Riverina Sunrise

 

I walked out onto the balcony with my cup of tea at about quarter to seven.  My little camera doesn't do the sunrise justice, it's so pretty.  Cool and quiet, and the crickets are still chirping.  I really love this time of year.

I planted my lemon thyme up in the vegie garden, and moved the little coriander seedling there too and put all the chives into the top of the strawberry pot.  Phill left me to it which is how I like it, I need to learn by trial and error. I put the retic on the herbs up the back for a while and they are looking good.  I might call into Mitre 10 this morning and have another look at what they have.  I am composting again, I got a little red bucket for the kitchen which when full I empty into a bin on the porch before taking that when it's full to the big compost bin up the back.  The red bucket was full after just a day, which made me realise how much vegie waste we put into the ordinary garbage bin.

The curry was good last night, I made a little raita with just low fat yoghurt, mint from the garden, garlic, lemon juice and cayenne.  I was able to freeze two containers of curry and rice, and labelled them with points value.  Who needs supermarket ready meals?  I am concocting in my brain a point free "bolognaise" sauce using mushrooms in place of meat, to make a hearty point free spag bol with the Slim Pasta.

I did a bit of a search yesterday for the US equivalent to the point free pasta which seems to be

this.  This company appears to make a bigger range as well.

Today I think I will swim again and definitely go for a walk.  My back is a lot better so far today.  My own scales say I have had a loss and as long as the WW scales are down on last week, when I weigh in tomorrow, I'll be happy.  I keep feeling like I'm too well fed to be losing weight, but I am sticking to my points each day and managing to get a balance in my food groups etc.  I have lost centimetres in my arms (not so much because I'm building muscle with weights),  but a significant amount on my waist, hips and thighs, which is often a truer indication of weight loss than the fickle old scales.

The distance high school rang yesteray and there was yet another mix up with Em's enrolment, the bitch in me suspects the local high school yet again, but the teacher was really nice and very encouraging and rang later to say the first set of lessons are in the mail at last.  They thought, for some reason, that Emily would be taking her lessons at the Outreach Centre under the supervision of a teacher.  I wish!  We weren't in fact even offered this, but the girl who we did group therapy with is doing distance ed that way, I learned that from her mum.  Em wouldn't consider it, and I can understand why.  I will be her legal supervisor and the teachers will be keeping in close phone contact with Em which is wonderful, and I made a point of telling the lady yesterday to make sure they use the landline not Emily's mobile phone, so I know what is going on at all times.  This isn't her private life, it's her education for which I am now legally responsible.  I have many misgivings as to whether this will all work for us, but I have had a lot of time to adjust to it and to make up my mind that I will give it my all.  The rest is up to her.  Who knows, she may well susprise us (she often does) and this may be exactly what is right for her and what she needs to finish school successfully.  After all, I had such high hopes for Kate, our little over achiever, and we did everything right with her, yet look at where she is now.  This is not to denigrate her, but it's certainly not how I saw her life turning out.  Emily has a lot of talent and so much else going for her, if we can just learn to co exist and I can resist the recurring urge to choke the living daylights out of her. ;)

For some reason yesterday, I thought of an ex co-worker of mine from over 20 years ago.  She was an older lady, not that much younger than my own mother, and was very kind to me during a really difficult time in my life.  I found out that she had died.  In 1999.  I really need to make more of an effort to keep in touch with people, seriously.

Tonight I am thinking of doing the Thai dish, "Crying Tiger".  It will lend itself beautifully to Weight Watchers' points.  Check out This Country Kitchen later to see how it went.