une année sans chocolat

January 17, 2011 - Get juicing

2011-01-18T20:41:00.000+11:00

I am almost at the end of the giant fruit and vegetable box, save for a few stray apples and oranges and a large quantity of lettuce. Can you juice lettuce? (If not, it will be a good excuse to buy a bunny.)

I did try Googling "lettuce juice" but I only found sites telling me that lettuce juice could treat cancer and prevent "habitual abortions". As of yet I do not have an abortion habit, but perhaps it is worthwhile to establish a lettuce-juice-drinking routine should this situation arise.

I have a large, overpriced and difficult-to-clean juicer to assist me in this task. I bought it when I was on an orange-and-carrot-juice kick several years ago and it has been parked on top of my pantry ever since. I feel sorry for it.

4 days on the wagon.

January 16, 2011 - Kill the snooze button

2011-01-17T11:29:00.002+11:00

At the moment I have six different alarms set in my phone and they each have 15 minutes of snooze. Today I pressed the snooze button a total of five times. I really need to just get up, yes? I've taken to wearing my gym clothes to bed so I do not have the its-too-cold-too-get-dressed excuse.

I have set my snooze time to one minute because I cannot turn it off altogether.

The bed-making resolution is really not working out. I have decided that the rumpled sheets and excess of pillows add an insouciant, devil-may-care ambiance to the room, in the manner of an overstyled magazine shoot.

More successful has been the decision to eat more plants. This is what showed up in my home-delivered produce box this week:

3 days on the wagon.

January 15, 2011 - Drink 8 glasses of water

2011-01-16T19:00:00.000+11:00

I once worked in an office where a few of us used to bring empties of those three-litre juice bottles to work, fill them with water, and then have a water-drinking race. It was a fairly stressful environment so excuses to go to the bathroom were always a good thing. I suppose I could have just gone to the bathroom anyway, just washed my hands or something, but then I would feel bad about lying. Much better to drink the better part of a gallon of water and let nature take its course.

I don't work there any more so I don't drink nearly as much water, though I should because I spend a lot of time at the gym and it's not airconditioned. People leave there looking like they've taken a shower with their clothes on.

By cruel coincidence my gym is on the same street as my favourite cafe, the one with the beer-battered fries and aioli, thus setting up a perpetual cycle of fries --> spin class --> more fries.

It is also time to send another fan letter.

"Dear Microsoft,

When I was twelve, I bought my own Playstation so I could play Need for Speed: High Stakes without having to wait for my brother to finish with Dino Crisis.

We bought an Xbox even though the salesman at JB Hi-Fi told my boyfriend he should get a Wii "for the chick." I was lied to about cake. I watched an elephant get electrocuted. I shot the engineer, with the rod gun, and set it on fire, because I didn't like Veronica Dare.

You know, if it weren't for those Foxtel-on-Xbox commercials, I never would have realised that I was supposed to use my Xbox to watch crappy pay TV. But now I have a problem. I don't actually have three dimwitted, scantily-dressed friends to come around, ogle my boyfriend and coo over my shiny television. Do the friends come with the Foxtel package? This would explain why you're charging $20 a month. Surely people aren't paying that amount purely for the privilege of watching several dozen channels of lukewarm American sitcoms, complete with commercials.

I'm really excited about Kinect though, since the existing Xbox controller doesn't fit in my girly little hands.

Sincerely,

Jayne."

2 days on the wagon.

January 14, 2011 - Have nice nails

2011-01-14T23:00:00.000+11:00

I can eat whole raw lemons. They are delicious. For this reason, those bottles of bitter-tasting stuff you can buy to paint on your nails to stop the biting have no effect on me. You might as well make it chocolate-flavoured. I wouldn't eat that.

Instead I am going to use an overwhelming force of sheer willpower to stop biting them, and also to start doing all those nail-type things I read about in magazines. Filing them. Pushing back cuticles. Buffing, too, I guess. I will be able to go to a beautician without fear she will recoil in horror at seeing my mutilated little hand-stumps.

Unlike most of my resolutions this one has an incentive, whereby if I can go a whole month keeping my damn hands away from my teeth, Imma gon get me a fancy manicure, with polish and everything. I'll keep a count down the bottom of each post.

P.S. The bird is the word.

1 day on the wagon.

January 13, 2011 - Remember to floss

2011-01-12T21:21:00.000+11:00

Because dentists need love too.

Yesterday I ordered a box of home-delivered local fruit and vegetables. It arrived today and it is the size of a small car. I am baking a carrot cake to try to make a dent in my carrot collection. I have three fruit bowls now. I could open a juice bar.

I put a bunch of the onions in the slowcooker with five pounds of pork. This should work out well.

Am I the only one who thinks this looks like Darth Vader?

January 12, 2011 - Buy handmade

2011-01-12T08:55:00.001+11:00

I am lucky that my city has an excellent farmers' market. They have lovely things like olive oil and fresh coffee and big wodges of Brie. One time I was there I went to buy flowers and I wound up being just short of change and so I went to put them back and the lady said "no, keep them, just fix it up next time." Which I did. My point being, you can't do things like that at Woolworths.

On the subject of handmade - look at this mother-effin' challah, right here:

That's right Baker's Delight you can just sod off now. I got this.

To celebrate my handmade pledge I went to Blackbird Corner and bought many things. It was FOR THE BLOG you see. Especially the book of iron-on transfers with a distinct unicorn-and-rollerskates theme.

January 11, 2011 - Feed the piggy bank

2011-01-11T10:22:00.000+11:00

I am going to save all my gold coins and put them in my piggy bank. When it is full I will spend them on something awesome like this nifty coffee drip thing we had at a Vietnamese restaurant.

I don't want my silver coins taking up room in the piggy bank but I have found a way to dispose of them by using all my twenty-cent pieces to pay for groceries using the self checkout at Coles. It takes a while but I am still quicker than the people who try to self-serve a whole trolley full of groceries including the fruit and vegetables you have to weigh. Those people kind of suck.

January 10, 2011 - Wear sunscreen

2011-01-10T10:14:00.001+11:00

Since this one is kind of self-explanatory I give you the wisdom of John Safran.

And also a photo of a garden.

January 9, 2011 - Bake my own bread

2011-01-09T07:15:00.000+11:00

Is the bread Helga's? Fuck no.

I use the Jim Lahey recipe. It is wonderful and vastly preferable to paying $6 for artisan bread. Last time I made it I filled the inside with spinach, mushrooms, feta and buffalo mozzarella.

It also makes good pizza dough if you smoosh it flat (bake it for around ten minutes at the hottest temperature your oven can get to).

I am going to try some herby-grainy-cheesy variants. Maybe a baguette.

Death to supermarket bread.

Here is a bread and butter pudding I made with rum and raisins.

January 8, 2011 - Type a letter every week

2011-01-08T00:00:00.001+11:00

I have a typewriter. She is an Olivetti Lettera 32. Her name is Olivia.

This year I am going to use her to write a letter to somebody every week and mail it on Monday.

"Dear Channel Ten,

I am writing to thank you for running Law and Order: SVU repeats on Thursday night. Perhaps you could play Law and Order every night, like you do with The Simpsons? There's more than enough episodes. Seriously, TV1 managed to create a whole pay-TV channel based on nothing but Law and Order repeats.

When I was in Year 9, we did an English unit on current affairs shows. At the end, we had to produce and film our own segment, using all the cliched tricks we'd picked up from watching taped episodes of Today Tonight. I conducted a fake interview with a student portraying a fictionalised disgraced AFL star. We had dolls representing his young family, and old netball trophies in the background to symbolise his premiership wins. I asked him hackneyed questions about his love of the game, and he broke down in manly sobs whilst he defended himself against the "shocking allegations" that he had engaged in lewd acts with one of those flags the linesmen use.

If I could find the tape we made, I would send it to you, since it's considerably better than anything Dave Hughes has done for The 7PM Project.

Sincerely,

Jayne."

Also my resolution to not eat chocolate has been surprisingly easy so far. I have decided to avoid another of my vices: Pepsi Max. They are running a promotion where if you drink ten bottles of Pepsi you get a t shirt. This is nice of them. I won a t shirt in one week. That is a lot of Pepsi Max.

I think I will extend this to carbonated beverages, generally. Except soda-water based cocktails. Of course.

When I went to the gym this morning I completed three whole quarters of a proper pushup before I fell smack on my face. Progress.

January 7, 2011 - Wear earrings every day

2011-01-07T20:35:00.000+11:00

One I went four years without wearing any earrings and the holes healed over and I had to pierce them again myself with a needle.

I was seven years old.

I was really proud of myself but I think that in the future it would be better if I just remember to wear earrings.

Also this will give me an excuse to trawl Etsy for new ones. The other day I found this pair shaped like hand grenades.

Here is a photo of a cat.

January 6, 2011 - Eat more plants

2011-01-06T08:41:00.003+11:00

I went and bought one of those magnetised meal-planning charts from Kikki.K or someplace like that, because I'm always finding string beans in the back of the fridge. Or maybe they are asparagus. They are too decomposed to be sure. Perhaps if I make a proper grocery list I won't buy these things and then lose them in my fridge. Also I enjoy writing things like "rice pudding for breakfast."

Hopefully it will help me stick to my resolution to eat more fruits and vegetables.

The planning chart has a column for snacks. I don't really do snacks, so I have substituted alcoholic beverages. Thursday is Sangria Night. Sunday is Daiquiri Day. A Bloody Mary counts as a salad.

I am still figuring out the best way to add booze to Asian iced coffee (the Thai and Vietnamese stuff with the condensed milk). Bailey's or Frangelico are too obvious and also I am kind of bored with them. Is there some sort of palm-sugar-flavoured liqueur? Hmmmm.

I may have spent a lot more time deciding on the "drinks" column than I did filling out the rest of the planner. The word "bacon" also appears more often than most doctors might recommend.

January 5, 2011 - Walk the dog

2011-01-05T08:37:00.001+11:00

Another resolution I will be happy to manage six times a week. I have to make allowances for rain. And hangovers.

Our dog Jack is a ten year old border collie/kelpie mix. He likes to bark at bikes, skateboards, scooters, cats, thunderstorms, the sound the pepper grinder makes, the vacuum, the garden hose, the mailman and also sometimes he just barks for the sheer doggy fun of it.

He likes to fight lizards and he has a one-eared plush dog toy who lives with him in his kennel.

January 4, 2011 - Go to the gym

2011-01-04T08:17:00.004+11:00

So this probably won't happen every day. I will be happy with six days per week. One of them has to be a spin class though. They should recommend spin class for recovering addicts. It's like an out-of-body experience where your mind goes on a magical journey to escape from the fact that every muscle in your lower body is begging for mercy but you can't leave the room because then you will never be able to make eye contact with the aggressively Scandinavian-looking instructor ever again. Endorphins, man. Wow.

On Christmas Eve last year, I got completely schooled by a Pump class instructor who was flinging a twenty-kilogram bar around with wild abandon, despite being heavily pregnant. It was one of the more shaming moments of my gym-going career as I struggled to hoist my dinky one-kilogram handweights in the air for a shoulder press. (I was TIRED, okay?) During a "Fat Burner" class (fifty-five minutes of brutal cardio, facing a MIRROR, you bastards) I noticed that the lady standing to my immediate right was exactly one-half my width. Astonishing.

Also my gym membership was expensive. I paid for a whole year to financially shame myself into going. I went for a fitness assessment where it was established that I cannot complete a single push-up, even the girly on-your-knees kind. Boo.

On a more positive note it is nice to know that even though I am a fitness noob, even on my worst days I am not such an epic failure as the person who shelves books at Borders.

January 3, 2011 - Make my bed

2011-01-02T20:15:00.005+11:00

And then take a photo of it, and then send the photo to my mum.

I was going to add "fold a fitted sheet properly" but fuck it even housekeeping staff can't do that. There's a reason all hotel sheets are flat.

This morning I counted eight pillows on my bed. Each of them are essential.

I would not be good at camping, I do not think.

I am good at making breakfast though.

January 2, 2011 - Une annee sans chocolat

2011-01-02T20:09:00.006+11:00

A whole gosh-darn year without chocolate. Or cocoa. Or carob. Not that I eat carob. Carob is the decaf-chicory-dandelion-coffee of the chocolate world. I don't even feed it to my dog. You shouldn't either, because it's nasty.

Still on the menu: gummi bears. Rice pudding. Pavlova. Pavlova is really more like a salad I feel, what with all that fruit. The cream is important too for calcium. And protein. Really it's mostly egg whites too, pure protein. It's really a health food. Much more so than those creepy faux-chocolate-low-carb-power-muscle-fuel-burn things they sell at the supermarket.

I'm not sure why more weight-loss books don't advocate adding more pavlova to one's diet.

Instead of chocolate we made pasta.

January 1, 2011 - Take a photo, every day

2011-01-01T18:28:00.007+11:00

My first resolution is to take a photograph every day. Mostly I want to document all the ill-advised things I'm likely to do to my hair over the course of a year. This is today's photo.

And here are my favourite snaps from the past year-ish.