Cupcake

Tuesday:

Jasmine got an A for her cake decorating! I think practicing at home helped. She also got 89% in a maths test this week so she is doing very well. Maths isn't usually her strongest subject. But she is very diligent with homework and I think her Primary School gave her a very good grounding. They have started writing essays in English and they are completely new to a lot of the class, but Jas has done them before in Primary - called "information reports" but basically the same thing. She has settled into High School (Yr 7-12) without a hitch.

She brought home most of the lolly cake decorating toppings, and the cupcakes. I had a cake (the pawprint one) and quite a lot of m&ms. Urg.

I really need to get back on track with my eating, I know I do, but in the next two weeks I have three birthday celebrations and EASTER and the Royal Easter Show which I love. So I should eat healthy at least on the in between days but there don't seem to be any in between days with no good excuse to eat junk.

The Sydney Royal Easter Show is ten times the size of the little Canberra one. My mum used to take us every second year, she said that was all she could stand. I made a special trip to Sydney a few years ago to go to this one, stayed at an old school friend's house and went with her. We got there and I said "Let's go see the animals!" and she said "Actually I seem to be allergic so I can't go near the animals. Let's go on some rides." and I said "Actually I'm scared of heights and hate going fast." We ended up stuck with the displays of fruit and quilting! It was still a fun day. At least we both liked the woodchopping. We did go on one ride in the kid's area that I remembered enjoying as a child, you sit in a thing like a swing or a chair lift, lots of them all hanging off a big ring, you get lifted up and spun around and up and down. I was terrified. All these 8-14 year olds were loving it, and I had my eyes closed the whole time. Every so often I would open them for a second, squeal in fear at the nightmare combination of height AND speed, and squeeze them closed again.

Daddy can take the kids on rides this year. I'll pat the cute lambs.

Cupcake decoration

Wednesday:

The unrelenting heat is set to continue through the rest of the week at least. I went out for a walk this morning as soon as I'd got the kids off to school and nearly melted. Luckily I don't have to go out again, it's going to get a lot hotter. Poor Jas on the crowded school bus on the way home!

One of Jasmine's school subjects is Cooking or Home Science or whatever they call it (it was Home Economics back at my school which is a weird name for a cooking class, as far as I recall there was no budgeting or anything like that). They've been doing mostly healthy food but they have an assessment task of icing cupcakes. She's chosen an animal theme with a sheep (mini marshmallow wool) turtles (spearmint leaf lolly shell) and paw prints (oreo cookie and brown m&ms) - all researched on the internet by herself - so I walked up to the shops and bought a truckload of sugary junk for her. This afternoon she did a practice batch.

Not bad! Not sure about the sheep's head. And she used pink marshmallows for practise, saving the white ones for the real thing.

These (banksias I think?) are just outside our front door, in full bloom. I think this variety is called "birthday candles".

And these grevilleas are overgrowing our mailbox. Both plants attract lots of native birds. And some interlopers. I got dive bombed by a pestiferous Indian Minah Bird on Monday. Little bastard. It's early autumn, not even the season for making nests from my hair or protecting nests, unless he had late chicks.

No cupcakes for me

Saturday:

Quiet Saturday. I stayed home with Thor while Tim took the kids to swimming lessons, and in the afternoon I did the grocery shopping. Had a disrupted night with the puppy up at 3:00, 4:15 and 7:30, and Aiden coming in to cuddle at 7:00. But on the other hand I got to stay in bed until 9:30, which was lovely, so I may have made up for the frequent sleep interruptions.

Tim and the kids made lemon & raspberry cupcakes. I didn't have any. I am feeling pretty strong. Thursday's weigh-in only showed a 0.2 kg loss this week but I have dropped another 0.8 kg in the two days since. I really am feeling a bit thinner, and seeing progress makes sticking to my plan easier.

I have a big overflowing folder of recipes, some I use regularly and some I haven't tried yet, and many years worth of cooking magazines full of sticky bookmarks. My project at the moment is organising all this into four folders. I'm just doing a bit each day, gradually getting things transferred into the new sections and throwing out some recipes I have never used. Tearing out three or four pages from each magazine instead of keeping the whole thing will free up a lot of shelf space. But it is going to take a while. I have tried putting it all on computer, but it turns out I prefer paper.