August 7 - Substitution

  I came across a much loved quotation while tidying my desk on Saturday night:

Photo by Quentin Jones

Some consider carob an adequate substitute for chocolate because it can be made to approximate the colour and consistency of chocolate.  The same arguments can be made in favour of dirt.
 - Sandra Boynton

  Now obviously what she's really saying is that it's no substitute at all and certainly I agree.  I find carob perfectly enjoyable, I can remember happily eating it as a kid, but I never considered it a chocolate substitute, it was simply something else I liked eating.  But it sparked me off thinking about other things people 'helpfully' suggest as substitutions that simply don't work.

1. Steamed vegetables instead of baked potato.  I accept that it's a better choice but it's no substitute!  Neither is creamed cauliflower instead of mashed potato.
2. Veggie burgers instead of a meat burger.  I have never taste a veggie burger that's come close to being a substitute for meat, plus then you miss out on vital iron!
3. Button Squash instead of potato in hash browns.  Without potato, don't even call it a hash brown, it's a pakora at best, and button squash!? Ew ew ew...
4. Cottage Cheese instead of sour cream... No.. just no.
5.  Rice crackers instead of corn chips... On what planet would this be valid!?

  However, here are some substitutions I have made or can make which I would consider useful and sensible even though some of them involve a minor change in flavour.

1. Avocado on a sandwich instead of mayonnaise.  Most of the time when I want mayo it's just to get the creaminess so this works for me.
2. Dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate.  Totally works, no argument from me.
3. Wholemeal flatbread pizza base instead of traditional pizza base.  Increases fibre content, reduces calories and GI factor, plus no waiting for dough to rise!
4. Kangaroo salami instead of regular beef salami.  No appreciable difference in flavour but way less fat.  The only downside is limited availability.
5. Light or Extra Light versions of cheese.  If you are cooking with cheese or putting it on a sandwich there really is no difference.

  So there is my two cents on dietary substitutions.  There are always better choices to be made, but for some things there is simply no substitute.
Now from pontification to my day in brief:

  It was definitely hard to convince myself to wake up this morning.  It's rough knowing the first thing you have to do of a morning is jab yourself in the finger with a lancet!  I am getting better at it though, the last three times have been done on the first jab!  I think I'm learning not to flinch.  Nevertheless, hard to cast off the cuddly warm doona in order to intentionally damage yourself as I'm sure you'd all agree.
  Breakfast was the usual yoghurt, berries and fibre toppers.  Must remember to get a new pot of yoghurt sometime in the next couple of days too.  Morning tea was a nut snack pack and a Panama passionfruit.  I have still been getting hungry before the next mealtime so I'm experimenting with spacing snacks a little more evenly.

  Lunch was a Mission Garden Spinach Herb Wrap with one slice of Bega Extra Tasty cheese, a quarter of a Reed avocado, two slices of Dorsogna triple smoked leg ham (about 65g), some lettuce/baby spinach mix and some Rainbow Salad.  It was chock-full of veggies!  I'm loving this style of Mission wrap!  I also had a navel orange.  I quite enjoy the act of peeling it and eating it a segment at a time.
  My afternoon snack was a large unripeish banana (lots of green but some yellow.
  Work was a hard slog today.  I have some training tomorrow at the Head Office (for which I'm completely unprepared) and as a result I stayed back to finish some invoice entry and figures.  It was one of those days that although you are flat-out busy all day, nothing seems to have got done.  Getting home late I felt flat, tired, hungry, grumpy, sulky and in need of a good hug.  I was seriously considering skipping the cross-trainer so I could eat sooner but then Mr Smart put the question to me, "Would you get on it after eating?".  Since "No" was the answer, I forced myself to get on it.  It was bloody hard today.
  Dinner was a serve of the chile con carne I made the other night on some wholemeal pasta with a little Mainland Light Tasty cheese sprinkle on top then mixed through.  After that I had 20g of Lindt 85% Cocoa dark chocolate.  The Lindt has become a fairly regular occurrence and I'm kind of walking the line between feeling guilty and needing to justify it and bring satisfied that I'm not binging.  I'm satisfied because I can stop at 20g and it does stop me eating, but I feel like I need to justify it or feel guilty when it's every night.

It is possible to be ugly and delicious.

  Now, did eating the chile con carne on wholemeal pasta instead of in sour cream laden burritos help keep the blood sugar a bit lower?  Two hours after eating dinner the reading was 6.8 so I'd have to say yes, but there is always room for improvement.
  The training session tomorrow goes for 3.5 hours (blah) so I will have to remember to take some nuts and things to snack on as they are bound to only supply lollies!  Hopefully it will be valuable in the end but right now I'm just not stoked about it at all.  Maybe I just need a good night's sleep.
  On that note, toodle-pip!
  Jess

August 6 - Elephantastic News!

  My burritos last night clearly weren't the best choice.  I checked my blood sugar two hours after eating them and it was still at 7.9 mmol/L which is the highest reading since I started.  Even after four hours it was still at 6.7 which is more like my average two hour post meal reading.  And even when I woke up this morning it was still 5.8 (which is at the top of the healthy range).  Duly noted.  I might try the next batch of burrito sauce on top of wholemeal pasta and see if that works better.
  Breakfast was yoghurt with berries and fibre toppers and I remembered to take my fruit and wraps for the week to work.  To keep my wraps flat, safe and airtight I went to Woolies and bought a Decor Tellfresh Pastry Storer!  I figure if I keep a few of those moisture sucking sachets in there they will last a decent while.  I had a Panama passionfruit for my morning snack.

  Lunch was a Mission Garden Spinach Herb Wrap with one slice of Bega Extra Light Tasty, a smear of Rosella Mustard Pickle, two slices of Dorsogna triple smoked leg ham (about 65g) and some Rainbow Salad.  Rainbow Salad is this thing Woolies stock in the pre-packed salad area.  I love it!  It's a mix of broccoli stalk, beetroot and carrot!  It was so easy to add heaps of veggies to my wrap that way.  I've used it before to add veggies to pasta bakes too.
  In the afternoon I had budget/forecast time with my Ops Manager.  It took a while longer than I thought it would but it went well so I was happy.  I felt a bit drained afterwards though so I had a serve of belVita Fruit & Fibre Breakfast biscuits (4) for my afternoon snack.  I think I might start having just 2 biscuits and a cup of black tea instead as Mr Smart had a look at the packet last week and found they are quite high in sugar (23.1%).
  On my trips too and from work I'm currently listening to episodes of Fry's English Delight, a BBC4 radio program about language hosted by Stephen Fry.  They are jolly good fun and you certainly pick up a thing or too.  One episode goes for almost exactly the length of my trip so it works out very well.
  Once I got home I changed into my workout gear and got straight on the cross trainer.  I must be getting better at it because I managed to take a phone call from my plumber during my session.  I answered the phone "Hi D....., don't mind my puffing and panting I'm just on the cross-trainer at the moment" He laughed and we sorted out a couple of things for upcoming work on my house.  As a result of pausing Buffy during the call though I ended up doing 44 minutes today!

  I got the last serve of broccoli soup out of the freezer two days ago and it was finally defrosted so into the microwave it went.  I needed to finish up some prawns from Saturday too so I ended up with Broccoli and Prawn Soup.  Wasn't half bad.  It added low-fat protein and stopped me putting any cheese on the soup.
  After the soup I had 20g Lindt 85% Cocoa dark chocolate.  I noticed it didn't seem so bitter today.  I don't know if that's a good thing or a hint that I'm developing a tolerance.  I'm almost curious to try some Cadbury's Dairy Milk and see if it seems horribly sweet!
  After dinner I broke out the new Lego and played a bit.  It makes some cool things and the wheel and propeller assemblies are quite clever.  I made a tree, a house, a cat, a park bench, a house, a car, the owner and a helicopter!  Thank you again Mr Smart!
You're never too old for Lego.
  With everything else out of the way I checked my emails and OMG! The excitement awaiting me!!  (Bear with me people, I'm about to indulge in some extremely dorky glee.)

It is only 3 days until Mali In The City begins!!

   To celebrate the 150th Anniversary of Melbourne Zoo they've had fifty fibreglass models made of the elephant calf Mali.  Mali is a female calf born at Melbourne Zoo on Jan 16th 2010.  Those models have been painted by different artists and will be let loose on the streets of Melbourne from August 10th to September 21st.
   There is even an iPhone app to help you find them all.  I'm almost tempted to get an iPhone just so I can be satellite guided to each and every one!  I might not be able to get out there this weekend, but I am definitely going to see them all.  A lot of healthy walking involved as you can see from the map!  I may even have to hop on a tram or two!  This has made me giddy with anticipation!  I'm really excited about getting out there and tracking them down, and of course taking a squillion photos to boot!
  Until tomorrow, your dorky and excitable chum,
  Jess

August 5 - Too Much To Do

   I thought I'd share a portion of my To-Do List so you could see why I get overwhelmed with it all sometimes and shut down.  I was certainly starting to feel that way by this afternoon.
  I managed to start a few things on this list today, but I didn't really cross any off except moving the hard rubbish out to the nature strip.  It was easy to pick that owing to it having a deadline outside of my control.  All of the other things, well I've lived with them this long so it's only me it's driving nuts.  It doesn't really affect anyone else.
  I have the dishes mostly under control now since the purchase of a dishwasher back in early June.  I'm sure Mum would attest to that.  The laundry gets done when I need clean clothes but there is a bit of a winter backlog.  Fortunately my lines are outside but under cover; an idiosyncrasy within my family.
  I got the cross trainer out of the way early again today.  I wish I could do it before work on week days but it just requires getting up too damn early.  I'm not an early to bed type so it just doesn't work for me.  After my exercise I made a cooked Sunday breakfast.

  I fried up 375g of mushrooms in about two teaspoons of butter with some fresh ground pepper and served it onto two slices of Bürgen Soy-Lin toast which I pre-sprinkled with a little Mainland Finely Shredded Tasty cheese.  I hadn't really considered whether or not mushrooms were filling before this, but it turns out they are!  What I made would've happily fed two people so I'll keep that in mind next time I have a hankering for them.
  I got in yesterday's laundry and laid it all away.  I love it when we get those few nice drying days in winter and you don't have to re-hang on the clothes horse.  I put another load on and had a quick snack of a small slightly ripe banana before dealing with the remaining hard rubbish.
  I cleared old pot plant containers off the deck, some junk from the back of the garden and some old fence palings from the side of the house.  It was satisfying to see it gone but it was a big grunt shifting it all on my own.  Some of the pot plant containers were quite big and I needed to empty the dirt out of them first!  I had planned on removing rubbish from under the decking as well but I'm afraid that will have to wait until next year.  When I moved the pots, I witnessed a rather large huntsman scurry under there for cover so there's no way in hell I'm going under after him!  Even next year I might pay someone else to do the crawling under the deck!
  Even though I'd worn gloves it took a fair effort to remove the dirt from under my nails and tend to my scratches from handling spiky dead plants, but once clean I felt up to making lunch.  I had pretty much the same as yesterday as I had the other half of the tin of tuna to use up.  It was a Wattle Valley Wholegrain Soft Wrap with half a 95g tin of Sole Mare Tune in Olive Oil, half a tomato and a slice of Bega Tasty cheese followed by one serve of belVita Breakfast Fruit & Fibre biscuits (4).

  After lunch the next load of laundry was ready.  My work out clothes and a couple of weeks worth of socks.  Do you guys hate doing socks too?  The weather had turned by the afternoon and fiddling around making sure each sock was hung right and fixed to the line left my fingers feeling like icicles!  It took quite a while in front of the radiant heater for them to feel thawed out.
  My interest in running about doing chores had severely waned by this time so I played a few episodes of I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again and started slowly tidying my desk.  I have started to be a bit more ruthless about what I throw away.  I'm quite sentimentally attached to scraps of paper and postcards and knick-knacks and such, but I am trying to be a bit more realistic about what is 'needed'.  I can always scan post cards and keep them electronically!  Sigh.. almost as bad, but it takes up less physical space at least!
  It's got very cold this evening and I can hear the wind whipping around the side of the house.  The very sound of it is chilling me.  It reminds me of something that happened on Grade 6 camp.  It was freezing, I was in a tent with two or three other girls at Wilson's Prom and we lay there imagining heaters, imagining the warmth of the sun, and it really did help for a while.  I wonder if they remember it too.
  I didn't really do enough work on the kitchen to justify a before/after comparison but I will get there eventually.  Instead I have done a before/after shot of dinner!

  Yes folks, I made myself Burritos!  And those two round containers mean I not only made dinner for tonight but also a fridge dinner for use in the next couple of days and a freezer dinner for later!  They are probably not the healthiest of all options but they were enjoyable and I was restrained in the application of cheese, sour cream and avocado.  I rounded out the day with 20g Lindt 85% Cocoa dark chocolate.
  So there you have it, I didn't get much done today but I'm still exhausted and feeling like there is just too much to get done.  Unfortunately I'm not the only one with too much to do of late;  Mr Smart's commitments kept us apart this weekend (I won't lie, I did pout).  However we had a wonderful time on Thursday and there is always next weekend.
  Here's hoping tomorrow's Mondayitis is not a severe case!
  Jess

August 4 - Gone Phishing

  I slept pretty well on my new mattress.  It's a bit taller than the old one and that takes a little getting used to.  My feet don't quite touch the ground sitting on the edge now!  I started the day meandering about a bit but managed to convince myself to get onto the cross trainer.  I wonder whether, when I get new neighbours, if they will mind me blaring Buffy at them on a regular basis.  For now the house next door is unoccupied and I need not fear reprimand, though the auction is next weekend!  Breakfast followed during my cool down and then it was time to hit the shower.

  Breakfast was Jalna a2 Low Fat Natural Yoghurt, a quarter cup of Carmen's Classic Fruit Muesli, a diced small Corella pear, some slivered almonds and three halves of dried apricot finely diced.
I also realised that I forgot to tell you I had three halves of dried apricot yesterday too!  Just on their own as a snack.
  After brekkie I took my old broken office chair and rapidly deteriorating chair mat out to the nature strip for the hard rubbish collection.  Then I took a brief walk (less than 20 metres) to the end of my street and took a photo of my bus stop which was today's Photo-A-Day-Challenge on facebook.
  While posting my photo I also checked my email and I was dumb enough to click on an email link (from a trusted source) and end up part of the Private Message phishing scam.  When it asked me for my password I should've twigged of course but who knows where my brain was.  The craftiness of this particular scam is its simplicity.  It doesn't offer free prizes or have any elaborate or badly spelled text, just "You have received a private message from xxxx" and then a link marked "Private Message".  I changed passwords and rectified it as quickly as I could, but my sincere apologies to anyone who got that message from me.

  Lunch, around 2pm, was a Wattle Valley Wholegrain Soft Wrap with half a 95g tin of Sole Mare Tune in Olive Oil, half a tomato and a quarter of an avocado.  I was still a little hungry after that so I also had 20g Lindt 85% Cocoa dark chocolate.  That did the trick.
  After lunch I went on with laundry, dishes and general tidy up.  My to-do list just seems to get bigger and bigger.  The more I tidy, the more half-finished jobs I find that I need to get to.
It all takes time that I never seem to find.
  At around 3:30pm I paused my cleaning and called my parent's phone to speak to my Granny Jean.  They were having a barbecue for her today to celebrate her 89th birthday!  She was quite pleased to hear about my changing lifestyle; she became a type 2 diabetic herself in her old age so she's happy I am doing something to prevent it in myself.  Granny may well be 89 but she's still pretty sharp and takes an interest in all of her nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.  She doesn't use the internet herself but my Dad takes his laptop when he visits and shows her all the latest photos of everyone on facebook and this blog so, Happy Birthday Granny Jean! (for yesterday).
  I got the laundry done and a load of dishes and got started on clearing my kitchen table.  I've taken a before photo and hopefully tomorrow will see it tidy enough for an after photo!  Around 6:00pm I started to think about dinner but with not much fresh food in the fridge I headed off to Coles to grab supplies for homemade pizza!

  Tonight's homemade pizza contained:  One wholemeal Khobz flatbread, a medium layer of Leggo's Pizza Sauce, about 95g (11) pre-cooked prawns, about 75g of shredded smoked ham, about 30g of danish feta, one sliced orange mini capsicum, a third of a red capsicum diced, all the stalk from a bunch of broccolini and Mainland Finely Shredded Tasty cheese.  It's somewhat amusing to me that pizza (apart from broccoli soup) seems to be the greenest thing I eat!  I followed my pizza up with a navel orange for dessert and then brushed my teeth.  The sooner I brush my teeth the less likely I am to eat again.
  That's about it really.  There's still a few hours before bed and I may well do some more cleaning here at my desk before I retreat to my new mattress and my book.
  So much organising to do, so little time....
  Jess

August 3 - IKEA On Foot

  I awoke early, thankfully for once, and it wasn't long after that I received a phone call from the Super AMart delivery guys saying they'd be here in half and hour!  Oh no!  I hadn't finished clearing the space in the lounge of debris, let alone vacuuming it ready for a new couch!  All the flotsam and jetsam has therefore wound up in the spare room to be tidied away or thrown out this weekend.

  It was done just in time for the arrival.  The new couch was carried into position, complete with two layers of &%$#ing plastic wrap to fill the bin I already forgot to put out yesterday, and the new mattress wedged into the doorway of my bedroom.  So of course it was time to break for breakfast.  Mr Smart had a coffee, though he's not a big fan of instant these days, and I had yoghurt, berries, fibre toppers and a small handful of slivered almonds for some extra crunch.  It was yummy!

  That out of the way we set to cutting off the wrapping.  Within the wrapping we found not only my lovely 3-seater with chaise raisin-coloured microfibre-covered couch, but also two mysterious cardboard boxes within it.  On opening I realised that there was a little assembly to do... it was the wooden feet of the couch.  The salesman somehow glossed over that little feature.  Still, it wasn't all bad, I got to play with my drill.  No wait!  It was that bad and Mr Smart and I both got sore hands from turning the damn screwdrivers so much, even after pre-drilling the holes!!  Eventually victory was ours!  And here it is:

The coffee table will be leaving as it's too big but I thought the roses deserved another shot!

  The funniest thing was, on doing the obligatory sit and sprawl tests, we realised that when fully extended, Mr Smart still needs an ottoman at the end of the chaise!  Next we moved the new mattress out of the doorway and removed my old mattress to the nature strip in front of my house.  It is hard rubbish collection next week!  By the time the new mattress was on the bed and the bed made we were both just about ready to go back to sleep!  All that happened by 11:00am!

  But alas, sleep was not on the agenda today.  Mr Smart had things to attend to so he set off home.  I just had time to have a quick shower (well quick-ish, well quick for me anyway) and get dressed before Captain Cupcake arrived.  Today was her day off work too so it was off to IKEA for lunch and a walk about.

  My house is only about 1km from the IKEA store and it was looking a beautiful blue-sky sun-shiny day so we walked.  I had the good sense to take a backpack as I didn't think carrying bags home with sore hands would be very fun.  We got there in good time and headed to the IKEA Restaurant first for lunch.

  The standard choice for lunch or dinner at IKEA has to be köttbullar med grӓddsås och sylt lingon samt potatismos (Captain Cupcake you may correct my terrible Svensk grammatik if you so wish).  For those non-Swedish speakers, meatballs with cream sauce and lingonberry jam with mashed potatoes, in case you hadn't guessed.  However, since last night was a bit of a blow out, I decided to go to the other Scandinavian mainstay, fish!

  I had a small bread roll and butter, marinated cured salmon with root vegetable salad, water, a garden side salad (no dressing) and a small and slightly too sweet rhuburb crumble tart.  Four weeks ago I would not have said too sweet but these days, fruit seems to be more my speed.

  Thus nourished we set off around the maze of display rooms.  I was chiefly interested in investigating new coffee tables.  The Lack side-table is a steal at $9.99 but alas, once I checked at home, it is too short to go over one of my new ottomans, but only by a frustrating 2cm!!  I think it would fit entirely inside a Hol side-table but they are ten times the price!  At that sort of price I will end up making my own coffee table!

  I did end up with a few small purchases; two Malin Löv cushions, one Rationell Variera white box for putting veggies in the crisper drawer in to and one packet of Knӓckebröd Flerkorn (which is a multigrain crispbread but doesn't it sound awful!).

  Of course by the time we left, our beautiful sunshine was gone and it was raining.  Typical Melbourne really.  We got a little damp but it cleared up half-way home.  I did have to stop on the way home though to take this picture in the front of someone's garden.  There was a sea of this plant completely bejeweled in freshly fallen rain!  It was an amazing sight.

  Once home Captain Cupcake and I watched the first TV watched from my new couch!  We watched an episode of some crime show which showed how forensic anthropology was used to catch "The Killer Clown" John Wayne Gacy and identify his victims remains then we watched some John Pinette stand up comedy called I'm Starvin'.  While we watched TV we vegged out and snacked on some Arnott's Vita-Weat Multigrain Rice Crackers with some Black Swan Sautéed Spinach with Almonds and Roasted Garlic Dip!  For a snack that's a lot of words and probably more calories than I care to admit but at least I waited until I had someone to share it with.

  What I probably should not have done today, is respond to Captain Cupcakes "It's a shame I missed out on Indian, I'm just getting into it" with "Well it's just up the road, we could go for dinner tonight."  I enjoyed it, and I tried to make healthier choices like a vegetarian Daal Makhani and wholemeal roti instead of fluffy butter naan, but at the end of the day, two big meals in two nights has me feeling pretty bloated and blah right now.

  My only respite from the blah and regret for pigging out a second night in a row has been playing with Bertie on facebook.  We have just finished posting, alternating with one another verse by verse, The Mock Turtle's Song or Lobster Quadrille by Lewis Carroll on her best friend's facebook wall.  We are currently halfway through The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Anonymous.  I hope her best friend laughs as hard as I have.

  My plan for the weekend is to devote my time to cleaning, putting out hard rubbish for collection, exercise and getting my eating back to basics! And hopefully see Mr Smart again too!  Have a great weekend all!

  Jess

August 2 - Best Halfiversary Ever

  Now I'm going to gloss over my mostly humdrum day so that I can get to the good stuff!

Can you tell which is which?  They both look gross!

  I woke up hungry today.  I don't just mean, "Oo brekkie would be nice" hungry, I mean tummy growling nasty mean hungry.  I made it till I was showered and dressed and then breakfast was two wholemeal crumpets, one spread with a little butter and Vegemite and the other spread with Nutella. 
  My hunger continued almost unabated with only minor respite granted by my morning snack, a large granny smith apple, cored and cut into 8 pieces.

Yawn... Though quite tasty.

  Lunch was a toasted sandwich of two slices of Bürgen Soy-Lin bread, a smear of Rosella Reduced-Joule Fruit Chutney, one slice Bega Extra Light Tasty cheese, one small tomato, about 62g of Beechwood smoked leg ham, some baby cos lettuce (added after toasting) and a medium slightly ripe banana.  Work lunches seem to be relatively easy to keep consistent and health.  Routine helps I think.
  Even after all that I still needed a navel orange at half past three for an afternoon snack!
  Dinner was to be a bit of a treat.  Mr Smart came over tonight especially to help me with the furniture ready for tomorrow's delivery of the new couch and mattress so I ordered us an Indian takeaway as he's been pining after my local place's Prawn Malai curry for a few weeks now.  We decided what we were having (Tandoori Chicken, Prawn Malai, Goat Meat Curry, Raita, Pappadums, Saffron Rice and yummy wholemeal Roti) then I rang and ordered and we whiled away the time until it was ready to pick up.
  Now ordinarily Mr Smart would come with me on the short car ride to pick up dinner but tonight he declined and I thought nothing much of it.  He has a lot of reading to do for uni (which he is doing now as I write) so I just figured he wanted to catch a couple of chapters while he could.  Until I got home...
  Knock knock. "Who is it?" laughed Mr Smart from inside the nice warm cosy house.  "It's me" I sing-songed back, laughing.  So the door was opened, in I stepped laden with delicious bounty, was greeted with a hug, "Happy Halfiversary" grinned Mr Smart
and then I spotted this:

That's right ladies.. Wine, Roses, Chocolates AND Lego!

  I was speechless, ecstatic, excited, romanced, giddy and alternating between hugging him madly and going "Oh my god! When did you? How? Oh wow, those are the basil chocs from Shocolate! This is so amazing.  You're the best. Wow" And other such 'speechless' and overwhelmed blurts.  I didn't stop grinning for ages and Mr Smart was very patient waiting for dinner while I photographed everything.
  Once I regained my senses and remembered the food resting in bags on the floor we got down to eating.  I've already listed what we ate, yes I ate too much of it but my blood sugar reading after two hours was still only 7.0 so I was quite pleased with that.

Yes, you can see two glasses of wine; turns out I quite like a glass of Moscato.

  After dinner we spent one last night on the current couch watching The Prestige.  Very enjoyable movie.  A mystery through and through, right to the end.
  So that is it for today.  A wonderful day.
  Happy Halfiversary Mr Smart xo
  Jess

August 1 - Well Begun Is Half-Done

  I finished taking my course of Ranitidine last night!  Woohoo, two pills a day less!  But my finger prick test this morning was a struggle.  It took me about three tries to get a droplet of sufficient size to get a reading.  It wasn't just blood thought, after such a late night my whole body was sluggish.  It took a lot of will power and reminding myself that I get paid for being there, to drag myself out of the doona cocoon!

  Breakfast was the standard yoghurt, berries and fibre toppers, though I'll admit the wholemeal crumpets were sitting there and being very tempting.  They may get a look in tomorrow morning.  For my morning snack I decided to give something new a try.  I had one serve of belVita Breakfast Fruit & Fibre biscuits (4).
  I've decided I like these.  They have a low GI of 47 and they are a good enough substitute for a sweet biscuit.  My preference for sweet things is already on the grainy/nutty/fruity side so they will fit in nicely to stave off cravings.  I think one or two would go well with a cup of tea (though they are definitely not a dunking biscuit).  Texturally they are a bit like a Wheaten biscuit but flavour wise they are a little more toasted-fruit-muesli-ish.
  I got some more recruitment stuff done today and actually managed to make my desk look a little tidier by lunch time which was a nice feeling.  I hate when it's all disorganised but it always seems to end up that way.  Part of that might be my reluctance to thrown anything away and also my seeming inability to finish each task before beginning a new one!

  Lunch today was a toasted sandwich of two slices of Bürgen Soy-Lin bread, one slice Bega Extra Light Tasty cheese, one small tomato, about 62g of Beechwood smoked leg ham, some baby cos lettuce (added after toasting) and one panama passionfruit.
  I got to do a pleasant task in the afternoon, I sent out the invitations for my right-hand gal's goodbye lunch.  It's funny because she normally handles all the catering for meetings and things I made it clear that she didn't have to cater her own lunch but she said "No I'll do it, then I'll get exactly what I want!"

  In the afternoon when I got peckish I was a little hungrier than normal so I had a nut snack pack and a Kiwi fruit with the skin on.  Say what you will, but I really enjoy eating a Kiwi that way.
  When I did the banking I quickly nipped into Harris Scarfe on the way back to the office to see if they stocked the Breville Fast Slow Cooker that I'm after.  No they didn't.  In fact that means no one at Forest Hill does because I've already checked BigW and Target!  The helpful Harris Scarfe sales lady suggested I try Harvey Norman so I guess that'll be a job for the weekend!  Or perhaps Friday if there is time after my furniture gets delivered.
  On the way home from work I stopped at Super AMart to pay the balance of my furniture order then it was straight home and onto the cross trainer for a Buffysworth (I've decided that an interval of 40 minutes shall forever more be known as such).  I was ravenous after that and this has not been a strong week for forward planning so it was down to Lean Cuisine Creamy Salmon & Dill Pasta again.
  I never used to like fish much, except for when Mum made smoked cod with fishy custard (trust me).  I always managed to find bones to choke on.  My granny in fact told me one day that I was just like my great-grandfather.  We could both find bones in tinned tuna apparently.  This was of course implying I occasionally feared finding them more than I actually found them.  That's all well and good and very likely true at the time, but the unexpected bone in my Lean Cuisine tonight was no imagined peril.
  It was big and I didn't find it, it found me, by lodging in my throat.  I managed to wash it down with a mouthful of water so large that the very act of swallowing it forced some out of the sides of my mouth and all over my top.  I can laugh now, but living alone it was a reasonably scary prospect while it happened.  I chewed much more cautiously after that.
  After dinner I enjoyed 20g of Lindt 85% Cocoa dark chocolate before getting on with the cleaning I've been meaning to do all week!  I chucked Disney's Rapunzel on the TV for company and tidied away the Lego from the weekend, then I cut up some cardboard boxes and put them in the recycling bin.  I rearranged some of the bulky items and put others by the door to leave the house with me in the morning.  Then I got distracted texting Mr Smart and then it was time to write today's blog so it's still not all done yet.
I expect I'll get there in the end.. whenever that is.
  Jess