Dry July is an online social community where an individual or team can sign up to the challenge of a month long sponsored abstinence from alcohol. The funds raised from participants’ sponsorship directly benefit the lives of adults living with cancer right across Australia.

Dry July is about clearing your head and making a difference. Get healthy, challenge yourself, encourage positive change and a healthy attitude to alcohol consumption. We hope you embrace the concept, take on the challenge and ensure Dry July has a positive effect on your well-being as well as the well-being of others.

I’m not doing this to raise money – indeed, I’m not even registered on the website. This is something I’m doing for myself, and more importantly, for my wallet. I spend too much money on alcohol when I’m not particularly dependent on it. It’s the glass of wine when I go out to dinner. It’s the bottle of wine or six pack of beer/cider when Dylan and I are having a night in. It’s the bottles of vodka I bought when I went through duty-free shopping at the airport.

I’m no connoisseur of alcohol. It’s not that I drink it because I love it and can’t do without it. I drink it because it’s a beverage, and I’m thirsty, or I want a drink with my meal. But I equally enjoy drinking mineral water, soft drinks, juices, cordials. Why spend $20AUD on a six pack of beer, or $7AUD for a glass of wine at a restaurant, when I’d be equally as happy paying $3AUD for a bottle of cordial that will last me the whole week, or nothing for a glass of still water?

So, that’s the reason I’m cutting out paying for alcohol for July and August (though if I’m attending a birthday party with an open bar, I won’t say no to a glass or two). I’ll save an easy $100AUD over the next two months, and perhaps go part of the way towards reducing the beer belly I’m gaining.

As you may be aware from previous posts, I had an Implanon inserted in my left arm in March last year. For the first nine months, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I had some light spotting for the first month, but other than that, I was menstruation-free. Best months of my life. AND THEN.

Starting New Year’s Eve, I got my period for a week. Then it went away for a week. Then I had my period for a week. Then I was period-free for three days. Then I had my period for two weeks. And so on and so forth. Right up until the end of April, when I finally had enough and went to see Family Planning Victoria again and got myself doubly-contraceptived to control my bleeding. Implanon & Pill. I’d like to see any sperm make it to my uterus.

Because I’m on the Pill for bleeding control only rather than for contraceptive reasons, the doctor at the clinic gave me free rein to experiment with dosage. I could follow the arrows on the packet and have one every day at the same time. Or I could switch it up and have it every two days, every three days, every four days – whatever is sufficient to control bleeding.

It’s very much a “here, load your body with various hormones!” kind of situation.

• Use toothpaste to dry out pimples.
• Use olive oil as a hair styling product.
• Use lemon juice to naturally lighten your hair.
• Use Vaseline for pretty much anything.

Well I’ve just come up with another one. Use packing tape to prevent blisters.

The above photo obviously isn’t the best example, but imagine it with clear packing tape (about 6cm wide) instead of brown packing tape. The back of the shoe simply rubs up against the plastic instead of your skin – there’s no discomfort, and once you’re at home, you can just peel off the tape without any pain at all!

At about $2AUD for twenty metres worth (enough to last you a year, or even longer!), it’s a million times cheaper than using bandaids, or even buying those gel cushions you can stick inside shoes ($8AUD last time I saw them – ripoff!).

1. Amanda is going through a good period where she can look in the mirror early in the morning with bedhead and sleep in her eyes and still be able to legitimately say “Hey, you sexy thing you!”
2. Amanda is already hot enough without the added complications of 40+ degree heat.

Second, I’m now contemplating getting a few professional photos done. I’ve never felt better about my body and my looks, and I think it would be a good idea to preserve this particular moment in time with a few really well shot photos, so I can look back in decades to come and think: “Damn, I was one hot chicky”. An old friend and I have been discussing potential shots – he’s a professional photographer and is keen to expand his portfolio of portraiture. I’m keen to be a guinea pig.

We have a few staged shots in mind already (yeah, some of them will be not-so-clothed), but I’d like to get some ideas from others – especially blog readers as I’ve been more honest with all of you for a longer time than I have with anyone else in my life. Most of you probably know me, the real me, better than most of my RL friends. I really have only a single requirement for the shots: I don’t want anything too staged or fake. I want the shots to look relatively natural, like they’ve just captured me at a random point of my day.

Question of the Week: What particular things (personality traits, objects, events, places, etc.) do you associate with me? If you think of me getting professional photos done, what kind of shot do you envision?

1. For my hair: shampoo, conditioner, hair styling product
2. For my body: body wash, body moisturiser, deodorant, sunscreen, Goodbye Cellulite (which doesn’t work!)
3. For my face: clay masks, cleanser, toner, moisturiser
4. Makeup: foundation, powder, bronzer, mascara, lip balm

I’d estimate that I’d spend about $20AUD-$30AUD a month on beauty and hygiene products – sometimes more as I do stock up when items are on sale, sometimes less as I can keep using items I’ve stockpiled. It helps that I use very basic products that generally don’t cost more than $8AUD-$10AUD a bottle – I don’t buy ‘designer’ makeup for example, and instead of paying $20AUD for a 250ml bottle of organic shampoo, I’ll pay $8AUD for a one litre bottle of normal shampoo.

I have a similar collection (though fragrance-free) at Dylan’s house as I spend almost half the week there – it saves me hauling items back and forth between our places. I do have a few more makeup items (mainly lip gloss and eyeliner, etc.) but as I don’t use those more than once a fortnight, I didn’t bother listing them.

By far the more astounding thing is that I use each and every single one of my products before I start using something new. I hate waste – and the logical conclusion is to use everything up before trialling something different. My housemate is the complete opposite – at any time, she’ll have five different shampoos and conditioners going, or ten face cleansers and toners. Our bathroom is cluttered with half-used bottles of one product or another. She’ll buy and start using a new product (“I just want to try it!”) before she’s through using the five products she’s already using.

I realise that my views towards clothing, products, and organisation versus hoarding are extreme, and probably more minimalist than most people, so you’ll have to enlighten me: Is this normal? Do people normally use a million different products concurrently, rather than using up a product before starting a new one?

Question of the Week: What are you like with beauty and hygienic products? How many do you use and how many different products with the same purpose are you using concurrently?

I haven’t intended on losing weight. It was merely a result of a few lifestyle changes:

1. Dylan and I made a conscious decision to stop eating out as often – more of a money issue rather than health issue, but it contributed.
2. I’ve been living out of home for the past month – and hence, I’m not eating meat. I’m also not cooking that often – maybe four nights out of the week, and eating raw vegies and fruit or yoghurt the other nights. Therefore, no fatty Asian home cooking with lots of oils, sugars, and sauces.
3. Since I’ve moved out, there’s also been an increase in the amount of fresh fruit and vegies I eat, as opposed to a peanut butter sandwich or instant noodles. It’s what happens when your housemate works at the produce market and you get free produce.
4. With the start of some lovely summer weather here in Melbourne, I’ve been walking to and from work to the train station (round trip of fifty minutes) rather than waiting for the tram. I wouldn’t have done this in the rainy winter.
5. Along the same lines, I’ve been walking to and from the train station from home, rather than driving to the station. Again, it’s the place I’m now living – it’s a ten minutes walk, rather than a twenty minute drive to the station.
6. My flatmate has an overly energetic dog with what would probably be labelled with ADHD if he was human. He’ll only shut up and stop whining and barking when he’s worn out – which is great incentive to take him for long walks at night.

I wouldn’t want to lose any more weight than I already have though – I already look outlandish enough with my out-sized breasts on the body I do have. It’s already impossible to buy clothes; I went shopping with Dylan on the weekend and threw a tantrum and got all sulky because everything I liked, wouldn’t have fit my body. If they had fit my body, they wouldn’t fit my F-cups.

Which when you think about it, is actually really sad. I have to actively curtail my taste in clothing because of my body shape. I’m used to dressing older and more mature than I’d actually like to, because mature clothing is the only type that will fit my chest. I have never dressed my age. What I’d really want to wear are rainbow halter neck dresses in floaty chiffon and silk…which will never happen. I can’t even buy a print Tshirt because I end up warping the print. I can’t even wear short-shorts because showing both my legs and my chest (no matter what I wear, I end up showing my chest) would just be too much.

It’s fucking ridiculous – and you bet your arse that once I’ve breastfed the three kids I plan on having and have had my breast lift and reduction (C-cups, here I come!), I’m going to indulge and wear the youthful clothing I never had the chance to wear in my youth. Forty-year-old mutton dressed as lamb? That’ll be me, and I don’t care what anyone thinks!

Which got me thinking: if you were their non-smoking colleague or employer, how pissed off would you be? Assuming they take cigarette breaks once an hour, or once every hour and a half, and that every cigarette takes anywhere between five and ten minutes to smoke (allowing for chit chat with other smokers, etc.), in a normal working day, they’d be spending an hour smoking, in addition to their lunch break. In a normal working year, you’re losing about 250 hours of productivity per worker – work that is probably being taken up by non-smoking employees.

Those figures are enough to encourage me to discriminate against heavy smokers if I was an employer. Given two candidates with identical qualifications – one a smoker, one not, I’d definitely hire the non-smoker. Think about it. Imagine them missing an important phone call because they’re out smoking. Imagine them rushing an important project because they’ve wasted important working hours smoking. Imagine them excusing themselves from a lengthy meeting in order to have a smoke. Imagine them meeting important stakeholders reeking of cigarette smoke. Imagine them costing your companies thousands in health insurance and sick leave because of lung-related diseases.

I understand that smoking is an addiction, and that nicotine is a drug like any other. But I simply have no sympathy for people who are weak-willed enough to let themselves get so dependent on something so destroying. Perhaps the solution is to hit them in the wallet – docking pay for all the hours wasted smoking. If smokers find their paychecks are lighter by $100 per week, they might find more motivation to reduce their habit to one every two hours, or one every three hours, instead of one every hour.

So I shamelessly present my size 12/14 body to you in all its half-clad glory. Which does the internet prefer? I’m leaning towards the second, though I probably would have gone with the style of the first if it had come in bright rainbow colours, rather than pastels.

Dylan’s mother has MCS (multiple chemical sensitivity), which essentially means that if I’m using my normal products (moisturiser, face lotion, foundation, deodorant, etc.), I can’t get within five feet of her otherwise I set off an allergic reaction. As a result, I don’t see her as often as I really should, and I do feel guilty that I do spend that much time at their place without even so much as exchanging commonplace pleasantries with her. I’m told by Dylan that it’s stupid to feel guilty about it, and that she understands that her allergies make it difficult for her to see anyone, but I still feel guilty. I just don’t think it’s the ‘proper’ thing for me to be there, and not to be able to really say hello.

In any case, I’ve been slowly trialling new products in order to find suitable fragrance-free products that can replace what I currently use. It’s been made harder by the fact that I do tend to stockpile non-perishable items such as toiletries when they go on sale – I have months worth of shampoo, soap, face wash, makeup, etc. left to use up before I can make a complete switch. One other particular issue of course, is that like most other organic and ‘natural’ products, fragrance-free products tend to be much more expensive than ‘normal’ products. Finding a good compromise between cost-effectiveness and product suitability is difficult. I have had some success however, with just minor items:

1. I changed my normal Olay face moisturiser for the “sensitive skin” fragrance-free version.
2. I’m slowly making the change from Vaseline body lotion to Redwin fragrance-free body lotion.
3. I’ve changed my lip balm from Nivea Lip Care to Lucas’s Paw Paw Ointment – this is actually a good change because paw paw ointment has multiple uses. I knew a lady once who used it on her cracked nipples (she was breastfeeding), and it’s a good nappy rash cream too.

As for other items that I need to switch once I use up my stockpile of goods: shampoo and conditioner, makeup, hair products, soap and body wash. It’s all been very much trial and error – thinking a product is okay because it’s marked fragrance-free, only to find that it’s really not. Anyway, I just think that if she’s going to become my mother-in-law, I might as well start making changes to my lifestyle now…plus, it’s probably better for my overall health that I start using more organic/natural-type products, rather than chemically-laden products.

The only meat I’ve eaten in the past two weeks is in Dylan’s meals, in meals out, and his man meat. There’s a simple enough reason – I can’t stand raw meat, it makes me throw up in my mouth. It’s not an ethical thing – I don’t associate with death and former living creatures, and wouldn’t have a problem with it even if I did. I just don’t like the smell or the feel of raw meat. It makes me ill, though surprisingly, I don’t have a problem with the smell or texture of raw seafood.

Essentially, if I was to live by myself, my meals would include: cereal, yoghurt, fruit, sandwiches, salads, nuts, noodles and occasional vegetarian stir fries. Meat would only be eaten when I dine out, or when someone else cooks for me. It’s been a very healthy diet, and bodes well for my living independently in the future.

Here’s the level of effort I put into my meals – tonight for dinner I’ll be having vegetable soup/stew (whatever the slow cooker turns it into). Essentially I chopped up whatever veggies I had left in my fridge (carrots, potatoes, lettuce and capsicum) and put it into the slow cooker with some water. I’ll add some chicken stock cubes in a few hours, and that’ll be my dinner. Ah, effortless dinner that I’ll be able to freeze and have for a few nights running.