August 14 - This Moment Is Your Life

  I made it to work on time today, 8:50am!
Too bad I'd forgotten I was meant to be in at 8:30am.  I forgot to take my berries out of the freezer yesterday (I really need a nightly checklist at this point) so I had a banana and a punnet of strawberries for breakfast at my desk.
  Today things chugged along ok at work.  Invoices landed on my desk and left almost as quickly.  With the help of the supplier I resolved a bunch of old invoices which was satisfying in it's own way (even though in this case it was my fault they'd gotten so old).

  I wasn't too hungry at morning tea so I had a half serve of belVita Fruit & Fibre breakfast biscuits (2) just to keep me going.  For lunch I made a sandwich, two slices of Bürgen Wholemeal & Seeds Bread (Low GI of 39), about a third of a Hass avocado, two slices (100g) of D'Orsogna leg ham, one slice of Bega Extra Light Tasty cheese and a small tomato.  It was certainly a sandwich of impressive height!  It was a little tricky to eat but it was filling which is what I was aiming for.
  I've been feeling a bit unsettled the last couple of days, grappling with some of life's bigger questions, and as I walked out of the centre tonight it was raining.  Ahh Melbourne, you always come up with the appropriate mood weather.  I stood in the doorway contemplating the problem.  A simple thing to get momentarily stumped by I suppose, but you see from where I stood, cosy and dry, I could see my car maybe 50 metres away with no shelter between me and it.
  Of course there was nothing for it but to remember that it's only water and step out into it.  I got to the car not-soaked, but definitely on the damp side, started it up and turned the heat all the way up to hellish on it's highest fan setting.  I left it on like that until I was sufficiently restored.  I was contemplating not doing exercise again tonight but I realised that it felt like I was actually trying to talk myself out of something I actually really wanted to do.  It was a weird sensation... kind of like the 'evil shoulder angel' but internal.
  So I got home, laid away the groceries, logged on my computer, then went and got changed and on the cross trainer.  It was hard work tonight though, one of those introspective slow-moving episodes of Buffy where all the action happens in the last ten minutes!  Ugh...  Still, I got through it.

  I've worked out that cooking dinner is best straight after exercise while my body is still warm because it gets pretty cold in my kitchen at the moment.  Tonight I pan-friend a rosemary and mint marinated lamb rump steak from Coles and had it with a pouch of steamed carrots, sugar snap peas and broccoli.  The meat and the veg were both about 300g so the proportions still need a bit of tweaking.  I was going to have two pouches of steamed veggies but I didn't realise I had run so low, I only had the one left.
   Now, back to grappling with life's bigger questions!

  It's fair to say that I live too far ahead.  I am forever planning the next weekend (Indian and Star Trek with Hagrid and Cupcake and possibly Mr Smart too), or the next holiday (before Christmas!), or the next Christmas (Where will I jingle my bells this year?) or picturing my dream house (it varies wildly).
  As I was chatting with Dad on messenger this evening, I was bemoaning some of the various drawbacks of this way of living and he had the wisdom to send me the following:

 "Be happy for this moment.  This moment is your life."

 - Omar Khayyam

  He also reminded me that although we may only live once, we can at least hope the Buddhists are right and try to calmly accept that we may not do everything we want to in this life.  Some things will just have to wait and we should all spend more time enjoying the things we are doing instead of longing for things we aren't.  It reminded me to slow down and appreciate what I have.
  Thus prompted, I paused to reflect on the things I am doing, or have done of late, that make me happy:

• Losing weight one day at a time and getting on top of my health.
• Spoiling my nephew and jumping on a tram just because I know he enjoys it.
• Curling up in bed with my book and reading, even though it's often already late.
• Sharing new experiences with Mr Smart.
• Building a new friendship with someone I once knew in high school.
• Spending time with my family and talking with my sisters.
• Learning new things no matter how trivial.
• Singing my way to work each day (Don McLean today!)
• Having a roof over my head that I can call my own.
• Being able to cook good tasty food for myself.

  So although life is not always 'perfect' I have to stop and remember that I've got it pretty good.  And that some of the things I get worried or sad about, are not really the monumental problems they seem to be, they are more like over-analysed mole hills.
Life is what it is.  This moment is my life.
  Jess