Day before D-Day

This is probably the first Sunday in over 3 months where I'm actually looking forward to work tomorrow.

Breakfast: Oats so simple golden syrup porridge pot

Lunch: Wholemeal pita bread, 1 raw pepper, 1/2 pot of Tescos Moroccan houmous 

Dinner: Baked BBQ chicken breast, rosemary toasted baby potatoes and steamed baby carrots, green beans, sugar snap peas and baby corn

Snack: Marks and Spencers wholegrain BBQ crisps

Unlike Friday night, I unfortunately didn't sleep as well - I think it was too hot in my friends spare room and I woke up a few times after dreaming about my car being vandalised. Unfortunately, this is a somewhat regular occurrence for me. About 8 years ago, my car was vandalised 7-10 times and the Thames Valley police were utterly useless. My car was keyed more than once, all 4 tyres were slashed, my wing mirrors were kicked off 5 different times. I had a love poem put on my windscreen and the best one, my drivers door was crowbarred open, my CD's were taken out of my car and placed in a pile by my front door (my car was parked about 20 meters away from my house at this point).

I turned into a wreck, constantly paranoid, couldn't sleep as every noise I heard, I'd be looking out the window, seeing if my car was OK. When I phoned the police, they never bothered coming out and on the one occasion they did, they said 'Oh, it's probably just young lads, walking through to the pub, having a laugh....' they didn't even take the CCTV offered to them by a local Indian restaurant. In the end, I ended up parking my car 1.5 miles away at my friends house and walking back home - I did this for over 6 months, before I moved house. Despite it being 8 years ago, me having a different car and having moved twice, I still get paranoid, I still wake up in the night and if I hear a weird sound, I still look out the window to see if my car is OK. 

Despite not sleeping overly well, I got up, made myself breakfast and chatted to my friend for an hour before heading off back home. I did remember to leave her the 'present' that I had promised her - the fake poo! When leaving her house, she said to me, 'So you didn't scent mark my room then?' I replied 'Just go and have a look' :-) I think it looked quite realistic and had me chuckling to myself like a child for a few minutes. Unlike Friday, the M4 was really empty so I made it back in under 3 hours - Just in time for lunch! Lunch was 'the usual' and after unpacking my stuff, I decided to chill for a few hours. 

I seem to have been bitten quite badly by something - Whilst I don't want to accuse my friends cat of having fleas, it's either fleas or mosquitoes and I've not quite worked out, which. Either way, I have a number of bites on both my ankles and they're itching like crazy :-S

Dinner tonight was another BBQ marinated chicken breast with rosemary roasted mini potatoes, steamed carrots, green beans, sugar snap peas and some baby corn - Delicious. I'm just heading out with my Boyfriend to go for a glass of red wine in a local pub and catch up on the weekend :-)

Tomorrow is D-Day. It's the day I sign the job offer to my new job and it's also the day I ask for a meeting with my Boss to try and negotiate a financial settlement.... Let's see how this goes... 

First world problems

In the grand scheme of things, your cars exhaust pipe shouldn't be a drama....

Today hasn’t exactly started as I would have hoped, however it’s certainly a ‘first world problem’ when you look at it. I had to get up early again to pick my car up from the garage which is OK, especially when they managed to fit the exhaust for £350 instead of the £570 they quoted me last month. Everything was looking good until I got to work and had a look at the new exhaust… then felt like crying. My car is a ‘rare’ 1.8 SRI Vauxhall Corsa, which basically means it’s pretty small but actually, quite fast for a Corsa. I had Corsas before and am rather brand loyal when it comes to my cars – this particular car I’ve had for over 6 years and have become rather attached to it.

Before yesterday, it had a massive shiny exhaust, much bigger than the ‘standard’ ones, which looked rather impressive – Imagine my disappointment when I looked behind and saw this…. I mean, it’s smaller than the new Corsa exhausts! Logically, I shouldn’t care – It’s a new exhaust so bits of stuff shouldn’t come out the back of it, it gets me from A to B and it shouldn’t matter what it looks like. Also… considering the problems that other people have, it’s hardly going to top the ‘worlds worst problem’ list.

 

However, it matters to me as I’m very attached to my car (not in a kind of weird, creepy Channel 5 documentary kind of way) and it just looks so pathetic with it’s beefy engine and sad little exhaust pipe :-(

Despite my Boss being sat next to me, he doesn’t seem in a bad mood so work has been quite productive so far! Breakfast was the standard porridge with blueberries (I wonder if I’ll get bored of it soon? So far, so good!) and lunch was houmous with pepper, tomato, cucumber and a pita bread. Despite having my lunch, I walked into town again to buy a couple of work related things and also got some sugar free ginger beer from M&S which I have to say, I’m rather partial to. Whilst at M&S, I decided I’d try one of their new snack pots for dinner (as I’m not getting back until really late), and the egg and spinach one seemed rather interesting… At the moment, dinner consists of roast chicken slices, eggs and spinach which I appreciate is quite random, but will be quick to eat and mean I don’t go 9-10 hours without food.

The weather seems to be beautiful today so it’s a shame to be stuck inside at work – I’m hoping it stays like this at the weekend as I’m spending all of Saturday with my boyfriend and we’re going on a brewery tour (I hate beer but enjoy learning things,  he enjoys it so I’m happy to drive and spend time with him,) and I’m hoping we’ll have some time afterwards to go to 1 or 2 antique shops and maybe have a picnic in a park somewhere…..

Tonight I'm getting fake eyelashes, however despite most people conjuring up 'drag queen' images (like I did, the first time), I've actually found the length that I'm really comfy with and I really like how they look. Not so keen on them falling out and being stuck to the side of my face, mind you...  :-)

Vietnamese River Cobbler

The word 'Cobbler' shouldn't make me snigger like a child, but it does.....

Considering I was back at work today after 4 days off, it hasn't been too bad. I even got an email from my boss with a smiley face in it! 

I had to drop my car off this morning at the garage as on Friday night (just as the Bank Holiday kicked in) it looked like it was growing a tail - Yup, that's my car and yup.. there's stuff coming out the back of the exhaust, which, after a quick Google, looked like it was 'exhaust padding'. I got rather upset (I love my car) and phoned the garage who booked it in for Wednesday after ordering the necessary parts. This meant getting up extra early and making sure that I brought all my breakfast and lunch with me (I usually eat breakfast at work, anyway). 

In regards to my healthy eating, it's been pretty darn good - I started off with my instant porridge with blueberries and strawberries (I know it's not as good as home made, but unless I can do home made porridge in 2 minutes, I'm not going to change - I need things that can work around my lifestyle!) and as I had yesterday off work, I'd planned what I was going to eat for lunch, which was peppers, cucumber, tomatoes, hummus and pitta bread and hey presto.. I actually stuck to it!

When lunch time came, my lovely work colleague suggested we walk into town - despite having my lunch with me, I said yes - It got me out of the office which is so good for my happiness, I got some fresh air and I got some EXERCISE :-) It was only 20 minutes of walking, but it always feels good to eat lunch after going for a bit of a walk and it's something I can certainly keep up - even when my work colleague isn't around, I sometimes go into town for a random reason 'Buy a birthday card for a friend' or 'Pick up some more milk', just so I can get out the office. 

The rest of the day went well - After work I saw my work colleague's friend who is a qualified beauty therapist and had a facial and had my eyebrows waxed. I am feeling really good about myself at the moment and just chilling for an hour, talking to her was great. Quite honestly, I have so much respect for anyone who waxes anything as my eyebrows hurt enough, I don't think I'd go any further than that!

I was starving when I got home this evening - It felt like the drive home was taking longer than usual and all the traffic lights were turning red out of spite. I always find that my motivation decreases when I'm really hungry, so I was mindful that I was really hungry and cooked as soon as I got in, rather than turn to something 'quick' to shove in my mouth, like biscuits... chocolate... etc.

I like fish, cod is my favourite - Sadly Sainsburys didn't have any, so I thought I'd try this, instead. Behold! The Vietnamese River Cobbler in all it's glory! I believe this has been introduced to try and encourage people to eat different types of fish and not just shove cod in their gobs? The name made me laugh, so I thought I'd try it - I was particularly taken with the low fat and low calories in it... as well as the rather cheap price!

It only took 15 minutes to steam in the oven in foil and I am now sat on my sofa, stuffed full of fish and steamed vegetables feeling both virtuous and awesome. Cobbler (*snigger*) is lovely - it tasted like a less strong kipper but still quite meaty and tasty. I'd certainly try it again. I think I'd probably serve it with sweet potato as well as veg, or some different vegetables as whilst my dinner was nice, it was slightly boring and I think I'd get a bit bored if I ate it more than a few times - Hrm... baby roasted potatoes with rosemary.... There's a thought!

Tomorrow night, I won't be getting home until about 9:30-10:00pm so it's really important I know what I'm going to be eating for dinner, so I'm not tempted to eat the Pizza / chicken wings that my friend (who does my eyelashes) offers me. I'm going to take an additional pita bread and investigate the new range of food that M&S is now doing.....