August 20 - Back On The Wagon

  It's a constant struggle to stay "on the wagon" when you're talking about food.  It's not like you can just give it up cold turkey like you can cigarettes or alcohol.  You need food.  The last couple of weeks have seen some ups and downs and plenty of eating out moments, some of which I could've made better choices at and I feel like I wasn't on the cross trainer often enough either.
  But that was last week, and one of the key things I'm trying to do is to not let last week affect the next week.  I weighed myself this morning, I am now 117.6kg.  That takes my total weight loss so far to 9.1kg since the 1st of July.  I don't mind saying, I'm pretty £¥©#ing wrapped with that!  That certainly provides motivation to keep at it.  The things I am doing so far are clearly working.
  I was running late this morning but I wanted to make sure I was getting back to my good habits so I ran ten minutes later and sat down and ate my breakfast of yoghurt, berries and fibre toppers.  Keeping to a regular routine a majority of the time seems to be important in helping me stay on track.
  When I got to work I was reminded that we had an accounting intern with us at the centre today so he spent the first couple of hours today with me.  Plenty of my work ends up as a bunch of numbers in the accountant's hands so I showed the intern what I do to produce some of those numbers for them.  I like sharing that information, and gaining the same in reverse.  I think that understanding what happens before and after your link in the chain, ends up making you better at your own job.
  It was soon time for lunch after that and I headed over to Coles for the week's lunch supplies.  I made sure I got lots of fruit this time, mandarins, kiwi fruit, tamarillos, a couple of passionfruit and a banana.  I didn't buy lots of bananas because they always ripen too quickly, so I will just buy a greenish one whenever I want one.
  For today's lunch I had a sandwich of two slices of Bürgen Wholemeal & Seeds bread spread with a sixth of a Reed avocado, topped with a handful of rainbow salad, one slice of Bertocchi Triple Smoked Ham with the fat trimmed off (about 73g) and some cucumber slices.  I also had a Honey-Murcott mandarin and a small Kiwi Fruit with the skin on.  I saved the small slightly green banana for my afternoon snack.

  I was greeted by a pleasant email this morning.  At the Women in Business Expo and Luncheon I attended last week I entered the draw for a 'Sustainability Pack' from Whitehorse City Council.  Turns out I won!  I collected my prize from the Council's office in the centre after lunch.  It contained:

• A ripple Shower Timer and Clock.
• A 225g can of República 100% Fair Trade Drinking Chocolate.
• A 100g jar of global cafe direct Arabica Fair Trade Organic Instant Coffee.
• A City of Whitehorse branded keep cup.
• A box of 100 universal village Fair Trade Organic Ceylon Black Tea Bags.
• A 4MyEarth Sandwich Pocket.
• A City of Whitehorse fold-up calico carry bag.
• An Onya Weigh set of 5 tulle bags for buying fruit and veg 'plastic bag free'.
• A 500g box of Eaternal Organic Soapnut Shells (a natural cleaning product) .
• A 100g block of Cocolo Fair Trade Organic Orange Dark Chocolate.
• A 100g block of Cocolo Fair Trade Organic Mint Crisp Dark Chocolate. 

  I took home the shower timer as I believe I am in desperate need of one.  Since I had an instant hot water system installed a few months back I now have mains pressure hot water and while having mountains of hot water has definitely improved the quality of my shower, it's done little to convince me to get out any quicker!  In fact it's now so much like heaven on earth that I'm reluctant to ever leave its steamy confines.  Hopefully the pretty timer will help a little. I let the rest of the staff in the office have-at the other items, share and share alike (and it saved me from going home with any chocolate).

  When I got home I got on the cross trainer and did my Buffysworth of exercise then made myself a homemade pizza.  It was a wholemeal Khobz flatbread spread with Leggo's Pizza Sauce, around 110g of shredded ham, six bambini bocconcini cut in halves, some mushrooms, some rainbow salad and some Mainland Finely Shredded Light Tasty cheese. This one wasn't as great as usual.  I think I went overboard on the rainbow salad because it all needed to be used up today.  I don't like wasting food, even though I do, so I'm trying not to where possible.  Also the Khobz wasn't the freshest.  C'est la vie, a little more planning still required.

  After dinner I worked a little further on cleaning up my desk.  I can actually see desk now!  My keyboard is also no longer wobbling from resting on top of a pile of things.  There's still a way to go yet, but I will just slowly keep at it like the proverbial tortoise.

  I should probably head to bed now.  I have to remember to be in the office early tomorrow morning and I won't be home until quite late so I'm ambitiously thinking I might attempt getting up very early and doing my cross trainer before my shower.  I'll know as soon as the alarm goes off whether I've made a terrible mistake or not...

  Jess

August 19 - Demotivated Sunday

  So it turned out that Mr Smart was right about a home team advantage.. he wasn't happy about being right though.  We didn't get to bed until 2am after Liverpool's regrettable 3-Nil loss to West Brom.  However, I woke up feeling surprisingly rested this morning.  Despite not moving around much overnight, I wasn't stiff or tired and was surprised to find that it was only 8:30am!  Curses at waking up early on a Sunday, curses I say!!
  I procrastinated rising for a while, choosing instead to lavish attention on Pizza Cat while I had the chance.  She was a little annoyed at having had such a large portion of her sleeping space usurped so it seemed the right thing to do.

Dulsão do Brasil

  I got up briefly to grab a Nespresso pod coffee made by the ever-thoughtful Mr Smart then retreated back to bed to enjoy it.  I am most definitely not a frequent coffee drinker but this was lovely.  It was mild enough that it needed no sweetening and it was topped with lovely warm frothy milk.
  When I got up properly, I set about making us a cooked breakfast.  I had one slice of wholemeal toast topped with a fried egg over-easy (which I botched a bit) and one rasher of crispy short cut bacon and a large side of mushrooms fried in butter.  I was hungry and my breakfast looked ugly but delicious, so of course I forgot to photograph it.
  Mr Smart said he'd happily let me make him seconds in order to photograph it but I laughed and declined his most generous and helpful offer.  It was soon 10am and time for me to get going.  Bertie was coming to pick up her sofa today and Mr Smart needed to work on his writing and assignments so I headed off home.
  Once I got home, any motivation I may have had evaporated.  I sat at my desk blankly for a good couple of hours aimlessly surfing the net until finally I realised part of my lack of motivation was now hunger.  Unfortunately, my stomach didn't insist loudly enough and Bertie rang to say she was on her way to Super AMart to help me pick up my Tub Chair.  I grabbed my keys and walked down (it's only about 650m).
  We picked it up in the trailer they hired and drove it back to my place then swapped it for the old two-seater sofa and huge heavy coffee table (I need to get a new coffee table now but I want something of specific dimensions so I may end up making one).  A big thank you to Bertie and family for helping me with the furniture move around.
  With that all taken care of my stomach was finally in control so at about 3pm I finally ate lunch.  Again, no photo, it was just a Lean Cuisine Creamy Salmon & Dill Pasta followed by 17g of Balance sugar-free dark chocolate.  It did perk me up a little so I laid away the laundry from the clothes horse and moved yesterday's load inside and put on a new load then I started idly sorting some of the filing on my desk and laying it away.
  Then I saw a distraction pop up!  Mr Smart was on Steam so I suggested a few rounds of Ticket to Ride.  It's an online version version of a board game involving laying train tracks.  That sounds exceedingly geeky and it may well be but it's also really fun.  It's one of those games that is quick paced and easy to learn but very hard to master.  We played one game in each of our three maps (USA, Europe & Switzerland) and I won best two out of three.. though I must say, it's the first time we've played in ages and that is not the normal state of affairs I can assure you.
  Mr Smart went back to his study after that and I went on with my desk tidying.  I'm pleased to say that I managed to gather up all my tax documents!  Woohoo!  Now I can ring and make an appointment with the accountant to submit it all, tax return here I come!  This year I am going to try to save my tax return.
  For dinner tonight I made two melts on Bürgen Wholemeal & Seeds bread.  The first one was topped with half a 90g tin of Sole Mare Tuna in olive oil, a thinly sliced gherkin and a slice of Bega Extra Light Tasty cheese.  The second one with a 130g tin of Heinz Baked Beanz and another slice of Bega Extra Light Tasty cheese.  They only took ten minutes in my little Ronson Toaster Oven.  I also indulged in another 17g of chocolate!

  Music is a big part of my life and tonight as I wrote my blog and chatted to Jack on facebook I was listening to Firewater's 2001 album Psychopharmacology.  It's not really a dark album, although it does contain a song about American spree killer Howard Unruh, but it's not light either.  What it is, is a comfortable rocking beat of a background noise that keeps me going at a decent pace.  I have music on most nights as I write and it's very much mood dependent.  Not really relevant to weight loss and health I suppose, but an integral part of me nonetheless.
  Wow.. for a demotivated day I actually seem to have done a fair bit.  And it is well into bedtime now!  That's the trouble with staying up late on the weekend, you lose track of time once it gets to work the next morning.
  Goodnight all,
  Jess

August 18 - Double Exercise

  I got up around 10am today and procrastinated doing anything for an hour or so playing on my computer checking email, facebook, posting my photo a day challenge photo, printing out a map for my next round of elephant hunting.  Even though I planned to go elephant hunting today, which is a fair bit of walking, I decided to get on the cross trainer before my shower anyway.
  The main reason for doing the cross trainer on top of the walking is that, although walking is certainly better than sitting still, when I'm stopping every so often to take photos I barely break a sweat.  Even if I'm just looking around taking in the scenery I seem to walk slower than if I'm doing dedicated exercise on the cross trainer.  So I decided I could manage both today!  I may as well do lots while I'm enjoying it!
  By the time I finished my exercise it was half past twelve so for lunch I had a shower and dressed then had lunch.  I am wearing a pair of my awesome cotton toe-socks today!  In winter they seem to keep my feet warmer than normal socks.  Also, I love stripey socks!
  Lunch today was a sandwich made of two slices of toasted Bürgen Wholemeal & Seeds Bread, about a quarter of a Hass avocado, a slice of Bega Extra Light Tasty cheese and half a 90g tin of Sole Mare tuna in olive oil.  I was still a bit peckish after that so I followed it with four dried apricot halves, four brazil nuts, four almonds, two hazelnuts and two pecan nut halves.  With hunger abated I was able to focus on the next task in hand.  I packed my bag for tonight and set off into the city once more in search of Mali!

  I planned my Mali route to capture another ten in a similar location, this time the focus was on Southbank, along the Yarra River.  To see all ten of the Mali's I found today, click here and scroll down to the August 18 heading.  I also got to see a really cool professional graffiti wall at Crown Casino on Southbank and the giant honey bees at the Eureka Tower!  I'd never seen them from this angle before so I hadn't realised how many there were!  My route took me on a walk of about 3.8km and it took me about one and a half hours.  After I finished it was time to head to Mr Smart's place so I got in the car and headed out of the city.  I'm pleased to say, despite the fact it took me an hour to get only 13km due to traffic leaving the MCG, that I didn't get lost once!

  Tonight Mr Smart and I made homemade pizzas.  Mine was a wholemeal Khobz flatbread with Leggo's Pizza Sauce topped with four slices of low-fat salami, shredded ham, bocconcini, mushrooms, kalamata olives, baby broccoli stalk and light tasty cheese.  It was yummy!  I only had four (out of six) slices of mine and one slice of Mr Smart's pizza which had achovies (blech!) but was actually quite nice.  He puts bacon on top of the cheese which is not as crazy as it sounds at first.
  Mr Smart made mugs of green tea with fresh lemon juice and we watched the first of the Bledisloe Cup matches (well Mr Smart and his Dad watched, I curled up on the couch next to Mr Smart and half-watched and loaded up my elephant pictures and wrote my blog on my teensy little netbook).  It was a little difficult to know who to barrack for!  Mr Smart is an Aussie but he's New Zealand born and is a staunch All Blacks supporter but his Dad is a Wallabies man.  Sporting results don't really affect me either way, but it's always nice to see the Aussie side win.  Alas, that was not to be.  Although I wouldn't call it a walkover, it never really looked like the Wallabies were going to get up.  Now clearly it can't be as simple as the All Blacks just being the better team (I say with hand to eye) so there must be something intimidating to the Haka, though I still find it ridiculously funny.

Image by Joseph Lee

  It's about 10pm now and we are snuggling down to watch the rest of The Fellowship of the Ring and then at midnight it's the Liverpool vs West Bromwich Albion match!  I figure Liverpool will win as they are the stronger side, but Mr Smart assures me that since it's an away game, anything is possible.  We shall soon see! (Though Mr Smart obviously has more expertise in these matters.) 
I never thought I'd see the day when I was looking forward to a soccer match but once you understand some of the tactics it's a much more interesting game that it seems at first!
  Until tomorrow!
  Jess

August 17 - Spring Is Coming!

  I got up at 8am-ish today, had a shower, washed my hair, half-dressed, checked email and facebook, finished dressing, cursed as my socks started to get sucked into my sneakers, changed my socks and made breakfast.  Breakfast was a small bowl of berries and yoghurt.  I didn't feel like the fibre toppers today.  It was already around 9am and I knew I'd be eating lunch relatively early due to a car service this afternoon.
  The morning was unusually productive for me.  I loaded the dishwasher and set it going, sorted and laid away the Lego, sorted my laundry, brought in the almost dry load of laundray and put it on the clothes horse in the spare room, put a new load of laundry on, laid away the now clean dishes,  hung out the new load of laundry and then ate lunch!
  Lunch was my leftover pasta bake from Wednesday night zapped in the microwave.  It was even nicer than on Wednesday.  Some things are just nicer once they've had a bit of time to let the flavours mature and mingle.
  At about 12:30pm I headed off to Brighton Mazda.  Hester (my little green machine) arrived on time for her 50,000km service and I decided to go for a walk and take in the signs of the oncoming spring.  It was infinitely preferable to two hours of gazing numbly at trash mags in the stale waiting room.

  I walked from Brighton Mazda up Patterson Road to Jasper Road and back, a 3.2km round trip.  It took me a whole hour but that's because I kept pausing to take photos.  They were mainly of the new flowers but there is also a cool art installation under the rail bridge.  The installation inspired by the work of the artist Pamela Irving, she's the one that made that dog statue I photographed my nephew on last Sunday.  Anyway, her gallery and studio are on Patterson Road so when I passed I knocked and said hello.  She was busy working on some new pieces for Luna Park's 150th Birthday celebrations.  I didn't want to clog up the post with lots of photos of flowers though so click here if you would like to see the best 18 photos from my walk.
  Once I got back I made myself as comfortable as possible on their awful sofas and flicked through the April issues of Who Weekly, Famous and Grazia.  My poor mind went to sleep in protest.  Luckily the remaining hour passed quickly though and soon enough Hester was ready to roll.  She even had a wash! Woohoo!  Because since water restrictions I never wash my poor car.
  I got home at around 4pm and not long after, Captain Cupcake texted me to check we were still on for Indian tonight with our old friend Hagrid.  We were indeed! And I let her know I was home and she could come over whenever she liked, so she did.  Cupcake kept me company while I cleaned up the kitchen bench and put a few more dishes away.
  Tonight Cupcake and I went out to dinner at my favourite Indian restaurant Raju's Indian Restaurant with our old friend Hagrid and his partner.  He's been hiding her away for over a year now but I finally got to meet her!  A lovely lady, I can see why he's been so happy.
  While we perused the menus, we were served pappadoms with mint chutney and tamarind sauce.  We had soon all spotted something to try and ordered.  For entree the four of us had a Samosa each and shared a serve of Onion Bhaji with cucumber raita.

  For main course we shared four different curries, from left to right we had: Prawn Malai, Butter Chicken, Beef Murghal and Daal Makhani.  This was served with plenty of saffron rice and Cupcake and I split a wholemeal roti as well.

 

  After dinner Cupcake had to leave us for the night as some terrible fiend had conspired to have her awake at 6am on a Saturday!  The rest of us decided to watch Bill Bailey's Part Troll!  Hagrid and his partner had never seen Bill Bailey do stand-up but they have bought tickets for his new show Qualmpeddler in Melbourne at Hamer Hall in September.  I must confess, I didn't know he was coming, but I'm now sorely tempted to get tickets myself but Hamer Hall is such a big venue it's hard to tell if you'd be in a good position!  I hate to say it, but there are a lot of advantages to watching it on DVD instead.  But I love his stand-up, he's a story-teller and jester rather than a jokester.  He weaves these worlds and sucks you into them only to expose the ridiculousness.  I love it.

  Once they left I came into my office to write today's episode.  It's been slow today as I've had a lot to process and share but I was lucky to have further company tonight.  My sister-in-law MinxB kept me company on facebook chat sharing music with me.  Nightwish, George Michael, Shakira and many more.  She's fun to hang out.

  Oh, not that I got the official notification or anything but one other significant event occurred today; I am now officially divorced.  It doesn't really change anything for me, but it's still comforting to know it's over and done.
  Have a great weekend everyone.
  Jess

August 16 - Dinner & A Movie

 Yoghurt, berries and fibre toppers for breakfast today, which has reminded me to go and get berries out the freezer right now!  I managed to get to work early today (8:30am) so that I could leave early.  I had plans for tonight!  My morning snack was a navel orange.
   It was a bit of a busy work day today, broken up today with errands which is a nice change sometimes.  I had to go and buy welcome gifts for a couple of new team members for example.  I managed to resolve all but one of my financial discrepencies!  That one will get resolved too but I need information from an external party first so I'm playing the waiting game now.
  Super AMart rang me some time this morning to say my tub chair was ready for collection.  Yippee!  It's my last item to collect to complete my purchase.  Now I just need Bertie to come up and collect her sofa and help me pick it up because my car is too little!  Thank you in advance Bertie!
  For lunch I had pretty much the same as yesterday, a sandwich made with two slices of Bürgen Wholemeal & Seeds Bread, about a third of a Hass avocado mixed up with a handful of rainbow salad and two slices (100g) of D'Orsogna leg ham, one in the sandwich and one on it's own.
  The rest of the day passed pretty quickly.  The piles of assorted paperwork on my desk seemed to have reduced by the end of the day and that's always a comforting sign.  I also lined up some training on a new process for next week.
  I left work at 5:00pm and headed towards the city on the Eastern Freeway.  I was meeting Mr Smart at Cafe58 in Fitzroy for dinner.  It's his favourite restaurant and certainly my favourite in his local area.  I was in the right area by about 5:30pm but it took me three goes to find somewhere to park!  Everywhere is a clearway or a 15 minute loading zone until 6:30pm!  But I finally found a spot, fed the meter an obscene number of one dollar coins, and headed to the restaurant to the patiently waiting Mr Smart.

  Entree was Minced Beef in Betel Leaf, grilled and served with crushed peanuts and fish sauce which we shared.  It was 6 pieces for $8.  You can see Mr Smart was too eager to wait until after my photo!  I am struggling to be able to describe the flavour of betel leaf... it tastes like betel leaf is the best I can come up with.  Texturally I guess it is like steamed and grilled silverbeet (in this dish at least) but it has quite a unique flavour.

  For main course, Mr Smart had the Black Pepper Lamb (which I know to be awesome) and I had the Vietnamese Salad with Lotus Stem and Prawns which was $18 and huge, I needed help.  I've usually had the Vietnamese Salad with Rare Beef (divine!) but I decided to try a different variation tonight.  I wasn't disappointed.  The salad is cold and refreshing and has lotus stem (the white things), a generous number of prawns, carrot, mint, crushed and whole peanuts, garlic shoots and prawn crackers (I only ate 3) and fish sauce.
  After dinner we headed back to Mr Smart's place for a movie.  Tonight we watched The Bucket List, which was beautiful and sad and touching and made me cry.  We paused it to take my blood sugar which was only 6.4.  Lotus stems must be low GI!  Mr Smart guessed 6.3 so he was pretty close really.  The movie made me think about the one time I started a bucket list.  The first thing I put on it was 'learn to ride a camel'.  I can't think for the life of me why I thought of that but it was the very first thing and I still want to do it!
  It wasn't too late after The Bucket List finished so we then started on the first Lord of the Rings movie, The Fellowship of The Ring.  Mr Smart was dumbfounded as to how I could have avoided Peter Jackson's epic telling for so long.  We got as far as Rivendell and then it was time for me to head home and write tonight's blog.
Now that I've done that, it must be time for bed!
  Jess

August 15 - Doing The Numbers

  I felt much more chipper this morning.  About a half an hour after I posted yesterday's blog my phone rang.  It was 11:30pm at night so I ran for the phone knowing it could only be one special person.  Sure enough, my inquisitive hello was rewarded with the sound of Gub's voice.  She realised we hadn't talked in a while and had a funny story to tell me.  It was good to hear her voice.  It's like a big aural cuddle.
  She and I had a long chat while I got ready for and into bed.  We mused on the ways of the world, the pressures other people unknowingly put on us, our priorities in life and how we viewed ourselves and our upbringing.  We also examined in detail one of the big questions I've been contemplating and she helped me reach an important resolution on it, one that I am happy with.  Sisters are the absolute best.
  For breakfast, I had forgotten the berries again (yes, even after writing it in yesterday's blog) so I had two slices of toasted Bürgen Wholemeal & Seeds Bread spread with butter and Vegemite instead.  It made a nice change though I think the density will mean a darker toaster setting in future!
  I got through the morning without a snack.
I was trying to catch up on a data analysis task that's been sitting there waiting for attention for a while and I'm pleased to say that by the end of the day I had all the data entry side of it done so tomorrow I can focus on the discrepancies in the data!  Thrilling stuff I know, but I actually enjoy this task and I don't get to do it very often.  I like finding what went wrong in the figures and then fixing it!
  Also had a lovely email from Jodes this morning.  She sent me a link to a blog called [n-er-gise] which had some low-fat snacks ideas.  The low-carb banana bread recipe sounds particularly enticing!  Jodes has been really great since I started this whole thing.  She often sends me recipes, tips and interesting links so a big thank you to her!

  For lunch I had a sandwich made with two slices of Bürgen Wholemeal & Seeds Bread, about a quarter of a Hass avocado mixed up with a handful of rainbow salad (or broccoli slaw as Coles call it) and two slices (100g) of D'Orsogna leg ham followed up with a nice tart Tangelo.  As you can see, two slices of that ham is probably too much once you fold it to fit.  I think I will switch to one slice per sandwich next time I buy ham.  I like the D'Orsogna one though, it has a nice heavy smoke.
  I got through invoice entry this afternoon too, at least for those ones requiring prompts payment.  I did stay back a little tonight to make sure all my data entry was complete but I was soon home.  Tonight I actually made a plan for dinner.  Two nights ago I got the last serve of my chile con carne out of the freezer.  I find it takes two nights in the fridge to properly thaw something, but it's cool that it's not just dying of freezer burn!  I'm actually starting to think about what's in there and use it up!

  But I digress.. I put some water on to boil and put 100g (dry weight) of wholemeal/veggie spiral pasta on to cook.  In the eight minutes it takes to cook I put the chile con carne in my Pyrex Loaf Pan and gave it a stir, picked some lemons for Mr Smart, then got changed into my workout gear.  Once it was cooked I drained it and stirred it through the pasta and topped it with three slices of Bega Extra Light Tasty cheese and bunged it in the oven for 40 minutes at 160°C.  That's right, 40 minutes!  So I did my cross trainer and then dinner was ready!  It made two serves so I ate one and put the other in the fridge for an early Friday lunch.

  After eating I had a yen for some chocolate so I finally got to try the Balance 72% Cocoa Dark Chocolate with Cocoa Nibs that Captain Cupcake got for me last week!  It was a 100g block of 24 pieces so I broke it up into 6 serves of around 17g each.  It was odd at first.  The cocoa nibs meant crunchy bits and it has a crack to it reminiscent of compound cooking chocolate.  I really liked it though, the flavour was very pleasant once you adjusted to the texture.  Thank you Cupcake!

  Eating done for the day, I turned my attention to more numbers.  It was pay day today so of course I had to work out where it was all going this month.  Car service, new slow cooker hopefully, present for one of my nieces, dinners with friends, petrol, bills etc.  I think I'm getting better at budgeting slowly.  I'm actually managing to save a little, which will come in handy towards the end of the year!

  Then I did a little scheming and planning.  I know I said just yesterday I was going to try to live more in the moment, and I will, but some things require a little planning and forethought dammit!
  I also finally remembered the berries!  I had bought the half kilo bags of berries this time as it's a lot more economical that way, but I was mildly irritated at the thought of trying to measure out 75g each day (to match the sizing of the individual serves I've bought previously).  I needn't have worried.  It turns out that my smallest Tupperware container holds almost exactly 75g, so I will simply use that as my 'scoop' each day!
  Tonight has felt quite productive so I think I'll quit while I'm ahead and go get ready for bed.  I even have time for a little read!
  Jess

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