A Dream Blessing

Last night I received a blessing in the form of a dream. I dreamt about the holy guru Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and the dream brought me much comfort and peace... very soothing and calming for my mind which has been suffering all sorts of mental torment from my recent spells of anxiety and panic attacks. That's all pretty much I want to say about it... I don't need to describe the dream or try and work out what bits and pieces of it represented.. it was sufficient to receive this precious blessing and to be able to carry with me throughout this day, the joy and serenity of such a dream....... MAY ALL BEINGS BE FREE OF SUFFERING....... OM MANI PADME HUM.......

Tummy Woes

I have a very sensitive tummy... today I'm really quite frail with it and I'm on the couch with a quilt as I am feeling so sick and also very tired as it kept me up most of the night......we had a lovely dinner at Balthazar last evening and my brother and sister in-law joined us....fabulous food but I had salmon which came on a bed of lentils.. I didn't hear our waitress mention anything about lentils and they were delicious but with all the drinks I had over the night maybe not very good combination...as well at lunchtime I ate a reasonable portion of salad and that probably didn't help either.. some foods just seem to go straight through me...
I would love to go to Balthazar again but it's quite expensive.. not the food so much but the wines there are nearly all quite pricey.. still it is an awesome place with wonderful atmosphere and the food was superb as well as the service... 10/10!!

Quick Update!

Here is a quick update on what I've been up to!

We went to the Kransky Sisters last night and they were very good! Funny and quirky! At the end they came out and signed T-towels with their images on them and I have hung mine on the wall using a couple of bits of Blu-tak.

Earlier in the day we went and visited with our son and enjoyed lunch at Catalano's in Vic Park. We've been there a few times now with him. They serve awesome meals there and they're also very big! B. had chicken schnitzel which was as big as a dinner plate in itself, Casey had crumbed calamari, both their meals came with beer-battered chips and salad... I had fettucine al fungi, which did have a bit of bocaccini cheese in it but was mainly mushrooms, roasted capsicums amd tomatoes in an oil garlic sauce... very good. They gave me a jar of Parmesan but I didn't add any..

For tea that night we went after the show to a little Asian cafe which used to be Han's I'm sure and is now called the Korner Cafe... I had vegetable pad thai and B. had Singapore noodles.. cheap and tasty, we each had a little bottle of Wynn's Bin 555....before the show we used our free drink voucher from the hotel to get a midi each of Hahn SuperDry and then we had a pint each.... B. had a second pint but I can't drink endless beer anymore.. it's too cold or something... I had a red wine... at the Playhouse we had a champagne each and B. got a second one but I felt really a bit too drunk to have another!!!!

When we got back to the room, we had another red wine and I slept very well, poor B. rummaged around and coughed a lot... we're both not the best but I am a little better than him in terms of coughing and spluttering... I just FEEL rubbish...earlier in the day I had a hayfever attack looking at the bird's nest near Casey's balcony... aw, that was so awesome, I could see the baby bird inside.... but the tree was covered with blossoms and I got very red eyes.. had to go and get some eye drops as soon as I found a chemist...

This morning we just ate downstairs in the hotel... I had baked beans, 2 hash browns and two bits of toast and B. had the My Place breakfast... bacon, 2 eggs, sausage, hash brown, tomato and mushroom... he didn't eat the mushroom so I did!! he also left a piece of toast but I was too full for that, we had orange juice and I had three cups of tea.. sooo thirsty this morning!!!

Today we went into town as my iron suddenly went pop! pop! as I was ironing a favorite skirt and it burnt it!! Smoke was streaming from it, so I quickly turned it off and threw it away afterwards.... just bought a cheapy to replace it, the more expensive ones don't seem to last any longer!!! B. said he felt like a pint of beer and a steak sandwich for lunch!!!! We went to the Parade.. what the heck, it's "holidays".... there was nothing vegetarian except for creamy mushroom soup which I wish I'd got and had a wine with but I wanted a pint also and didn't feel that went with soup... so I got the salt and pepper squid which was a bit disappointing as it was the frozen curly kind, not pieces of squid on a salad and it came with chips... a bit too greasy, I picked the batter off the last few pieces...

Tonight, we had some yummy soup, vegan split pea and pumpkin soup.. that I had in the freezer... oh how much better did that taste than the lunch I had and how much happier was I to eat nice vegan food..... I had a nice crusty loaf to heat in the oven to accompany the soup... MMM.. MM!

Lovely Week!

It's going to be a lovely week this week with a couple of things I'm really looking forward to... the first is going to see The Kransky Sisters tomorrow evening at the Playhouse.. my favourite theatre! And then on Saturday we are going to a restaurant that I have wanted to go to for many years.. Balthazar.... ( I think I saw they had a vegetarian choice on the menu but if there isn't I have decided that sometimes if I go out I may eat a bit of fish, at least for a while, while I am trying not to eat red meat or chicken... it's just all a bit hard.. I know, I am weak but I am, really... I am quite weak when it comes to food. I have been doing OK , the last few days.... I made a pot of beans and been eating those and also last night despite cooking steak and sausages for visitors and B. I only had my beans, tortillas, guacamole and a baked potato... the other morning at work, while Donna was cooking a bacon and egg sandwich, I had a small tin of creamed corn....But today we went out for lunch in Bunbury as B. is having a week's holiday and I ordered chilli squid that came in a nice tomato sauce with fettucine. They have a roast veges and penne dish where we went but my bowels were so overworked yesterday after two days of beans and vege food that I was really in quite a lot of discomfort....so I ordered the squid, I will try the vege penne next time when I haven't eaten so much fibre.... that is something I really have to work on.. what vege food can I eat that is not so high in fibre as beans etc??????? Pancakes, toast.... sandwich...some cereals.. I had a small bowl of Special K today....
Today for tea I had peas and corn, baked potato, some steamed rice and a tiny piece ( about 40 gm) of chicken in creamy mustard sauce. My friend's dad is dying and I wanted to take them some meals so when they have a bad day, they can just get one out of the freezer. I made a beef casserole and I made the creamy mustard chicken.. but I thought I had bought a carton of cream .. it was MILK!! When I came to making the sauce, luckily I had some sour cream so I used that but I wanted to know if it tasted all right for them so I tried a little piece tonight.. it is actually very yum and I think they will enjoy that... there's not much point in cooking veg meals for them.. that is what they are used to, "normal" meals.... and I want to help them in this way... I'm not very good in these kinds of situations..(what do you say or do??) but one thing I CAN do is provide some meals....tomorrow I'm going to make some pumpkin soup and then hopefully drop the food around.... I've got that bad cold still so I don't know if I can "visit" for long... but I'll see what happens.....

Another Try

Well as Yoda would say "There is no try, just do" or something like that but I HAVE tried and failed many times to become a vegetarian and despite writing yesterday that I do not think I will become one again, I am again hopeful after reading "The Food Revolution" by John Robbins.
I have to make this a short post as I have to go to work very shortly but essentially I have made a bit of a plan up. The day-time meals are not so hard. It's dinner that I tend to cave in.
I figure if I make a different type of meal each night based on these 7 groups, it will help me to decide what to cook( I DID go 8 months making vegan dinners but I don't seem to remember what half of them were.....why????)
Meal 1: Pasta
Meal 2 :Rice and stirfry
Meal 3: Patties or burgers
Meal 4: A pie of some description
Meal 5: A curry or stew
Meal 6: Pasta
Meal 7: Patties or burgers

I've listed patties or burgers as there are many different kinds of patties, fritters and rissole type things you can make and the ways to serve them are also very varied.... with salad, with veges, in a bun.... so they appear twice on the weekly menu as does pasta as there are umpteen ways to serve that as well, especially if I include Asian style noodles in the pasta group.

So there is a starting point for me to try and go back to a vegetarian/vegan diet.....

The Food I Have Been Eating

I have the heartiest appetite in the whole world!!! Even when I'm sick I rarely don't feel like eating... I think this is a good thing as when I worked in a hospital once I noticed that patients who retained some appetite did much better than those who lost theirs and couldn't eat their meals...
There has not been very much vegetarian living going on in this house. I think I have come to accept that possibly I will never be a vegetarian again. I think that is is highly likely I will continue to eat a lot of vegetarian food but I know that as long as I live this current lifestyle it is not likely I will stop buying, cooking and eating meat on some occasions. I don't have enough(do I have any???) vege inclined friends... it makes socialising and sharing food with people a meaty affair...
However last night we just had tomato soup, vege fritters and eggs for tea and it was yummy. I finished the last three fritters today with another egg, heated them up in the frying pan.. I don't think they are nice cold.....
Right now I have a pot of chicken and vege soup simmering for our colds. I had roasted a chicken on Monday for B.'s sandwiches and today the rest has gone in the soup. In the oven there is a single pizza I have made for my lunch that has olives, pineapple, spinach, garlic, a bit of ham and cheese on it. I used a burrito tortilla for the base. They are nice and thin and crispy! The night before we had chicken kievs and coleslaw. Coleslaw is my absolute favourite salad in the whole world. Yet it's sooo simple!!! I don't put any fancy things in mine.... just cabbage, carrot, finely chopped onion and finely chopped capsicum sometimes, if I have one, oh and parsley. I like Heinz Salad cream on it and also on top I like hardboiled eggs.
The night before I was really really grumpy with my cold and very tired.... I brought home a packet of sausages and we had them with mashed potato, peas and grilled tomatoes with cheese melted on them. So you see there's not much vege stuff happening especially this last week. Not organised enough. I have a crisper full of veges but I'm scared to look in there as half of them are bound to be rotting away in the bottom... it's because I've been busy doing extra hours that I blame for this level of disorganisation, but it's a really poor excuse as how do other people manage to stay on top of things when they have a lot more to do than me?????? Oh well, that's me... always a little behind with lots of things....
Last weekend on my birthday we had a BBQ on the Saturday and then on the Sunday I cooked a whole rump roast and veges and we had another lot of people over for that! Then later in the week we went to our friends' house for dinner, the same ones we always have mid-week dinners with and we had a Morrocan theme.... I made a roast Morrocan chicken dish with pumpkin and onions and it was on a couscous base.
Next week, I'm going to make sure to cook and eat TWO vegetarian meals every day. In other words out of the three daily meals... only ONE is allowed to contain any meat....it sounds like hardly anything but considering it's possible to eat meat three times a day in some form.... I think it is a realistic goal... perhaps as well, I could say THREE of the days the whole day has to be vegetarian.... I will outline my plan, and perhaps a menu, so that I won't go off the rails, tomorrow, in my next post!

Short Day, Short Post

I had short working day today which is probably just as well as I am not feeling the best from this cold...... I slept quite well and could breathe last night but today I feel as though it is moving to my chest. Not going to go to the gym tonight to do Body Balance... just going to lie low and do the minimal I can. This is hard as there are so many things I want to do but I guess I should try and rest a little...
The dogs have been walked and I have been into town to do the errands I needed to do so I guess it will be Ok to have a nap right now....also I went to the chemist and armed myself with some medicines. I don't particularly like going to the chemist.. it's always so busy in there and today I had to wait for ages to buy some original formula Codral... you have to give your driver's licence for them to see... anyway, I've got plenty of cough mixture and also some nasal spray which I can start using to ward off hayfever.....that'll be the next thing!!!!

Sick But Monday Cheers me UP!!!

I am struggling along with a head cold but I love Mondays and so the day's dawn made me get up out of bed with as much vigour and vim one could expect when you have a nasty head cold! There was a further challenge to feeling awesome Monday cheer when a short time later, the power went off but I remained undeterred on my happy little Monday path!!! I just love having a brand new week to start afresh and set myself some more goals which incidentally I never seem to achieve, but nevertheless enjoy thinking about!!!
This week's goals are:

to eat a bit more healthier than I did last week

to drink lots more water and flush this cold out of my system

to remember to use my puffer which I have somehow forgotten about the last couple of months... probably contributed to me getting the cold!!!

use the voucher my boss gave me for my birthday ( a nice clothing store one)

try not to crab at B. even once this week.. poor guy been getting my evil eye a lot lately..... oh, he deserved it.. ehehehhehehhe.... but I should cut him more slack really... he tries.... ehehehehhe!

Well, that's a few... probably enough for a non-achieving person like me!!! Some of them aren't even " goals" merely things to do .... and nice ones to boot! Like who would have trouble going to a nice clothing store with $100 to spend??????? :)

Improved

I feel a whole lot better today due mainly I feel, to the therapeutic effects of writing.. not in here so much, where I try and be somewhat brief and concise, but in my handwritten journal where I write endlessly about stuff, a lot of the time about what has been upsetting me!!!
Then I work out strategies for combatting negative thoughts and alternative ways to view things etc.. can also draw little diagrams and doodles to explain things further but also as I did yesterday to describe dreams I had.
The dream I had the night previous to last was a common one of mine... I dream about looking at the sea and then I see big waves coming or the currrent waves growing bigger and more threatening... they eventually come right up to where I am and I have to scramble to escape... more often than not they crash onto me and this used to be terrible until some time ago I started to hold my breath and shut my eyes and hold steady and therefore" survive" the engulfment.
Usually I am watching from some distance... in this recent dream though, I seemed to be IN the sea, swimming with friends or other people ( I have no idea who) when I notice a HUGE sinkhole has formed some distance away.. a terrifying sight.. a big hole has opened up in the ocean and the water is all pouring down, not swirling or anything, just gushing down like a circular waterfall and I realise I have to get to safety lest it get bigger or I get drawn closer to it and get sucked in!! I seem to be holding onto a smaller person( a child?? Was it Olivia, or my son as a small boy?? I'm not sure...) and I don't know how but I manage to "pull" myself through the water towards the shore. On the way I am met by the biggest darkest waves ever, so tall I can't even see the tops of the waves, they are just like huge WALLS of water and several times I have to brace myself and suffer them crashing down on me but I think if I can just get hold of the reef I will be able to get to safety.... with my right big toe I feel the reef under the water and following it along with my foot, I eventually manage to grab onto it and move along it till I exit the water... I am in a little bay and a drag myself onto the sand.... It's an AWFUL dream... so scary and strenuous as well as I try to escape these waves that are in them.... I seem to have this dream or variations of it when I'm feeling very stressed and overwhelmed and out of control of my own life ie when other people and things seem to be running it FOR me.......

Sad Today

I feel a bit sad today. There are certain subjects and things I just cannot speak to about with B. or he becomes very obstinate and "anti" and refuses to hear me out. The things that make me very anxious and worry me he has absolutely no patience to listen to...a lot of the time I guess I am saying that HE is causing me some sort of bother.. but is that so hard to hear???? I can't help that I get upset when for example he makes life difficult for me by some careless or selfish action he does! I try so very hard NOT be selfish... is it because I am a woman that I am always trying to accomodate everyone and make things good for everyone while he just seems to please himself??? Anyway, 'nuff said... it's nothing new, I just felt that my birthday was really spoilt by some selfish actions on his part...he was rude to my family and also made very little effort to help me when I was really struggling to get everything I needed to do done for the day....it's not that I think MY birthday is so special, it's just that of all the days, one would think you would try and make someone's birthday a happy one, WHOEVER'S it is.....

Anyway these are the things making me HAPPY today!

I have seen the injured magpie around Lakes Pde still surviving and looking OK!

Pink and grey galahs in the trees, and the fact that I see the one with the damaged wing regularly! He's OK too!

My beautiful dog Raymond and his exuberant nature!

Going to Rob and Leshaye's for tea tomorrow!

Only have to go to work for a short time today! (I like my job but I NEED a lot of time to sort stuff out)

Beautiful sunny day!

I am healthy and fit!

My new Kindle!

My beautiful new Jamie Oliver cookbooks!

My friends and family who love me and show me their love in so many ways!

Is Spring Here???

The weather at the moment is absolutely phenomenal! I mean, it is really unusally warm.. August is often a very rainy month! In September we often experience a sudden burst of warm weather as spring approaches but to have it in August is not so common....
I am even having hayfever like symptoms( blah!) and sneezing etc!! I notice when I go walking that the bacon and egg bushes are starting to flower and on the weekend someone pointed out to me that our almond tree is starting to shoot leaves and buds!! Today I noticed the little birds ( swallows??)who used to make their nest in our toilet at work every year,were waiting on the wire just outside as if to see if they could get in there again!!! (We started shutting the toilet door to stop them a couple of years ago as one year someone went in there and turfed the babies out of the nest and destroyed it....this was before we got the outer door and key happening... but also some of my workmates feel that all the bird poop is not desirable.... since then they have made a nest in the gap between the ice freezer and the roof on the verandah, but I guess old habits die hard and they remember the toilet!!!
It will be interesting to see whether this warm spell continues or whether there is indeed more winter rain and storms to be had.... I hope there is more as we really need the rain.......

Bingle!!

No, unfortunately not Bingo! but bingle.... for the first time in many many years, I came into contact with someone else's car with my car.. oops! feel so bad about it... I was in a bit of a stressed out state and wanted to go out to get a Freddo icecream cake on Saturday when Mum, Roy and Charlotte were here for my birthday... B. was outside laughing and carrying on.. hadn't helped me hardly at all when I needed it the most and when asked by Olivia could he go and get the cake he apparently said to her that he'd go when I said... but that's what I sent Olivia out for!!! he must have thought she was just nagging him, anyway, when she came back in and said " Nanna!! Grandad's not going!!" I got into a bit of a huff and thought " Oh , I'll just go myself!!! It'll be quicker!!!" Well when I got outside, my car was blocked in and so I tried to back B.s car out on an angle, trying to avoid his stupid canoe which was also in the way.... anyway, looking looking out the back, I didn't watch the front end enough and scraped Mum and Roy's car... a BRAND NEW Nissan Micra with the bullbar!!!! Oh gosh!! Well, I've been online and lodged an on-line claim.... hope it can get fixed for them soonish....I'm not blaming B. but it sure would have made my life easier if he'd just gone to get the cake when I said!!!!!!