I pretty much had to restrain from my list being just Phoenix, The National and Polica (which it mostly is anyway), and chucked in the last two based on the songs that have most made me sing out loud in the car. Also my #1 song wasn't actually in the list (the other two The National songs were), but it really was the best song of 2013 for me.
I think voting in the hottest 100 is a great way to find out about new stuff to listen to and also remind yourself about stuff you used to like but don't anymore (or have forgotten about). I realised that there's a lot of bands I've
lost touch with including The Knife, Arcade Fire, Vampire Weekend,
Royksopp, and I was surprised (and excited) to see a Postal Service song
in there.
An early and inevitable congratulations to Daft Punk!
The last few months I've been trying to eat really healthy at work. I've found that preparing lunch on Sunday for the whole week means that you don't have to think about what you're having every day and you don't have the chance to make bad lunch decisions.
The habit I've gotten in to is to make boxes of steamed veggies, eggs and fruit to last me the whole week, and if you don't mind the repetition (I don't, I always look forward to lunch!) it's a really convenient way to stay on top of your 2 fruit and 5 veg a day.
A few people have asked me about it so here it is :)
Ingredients
When I started doing this I tried a bunch of different vegetables but a lot of them didn't keep very well for 5 days or didn't reheat well in the microwave (e.g. don't use squash or asparagus). This is the list I've whittled it down to along with how much time they need to steam (I like them fairly firm):
5 carrots (4mins)
1/2 cauliflower (4mins)
5 brussel sprouts (3mins)
1 broccoli (3mins)
1 zucchini (2mins)
3 bok choy (1.5mins)
5 eggs
Method
I've managed to get this whole process down to under an hour including preparation and cleanup. Set up 5 lunch boxes ready to transfer the vegetables in to as they're finished steaming.
Wash all the veggies (I do the bok choy separately because it's really sandy):
Chop up the cauliflower and carrot:
Steam the cauliflower and carrot in a stove top steamer (pan with a steamer top attachment) with the lid on. If you have room you can do both at the same time since they're both 4 minutes:
While that's steaming, cut up the broccoli, zucchini, brussel sprouts and wash the bok choy.
When the carrot and cauliflower are done, move them to the boxes and then steam the broccoli and brussel sprouts together for 3 minutes, then steam the zucchini on it's own for 2 minutes. Here's the boxes before the boy choy:
Last thing is the bok choy for 1.5mins on it's own. This oversteams very quickly so keep an eye on it:
When you get a chance (or at the end) boil 5 eggs. I use the Burton Timer, I love that thing (thanks Andrew!).:
Each box reheats in about 3 minutes in the microwave.
For the fruit salad I always use whatever fruits look good. I usually make two big boxes of fruit salad (one for myself and one for Andrew) which is nice because you get a better variety of fruit that way.
And here's all my lunch for the week!
Calorie Breakdown
This is approximate and will vary based on which fruits you choose and also the size of the egg. Also I only season the vegetables with salt and pepper, so add more if you're using anything else.
Mixed steamed vegetables: 125
Boiled egg: 70
Fruit salad: 80
Total: 275 calories
This lunch keeps me full most days and I usually don't need a snack, but if I do I have some Pura Veda (a kind of museli but made with seeds instead of grains) and yoghurt or some peanut butter on it's own or with celery. You can also add some grilled chicken breast if you're finding the calorie intake isn't enough for your diet.
I haven't gotten bored of this yet, and it's been really convenient. Hope this inspires someone to start steaming their way to a healthier lunch!
Amy and I had a great idea today - why hasn't anyone tried to make Christmas trees out of rocky road? It's crazy that no one has thought of this before, it's so obvious! We are geniuses.
We got straight in the car and went to the shops and bought enough lollies to make the nice young man at the checkout say "wow that's a lot of lollies" very suspiciously - I don't think he believed us when we said we were going to make rocky road. If there was a diabetes police he would have called them. After telling him not to judge us we were on our way home for our rocky road (mis)adventure.
Amy's first crazy idea was that we could just spoon it on top of itself and it would make a cone shape, but we decided that probably wouldn't work and it would probably just fall over straight away. My crazy idea was that we could pour it into cones made out of cardboard lined with baking paper, but that was way too fiddly.
Our flash of genius was to line some kind-of-conical wine glasses with glad wrap and fill those with the rocky road. I'll let you decide if we succeeded or not.
I felt like I was 5 years old decorating some weird plaster space ship. I think Amy's looks like something you'd see in a sex shop and wonder in which orifice it belongs. I imagined what Mina would think if she saw what we'd made and decided she'd be ashamed of us.
On the plus side, if we ever need to make rocky road space ships we have perfected the technique!
This year on Halloween night I went to Rigby's for a "variety show" with the girls. It was a fun night, kind of despite the show, where we were shocked and very confused by the... well variety of shows.
The first act was a guy with handcuff surface piercings in his back who stuck needles in his face then squirted water out of his face-holes onto the audience. He then went around wielding a multi-purpose spoon which he used to a) eat a can of baked beans, b) stick up his nose, and c) eat people's food off their plates, all to a soundtrack of heavy metal music. I actually kind of enjoyed it, mostly because of how horrified Alissa and George were.
The other shows were a bit hit and miss; but we really enjoyed the burlesque lady who had a snake as a boa, and the fire guy who came on just at the right time because all his fire heated up room which was getting quite cold towards the end of the night.
We ended up having a fight with the waitress because we missing our glass of wine that was supposed to come out with dinner. I hope Krystal ended up writing that strongly worded letter (we were so outraged!). I don't know if I'd recommend it; I guess Halloween is a very specific night, but it was definitely interesting.
On the weekend we went to a Halloween/house warning party at Ruth and Stuart's place. It was the most extravagantly decorated party I have ever been to, I was so impressed at the attention to detail. There were webs with spiders everywhere, blood transfusions, jelly shots with fingers in them, a graveyard, and decorations in every corner of the place.
Andrew and I went as prisoner (Spotlight) and police woman (Bras n Things). It's the first time in 6 years that I haven't worn my nurse outfit, which I deemed to inappropriate given the list of managers from work that were going to be there.
I made some Halloween cupcakes including eyeballs, severed ears, spiders, and alligators eating Tiny Teddies. I was really proud of them before I saw the other amazing cakes on the table! Seriously... so impressed.
For the 3rd year in a row Pole Fever has been involved with supporting Telethon. We take the graveyard shift on the Saturday night in the phone rooms, which makes for an extremely long day since we all work early Saturday mornings at the studio! Nothing that coffee, red bulls and a whole lot of lollies can't fix though.
Since I don't really watch TV a lot of the celebrity stuff goes over my head (last year I thought we'd met the lake boys, but apparently they're called the River Boys) but it's still always really fun, especially when people are interested in having a go on the Pole. This year Larry Emdur (from what my grandma likes to call The Pretz is Right) had a go at flag and kind of got it but mostly not.
I managed to get home at the reasonable hour of 2am (usually it's been a lot later) and after a sleep in till 12:30pm I'm wondering where the weekend went! I really hope they hit their target this year, Telethon is such a worthy cause!
It was an exciting morning followed by a sorrowful afternoon in Fremantle on Grand Final day last Saturday.
We got to Freo at 8am and prepared our tummies for some early morning drinking with a delicious breakfast from Moore and Moore.
Fremantle was extremely purple on Saturday, and by 9:30am the cafe strip was already crowded with people setting up to watch the game in 3h on the big screens set up around the streets. After stopping off at the TAB (no wins) we decided to wait in line for half an hour and make the most of the 7am liquor licence at the Sail and Anchor.
We found a good spot upstairs and stayed there for the whole game. We thought we might go outside to soak up the atmosphere at half time, but things weren't looking great by then.
It was a sad train trip home :( But at least we weren't hung over for the Royal Show!
Yesterday we braved the rain and went to the Perth Royal show. It rained on and off all day (so my traditional rainbow makeup was very apt!) and we decided to leave before the fireworks, but we definitely made the most of the show and had a great day.
Our first stop was an outdoor show by Natural Wings Trapeze, a very beautiful performance in less than ideal weather conditions. Static trapeze looks like heaps of fun, it looks like a lot of the tricks would translate between trapeze and pole.
The dog pavilion was really fun, this year was hounds (including daschunds!) and a random dog that Andrew noticed looked like Kurt Cobain.
The pigeon and poultry pavilion did not disappoint, it's one of my favourite pavilions at the show! From the constant crowing of the roosters to the pigeons with balls on their face it's definitely an eggsperience!
We spent quite a bit of time in the pavilions due to the rain, but in my opinion they're the best part of the show anyway. After learning about where our meet comes from and getting our eyes massaged (and noses broken, seriously this thing was like ahh that's nice don't st... OH GOD MY NOSE) we went and patted some baby animals, stopping to watch some very intense wood chopping.
Andrew's highlight was the sheep dog demonstrations, dogs are amazing! There were a couple of dogs that demonstrated herding sheep, one dog demonstrated herding ducks, and then there was a 3 month old puppy that had all the skills of a sheep dog but hadn't even started training! Apparently a lot of it is instinct, wanting to bring prey towards the pack leader (the dogs owner). The puppy was adorable.
Also a steam engine and a blacksmith:
The cakes were really pretty as always. I've got the forms and next year I want to get Mina to enter some of her baked stuff (not in the decorated category though).
This year we only went on one ride; the Python Loop (a roller coaster with one loop). It was still a really fun ride but after Port Aventura it's really hard not to be a roller coaster snob!
We left the show with a whole bunch of delicious things which made our second dinner (my first dinner was curly fries, you can't go to the show and not get these!). Yay curly fries!!!
I'm still recovering from Saturday's preliminary grand final! After Freo's deafening win we headed into Fremantle with pretty much the whole of the reset of Western Australia to celebrate. I've never seen so many people in the streets of Fremantle city!
This Saturday we'll be going to Fremantle to watch the final, I think the atmosphere will be incredible. I am so happy that I got work off Saturday morning (thanks Cara!) so that I won't miss the start. GOOO FREOOOO!!!
Well, just a little about myself.
I was born in Perth and have lived here my whole life, and I count myself as an Aussie even though my family are all extremely Romanian.
I went to Mercedes College - the one with the winter green uniform and the poo brown shoes.
I'm putting my Bachelor of Engineering/Computer & Mathematical Science at UWA to use at a mining equipment simulation company, and working as a fitness trainer in my spare time.
I have a pet bunny named George. He's a white dwarf lop and we love each other very much.
I have a weakness for anything peach flavoured, especially peaches, and I never say no to fairy bread.
