Me and My World

Symptoms include:

• irregular periods
• excessive hair growth on face and body
• scalp hair thinning
• acne
• excess weight, sugar craving, and inability to lose weight
• darkening of skin areas, esp. on nape of neck
• skin tags
• gray-white breast discharge
• sleep apnea
• pelvic pain
• depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances, and other emotional disorders
• hot flashes before menopause
• high blood pressure

there is controversy over all the causes, but included is heredity. there are also several different options for treatment, including but not limited to Metformin (diabetes med), special contraceptive, diet and exercise.

what does this mean for me? well, i have several of those symptoms to contend with. we've decided to go with the Metformin along with the new diet and exercise. all my research has shown that the diet generally follows a low GI (glycemic index) diet. this has been interesting to research. many online seem to think you just follow any low GI foods. that'd be silly as some are high fat. so, the smartest advise i think i've found is to follow low GI but not at the expense of high fat food. also, don't never eat high GI foods, just do it like twice a month rather than daily. luckily, we're mostly following this for Jer's low sat. fat, low cholesterol diet anyhow. just a few changes. hopefully i'll be able to make myself keep up the exercise too. :-)

We spent the 3rd day hiking around. The boys did more hiking than Brook and I. We did a little hiking and went to some pottery places and a cafe. The 4th day was spent driving home. We stopped at the once best fish and chips on our way home. We decided the best is still down the street from us. :-) We stayed at the greatest backpackers place. It was nicer than some hotels we've been in. We managed a room with it's own kitchen and bath. It was great! And on the beach! That night we went to a local brewery/restaurant in Auckland. Today we went to Rangitoto Island. It's the youngest volcano in New Zealand. It's only roughly 600 years old. It is currently considered "dead". This is a picture of us on the island looking over the city. Tomorrow night, the Abrams leave us. We are spending tonight and tomorrow relaxing watching Lord of the Rings extended edition. It is in honor of the south island that we were not able to visit. :-)

We took about a million pictures at Cathedral Cove. These are but a few of them. This is where we spent our 2nd afternoon. Afterward we went to an art gallery and had dinner at a pub while we waited to be able to go to Hot Water Beach. This is where you dig in the sand to make a small hot pool while the tide is out. We were the only ones there as it was dark and cold. I didn't do much other than hold the flash light. I also just stuck my feet in. I didn't wallow in it like the others. I also didn't end up with sand everywhere!! It was too dark and rainy for pictures.

After our camping/cave trip, we spent a couple of days doing laundry and general hanging out at the house. Jeremy did have to work after all. This first picture is Brook and Mike at KiteKite Falls at Piha beach. (Key tay key tay is the pronunciation of that word)

This picture is at a public toilet. We thought the picture of the lady was funny. How many ladies have you seen wandering around in a mini-umbrella skirt?

So, these are the rest of the camping pictures and the one from the cave tour we took.

We had several from church come too.

So, Sunday, we went to church then to Waiwera hot pools. Then after dark, we set up camp in Urititi Beach. Yes, we went camping in winter. Needless to say, I wasn't really for it, but whatever. Turns out we had a beautiful night. These pics are of the morning. We all froze minus Jeremy. He had the only warm sleeping bag apparently. We even attached mine to Jeremy's and I froze. Sheesh!

Yum, Oatmeal!

Our swimming stuff drying

Yes, Rebecca. It is very difficult to keep 2 adults who want to sleep awake for 12 more hours w/o constantly running.

So, today was a great wet day! I think everyone of us can attest to this. The morning went as planned...Brook and I running errands while Jeremy worked. Then we went to the tree adventures. It was raining so much today, that they called to make sure we were coming b/c a lot of people were canceling. We went. It wasn't raining too bad while we were in the trees. We did get very wet though. Brook is gets the highest grade on a job well done at the end for attempting the hard stuff when the rest of us were too tired, so we just zip lined thru the last bits. :-) Afterward, we drove to the pizza place. I decided I could take them to the beaches later when it wasn't raining and miserable. We had to change clothes in the public bathroom near the pizza place. That was an interesting feat, not just changing in what could be compared to a rest stop toilet, but getting back to the car w/o getting our dry clothes wet from the rain. The pizza was great. We all loved it. Then we made a stop by a restaurant/brewery for dessert and for the Abrams to try this NZ beer. Everyone agreed the desserts were fabulous. They had chocolate fondue, while we had Lime Coconut Tart. Yum!! Then we came home, all loud and happy and full to wash clothes and pack for tomorrow. More adventures to come....

Here are some pics from today and one from the other day.

This is a funny pic from the museum a few days ago on a model volcano.

Brook

Mike

1. wake up early to pick up Brook and Mike about 6:45, only to find out they've been waiting for me for like 45 mins. i timed it like when jeremy kemps family came b/c they took the same flight. turns out, they didn't have to wait in any lines this time and went through customs quickly.

2. take them to McD's for 2nd breakfast (1st being on the plane) and waiting for sun to come up for our next thing

3. go to One Tree Hill to look over city and kill some time and hopefully keep them awake.

4. go home for 3rd breakfast. (i think they felt like hobbits by this point), then take a walk to the beach. showers might have come in after that

5. go to the grocery store.

6. do anything possible to keep them awake until 8pm, when i told them they could go to bed. that was quite a feat!

Wed

1. hung out in the morning

2. went to the auckland museum for a few hours, then to a local brewery. brook and mike tried a sampler of 8? different beers. i tried one and decided that i could drink it if my life depended on it, but i still didn't like it. they said it was more like a wine than beer...not sure how that works, but it's true.

Thurs

1. hung out in the morning

2. Went to Dutch Delight restaurant for lunch. so yummy!!

3. played card game after supper

Fri

1. brook, mike and i bussed into the city for some shopping and lunch at the sky tower while jeremy stayed home and worked. lots of walking...all on hills. that's what we have.

tomorrow is supposed to be jer working in the morning, while brook and i go the grocery store. that afternoon, we're going to do some tree adventure ropes courses. we're pretty excited about that. possibly afterward, we're going to hit muriwai beach for sunset, and our fav. pizzaria on the way home.

It wasn't worth putting a bunch of photos on here 6 at a time, so here's the links to them on facebook. Sadly, the photos are all very bright.