Wildlife

Tuesday:

Nature seems to be visiting the house at the moment. We have a resident skink (little lizard). I've tried putting him outside but he was back in the next day. And why not? It's warm, there is probably plenty of food (my kids are 12 and 9 but you'd think they were about 3 from their messy eating, there are always bits on the floor). He is cute. We call him skinky.

The last three mornings I've woken to ants on the counter top, and today it was an invasion. This is the cupboard where I keep the bin, under the sink. I don't use insect sprays much, but I did today! Only in the cupboard and I hope skinky doesn't go in there, they do eat insects. I cleaned up all the dead ones of course.

It rained heavily all night and was gloomy this morning, but in the afternoon the sun came out and so did this lovely Rainbow Lorikeet, eating nectar.

Today we visited the doctor where I had my foot treated again. Then I took the kids to the library. Jasmine got several books, Aiden none. He loves being read to but isn't that keen on reading. Jasmine would happily spent all day reading, curled up on her bed. I picked up one book on the ethics of keeping animals as pets. I flicked through it and it was engagingly written so why not? The back mentions the author does have pets so she's not rabid on the issue, but she does think a lot of people are not responsible pet owners and also that some animals should never be kept as pets. I've owned two dogs, one when I lived alone and was working full time and I felt so guilty leaving her home alone all day, especially when she was a little puppy. The other when I was home all day and I felt like a much better owner (although we had to give him up when my mum got sick).

In the afternoon we played Trivial Pursuit. One of my birthday presents was a version that has a box of kids' questions and a box of normal questions (I was going to say adult questions but that sounds dodgy). The balance of difficulty seems about right.

I also spent some time in the kitchen getting as many meals as possible out of two chickens. The legs went into cream of chicken soup that we'll have tomorrow, the breasts in satay for dinner, the wings I roasted in the oven (with veges to catch the delicious juices) and we had them for lunch with leftovers from the weekend BBQ, and the carcasses I also roasted then simmered with vegetables for soup/stock/bone broth.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I ate more after blogging last night. I had one of my birthday chocolates. Then two cold lamb chops. Then a little piece of cheese. I didn't seem to be able to stop myself. Way too much food for an unnecessary evening snack, I wasn't even hungry. But it wasn't too unhealthy, at least. And I still lost half a kilo overnight. I will try to control myself today.

B: raspberries and yoghurt, tea.
L: chicken wings, lamb chop, salad, tea.
S: cream of chicken soup (I couldn't wait until tomorrow).
D: satay chicken and vegetables with quinoa.
S: I plan to have one birthday chocolate later.

I still have two more glasses of water to drink this evening but only 21 steps to reach my 5,000 so I'm confident.