Don't Like Mondays?

Lets face it, most people hate Mondays.  Social media is riddled with "Oh no, it's Monday Again," sentiments.  Monday is blamed for everything that goes wrong.   You wake up tired and hung over, its Mondays fault; your stockings have a run in them, its Mondays fault; you spill your coffee ... and so on.  It is like Monday is a huge monster from a B Grade Horror movie that is out to devour anyone and everyone until none of us are left

 
We learn this from an early age.  I grew up when Garfield Comics were popular.  According to Garfield Monday is doomsday.  Anything can and WILL go wrong on Monday, is what we learn from these comics.  Ok so Garfield is a negative puss but he does voice the way a lot of people feel.

Whether you are at school or at work, no-one likes to see Monday come round.  It means there are 4 more days that follow with the same old lame stuff that you really don't want to do (unless of course you are an exception to the rule and actually like school or your job).  Seriously anyone who likes Monday is considered weird and should be taken away in a straight jacket asap, because they obviously have a mental condition that needs sorting out. 

The only others who like (and I will say it loosely) Monday are those who are unemployed or on holidays.  Even then, poor Monday is not celebrated, it just moves up a rung on the ladder from most hated day to just another day.  If Monday was a person it would probably suffer low self esteem, depression, and feel used and abused during the holidays.

Lets compare Monday with Friday.  Apart from the fact that they both share a common factor of computer issues, lots of people love Friday.  Just google Friday Images and they are all positive and happy.  Let me tell you, Friday is a tease.  You still have to work on Friday, the hours drag out more and by the time you leave work it feels like you have worked a week in one day.  It is still a work day.  It then leaves you with two sleepless days before you can get back to work and fix that stupid mistake you made trying to rush off for the weekend.

What is good about Monday then, you ask.  Many things.  You get to see your friends again, you are refreshed after the weekend and on the ball and thinking clearly. It is a new week, with a new beginning.  It is a restart of things that went of track the week before (ie diets and other weekly goals),

Time to start thinking positive.  Who knows what you will achieve.

 What isn't there to be happy about.  If you had Monday off, you would just hate Tuesday. One 7th of your life is Monday, stop complaining, be thankful you have a job.  There are many who would gladly take your place.

I know I only have a small audience on this blog, so no Monday loving revolution is going to happen.  For those who do read this, I hope that you have had, or are having a good Monday and that you don't fall into the peer pressure trap of hating Monday on a weekly basis.

Friday

Thank God it is Friday.  I love Friday, especially every second one which was today.  We get a masseuse come to work.  We pay of course but seriously it is 15 minutes and $18 worth of bliss.  Sometimes too much bliss and you find yourself sinking deeper into la la land.  This is ok as long as I don't snore and that I wake up properly when its over.  I had to get a second coffee today because I just wanted to sleep.

In our old office building the lunch room was pretty dark and had long lounges.  You would often see someone asleep on one of the lounges (hand up for guilty party here).  You can' do that in our new office.  It is really bright.  Not in colour, it is plain old grey and a different shade of plain old grey.  It is the amount of windows we have.  Some people now resort to catching a few zzz's in the toilet, which is a bit inconsiderate when there is a line up.  Unfortunately the lights in there are so bright, they burn into your retinas.  You can't turn them off as they are motion sensored, and it takes 30 minutes of no movement before they switch off.  Trust me on this, I tried it one lunch time when 'd had a bad nights sleep and could barely focus on the computer screen all morning.  It was rather a shock to the system to suddenly be plunged into such darkness in the depths of, what a second before, was a room lit like a sun going super nova.

How on earth did I get onto this topic.  Oh that's right, its Friday.  There are two emotions for Friday:

1. First thing in the morning you drag  yourself out of bed and off to work, knowing it is the last day of the working week but still knowing you have to get through the last day of the working week.  You can be so exhausted, the weight of an entire week on your shoulders and at least another 8 hours to go till it is over.

 2. An hour before work is to finish you start to find your second wind.  Your mouth does something it hasn't done on it's own without thought for a few days ... it smiles.  It might be a hint, but it is there.  Knock off time comes and suddenly you are all alive and...

Yes I love my weekends.  I get to sleep in, catch up on TV, sleep some more.  You get the picture.  This weekend is going to be interesting.  We have a storm brewing apparently.  I never trust the weather man her in Perth though.  Many times they say we will get gale force winds blah blah blah.  You wait for it, and oh, look I think that blade of grass moved.

See this is tomorrows forecast and they still can't get it right.  The left hand side says a 100% chance of rain and the right hand side says 95% of rain.  What if I plan on the 5%  chance there will be no rain and find myself in a downpour!!!  (Yes I am being sarcastic just in case you thought I was being serious).   Don't mock me though, as mentioned, many times our weathermen have forecast rain and we might get 1 drop per 5 meters squared.  You wait for the next drop but it never comes.

The RSPCA Million Paws walk is on this Sunday which is when the worst is supposed to hit.  I do have plans on being there with Miss Lilly.  Thankfully she is light so carrying her shouldn't be an issue.  I love storms, the rain, the thunder, the whole moodiness of it. Can't wait.

On a final note I will leave you with this image of a car I was parked next to today.  The car parks are quite narrow so when you get a 4WD in one, it takes up a lot of room.  Normally I have to pretend I am a crab in order to get into my car.  Not today.  They were parked so far out that I could actually open my door the entire way. I won't even begin to wonder what was going through the drivers mind when parking.  :)

Have a great weekend.

Foot Tales

I have a friend who goes walking every day in picturesque surroundings.  She posts photos of where she has been each day on Facebook.  Now don't get me wrong, I love my city and it has some amazingly beautiful areas, just not the area that I get to walk in every day.  Here is a slightly sarcastic (ok maybe more than slightly) pictorial view of my daily walk.

The view down the road I don't walk on.  I walk on the footpath.

If you blink you might just miss the tiny pretty little bush with a splash of red.

This advert reminds me why I am working.  I just need to rearrange it a bit so that the cake is under bad and the flat tire is under better because I walk instead.  :)

I think Perth Council put this on the path for me.   They just love me and want me to take care.  Isn't that sweet of them.

A little more greenery on my side of the road.  Unfortunately there is a lot of scraggly bits and brown dead bits.  I think they need a new Gardner.

Spectacular view of the impressive concrete construction for the freeway overpass.

Not  quite halfway but if my body starts to feel like gravity increased ten fold then this is the bus stop.  I find I wait 15 minutes when the bus is supposed to come every 6.  It would take me that long to walk the rest of the way.  I would also probably end up on a bus so full that when the door closed, my face would be squished up against it like I deliberately wanted to to do a blow fish impersonation.

This is where my view gets really interesting.  Seriously, have you never walked down a leafy tree filled lane and wished there was some construction going on that you could look at.

Due to construction work, this very busy road has been cut in half, and you can only walk on one side of it.  Suddenly on that one side, this thing pops up.  At first glance it looks like you have to step onto the road in peak hour but they have been kind enough to leave room for one person to walk through at a time.  Lucky I am not there in peak hour.

Sometimes you get to see some very nice eye candy around the construction site, and then you have days like this.

If you sit around on your butt all day people tend to think you are unfit.  Well crane operators sit around on their butts, but look at what they have to climb to get to the top.  What happens when they need to toilet?!

For weeks I watched this thing getting painted on the side of an apartment building.  It doesn't face anywhere in particular other than another building, so I have to ask ... WHY?

OMG I spy with my little eye an old building that hasn't been torn down in the name of progress.

A quirky little alley way.  This photo doesn't really do it justice.

More construction on the other side of the road.  Trust me when I say the grass is definitely not greener on the other side of that fence.  There isn't any grass.

Sometimes as I walk down here, I get the strangest feeling that I am being watched.  Bizarre.

 

This thing makes it look like they are drilling for oil and not making an underground bus station.

If I want a nice view of the architecture on my side of the road, I have to look up. (hmm might come back and get this angle again when I get my new camera.

Almost there now.  This place is near the best coffee in the world.  Unfortunately there is no bus stop there anymore so I don't get to part take of this taste bud delight.

The plaque on the wall explaining the above.   It is hard to visualise horses and carts here with all the modern day construction going on.

Finally I get to cross to the other side.  I make it sound like I am a chicken, but unlike the chicken I actually know why I cross to the other side.  Anyways, this is one of my all time favourite buildings around Perth.  There is so much character to it and it is well looked after.  I have never actually been inside it though.

Now that I have crossed the road I have a decision to make.  Go left down past yet more construction or ...

 ... go right and head towards the central shopping area.

For the purpose of this walk I chose the more picturesque and went right.  Here we are just outside the main train station (behind me) and we are looking towards the shopping area of Perth.  There is our green cactus thingy that cost around a million dollars.  I am surprised it hasn't got graffiti on it yet.  Oh and look, there is more construction going on, on the other side of the city!!!

Thus ends an extremely informative and historical tale from the walking feet. 

Walking Wednesday

Wednesdays are fast becoming my walking day.  According to my Vivofit I did 11,456 steps today.  No wonder I am so buggered.  Good news is that I have lost another 2kgs.  That is 7kgs since Feb this year.  It's slow going but that is good in a lot of ways.

Last Wednesday I didn't walk from work to the train station because I knew I was going to be walking on an oval prior to my movement class.  I felt really good after it so today I decided to do my usual work to train walk.  That is around 1.5 kms.  I get to the oval which is 300m from one end to the other, and did 3 up and down laps (1.8kms).  I did do a lot of stretching as well but by the time my one hour movement class started, my muscles started to stiffen. 

The class involved a lot of squats.  Of course I paid for the class and wanted to get the best out of it so I ignored the stiffness and did my utmost best.  By the time I got home I was kind of hobbling to the door.  I am now sitting here at the computer pondering my journey to my bedroom.  Walking is out of the equation.  I could commando crawl but there are too many shoes in the way.  Maybe I will just crawl and inch myself to the bed.  By the time I get there I may have figured out how to actually get up and into it.  Alternatively I could just pull the blankets and pillow down and sleep on the dogs bed.  The dog can have a treat and sleep on mine for the night.

Mothers Day

Our back yard and gutters had one thing in common until my cousin L came over on Sunday.  The grass was getting very long in both of them.  We don't own a lawn mower and neither of us can clean the gutters properly.  We used to hire a guy but he has become less dependable over the last year.  In exchange for some baby sitting L came to mow our lawn.  He brought two midgets with him so that K could get some much needed study time under her belt.

The first hurdle was that the string pull on the lawn mower broke so he decided to use the whipper snipper.  It worked better than I thought.  This is our back yard before.  Didn't get an after one.  I just love how beautifully it grows so that patches of grey sand are perfectly highlighted.

This is Midget number 2.  I have decided to call her my home wrecker as she is now at that age where she is into everything and very stubborn when she doesn't get her own way.  Not one plant is safe when she is around.  I think she thinks they are all weeds and need to be uprooted.  Here she is checking out the hose, which is thankfully turned off at the tap.  There was just enough water dribbling out to make her believe she filled the dogs bowl up.  She then instructed Lilly  (our chihuahua) that she had to drink.  Lilly is great with kids because Midget 2 grabbed her by the scruff of the neck while Midget 1 pushed from behind to make sure Lilly knew the water was there and that she must drink.  Not once did Lilly growl or snap at them, though I did step in quick and say that Lilly probably wasn't thirsty.

This is Midget 2.  As soon as I get the camera on him he hides his head.  It is very difficult to get a good photo.  I was sitting next to him and thankfully he hasn't figured out my camera trick yet.  The LCD pulls out to the side so I can look like I am not taking a photo at all when really I am.

This is Midget 1 and 2 relaxing peacefully together in kidlet sized cushion chairs (aka dogs beds).  Midget 2 would lean slowly back, clasp her hands and let out a big sigh.

This is Aunty G (my mum) taking Midget 1 for a ride around the yard.  She is such a little lady muck in this photo, being chauffeured around and a meal to boot.

 Midget 2 of course clearing the way as they came through

Aunty G needed a good rest, so they all sat happily for a few seconds.  Of course I call to the Midgets to look and the dog and Aunt decide to look in the other direction.

Midget 2 really wanted to climb that ladder.  She thought no one was watching.

 

Miss Lilly telling me to be quiet as she is hiding from little people.

It was a peaceful afternoon and totally reminded me why I should not even consider having kids at my age.  I'd be knackered.

The Veggetti

The Veggetti turns vegetables into healthy spaghetti.  Its fast and easy, no batteries required and it has an ergonomic grip.  Just put the vegetable in one end and twist to form thin spaghetti strands or thicker fettuccine strands. 

Yes I was sucked into the buy one get one free deal.  Some of my family are vegan so we thought it would be a nice gift while at the same time we could eat healthier also.  I tried it for the first time tonight.  I was making Spaghetti Bolognese and thought it time I give it a go.  Here is my take on the Veggetti.

1. The Veggetti turns vegetables into healthy spaghetti.  Yes it does and it is a lot quicker cooking time wise as well.
2. Its fast and easy  Hmm not really.  You really have to put a lot of effort into it depending on the vegetable.  You have to push down and twist at the same time.  There is a hand grip with spikes that pushes into the vegetable but for some reason it only works on the fat end of a carrot.  It seems to twist itself around within the vegetable (as it did with my normal and sweet potatoes and I didn't dare use it on the zucchini). 
3. no batteries required  Batteries would be handy or a power chord so that it can be done like a juicing machine style set up without twisting your wrist off in the process.
4. it has an ergonomic grip  The grip is wonderfully ergonomic however the hand grip thing that sticks into the vegetable is definitely not.  I have RSI and a whole day of constant typing would have been preferred to the amount of effort to get harder veggies to turn, especially when you had to resort to turning with your hand because the grip wouldn't work.
5. Just put the vegetable in one end and twist  Just put the vegetable in one end, push down on it, twist and hope that it will turn easy.  

Zucchini is definitely the easiest.  It is the right shape and size, and being a soft vegetable,  it runs through quite easily.  This is why they are constantly showing you how to use the machine on the video's with a zucchini. 

Carrot, depends on the size of the carrot.  If you have skinny, lanky, chicken leg looking carrot, don't even try.  The result looks like something that is grated and probably would have been a lot better for your wrist and time if you had grated it.  Less wastage as well.

Potatoes are not the best shape wise for this.  Ideally it would be nice if potatoes grew perfectly round so that you can get that perfect, uninterrupted spaghetti strand but nature doesn't think that way.  To get the perfect potato one you would need to get a large potato and trim it into a cylindrical shape that will twist easily.  Use a zucchini as a guide.  This obviously causes a lot of wastage.

I started tonight with sweet potato.  It was so big I cut it in quarters.  It was then I realised that it was not round and therefore I am really just doing extra long grated lengths rather than spaghetti.   It was also very hard so I gave up on it and went for the carrot.

I put the skinny end of the carrot in and tried to twist it so that the carrot remained on the cutter at all times.  This would require a lot of practice.  Again it looked more like extra long gratings.  Eventually I chopped off the skinny end and put in the fat end.  This went through nicely and I even successfully used the hand grip.  Unfortunately the cutting stops once the hand grip reaches the top edge of the machine so you end up with cone shaped carrot about 6cm long.  More wastage unless you eat as you cook.

Next I tried a standard white starchy potato.  I cut it to fit but even then it would not twist easy.  I used the hand grip, but it twisted around in the top of the potato.  I ended up grabbing the dishcloth and twisting it as it gave a lot more grip.  Unfortunately I found myself constantly having to trim the outer edge so I gave up and just grated it.

My spaghetti for the night ended up being long bits of carrot, long bits of zucchini, shavings of potato, sweet potato and carrot.  All in all it was a lovely meal, I just think that grating would have achieved the same result in less time.

I did throw the veggies directly into the meat to cook so next time I might try and pan fry them first.  That is, if I can be bothered breaking a wrist again.

Overall I think the price you pay (even getting one free) is a bit rich.  If they have a sale where it is buy one get two free, it might be worth it.

Minions

Everyone loves a Minion.  If you don't, well that's your problem.  :)  

I am not a fan of the Despicable Me Movies but I do love the Minions in there.  There are so many pictures and quotes available of them that I could almost tell you about my day through them.  Here is my day so far according to the Minions

Yes the old "can I ignore the alarm and get away with a few more minutes," voice in the head.

After the week I have had I plan to have a great day.

Ok so it might be Friday but there are computer issues as soon as I get into work so it's a bitter sweet Friday.

Falling asleep on the toilet is not an option so...

Need I say more.

Sometimes I just have to bang my head against the wall, smile and be polite.

*Sigh*

And when the day is finally over it will be: