Life This Week 8/7/2019: Taking Stock.


Making : apricot chicken. An oldie but a goodie.  It’s the kind of dinner that greets you in a warm hug at the end of a wintery day.  Actually, I Iove apricot chicken in the summer too.  Warm hugs are good all year round!


Cooking : choc chip cookies using Nagi’s recipe from her Recipe Tin Eats blog.  The secret ingredient is glucose syrup.  I love chewy choc chip cookies the best.

Drinking : excessive mugs of hot tea each day  It’s the only thing that will carry me over the line to leaving my cosy bed for good each morning.

Image result for murder at home
via Amazon

Reading: Faith Martin’s DI Greene series.  I can’t put them down.

Trawling: through Instagram trying to find the account of a retailer who sells long cashmere blend coats.  I thought I followed but I haven’t.  I thought I saved a post but I didn’t.  It’s doing my head in.

Wanting: to curl up on the sofa under my new pink blanket and get lost in my latest mystery novel.  

Looking: for my umbrella.  Make that umbrellas.  I have several stashed away in places so secret I tend to forget where they are.

Deciding: that a change really is as good as a holiday.  I’m actively changing my weekly fitness routine by cutting back on running days to give my mind and body a bit of a break and a reset.  It’s working!  I have less of the ‘oh no, not again!!’ feels when I go running after a day off doing something different.

Wishing: that it was socially acceptable to just unroll your yoga mat and drop into corpse pose when the need arises.  There’s much to be said for using the breath and posture to help manage tension as opposed to using food, drink or a smart phone….




Enjoying: a good old cheese toastie.

Waiting: for the rain to stop.

Liking: the new bubbler at the pool that offers both sips of cool water and refills of your water bottle.



Wondering: when I’ll find the motivation to wipe down the fridge.  To be honest, I’m really still at the contemplation phase here.









Loving: the taste and chewy texture of these chocolate chip cookies I just made from yet another amazing recipe by Nagi.











Pondering: how the unlikeliest people can swoop in to save the day.

Listening: to Master SSG chat to me from his bedroom. It’s been a far-reaching and random conversation so far.

Considering: which of the things on my wishlist I could buy myself for my birthday next month.

Buying: warm, cosy things from Kmart.





Watching: Anderson Cooper’s tribute to his late mother Gloria Vanderbilt. He is a testament to her beauty and integrity as a person.  Despite her troubled upbringing and the ups and downs of her adult life, she taught her children many important lessons about being a good human being and also about how to truly live life.  Oh, and they share the same infectious giggle!






If I can be even a fraction of the mother Gloria was, I think I will have done my job.

Hoping: that my hairdresser really is right (as usual).  He’s planning to take me a few shades lighter in a few weeks….

Marvelling: at perspective.  It’s a thing of joy and beauty.

Cringing: at Nikki Gemmell’s recent opinion piece on ‘the reason’ men choose to be obstetricians and gynaecologists.  That a woman I respected (but never questioned in terms of her ‘right’ or ‘appropriateness’ to be) in a traditionally ‘male-dominated’ industry felt the need to elaborate on the observations of a female doctor friend in such a derogatory and uninformed manner is very disappointing and potentially harmful.  Gender does not dictate who will or will not be good in their profession.  Why does this need to be discussed in Australia in 2019?

Needing: this little staycation of mine to never, ever, ever end….





Questioning: how it’s taken me this long to discover Vinyasa Flow yoga.  I have been an Iyegnar devotee for so long but was starting to get apathetic about practice.  I’m really enjoying the way VInyasa Flow lends itself to killer playlists and inspiring dialogue from the teachers whose audio guided practices I have been taking.  

Smelling: the garlic and onion I chopped for dinner tonight.

Wearing: my uggs and a sensible polar fleece zip-up jacket over my pajamas.  Just because.

Noticing: that a glass of bubbles does wonders for the creative juices.




Knowing: that 53 isn’t old. But that’s the age I’ll be when my licence next comes up for renewal.  In New South Wales 44 is the cut off age for applying for a 10 year renewal.  Seeing it in black and white was quite confronting.  I don’t even feel fortysomething now, might look it but I don’t feel it.  I wonder how I’ll be feeling when I’m 53 and renewing my licence.


Thinking: about how the world has a way of making you smile and feel loved when you need it most.





Admiring: the stark beauty of winter.

Getting: lots of practice at ‘catch and throw’ with Master SSG.

Bookmarking: places and tours on TripAdvisor. You know what this means!  Stay tuned… or not 😛

Opening: suitcases. Ugh.  Packing.  Practice does not make perfect.

Closing: the door on a challenging situation at work.  Once again, I am so fortunate to be part of a team that looks out for each other.  Knowing that senior management was behind us gave me the strength to keep going, to keep my focus as a care provider and learn from what happened.

Feeling: strangely happy and positive after closing that door on that unpleasant situation.

Hearing: the dryer hard at work.  Par for the course when it’s winter and there are uniforms to get ready for the new term.

Celebrating: that my last credit card statement was 75% lower than the previous one.  It was still not a great number but I consciously reigned in any unnecessary spending and you know what?  I didn’t even miss the things I didn’t buy!

Pretending: that I’m really not that excited at all about the travel I have planned.

Embracing: my family both literally and metaphorically.  As usual, I had a lovely time back home in Perth.



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