Oct 31 - Happy Halloween

   I won't go into gruesome detail but I was not feeling well this morning.  Thankfully I still managed to get to work on time to open the office and by just after lunch I was feeling mostly better.  The highlight of my morning though, was that I weighed in at 108.1kg!  That's my total loss up to 18.6kg (41 lbs).  Dietary hot spots permitting I'm hoping to get to the 20kg mark by mid-November!  I'm hoping I make it because it would be a nice milestone to get to this side of Christmas.  The aim during December is just going to be not to gain back any weight.
  Work was a little bit more interesting today.  I was working on a large Powerpoint presentation.  My knowledge of Powerpoint is very miniscule so it's a sharpish learning curve which always makes for a more interesting day.  It still wasn't a particularly difficult task, but a change is as good as a holiday sometimes.
  I got a fun email today at work from my Granny.  She did indeed, as suspected, get great amusement from seeing the word buttocks so many times.  It reminded her of something she'd written (and which I remembered reading years ago, hence why I knew she'd find 'buttocks' amusing).  She and Grandad managed to find it on their ancient Mac and convert it to a Word doc for me.  It was fun to read again and I forwarded it to Mr Smart and Earnest as well.  Earnest said he could definitely see where my writing style comes from which I took as a great compliment.
  Tonight, once home, I managed to get to those tasks I procrastinated on yesterday.  I put on a load of laundry and I took out my rubbish and recycling and dragged the bins to the kerb (true, it's not bin night until tomorrow, but it needed doing while I felt motivated lest I forget to do it tomorrow).  Then I heated up ate dinner, hung out the load of washing, picked a large bag of lemons, and sat down to proof read an essay Mr Smart had emailed to me this afternoon.
  The essay in question covered a number of short stories by various authors, one of which was The Persimmon Tree by Marjorie Barnard. 

Photo from Healthy Green Kitchen

There was one sentence that made me raise my eyebrows.  "The persimmons themselves also serve as a metaphor as they are described in their various stages, from buds to shooting bulbs, to their fully ripened form that is likened to a woman’s breasts." 
  Now while I expect this is a perfectly accurate assessment of the metaphor in this particular narrative, pictured to the right is a ripe persimmon.  The very thought of them being a metaphor for a woman's breast made me laugh and type a note to Mr Smart "Egad.. I hope no one ever likens my breasts to persimmons!"
  That aside though, I can't recall if I've ever actually eaten persimmon, ripe or otherwise.  Perhaps I'll try one next time I see them.  I might even be tempted to try the Coconut Persimmon Smoothie recipe that I found the photo next to.

  Today's food and exercise were:

• Breakfast was a slice of toasted banana bread served with yoghurt, honey, slivered almonds and pumpkin seeds.
• Morning snack was a pink lady apple.
• Lunch was a Mission wholegrain wrap spread with about 50g of Yumi's Eggplant Dip, topped with baby spinach and re-heated leftover roast lamb (the other half of my mini roast from yesterday).
• Afternoon snack was a slightly unripe banana.
• Exercise was back bends and glute flexes throughout the day.  I'm surprised, given how many times a day I'm doing them, that no one has caught me face down on the carpet at work yet!
• Dinner was a serve of veggie heavy chilli con carne.
• Dessert was 20g of Lindt 85% Cocoa dark chocolate.
• Blood sugar two hours after dinner was 6.3
• Halloween candy was one 11.6g orange flavoured Fizzer!  Om nom nom nom.  I had no trick or treaters whatsoever, not really that surprising I suppose.  Luckily I didn't buy any additional candy for Halloween.  What I had was leftover from Bertie's on Saturday night.
• Blood sugar two hours after candy was 5.5

  Not much else happened this evening.  I started a shopping list for tomorrow.  I'm going to swing by the supermarket after physio tomorrow night and grab a few things, though slightly fewer than originally planned as I'm now going out for dinner on Friday night too.  I suppose I could have said no to the invitation, but what fun would that have been!?  My only other home tasks for this week involve some progress on my scheming (all shall be revealed soon), some dishes, kitchen and office ongoing tidy up.  Oh, and getting around to proof reading for Jack.  I've fallen a bit behind on that!  I must just mention in closing too, I am listening to an album on repeat at the moment: I Speak Because I Can by Laura Marling.  I've really really gotten into it.  Thanks Gub!
  That's it for me for another day.  Talk to you all again tomorrow.
  Jess

Oct 30 - Examining What I Do

  Certain aspects of my life seemed rather pointless today.  Work for example.
  The accruals done this month simply need doing again next month, and while I understand the financial significance to the company of doing them and doing them right, they have no purpose in my life other than to satisfy the obligations of my role in order to continue getting paid for doing it.  The satisfaction I once gained from this task is lost.
I don't feel like what I do really matters.
  It puts me in a difficult position as I'm not sure what would make me feel that I was doing something that matters.  I'm not suggesting that I want to sell all my worldly goods and move to Africa to take care of starving children or anything drastic like that, but I'm starting to wish that at least what I did mattered on a human scale instead of on a corporate one.  Even just to be learning something new would help.  I hate to think of my skill set stagnating but it often does when you've been in the one company for a long time. 
  Right about this point in writing the blog, I got a call on Skype from Gub.  Thank goodness she's home again because it really helps to have a sounding board and we are quite alike when it comes to internal battles like this.  We chatted about job satisfaction, corporate greed, her trip to China, my actual and potential writing projects, spirituality tempered with a modern understanding of the world, science versus religion, Christmas, my recent found desire to watch soccer and despite not resolving anything it felt good to not be alone with the thoughts.
  I'm not exactly sure what to do about these feeling of discontent, but I'm pretty sure I will remain thinking about it until I reach some sort of resolution.  Mr Smart wondered whether pursuing outside interests more would help settle my unrest but I honestly think that just exacerbates the feeling of ennui.  It reminds me there are even more things I'd rather be doing.  That doesn't mean I won't pursue outside interests but it does mean a lot more thinking and trying to work out what it is I wish to be doing.
  The question of what to do with one's life is a tricky one and I am at least grateful that I can take some comforts in Dad's thoughts on the matter.  I remember him reassuring me once when the pressure was on me to choose a career path or uni course that even as a full grown adult with adult children, he still didn't know what he wanted to do, but he'd keep trying things until he found out.  That seems sensible enough.

  To finish on a slightly more frivolous note, yesterday I got a number of comments on my photo taken through the multi-faceted lens and I could tell a few people were trying to imagine what the toy looked like so here it is, with another fun image taken through it tonight of one of my many piggy banks.

  Today's food and exercise were:

• Breakfast was yogurt, berries, muesli, slivered almonds, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds.
• Morning snack was a medium slightly unripe banana.
• Lunch was a Mission wholegrain wrap spread with 27g Philadelphia Extra Light Cream Cheese then topped with 114g thin sliced roast beef, a truss tomato, cucumber and baby cos lettuce.
• Afternoon snack was a kiwi fruit with the skin on.
• Dinner was half a mini lamb roast (392g raw weight) cooked in the AirFryer served with a salad of diced cucumber, yellow capsicum, Perino snacking tomatoes and Lemnos Persian Marinated Fetta.  I'm taking the other to work tomorrow to put in my wrap!
• Dessert was 20g of Lindt 85% Cocoa dark chocolate.
• Exercise was back bends and glute flexes throughout the day.  I have noticed while doing the glute flexes, that my left side buttock appears to be substantially weaker than my right side buttock.  Interesting?  Perhaps not, but it will amuse my Granny to see the word buttock this many times in a day.

 

  I'd better get off to bed for now, my offsider has the day off tomorrow so I need to remember to get there early to open the office for the day.  Oh joy.
  Jess

Oct 29 - Slowly Getting There

  There were a lot of little steps forward today.  The first one was, I weighed in this morning at 109kg.  That's only a 300g loss for last week, but given how many meals out there were I'm actually pretty happy to have made any sort of loss.
  At work I made some progress training my offsider with today's deadline.  We didn't end up finishing it in time, but the person it's due to said we were fine to take a little longer.  It's great that she recognised it was important that I show my offsider the task thoroughly.
  Captain Cupcake dropped in at work in the early afternoon to collect her banana cake.  I've not yet heard back on her thoughts but my work mates seemed to like the ones I left in the staff kitchen today.
  At physio too, progress has been made.  My back feels a lot better today, worlds better than it was Thursday last week.  Rush said that it feels a lot looser now, even than on my first visit which is comforting to hear.  The plan now is to work on strengthening it up so it's another week in tape but we've added a new exercise.  Now my daily regimen is five or more sets of five back bends (cobra pose) plus 3 sets of glute squeezes, ten each side.
  Tonight I had a little bit of fun with my camera and a little toy I bought for my nephew during the weekend.  The photo I've added here was taken through the toy, of a pile of stuff on my desk.  I can't think of the name of the toy now, but essentially it's a multi-faceted lens through which you can peer at the world around you.  I think he'll like it.
 

  I've got my weekly planner out of the way now and I'm hoping that this is a week I might manage to do quite well in.  There is a three meal block of hot spots, no surprise that it is Saturday dinner, Sunday breakfast and Sunday lunch!  However I will just try to make the best choices available to me at the time.
  Work on the kitchen and office are of course ongoing.  I'm getting better at looking around me when I go from room to room and trying to move at least one item into the correct place each time I move about the house.  At the current rate, the house should be immaculate by some time in 2034.  Luckily I'm not shooting for immaculate.

  Today's food and exercise were:

• Breakfast was two slices of multigrain toast spread with Yumi's Hummus. 
• Lunch was a bento box from Sushi Sushi with some Japanese mayo.
• Dinner was a skin off chicken breast seasoned with Garden Gourmet Thai Seasoning (lemongrass, ginger, coriander and chilli) and cooked for 14 minutes in the AirFryer.  I served that with a simple salad of cucumber, yellow capsicum, Perino snacking tomatoes and Lemnos Persian Marinated Fetta.
• Dessert was 20g of Lindt 85% Cocoa dark chocolate.
• Exercise was back bends and glute flexes throughout the day.

 

  So there you have it.  Not a big day, not much to report, but baby steps in all areas.
  Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.
  Jess

Oct 28 - To Market To Market

  I woke up at 10am today, a bit late for breakfast I thought so I skipped it.  It was probably another hour before Captain Cupcake arose and we were ready to commence our shopping venture for the day.  We headed out on this gorgeously sunny spring day, to the Mulgrave Farmer's Market which is held every Sunday until 1pm.  I'd been before but not for a long time and Captain Cupcake had heard good things about the farm fresh milk available there from friends of hers.
  We got a park immediately after driving in which was a huge bonus.  It is a very popular local event and parking can sometimes take a little while.  We took a stroll up and down the length of the market.  I ended up getting two things: a very cute little magnetic clipboard for writing my shopping list on for $8 and a 350g jar of Purcell's Tomato Chilli Jam for $10.

  I've had the jam before and despite the price tag, it is very good.  It goes wonderfully with savoury flavours so I'm thinking of using it for a 'bring a plate' do I'm going to next weekend.  Cheese and pumpkin scones with tomato chilli jam perhaps...
  Captain Cupcake bought a litre of 'Real Milk' to try.  At $4 for one litre it was quite expensive compared to what we get at the supermarkets but I'm very curious to hear her report on it.  Milk is one of those things where I truly believe our farmers are getting a raw deal.  With Coles and Safeway price fixing their own-brand milks at $1 per litre, the farmers get paid a ridiculously low price for their product.  For some small producers it is even below their cost to produce the milk!  As a result I won't buy the Coles or Safeway branded milks, but as I've mentioned before I buy long-life milk anyway as I don't use a lot so that limits my waste.
  By the end of our market stroll we were both a bit peckish, not having eaten any breakfast, so Captain Cupcake had a serve of Poffertjes with chocolate Mars Bar sauce and I looked up and down for something reasonably healthy to eat myself.  After yesterday's blowout I didn't want to end up eating anything too greasy or calorific today.  There were only three or four options for food and none of them really appealed to me so in the end I opted to go to the Kebab Joint on our way home.
  After a scrummy lunch there, during which I successfully avoided having coffee and cake, we went home.  It was a beautiful sunny breezy day today so I left the front door ajar and opened up a few windows to air the house.  This sort of day always seems to motivate me to move and clean so I started going through the crap on my kitchen table while chatting to Captain Cupcake.  Soon it was time for her to head to her Sunday afternoon job so we said our goodbyes and I went back to cleaning.
  I sat down at my desk and flipped on youtube.  Episodes of QI played in the background while I started tidying my desk.  My cluttered desk is the bane of my home life and it's something I constantly battle with.  Today however, the motivation was with me and I started to tidy away various bits and pieces.  Filing, chucking and laying away things that had long lay collecting dust.  It's still a mess, but no where near as bad.  I am writing tonight's blog with my elbows on actual desk top!
  I wasn't sure what to make for dinner tonight so I asked Mr Smart what he was having.  Tuna and salad came back.  I pondered a moment.  I had salad leaves, check, tuna, check, so I decided to follow suit and make a salad similar to the one I made last Sunday.  It worked out just as nicely. 
  After dinner I loaded an audio book, Just a Geek by Wil Wheaton, onto my player and settled myself in the kitchen.  My kitchen like my office, is a room I badly want to see uncluttered and clean.  I loaded the dishwasher and set it going then cleared the bench to indulge in a spot of baking.  Last night Captain Cupcake set me a challenge; prove that my Mum has the best banana cake recipe.  Bertie happened to have on hand, the requisite blackened bananas so she handed them to me before I left.  I'm quietly confident.  I've shared the recipe before and have always received happy responses to it.
  I was happy with how my eight mini-loaves turned out.  I am reserving one for Mr Smart Snr and a couple for work but the rest shall go to Captain Cupcake and her crew.  I will be looking forward to her feedback.  For anyone who wants to try the recipe I will just say, the black bananas are the key; you must wait until their skin is almost totally black.  As a big plus of all this recent kitchen creativity, I seem to be getting the hang of cooking with my crappy oven.  I'm still musing about getting a new one but it's nice to be able to bake in the meantime.

   I didn't take them out of the oven until just before 11pm so it's been a bit of a late night, however I feel like I made a lot of progress today, both in the office and the kitchen, so I'm a happy kind of tired at this point.  Work tomorrow will be interesting as I've got a deadline which I have to train my offsider to do and I need to leave early for physio too.  I'm sure I'll manage but it's around now that I always start to get anxious about the coming morning.  The silver lining for the moment is that Gub is home safe and sound from China, so if I really get worried I have someone to call!

  Today's food was:

• Lunch at the Kebab Joint was a plate of doner lamb with rice and nuts, tabbouleh, hummus, eggplant dip, toasted Turkish bread and a 600ml Coke Zero.  It was delicious.  Purely because I was full, I left uneaten: slightly more than half the rice and nuts, about half the bread and a little bit of hummus.
• Dinner was a salad of mixed lettuces, continental parsley, a large diced portobello mushroom, two sliced gherkins, a drained 95g tin of Sole Mare Tuna in olive oil dressed with a tablespoonful of Heinz Salad Cream diluted with milk then topped with two soft boiled eggs and a pinch of freshly ground black pepper and ground rock salt.
• Dessert was a 170g tub of Dairy Farmers Thick & Creamy 98% Fat Free Vine Passionfruit Yoghurt topped with a few slivered almonds, pumpkin seeds and half a diced dried peach.

  

 

  One thing I didn't get done today was my weekly planner so that will have to be a job for tomorrow evening.  I have at least thought as far as tomorrow's meals so hopefully I'll get day one right.  Hopefully I also won't have tape on tomorrow night so I can get back on the cross trainer while I've still some motivation left!  The back was good today, but I didn't do as many back arches as I should've.  I did stay upright and moving for more of the day than normal though so I'm hoping that will have worked in my favour.
  Good night all and enjoy your Mondays.
  Jess

Oct 27 - Bertie's Birthday

  I shall start today with a big huzzah.

 Happy Birthday Bertie!

  My day started out with a set of back arches and a shower before preparing breakfast for Mr Smart and myself.  Scrambled eggs on toast!  Yum yum pig's bum, as my friend Pixaday is fond of saying.  Actually I had no pig's bum with mine but I did cook a few strips of bacon for Mr Smart.  After breakfast I set a load of dishes going and Mr Smart started a third draft of a story while listening to Christina Perri.  Is it just me or does she totally sound like Regina Spektor!?

  I had a little time to kill once I put the dishes on.  Equipment required for today's cake making session was in the load so I had to find something else to do in the meantime.  Surfing the net, updating my myki, online banking etc. fit the gap well enough.  I also repacked up a large quantity of shortcut bacon for the freezer into individual two slice baggies for easy defrosting.  Once the dishwasher finished, I laid everything away and commenced cake making!

  Mr Smart left at lunch time, having finished his new draft, to return home for further study.  My cake was in the oven shortly after that.  It was pretty much a success.  It did stick to the bottom of the cake pan a little bit so I've added to my recipe that the bottom should be lined with baking paper.  Long live Multix Bake!

  It took a fair few hours for the cake to become cold enough to frost.  I cheated and used the Philadelphia Cream Cheese Frosting.  A thin layer of that was enough for the the Halloween themed spooky sprinkles to adhere to!  Ghosts, bats and pumpkins!  Because Bertie's Birthday is so close to Halloween she often has her birthday themed that way so it seemed very fitting.  I bought the Spooky Sprinkles from Cake Bling in Adelaide.  It's a brilliant online store for all things baking run by my wonderful sister-in-law MinxB.

  

 

   I'm calling the cake a success and I've been enjoying getting back into baking, even if I can't really eat the end results.  Or at least, I shouldn't.  There is something very satisfying about knowing that you are capable of cooking from scratch.  It also I think, allows you greater control over what is going in your mouth.  You can sit there and it a homemade muesli bar for example, safe in the knowledge that it's glued together with olive oil and honey rather than 'hydrolysed vegetable fats and corn syrup'.

  At any rate, cooking is something I enjoy doing.  My kitchen is gradually becoming less cluttered and more functional so I hope to be doing more and more cooking as that progresses.  It may of course work the other way around as well, more cooking leading to less clutter as I throw things out that are in my way!
  Captain Cupcake texted me just before I start cake making to see if we could car pool to get down to Bertie's Birthday Bash.  I said of course we could and would she like to stay over and go for a walk in the morning.  She thought that was a good idea so that's what we ended up doing.  We may even end up going to the local farmer's market tomorrow.
  Hopefully a trip to the farmer's market will negate the horrible candy glut that occurred when I got to Bertie's.  She had two comically oversized goblets and a bag all full of different varieties of candy.  I chose five items and mostly enjoyed the treat.  Soon we were carpooled and headed off to Hog's Breath in groups.  I had my nephew, Tricky and Captain Cupcake in my car. 
  My poor little nephew was so tired, not having had a nap today, and it was tough keeping him up long enough to eat.  Service was again poor, though not as bad as it was on Tuesday despite it being the same dour waitress.
  I had the Hog's Breath Grilled Steak Sandwich which they describe as "Tender grilled steak, cheese, beetroot, tomato, grilled onions and hickory BBQ sauce on a toasted Vienna loaf. It’s the number one choice for steak sanga fans! Add fried egg for $1.95 extra.".  I have had much better, in fact I've made much better.  For $17 I thought it was a bit over its money, especially given the crappy service.  We got our meals before they managed to bring drinks, and I only asked for water!  They are now off my list of potential eateries on the basis of both poor service and a lack of value for money.
  After the meal we headed back to Bertie's for cake, drinks and laughs.  My tuckered out little nephew only lasted mere minutes in the car.  He was a solid slumbering lump when Tricky extricated him from the car seat and carried him to bed.  Captain Cupcake and I hung around for a couple of hours of conversation and laughs but then headed home.

Today's food and exercise were:

• Breakfast was four eggs, scrambled with milk and a little black pepper and salt, atop two slices of toasted and buttered multigrain bread.
• Morning snack was a 170g tub of Dairy Farmers Thick & Creamy Raspberries & Cream Yoghurt and one half of dried peach.
• Lunch was a toasted sandwich comprising two slices of multigrain bread, one slice of Bega Extra Light Tasty cheese and a 95g tin of Sole Mare Tuna in olive oil accompanied by one carrot cut into sticks and 60g of tzatziki.
• Candy was, a small bag of Milkybar buttons, a Flintstones Chocolate, a small KitKat, a Strawberry Fizzer and a mini Snap Crackle.  Ahh, memories.
• Dinner was the Hog's Breath Grilled Steak Sandwich with egg which came with curly fries and I got a side of ranch dressing to dip my fries in.
• Dessert was a piece of the cake I made and about 10ml of Lychee flavoured alcohol.

  I was quite pleased to get lots of compliments on the carrot cake tonight.  Everyone who had some enjoyed it and I got a couple of requests for the recipe so I've put it up with the picture of the cake above.  The most important part of the night; did Bertie enjoy herself on her birthday?  Yes, I rather think she did.  I'm not sure how much she'll enjoy it tomorrow when she tackles the thousand steps, but that's tomorrow's problem.
  I'm not sure how I feel about my eating tonight.  It was nice to have a splurge, but if the choice had been mine I certainly would've splurged on somewhere different.  I also wish I hadn't eaten quite as much candy.  I think in hindsight I should've just had the Milkybar buttons and the Fizzer.  The trick now will be trying to curtail my eating back to normal for the week ahead.
  Jess