I'm In Training

It's true. I am. Imagine me in a life of tracksuit pants, sweatbands and dancing like a maniac. Maniac. She's training like she's never trained before.

Except I'm not training, training. I'm training myself to pack my lunch every single day I go to work. For a number of reasons.

1. I work in the boondocks. I have to drive to get lunch. And even when I do buy lunch, it's quelle ordinaire.

2. Saving money. Who wants to spend $15 a day on an ordinary lunch? Not me. I'd rather keep those pennies in my purse and spend it on something good. Like paying the electricity bill.

3. Upping the ante. I want more veg in my belly. I've gone through this stage of being stupidly busy, putting myself last, and now it's time to stop! Collaborate and eat veg!

This is lunch today. I ate it then realised I forgot my tuna. Oops. But the salad was goooood. What are you loving for lunch lately? (say that 10 times fast).

Let Me Re-Write That

Oh! My poor form, I neglected to include the awesome-ness that was lunch with my beautiful sisters.

What an ungrateful trollop.

My sisters organised a beautiful lunch yesterday. We enjoyed a beautiful chicken dumpling soup and a really yummy salad, topped off with a super y to the UM birthday cake!

I was spoilt. I was loved. I had a terrific day (until Tiny started being super, duper grumpy in the afternoon).

Thank you to my beautiful sisters for making my day special.

Memory Lunch

This lunch is laden with memories. Like the corners of my mind. Misty water-coloured memories.

When I was small we'd drive down to Sydney in the holidays. It was a long drive full of anticipation and wonder at what lay ahead.

We'd go shopping in the city. In the city people! And every time, every single time, we'd have lunch at a little cafe that adjoined Centrepoint Tower and David Jones. And every single time I would enjoy the toasted chicken and cheese sandwiches. With salt and pepper.

That cafe is no longer there, which is a real shame because they made awesome chicken and cheese sandwiches. And if my memory serves me correctly, they had bacon sarnies too, and they were pretty rad too.

From me to you, I highly recommend them. On wholemeal. And of course a smidgen of butter.

Salad Days

Since my inbox has been flooded* with readers crying, more! more! - I've decided to adhere to the requests. Enter another salad day.

Another riveting episode of my salad days. I am the one most likely to skip lunch. I make the kids lunch, have a bite of theirs, then get lost in other things I have to get done. I do it all the time, and by the afternoon I am spiralling out of control eating anything sweet that I think I might deserve. No more I cry!

Today salad with cous cous, shredded chicken, baby spinach, tomato, dutch carrots, shallots, celery, hommus and lotsa lotsa coriander (cilantro if you're in the Americas).

* It was really just one or two kind comments saying they liked seeing lunches. So here is another of mine. Sisters, you can pick yourselves up off the floor and stop laughing now!

Dinosaur Bags & Runch

The Doctor's dino infatuation is in full swing. He was telling me about his woes in life. Such as the fact that he didn't have a box to store his ever-growing collection of dinosaurs. I offered to make him a bag, which, if you're a long-time reader, you'll know - big mistake-io. Firstly, I am so slow at sewing, and he's already been asking why I haven't made it yet. Why haven't I made it yet? Because I am in the midst of stitching myself a badge that reads: Slow Stitcher. But I'm so slow I haven't even started on that yet. I have a backlog people.

So I'd better be popping Tiny into bed and get stitching because the small-big boy will be asking, no doubt, once again.

And here's where my lunch comes in. Fresh bread toasted with dijon (oh dijon how I love thee, let me count the ways!) and ham. Over-sized salad with Dutch carrots. I've only just cottoned on to how great the Dutchies are. Big carrots, we are O-V-E-R!

Tiny likes to runch with me. This year, we'll runch together. It's part of my 2010 plan. No more skipping lunch.

And now I'll just wait for my sisters to pay me out about the lunch post. Yep, you're right. I. Have. Nothing. To. Tell. You.

PS - Georgie Love has a super giveaway. Get over there!

PPS - I think the way I wrote my post about Where I'm At may have been a little inadvertently deceptive. I am back to goal weight, but it was starting to creep again, my muffin top was rising. Hence the huge salad above.

How To Spend Special Days

Matt took yesterday off to spend the day with me. Swoon.

We had lunch with my sisters and just each of our little girls (all the boy cousins were off at school, pre-school or with their papas). Matt was clearly the odd one out (not that Matt's a cousin. I mean, I'm from the country - but we're not from that high up in the hills - can you hear the Bluegrass playing?).

I spent the day in my very favourite boots. Oldies but goodies.

It was my birthday. But oddly, it felt like any other day.

We're having a take-two later in the week. I'll try and jump out of my own birthday cake. Think it's possible?

Confessions: Guilty Fantasy

I have a guilty confession. It's not that I am mad for cheese. I do like cheese, but I wouldn't go to the end of the Earth to eat cheese. I am more of a sweet tooth. I sneak chocolate. I do not sneak cheese.

But this brings me to a guilty fantasy. I've been thinking about it for a while now, my fantasy. Though I think if it were to come to fruition, it really wouldn't be quite as good as I think it might be.

You see, I love love love toasted cheese sandwiches. Who doesn't? But the fact is, I think I like the cheese that escapes the sandwich more than the sandwich itself. You know when it sizzles on the hotplate and that taste - my goodness - that taste. I've been deliberately loading my sandwiches with too much cheese just to ensure I get to enjoy that melty cheese.

Which brings me to my fantasy. I have been thinking about just putting cheese on the hot plate and cooking it. I've never actually done it, but man oh man, I daydream about how good that melty, slightly burnt cheese would taste. There now. I've said it.

Speaking of cheese. Have I ever told you how much I love crank calls?

Detention! The 2 for 1 post.

Pre-school for the Doctor is awesome. He loves it. There's been no tears, just pure unbridled excitement. He digs it in a solid gold kinda way. He doesn't know any names yet, but that's soon to change. Once we're there, he is in the zone and plays, barely even looking up to say goodbye. It's ace. The Doctor is really hitting his stride. And when I pick him up he is thrilled to see me (of course, who wouldn't be?) and talks non-stop about what he has done for the day.

Pre-school for me however... Well I feel as though I am borderline detention. Every time - and I am not fibbing - every single time I have dropped him off, I get a rap over the knuckles for something. Usually - food.

It's not that I send the Doctor with junk food. No siree. He goes with a fruit salad, yoghurt, sometimes homemade biscuits, a sandwich, vegetable sticks, more fruit, you dig? (Remember when you helped me with all those ace ideas??) They asked me last week if I could pack them a banquet lunch. So no, it's not the food that's the problem.

It's apparently the way I pack it.

There are four different places to put food.

Morning tea - fridge.

Morning tea - non-fridge.

Lunch - fridge.

Lunch - non-fridge.

I sort out the food on arrival, every time I am in the midst of doing so one of the Doctor's teachers comes over to tell me: please put them in a bag together; that container's too big; does this really need to be refrigerated?; oh yes that watermelon is leaking; can you not put the Doctor's lunch in that bag - he can't open it.

Ah yes, I love always feeling like such a numbskull. Over a lunchbox. Believe it or not, I do function in society. Hard to believe when I can't even manage to pack my son's lunch correctly, that I actually held down a full time job. Incredible, I know.

So this brings me to sewing last night. I whizzed to Spotlight yesterday and picked up some cottons and sewed up some bags for morning tea and lunch. Et voila! The watermelon still leaks but at least it's in a bag now.

In case you're wondering - in lieu of making lunch bags, I gave up the opportunity to finish up my top (which incidentally is a VERY expensive top given how much time I have spent on it).

Here ends my rant for today.