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Incredible Ladies
Articles Columns/Blogs
Word of Mouth |
25th December - Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You All!
On the 29th it is one more big push in the office, on New Years Eve we are going to have a Raclette feast with friends - hoping to have a few pictures and dinner ideas for you for next week - and then I'm having time off until the 5th.
18th December - Another year gone by
Something has to happen about that - IL has to become more modern without losing the personal touch. Carine already sent me tons of good tips and links which are still sitting in a special folder in my mailbox. I will have to take some time and see what I can do with this wealth of information.
11th December - Count Down to Christmas Hmm, I think I'm becoming a Christmas bore. Last year it was the first time that we didn't do Christmas. I was a great fan of it before, but with no kids or family around, cats eating the tinsel and bugs coming into the house with the fresh tree, we gave it a shot to not have Christmas. I rather wanted to spend time writing for IL and Detlef wasn't such a huge fan of if anyway. He allways called the Chistmas tree something like a 'lighting device'.
They were quite a bit faster due to the fact that they went through the start well after the first ones had taken off. So that is fixed on the video now. So off I go into another week of furniture labelling and packing boxes, and I'm wishing you a wonderful time and great ideas for your Christmas parties! Love Rika
4th December - What makes people tick!? I always was interested in what makes people tick, and at the moment there are a lot of things happening which make me wonder, but learn from. It is amazing what happens when one hangs ones nose into the wind, and to see the reactions of different kinds of people. Actually it is less scary than I thought it would be - supporting my claim that one has to get the rear up and DO something. I find my previous thoughts regarding 'What's the worst to happen?' still very true and more helpful than ever.
I hope you are all right and on schedule with your plans for Christmas. Enjoy the glitter and if you live in a cold country the frost and probably even some snow. Send me a picture, please! Here we only get a bit of sleet when we are lucky. And my garden is rather drab now - I'm running out of photo ideas at the moment. Any support appreciated; please send to rika@incredible-ladies.com Love Rika
27th November - Looking forward to Norwich
That is all I came up with this week, hope to see you on Friday and otherwise have a lovely weekend, only buy what you really want to buy - remember the 'reverse shopping' - and hopefully meet you here again next week safe and sound: Steer clear of the bugs! Love Rika
20th November - Christmas Shopping Well Underway
Stumbling out of the hairdresser I got stopped in my tracks by Poppy - the lady to the left. When I was young I had such a weird hat in brown and just loved it. Comfy and warm and somehow cute.
Until next week Love Rika
13th November - Spicing Things Up Yay! I'm back! I am feeling so good. It is amazing what one week of skipping sweets and cakes, choosing the lighter dishes over the heavier ones and going back to gym can do. But remember: The gym thing is my thing - yours may be something completely else, it basically is all about feeling good and hence being happy. If you are happy, by all means, don't change a thing. If you are unhappy then do the things that make you feel good - and for me that just is the sport. And if you don't know what makes you happy: Then experiment! Do a course, go to the theatre or the cinema, or read a book. Well, for me the right food and moving the old bones eventually got my body back on track, I reviewed my training plan and the new one is working so much better - and that radiates into the mind as well. But on some levels there had been a certain dullness not only recently. Being German and having been brought up a certain way I never saw a problem in addressing those matters (although I try to keep it subtle here) and now even the English telly is getting more and more open. We have Trinny & Susannah fondling boops and Gok Wan letting women look good naked to then dressing them in figure shaping lingerie, Dawn Porter is having a bus load of topless ladies chauffeured around London and there even was a 'Sex Education Show' with Anna Richardson - which by the way was brilliant. Apart from loads of other stuff she explored ways of spicing things up - and not by using a cook book. Well, some of it was very interesting - I might consider a Burlesque dance course if I find one on offer in our area, but coincidentally I now found a way of my own. See: keeping eyes open for new things and experimenting is paying off!
Don't take them as literature, but something you would swap 'Sleepless in Seatle' or 'French Kiss' for. Some of the story lines are a bit weak, but one can hit a real jewel as I did with my first one. I might be and emotional wimp, but they have a 'feel good' factor - and if WE feel good: Anything is possible! Love Rika
6th November - IL on fire again!
After the summer break the start was a bit slow, but now IL are on fire again. I am back to the gym regularly and had a bit of an epiphany. Well, I did preach that before - sort of. But from time to time it's good when old news hit home again ...
30th October - Everything Squash
Next week we will have to plan for a bit of Christmas shopping mischief, and I may have some weird advice on how to fight a cold.So have good Trick&Treat'n and hoping to see you on Friday! Love Rika
23rd October - Creating Brands
I guess that's what makes it expensive. This is called branded products, and once something is branded it can be much more expensive. Yep, I'm fully briefed and in the picture now. I attended a workshop on branding at work. But I didn't know that this makes such a BIG difference.
We should brand 'Incredible Ladies' better!
Talking of branding: Incredible Ladies is quite a bit out there now! I have accounts on almost every social networking site and some other more specialised sites. And I keep commenting on other people's blogs using the IL link whenever possible. So if you would like to help promote Incredible Ladies, then leave the link: http://incredibleladies.com/ wherever possible. Mick the Cosmic Gypsy made his mark as well. He created a new MySpace website and was featured on a radio station. So he is having a 'Mick's News' page here at IL now. If you have a project running you would like to keep people updated on: Let me know about it! And Babul one of our other contributors has done a quantum leap in the quality of his photography. He always was brilliant, but I think he has turned a corner now. He has his latest set on Flickr. Well, and Nury is explaining the credit crunch for us. Now I'm going to prepare for next week. I have to find a highly creative brain cell in my head for a new pumpkin design. It's Halloween! And it's about time that the big bowl of sweets that I already have waiting for all the witches and devils, is getting emptied - the temptation is just too big sometimes... So see you all next week - be scared! Love Rika
16th October - Groats, Gourmants and Games I admit this headline is a bit of a stretch, but it has 3 words in it with 'G' that are in this edition. A 'groat' is an old coin worth four old pennies, a 'gourmant' is someone who loves to eat - oh well, and the 'game' is the culprit which started this silly thing in the first place.
I promised myself that this would be the only one this year. It has to be, no sport due to the renovating and having sweets wherever I could find them. Not good! So right now it's the cheesecake or nothing. While checking through Nury's columns I found one about a new rather weird board game, and got inspired to dig a bit into my gaming history resulting in a column of my own. It will have to be up to you to decide which one you like better or if there shouldn't be a competition anyway. I just feel happy that I am more inspired again. Not having written a lot and having delayed sending the book manuscript out to more agents made me a bit uneasy and grumpy. What in turn doesn't help to fire up the wit needed to write good stuff. So I'm hoping the vicious circle is broken and we will have a lot of fun during this long autumn and winter ahead of us. Ladies we really need to get out and do something nice!
And for the rest of it I'm working on a small new website featuring the book. So I hope soon I can introduce you properly to my alter ego which carries the burden of telling my stories. For now my dinner is screaming for me - loads of rice and few carrots and green stuff I think. Detlef is on a business trip so I am deprived of his excellent voluptuous lettuce which usually is my treat from him on Wednesday nights. Have a great week and let me know (rika@incredible-ladies.co.uk) about the money exchange. Love Rika
9th October - Welcome to the new Incredible Ladies Head Quarters It's over! Thank God, it's over!
Monday, 6th October Who on earth had this idea of house make-over in the first place? Oh, that would be ME! Silly cow...
But the most annoying thing of all was painting wardrobes! Why on earth would I do that? By the time all my stuff goes back in, one can't see the walls anyway. I'm not made to paint wardrobes - I'm either too short or too fat or both. At one point I almost got stuck in an attempt to reach a far corner, and while painting one bit I wipe another one off with my big bum. However, I did the last one this morning and that is it for the next 10 years - at least! Oh well, on Tuesday I did shove everything back into place and all that needs doing now is to wash about 10kg of clothes - didn't have space for it to dry, so we are running on our last bits of underwear. What brings me to Nury's column - he found a rather interesting approach to work around this.
Have a lovely week, and if there is something that you are dreading to do, but that can't be avoided anyway: Do it now! Really, get it done and over with. What a relief and a feeling of freedom when it is over! Love Rika
2nd October - Weird Coincidences If I were superstitious I would say that last weeks update triggered this weeks events which unfortunately are a bit on the sad side. I had to kill a sick little rabbit. I didn't want to upset you, so I wasn't sure if I should write about it, but the experience of death belongs to life after all. And as usual: Once the mind has a focus on a certain matter it sees other incidences everywhere.
25th September - Superstition, Truisms and Murphey's Law
It all started way back before the holidays that we got us an appointment in London for passport renewal. No appointments available during hols so we booked it for this week, having to take another day off from work. Well, day off in London is always nice so I wasn't too bothered, until Detlef had to plan for a five day trip to Germany which then had to happen during the same week - meaning for me: Get all the washing and ironing done by the weekend before. I still wasn't bothered too much since I had this grumpy attack a short while back, and due to that had a lot of ironed shirts in the wardrobe. Then all of a sudden the week before got tight for hubby. One day London, from there to Budapest for one day, coming back and having an importent business meeting the next day - meaning for me: Covering his household tasks, and... having run out of shirts. Then there are these things that creep up slowly - one knows they will have to be done at one point but they can be delayed, like fish tank and bird cage cleaning and gardening. What can I say: Things have gone over the edge right now. I feel really guilty for the fish and birds, the pond fish haven't seen the sunshine in a while and when I feed the garden birds I can't see them anymore sitting on the lawn because they are sinking in. This so far only has just been the standard lunacy of life, and now here is the biggie: We are going to renovate the upper floor. More precisely: We are going to have new flooring, meaning everything has to be moved at least once! The initial plan was to turn ONE guest room - which is almost empty anyway - into a cosy corner for me and the Ipswich ladies using some furniture from other rooms. Then take all the time we need to then clear the other small room and make it a cosy study for me - YaY - and and then, giving it a lot of time and thought do then former study containing all the rest of the clutter and probably the bedroom as well. Target: Be finished around January, using the Christmas break to tidy up and paint. Well, not gonna happen that way! Mrs 'Smart' called the floor fitter and turns out it is cheaper to do it in one go, meaning: Two days of fitting! And not in the ring-shift way that makes sense for the furniture, but combining one big and one small room for a day's work for the fitter... Me all excited, and yay, and I can do this, and briliant: All done by mid October!
Then there will be the weekend after the first rooms are done during which we will have to clear the other two rooms, rip out the carpets and paint the walls and ceilings. Oh and you don't know our study - Comic book collections reaching several years back, a whole life of a researcher's publications and paper stuff considered to be of utmost importance, but never touched again, my silk painting and other crafts equipment, all the computer thingies including a trillion miles of cables, piles of IL cuttings and ideas andl little sheets, memorabilia of 25 years of married life,... whatever you want to find in my study - you will! And it all has to go somewhere. So, I better get cracking, before another gremlin thinks it a good idea to pile something else into these two weeks. I will keep you posted and I wish you wonderfully boring weeks ahead. Love Rika PS: It did happen - I hate gremlins: I got the sniffles! Cross fingers it's only the dust and not a bug. No wonders that my column sounds a bit grumpy today. However, the IL Tea will take place as usual: Looking forward to the break :o)
18th September - I love the Salsa Last Saturday Isabelle had her Salsa party. She is running her Salsa school in Ipswich supported by her husband - who is a fabulous dancer - and once in a while she is organising a party for people to just show up and to have a good time dancing or to find out what Salsa is all about.
and after everything will be back in place, and sorted, and neatly arranged, I will get my candles out and will enjoy a bit of reading for a change. It might even inspire me a bit. Last weekend I learned about a giant lobster who now found a new home in an aquarium in Cornwall. So it might even be not too bad that the summer is gone, a bit of cosy time before the Christmas rush sets in will be nice.
Have a beautiful autumn and a lot of good ideas! Love Rika
11th September - The money issue Sometimes it is funny how things are falling into place. Right after we had transferred our Race for Life sponsorship money to the charity account, I announced at my work place that I would be very happy to take on unwanted pennies which usually reduce the life span of a purse without adding real value to the content.
I counted them, and I enjoyed it! It reminded me of a time when I was a student; whenever I felt unhappy and trapped I counted my pennies - maybe I always knew that copper is in line with my colour scheme - and here is my recent collection:
Doesn't look that much, does it? This is almost eight pounds. And from that you already can cook a nice meal. So I'm hoping that I haven't spoilt my chances with you for having to swap my pennies over to the big vase, but if it did: I wouldn't blame you!
Collecting pennies creates this thrifty frame of mind because it visualises the value of money. All of a sudden one will see more and more opportunities to save a bit here and a bit there. Pennies are the antidote to credit cards and my way of dealing with money especialy the 'budgeting system' is tapping into this line of thinking. It is something to work and to think through, and occasionally it might need a bit of tweaking here and there to adapt it to ones particular needs. Well, and using it you will instantly know whether or not you can afford the product Nury is advertising in his column. To happy counting! Love Rika
4th September - I have a travel bug
It is the fear that will bring us down. So I will think a bit about how to tighten the belt without losing the joy of life and will let you know about it next time. And until then: Heads up! Have a wonderful week and enjoy life to the full!
Love Rika
28th August - Weird Encounters
Then we went to Cambridge, firstly, because we haven't been there in a while, secondly, because Detlef had some catching up to do in regard to the new mall which I had visited before when IL went to see Race for Life, and thirdly, to test the new camera - and what better place to go than Cambridge? Well, we straight away got stopped in our tracks in regard to 'top 3' as we were forbidden to take photos, what put us a bit off the whole photography experience. It boggled my mind in a way that I wrote two articles in several versions, only to come back to the initial ones. 'Roofs, Pictures and Paranoia' is a more personal view, while 'Panic, Paranoia and Politics' elaborates into a general rant, really. I hope you forgive me! For the rest of my holidays I was busily working on getting my writing career into gear, and on discussing options we repeatedly came across the issue that one just can't please everybody, what reminded me of the ''Little Tale'. Eventually we found out that it was written by Johann Peter Hebel and that there are many more stories from him. So if you wanted to practice your German on short stories: here is the link, although please be aware that it's a rather old fashioned German, and a bit hard to understand.
So I'm sorted for this fall, what is very fortunate as the fashion is still all A-shaped and has these tiny sleeves attached to any item that is supposed to wrap the upper bit of a female body. This is about the 4th season now that we are in this flow of things, and I'm suggesting that all you small shouldered, long bodied girls out there quickly get your stuff sorted: Because I'm insisting that next season is to be the turn of the more strong built ones again, that A-lines, blouses without stretch and skirts of non-floaty materials are to be banished and that teal comes back as the colours of the year. For now I say bye bye, see you next week, have a good one! Love Rika
21st August - Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now!
I know - everybody who ever held a digital SLR knows that this is standard stuff, but I nevertheless feel like a child under the Christmas tree. Grinnn...!
I'm wishing you a lovely week and a lot of sunshine. See you next week, hopefully in one piece! Love Rika
14th August - The deeds are done! At least two of the ones planned are.
Such a nuisance sometimes to live in the province. We poor things will have to check out Lakeside, Bluewater or even London to actually see the thing before we can decide for which model to buy - and while being in the proximity of other shops there might be a pair of shoes in it as well ??? I'm still short of my anniversary gift since I didn't get the gorgeous faith gladiator sandals. Well, that may sound all a bit superficial, and probably I don't really need new shoes... ahhh? ... hmmm?... we had discussed that earlier, I believe?! I'm just blabbing a bit to gain momentum to find a way to tell you about my second deed that is done. Remember? There were two! Here it comes... I did it! I really did it! I wrote a book! Hence me not being able to write a lot for the site this time.
I tried to calculate how many agents I get to ask to take me on, before I might die of old age: It needs about eight weeks to get a response, and the one who would take me on would need to find a publisher - Detlef read that they are really good, though; they have a 75% success rate - and then it needs at least a year until the book is made. Given that I intend to become 80 years old, -1 year for the book making, -1 year for finding some mad publisher wanting to sell a book of a 79 year old: that makes 78 years of age. I'm 47 now what gives me 31 years to achieve my goal, or 201.5 agents to try. I think that is about the length of the list I found on the internet. I hope they are all younger than me. Wish me luck! Love Rika
I got adopted as family when my former boyfriend and his wife decided to make me godmother of their second daughter. He is very smart; his wife has the same name as me. Saved him a lot of confusion... However, when we split up we stayed friends and you already got to know Jori the lovely girl. She became 18 this year, and her sister who is 20 had just finished a year as Au Pair in America. Thus a lot of things to celebrate - not that my friends would need a reason - but with a reason it was almost a 'must'. So the aunties and uncles were invited and so I made my way to Germany to join them. We had a great time and Tuebingen is just lovely. We went for a guided tour of the town, had a wine testing and did some punting on the river Neckar - I think I never slept better! Well, and for a change it was nice to have a proper German supper, with bread, different types of red sausage and cheeses and nibbly bits.
For now I'm going to keep this update short. Enjoy the articles and my weekly Nury Vitachi choice, and the next time I'm going to tell you what else I was up to during the past weeks - exciting times, and a wee bit scary. Have a great week! Love Rika
And now it's almost August and I have bumble-bees in my pants. Well, that's what we say in Germany when one is moving about a lot and won't stay in one place. As Detlef and still I can't travel together due to silly cats we decided to do at least day trips. Thursday we went to London where I was treated to a brilliant lunch at the British Museum. We even were sitting next to an actor, Julian Sands - have to admit, I had to look him up as he is not necessarily playing in my favourite movies, what is more down to my odd taste rather than his choices. And of course we did a bit of shopping. Although that was a bit disappointing. I had promised myself a pair of silly, absolutely useless shoes and found them... one size too big! Grrrr.... Bless my dear husband who thanks to his electronic gadgets found all London stores selling these damn things - with no success. Now I'm on a mailing list to be notified when they will be stocked again in the internet store. Cross fingers! I really have put my heart on them. On Friday we drove a bit up North to Lowestoft to see the Air Festival - and it was breath taking! I only learned later that this is the biggest show in Europe. The displays were just magnificent. I definitely want to go again next year. And soon I will be off to Germany from where I hopefully will bring something to tell. For now I'm leaving you with my choice from Nury's weekly output and a link where you can donate your old tights - no kidding, it's for charity. I hope that you will have lovely trips and that you will enjoy yourselves, and if you come across something you want to share - just drop a line to rika@incredible-ladies.com. Love Rika
Then on Friday we will go to Lowestoft for the Air Festival - cross fingers for at least no rain - not looking all too good so far. Then weekend at home with catching up on a few things and after that another short work work week with flying to Germany on Friday to see my dear goddaughter and her family. I hope that will do the trick to not take work too seriously for a while and to safe me the hassle to get back into it again. Well, and on asking myself which might be the right way to plan a time-out I thought a general check on all the advice I've given here in this place might be appropriate. Since more than a year I'm writing about everything that grabs my mind, what I have changed and why - but is it still all valid? Have things changed again or not worked out and I forgot to write about it, hence having invalid stuff hanging around? So I had a good thought about how far it has brought me to 'Push My Limits'. And on pushing on I came across another oddity which ended up in one of my infamous columns. As usual I picked one of Nury's columns of this week, and we have another treat: Imola is getting the hang of writing stuff down and cooked up a great recommendation for a pampering session. Something I definitely will follow up on after the holiday break.
Love Rika
Two days ago I almost didn't trust my eyes, twice. But first things first: You know how much I like writing - almost as much as I like talking - and like every writer, at least that's what they say about writers, I worry about not being good, witty, original, inspiring and 'thousand other things' enough. Then I found this site with columns of Nury Vitachi who is really 'somebody' in the business and I just love his style - hence me linking a few of his columns already. Thank God that he is producing like mad, so there is always something that I'm happy to pass on to you and thus filling my site in doing so. On wondering how he creates these huge amounts of material I found a calendar with archives and on the first click it produced a column which explains it all. So I couldn't help myself but add a comment. This then led to MY first column of the week. Next day - first time of wiping eyes - he had responded! And it was a very kind response, actually: It was a brilliant response. So for now my worries are put at ease and the whole thing inspired me to MY second column of the week. The second eye wiping occurred when I red his column of Tuesday the 15th. It was about the Mongol Rally. Remember? I previously had written about an old friend of mine going one a silly adventure - That's the one! They almost have reached their sponsorship target and are ready to go. Well, looking from where I and probably the rest of the world are standing they are not ready, not ready now and probably never will be. But they feel the urge of embarking on this mind-bogglingly absurd journey as soon as possible. As far as I know they don't even have a Swiss Army knife (McGyver style) and ladies tights (fan belt replacement and useful item for all sorts of things) in their luggage. Oh oh, ... So this very joyful encounter with a writing pro and the subsequent wave of inspiration resulted in what hubby calls 'writers diarrhoea'. Apart from the two columns I worked through a pile of fresh fruit to answer the question: Is it really reasonable to not buy prepackaged? Well, and as the practical outcome from answering this question was a really nice fruit salad, we have a recipe as well this week. On top of it all there was one thing in particular that got stuck from Nury's response: One doesn't want to disappoint the reader in not writing! Hence I made Detlef download the log files and again: Yay! Our numbers are climbing. Slowly, but still. There are definitely more than the expected two readers, and Yes! Nury is right! What keeps me going is that I don't want to disappoint you. I know that we are going into the holiday period, and that numbers might go down a bit. But as long as there is a single one of you logging on once in a while, I will keep it up. Promised! Have a lovely holiday season! Love Rika
10th July - You'll beat me up for this idea Since I have Incredible Ladies there are patterns emerging. Apparently things are getting very busy right before a holiday season. Thus we have to shove the Afternoon tea to Friday 18th, because on the 25th I have to go to Lowestoft for the Airshow. Never have been at one and really looking forward to it. Well and if it is not for the planes then it is for a day at the beach. Cross fingers for good weather. As for the rest of the week I was thinking bits here and pieces there, trying to get deeper into my ideas for the fundraisers and the more I did the more scatterbrained I became. I needed a pep talk. As nobody was around to give me one, I wrote one for myself. Result: Well, I didn't get my idea to a stage where I can sincerely write about it, but I found out what I want for Christmas.
I already have the little click-click with which I shoot all the pictures for this site. But I would like to be able to do really good pix that could even become posters. So hubby has still some time to research this matter and to find a good deal, and then cross fingers that I'm not too silly to use it well. The normal digital cameras are pretty amazing. I've put some of my very early deeds on Flickr and given that the skill is entirely with the camera I'm rather happy with the outcome. Future will tell if I have it in me to tame the beast. BTW: What are you planning for your hols? Going abroad? Beach holiday? City trip? Hiking? Some location we should know more about? Send over some pix and a story to let know the others! Have a good rest of the week and a lovely weekend! Love Rika
3rd July - So many lovely things First and foremost - we got another 20 pounds! So the final score for Race for Life is £1214.70! THAT is not too bad for year 'one', not too bad at all! I thank you all for participating in a brilliant Race for Life season. I'm already working on new fundraising ideas and I hope you will like and enjoy with what I'm coming up. I'm still very much in the brainstorming phase and will tell you next time about it. Cars - Cars - Cars
Although it was horrible to leave the driveway with the old little Punto for the last time. I'm such a softie. Mischievous Things Then we had the afternoon tea and it turns out that my latest version of cheesecake is a much bigger success than the last one. So here is the recipe for 'Weird Cheesecake - Take II'. We have seen 'Sex and the City - The Movie' and we liked it! It was so funny how some of the audience was living through the story with laughing, moaning, hissing and shrieking. Oh, and these gowns! Well, and those wrinkles! Good to see that these girls have been ageing together with us. Hence a big 'Thank You!' to the producers for not making it just all glam and beautiful, but to let us see a bit of a real face as well. However, the story is well made so one didn't have to know the series to enjoy the movie. And of course: Before the film we had the usual cappuccino at the bar. This Saturday, 5th July there is a charity Dragonboat race in our area, at Alton Waters. Detlef and I will definitely go, should be a nice family day out given that the weather is keeping up, and on 24th/25th July is the Lowestoft Air Festival, which should be fun to attend. I only will go on the 25th as hubby and I are occupied with having our anniversary on the 24th. We will have to see what - hmmmm... probably London has on offer these days... So loads of family day out opportunities and if you don't have a family go anyway. It'll be fun and you might meet a bunch of us.
I got mail! When I got home today I had a big envelope lying on my doorstep, and it turned out to be what I had hoped for: The CDs from Mick, the Cosmic Gypsy. So I listened to sexy sax tunes and some more all afternoon feeling all happy now. Hubby already spoilt me with the recurring Wednesday's 'Voluptuous Lettuce' meal (the Feta cheese version) and now I'm going to call it a day and upload the whole lot. I hope you'll enjoy this weeks edition, and if you have a story to tell - you know where to find me! See you next week, Love Rika
I can't get enough of time. My greed for time is as big as for chocolate. For some reason I'm running late again for the IL edition. Well, I at least got my report of the fashion show finished. One could argue that it's fair enough that I only got that: It was a rather bold job to cut almost 3 hours of footage down to 10 minutes. On one hand it's annoying that YouTube has the 10min restriction - however, it keeps one from going overboard. And I have to admit I got distracted. I got a lovely email as response to Carine's birthday present on Flickr. A nice gentleman from Texas worked his way through the IL website and very much likes my approach of sharing my stories. This is very uplifting and in order to respond with comments I got me a Flickr account - which is more fun with some photos uploaded. Given that I'm not really good in taking photos it needed a bit of time to find some rather decent ones. So this time I don't have some flowers here - they are all on Flickr. Then I'm thinking a lot about the new car. It is decided, but I'm not telling you yet. Tomorrow I will pick it up and then have some pictures going with it next week. And now I will cut it short because otherwise you might not have an upload tonight. Well, too late anyway as it is tomorrow already. So have a good night and a nice and sunny rest of the week - and for the Ipswich Ladies: I'm looking forward to seeing you on Friday! Love Rika
For next week I will have to finish the 'Fashion Show' report. I've shot more than two hours of video footage which needs sorting out. So please bear with me a bit longer on that one. And last but not least: I will have to crank up my training efforts a bit. I skipped weight exercises for two weeks and I need to get back on track. When I tidied up my overflowing mailboxes I found some links of Nike adverts which I think are really great. I've listed them under 'This and That'. I hope you are as happy as the bumble bee which was digging through the Thyme blossoms of my front garden today. Love Rika
This week is entirely under the sign of Race for Life. Saturday I picked up my parents from Stensted and it was pouring down without any break. I never showed such a stubborn behaviour before. I just ignored the rain and went ahead with my preparations.
Additionally it turned out that we raised the money we wanted to - and a bit more, while still collecting outstanding lists. So I'm hoping to have final figures next week. I'm rather proud of us. We have come far within the one year the IL exists now. And then we had the well deserved picnic. Thanks to the glorious weather and the great atmosphere we stayed on until the run for Bobby Moore fund started. After a stampede of 2500 women had been running through the park in the morning the poor guys had to struggle through the mud, and it had become even warmer. But they did well and there were even a few daring pink skirts around. However, for next year somebody might tell them that red and pink doesn't really go well together. Don't forget to have a look at MySpace - Cosmic Gypsies the offer is still on that you can have a CD for less than £10 and something like £3 go into the big pot. Every penny counts and the music is really nice. That's it for now. Tomorrow is the Nyx&HollyBlue fashion show and I'm hoping to catch a bit of nice footage for you. See you next week, and enjoy the nice weather while it lasts... Love Rika
And to give you an idea of what to expect: We have been in Cambridge for the run on 1st June. Have a look at the video. Despite the odd drizzle the atmosphere was just great! And we had a lovely day altogether. Now I'm looking forward to hubby coming back from his conference and to pick up my parents on Saturday. Then the family will be ready for Sunday and the picnic we are planning around the event to give a bit of stomach lining to our supporters. We expect heavy cheering - that needs a lot of energy! I will close down now and write a few more begging emails. Well, and a bit of sleep will be welcome as well. Have a nice rest of the week, hopefully see a lot of you at the run, and a big thank you to all of you who sponsored us so generously. Next weeks edition will be a bit short due to my parents staying a bit longer for my birthday. However, I'm hoping to have a little preview for you. Love Rika
Mick the 'Cosmic Gypsy'. He is a wonderful supporter of our Race for Life team offering to donate half the profit of each of his newly released CD which we are selling via our channels. The CD is expected to come out of the press (how does one call this these days - gosh I'm too old...the last time I had an interest in music we still had records) any time soon. However, as our run is in less than two weeks time, I thought you might want to listen in at his MySpace page - the CD contains the songs on there plus another 11 tracks 6 of which are sexy sax tracks (lovely laid back late night romantic tunes ...) - and then register an interest with me via rika@incredible-ladies.com. The price is expected to be less than £10 including shipping. I think for something like 17 tracks and supporting a good cause that is a bargain. So please let me know if you are interested! From all that I now noticed that music really does connect people and I discover a taste in music that is very versatile. I love the idea of real people making real music and I found different styles for different moods of mine which you know can change rather quickly. And it is not just music - I'm very keen to see the artwork on Mick's CD as he is a brilliant painter as well and a poet, and...
As for the rest of today's edition: I found some justification for some of my miss-buys and spending habits and thought I'd share it with you. Well, I hope you don't mind that I invited a few more guys to the site - IL is about connecting so it shouldn't matter who gives the inspiration as long as it is genuine. And again ladies: Don't be so modest in what you are doing, show it off. We need your inspiration! You know where to find me! Love Rika
Working for charity means a certain amount of sacrifices. And so it turns out that I again had to amend my lifestyle. With the garden work looming and the day job around the corner time was getting short again. Given that I'm not really good in running having to practice, what in turn makes me a bit knackered - something's gotta give: In my case the fishtank I used to have next to my screen.
Yes! You guessed right: I'm getting the Race for Life jitters now!
I don't know enough to be able to describe this style to you - you will have to listen for yourself. These three music projects have separate sites on MySpace where you can listen in. They are called: Mourning Knight, Reality's Mirror and Ceiling Unlimited And now I'm going to say bye bye for today, but not without another one of my usual appeals - c'mon I have to at least ask!
And now I hope you will forgive me that I am cutting it short. Since the last edition was delayed I didn't manage to come up with a new article and Race for Life needs a bit of attention now in regard to fundraising and 'Party Planning'. Thus my life is not boring but full of little bits that need to be done but which are not really interesting to talk about. However, I know that a few of you have ben away or going away - so how about sending me some pix or anecdotes for the next edition? Or some comments/questions on stuff from previous editions - like Carine's on my restaurant report from last week? I hope you are enjoying Babul's new pix and his website tip off about photo technique. For now let's hope that the past two weeks of great weather was not 'The English Summer'. We had that last year and I think we deserve better. So enjoy it while it lasts! Love Rika
8th May - Getting serious about things Oh what a week! It started all very harmless with the long weekend and the prospect of sunny weather, and all of a sudden I was in the middle of some serious gardening. This was it! This weekend it had to be done!
Her response: Hmmmhmmm.... and black is sooo slimming!!! I'm still giggling! Will keeping you posted...
Flying between locations with burning feet - I don't think that the perfect pair of shoes really exists - I thought I might not be able to enjoy the workshop as much as I would have hoped for. But again: Heather's catching way of approaching things and the way she delivers information straight down into the subconscious made it a great experience. And again: Having her input sitting in my grey cells since a few days now, things are starting to bubble up. And this time the information means serious business and hands on advice on how to go about things. This story will not end there! Well, in the end everything went well and I was invited to one of the finest restaurants in the area, which was a very interesting experience. And now the week is almost gone and Race for Life is creeping closer and closer. All is left for me right now is to ask you to consider to join the team as there are still some places free in the Chantry Park race, and to visit our team page to find the links for the sponsorship pages we have set up. Every single pound is very much appreciated and goes straight to Cancer Research UK. We already paid for the admin bit of the races. So your sponsorship will go into the research, and will pay for equipment and staff needed to do this important work. Have a beautiful weekend with a lot of sunshine, and however serious things might get: Don't forget to find the fun in it! Love Rika
I'm hooked! I'm running really into trouble now with all the kinds of sport I like. Four years ago I would never have thought that I would do all these things AND enjoying them. I couldn't really rely on my body - well, I could rely on being able to hang in an armchair until even that became painful. Now it is just fun to explore new things and whenever I think I have reached my limits there is something beyond. Rather nice actually! When about a year ago I got this idea about the Training Club I of course thought about weight exercises. Now it turns out that we can keep that much more flexible. We have a running section, a weight exercises section and now we might even include a boxing section - if you were interested... Maybe I got a bit lucky with Darren as boxing trainer, as my taster session took place in such a relaxed atmosphere. I definitely will stick with it. Gosh I will be so fit and gorgeous by end of summer... Wanna join in??? Let me know! I'm happy to arrange. If boxing - then this is a brilliant place to kick it off! Then I had the Kickboxing taster on Monday. Well not as much my thing, although I believe that there are some of you who actually would prefer it. Have a look at my review to see what I mean. And as a reward we had a lovely dinner at Artista. It was seven of us and we were so busy to chat, to eat and to get to know each other that we forgot to take a picture. Well, at least the mission is accomplished - it is about the mingling and getting to know each other, isn't it? And as without a picture I will skip the usual 'mischief achieved' article, thus not having to confess to you that I ate much to much. The food is just too good and I always get lost in the starters already. By the time I munched myself through the pizza (thin base but very big) I'm overfed - but there is no way that I would skip the tiramisu. So there you have it! Much too much!
Thus we have to start raising money now! Please, please, please... All of you out there reading this: We need your help! Breast cancer is not just something happening in the UK. It just happens that we all live here to collect money for a first class research unit. These people won't keep for themselves what they find out, their efforts will help women all over the world. So please, go to our team members page, choose any one (or all :) of us and click the link to get to the sponsorship page. All you need is a credit card and you can spend as little as £2 (4.26 Australian dollars, 6.65 Brazilian real, 30.99 Hong Kong dollars, 643.33 Hungarian forints, 159.53 Indian rupees, 29.14 Moroccan dirhams, 2.54 Euros, 414 Japanese yen, 8.72 Polish Zloty, 3.98 US dollars, ...) and the sky is the limit!
Altogether things are falling back to the good old routine, eventually. With the warmer weather no more illnesses are to be expected and training can go it's way, the IL website had a little dip in February and is now back to the usual approx. 350 unique visits - not huge, but we have a fan base. My schedule for weekly tasks like food shopping seems to be working. So altogether we can look forward to a lovely spring time and a good summer. Let's enjoy! Love Rika
Well, that's how the bag looks like when our sweet Vinny is not sitting on it. He claimed it instantly and in a cat-fight I claimed it back for a good flaunting around town. Thanks Jen! We are very much looking forward to meeting you and Kirsty on the 1st June for you run!
Race for Life - dear Ladies! Haven't been nagging in a while. There are still 510 places available from 2500 for the Chantry Park run. That should be a great event with so many women running and walking and having fun, and with all the families coming and cheering on. For a bit of inspirations have a look at the pictures of the 2007 Chantry Park run. And then just go for it and register here. And if you would like to be listed on our IL-RfL-Team page then drop me an email with the link to your sponsorship page (please put 'Incredible-Ladies' in the team member field) and a mugshot. Well, you can do it wherever you are in England and if you are not too far away we might even visit you on the day. Eventually I worked a bit on the training guides again. It's amazing how time consuming this is. Babul took so many photos - it's hard to choose the right ones. Well, wanna look pretty, but wanna look serious as well. We are not doing this for fun, after all... oh, OK! Yes! We ARE doing this for fun! And for a 'killer cleavage'! The 'mouse au chocolat' clip is a tip off from Carine (she never told me that the French kiss four! times to say hello!) Have a closer look, there are more recipes of that kind... and last but not least I found a map that I can colour in. So we have a means to document the colours of Incredible Ladies now. Ladies! Start networking. We need more of us to go entirely teal. So that's it for this week, don't forget to have a look at the news-corner and the mischief section. It is getting busy now for the Ipswich Ladies and if you are busy elsewhere in the world, let me know about it (rika@incredible-ladies.com). Would be nice to have an IL-Satellite some place else. Enjoy the warmer weather, get your summer skirts out and have a great week! Love Rika
17th April - Back to the roots Well, this first quarter of 2008 was quite a rollercoaster and this update could have been called 'Back to square one' as well; with my e-mails still not being delivered to you, it's even harder to organise things than a year ago. Back to square one' however, would draw a picture of defeat that is untrue. We have achieved quite a bit. The site has grown, the Ipswich Ladies have become more and have a lot of ideas for mischief, and we have a few things planned. I got the one or the other lovely feedback from strangers who stumbled over the site and we have our own stationery and favicon.
I just did what I liked doing and it was enchanting and fun. It gave me more energy than I ever thought a person can have. I must have done something right back then. And it is what I'm preaching here, right? Find out where your passion lies, and then go for it. If you do something with all your heart, things will fall into place. So, let's move from 'hard work' back to 'heart work'!
I don't know it happened, but on my way back to the car those two fellas jumped into my bag.
It seems that in many ways we have it good these days, but it shows as well that there is still a lot left over to be taken care of. To read the forum entry on RFOS you will have to sign in, so I'm publishing it here as well. If you would like to comment on it here please, send me an email to rika@incredible-ladies.com or to participate in the forum please log into RFOS. There you will as well find my 'muscly profile' - no login needed for that.
Love Rika
10th April - Networking, Networking, ...!
It's still frost and my strawberry is flowering, as is the dandelion.
Talking of a teaser boxing session: don't forget to have a look from time to time at the Mischief section. 'On now' is rather big at the moment with restaurant visit end April, Cambridge trip, Race for Life with picnic party and Fashion show in June. Our 'Mischief in Planning' section is filling up as well so let me know if I should push any of those forward.
My lurking around in MySpace is starting to pay off as well.
... and she will let me know about gigs she is having - thus giving us another entry for the Mischief section.
Apart from dashing around I wrung my brain matter a bit and came up with a follow up article on networking: How to build a network and which mistakes to avoid.
- Whoops doesn't seem to show in Explorer but only in Firefox - will fix that by next week! -
A toast to that! Love Rika
Most of you will already have heard either via my emails or otherwise that some of the emails I've sent haven't reached you. I'm increasingly feeling like little David fighting the big Goliath players like Yahoo and AOL, although I don't think that I can win in any way.
E-mails - Providers - RSS feeds - and 'How to find previous editions of IL' All I can do is to let you know that this is what is happening. It will be up to you to check the Spam folder and de-spam them in case they did end up there.
Thus I'm introducing an 'IL mail corner' which I will update whenever needed and regardless of the weekly schedule. In the long run we will have an RSS feed as well, for the time being it's just a button on the top level pages where you will find info that has to get to you quickly and which I usually would send in a mail. Talking of RSS feeds: Since we don't have them yet; please don't forget that you can find all the previous editions by date under 'Previous Editions'. The link for it is just under the 'last week' publications of the right hand side top level menu. So if you've been in hols for more than two weeks - oh, you lucky you - you can easily catch up on what I came up with. Another option is this Site Diary. All the links are in here and even are explaining what the story is behind them.
Race for Life and the 'Incredible Ladies Team'
I met the organisers during their promotion event and we definitely can have a picnic within the boundaries of the event - YaY! We are 8 people in the team at the moment (two in Cambridge, six in Ipswich) and I'm adamant that we will have a lot of fun with and around the event - despite any weather, AOL, Yahoo, and other possible hiccups! We will have some sort of party and I got some pink shoe laces from them - well, not much but it's a start, isn't it? We might want to get some seagreen shoe laces a well and then we can go mixed - going silly now...
Mood Changes
Ipswich Ladies may want to look forward to the next Afternoon Tea, which might as well evolve into an Afternoon Coffee.
27th March - The Future is a Rainbow
It's end March already and in another two month time IL has it's first anniversary. That is worth reflecting on: Where are we? Where do we want to go? What do we need to do to achieve that? A bit more of brushing up on 'networking skills' doesn't hurt for starters. Some of you already got my message about P.I.F.s as an IL-Newsletter already - however, I found it so useful that I'm putting it on here as well. It's working for me, why shouldn't it work for you? And then I updated the 'Future Plans' page firstly, to help me to sort my thoughts and secondly, to let you know what I'm up to. As I said before: IL is for you! So this is your chance to let me know whether or not you like it. Whatever the outcome: we definitely will go on with our mischief planning, don't we? I have to cancel the Afternoon Tea for the 28th - this Friday, though. However, the next month is back to normal: Have a look at the Afternoon Tea dates for the next half year! Accordingly, I pushed on a bit regarding our plans for all the other events. We have a draft itinerary for Cambridge now, I arranged for Nicky to call me when she is running short of tickets for the fashion show, so that you will get a chance to still snatch one - there are just 100 available altogether,... Well and when I went to see her to deliver our new IL-Flyers I had a little mishap, again! I actually was supposed to write something about Vitamins, but who wants to read about that when I have to tell you what I got me. The main event at the moment - Race for Life on the 8th June - is taking shape as well. We are getting support from Germany and whatever the weather, I intend to have a great day! What a nice coincidence that some of our hubbies are playing golf and thus own big umbrellas! So at least our supporters are sorted - however, I'm hoping for a few more of you to join! Some promised, but I'm still waiting for the sponsorship URLs and mugshots to trickle in?! C'mon Ladies we have a walking team and a running team, you are not asked for a big target to reach - and they have plenty of loos there - what else reason could you have not to join! Do I sound desperate? You should see me... sitting under the table hardly able to type from clasping my hands... Let me lighten you up a bit then. Here are some of the P.I.F.s I got. Detlef found a cute little movie. Unfortunately the voice is in German so I've written a brief description of it. Another P.I.F. came from Carine. She found a site where you can play face make-over. I didn't try anything one needs to register for, but you can play around a lot without doing so. So the P.I.F. thing is starting to be real fun. I got one more from an unexpected end: MySpace. One of my 'friends' gave me a brilliant one without knowing. So that will be covering our sport section. Have a look - the movies are amazing, and somewhat funny.
... and don't forget to take a rest once in a while!
Now we are starting to kick off! I hardly know where to begin: OK, let's start with Race for Life! We have 7 team members now - thanks ladies for joining; one more who promised to join, I'm waiting for her confirmation; one who is thinking - oh, that needs a bit more nagging then; and a few who seem to be in hiding. Well, they are sort of excused as I had a bit of trouble with my email and I still don't get email to Yahoo accounts quickly. So you may want to expect a phone call from me soon. Thing just is: Races book out quickly now! Ipswich, Chantry Park, Sunday 8th June, 11AM: 1216 Participants, 1284 Available Ipswich, Trinity Park, Wednesday 09 July, 19:30: 723 Participants, 1377 Available Cambridge, Jesus Green, 1st June, 11 AM: 2157 Participants, 843 Available Colchester, Essex University, Sunday 27 July 2008, 11:00AM: 1225 Participants, 825 Available Colchester, Lower Castle Park, Sunday 11th May, 11AM: closed as of 19th March. Thus when they close, our race to build a real big team is over! So please please join NOW! Then there is the mischief bit. Ladies, it's getting busy now! Firstly we went to the movies and I eventually got my cappuccino upstairs. And secondly, we have plans - loads of plans! From a restaurant visit, via RfL to a fashion show. Have a look and see if something is catching your eye and let me know, so that I can get into gear with planning it.
I have to confess a minor crime: I did a bit of shopping in my favourite boutique. These are two truly Incredible Ladies owning it. I first got to know 'Holly Blue' - close to my hair dresser. Every 7 weeks I had to withstand the temptation. Most of the time I failed misserably. Then a friend and later the owner of Holly Blue recommended 'nyx', what I found a bit odd. It's not real good business sense to recommend the competition. Tuns out: They are mother and daughter! After a long autumn and winter of struggling, they eventually managed to get hold of the perfect location to move in together - what saves me half an hour of commute between the shops. And it's still close to the hairdresser. Hence my gratefulness! Right now their web site is just a brief snapshot. But that will evolve and show more of the new ranges. However, I'm sure you will get a feeling for their style, and the clothes and accessories are just great. Nicky who owns nyx, knows her business in special occasion wear, and if you want to avoid the usual pink satin bow in front of your belly for your Prom - then this is the place to go. I'm rather desperate at the moment to find an occasion - anybody marrying soon? Oh, please invite me! And Holly Blue is the even bigger danger zone for me - because it's very stylish every day clothes. So one doesn't need a reason. And Sue knows how to sell. Be aware, she is a lovely lady, but dangerous. Out of the blue - is that where the name comes from? - she shows you something in a very unobtrusive way and you think: No, that's not my style! Believe me: It is! She never showed me something that wasn't ME. Sometimes I got lucky and she didn't have my size. So if you are in the area it's worthwhile to stop by at nyx and Holly Blue, to have a browse and a chat. Remember? Last time I had an article about 'How to choose your sport'? Well, Imola jumped on it and put me through said 'Fitness training' consisting of short powerful bursts with breaks in-between, also called interval training. What an interesting experience! Highly efficient, I have to say. I tried it before, but never to that extent. Very interesting experience ..., we are on again next Saturday! Oh oh,... And of course I did a bit of thinking. Well, I tried to do a bit of thinking, and came up with an article on ... networking! I got some backup about what we are doing here from a very professional source, and I wanted to share that with you. It is a subject very close to my heart - you may have guessed - and to find that I seem to be doing something right was a real boost. I would be very interested to hear what you think about all this. About networking in general - worries, good or bad experience - or the article in particular, and about areas of which you think I could improve, even if it might bite me a bit. Incredible Ladies is for you. I love this project, but it can't live without you ladies. So if you are missing something, which you think Incredible Ladies could provide for - let me know. You know that I love a good challenge!
13th March - Let's get down to business No, we are not going commercial - I only decided that from today at noon it is spring! Winter is over and my moaning has to stop! This Saturday I went to the gym for a first walking session after the flu. I wanted to test my lungs and my endurance, and walking on a treadmill is the best to do that. It's a controlled environment, and in case things go wrong one can stop instantly. But! All went really, really well. Another advantage of walking is that the mind has a bit of time to float, and a few things fell into place. So we will give a bit flesh to the bone regarding sport today. There will be an update on the walking experiment, and there will be an article which might give you a bit of a kick to help choosing the right sport for you. I already wrote a few things about that, but during the past half year I did some experimenting and gained a few more insights. Well, the 'down time' this winter - again! - taught me, that one should try to remember what one already knows. I believe I mentioned before that I'm a fan of food supplements like vitamins and minerals. I have quite a bit of experience especially with Vit C and had completely ignored on how to use it in case of a damaged immune system. So I'm going to wrap this up, and will use this article as a start into a series of nutrition articles during the next few weeks. And of course the Ipswich Ladies are on the move again. We have a new member of the Incredible Ladies Race for Life team and we are going to the movies this weekend. However, for myself I decided to turn things up a notch now. Race for Life is the deadline! We need a bigger team: Ladies, don't chicken out! It's fun, and it's good for you.
6th March - Mischief, Fun and Charity I was thinking since a while on how to bring our 'Mischief Activities' together with charity. One idea I already had with having 'day outs' for the race days of Race for Life. And now I stumbled across a local charity which might be worthwhile exploring. The Elisabeth Hospiz is doing great stuff although I think we will have to plan those activities carefully, as we don't want to burn our sponsor base by asking for money too often. However, check it out and let me know what you think! What else is new? Well, it truly is spring now! Our ducks are back. Last year a duck couple visited our pond. Due to cats they didn't seem to be keen on breeding, but they surely enjoyed the breakfast and in late spring the dinner as well. When I first saw them I couldn't believe my eyes! Our pond is a tiny goldfish and frog overstocked thing, and these guys are huge. They need about 3 strokes to get through the whole pond. However, they are proudly cruising it back and forth. Just to give you an idea of the proportions -
Have a look at the gallery for this years duck pix! Additionally I have updated the Gallery with the Fuerteventura movies and a few landscape pix, so they are in one place now. Then the Ipswich ladies have been in the pub and now want to go to the movies in March and to a restaurant in April. So there is an update on the mischief page, and we have the first registration for the Race For Life team - YaY! There is an updated link for BodyGossip which previously went into MySpace. Now they have updated their own page and getting serious about the writing competition and getting celebs on board. This site gives gives much more information than the previous link. I think it's an interesting project and we should consider it a mischief option, by travelling to London and visit the show when it is on! Babul has posted new pictures on aminus3. Taj Mahal - and more, ah.... The poor thing almost froze off his butt on shooting those. And then there is a new kind of sport facility in Ipswich - a concept that sounds very interesting. Some personal trainers with ambition opened their own place. It is a well equipped gym in which they do their highly professional classes and 1-2-1s. It's called The Fitness Unit! Everything is supervised and the idea is, that you are never left alone like in other gyms, where one easily can get lost. Additionally the kind of classes on offer are very interesting: I might give the boxing class a go... to be continued! Well, and I have been writing a bit about colds and silly brains and friends who send you butterflies. So have a look at the column and the lifestyle section. I wish you all a good week and a lovely weekend! Hopefully the weather will be a bit warmer soon, so I won't feel so guilty when I'm nagging you to go out and to start training for Race for Life. And don't forget to send me the link for your sponsorship page once you have registered! Love Rika
28th February - Spring has arrived
So I need:
Interested in any of those roles? Would be so great to have you on board - to whichever degree. I will update the IL - Race for Life Page accordingly. Have a look please as well at my sponsorship page, to firstly see how easy it is to collect money and secondly - of course - to sponsor me! To register for the race go to the location finder of the Race for Life site. And right in time to motivate you all, I got Imola's Story! It is her account on what keeps her sane and how it all fell into place. I happen to know, that thanks to her previous experience which she is sharing with us here, she has thrown herself into new and exciting challenges and I'm looking forward to hearing more of her inspiring stories! Thanks Imola! Keep it coming! Well, and I did a bit of cooking again. For some reason I all of a sudden love prawns. I couldn't stand that stuff a couple of years ago and all of a sudden I developed a greed for those pink, naked curly things, brrrr. At the beginning it only were the small ones, but now I upgraded to King Prawns. So find my new version of 'Voluptuous Lettuce under Prawn Indulgence.
21st February - Down with Flu! Again!'
Nevertheless, I think it will do the job to show you how easy it is to play a bit with ingredients and flavours. Well, the movie is sitting half finished on my computer, but with my attention span of a rabbit - what is probably a mean thing to say about a rabbit - and a voice of a grizzly, you probably wouldn't like the outcome if I'd finished it now. I wanted to post a snap of our daffodils in full bloom - but I didn't step out of the door at all. And I got a few ideas for activities for the Ipswich ladies for which I will have to do some more investigation. So I'm very sorry, but this sad little update is all I have for you this week. Take good care of yourselves and avoid the nasty little buggers. Stay well and healthy! Love Rika
So here it is! The Fuerteventura edition. Five pages on Landscape, Travel Diary and Clublife, Jet ski Experience, Shopping and Bits and Pieces. So I hope you will enjoy it. All the links to external pages which are dotted all over the place are collected in the External liks page as well. And if you should get bored, Detlef found you bubblemania for distraction. Oh yes, and Ipswich Ladies are going out again. We seem to be all back from our New Years trips and half terem week will be over as well by then. It's the 23rd Feb and we are just popping into a pub, sort of as a meeting to plan a bit more mischief for the next month. See you later, have fun, Love Rika
7th February - Happy Chinese New Year
Unfortunately I had a bit of a headache on my trip back, so the next day I was too knackered to produce something useful. I hope you don't mind my decision to not rush it. So I'm only going to quickly update you on how it went with 'not taking shaving stuff', and then I will sift through my myriads of movies and pictures to carve something nice out of it. I so much enjoyed shooting those with you guys in mind that I regret a bit to not having done more stuff to show off with. Well, but then: it was to see my mum... However, for further trips I will keep my eyes on that matter and prepare a bit more. This trip was a brilliant experience for my video-freakishness. So I hope you will like with what I will come up the next time. See you then! Love Rika
31st January - Spring Holiday at Fuerteventura Eventually! This is the one where I won't even be around when it goes live. Not that I don't like to be around, but it's just nicer to sit in the sunshine in a holiday resort. Isn't it brilliant when one has staff! Well, dear sweet hubby will cuddle and feed the cats while I'm away and he will press the button. Kudos to him!
With all the juices rising and Valentines Day approaching I had a few general thoughts about Relationships, the clichés ranking around them and the traps attached. And well, well, well,... I just got an email. We are on! Race for Life is up and running. I will update you on our Race for Life 2008 page in a bit more detail when I'm back from my holidays, but while I'm away you might want to think about joining as part of the Incredible Ladies Team. And I will think about how we bring it all together. I have some ideas whizzing around my head and I will think them through while I'm sitting in the sunshine sipping a nice drink. I even bought myself a little notepad for that purpose. See! Even during holidays I'm thinking of you! Speaking of hols again: Remember? Me and my plan for not having to travel with heavy shaving gear and moving on from shaving and waxing to laser? So worthwhile! So far I only can briefly comment on it as it is only a good week in, but there is a silver line at the horizon. I have to dash now. I'm going to leave the house in 7 hours time and haven't packed a thing. I hope you will enjoy my little edition and when I'm back I'm hoping to step it up a notch. Ipswich Ladies have to go out again, we will have to organise Race for Life, I have a few new recipes, and we have to do a bit on the exercising front again. So if you have any suggestions, things you want me to cover or just a comment: Please let me know about it! See you in a week! Love Rika
24th January - Holidays needed! I need a break, or a new brain, or both! Can you believe this? I went to work on Friday morning wearing a brown and a black shoe! I would have loved to see my face when I realised. I felt a bit like in slow motion while my thoughts were racing to determine whether I got colour blind, these were not my feet, or if that really could be the truth. Outcome: Truth! Still in slow motion onto the next level: Who could have seen me? Outcome: Everybody! Well it was early morning and not everybody was there yet, but ALL the people who where could have. It was Friday after all - plant watering day! Meaning me showing up on almost every desk and having friendly chats at the coffee area. Everywhere else in the world something like this would be a first sign of the need to being delivered into a loony bin - what a luck that we are in England; one might get away with being considered a bit eccentric. So I marched to my desk, calling hubby who just had his morning cappuccino, asking him to find the other brown shoe and bring it. At least he had a good giggle! I told you before that I have a thing about shoes. When I was rounder my feet were as well and I had trouble getting nice shoes. So whenever I found some I got them in all colours, and I still have that habit. Well, that now backfired. Although it had something good as well - I never considered wearing the black ones with the dark brown trousers, and the look can be considered an improvement. Be aware of browns, they come in odd variations and sometimes they don't go as well together as one might think. Apparently sometimes one needs an 'out of mind' experience to enhance the fashion sense. Well, given all that it is lucky that I AM going in holidays next Sunday. Thus the next two editions will be a bit short as I won't be around, and hubby will have to do the weekly upload for me while I will be enjoying club life at Fuerteventura. I hope I will be able to bring you some nice pictures and impressions. I have been there two years ago and I just loved it. It's a bit different than what one might expect from the Canaries, though. But you will see! What else are we up to this week? We will have the Ipswich Ladies Afternoon Tea this Friday, 25th. The Ipswich Ladies on my mailing list should have received an email already. If you are in the area and would like to join us please drop me a line and I will get in touch with you to let you know the address. And you may want to think a bit about mischief we want to achieve in February. Let me know about it so that I can start planning for it when I'm back. And I have another little story. Last week when I found the story of the 'Monk and the Traveller' I got inspired to write one myself about our cats and what we can learn from them. Their behaviour sometimes mirrors human social interaction in a way that it is somewhat scary. The blanket that we call civilisation seems to be thinner than one might think, or wish for. Sport! Hmmm... I left you alone for a while because I thought that this is the time of the year, where one sort of gets told off all the time anyway with all the New Years resolution stuff going on. I felt that this time of the year one needs contemplation and time to find the rhythm again, rather then rushing too fast into new things. And... the training movies which I already have published are accessed rather frequently. As they have their home on YouTube I get the counts on that. The Basic Tummy Exercises Video has made the 1000 hits mark this week. I am thrilled! Some of you seem to be doing their bit anyway! I hope you are having a good week and I'm looking forward to seeing some of you on the 'Afternoon Tea'. Love Rika
17th January- I'm going for it The other day I was browsing the Internet for information on a guy who is doing all this lifestyle stuff professionally and I thought I should check out the competition a bit. Well, I did find him, but I found as well another site dealing with these issues - a bit more company related, but nevertheless very interesting. They have a section with the loveliest stories one of which fits the motto of Incredible Ladies so well. Please have a look at the story of 'The monk and the traveller'. As I'm starting to get confused about my own website at times, I decided to introduce an additional menu entry. We already have the 'Finding Things' entry, but I thought something like 'Factfiles' could be useful which will list all the articles which contain some sort of 'flesh to the bone' info. So if you wanted to look something up and don't know anymore in which section it was published you might find it there - hopefully. I'm still building this page and if you have any suggestions to it, please let me know. Then I updated Daniel's gallery (FemPhysPhoto). He had asked me to replace one of the previous photos because he improved it, but I was a bit sneaky and left the previous version in. So if you are interested in these sort of digital photo enhancing things have a look, it's the third from the top. Additionally there are a few 'real' bodybuilding ladies on there now as well. At first I wasn't sure if it were a good idea to have them, as you might get scared off the weight training entirely. But look at it realistically: I am far from having their shape and you know that I work out quite hard. If the only change to your usual workout would be to use heavier weights, there would be no danger whatsoever of you getting as bulky as them. All that would happen might be that you reach your goals a bit quicker. In order to get their muscle mass you would have to work out at least 6 times a week with a very elaborate schedule and diet and supplement regime. On the other hand you can see in these pictures how much effort is needed to build muscle tissue in women, because actually: They are not even that bulky. Of almost all the women who would look bigger than those, one can assume that they take steroids. So I decided that the pictures may go live as an encouragement for all of you who do gym work, and all of you who liked my last weeks idea of trying things a different way. Well, and then I promised you last week that I would stick with this motto and just go for new things. And now I'm telling you: Last week I was at a 'Laser Clinic' and had a first consultation and patch test. So find my report on 'From Fluff to Buff - The Sequel'! And of course my usual appeal: Do you have anything you would like me to cover? Is there anything you would like to contribute? So far I made everything up myself as I went along, and I only can hope that you like it. So let me know what you think! And send me loads of emails to inspire! Love Rika
Don't know what happened, but all of a sudden I get compliments on my muscly figure, coming from various corners. Not that I would abandon it if I wouldn't get them, but still; it is nice to get confirmation, especially if it comes unexpectedly. One reason I hear for not getting muscles is that men might not like it. Well, never had a problem there, as my man was the one making me cling to the iron. For me it was more this 'not fitting in anymore' thing. When I was younger I wanted to be slim in order to belong to the group of cool slim girls. Going for muscles meant a conscious decision against that. And 25 years ago there were not a lot of muscly ladies around, well and here in the provinces we don't find so many these days either. So I had to accept to become either a bit of an outsider in that respect, or a leader of the gang and convince others to go for it as well - hmm, what a tempting thought that is... If you would join the gang now, you wouldn't be an outsider anymore. Here in this area you have me, and looking around in the internet I found out that this is a growing community, and most interestingly in all sizes - from really huge to 'visible but moderate'. What I call: Athletic! Luckily more and more women say 'good bye' to 'size 0' or extreme dieting and go for the 'athletic' approach. And this idea of 'men not liking athletic women' doesn't seem to be true either. Most of the compliments I get are from men, loads of them. There was this gorgeous guy - about 20 years younger than I am, who I didn't even know and who only wanted to leave something for a friend on my desk - bursting out: 'Wow, what great arms you have', and then blushed and appologised. How sweet is that? Or a friend who admits that I turned him round. From that I take that men might say that they don't like it, not actually knowing what they are talking about. Ladies who are working for an athletic figure should consider themselves as 'exotic fruits' - looked at suspiciously at first, but once acquainted with not to be missed anymore! The other lot are people on MySpace - no, not all of MySpace consists of internet creeps - who are genuinely interested in athletic women, wanting to know how I train, eat and how others respond to my shape. One of them is running an internet site promoting female strength and was so taken by what he found out about me on 'Incredible Ladies', that he offered me to publish my profile on his site. Gosh, me - little Rika from Ipswich - between competing Bodybuilders and professionals. I take that as a huge compliment. But the biggest compliment of all I got from ... I couldn't believe it... my mum. It's this thing with mums, that one always stays daughter, and with a lot of things one does baring mum's preferences in mind. There is nothing wrong with that, but from time to time I find myself making conscious decisions against those preferences. So, I know she likes sportive, fit, slim and athletic in a aerobic kind of way. I had a hunch that I might have gone beyond that, and that I had become bulkier than appreciated by her. Well, she would have had the right to comment, as I did that to her daughter. However, I would not have liked to hear that comment. Tsss, tsss ... never anticipate other people's preferences, however well you might think you know them. I got a phone call, my sweet darling mum asking for absolution that she printed my bikini photos for showing them off to her tennis friends - full of pride of what her daughter has achieved! Wow! One of whom grabbed the photos from her, saying that she wanted to put those up on her fridge door. Wow, again! What do I take from all of this? I have to admit that I feel rather proud. Firstly, it is something that I achieved all by myself, and whether one likes my shape or not: It nevertheless is an achievement. Secondly, I dared using a solution which is off the mainstream - and I won! I'm healthy, I'm fit and I think I'm not looking too bad for my age. I'm going to approach matters more often in this daring way now. You will find me starting on that straight away, and I will tell you about it in next weeks edition. Well, and most importantly I will stop using my anticipation of other people's perceptions for my decision making process. Gosh, I'm such an old cow, but my mum still can teach me a lesson! Stay healthy and trust yourselves! Love Rika
2nd January - New Years Resolutions! 'There we are, 2008 is here! I hope that you all made it in one piece and that you are well and up and running, now that the New Year is starting to age already. Today was my first day back at work, and I have to admit: I didn't even mind. This winter break is always a bit washed out and I'm never really sure what day of the week it is. Everything is out of rhythm and apart from meeting people - what is nice - and sleeping a lot and watching a lot of telly - what is nice as well - nothing really happens. I guess that's one part of the population, the other part is working their butts off for the lazy gits mentioned above, feeding and hosting them. To be back to the old routine seems to be a good thing for both parts. And apart from travelling to some place where the sun is shining: What can one do? It's boring weather, boring shopping, boring everything ... That is quite a discrepancy, isn't it? Nothing really happens, and there is a New Year arriving and one is supposed to feel at least some sort of excitement. Probably that's why there are New Year's resolutions. I have never heard of birthday or anniversary resolutions: "Darling for one year until our next anniversary I promise not to nag anymore, and in turn I want you to bring out the rubbish." Could be an alternative! But that never happens, it's always the New Year that raises expectations. And the media and the businesses are hitting that spot over and over again. All of a sudden all the perfume adverts are gone and all these exercising machines and slimming videos are on. No darling, if you didn't acquire your perfume by now, you have to wait - you could slim down a bit using this excellent product. And if the resolution is not working out: Well, then we are a failure - again! There is only one thing to do about it: Don't make them! Really, don't join the gym now! It is breaking full there in January and it's no fun there then. The gym is sort of my second home and I hate it in January. Well, there might be a good deal in it, but you should be really sure what you are expecting from it. And be sure to be able to make time for it. Actually it would be better to make a schedule for home exercise or walking or running, and to stick with it for a while before deciding for a gym membership. You want to quit smoking? Very honourable, but why on earth would you want to do this at the darkest and dullest time of the year, where there is no distraction like gardening or other outdoor activities. At the time of the year where one is moody anyway, you decide to torture yourself. Better find a time where you know that you are at your happiest - and then start your cure. The same with food: If you love chocolates - Winter is the worst time ever to wean oneself off it. Again, why not determine a time for yourself where you know you will be distracted by something nice and then do it. And don't tell people about it - just do it! This way the calm and moody time of the year becomes a time of planning and dreaming and getting ideas. Sit down with a cuppa and write it down what you would like to do at some certain point of the year, or draw a doodle of what you are thinking and dreaming. And then work slowly towards your deadline, don't be afraid of it, make it your secret friend. While you get there try a few things out to see what works for you and what not. And then, at the verge to the New Year 2009 you might look back and find that you achieved more than you ever thought, and all that without a single resolution. All the best to you and a fantastic 2008! Love Rika
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