Oooo, my new friend fitness..

I wish!  

Ha ha, but I did con the husband into piling the tots in the pushchair and walking for 7kms, and I felt amazing afterwards - now I'm a bit sore, but the husband is winging his way to Melbourne, the kids are bathed, fed and quiet, and I'm positively drooling at the prospect of telly, food and house to myself for 2 and a bit evenings to do what I like.

(Sit around in my slippers and old tshirt, watching girlie rubbish, painting my toenails & eating stuff I wouldn't normally eat for dinner - like eggs on toast and chocolate anything)

I also played golf on Friday (for work, love my job), starting off like a drunken bar brawler wielding a pool queue, and ending 9 holes later impressing the 3 others in my team with well played lady swings, and being an ambrose game, I was shocked to find them using my shots more than 3 times!  And they were all old people who play golf every weekend!  I like golf, and was pleased to find my gorgeous blue clubs felt as familiar as ever after 3 years.

(And I won a brolly)

An excellent weekend of relative fitness, and next weekend I take on a fun run (or walk, for aspiring runners like me), all 9.7kms of it.  

Maybe the following weekend I will persuade my gorgeous husband to escort me out for dinner feeling svelte (or more so than usual anyway) in my new one shoulder super-cute cocktail dress and silver sparkly heels.....

(That is actually it, it cost me $20, and looks amazing on for a cuddly size 16 such as myself!)

Now to find somewhere to wear it, where I won't look overdressed.

Those new Denon AVR 1912 Amps, Sony Bravia Tv's and LG 3D Tv's

The husband has recently purchased one of each - our old main telly started to delaminate along the base of the picture, but Sony Wega, you served us well, and the bedroom Loewe finally exploded - the thing was 12 years old.

(Disclaimer - these reviews are of a housewife who likes technology, not an expert, or a paid executive for an electronics company, however, if you are an electronics company who wants to make me a paid executive, call me!)

LG 3D TV

• I never realised how clear TV could be, until we got the LG, it's madness, and I was a little nervous as we'd had a total nightmare with an LG dishwasher that they eventually admitted was a dud and replaced (the new one is pretty good).  But the LG tv is holding it's own, even against the bedroom Sony Bravia...
• Great picture, although now anything on telly with less than fabulous graphics now looks like Atari from the 80's
• The 3D on a 3D disc is great fun, still clear as a bell and just adds a little depth - I'm not swatting at butterflies in front of my nose as the advertising may suggest, but it's cool.
• The 3D on a 2D picture is fun, but we don't really go there, preferring normal HD.
• The energy saving mode appears to be missing - I have never seen the TV switch off.  (The Sony turns off at your set interval if no movement in the room is detected, which is super cool, because when you walk back in, it flicks on again).
• It appears to have some compatibility with the Denon, since when I turn off the telly, the amp does too - cheers husband, nice trick!
• The online content shits all over the Sony stuff, and it comes with a Wii like remote option, although we haven't really done anything with this other than hook it up and go "Ahhhh".
• The sound is pretty rubbish, but that's the thing with flat screens - tiny speakers - and the Denon fixes that problem anyway.
• Cheap 3D glasses, in case the kids wreck them, or we do..

Denon AVR1912

• Everything this amp does is amazing, although we have a PC hooked up with the iTunes on it and the Airplay seems to cut out when going through the router, but directly it's ok, hopefully just teething issues, husband is convinced he requires a new router, but I say no, I require new girl-things to even out the recent tech-spend.  
• It has awesome sound, I never thought our old speakers could sound incredible again, but they do.
• Relatively easy to use and I love how you can operate it on the TV screen, and how it has internet radio, where you can find almost any radio station in the world and stream it.
• It appears to happily operate with our other hardware and whilst it is taking a while to work out the kinks in how things work with what, for a couple of tech enthusiasts, it ain't half bad to work with.
• One nice little trick is how you can put the sound through all 5 speakers, which for us means we can poke a surrond speaker out the window when we're relaxing on the deck, and have music without blasting the neighbours and waking the kids - super top little value-add for us!

Sony Bravia

• Nice picture, more soft than sharp, but pleasant.
• Rubbish online content, two widgets in the widget gallery - TWO.
• Energy save feature rules - switches off the picture, leaving the sound only running when it detects no movement in the room, switches the pic back on when you walk back in, nice one.
• It reckons you can access your music through the LAN cable - oh-no-you-di'n't! - it crashed and required repairing, in the shop, taking a couple of weeks, without TV in the bedroom - I wasn't quite sure what to do, husband had a few ideas, mostly involving his ahem parts.
• Not sure whether to love it because it's pretty, or hate it because it's half the TV that the LG is... and I'm a Sony fan, so that hurts!

A lot like red jelly, my belly

Ok, so I've managed to start some exercise, an hour long walk yesterday morning, 10mins flat out on the cross trainer in the afternoon (being a Sunday), and managed to commit myself to one of those mass sweaty runs where I will be one of the fat people walking at the back and sweating more than the skinny running good looking people.  But totally looking forward to feeling less pudding-like. 

I have started also with a protein shake for breakfast, which surely is an improvement on no breakfast at all.

I tried all bran, and special K - all supposedly sensible choices, but gained weight and got hungry by 10am  - might work for you, don't work for me :-(

How do people stay skinny?

And here we are at the end of January, with a few (FEW) sunny days under our belts (mostly weekdays, the weekend has been rather naughty about being nice lately).

Not much to report really, except the hideous effect that my new full-time office job has had on my ass - I forgot how you have to exercise when you have an office job - problem is, I have the morning rush where everyone is up at 5.30am, and it's non-stop chaos until I leave the daycare carpark and crank my car stereo, trying to pretend I'm young and carefree for the 15mins it takes me to get to work, then, in the interests of the children spending less time at daycare, I have a half hour lunch, in which I have been eating salads (and still getting fat!) really fast, then it's hometime, so back to daycare to collect my weary buttons, then it's the bathe/dinner/bed debacle which involves both myself and husband shouting a fair bit to get things done....and then it's calm....and the last freaking thing I want to do is get on the cross-trainer - fair?

So something has to give, because I'm eating really well (behaved that is, not well, as in well-fed, as in too much).  But where and when?  The weekends are pretty active and generally involve trips to the waterfront to chase the girls on their bikes... 

That's my dilemma - fitting in some exercise, and it's bothering me flat out, I'm actually craving movement.

(Note:  Here I am with some spare time and I'm writing on the laptop when I should be jogging around the block, or hula-hooping in the yard as above)

And that was that!

Holiday done and dusted, back to work tomorrow and to be completely honest, I'm really looking forward to it.  Sausage is smack bang in the middle of terrible twodom, and it's quite like living with an ADHD + OCD mental patient.  EEK.

As per usual, the holiday entailed the usual range of not everything turning out as planned and a few disgruntled family members for various reasons, and as usual I've managed to put my foot in it, also get blamed for some random planning debacle, so good riddance to another Xmas, next year I'm going to spend it away!

Bring it on 2012 - a year of challenges and triumphs to be sure!

Rice Paper Rolls

My latest foodie obsession - a friend was kind enough to make me some of these with prawn, cucumber, carrot, lettuce & coriander and I can't get enough of them, lucky they're relatively healthy!

And I love how you can fill them with anything you like and dip them in anything you like.

The dipping sauce my friend showed me had a dash of each of these:

Sesame oil

Fish Sauce

Soy sauce

Sweet chilli sauce

stirred together in a small bowl.

I made some with avocado, cucumber, carrot, salmon and coriander and they were superb, give them a go - the rice paper only takes a 30 sec dip in a fry pan of hot water, then you lie it flat, line up the filling at one end and roll up like a little burrito, tucking in the ends and the rice paper sticks to itself and holds together brilliantly - genius!

Here are a couple of fillings etc:

Healthy Food Vietnamese Rice Paper Rolls

Kidspot Pork Rice Paper Rolls

Just Juice Orchard Fruits

                        

Farm Style Apple

Yum!  This is an exceptionally sweet juice, with a sharp apple tang in the after-taste which gives it the authentic orchard apple flavour.  At first the sweetness is a bit much, and I thought it was just a sugary version, but when the tang comes through afterwards it tastes as much like juiced apples could in a tetrapack.  I think it would make an absolutely fantastic addition to the cocktail cupboard because of it's strong flavour.  I could only drink a little at a time by itself and tended
to water it down a bit, but in saying that, it's nice to have such a rich juice available.

Sun Kissed Orange

This is a gorgeous juice, it tastes like freshly squeezed oranges and I have absolutely no problem sipping away on this - or for that matter throwing it back!  Excellent taste without the lumpy texture that often comes with that authentic squeezed product - hard to believe it's not super fresh, the kids love this one too, will definitely purchase in the future when in the market for a great orange juice.

Summer Strawberry & Kiwifruit

A lovely flavour & pleasant experience, perhaps a little too heavy on the strawberry but again, a valuable addition to the cocktail cupboard for summer - alcohol or no, this would make a lovely long cool drink, ice clinking in the glass.  Not something for everyday for me, a special little treat.  I even wonder what it would be like added to a glass of bubbly - an experiment for New Years for sure!

Verdict:

A nice range of new juices to the market, each with something different to offer, I will be trying a couple of cocktails this summer and certainly will be purchasing the Orange again.

I was thinking, a friend made me a "Minted Greenstone" once, a cocktail made up by Karen Walker, and the apple juice would be grand in that:  Apple juice, feijoa vodka, slices of kiwifruit, wedges of lime and some chopped mint, all muddled in a pitcher of ice - deadly good!!