Cooking for two

Its so much easier to eat right when you're living with someone. I like cooking but its just not worth it just for yourself sometimes, you end up eating leftovers for days and lots of ingredients don't come in small portions so you end up throwing out things that have gone off.

A woman I work with gave me a massive zucchini from her garden a few days ago. There is no way I could have even made a dent in it on my own. So I went out and bought a few more vegies and some cutlets, and since then have made risotto with pumpkin, leek, zucchini and baby spinach; marinated Indian cutlets (barrah kebabs) with roasted vegies; and pumpkin and zucchini scones. All of this used up a quarter pumpkin, at least part of which would have gotten thrown out had I been on my own, and about half the zucchini, which is so thick that the main meals only used up 1 or 2 inches of its length each, and the amount I grated for the scones barely made a dent. May have to knock up a stir-fry to use up some more zucchini, it's far to nice to waste and isn't showing any signs of going off.

[added later]
After looking through some of my old recipes, I've decided to make chickpea patties instead of a stir-fry. The recipe calls for 2 medium zucchinis, so what I have left should do nicely.

til next time, xo

Shopping spree

I accidentally spent $100 on clothes today. They ambushed me. I swear! ok maybe not, but the main thing is they look hot and they were good value, I got a red jacket, a long black cardi/wrap thingy, and a black crochet-style loose holey top, all of which go well over a white singlet.

Clothes shopping was not actually the intended purpose of the trip, I needed to buy a going away pressie for a girl at work on behalf of the team, so I went to Chaddy after dropping Chris at work. I went to Ishka because I know she likes things that are a bit different. Got her some funky garnet earrings and bracelet, hopefully she'll like them. Since I was there I decided to have a wander around, tried out some makeup and stuff, and on the way out saw the mannequins in Jeans west looking pretty funky in the new season red and black getup, so decided to try some stuff on and then I just had to have it. Usually I hate clothes shopping, I am not the most fashionable person around, mainly because I think most high fashion looks pretty stupid on real bodies. But I do love red and black, especially together with a dash of white. No fussy prints, but give me a flattering black top over a white singlet with a red belt and I'm happy, if a little poorer.

Also got some homeopathic allergy spray and insomnia spray from the macro organic centre. Most allergy stuff is aimed at hayfever but this is supposed to target food allergies so for $13 its worth a try. I'm considering making an appointment for a consultation with their naturopathy clinic, its $65 for the first consultation, and of course that would involve them giving me a list of more things to spend money on, but they specialise in allergies, low energy and fatigue, insomnia, stress and anxiety.. the list of things that applies to me goes on. I wouldn't do a detox program without professional advice because of all my allergies, but it could potentially do me a lot of good so its worth at least considering.

All good things must end

Daylight savings is nearing its end *snif*. It was still dark yesterday morning when the 7am staff came on, and I was driving into the sunrise on the way to work this morning at 7.45. I only have a couple of early starts a fortnight so the difference between one and the next is fairly obvious. I also noticed that my yard was in shadow by 5.30pm yesterday. Being the total summer bunny that I am, this does not thrill me. I love it being light til 9pm in summer, Though I'd settle for 8. Ok, 7? No such luck. We are nearing the days of darkness for another year. How depressing. I don't know how places without daylight savings cope with it. How sad to live in darkness by 6.30 year round. Still, I guess its a matter of what you're used to.

On a happier note, Tomorrow marks the start of my first long weekend (in a public holiday sense) in three years. The only public holidays I've taken off in the time I've been working for Yooralla have been New Years Eve's. Not that I wouldn't work on monday if a shift was available. It just happens to fall on my day off and other people got in first. So what am I doing to mark this momentous occasion you ask? Haven't the foggiest. I was going to go camping with some of the guys, but life interveened on their side, so I am down to my usual waiting to see whats happening. I'll be catching up with people, just not going away. I also have Easter Monday free, but at least I'm working Easter Friday. I have however managed to pick up the saturday and sunday active nights for the weekend after easter, Which is most profitable, being 22 hours all up of the active night rates over the top of the weekend rates, including 13 hours on the Sunday split between the two shifts. I'll be buggered afterwards, but I have until Tuesday afternoon to recover so should be ok. I want to see how I go with consecutive active nights incase the chance to pick them up regularly ever comes up.


til next time, xo

Here we are again

Yep, its time for my fortnightly all night shift. I've been here for an hour 15 mins, the last 15 of which was spent checking out mum's blog, but I've already done most of the housework, plus the monthly paperwork. Apart from the hourly checks, there's maybe half an hours work left, which I'm saving til around 3-4am when I tend to get the figits. I'm hopeful that I should get through this shift pretty well, since in addition to sleeping in til 11am (after going to sleep around 2 or 3am), I actually managed to get a couple of hours broken sleep this afternoon. It's pretty much unheard of for me to be able to have an afternoon nap, I take ages to fall asleep. Testament to how run down I am that I could today.

Its been a fairly uneventful week since my last post, mostly spent working. Had a massage and chiro yesterday, so I'm a bit tender across the shoulders, but thats about it. Probably undid most of the good it did me by going home and cleaning up the place ready for an inspection today, then going to work and doing more damage, but oh well, hopefully still did some good.

Don't really have anything else to say so might see if I can find something to do. I'm feeling a bit restless now, don't feel like sitting down.

til next time,

Nadie xox

Those random moments

Last night ended up in a very different place to where it started out.

I had no idea at the start of the day what was happening, Nat was planning on coming round, and I was waiting on various other people to get back to me. It could easily have wound up being a quiet night in front of the tv. In the evening before Nat came over I had to drop something off at Fi's that had been left at the boys place, which was cleaned out yesterday and the keys returned. I hadn't seen Fi in over a month, so naturally I stayed a while to catch up, find out what she was doing that night, etc. She and Ross had already decided to catch up that night, so they both came round to my place.

We were all planning on making it a fairly early night. That was the plan. Then around 10.30 Fi got a phone call and found out one of her old friends was back in Ballarat and having a birthday party. We wanted to go but being fairly inebriated by that stage didn't think we had a way to get there. Wrong. Larissa, the only one of us who hadn't been drinking, and also the only one who didn't actually know the Ballarat boys, decided that an impromptu road trip sounded like an excellent idea, so at 11pm Fi, Ross and I piled into her car, and off we went! The actual party was a bit of an anti-climax, as it was after midnight by the time we got there, and the guy whose party it was crashed not long after we got there, but the road trip was fun, we got to catch up with a few people and meet some new ones, and a good time was had by all. We left Ballarat just after 3.30am, and got back home just after 5am.

Its been so long since we've done something totally random like this, it was great to just pack up and go on the spur of the moment. Last night was especially good since I hadn't seen Fi in a while, and we used to do random stuff on a weekly basis. It was great to get back to that, and I think we all really needed it.