A month of vegan goodness.

I've signed on for Vegan MoFo, which will run from the 1st to 31st October. Just so your all warned, expect a month of posts and photos all about vegan food, my experiments and thoughts on it all.

Actually quite excited, I have been trying to cook my way through the cook books I have, hopefully I might even start on my cooking zines. I have asked for vegan cookbooks for my birthday, which happens next month as well. Hopefully even more new things to try.

Photo Heavy Post!

I've been on a bit of a baked goods drive recently and basically I cooked a load of muffins, photos follow.

Zucchini Spelt Muffins

Bakery Style Berry Muffins

Coffee Chip Muffins

 Blueberry Ginger Spelt Muffins

All of these come from the wonderful book Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.

Next plan is to attempt to try and cook something other than muffins from the Brunch book, eggless omelts and quiches have me really intrigued.

And one knitting photo...here is the now named As If! slouchy beret in progress. I am up to the last pattern repeat and then just decreasing and blocking to go.

For some reason whenever I look at it, I think of an octopus. I should make an octopus hat, I bet there is a pattern out there for one.

In the land of Vegan

I love the Book Depository, but we had a minor blip earlier this year and I was a tad cross with them for a moment.

I pre-ordered last year in prep for a January release of a paperback version of the Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz (or as I like to call her, the Vegan Nigella) and Terry Hope Romero. I counted down impatiently to the release date, the hardcover version had been out for ages but the paperback due to be released was half the price.
Release day rolled around, but the book wasn't released it simply showed as Currently Unavailable on the Book Depository. I e-mailed the BD after being unable to find any e-mails from them to me to find out what was happening regards my order since I had paid for the book.

And I got nothing back from them, the listing still showed up as unavailable. Being the impatient person I am, I e-mailed again and told them I wanted a refund since they didn't have the book to send me. Seconds later I got a reply to tell me they were only too happy to refund my money and it was all being processed right then.

When I saw the paperback listed once again for pre-order I ordered again, release day rolled around the 2nd time and it showed on my order as sent out and the listing showed it as available on the BD website.
The parcel arrived yesterday and on opening it I discovered they had sent me the hardcover copy! Squee, I thought, I've got the hardcover version for half price!

Only now I'm wondering if I should e-mail and let them know, they've sent the right book after all. And a superior version at that.

The other quandary I am having is about a local animal rights group's meetings. They are apparently meeting once a month at one of the vegetarian cafes in town. On the groups poster one of the things mentioned was cruelty free food, there's only so much animal welfare rights I can handle but it's very hard to look at vegan cooking and not be confronted with animal rights. Even when it's not physically there in the cook book it still is.
Vegetarian cook books seem to be coming from a different place however.

I was looking at this particular animal rights website and reading through past newsletters, which all seem to focus on animal rights and environmental impact on wildlife. But it often includes a vegan recipe, which has me tempted because I wouldn't mind meeting some other local veg/etarians.
There are some very good resources available, all very informative. The downside is that usually the vegan ones are all North American and the vegetarian are British. I am yet to turn up a good Australian resource for veg eating.

Still I suppose I should consider myself lucky to be able to choose what I do and don't want to eat. Being able to pop to the local shops and buy whatever you want is something I think I take a bit too much for granted.

What's eating Darkside Knitter?

I spent far too many years hating myself, it is far from productive and leads to the accomplishment of nothing.

Over the last 2 years I have learnt to be a bit nicer to myself, hence the greater success rate now than ever before. Before I had a sucess rate of zero. I attribute a lot of it to turning 30, it truly was a life changing event.
Old habits are hard to break, and I find those little niggling habits creeping back. That little voice that is so critical and then I find myself actually having those critical thoughts about myself again.

As you will know from my recent blog posts I have dipped my oar into vegan cooking and it was through this that I found the pick up me I was looking for. On a blog called Beyond Will Power, the latest post was Because even the beautiful people don't feel beautiful...

Before this I was watching a vodcast, looking at and thinking would it really matter if I discovered the cure cancer if I didn't look good in a bikini? Alright so curing cancer might be a bit of a stretch, I am not scientifically minded at all. The principal is the same though, does it matter how good I am at anything if I don't look good in a bikini? I was watching the host on the vodcast talking about women or more exactly talking about looking at women.
And I found myself back where I was 15 years ago, looking in the mirror and hating myself for not being perfect, not being beautiful enough.
Which had prompted me to look this clip up on You Tube of Mel Fyfe, a strong woman on a now defunct tv show here with Christa Hughes singing Bikini Parade. FYI: You'll have to skip forward ot the 4min mark to get the song, the first four minutes is Mel talking about and doing her strong woman act with the show's host.


I would have liked to linked in P!nk's F*cking Perfect here, but the first time I watched it I had to run away from my computer during the video as it made me so uncomfortable. Christa's Bikini Parade is much much more humourous.

Another month over.

Progress seems to be being made, suddenly everyone is really happy with me. Upside to all this is it appears my fertility is back, after years of girl issues it appears my body has finally righted itself.

Which is such a good thing, my body doing what it's supposed to do and if I come down on the Do I side of the Do I or Don't I baby debate, there's one less hurdle.

It seems highly apt that once I reach the stage were suddenly everyone else is happy, I'm not. I'm having a raging internal debate yet again about how I feel about my chosen degree. I have a love-hate relationship with my chosen major.
We had some very wet, very gray and gloomy days the other week and I guess I just haven't been able to pick myself up from it yet.

My cunning plan is working!

Got up today and tried on my jeans, I do this once a month to see if I can fit back into them. Last time I can recall wearing them is at least 10 years, ago. Today they fit!

I had an appointment with my doctor today, I was ready to go in armed with my loss of 4kgs over the last month and the fact I can fit back in my jeans after 10 years. Because I was expecting long faces and all doom and gloom with the light at the end of the tunnel being that oft referred to lapband.

I ended up keeping these little gems to myself, because today my Doctor was happy. We're going to get a good outcome with my weight problem. Oh really? Ye of little faith, I never doubted myself. I just needed a shove in the right direction.

And on the downside last Friday I had to have a wisdom tooth out, I ccould feel my IQ dropping as it came out. ;)
It's looking at least 6 weeks healing time, provided there's no infection - cue salt washes for my mouth. Not appatising but more better than an infection, it's painful enough now as well as being a mite uncomfortable from the stitches. This Friday the stitches come out, it will be a relief. I've been eating a lot of soup, mashed veg and yoghurt since last Friday. I miss chewing, there's a whole list of things I am going to cook up after the stitches are out.
Preferably something with chilli in it, I really need chilli!

Tattoos and Cliches

It must be at least 8, no maybe 9 months ago now my doctor told me I'd never lose any weight without lap band surgery. Flash forward to last month and it's now well realistically it'll be at least a 3 year wait maybe 2 if your lucky on the public waiting list so we should probably just keep going with what I have been doing and see how it continues to go.

I'd like to be able to say I told you so to him, but in actually fact I went off in a silent steam with the thought I'll show you running through my head. I think the victory is in some small way still mine.

Soon I make a return trip to my dietician, I fear I've done a bit too much socialising this last month too much going out for coffee or eating out for dinner. Hopefully my efforts to counter balance this will have paid off and the scales won't reveal anything too detrimental. All I'm hoping for really is not to have put any weight back on. If I've lost some it will be an added bonus at this stage.

I was reading an interview with a vegan tattooist based in California, and I was quite intrigued. I'm a huge fan of cruelty free cosmetics and personal products, I suppose cruelty free tattoos fit the bill as well.

Why am I talking about tattoos, cliches and weight loss? I think it has almost become a bit of a cliche, a lot of people seem to share the goal at the end of their weight loss to get tattooed. I feel I am adding myself to this cliche, not that I really mind, by saying hopefully come the end of the year provided I've made my goal I'll start looking locally for an artist that suits, if they use vegan inks it'll be an added bonus.
Although I have noticed a beauty spa at the other end of my state advertising vegan manicures and pedicures. I'm just pleased to see cruelty free becoming easier to find.

Today I went out for lunch, and afterwards I did some shopping and spent my Christmas cash.

And this is what I bought....a new bag!


Unfortunately they took all the stuffing out in the shop before packing it in a bag, so it lost some of its ability to sit up by itself. Soon as I saw it I knew I had to have it, it was just so me!

While at lunch we were talking about how the higher an IQ a woman has or the more well educated she is, the lower her chances become of getting married. Which got me thinking about P!nk and her song Stupid Girls. And also about the lust of my life Matt Hardy, just recently on Twitter there was a bit of a cringe inducing flirting with a girl who if I'm honest strikes me as an idiot based on how she comes across on Twitter.
Then people got a bit upset with Matt and wrote to him on Twitter telling him so, stuff kind of got toned down and he was very quick to assure everyone they were just friends and they were just joking.
Lately Matt's been flittering (a word I made up to describe flirting on Twitter) with a woman who comes across as much, much more intelligent. Probably doesn’t hurt she's gorgeous to boot. So far there doesn’t seem to be mass indignation or declarations of horror. I find this very interesting. Very interesting indeed.

Now I don't know what this means to other people, but for me it meant all my fantasies of intelligent conversation got revived after being totally dashed. Because idols after all have to be perfect. ;)

Waiting at home for me when I returned from town today was a parcel and in it was this!

It's a Bokashi Bucket which you can read all about here. I don't have a garden to empty it into, but it has a very tight fitting seal so I should be able to transfer the container to my family's home and into their garden to bury the waste from it. I've been talking about buying one of these forever, and well New Year and new starts and all that jazz here it now is!

Tomorrow is menu planning day, I must get around to getting it organised. And also plan out some more or less ready to go meals that are shelf stable, Velish soups have been given the big tick here.

The Challenge

I saw my dietician just after new year, I've maintained over Christmas, the best we could hope for.
The next challenge in our process, is to start adding in kilojoule counting.

Now the whole eating process goes like this measure quantities out, write it down in food diary and now count the kilojoules for the day. Like I really needed any more obsessions with food. Still I suppose this is a good set, and in theroy provided I can stick to my daily kj limit I should have lost the required weight by the end of the year.

First major step is working on meal planning, picking 3 breakfasts and 3 lunches, sort of just cycling through to start with.
Elimanting too much choice to start with seems to be key, not needing to decide means hopefully I won't eat what ever random thing I find in my fridge. Half a block of chocolate and a tub of yoghurt is not really a balanced meal.

Admittedly when I saw the dietician for the first time, 2 months ago and we were talking about my eating habits they didn't come off as sounding too bad. Granted if I'd seen the dietician 8 months ago and they asked me what my eating habits were like, they were embarrsingly atrocious. So very bad.

Dinner is the less effort one, really, I just have to pick things that can be both cooked and bulk and frozen.
Both semesters last year I had a late evening class, and I have to drive through a take-away hub to get home from that class. It was so much easier just to get something to go rather than go home and actually cook something.

New year, new start, and hopefuly to continue as we mean to go on. That copy of Appetite for Reduction is really going to come into play here now.

New Year, New Ideas?

I do have quite a few pictures from Christmas, and lots of stuff to write about both Christmas and New Year. I think that can all wait, because once again I have been over thinking things.

I have been watching a lot of 30 Rock, if you read regulary you'll know I bought Season 2 with gift cards from last Christmas as there were no copies of Season 1 in stock.
I've finished all of Season 2 and since picked up Season 1 on sale so I'm now halfway through these episodes.

And as it approaches the end of year/moving into the new year, I start thinking about what I have done with my past year and what I hope to do with the coming year. There's also a bit of debate about what I'll be doing in 5 years, or 10 years, or where and what I'll be doing 50 years from now. Too much thinking!

Back to 30 Rock and the fabulous Tina Fey charactor Liz Lemon, during season 1 we see her holding the make-up artisits baby and walking the studio hallway to entertain the baby and then suddenly Liz finds herself in her apartment with the baby.
Here is were the continuing story line of Liz Lemon and her desire to have a baby stems from, Liz Lemon 30-something single career gal. Yeah I think we can all see the how this will unfold.

While trawling the interwebs reading up on veganisim and vegetarnisim I was reading some parenting and family threads on some of these forums, I'll admit it's sort of interesting to read other people's dramas and exclaim to my computer screen "Who are these people????" because my family is so mellow evidently.
I was reading a thread by a not yet 30-something girl, talking about if not settled down with someone in the future to start a family, adopting as a single parent.

This thread combined with Liz Lemon had me thinking about me and what I want in my future, children are something other people have. I've always figured there'd be plenty of time if it was for me after all. There was so much I wanted before "settling", so many places I wanted to see, things to I wanted to learn (although I have learnt music and languages are not my forte at all), so much to do and it seemed so much time to do it in.

You know what? There isn't, there really isn't. I don't know how many people saw the Australian documentary Maverick Mother, described as follows from the site as:

SHORT SYNOPSIS
Tired of waiting for the perfect partner, and alarmed by the deafening tic-toc of her biological clock, 39-year-old filmmaker Janet Merewther decides to take life into her own hands and embark on a journey into the new social phenomenon of solo motherhood by choice.

I'm thinking is this going to be me in 10 years? Because from past experience 10 years is barely scratching the surface, I don't actually know what the next 10 years holds or how it will unfold.
There is so much I want to do, and when you have kids, you have to make sacrifices, you can't expect to live the way you did pre-kids.
Someday always seemed an appropiate time frame for having kids, someday dosen't seem quite as viable any more. Now it seems more like it needs a firm time frame, you know x amount of years. Which is a tad a scary actually.

At last, my Christmas has come along,

First I have a few things to talk about before I get on to Christmas. Today I had my second weigh-in in, well, forever really and it turns out since last fortnight I've lost a kilo and a half. Nobody was more surprised than me, I don't actually own a set of scales, I really don't believe in them.
Personally I'm less obsessed with a set of numbers and more obsessed with how I look in my clothes or if I can get back into my jeans already.

Now getting back to my weigh-in, and my surprise I knew it was happening but I can't say I've gone out of my way to do extra to help it along. Especially given the pavlova and eggnog I quaffed just yesterday. In a way I have been slightly aware of making better choices to eat and of course workign on portion control by actaully measuring what I am eating. A tedious but necessary evil!
I have also managed to totally curb my peanut butter eating, and the cheese.

After this triumphant piece of news, and content with the knowledge I probably could indulge in a piece of Xmas pudding and cream (or maybe light cream?) I scurried off to K-Mart to seek out So Fresh Christmas 2010 CD, I must admit my disappointment at their lack of choice of other Christmas cd's normally they have loads of choice. Not this year, but no fear as I downloaded Twisted Sister's Twisted Chrisstmas through iTunes and Miss Stash bought the Glee Christmas album. New Christmas music glut! Although I must confess the Twisted Sister one is the best.
Glee as much as I love it is just a tad too chipper Disney sounding.

Anyway while I was at the K-Mart I had a very joyous moment, I found Season 1 of 30 Rock, you may remember from a previous post where I talked about only be able to find Season 2. Not only did I find Season 1, it was only $16!
This was followed by another happy thought when I remembered I still hadn't finished watching all of Scrubs Season 1 yet. I've still got half a season to go. Take that bad summer tv!

Another thing I am aiming to do over summer is to try and see my way to the end this time of the Roller Derby Workout Challenge.
Other things I like to give a try over summer is try on some more vegan cooking for size and dip my toe into the raw food movement.

This is my tribute to Christmas...


Probably would have been cheaper to just buy the chocolates, but I think it was worth it to pay the extra to get the benefit of someone else's time and expertise.

No other cooking yet, but I'll try to get pictures of anything I do get round to making this Christmas.

Don't Cha

Dont cha wish your life was fun like mine? Dont cha, dont cha?

"To look at you, you wouldn't think you were very energetic. But the way you jumped out of that chair and leaped into my office, your obviously naturally very energetic. Don't resist it." - My doctor to me on my last visit.

It's a good thing I am so energetic as earlier this week I had to leg it down to the back garden of a two-storey house in a big hurry. The Daft White Cat and I have been house sitting. It's now over, and I never once managed to convince Miss Stash to have a vegetable curry. Sad.
Back to the story at hand, I only open the doors onto the balcony that had fly screens to keep the DWC in. Only I had to open one that didn't to chase a fly out, DWC also got out.

While I'm trying to move outdoor furniture to retreive him from where he was hiding, I just saw the white tail and back legs disappearing into a tree that grows next to the balcony. I rushed downstairs and out into the garden, over to the tree. No sign of him under it, peer over fence into neighbours garden no sign of him there. I'm trying to peer up into the tree thinking maybe he is stuck up there and I need to find a ladder to get him down. No DWC in the tree either.

He was gone, there I was standing in the garden convinced I've lost him for good and feeling all sad, when I catch sight of something white under some bushes about 5 meters away from the tree.
It was a DWC, completly oblivious to the panic he's caused me, merrily sniffing the plants in the garden. I was thrilled to find him. Alas the DWC was more thrilled with the garden than with me.

Snaffled up and brought back into the house, I'm panicking about him, the DWC? Just capers about the house like nothing happened at all. We had a one sided conversation where I informed the DWC he might have 9 lives, but I have only 1 and it's been considerably shortened by him climbing into trees off balconys. It ended when the DWC rushed to the window to watch birds flying outside.
I know when I'm defeated, another battle to the cat, at this rate I think I should just concede the war and be done with it.

Once a week since I've been doing the Healthy For You, I have to do the naked eyeball. Stand in front of the mirror naked, and eye myself off as I do quarter turns. This week I have shrunk, which I'm pleased about. So far I have one of two results, I've shrunk or nothing's obviously changed at all. So far, touch wood, to my delight I haven't actually been putting anything on anywhere. Yes! I rock.

I can also touch my toes, which seems incredible, it's been years since I've been able to do that. This is surely a good sign?

Not the so positive, I failed my accounting unit and will need to repeat it this year, which I am a tad annoyed about because it now I have to post pone another 2 subjects that I need to have it for.
Really a) I struggled on the exam so I'm not surprised this happened.
b) I struggled during the semester so not surprised about a)
c) Loads of people (me included) failed to pass the in semester test. About 10 people actually passed, the rest of us got not close, quite not close or perhaps you should reconsider your subject choices level of marks.

End result? I suspect I'll spot a few familiar faces when I re-do the subject.

Something I am madly in love with at the moment is e-books. They tend to be really cheap, there's no extra cost for postage and they arrive almost instantly!

Just before Halloween I bought Wicked Treats from Bittersweet. I haven't actually made anything from it yet sadly. But am intrigued about the licorice recipe. I haven't really baked or made any sweet things in forever, well apart from a couple batchs of muffins loaded with fruit.
Christmas is approaching now's the time to make goodies and give them away I suppose.

Last month I bought the EtsyVeg Team's World Veg Day Cookbook, haven't made anything out of this either. Trouble is I am notoriously bad about cooking for myself. And the rest of the family just can't be enthused about vegetarian food. Who are these people? And how is it that I can actually be related to them???

The latest e-book purchase or should I say purchases was for Potluck Mania zine number's 1 and 2. These I've only just got, but they are full of yummy things. And I totally want to hijack the Thanksgiving menu for a Christmas one. Pumpkin Spice Bread with Streusel Topping how good does that sound?

While I've always been down with vegetarianism, I always was a bit sceptical about vegans. My mind has been changed, I can't see myself tagging myself with that title any time soon. I like wool and alpaca yarns way too much to forgo them forever.
But I am now intrigued about raw foodists, it is a vegan diet, but nothing is cooked as such. Although the one book I have seen on the subject things were "cooked" in a dehydrator, food couldn't be heated past a certain tempature to be considered "raw". I think it would be a fascinating topic to know more about and even experiment with, but I can surely say it wouldn't be a lifestyle of choice for myself.

Pretty quiet on today's front. Had a session of Mari Winsor's pilates with a resistance band this morning, a lot of fun but I'm not really very stretchy. Ah well with practice I suppose.

Tonight before bed I am hoping to do some relaxtional yoga, see if it helps me settle down and sleep better at night.

Last night I tried to tape the first episode in a series called Mistresses, it's hosted by that woman who's name I've forgotten but co-hosted Scrap Heap Challenge with Robert Llewellwyn (aka Kryton from Red Dwarf - took ages to figure out why he seemed familiar).
Anyway back to Mistresses last night's episode was meant to be interviewing Jeffrey Archer's (some British dude is all I know, think he writes books?) ex-mistress, a serial mistress, a dominatrix and a mistress who had a child with her married lover. And also the bit I was most interested in, talking about one of history's most famous mistresses, Cleopatra.

Only it must have been bad reception last night on the channel, because the sound works fine but I have a lot of problems with the picture freezing up.
I was highly insulted, a study found they said men prefer blondes, followed by red heads for mistresses and brunettes for wives. Second to blondes???
Although I will confess I'm less miffed about not being a bride, would you eat the same food everyday at all meals and be happy? No I'd be bored in no time. I do object both morally and selfishly to having to share, when your with me, it's only me! But still second to blondes.

A German study a few years ago released results that said that red headed women were the most passionate at playing chess. Although if using a board game analogy perhpas Twister would be better. Unless it's a woman in a commited relationship who is dying her hair red, in which case she's subliminally advertising to other men that she's currently unsatisfied playing Twister with her current partner.

Now you'll have something to think about with your hair colour now won't you? Especially if your dying it something other than your natural colour!

My date with diestiny

I had my appointment with my dietition today, I am very excited. My diet is pretty good, I need ot keep eating what I'm eating but just less of it. Too much of a good thing can also add weight if your not using it all up.

My peanut butter addiction has to be curbed, working off current consumption, I'm at 15kg a year! And given I'm eating quantities that gives me an energy intake equivelent to a full meal, so not good. Especially given that I've probaly had the PB as a snack from the jar pre-dinner....eep!

I've come away also more aware about glycemic loading (different again to glycemic index), carb exchange and the start of calorie/kilojoule counting (I can pick which ever I prefer).

And the really good part? I seem to be getting enough protien to meet my needs, without actually needing to increase my meat intake. Something I have been hoping to avoid.

Oh and I also scored a free tape measure, bonus! And I have had my fears about the BMI put to rest, it's less usueful than it appears.

Now in a new fun size!

I've been trying to do mini-blogging, just little short posts. I hoped I might be able to keep it up everyday. We'll see.

Yesterday I ordered a copy of Appetite For Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I've had all her books bar Brunch through my local library and she has a fantastic style and comes across as very passionate about food.
I'm going to be jumping out at the postie everyday till it arrives now I am so excited about it, this one of Isa's (rhymes with pizza) is about low-fat low-sugar vegan cooking.

On the weekend I am planning to make these from her website - Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles. Granted mine won't be vegan, I can't justify opening non-dairy milk just for this when I have so much dairy needing to be used up first in my fridge. They sound delicious and I read about them on another vegan food blog where they'd been having a month of cookies. I will look up the name later and link to it here for anyone who's interested.

Today I had an adventure to town, it truly was an adventure, involved comedic timing to miss the bus to get there to start with. Dawdles in the Body Shop haven't been in to it in years, they still have the exquisite white musk scented stuff and I tested out their hemp body butter. My skin does feel quite lovely having tried it. The hemp body butter does have a slightly unusual scent though and have no idea how best to describe it.

Quite a few of the newer veg cook books I have been reading make reference to hemp products for use in cooking. I must investigate here and see if we have any available.

Where I talk once again about my ambivelance to Christmas

I've oft talked about my annoyance and disregard for Christmas and all it's trappings. But also about how passionate I am about food magazines and generally cooking in general and how I obsessivly peruse and collect these as the silly season rolls around.

This year, not even the prospect of baking up a storm can temper my disdain for the silly season. I was perusing a homewares catalog with my mother while telling her how I didn't see the point to Christmas.
And my mother says to me "Christmas is nice."
Nice? Nice? "I don't think Christmas is nice."
"You must be a throw back to your father's side of the family."

I beg to differ I think it is the Christmas lovers who might be the odd ones out, there must be a certain level of madness where you can actually believe you enjoy Christmas.

Multi-media joys

I was poking through my workout dvd's this morning and was bamboozled by what I had done with two of my pilates ones. So I had to do that thing, where I pretended I was a pilates dvd in order to think like one and imagine where I would hide myself.

After elimanating the obvious places I would have put them, I opted for the not likely but I have to look anyway, opened up a desk drawer and there they were. But not just my missing pilates dvd's but also another 2 dvd's I had completly forgotten about. A yoga-pilates blend and Chakra Dance Flow - Movement Meditation, both still in their original wrappers.

It's like having your birthday all over again. Speaking of presents, I got a Sanity gift card last Chrsitmas, yes Xmas '09. You have a year in which to use it before it "expires", if it's considered the equivelent of cash, but cash dosen't expire? Weird.
I came home with Scrubs - Season 1 and 30 Rock - Season 2 (unfortunatly they didn't have Season 1).

Maybe this year

Things I say I will make for every Christmas and then don't but this year will surely be the exception!

1. Gingerbread House
2. Buche de Noel
3. Fruit Mince Pies
4. Panaforte
5. A buffet table loaded down with the things I like - seafood, assorted veg dishes and dessert.
6. A truly epic edible centerpiece. Like trees constructed out of truffles or those chewy lolly leaves. Because you totally need something to wheel out with coffee after lunch.
7. A bunch of people who will come to lunch and tell me how a) fabulous I am, b) pretend I'm witty and laugh at all my jokes and c) tell me how wonderful my food is a la Nigella. Oh and d) be impressed by awesome hat, I need a really big hat.

Quick question how often have you seen someone at one of Nigella's dinners more than once? Do they just grab people off the street? Hire extras?

Well, let me tell you...

Isn't that how all stories start? I have been absent from blog land, because a) I had nothing really blog worthy to write about, b) I figured I could give my blog a revamp and unveil it with a new look but it turns out I'm not that technically sound at webpages.

I had a very exciting afternoon yesterday, went on a road trip for a knitting adventure, met lots of new knitters and had some delicious treats (ginger coffee no less!). Unfortunatly today has become a bit of an anti-climax with nothing exciting happening.
Now all I can do is be really, really, really excited about our next knitting adventure.

World Dance New York who I love for their choice of DVD productions and who you may remember me writing exctedly about their How to be a Pin-Up Model some time ago when I received it, are now about to release another gem that has my heart all a flutter...Femme Fatale How To: - Makeup, Hair, Accessories Step-by-Step for Victorian Vampire, Flapper Vamp and Gothic Lolita.

And just because I feel soemtines life can be a little dull, and sometimes you can just take yourself too seriously, in effect of that 2011 for me will be the Year of the Disguise - yes 2011 shall be the year I don wigs and false eye lashes (False Eyelash Love!) and people watch in cafe's while drinking skinny lattes. Not that I expect to be incognito at all, people who know me will see me and say "Look there's DarksideKnitter in a wig in a cafe."
Probably I should be knitting, doing something while I loiter in cafes. Or playing with a knitting app, I wonder if they exist? I've been dead keen on an iPod Touch since Nigella released her app for the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad and have been looking for more reasons to justify purchasing one, like a whole load of free yoga apps, Poh's Kitchen app (also free!) and now Dick Smith have the iPod Touch's starting about $225. Hmm wonder if there'll be any left after Chrstmas???

Healthy for Me!

Quite some time ago I took on the Healthy For You Challenge, and then I kind of fell off the wagon.

I sort of got back on a few months ago, and made a half hearted effort to clean my act up. But about a month ago I saw my doctor and it's back on the carb battling diet. I had this about 2 years ago and it was so hard. I love, love, love carbs.

2 years ago it was no potatoes, no white bread only wholemeal, no pasta at all, brown rice only but if I really couldn't face it only long grain white.

This time around it's multigrain bread, which is good because I really really really hate wholemeal bread. No potatoes again, but I can and should be substituting sweet potato in for it when cooking, actually I like sweet potato better than potato anyway so it's all good. Brown or Basmati rice, I always eat basmati rice, and I eat it lots, at least 3 to 4 times a week. It's become my go to carb since I've cut right back on potatoes and pasta on the last couple of years.
And pasta has now come off the no-go list, but only as an occasional.

For the past month I have been really good, porridge for breakfast, wholegrain bread, no sugar in my coffee/tea, eating way more fruit and veg and generally avoiding naughty things like chocolate, biscuits, cake, fast food and even the diet soft drinks.

End result? I'm eating better but less, but I'm not hungry and actually find I eat smaller serves of things now as well. No more insomnia, mid afternoon meltdowns or sugar cravings.
Best of all I've actually lost some weight and my 2-block walk has gone from 30 mins to 15 mins, I need to do 2 laps to get the same amount of time as when I started.

When I saw the doctor this week he was pleased, I was pleased, and better yet there was no more talk of lapbands, which pleased me even more. When I saw him a month ago, I don't know if he genuinely thought the only way I'd lose weight was with the aid of surgery or as I saw it, the gauntlet had been thrown and I've spent the last month out to prove a point.
I'm now to keep up the good work, and see the doctor again in a month. I've started a food diary to keep track of what I am eating so if things start to stagnate a bit I can look back over it and see what needs tweaking to get things moving again and also as a way I can look back and see how much good work and effort I have put in and how I actually can do it.
I can have a Bob the Builder moment, yes I can!