Fix the Weird Beer Situation lady!

On Sunday we were having a totally hot, sweaty, non relaxing time in mission bay and it was beginning to make my husband grumpy. So I thought we could remedy the situation with a beer at a local cafe. This is what we got..........

Mmmmmmmm Beer served in a glass with ICE and a wedge of lemon. I mention the fact that there was ice in the beer to the management. And that I find it a little weird.

Apparently it was the waiters second day. Did we get replacement beers? Did we get discounted beers? Did we get free beers.....No no and no.

Did we have a good laugh about our icy beers? Yes.

In other news I went for a run today, starting to get that fitness feeling again. Now that its not quite so hot. It was a pathetic attempt at a jog really, but at least I'm getting my steps up!

Steps so far today: 12,756

Corporate Funness

Work work work, its not enough that I give them a third of my day in exchange for cash, no, now they want me to be healthy too.
As part of some sick twisted brainstorming session in conference room one (basement, windowless under gastro) it was decided that the workforce must be healthier. So we are all taking part in the corporate version of the 10,000 steps plan. Everyone gets a free pedometer!!! YAY ITS SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT PAY RISE I WAS HOPING FOR! We are in teams and we have to walk the length of New Zealand. (Figuratively).
Although I am a chubby monkey, I am a busy little chubby monkey and manage 10,00 steps without doing much extra. So I have been increasing my goal by 1000 steps each day. Some of my colleagues are lucky to break 5000 steps. Whats really been surprising is how effective the whole scheme is. Everyone is wasting precious work minutes by comparing pedometer readouts. People are walking more and taking more exercise. Some workers are even wearing the goofy free t-shirt on their lunch breaks and walking round the block!!!!! Its a million degrees outside. We are all so sweaty. Its awesome.
Steps today: 14161

I need some large old tiles

My squash, a bit late planting (okay waaaaaay late) but its gone berserk. Lots of little squashes all spilling out on to my lawn. Apparently I am supposed to put a tile under each squash ( I want to call singular squash a squish), this stops them rotting on the ground if you have some damp weather and lets face it, its Auckland, we know damp. So it the hope of actually maturing some squash before the weather turns completely any donations of tiles will be most appreciated!

My tomatoes are producing overtime and dying overtime too. Pests and giving their last life essence to produce good fruit has them all fallen over and yellow. The recent rain had led to a few splitting on the vine, I just add those to the compost. Wont be long till I rip em all out and plant some broad beans to replenish the soil. I don't know if I even like broad beans, but I imagine them sauteed in some garlic and butter and it sounds delicious.

Love is Pancakes

Nothing says "I Love You" like pancakes and bacon. Opting for a brunch date at the paper moon cafe was excellent idea. We chat and I have a cup of coffee and two cups of tea to Zeds single latte. I harass him about joining kiwisaver, he smiles and tells me how gorgeous I am. Its love all over again.

I have long dropped the idea that Valentines day requires some kind of super date or extreme gift. But just because the day is so commercialised is no reason to ignore the chance to let my darling know how much I love him. In fact there is no reason to skip any opportunity for declarations of love and moments of affection. A year of such love makes valentines day seem superfluous though.

Its raining today, the bedroom window was left open out of humid habit and I awoke to find the cat licking the windowsill. Yes windowsill water is apparently tastier than bowl water. I completely understand, there is nothing like fresh rainwater, as a child I would run my hands through fresh wet bushes and suck all the rain drops off my hand. It tasted like freshness and trees.

Today I am going to read books.

Don't click on the link!

Yeah its hot, and we're ALL sick of hearing about it, so this wont be a post about how sleeping with the fan causes my husband to dream about hurricanes, or how every time I leave air conditioned work I feel like I'm walking through a sauna to get to my car or how I drive the car the LONG way home to sit in air conditioned comfort for just a few minutes longer.
No this post isn't going to be about any of that.

Actually I've forgotten what this was really going to be about.

General catch up?

Suddenly I am enjoying reading again. I went through a phase were every book I picked up was bad. But after some awesome summer reading I'm back into it again. Yes back to falling asleep in awkward positions, thumb slowly dying because its stuck in a thick hardcover book and the circulation is dwindling. Darling husband faithfully removes glasses and puts book away even though most times I mutter something ungrateful to him, half asleep. then with a kiss goodnight I am back asleep again, always waking up AMAZED at how my glasses are magically on my bedside table and book bookmarked.

pg13 picture of susie sleeping! (what has been seen cannot be unseen!)

I also love beer. I tried stopping beer to see if I would lose any weight, after 3 ish weeks with no beer I still was the same. So I am back on the beer but have joined the gym. The perfect compromise. Its a fancy gym, they call it supervised training (or "oh GOD oh GOD oh GOD MY ARMS!" really it should be their slogan). Its hard to drive home sometimes.

I am super pleased with GMK's management of my kiwisaver fund through these fracked (and if you aren't watching the new battlestar you SHOULD BE!) up financial times. Every things on the up this month. I am confident of seeing good returns this year. I also LOVE their monthly reports, so detailed and emails to remind me to go look at them. $ 67.59 worth of google shares! Yeah I pawns the interwebs!

I be grillin! Don't be hatin'

I'm always blogging about dinner. But I love cooking, and look! I eats my vegetables! I'm not just all about the meat. Although I did have lamb with this meal (Lamb back strap, cheap tender, lean. Rub with garlic, morrocan spice, smash some really ripe cherry yellow tomatoes on it. Grill, eat.) My lettuces are not growing as fast as I would like, so tonights salad was all herbs and bits and pieces from my garden, it tasted very country. Thyme is still my favourite herb. It smells so goooood. Fennel is a surprise, just a wee bit in the salad = good. Mint and mint flowers. Marigold flowers, nastursums, oregano, chives, radishes, matoes all good stuff!

Aye, twas a foggy morn!

No zoom

MAXIMUM ZOOM!

Hell Pizza Run by Genii!

So, I got too drunk to cook one night (not tonight, tonight I am pleasantly sober) and ordered Hell pizza, delivered. One pizza with dessert. I ordered two ice creams and they sent ONE fork. I don't even begin understand the logic of sending out cutlery on a home delivery. As I understand it, most households now have spoons. But incase we were cutlery free.....they thought they would send a FORK! Or did they run out of spoons and somehow think "yes, yes ONE FORK will do!" Or maybe its some kind of code message. "Fork you customers, FORK YOU!"

Things my husband said dot com

While watching "The United States of Tara"

Me: You're kind of like the Husband in that show

Husband: uh huh, Long suffering.

sigh.

Conversations with my husband dot com

Via text, we are the same room

Me: Do you love me?

Husband: Yes luckily I do :o) Making me Coffee would increase factor by a million x x x

Me: Who is this?

Things my husband says dot com

Upon seeing my husband this morning with a pained expression on his face

Me: Are you alright?

Husband: I just woke up.......Of Course I'm not alright.

He's just not a morning person.

I can has grilled dinner?

Theres a LOT of fun to be had BBQ'ing cherry tomatoes. I have so many now I have to eat them all the time! Little bastards rolling all over the hot plate, but very delicious. Red peppers, grilled, yum. Chuck on some home grown corgettes, cook till also delicious. (A little greek spice doesn't hurt here)
Let husband cook steak, also very delicious. The marinade does tend to blacken a little but I can assure this meat was not burned and was in fact cooked to perfection. This sort of thing makes me fall in love with him all over again.

Kitty Goes Nuts for Expensive Cat Food!

Damn.

No friskies or whiskas for my kitty, fussbum. Oh well, anything for a happy snuggly kitty kat. Yes, a snuggly kitty kat who demands smooches and chin tickles at 5am. Not food, just affection. Sigh, I am waking earlier these days.

In the meantime bitches be checking out my tomatoes! I have many, many cherry tomatoes. I have discovered that acid free tomatoes are a brilliant sacrificial crop. Sorry Zed. But the caterpillars love dem acid free 'matoes. Keeping all the pest free cherry tomatoes for me, ME!

Radish Love!

First wee radish, so young, so tender, so ready to be devoured by me, NOM NOM NOM!
Radish are super easy to grow, I bought a packet of mixed radish seed, so I never know what kind I'm going to pull out of the ground, this one looks like traditional radish though.
My lettuces and spinach are taking FOREVER to grow, I'm sure I planted them months ago. knowing my attention span it was probably only just last week.

New reasons to love your vagina! It rocks to be a woman!

It actually saves you the pain of open abdominal surgery!

Yes you can now get your appendix removed via your vagina!

That's pretty awesome.

And now you can fit a KIDNEY down that sucka! Yes kidneys out your Va-jayjay! Great news for female kidney donors.

Less pain, almost no scarring, safer for obese people and faster recovery times!

Its part of a new surgical trend Removing stuff through natural openings know as "natural orifice translumenal endoscopic surgeries (NOTES) ".

Awesome. One up for the ladies, you men can stick to your 6 inch incisions and scars. I'll take my pain free, scarless surgery. Yeeha.

Beer and shit

Ah New Zealand. Auckland even, the 'burbs. No pretension here. Glenfield ain't Ponsonby bro.

I was buying a six pack of beer, on special only $9.99

Clerk: "Do ya wanna bag for that?"

Me:"Nah"

as receipt prints
Clerk:"do ya want this shit?"

Me: "Nah"
I leave store

End scene

I like beer, I often keep a bunch of low alcohol (0.5% Clausthaler) around for drinking at times when alcohol would be inappropriate, like breakfast time, in bed while watching Battlestar Galactica, or while driving. Its just damn good stuff. (Two of the the three previous scenarios are real, can you guess which one?)

Compost Resolustions!

Last year I attempted composting. It didn't work too well as I had too much dry material, mostly garden trimmings. Problem was I found composting kitchen scraps to be such a hassle. Stinky buckets, cleaning said bucket every time, going down to the compost bin every night in the cold miserable wet winter. It was not fun. So I ended up with a cup of beautiful compost and a bin full of dry twigs.
So this year, my resolution is to compost all my kitchen scraps, and I'm doing it with the help of this thing. Its a food scraps bin that comes with biodegradable bags! It sits on the kitchen bench and when its full you can just toss the whole bag in the compost. Brilliant. You can buy your own mini bin with biodegradable bags from earth angel. So no more food waste down the insinkerator, no more food scraps to landfill! Everything is going back into the earth for my garden.