Hello Smudge!

Well, I can't deny I had an amazing little weekend. But my Monday blues are certainly hiding it at the moment :(

On Friday evening we headed to Picolino's for dinner with a few of The Trucker's friends. It was an early evening, I think, in part, because he has decided not to drink any alcohol this month. And he didn't. I was quite impressed. I figured he might let himself have one here or there socially. It's all part of the detox get-fit challenge he's set himself recently. But anyway, yum: pizza for dinner! Wooo.

We had quite a lazy Saturday morning, including scrambled eggs for breakfast at home. And then we headed out, first so he could go do some admin and then to collect Lily's new hutch. I was a bit nervous for this ... what if they got it wrong again o_0

But I needn't have worried there it was and it is perfect. Bigger than you realise, actually. But awesome. The most important thing is that The Trucker is very happy with it, he hates the current hutch. Haha.



Anyway, while we were there waiting for their driver (so he could follow us home), we accidentally bought a new little bunny. Squeal. I'll admit the initial excitement has worn off and I am now acutely reminded of the fear and dread and what have we done that I felt when we first bought Coal. Integration and bonding are not going very well. I think Lily has been a little overwhelmed by a new hutch and a new baby in the house! She really isn't impressed with the new hutch, but since they haven't bonded yet, she's still getting to alternate nights in her old hutch. So yesterday she barely left it. Poor old girl. I forget she's 5 now ...

Anyway, our new little guy has a name now too: Smudge. And he is gorgeous. A little nervous after we tried bonding them on Sunday by taking them for a 90min drive in the catbox. It seemed to be going so well. So we tried them in the same hutch. Nope. Lily attacked him a few times before I could get her out of there ... #sigh So sad to watch.

The rest of Saturday afternoon was pretty lazy. Literally The Trucker slept while I sat outside keeping an eye on our menagerie and reading my book in the shade. It was lovely. Later we braaied and played 30 seconds (sort of, we just asked each other the cards, no time limit, no board, no winners or losers). It was such a lovely evening!



On Sunday we headed off on the bonding drive early, because it was back to cricket for The Trucker. Once I'd separated the bundles again, I headed out to get the grocery shopping done, did a bunch of house admin and tried out something new for dinner.

I'd been looking last week for low-fat, low-carb slow cooker meals. It's easy in Summer, when it's hot and eating salad is really actually all you want. But Winter. That's our kryptonite. So I wanted to find food that would feel like comfort food, warm and filling, but that didn't kill our diet. Because, let's face it, Winter is when all you really want is pasta ;) And last year, that coupled with my op plus all our eating in America did us no favours.

I found a recipe for Low Fat, Low Carb Crockpot Thai Peanut Chicken which I decided to try because I was sort of fascinated by the Cauli-rice. It's quite cool because I could easily convert the measurements to metric and adjust the portions to cook on their site. And, I won't lie, the Cauli-rice was super easy to make and came out really nicely. A bit like couscous, I'd say. I reckon we'll be making that again!

But this wasn't the right recipe for it at all. Because I paired down the recipe, I built a 3-layer tower of my chicken in the middle of the slow cooker. Which was fine, but there was no real-sauce to speak of that would require the "rice". I reckon the chicken dish would've paired quite easily on it's own with a salad.

Still, aside from being a little dry, the chicken was tasty because the sauce was delish! I couldn't find salsa verde anywhere and it sounded like a lot of effort and chopping and ingredients to make from scratch. So I just swapped that out with some Woolies Coriander, Chili & Lime pesto.

So, yeah, not perfect, but it's a start :)

Aside from that, I'm really struggling with 2014, for no good reason. Generally I'm fine. But when it comes to work, I have a big black cloud hanging over my head that I can't explain. I was chatting to someone else about this last week. I think because when you come back in a new year, you are conditioned to expect a change, but this year (more than most) it really is just same old, same old (perhaps because last year ended so badly chaos-at-work-wise). Think about it. You spend 12 years of your life at school and who knows how many more at Varsity and every year when you start, there is new stationery, new books, new classes, new teachers. Sometimes a new school and new uniform too. We spent our whole lives being trained to expect a change to signify the transition of one year to the next. It's just not like that at work.

And for some reason it's getting me down. Drudgery. That's how I feel. I feel demotivated by just sitting here churning thru more of the same. I don't know how to snap out of this. Real life (ie. life outside of work) is going swimmingly. Serious bliss happening over here. How could it not be with an adorable new teeny bunny. OMG my heart melts. I can't wait for them to bond because it will be awesome! Am a leetle worried about Gypsy and Smudge tho, but we'll get there ...

Anyway, and on top of that there are other great Real Life things afoot for 2014. But yeah, still. The thought of coming into the office and dealing with more of the same, it is getting me down :(

Oh, in more of that Real Life fun stuff happening, I've booked and paid for a Lorraine Loots 2014 Paintings for Ants picture. I loved watching them daily last year, but by the time I realised you could request one or even buy one, it was too late and not much was still available. This year I got in early! Haha. I've booked my birthday and this year her whole year is dedicated to Cape Town as a theme. I've requested a painting of the view from our beach cottage <3 I am so excited!