I do not want to have to go through this again. I am really, or used to be actually, a night owl, and I used to go to bed around 3am, and wake up at 9.30. The merits of working till 8 or 9 in the evening is that I get to go to work around 10.30 - 11.30. But it took at least 3 months for me to get used to sleep around midnight, so that I'd wake up around 7.30 or 8 the latest.

So now I wake up, make my coffee, sit in the balcony, enjoy the quiteness of the morning, then I water my plants, sometimes tidy the house, others cook dinner, others leave early and go shopping, for food or clothes or silly little things. But without the internet, I have realised two things: first, I think more in the mornings, when my mind is clear and refreshed after a good sleep and second, I am more "grounded". What I mean is that I am more into my role of being a 36 year old married woman with responsibilities at home and work.

I care about my house more. I plan my time more adequately. If I have a working day ahead of me with late appointments, I cook our dinner in the morning. I do grocery shopping in the morning. I go to the farmer's market every Tuesday morning.

Also, when I am not really able to sleep around midnight, I used to get up and get online. Now I just stay in bed till I fall asleep. I read my book or wake up Angelos and have sex (yes, my libido is visiting us again ;o).

This is a tough week for me. My brother in law got surgery yesterday. He had to remove a vein from his leg. And today Sofia is having surgery. Another fibroid tumour. And on August 2 my dad will have durgery. He has an ingunial hernia and another type of hernia and he has to remove them both. It is supposed to be a simple procedure with just an overnight stay. He is going to the hospital on the 1st, has surgery on the 2nd, and he is out on the 3rd.

But yesterday that I went to visit my brother in law, I freaked our as soon as the hospital smell hit me. I do not want any more hospital visits. I do not want any other member of our families nor our friends to have to be there!!!! I am really hoping that all will go perfect for all and that this will end hospital visits for me for at least a few years!!!!

What else to tell you....

Ah! On Friday morning I will not only get my phoneline, but I will have our BBQ delivered too!!! I am so looking forward to this, we never had such a big, almost pro bbq! I am really very eager to start grilling! And I am hoping that this will help me eat in a way that will make me loose a couple of kilos before holidays!!! And I think that on Saturday I will go shopping for a digital camera. Yes ladies, this means a photopost soon, of the new house, the red dress, etc!

Eating has not been good you know. It is so hot lately, between 35 and 40 Celsius. Than means that I do not want to eat anything during the day, besides cold drinks, like iced coffee and tea and water, but during the evening, when it sort of cools down, I want to eat pasta and icecream. I really don't want to eat anything else! And I want to eat pasta and then icecream too!

I have not gained more than that kilo I told you about. But when I maintain while eating what I want, I have mixed feelings. On one side I am grateful I am not gaining, and on the other side I get angry cos I don't lose.

I will not go again about how comfortable I feel and how this is not motivating me to lose more. Really, if you want me to be 100% honest, my soul and my body and mind are really tired. From the hard winter, from too much work, too much stress and fear and sadness, from the recent move, and from too much anxiety about the current surgeries.

I have never felt I NEED vacations more in my life. I need to regroup. Relax. Find myself.

I will be back tomorrow. This was all over the place again. Just like my brains lately ;)

No. The number is not of grammars lost. Actually it is a number of grammars gained. And no. It is not a number of grammars gained in my body. It is a number of grammars gained in my life.

On July 12, at 12.40, my second niece was born! I am having goose bumbs as I am typing this. Goose bumbs in my body and tears in my eyes.

I used to have such a concrete set of arguments why we should not "multiply". And because I wanted to always be the noble and the wise, my first and strongest one was that since there are hundrends of thousands of orphans in the world, if a couple wanted a child, then they should adopt, and not have their own.

But when I saw my niece on Tuesday, I saw more than a gorgeous tiny new woman. I saw my brother's eyes. I saw my sister's in law lips. I saw my mother's hands. I saw Kiki's (my eldest niece) frawn. I heard my nephew's cry. I saw the outcome of love. I felt my grandparents' continuation.

So yes, I am here to declare that it is lovely and miraculous and wonderful to multiply. With your spouce that you love. With your boyfriend that you adore. With the one night stand you had just because you are single and want a baby. With the ovalry and the sperm in the tube. With the misfortunate orphan you adopt.

Making a family is a lot more than multiplying and reproducing life. It is really multiplying and reproducing love. It is continuing your tradition. It is accepting the love inside you and deciding to share it. It is evolvement. It is hope. It is new. It is a fresh start. It is a gift to your own parents because you honour their decidion to have you. It really and trully is so many more things that need someone less sentimental and more eloquent than me right now to express.


Now what has happened till the last time I was here....

Well, I have gained a kilo and have gained some more self respect. Not that these things are related at all. Besides the timing.

I spent Saturday, Sunday, and Monday on the beach. No it was not a long weekend. I just gave myself Monday off. We were there at around 10 am and left around 9 pm each and every day. I am tanned finally! I am fat still! And I don't really mind!!! I drunk so many coctails while at the beach. I ate a few icecreams too. Some chips, and fruit. Quite not nutritional meals for three days. Then today I got on the scales and saw an extra kilo. I will admit that I started my period today and I am secretely hoping that it is a bloat and not really a gain, since I swam a lot, played beach volley, played racket ball, and swam some more.

This is where I gained some more self respect. We went to the beach of a great hotel. We wanted something well organised, with umbrellas and deck chairs and hot undressed waiters to serve us cool yummy coctails. I went with my friend Sofia, and Angelos and Vangelis joined us later in the afternoon during the weekend, and then Monday it was just us the girls. It was wonderful because Sofia and I finally had 3 full days to catch up on life and each other. And it was even greater because I finally talked her into trying therapy. So she had a session with my therapist on Tuesday, and he said she is able to attend the marathon this weekend. So Sofia and I will do the marathon together. A bit scary, since I have shared Marathons and group therapy with strangers who became friends in the process, but never with anyone from my "real" life. But Sofia and I have been friends for 25 years now, and I am certain that exposing ourselves will not change our love for each other. I will let you know on Monday anyway :)

Anyway, on Monday, after Sofia and I finished another round of racket ball, a gorgeous young man on his late twenties approached us. He said hello politely, and asked me if he could say something a bit personal to me. I said he could say whatever he wanted but he would have to accept whatever I had to say in response. He smiled and said that this were a fair deal.

He said he watched me since Saturday. He said he is a PT, and he could tell I was a woman who had lost weight. I freaked out, because you and I all know what this means. Flaaaab. Streeeeetch marks. I felt a punch in my stomach.

To cut the long story short, what this man told me was that the way I was swimming, playing sports, walking to the bar for water, and danced in my bathing suit was admirable and he wanted to tell me so! He said I looked so well coordinated and so full of life that he went past the flaws in my body, and was captured by my whole being!!!! He said my man was lucky to have me!!!!

Now can you imagine of any better compliment???

He also told me to use bay leaves oil to tone my skin.

A compliment AND a tip!!!!

This really gave me a whole new respect for this body. Which is fat and full of flaws but can still swim, dance, play beach volley, and racket balls!

I also went to my holistic med yesterday, and to the hospital the day before. I was beaten by a bee on Sunday, and by Tuesday it was too ugly, too swallen and too itchy. I got a cortizone shot and now it is getting better.

My holistic med gave me a new 15 day eating plan for some fat killing. I will start on Monday, cos it has a lot of prep and I cant do it this weekend with the marathon and all.

And I am making a new red dress for a wedding we have to attend on Saturday evening. I promise a picture of this too.

And last but not least, today I saw construction workers outside our building and YES! they are from the phone company!!! That means that the latest end of next week I will FINALLY have a phone line!!!

Oh my goodness, I really am looking so forward to some early morning blogging!!!!

I was going to post ... but I am not.

I was going to say all the things I have felt since I heard the news about London yesterday...but I am not.

I am still out of words.

Three names I go by:
1. Argyroula
2. Argy
3. Katia

Three screen names I've had:
1. Katia
2. Silverella
3. Kats

Three physical things I like about myself:
1. Eyes
2. Smile
3. Figure (I mean the shape darlings, not the size ;)

Three physical things I don't like about myself:
1. flab
2. grey hair
3. stretch marks

Three parts of my heritage:
1. Athenian (from my mother's side)
2. Asia Minor (Smyrna to be precise) from my paternal grand mother
3. Cyprian (from my paternal great great grandfather)

Three things I am wearing right now:
1. A white linen caftan
2. white leather flip flops
3. various lengths of colourful beads (red, fuschia, orange, turquise) in my neck

Three favorite bands/musical artists :
1. The Cure
2. Andrea Bocelli
3. Alkistis Protopsalti

Three favorite songs:
1. Letter to Elise
2. Sogno
3. Skandali

Three things I want in a relationship:
1. Passional surprises
2. Endless laughter
3. Sincere respect

Two truths and a lie
1. I had an affair with a woman
2. I drink my coffee hot with cream
3. I only brush my hair when wet

Three physical things about the preferred sex that appeal to you:
1. well shaped butt
2. hairless chest
3. well defined hip bones

Three favorite hobbies:
1. Cooking
2. Gardening
3. Reading

Three things I want to do badly right now :
1. Go to the beach
2. Eat cold watermelon
3. Sunbathe

Three things that scare me:
1. Environmental damage
2. Poison in the food we eat
3. Death of beloved ones

Three of my everyday essentials:
1. Ice cubes
2. Cinnamon Chewing gum
3. 5 small Moods cigars

Three Careers you have considered or are considering :
1. Teacher
2. Cook
3. Housewife ;)

Three places you want to go on vacation:
1. A cruise in the Carribean
2. New York in Christmas
3. Peru

Three kids' names you like:
1. Dimitris (for a boy)
2. Filio (for a girl)
3. Michelle (for either)

Three things you want to do before you die:
1. Give birth
2. Search for my family tree
3. Meet a particular Englishman

Three ways I am stereotypically a boy:
1. I swear too bad
2. I watch football in the telly, swearing, drinking beer and not responding to Angelos when he talks to me
3. I always check the shape of the arse of the members of the opposite sex

Three ways I am stereotypically a girl:
1. I always check the shape of the arse of the members of the same sex
2. I know the difference between cream, ivory and beige
3. I have 53 pairs of shoes

Three celeb crushes :
1.Jeremy Irons
2.Ed Harris
3. Hugh Jacman

Three people I am tagging with this list :

Kimba
Denise
Ms Ralph

I can't believe a whole week has passed since the last time I updated!!! Someone please say a magic word and make the bloody phone company come and connect my phone line!!!!

The anniversary dinner was magical! Thank you all so much for your wishes and compliments!

Food has been good besides the anniversary dinner and saturday evening, a sort of fancy dinner in our house with my brother, sister in law, and two more friends. But these two days made up for a gain this week, a small one of .3 kg, so I don't sweat too much over it.

On Saturday night, a nerve in my back blocked. So I spent Sunday and most of Monday crying in pain, till I went to my holistic yesterday afternoon and now I am brand new. This man is a magician I tell you. I went expecting streches and stuff like this for my back, and he worked on my stomach and intestines and I left there dancing, as if my back never ached! It comes to show that a holistic approach is more than necessary. Most of the times a pain or an illness is the result of many organs/factors contributing than the obvious.

Today is my mom's 60th birthday. So there is a small dinner party at my parents house for family :)

And by next Tuesday my sister in law will give birth to another niece for me. I am excited!

I have so much work to do it is not funny! I barely have time to pee! And I must go back to it right away! I promise a longer and more interesting post tomorrow!