New Prime Minister

I'm sitting here watching Steven Harper and his 26 cabinet members (27 total) get sworn in as the official government. Prime Minister Steven Harper *tiny shudder*. It's a minority Conservative government, everything will be ok... Breathe! He's restating all his promises right now. Small cabinet, which I like. 9 from Ontario, 3 from Alberta (including an Albertan as environment minister - oh, the irony). Only 6 women. Peter MacKay (who I like and was deputy leader of the party) got minister of foreign affairs but Stockwell Day (who I don't like) got minister of public safety which is apparently quite important and deals with the US a lot. Jim Flaherty, Mike Harris' former provincial finance minister, is now the federal finance minister. That one scares me, I think. Gordon O'Connor, a former general, is now minister of defence. That certainly implies increased military spending. Oddly, Harper didn't appoint a deputy Prime Minister.

Strangely, I remember reading Harper wanted to go to an elected Senate (currently Senators are appointed), but he appointed an unelected person - Michel Fortier - to the cabinet. This implies he will be appointed to the Senate and wait for an MP by-election or the next federal election. Fortier didn't even run in the election! Ok, he just got called on this. He said he considers this a "temporary" appointment until the next election and considers it worth it because it's important to have a cabinet member from Montreal. He also appointed a Vancouver Liberal - David Emerson - as minister of international trade, which confuses the heck out of me. How do you switch parties within 2 week of an election? Vancouverites voted Liberal! Looks like both of these appointments will be hot topics for a while.

Can't say too much has happened this week. I finally crossed two things off my to-do list - I cleaned out my file cabinet and shredded that giant stack of paper. Still need to clean the sewing room of doom. Probably not today though! I started reading the Prehistoric America series by Michael and Kathleen Gear. So far I've read People of the Wolf and am working on People of the Fire. While not a fantasy series, they do contain certain elements - an unknown society (prehistoric Native Americans and as the authors are both archaeologists, this part is done well) who use the spirit world and "magic". So far, so good! Had a nice weekend as well. Friday was quiet with just a trip to West Ed Mall. Saturday, I went to a pub with friends.

As for the weight loss campaign - it goes well! I lost 4.3 pounds this week which is freakin' amazing. Partly because I weighed in the morning instead of the evening, but the rest is me. I had a really good week working out and sticking to my diet...err....lifestyle change, I mean. :) I had my measurements taken at the gym earlier this week and I'm really proud of how I'm doing. Since I started this whole working out, eating healthy thing, I have lost: 24cm (9.4") off my gluteus, 7cm (2.7") off my right thigh, 12cm (4.7") off my waist, and 15cm (5.9") off my upper abdomen/ribcage. This gives me a waist to hip ratio of 0.8, which means low risk for lifestyle related diseases, assuming this particular indicator means anything. But assuming it does, this is important to me! My motivation for losing weight was completely health related as I come from a high risk family history. The body image stuff is just an added bonus! My BMI is still high, but my total goal will put me in the normal range. Other fun facts (well, for me anyway) - I've lost 39.36 lbs of fat and increased by lean body mass percentage by 8.9%. *happy dance of joy*

Before/Current Pictures