Update!

The Last Day Of The First Year Of The Rest Of My Life

  So I am almost a month behind on my daily blog and it is likely to take me quite some time to catch up but I thought I would make a special incidental blog today as this is an important time to update you all on my progress and learnings.

        Day 1 vs. Day 365

  On Day 1 - July 1st 2012, I weighed 126.7 kg (just over 279 lbs).  Today, Day 365 - June 30th 2013, I weighed 96.8kg (213.4 lbs).  Total loss in one year has been 29.9 kg (66 lbs).  I did make it to 30kg even on May 18th but I've been fluctuating since then.  That's an average of 575g per week, though most of it was in the first six months.

  I've also lost substantial measurements.  Since I first measured up on Day 59 - August 28th 2012, I have lost a staggering 23 cm off my torso (the bit where the bottom of my bra sits), 18.5 cm off my hips, 14 cm off my right thigh, 13.5 cm off my left thigh, 13.5 cm off my waist and 13.0 cm off my bust!  Not a bad accomplishment really.  My current measurements in full are as follows:

  So what are some less obvious achievements brought about by all this change?  What's beyond the facts and figures?  Well...

• My pre-diabetes is under control.
• My back strength has improved, thus reducing my back issues.
• People no longer ask 'Have you been running?' when I pick up the phone after walking to my office.
• I can go for walks for the pure pleasure of it.
• I can recover much more quickly from exercise. 
• I can feel when I'm full and, most of the time, stop eating then.
• People listen when I say 'No' to food.
• I have received many compliments on my progress from family and friends.
• I can now use just one peg per pair of day to day knickers on the line!
• I can wear size 18 jeans off the shelf from Big W and no longer need them to have an elasticated waist band!
• I can stare at my naked body in the mirror and actually find bits of it attractive.

  That's all awesome and I hope to continue with the improvements, and appreciating my gains (or losses as the case may be).  At the moment though, my life seems to be in a state of flux.  Things are going from good to bad and fluctuating wildly between the two, often in the one day.  I feel demotivated and have pretty much only managed to maintain my weight in the last four months.  This is still a positive so I've not lost hope, but I'm definitely in a rough patch.  One thing I've learned is that it's very easy to be positive and healthy when everything is going well.  It's much much harder when life throws shit at you.

  Gub will be pleased to hear I got retested for hyperthyroidism last week.  I don't really have many of the symptoms but certainly exaggerated anxiety has abounded.  The doctor said she couldn't hear my thyroid when she put her stethescope to my neck, which was a good sign that maybe I was just very stressed, but she sent me off for the blood test anyway.  I get the results on Tuesday.

  I've achieved a lot this year not only with weight loss, but personally and professionally as well so I want to just say thank you very much to everybody who has contributed to my successes.  There are too many of you to name individually but special particular thanks to Mr Smart, for his continued support and forever nagging at me to get on the cross trainer (I know that's been an almost thankless task of late, but I really do and always have appreciated it), to Gub for always being on the other end of the phone on the other side of the world to cross examine the bumps in the road I come across when I'm lying in bed trying to sleep at three in the morning, and to Bertie for regularly measuring me up and laughing with me about the increasingly flappy bat-wings.

  Thank you all, and eventually I'll finish up the blogs for the remainder of this first year.  Where to from here?   For the blog... while life has been a bit tumultuous it's become difficult to keep up with a blog a day, so that may well change.  I'll still be wanting to update you all but I may look at changing my format to suit my current lifestyle.  Stay tuned for that.  For my body and health... well I'd like to aim to lose another 20 to 30 kg in the next year, and start to tone everything up a bit as I go, after all, tomorrow is also the first day of the rest of my life.

  Jess

Jun 6 - No Outline Written

  Well this was definitely a day in my horror week, June 7th was the worst of all the deadline days so I'm not surprised I wrote no outline, nor did I photograph anything other than my food, which lets face it, was almost entirely of convenience.  I know from my previous blog, and the fact that I didn't have muesli bars for breakfast, that I stayed at Mr Smart's last night, but beyond that I know that my entire focus for this day was on work.  I know I worked late, I do remember thinking that were he still with us today would've been Perry's 18th birthday (he was my family's black Labrador), and I do remember that my awesome neighbour Swervyn left a box of veggies on my doorstep and put my bins out.

  It doesn't make for very interesting reading though, so here is a list of ten books in no particular order that have been important to me or influenced my life.

1. Marcovaldo by Italo Calvino
2. Recipes Of All Nations by Countess Morphy
3. Zen & The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M Pirsig
4. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
5. The Consolations Of Philosophy by Alain de Botton
6. Real Gorgeous by Kaz Cooke
7. A Matter Of Honour by Jeffrey Archer
8. My Uncle Oswald by Roald Dahl
9. The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doige
10. Hectic by Terry Lane

  I like books, rather a lot really, so it's safe to say that there have been far more books that have been important to me or influenced me than just this tiny selection, but these all have special stories attached to them, which I shall share with you on future boring days.

  Thursday's food was:

• Breakfast was a golden delicious apple, cored and sliced.
• Lunch was Breadtop, clockwise from the top left: two mini burgers, a teriyaki bacon bun, a ham bun, a tuna bun and in the centre, a red bean walnut filo.
• Dinner was three Vietnamese rice paper rolls from Roll'd.
• Dessert was a Monte Carlo, a Kingston and a Shortbread Cream.

  What are some of the books that are important to you?
  Jess

Jun 5 - Small Child On The Loose

  There is nothing quite as nice as being woken up by a happy cuddly small child, even if it is at 4:30 in the morning.  It was even nicer the second time at 7:30.  He hasn't quite got the hang of tickling yet.  He sneaks up on you and then says "Tickle tickle tickle" in the right sort of tone, but he doesn't actually tickle you.  It's hilarious, so you laugh anyway, and so does he.  He's such a happy little kid.
  I like the way that small children have absolutely no shame whatsoever, just openness and unbridled curiosity.  When I was in the bathroom, having just had my shower, he was walking around the room nearby loudly wanting to know where I'd gone.  When he was told I was in the bathroom to have a shower he waltzed on in to find me leg up on the bathtub drying myself.  "You're naked." he said matter of factly, "Yes I am." I responded.  There was no shame, no embarrassment, no guilt, just observation.  It's very refreshing and leaves me wondering why on earth we learn to suppress it.
  After I was dressed and ready to head to work, Mr Smart dropped me at Clifton Hill train station and then took my car back to his place.  I got lucky on the train, I only had to ride standing up for one station then someone near where I was standing got off so I had a seat after that.
  You see some fascinating people on trains.  I was seated opposite a young lady who despite the cold wore stockings instead of pants, despite the gloom of winter wore sunglasses, and her head was dwarfed by her enormous scarf and headphones which made me think of the Goombas from the Super Mario Bros movie.  She had her eyes closed behind the dark glasses as she zoned into her headphones, so I allowed myself the voyeuristic luxury of a quick photo.  My parting memory of this stranger was how easily she hand rolled a cigarette from a pouch of tobacco and papers in her handbag just before alighting at her station of choice.  Her presence was somehow comforting.  A unique being, like all the others.
  Work itself was ok.  I got underway with sales collections and got through a bunch of aged invoices.  My desk is getting cleaner and cleaner which is a good sign.  I felt pretty calm today which I think is partly self-delusion that I've got it under control and partly just waking up in such a nice way that the high kind of stayed with me.  At the end of the day I caught the train back to Preston.  Mr Smart met me at the station and we went and grabbed dinner from Preston Noodle.

Wednesday's food was:

• Breakfast was a 45g Carman's apricot and almond muesli bar and a 35g Carman's dark choc, cranberry and almond muesli bar.
• Morning snack was an unripish banana.
• Lunch was 300g sweet potato and pumpkin skinny soup with two slices of toasted Bürgen wholemeal and seeds bread spread with one 17.5g portion of The Laughing Cow cheese spread.  This was followed by a 160g Gippsland Dairy Twist mango and blood orange flavoured yoghurt.
• Dinner was thin egg noodles with seafood and satay sauce (prawns, squid, crabmeat, fishcake, snow peas, mushrooms, capsicum, carrots and beanshoots), and three steamed dim sims.
• Dessert was a 50g Whittaker's Hokey Pokey milk chocolate bar.

  After dinner it was study and blog writing for each of us, or rather blog editing for me since I was putting up a guest blog.  I didn't get a lot done though as Mr Smart put Crimson Tide on in the background.  We both find have the noise of a TV show or a movie on in the background helps us work better, but it doesn't work so well for me if it's something I haven't seen before.  Then I get very distracted and end up watching it instead of doing what I'm meant to be doing!
  Jess

Jun 4 - Grease Traps & Sewer Pits, Oh.. And Soccer!

  Grease Traps and Sewer Pits.  They are as charming as they sound and that's all I worked on today.  Fortunately, my side of this rather icky sounding process, is office based.  I don't actually have to go anywhere near them thank goodness!  I just have to arrange billings related to them.  The billings were a few months behind so it took me the whole day to get everything set up accurately and billed up to date.
  After work I headed straight to Tuahine's for dinner with her hubby, a mate of theirs, Mr Smart, and his nephew.  His nephew was being very sweet and cuddly tonight.  We were sitting on the bar stools around the kitchen bench as Tuahine's husband prepared delicious homemade pizzas for us all.  Mr Smart's nephew kept asking to come up, and get down, and asking why I wasn't in a picture on the wall (obviously because it was taken years before I came onto the scene).

  We had a lovely time chatting around the kitchen bench.  The boys talked soccer and various aspects of play, included how money has affected the game, and I listened and played with Mr Smart's nephew.  Soon our pizzas were ready and the four and a half of us sat around the table and enjoyed the meal together.  Good people, good wine, good food.  Almost enough to make me forget my troubles, and so I did temporarily.
  After dinner, Mr Smart's nephew was put into bed - a couple of times, and the boys took up poll positions on the couch and I settled myself at the table with my netbook to blog.  Although I enjoy watching the soccer, I continue to feel anxious about the blog, and with Tuahine out having dinner with friends, I didn't want to intrude any further on a boys night than I already had.
  The game was the Japan vs Australia world cup qualifier round.  We got a goal late in the game and the boys were overjoyed, then on the 90 minute mark, Japan got a penalty for a hand ball and evened the score.. dammit!  This means that Australia now has to win their last two qualifiers, or rely on results from other games, if they are the make the World Cup Finals in Brazil.

  Tuesday's food was:

• Breakfast was a 45g Carman's Classic fruit and nut muesli bar and a 35g Carman's yoghurt, apricot and almond muesli bar.
• Morning snack was a 160g Gippsland Dairy Twist blackberry and pomegranite flavoured yoghurt.

• Lunch was a 300g tomato, lentil, and bacon skinny soup with two slices of toasted Bürgen wholemeal and seeds bread spread with one portion (17.5g) of The Laughing Cow cheese spread, followed by a banana.
• Afternoon snack was a golden delicious apple, cored and sliced.
• Dinner was a delicious thin-base homemade pizza topped with capers, anchovies, hot salami, tomato paste, chilli oil, olives, roast chicken, and mushrooms.

• Drinkies were, a 500ml Rekorderlig pear cider on ice, a small glass of The Chocolate Shop chocolate shiraz and a small glass of Kellermeister 'Sable' chocolate port.
• Dessert was assorted types of chocolate, thanks to Tuahine's evil husband who knows my desserty weaknesses.  There were three different types of Lindt, peppermint, orange, and coconut, and Toblerone.  I suspect I ate about ten pieces but I didn't count.

  Tuahine came home some time during the second half and joined the boys on the couch.  I finished the blog I was working on just minutes after the match concluded, and we all settled down together to watch the latest episode of Game of Thrones, Mr Smart and I taking up the front positions on the bean bag beds!  I had been avoiding spoilers on imgur and facebook for a week and I won't spoil it for anyone else but Oh.My.God!! I did not see that coming.  We all headed off to bed pretty swiftly after that.
  Jess

Jun 3 - Long Day

  Work was a 10am start and a 10pm finish.  It was a long day.  Finishing up car park stuff for May and refining the spreadsheet for June took up a lot of the day.  Tiresome, but it had to be done.  The more I learn about the car park the more I have to amend how I've been doing things.  Understanding begets improvement and all that.
  The highlight of today, was the opening of the QV Hotham Lodge!  There is snow-making, and 100 free lunches every day, and little activities and things.  It looks amazing!  The marketing girls certainly know how to create an enticing place.  I'm really impressed with it all.  I'm scheduled for snow-making duty on Friday.

  For what was left of the day after the dribs and drabs of May had been cleared, I did a bunch of invoice entry that I already had prepared since the May cut off, and then I planned out tomorrow's priorities, thought at this point, since almost everything is due on Friday, my priorities are pretty much all urgent and important.
  I am slowly slowly catching up with blogs, but since I'm writing this one up on the 16th I guess you could say that's going to be the case for a while.  It's definitely hard to feel like going home and blogging after a day like today.  The best I could manage was to sit on facebook and click mindlessly until exhaustion overtook me and sent me to bed.
  By now you'll have read the guest blogs by Mr Smart, Pengi and Gub.  It was awesome to have that support.  Thank you so much!

  Monday's food was:

• Breakfast was 50g Uncle Tobys creamy honey oats with a small serve of tinned blackberries.
• Lunch was a baked pasta bolognese from the QV Hotham Lodge, provided by Squisito.  It was really yummy and creamy, like lasagna but with penne.
• Afternoon snack was a golden delicious apple, cored and sliced.
• Dinner was leftover lamb casserole with quinoa.
• Dessert was a 35g Carman's macadamia, coconut and apricot roasted nut bar.

 

   And so begins the most horrible two weeks of my working year.  It's not the worst thing in the world, but it's extremely tiring and I stress myself out during it trying to get everything done.  At least I have the calm after the storm to look forward to, not to mention my holiday in July.  Once these two weeks are over, I'll start thinking about that.
  Jess

Jun 2 - Quiet Sunday

  My day started with a quick trip to the shops for the forgotten 400g tin of tomatoes.  I bought three so that I'd have some for next time!  When I got home I prepared the lamb casserole in the slow cooker and set it going then I went on with some more chores.  I loaded the dishwasher and set it going then went through to the office and blogged and blogged and blogged.
  At some point in the early afternoon, Mr Smart sent me a link to very interesting article on female sexual desire which led to quite an in depth discussion of it's content and strayed into 'why are we monogomous as a species'.  It's the sort of conversation that I find really very intellectually engaging.  At some point in the conversation we got on to talk of dinner and Mr Smart decided to take me up on my invitation to share casserole for dinner and he headed over.
  He studied while I blogged and we also chatted more about the article and then moved on to thrilling things like which books I could live without were I to move to a smaller dwelling.  I'm still debating what I'm going to do with all that.  Time marched on and after dinner we cuddled up on the couch and watched Crazy, Stupid, Love.
  The movie was interesting but it presents a very idealised vision of love and romance ie. the soul mate.  I don't believe in soul mates.  I worked out a long time ago that I was never going to find everything I wanted in one person, that's why we all have friends.  Your friends give you things your partner can't and vice versa.
  I think the measure of how close someone is to that idea of a soul mate is how many facets of yourself you share with that person, how close you are to being 'all of you'.  We all show different parts of ourselves to people.  All of them are us, just selective versions of us.  You don't show your coworkers that you can do a shot off your own boobs for example, or that you'll say things like that just to make your Granny laugh.  A fun enough movie, and it obviously gave me food for thought.

  Sunday's food was:

• Breakfast was 300g of cubed pineapple.
• Lunch was a 300g Asian style chicken and corn soup with two slices of toasted Bürgen wholemeal and seeds bread spread with one portion of The Laughing Cow cheese spread (17.5g, followed by a medium banana.
• Afternoon snack was one dried peach half, one dried pear half, five Brazil nuts and five almonds.
• Dinner was a slow-cooked lamb casserole, made from a Masterfoods Lamb Casserole Slow Cooker Recipe Base, accompanied by quinoa.
• Dessert was a navel orange and a green nashi pear, shared with Mr Smart.
• Additional snack was two Cooling Peppermint Vicks VapoDrops.

  Poor Mr Smart has a cold at the moment and a nasty dry cough to go with it, so I did plenty of making of hot green tea with lemon and grated ginger.  I tried to convince him to take honey in it too, but his no sugar rule got in the way of Nurse Jess.  I hope he gets better soon as he seems currently to be existing solely on tea and Vicks VapoDrops!
  Jess

Jun 1 - Happy Birthday Granny C!

Although it's now very belated (since I'm posting this on the 13th) a very happy birthday Granny C for the 1st!  Granny C turned 79 today.  I'm so proud of my Granny, she never lets age keep her from doing what she wants to do.  She reads my blog online every day, emails and skypes me regularly, as she does with her relatives all over the world.

  My day started relatively early for a Saturday.  I got up and ready, Mr Smart drove me to my car, and I headed off to the dentist.  I know.. what kind of fool makes a dentist appointment for 10am on a Saturday?  On the plus side my dentist said everything looked like I'd been taking good care of my teeth, but unfortunately a small pit had formed on my 4/5 tooth which needed attending too.
  My dentist is fortunately very patient, very good and very careful not to cause pain or discomfort.  I hate having my lip numbed, so at my request he tried to do it without anesthetic but I had to stop him not long in because it was too painful to get through.  I was really happy he let me take a picture while he was working.  I think it came out well!

  I went to the supermarket on the way home and grabbed supplies.  Some instant dinners of soup and ingredients to make a lamb casserole in the slow cooker tomorrow.  I forgot the 400g tin of tomatoes again!  Mr Smart and I had a chuckle about that when I told him.  It was a bit quiet in the house so I put on a string of movies in the background to keep me company:  Anastasia, The Princess & The Frog, Wreck-It Ralph, How To Train Your Dragon.  I also realised as a preview came on, that I'd never watched Shrek Forever After so I expect a four part Shrek marathon is in order at some point.
  I did a little laundry and a few other minor chores, just enough to feel like the day wasn't completely wasted.  Apart from that I did very little today.  I had a catch up with Chook on the phone which was nice, but I didn't really do much else.  I couldn't even eat until 3pm because until then the anesthetic was still effective!
  I've been thinking of going in to work tomorrow and Mr Smart did suggest that if I wanted to I could come back and stay over tonight as well but I just wanted to sleep in my own bed for once.  It's been a bit overwhelming lately, not knowing where I'll be or when I'll ever get home.  It makes me feel disjointed.  I sat on the couch and peeled off my shellacs.  They were starting to lift and one of my nails broke necessitating a full cut and file.
  I caught up with Earnest on the phone later in the evening.  He has the kids this weekend and Caboodle woke up at one point after a bad dream and had to have a little chat with her Auntie Jess before she'd go back to bed.  She's very excited that she, Bugalugs and Earnest will be visiting me later in the year.  I'm very excited about that too.

  Saturday's food was:

• Lunch was two toasted sandwiches, each comprising two slices of Bürgen wholemeal and seeds bread, one slice spread with Rosella mustard pickles then topped with two slices of Woolworth Select Tasmanian light tasty cheese and 100g silverside.  I also had a just ripe banana.
• Afternoon snack was a 35g Carman's macadamia, coconut and apricot roasted nut bar.
• Dinner was a 300g red Thai chicken soup with two slices of toasted Bürgen wholemeal and seeds bread spread with 17.5g of The Laughing Cow cheese spread (split between the two slices because I acknowledge that two portions, while creamy and delicious, was overkill).
• Dessert was a trifle of sorts... I took a large glass tumbler and layered Dairy Farmers Thick & Creamy 98% fat free vine passionfruit flavoured yoghurt, canned blackberries, a slice of heated banana bread, more yoghurt and topped it with a sprinkle of slivered almonds, sunflower seeds and craisins.  It was very satisfying.

  I still can't decide whether I'll go in to work tomorrow or not.. maybe.. depends on how productive I end up being here I suppose.  My lamb casserole will be on by lunchtime in the slow cooker, ready for dinners in the coming week.  Hopefully it goes well!
  Jess

May 31 - Thunder & Lightning

  It was a relatively good day at work, I got to do another intercompany journal, and wrapped things up for May ready to begin the onslaught of the very short and uber-stressful June.  At lunch time I made errands to Haigh's and Dan Murphy's to grab supplies for drinks and dessert with Masterchef and Miss M tonight.
  I was definitely ready for quizzes tonight.  It was a small fun group tonight, just me, Damo and my boss.  The quizzes always devolve into such interesting conversations when it's just the three of us.  I'll miss that very much when she's gone to her new job.  That's just two short weeks away from now which when I think about it makes me want to cry.  Tonight the subject turned to bands, music and horror movies.  I'm not a big horror movie fan so I just sat back and watched the two of them debate away as to which was the most frightening.  We eventually dispersed and headed off to greet our weekends.
  I went on to Masterchef's place, where she and Miss M were awaiting my arrival and getting the Minichefs ready for bed.  I was greeted with hugs and a broken Tupperware lunchbox.  Looks like word is out that my sister is now a Tupperware lady!  I was given it with instruction to see if it could be swapped over.  It is always worth asking.  Tupperware take their lifetime guarantee very seriously indeed so if you have old warped or broken Tupperware, don't throw it away!
  We ordered a Thai takeaway for dinner.  It was of average quality but satisfying enough, and the bonus was that they delivered.  It was a really rainy night tonight.  Around the time dinner arrived it started pelting down.  Really bucketing down, with thunder and lightening very close.  A couple of times Masterchef had to check windows to make sure the rain wasn't getting in around the edges!
  In the peace of the house, with the kids in bed and the rain pouring down, we got to each have a rant about our respective weeks.  We'd managed to all have a rotten one.  Miss M and I with nasty work weeks and Masterchef with the Minichefs sick and off school.  It felt really good to have some 'girl time' at the end of the week, and we all made statements to the effect of 'doing this more often' which I hope happens.

  Friday's food was:

• Breakfast was a 45g Carman's apricot and almond muesli bar and a 35g Carman's dark choc, blueberry and almond muesli bar.
• Morning snack was a gold kiwi fruit.
• Lunch was a 300g Malaysian style chicken laksa soup with two slices of toasted Woolworths Select chia bread spread with two 17.5g portions of The Laughing Cow cheese spread followed by a 170g Dairy Farmers Thick & Creamy raspberries and cream flavoured yoghurt.
• Afternoon snack was a green nashi pear, cored and sliced.
• Friday night drinks snackage was Red Rock Deli honey soy chicken chips and French Fries.

• Drinks with the girls were, two large glasses of Tempus Two copper series moscato and one large glass of The Chocolate Shop's chocolate shiraz.
• Dinner was three minced pork wontons and a fairly plain Nam Sod (Thai minced pork salad) and they seem to have forgotten to add the 'salad' portion of it.. I didn't spot any ginger or cucumber as described on the menu, they were generous on the cashews though.
• Dessert was five chocolates from Haigh's.  From top to bottom: lemon truffle, Cointreau truffle, quandong, mandarin cream and crème brûlée truffle.  The crème brûlée truffle was the unanimous favourite; it captured the flavour and texture of the crispy burnt sugar layer perfectly.

  After a long enjoyable evening chatting, getting the stresses of our weeks off our chests, Miss M drove me to Mr Smart's.  I was extremely grateful for this, as the walk to his place, while short and enjoyable in good weather, would've soaked me to the bone on this particular occasion and I was in no fit state to drive myself.
  There were thunder storms and lightning tonight, and as Mr Smart and I snuggled down for the night a thunder clap rolled in so close and loud that it shook the house, which was very very frightening!  It was the first time in a very long time that thunder has actually elicited a fear response from me.  I was very glad to have Mr Smart to cuddle up to.
  Jess

May 30 - The Perils of All You Can Eat

  A nice drive in to work this morning.  It's always nice from Mr Smart's side of town.  I don't leave home until 9am these days which allows me to avoid the traffic.  It still takes nearly an hour from my side of town, but only half an hour from Mr Smart's!  This morning as I travelled down Lygon Street I got stuck behind what appears to be Mercedes take on an armoured cash truck.  Seriously, that is one ugly car...

  I was quite keen to get to work today because I was getting to learn something new!  I guess we're all always learning new things, but when you've been doing the same job for many years, those 'new' things are usually quite small and insignificant.  Today's new task was in fact just a new twist on an old task too but I was excited about it nevertheless because usually only the accountants do them.  Intercompany journals!  I won't bore you with the details but they are just a slightly more complicated version of a general journal (which I do every month).

  Traffic after work, was not so nice.  I had a dinner date with Captain Cupcake in Burwood at Hollywood Buffet and it took an hour and a half of traffic hell to get there.  In 'normal' traffic, that trip should've taken me just thirty minutes.  I ended up being twenty minutes late for our booking but luckily Captain Cupcake got there on time and took our booking.
  Hollywood Buffet is an all you can eat restaurant at the Burwood One shopping complex, know to us south-eastern suburbanites as 'the 24 hour Kmart'.  I was pretty impressed at the quality of the food though.  Everything that was hot, was hot and fresh, everything was being made as it was needed and things seemed to flow around the buffet area pretty swiftly.  Even with a packed house, we were never waiting for long for anything in particular.  I would definitely go again at the right price.

  Thursday's food was:

• Breakfast was a 45g Carman's Classic fruit and nut muesli bar and a 35g Carman's dark choc, cranberry and almond muesli bar.
• Lunch was a 300g mild Indian masala dhal skinny soup with two slices of toasted Woolworths Select chia bread spread with two 17.5g portions of The Laughing Cow cheese spread.
• Dinner was at Hollywood Buffet and I will do my best to remember what everything was.  I had two rounds of main course and two rounds of dessert.  I know that seems a lot but it was all you can eat and you want to 'get your money's worth' and I did make sure to get veggies into me and was restrained compared to previous all you can eat adventures.

• Main courses - My first plate contained, fried calamari pieces, Thai fish cakes, pan-fried Basa fillet, honey soy chicken, roast potatoes, steamed vegetables with garlic and, squid with broccoli.  My second plate contained, more Thai fish cakes, pan fried tofu, seaweed salad, assorted sushi, green apple salad, more pen-friend Basa fillets and, a little dish of sushi salad.

• Desserts - My first plate contained, a little dish of profiteroles, two nutty slice things, an apple crumble square, two pieces of German cheesecake, one piece of brownie, one piece of Sacher torte and one piece of American cheesecake.  All the pieces were pretty small, that's a bread plate size.  My second plate contained, a piece of apple mousse, a palmier, two more pieces of the nutty slice thing, a piece of walnut brownie, a piece of black forest-type thing, apple strudel, two pieces of lemon cheesecake and whatever the thing in the middle with fruit on top is.

  It was good to see Captain Cupcake looking better.  The poor thing was quite sick last week and had only just recovered in time to make our dinner date.  We had a good chat over dinner, talking about life, the universe and how much we both despise anti-vacciners.  Captain Cupcake works with kids and her knowledge of the subject is quite extensive.  It was good to catch up and we managed to make tentative plans for our next trip to The Astor, so despite the traffic hell, the trip was well worth it.
  Jess

May 29 - Star Trekkin'

  I was going to be at Mr Smart's again tonight so I caught the train in.  It's so much easier catching the train in from his place, if only because the station is walking distance, no bus required.  I do like catching the train when it's easy and not making me feel dizzy, it's nice to get a bit of fresh air to clear the head  before work.  Today on my walk to the station I noticed a surprising sight.  Apparently persimmon trees lose all their leaves before they lose their fruit!  It was gorgeous, this tall twiggy thing covered in bright orange baubles.
  When I got to work I saw something else fun happening in QV Square.  Construction had commenced on the QV Hotham Lodge!  It's always fun to watch the ideas of the Marketing Dept. come to life.  As I write this in fact (since I'm still a good ten days behind) construction is now complete and the Lodge is in full swing, but more on that later.

  Today was the accruals deadline.  Accruals are basically just financial bookmarks.  It's is a list of purchase orders not yet used which say "If we shut our doors today, this is a list of who we owe money and what for." They recognise that you've spent money, even though the money hasn't yet been paid to the supplier.  Kind of like remembering to squirrel away $100 a month so that you can pay the car insurance when they get around to send you the heart-attack-in-an-envelope each year.  Anyway, it took all day but I got them done on time and left a bit early to catch the train back to Mr Smart's.
  We decided to have dinner from Maharaja's tonight, so instead of getting off at Preston I continued up the line one stop the Regent station instead.  Not being familiar with Regent staion I wasn't sure which way to turn once I got off the train station platform.  I turned right and crossed the train line knowing I was heading in the right direction to hit High Street eventually.  Of course, Mr Smart was waiting to the left to surprise me and then had to run back to High Street and meet me there when he worked out what had happened!

Wednesday's food was:

• Breakfast was a 45g Carman's Original fruit-free muesli bar and a 35g Carman's yoghurt, apricot and almond muesli bar.
• Morning snack was a gold kiwi fruit with the skin on.
• Lunch was a 300g spicy Mexican chipotle tomato and black bean skinny soup with two slices of toasted Woolworths Select chia bread spread with two 17.5g portions of The Laughing Cow cheese spread.
• Afternoon snack was a golden delicious apple, cored and sliced.
• Dinner was a samosa with tamarind sauce, chili chicken dry, jeera rice, beef kashmiri, raita and a garlic naan.

  After dinner it was on with study for Mr Smart, blogging for me, and Star Trek for the both of us.  We watched one of my favourite original Star Trek episode, The Trouble With Tribbles, and then Mr Smart felt the urge to watch the video clip for Star Trekkin' which had me in fits of giggles because we both know almost all of the words.
  For his Star Trek pièce de résistance however, Mr Smart put the HD remastered super-dooper 25th anniversary bluray version of Star Trek TNG on one monitor, and the standard definition old version of the same episode on the monitor next to it, just so I could see how much better the new versions were.  You see I've always maintained that I can't see an appreciable difference and that drives my technophile partner and friends mental.
  Well I did have to admit I could now see a difference, and Earnest (who was on my facebook chatting away at the time) and Mr Smart, laughed away at my technological inadequacies and Luddite tendencies.  However, I will qualify my original though by saying this.  Although I can see a difference in visual quality in the newer versions, and they do add a certain wow factor, the original definition does not in anyway detract from the masterful story telling that was at play throughout the seven glorious seasons of Star Trek TNG.  At any rate, visual qualities of beloved TV shows aside, it was a fun evening just chilling out with Mr Smart, Pengi and Pizza Cat.
  Jess

May 28 - Tapas & Tupperware

  Work was work, but I did do a spot of retail therapy in the late afternoon.  The QV branch of The Luggage Professionals was closing down and having massive discounts on all remaining stock.  Mr Smart has been thinking about getting a new proper suitcase for a while now so when I heard about the sale I rushed down bought him a brand new Antler suitcase for 50% off!  Antler, like Samsonite, have a ten year guarantee on their products so while they might be a little on the more expensive side, you know you're getting something that will last, or at least be replaced if it doesn't!
  After work I headed off to Westgarth, to the home of the every lovely Allmix for Bertie's very first solo party as a Tupperware demonstrator.  That's right people, you now have an 'in' at Tupperware!  Don't through away that old warped or cracked lid, when they say lifetime guarantee they damn well mean it.  So for all your Tupperware needs, particularly in Melbourne Australia, email tupperladyliz@gmail.com!

  Allmix certainly set the bar high for Tupperware party hosts everywhere.  Her spread of nibbles was amazing.  She had her lovely partner cooking up a storm and freshening drinks and he was even convinced to play the Tupperware party games and win Allmix her choice of prizes!  I managed to win two little prizes too, the much desired Tupperware bottle brush, a slender cleaning brush with a curved head for cleaning inside bottles and wine glasses, and a Tupperware keyring modeled after the Tupperware MicroSteamer.  You can really take its lid off and keep things in it!  I twill come in handy for the emergency Panadol I expect.
  There were a few games and a lot of questions.  Bertie did really well remembering all of the information and getting everyone to join in the fun.  I think she'll do really well at it.

  Tuesday's food was:

• Breakfast was a largeish slightly unripe banana, a 45g Carman's apricot and almond muesli bar and a 35g Carman's dark choc blueberry and almond muesli bar.
• Morning snack was a green nashi pear, cored and sliced.
• Lunch was 300g tomato, lentil and bacon skinny soup with two slices of toasted Woolworths chia bread spread with one portion of The Laughing Cow cheese spread (17.5g).
• Afternoon snack was a gold kiwi fruit.
• Dinner was an amazing spread of tapas goodies with non-alcoholic sangria put on by Allmix and her lovely partner.  I don't remember how many of everything I ate, but everything was lovely and I ate until I was a little over-full.  They had olives and feta stuffed bell peppers, fried chorizo bites, fresh French stick bread topped with either quince paste, spanish bacon and apple or cream cheese, prosciutto and gherkin, a baked potato frittata-style slice, chicken wings, and to top it all off, Bertie made sticky date puddings with butterscotch sauce and cream in the Tupperware MicroSteamer.

  I filled in my Tupperware order while Bertie was making the sticky date puddings.  I had a sick Mr Smart waiting at his house for me and I didn't want to keep him up waiting for me so I was preparing to rush off the second the demonstration was completed.  I ordered a Turbo Chef for preparing onions, and a Thatsa Bowl Junior for all the baking I wish I was doing.  Well done to Bertie on such a successful first party, and remember, for all your Tupperware needs email tupperladyliz@gmail.com!
  Jess

PS: Mr Smart seemed to like his new suitcase!

May 27 - Finding Symmetry In The Antipodes

  Meanwhile, on the same Monday in England, Gub decided to give me a hand too, and see what it's like to write a day in your own life for others.  It was a lot of fun to read 'my blog' from someone else's perspective!

  The day shamefully started with a alarm on a sunny bank holiday Monday.  I had to get up early as I’d promised to work on papers that were left over from my PhD.  My new job is taking up lots of my time and energy, especially with its longer commute, so it’s a bit harder to find time to do other things. (Sound familiar?)  The Cambridge Rower opted to make double espressos for both of us (again?) and go back to bed and read while I sat at my desk, sipped coffee and generally grumped about for having to work when the sun had finally come to the UK.
  After some time, and no small amount of procrastination, we decided to have breakfast and headed downstairs for our daily feast of sliced fresh fruit – today was banana, berries, plum and half an orange, with greek yoghurt, honey, muesli (eh?), juice and two slices of multigrain toast each with jam, defiled by the further addition of peanut butter in the case of The Cambridge Rower.  We eat this breakfast most days and it’s a great start and keeps us going long into the morning.  That said though, our breakfast the day before was Vegemite on toast at 2pm with terrible hangovers so it’s not always this good!

  After another hours work I cycled into old work (25 minutes each way) to print some fun musical stuff for the afternoon’s festivities while The Cambridge Rower went for a swim.  When we got back, Mum and Dad, who are visiting the UK at the moment, had returned from their week-long trip up north.  The four of us caught up a little over some shortbread (I ate one finger), before heading out for lunch to a pub funnily enough named ‘The Bakers’.  It was about 4pm by the time we got served our food, so combined with the early start and some exercise, I eagerly wolfed down half my meal before The Cambridge Rower reminded me I was doing the blog today so needed to take a photo!

  In any case, lunch was a diet coke with a Mexican Beef burger with chips, tomato salsa and coleslaw.  Didn’t make it through all the chips, but it was yum!  The remainder of the afternoon was taken up by general catching up and learning songs for our upcoming gig (The Cambridge Rower and I have joined a pub covers band).

  Having eaten lunch late, we left dinner until about 8pm, which was an AMAZING lamb and chickpea Moroccan tagine that The Cambridge Rower had concocted, with my couscous salad as the side.

  All up, not a bad day food wise, and it was nice to get some exercise in as I hadn’t done any for a couple of weeks.  I’m sure I forgot other snackables, but it’s actually extremely hard keeping track of what you eat, let alone making conscious decisions about it all the time.  Also, I agreed to write this blog a week ago and it’s only just now being written!  (The parallels, the parallels!)  This is much harder than it looks, and doing a guest one has given me an appreciation for what my sister has been going through this past year. 
  With that in mind, I just wanted to publicly say how proud I am of her to my amazing sister who has been doing this everyday for nearly a year!  It’s been wonderful watching you make positive lifestyle changes to take care of yourself and your body.  I know you can make it to the end of the year with the blog and know that this has been transformational, and not just physically.
  Congratulations, and keep up the good work – you deserve it!
  Love, Gub.

  Gub wrote this and submitted it via Mr Smart on the 3rd of June, her weight on the day was a very healthy 74kg.  I'm looking forward to getting down to that myself one day so that I can look as fabulous as she always does!  Thank you to my wonderful sister for writing a blog and to Pengi and Mr Smart also.  Jess

May 27 - Pengi's University Adventure, Guest Blog!

  On Monday in Australia, Pengi went to university with Mr Smart and he wanted to tell you all about it.  Here is our little penguin to tell you all about it!

  Hello again everyone!  It’s Pengi, back for another big adventure!  I was so excited last night when Mr Smart said that he would take me to university today.  He made me promise to keep it a secret so that we could surprise Jess, but I nearly let slip a few times because it was so very exciting.  For a long time I had wondered what it was like at the place where he spent all that time, so now was my chance to see it for myself.
  Even though I was really looking forward to the trip, I must admit that it was tough getting out of bed this morning.  The alarm went off, but neither Mr Smart nor I stirred for quite a while.  It was nearly an hour later before we finally started to get ready and set off.  It’s actually a long trip to reach the university, which began with waiting for the bus.

  Nearby was a pretty church that I thought Jess might like the look of so I told Mr Smart to take some pictures of it.  He’s quite a handy assistant to have around.

  The bus arrived quite soon so we didn’t have long to wait, and arrived at the stop where a tram was waiting for us.  We hurried across the road to get on before it drove away, which Mr Smart told me has happened a number of times. 

 
  Despite our late start, we arrived quite a bit early so had some time to kill.  That was fortunate since I was quite hungry by this stage having skipped breakfast.  Mr Smart wasn’t sure what to get, but I put my flipper down and insisted on fish.  Thankfully he was happy to oblige.  We found a quiet table in to the Union House food court to enjoy it.

  We took the short walk to the first class of the day, Advanced Screenwriting, and were still quite early so had to wait around until it started.  It’s quite a nice little courtyard to wait in and I enjoyed looking at the tree in the middle and the buildings around it.

  Mr Smart explained to me that since it was the last week of classes, there wasn’t a lot of work to do in the classes.  This proved to be the case since apart from catching up on one student’s pitch, we mostly watched that starts of old 80’s movies and commented on them.  It was quite fun to see movies like Working Girl and Tootsie, and I think I’ll make Mr Smart show me the full movies sometime. 

  After the class finished, Mr Smart grabbed another bite to eat, though I was still full.  Even though we had plenty of time, we made our way towards his next class.  On the way, we passed this awesome moat, and I really wanted to have a swim in it, but Mr Smart said that it would be very nice to swim in it today.  Perhaps I shall have a bath during the night when he’s asleep to make up for missing out!

  There quite a large area outside his Brand Management class which has many people sitting around studying.  Since we had time to kill, I asked to borrow Mr Smart’s laptop and begun to work on writing on this blog.

  I think I fit right in with the other students, and could easily get used to this student life! 

  The brand management class went pretty quickly and it all seemed so complicated.  I have no idea how Mr Smart is going to be able understand it all.  I’m sure he’ll find a way though.  We finished early, and headed to the tram stop, just to see our tram depart.  Something else that Mr Smart says happens regularly.  It wasn’t too long a wait for the next one though.

  This trip home was pretty much the reverse of the trip in.  Tram followed by Bus.  I was pretty tuckered out by the time we got home though and went straight to bed, leaving Mr Smart to work on his assignment some more.  I did catch him watching some star trek at the same time though! 

  Time for this little penguin to sign off.  Until my next big adventure,

  Love from Pengi

  Monday's food was:

• Breakfast... if I had any, then I forgot to photograph it, but I'm pretty sure it would've been two muesli bars.  I definitely had a navel orange at morning tea time and I may have been feeling a little aggressive...
• Lunch was Breadtop.  Clockwise from the top-left, a sacha pork floss bun, a mini burger, an crunchy prawn roll, a green tea red-bean filled donut and a sausage bun.
• Dinner was two toasted sandwiches, each comprised of two slices of Woolworths Select chia bread, two slices of Woolworths select Tasmanian lite tasty cheese, and 85g Hamper lite corned beef, accompanied by two dried peach halves, two dried pear halves, and three Brazil nuts.
• Dessert was a cup of Russian Caravan tea with milk and three dark chocolate Tim Tams, and they were slammed.