July 8 - A Not Entirely Lazy Sunday

  After packing up playing with my Lego until 1:30am in the morning, it's unsurprising that I slept solidly until 9:30am and then hunkered down for another hour and a half after that.  So it was around 11:00am that a well rested me slid out of bed to start the day.

  I was glad that I pre-made my pumpkin soup last night as it was made for today's lunch for me and Mr Smart.  The soup contained only oven slow-roasted Kent pumpkin, 500ml of chicken stock and a tiny bit of crushed garlic and dried rosemary and it made just enough for two bowlfuls.  I garnished with a heaped teaspoonful of light sour cream and a roasted pumpkin star.


  Once I was dressed and ready, I got the laundry in (such a nice weekend, sun and everything!), checked email/facebook etc. and then set off for Mr Smart's place.  I figured I'd have plenty of time to do my exercise tonight when I got home but he had other plans!  After polishing off our soup (which was well-received, yay!) Mr Smart suggested that we walk his normal running route.

  We set off and hadn't gone far at all when I was warned we would soon encounter the street bunnies.  Sure enough, a few moments later, street bunnies!!  One sitting in the gutter and one hiding under a car in the manner of a domestic cat.
  It was quite obvious from the hutch in the front yard which house they belonged to, or perhaps had once belonged to, but I was assured they were very often in the same spot every time he ran.

  Another cool thing we passed were the telephone exchange boxes which had been attacked by roving street artists.  Apparently the local council had tried to put a stop to it some time ago but this did not sit well with the public as they felt the artists had cheered up an otherwise dull grey eyesore.  There was also a Mickey Mouse one!
  We also passed the reservoir in Reservoir but regrettably I missed out on the cat so confident that it does not move from it's warm spot of pavement when people pound the pavement past it, nor did I get to see the bucktoothed dog! 
  It was a really lovely sunny day for a walk and it was amazing the difference a week on the cross-trainer has made to my ability to walk and converse at the same time.  The walk was about 5.1km and took us 1 hour 13 minutes according to Mr Smart's runtastic iPhone app.

  Now I don't think I mentioned but poor Mr Smart had a sore wisdom tooth dealt with on Friday, so he's been on soft food since then (hence the soup for lunch) but tonight he felt ready for something a bit more solid.  Evil friend of temptation that he is, he simply forced me to go to Noodle Kingdom for dinner!  I had no say in the matter, I swear!
  Mr Smart has also been trying to make lifestyle improvements but we decided that since we were eating out, calorie control by what we were eating was limited and we both wanted delicious food we would enjoy.  We still managed however, to improve on the portion control front.  Rather than each have an entree and a main, we both shared the same entree and main.
  Entree was pan-fried pork dumplings, 12 for $8.00!  They were lovely, a filling of pork mince, spring onion, ginger and a few other flavours too subtle for immediate identification.

  Main course was braised pork belly in Chinese wine sauce with pak choy and broccoli, at $14.80.  It was yummy!  Well duh.. it contained pork belly!

  So that was my lovely not entirely lazy Sunday.  On the way home I contemplated still doing 40 minutes on the cross-trainer, but I realised that would be a bad idea the second I got out of the car and my leg muscles felt like a rest was more what was needed!  I will have to remember my sneakers next time I venture out with Mr Smart.
  Jess