Week One

I've been on a pretty healthy diet and back exercising again for a week now, but in true Caz fashion I faltered slightly. It might have something to do with the two batches of brownies and caramel shortbread I made *lol* or the Chinese I had last night. In my defence the Chinese was inevitable - you see, our mate Dave had been up from Wales for a bit and we always have a takeout when he's here. We even had to scour the district to find one that was open on a Monday! This raises the question: why are Chinese takeaways closed on a Monday? I read somewhere it goes back to ye olde trading laws but I don't know if that's true.

I've not made it to the gym yet, but I've been on the Wii Fit quite a bit. Loving the hula hooping (though I get the giggles every time I do it) and the step aerobics. I was using it last night to burn off my Chinese *lol* and when I got to my target 30 minutes I accidentally ran over to 31 minutes. In true Caz fashion I had to round up to 45 after that, but as I did I opened a new balance game that I had to try and so in the end I did 50 minutes. I'm kinda skeptical as to how much benefit exercising on the Wii Fit actually gives you but the fact I was sweating and am sore the next day makes me think it's a lot higher than I originally thought. Now I just need to get some ankle and wrist weights for resistance and I'll be tonight everything in no time! =D I actually considered getting a real hula hoop so the Wii hula-ing wasn't quite so virtual.

Anyway, I weighed myself tonight and since last Tuesday I've lost..... 2 lbs!!! =D

10 Random Things I Can See

It's not even 2pm and already I've had the day from hell. I knew it was going to be bad from around 4am when I was awaken by what can only be described as a sound similar to a woman being attacked outside my house. It was loud. It was piercing the silence. It was so close. Really creeped me out. Jazz was asleep on my pillow and even he was sat bolt upright with his ears tuned in to the shrieking sounds. Transpired to be foxes fighting in the street. *sigh*

Work was no better. I've spent the entire morning dealing with everyone else's shit and I have a mountain of my own stuff to get through. To top it all off my boss has decided that he needs to "work from home" this afternoon and tomorrow. As much as I love when he's not in the office to bug me, his version of working from home involves sending two e-mails a day to make you think he's working. Really I think he's down the pub with his mates lol.

Now that brings me to where I am now; sat in Starbucks on my lunch by myself with nothing but my blog, a frappuccino and a skinny blueberry muffin for company. Clearing today's troubles out of my mind completely leaves me able to see these ten random things as I sit on a bar stool facing the window to the world:

• a cobbled lane with lots of puddles;
• a couple kissing as they part ways, one walking down the lane and the other down the street;
• a litter collector picking up pieces of rubbish individually with his rubber glove clad hands;
• a woman frantically typing away in the job centre opposite (probably blogging);
• pigeons everywhere;
• a bus advertising flights to Barcelona (what I'd give to be there right now...);
• a guy delivering bottled water-cooler water to my office building;
• two women gossiping and laughing loudly over cigarettes;
• an old lady trying to cross the road between traffic instead of walking to the crossing;
• a teenage guy and his mate staring at me 'cos I'm taking in my surroundings... better get back to the office.

Shedding Pounds

Another thing I know that will help me in my "make me happy" quest is to lose weight. I have been steadily gaining the pounds throughout 2008 and up until last night didn't have the drive or motivation to stop myself. But I weighed myself yesterday and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm officially thee heaviest I have ever been! I've tipped the scales 1lb over my 2003 fat weight and I hate it. I. Hate. It. ='( I have a plateau weight of 8lbs lighter than I am now, so that should be easy to reach. But my target weight, the same weight I was when I was 18 years old, is going to prove a challenge. I've managed it before though, back in 2004, and I plan on getting there again.

So after giving myself a good old kick up the backside, I decided that I want to lose 22lbs (10kg) but I'm not sure what a realistic target time would be. Some people have suggested aiming to lose one pound per week; others two pounds. 22 weeks seems too long... So I left the deciding up to my trusty Wii Fit. It suggested I aim for 3 months so that's what I'm gonna do. Let the countdown begin!

I'll get some measurement and weight loss charts designed for the sidebar of this blog so you can all track my progress. Wish me luck!!!

If Derek had a Band and they had an Album...

You might remember that I did a little quiz recently to see what my band's first album would look like. Here's my finished result. Derek completed the quiz today and this is what his band Glamorous Glue's album would look like. =)

The Joy of Baking

I baked again! It's like I've found this new hobby and I can't get enough! This time I made another batch of gingerbread (but it didn't come out as nice as before - either the oven was a little too hot or the self-raising flour wasn't quite right.) I also made chocolate brownies and Rice Krispies Squares and OMG they're fab!!! I have the ingredients to make millionaire's shortbread but I think I'll make that later on.

The recipe I used for the brownies came from Joy of Baking, a great recipe website I came across just the other day. Here it is:

Chocolate Brownies

Ingredients:

• 140g bittersweet chocolate
• 115g unsalted butter
• 15g cocoa powder
• 200g granulated white sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs
• 95g all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 125g semi-sweet chocolate chips

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 175*C and place the rack in the center of the oven.
2. Butter an 20 cm square pan.
3. Melt the chocolate and butter in a large bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water.
4. Remove from heat and stir in the cocoa powder and sugar.
5. Whisk in the vanilla extract and eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
6. Stir in the flour, salt and chocolate chips.
7. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for about 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a little batter and a few moist clumps clinging to it. Do not over bake.
8. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack. Serve at room temperature or chilled.

Gingerbread Recipe

Here is the gingerbread recipe I used in my fabulously yummy gingerbread! It came from "Maw Broon's But an' Ben Cookbook" which OMG is amazing! Beautifully Scottish and amazingly comical. *lol*

Gingerbread

Ingredients:

• 1 lb self-raising flour
• 1 teaspoon mixed spice
• 2 teaspoons dried ginger
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 4 ozs brown sugar
• 1 cup golden syrup
• 6 ozs butter
• 2 ozs crystallised ginger, finely chopped
• 4 ozs sultanas
• 2 eggs, separated
• 1 cup buttermilk

Method:

1. Sieve the flour and spices into a bowl.
2. Melt the butter and syrup.
3. Separate the eggs. Beat the yolks with the sugar and add to the milk.
4. Add the melted butter and syrup.
5. Pour into the flour and mix well.
6. Add the crystallised ginger and sultanas.
7. Beat the egg whites till firm and fold into mixture.
8. Pour into a greased 12-inch yorkshire tin (or two loaf tins as I did) and bake at 350*F for about 45 minutes.
9. Test with a skewer. Cool on a rack and cut.

Nail Polish & Tissue Paper

Sometimes it really is the little things in life that amuse me. Well, they either amuse me or annoy the crap out of me. In my case, both can occur within seconds of each other. For example: I can be out shopping and there might be a young teenage girl, no more than 13 years old, dressed totally inappropriately for being out in public. Bear in mind it's only just turned April and really still quite cold... Recent examples include a neon pink tube top pulled down to make a "dress", ridiculously high stilettos (or hooker heels as I call them) which clearly are not designed for children, oversized neon yellow fireman's pants, totally transparent white string vests over a blatantly visible bra or really anything else which would be suitably placed in a brothel. Now the fact their parents allow them to go out in public dressed like this says a lot for the society we live in nowadays but that's a whole other post. *lol* What amuses me is that they walk about thinking they look hot! Now I realise they're getting the attention they crave because I'm sat here blogging about them but really? *shakes head in disbelief* It amuses me bacuase I know everyone's laughing at them but it annoys the crap out of me because they symbolise all that is wrong with our society.

This morning as I was on the train on my way to work I was annoyed and amused in the space of about 20 minutes. I was sitting on the train minding my own business and a woman got on. After humphing her bags all about the place (I think her office was having a bring-your-kitchen-sink-to-work-day) she began painting her nails! There is very little ventilation on the train and combined with the heating... OMG... talk about headache inducing! Then as I got off the train there was this guy suntering along in front of me, clearly thinking he looked so cool and "with it" in his nice new shoes and coat. You know the type. The coat he had on though was clearly new and he had the belt fashionably tied behind him - thing is, the idiot had left the protective tissue paper over the buckle!! *lmao*

Oh deary me. What a peculiar world. *lol*