Entries Tagged 'What I’ve been doing' ↓

Mmm, mmmm. Homemade popcorn all good. Even with nothing on it but melted unsalted butter. Just had our first popping experience. Will put less corn in the pot next time.

Hmm, Earth Hour was a bit of a fizzer in central Wellington last night. We lit our candles and turned out the lights, then looked out the window waiting for lights to go out on the hills. None that you’d notice.

We’re going to do the lights out thing tomorrow night 8.30 – 9.30 for Earth Hour. Will be interesting to look out the window and see if the city is any less lit than usual. Probably not seeing as it’s mostly commercial.

Am now armed with knowledge of foods low in sodium. More bad news. No more date scones. Baking powder and baking soda are bad. Very bad. And there’s 3 heaped teaspoons of baking powder in the 6 date scones we make each week. And in fact lots of home baking is out. Poor Mister. So we’ve got the bread maker out of the bottom of the pantry and we’re going to attempt homemade hot cross buns instead.

And I just had a pre-dinner snack of plain corn chips. I’m not much of a fan of corn chips anyway and the plain ones were very unsatisfying. It’s only been a day of trying to cut down salt and I’m craving already. And I thought I had a fairly low salt diet in the first place.

Just found out today that the place I go for yoga is closing after 15 years (not that I’ve been going that long) due to a ridiculous rent increase AND I have to go on a low sodium diet. What a day. Obviously I’m nervous about finding somewhere else to go for yoga, I’ve gotten to trust the guy with hanging me upside down, making me stand on my head, pushing my leg over the back of head where it just won’t go etc etc. I don’t want to go somewhere else with strangers where you have to pray or chant or drive there. And as for the low sodium thing. It appears that sodium doesn’t necessarily equal salt and it turns out that my major (because they’re my favourite) food groups all contain sodium – bread, peanut butter, potato chips and caffeine. God. Caffeine. However, the specialist said that if I do good on getting salt out of my diet then I won’t have to give coffee up altogether. Am allowed decaf though. Yum Yum.

In the short term it’s going to be a life of fruit and nuts with in a body in the shape of an office chair. Sigh.

There’s a house with an orange roof that we always look at out our window. It looks like it’s on top of the world and I bet has a great view. One day we even drove all around Kelburn to see if we could find exactly where it was and see if it was really as big as it looks on the skyline – it’s on Central Terrace and yes it is.

However, over the last couple of days, the framework for a new building at the university that to date has only had a couple of floors on it, has had some huge vertical beams join it. So it looks like the university is getting yet another new building to blot our quite green landscape.

Kind of hard to see in this photo but the new thing is going to obscure our house with an orange roof!

The Mister forgot to put the coffee machine on this morning. We had to have plunger. Hmmm.

No-one much goes to yoga on a rainy day except for me in my orange gumboots with orange umbrella and a couple of other committed masochists and unfortunately it means that the instructor who’s been watching us for years has the time to encourage us get to the next level. For some reason he picked on me to do a free-standing headstand tonight – I’m nervous enough not having my feet on the ground let alone balancing upside down with no wall behind me. However, he did let me do it ‘near’ the wall but I still crashed backwards and slid ungracefully down the wall with an alarming squawk. It was exhausting trying to will my feet to lift off the ground but I’m determined to get there.

Well the online paper at any rate … ‘Stingrays bask in Wellington shallows’ … will have to wait for tomorrow to see if I made it to the real thing. Very exciting! On the front page of stuff.co.nz at the moment – I’m credited as the photographer and quoted and everything! Not so nice to keep rushing down passed the terrible news of the fires in Australia to see my story.

And the photo I took doesn’t look too bad ‘in print’ either!

Every Sunday at about this time I hear a clattering across the road. It’s the tow truck, come to cruise around the car park across the road. They pretty much always catch someone parked illegally. I think they choose this time because there’s lots of people in desperate need of a park – whether to attend the church behind the car park or get their cheap pay with cash only vegies at the market down the road. I try to keep a watch out but other than seeing the odd person come back during the tow process and having a dingdong with the guy (and still getting a ticket to pay the tow fee), I’ve yet to see someone come back to stare at the empty park where they left their car, or at a different car in their spot and see what they do next.

And it’s so totally amazing how those tow truck guys can break into a car, regardless of make or model, in like 2 seconds.