Category Archives: Food

Bundle up, it’s summer!

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It seems our unbelievably mild winter and early, hot spring has melted into a typical Calgary summer: cool, rainy, grey, and windy, topped off with inexplicable daily thunderstorms. How can we get so many thunderstorms without daytime heat? I don’t know. In any case, looking on the bright side, I don’t have to worry about watering my garden. Yesterday we went for a family bike ride and the wind was so cold that I actually wished I had earmuffs on my bike helmet.

I’m taking this as a sign to take things easy today, to just spend some quiet indoor time with the kids. Well, “quiet.” I keep seeing recipes that are “beat the heat” this and “no-bake” that, and meanwhile I’m considering a marathon baking session today, wearing an apron over my wool sweater. Last week I faced my pastry fears and baked my very first pie.

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I don’t eat pie, but by all accounts it was excellent, despite being very, very ugly. Facing my fears via pie crust is the topic for a whole post in itself, however, so I shall not bore you with the details at the moment. I’ll bore you with them later!

One benefit of kind-of-crappy weather is that outdoor attractions are not at all busy, so the boys and I bundled up to go to the zoo last week. We even got to see the new baby gorilla, nursing and riding on her mother’s back. It’s very heartening to see babies in captivity doing well, and I laughed to see one of the males beating his chest to no one in particular and getting in the mother’s space, only to have her scamper away with the baby on her back. Every time the male came near her, she left, and if she could speak English I’m sure she would be saying Get away from me, you loser, and rolling her eyes. Finally he gave up and went to munch on some lettuce.

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Pants, sweater, a jacket…the perfect summer outfit!

In other exciting news, my husband and I are going to a concert on Thursday night. I haven’t been to a concert in over two decades, so it should be very fun. The kids are going to Camp Grandma for a couple of days, so the going will be very tough for them, I’m sure. It’s going to be non-stop goodies and marathon sessions of Simpsons’ Clue.

Remember when concert tickets were less than $20 apiece? I sure do, and I’m not one to lament times gone by but those were the days, were they not? My girlfriends and I saw tons of great shows all for the price of a few hours’ babysitting. Actually, now that I think of it, I made about $2/hour babysitting, so I guess those concert tickets were pretty hard-earned after all. But I am looking very much forward to this concert, and it is during Stampede so I’m contemplating what to wear. Will it be hot with all the people and (presumably) dancing? Or should I dress for the chilly weather outside? Should I put on layers, or will that be too risky in terms of losing clothing articles? I mean, there probably isn’t going to be a mosh pit or crowd surfing or anything at Zak Brown Band, but the fewer things to keep track of, the better.

Many years ago, I was at a concert at the university, when my friend’s boyfriend did some drunken crowd surfing, and ended up with one shoe, in the middle of winter. We looked and looked, to no avail. We even went back to the Economics Undergraduates Society office, where I was the president, and made drawings of shoes on pieces of foolscap, captioned “Have You Seen Me?” but we never did find that shoe. The guy had to walk/ hop through the snow to the designated driver’s car, with his soggy foot. I wonder if that was the last time I was at a concert.

What was the last concert you went to? What was the first? I don’t remember my last one but my first was INXS in 1988. Good times.

What is with the watermelon?

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The last week of June is always a bit crazy, no? I mean, not for the kids. Nothing academic is going on, which is just fine. The Grade Sixes had their Provincial Achievement Tests, five in total, and those finished on Monday. Mark, despite being very well-prepared as well as being someone who always tests well, was extremely nervous. Apparently his teacher had, in an attempt to soothe jangled nerves in the class, said the test was more about her teaching than their performance, which is true. However, that seemed to make things worse, if anything, because then he was concerned about the teacher’s employment status. I explained a bit about teaching resources, training, and unions, and he seemed to be calmed by this. Nonetheless, we are all relieved that the tests are over and now it’s all about Sports Day and Cleaning Out Your Desk and Grade Six Farewell.

Tomorrow is the big Farewell, which is quite exciting. I remember my own Grade Six Farewell quite well, so it feels a bit Sunrise, Sunset, but in a good way. There is also an afternoon dance, so I will be very interested to hear how that goes.

I managed to squeeze in a quick Costco run – not an oxymoron, it actually was fairly quick – this morning. Sometimes I think you can tell a lot about a person by what’s in their cart; for example, today I had a massive amount of nuts, nut butters, frozen fruit, coffee, those little potatoes, salsa, and a gargantuan bag of chocolate chips, which I think says a lot about me. I always look at other people’s carts because I like to imagine what their lives are like, and what they are going to do with those random items. I will always wonder if the fellow with six flats of juice boxes and ten cases of fun sized potato chips is hosting a sports tournament. I will never not be charmed by elderly men who have nothing whatever in their carts but eggs, bread, sausages, and huge buckets of ice cream. I will always smile when I see someone at Walmart who has mouthwash, personal lubricant, jelly beans, and a value pack of tube socks.

Costco wasn’t too busy today so I chose a decent looking lineup, right behind a man with the most interesting cart I had ever seen. He had a twin bed mattress balanced atop his giant cart, and beneath it was a package of chicken breasts and a single watermelon.

First off, I believe this man deserves all of our praise for doing what most of us cannot: leaving Costco with only three items. That alone is impressive, but more interestingly is the thought process that occurred here. Almost certainly, the man went to Costco to get a bed mattress, but then did he decide the watermelons looked too good to pass up? And the chicken breasts as well? The three items are not displayed anywhere near each other, so I am very interested in the process here.

I thought about this as I unloaded my cart, and by the time it was my turn to hand over my Costco card, I noticed something. The package of chicken breasts was still there, beside the cashier. Sure enough, the man was walking away with his mattress and watermelon, but no chicken breasts. An employee came up to the cashier, who handed her the package of chicken breasts, saying that the customer had decided against them, and could she please reshelve the item?

People. How does that happen? I mean, I’ve had my share of buyer’s regrets in the past. We have all decided at the last minute that the frivolous item we impulsively popped into our carts wasn’t worth it; it’s a customer’s prerogative to change their mind, I guess. But can we really say that a package of chicken breasts is an impulse buy? I just don’t know. I want to know what HAPPENED. No thanks, I’ll just take the mattress and watermelon.

I guess I was too busy with my own items to be nosy, sadly.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I was still being nosy, as I noticed that the young lady behind me had unloaded her items. Her cart consisted of twelve boxes of Natural Remedy Osteo Joint Pain Relief, a bag of apples, and a giant box of Playtex Sport, and that was enough to make me nod at her and smile as I wheeled my cart out of the store.

PMS or Dreadful New Personality?

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One of the interesting things about being in my forties and starting the slow boat to periomenopause is that I have only the vaguest idea of when my Ladies’ Holiday will land, which means that I have the alarming experience of not knowing if My Mood is the result of the upcoming aforementioned Holiday, or if I have this whole new awful personality.

Now, before I get to what I am going to call The Coleslaw Incident, I feel that I need to digress a moment. Because of the vast amount of time I spend in the kitchen, both because a) I enjoy it and b) I am a food blogger, my family has become terribly spoiled, like one of those wretched turn-of-the-21st-century Park Avenue children, but with food. Examples: a) my children are surprised that you can purchase items like Caesar salad dressing and spaghetti sauce already made, b) there are no fewer than five homemade ice cream flavours in the freezer at any given time, c) they think store-bought ice cream is a depressing imitation of homemade, and d) when we are out of homemade jam, Jake refuses to eat any at all, preferring plain peanut butter toast to the apparent atrocity that is a spoonful of Smucker’s. But for every rule there is an exception, and in this case, it is coleslaw.

Coleslaw is something I do not eat. I don’t like it, I don’t like the texture, I don’t like the taste. My husband and kids, however, love it but have had problems trying to land on the perfect recipe. They’ve tried cookbooks, the internet, and my mother-in-law, but have been unable to get the perfect coleslaw dressing. That is, until we were at a barbeque at a friend’s house. My husband asked the hostess how to make the dressing on her coleslaw, and her response was, “Are you serious? It’s PC brand from Superstore.”

So here we were coming up to Father’s Day weekend, and my husband decided on Thursday that he wanted to spend his Father’s Day cooking a brisket for eight hours on the charcoal grill, and he would also make a coleslaw to go with it. I’m not sure why he wanted to spend all day grilling but hey, it’s his day. I eat neither of those things, but it’s not my special day, so whatever floats the boat. The kids were thrilled with the prospect of grilled meat and coleslaw.

Thursday night I came home from my yoga teacher training, and my husband asked if I had happened to pick up a bottle of coleslaw dressing. Now, in my defense, I had no notice that this was needed and also, it was almost 9:30 on a Thursday. Those who know me well know that it isn’t well advised to talk to me after nine o’clock on any day. I’m basically in a coma by then, or extremely put out that I am still vertical. Since I had just gotten home, it was the latter.

My husband suggested that I could maybe pick up a bottle, since no other kind would do. Normally, I would say okay, and pop out to the store as soon as it was convenient. But as I said, I was exhausted, it’s nearing the end of June, there are teacher gifts and end-of-school celebrations, I am busy with teacher training and staining the deck every spare moment, and as always, there is much to do keeping up with the one million things that come up in a household and when working from home. Going to Superstore to get coleslaw dressing seemed to be a bridge too far. And for some reason, in my sleep-deprived mind, this seemed less like a request than an Accusation That I Am Not Properly Running The Household Because We Are Out Of Coleslaw Dressing And All Is Ashes. As I melted down a little, my husband suggested that I must be kind of tired, and maybe should go to bed.

The next day, I was cognizant of my over-the-top irritation but that didn’t stop me from being irritable. My husband suggested that perhaps my Ladies’ Holidays were due, which led, as you can imagine, to MORE irritation. Sadly, in retrospect, he was wrong. It is just my horrible new personality.

But I carved out a few extra minutes in my Friday, and decided to run over to Superstore for the dressing. After all, I thought, with just one item I could pop in and pop out, and in total, including driving time, it would be thirty minutes out of my day. I could spend thirty minutes to make three people in the house very happy, especially with it being Father’s Day and all. So I drove over, ran in, grabbed a bottle of dressing and four pounds of strawberries – I am not made of stone, who among us can go into Superstore and get only one thing – and then hopped over to the 12 Items or Less line. There were only three people in front of me and not one had more than four things, so it seemed to be the place to be.

In retrospect, I should have been suspicious that people were avoiding that line.

It turns out the fellow at the front of the line had been there a while. By the time I had set down my items, he was in the midst of debating credit card usage, wondering why they didn’t take Visa, contemplating an application for a PC Mastercard, asking about PC Points, and thinking seriously about The Deal of the Day. Finally he finished buying his Romaine lettuce and box of crackers, asked for cash back, and slowly made his way out of there. The woman in front of me looked at me, rolled her eyes, and sighed loudly, which summarized the scenario quite nicely. The next guy? I knew we were in trouble when he brought out a flyer and started pointing to specific pictures and loudly asking questions.

I like to think of myself as a fairly patient person. If I am behind an elderly person who is fumbling with getting the exact change and who takes 20 minutes to buy a carton of eggs, I have all the time in the world; after all, we may all be that person one day if we are lucky. If I have a mother with small screaming children behind me in line I will always give up my spot for her because I was that person not so terribly long ago. But when I pop in to get one (okay, two) things at Superstore and someone is taking that much time in the express line because they are unaware of and are debating the store policy on credit cards, well.

I am happy to report that I did make it out alive, but not without doing some ujjayi breathing and thinking there will be a time after Superstore. And even more happy to report that my efforts were not in vain; the coleslaw was enjoyed by all. I also managed to catch up on sleep on the weekend and so was Much Less Irritable. Maybe I don’t have a terrible new personality after all.

Watch out for the carnies.

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Do you ever look at the contents of other people’s grocery carts and wonder what they are going to do with those particular ingredients? I do, all the time. Not in a judgy way, obviously; I don’t care if someone has a cart filled with fruit chews and pork rinds. To each her own, I say. But I do often wonder if someone’s having a party or a barbeque, or if those frozen Dr. Oetker pizzas are actually good. Sometimes it’s obvious: tortilla chips, salsa, sour cream, onions, peppers, and cheddar, for example, means that all signs are pointing towards Nacho Night. I once saw my neighbour with an entire cart – and I mean THE ENTIRE CART – filled with store brand bacon. I could only imagine that it was either on sale or he really likes bacon, or both. Hopefully he has a chest freezer.

But the other day the fellow in front of me had dozens of cucumbers, 3 bags of green apples, at least ten bunches of kale, and some lemons. I wondered if he was on some kind of juice cleanse because really, who is going to chew their way through that many cucumbers? But then I saw that he also had stacks and stacks of Centsibles brand bologna and a few jars of Cheez Whiz. I was actually dying of curiosity because it was such study in opposites. Maybe he runs a lunch program AND he also really likes green juice? Maybe it’s nothing to do with green juice and he really likes kale salads along with this bologna and Cheez Whiz sandwiches? Well, we will never know now but I will always wonder.

People are so interesting, aren’t they? Everyone has a story. I was at Walmart buying my hayfever-ridden son some allergy medication, and there was a fellow standing in the aisle near the family planning section. He was wearing cut-off shorts and a tank top, despite the chilly day, and he was picking up and reading the back of every single lubricant on the shelf. Now, it’s been some time since I’ve bought lube, so I really don’t know what attributes make for the different brands, but this fellow was determined to make an educated decision. I picked up my packages of Reactine, did a little more shopping, and then I remembered I also needed some Motrin. Back I went to the pharmacy and he was still there, reading labels.

Well, if you’re going to spend money you may as well do your research, I suppose.

This week has flown by; in fact, this month has flown by. Sunday is May, which frankly seems ridiculous. This whole week has been a whirlwind of work and yoga and to-do lists, and here it is Friday and I’m feeling DONE. We have some friends coming over for dinner tonight, which I’m very excited about. One is a vegan and let me tell you, it is VERY fun to cook for someone who is going to be as excited as I am about a cauliflower taco dish. I’m also making this dessert, which I haven’t made in so long I had to do some calculations to find out what eight ounces of chocolate is in cups (it’s about 1 1/4 cups, give or take).

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Yum!

It’s also my dear, dear friend Hannah’s birthday today. As a gift to her, I am re-posting this amazing photo of us with the third in our trio, Allison, at Blissdom in 2014.

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Aw, this photo brings back so many wonderful memories. And is a little creepy. Where did the carny come from? Well, it was a lentil-themed carnival, and we shall leave it at that.

Hannah sent me this post, which happens to sum up all my feelings about moths. “Just shudder until I died.” I laughed until I cried and my stomach hurt. I tried to read it to my husband, but I was laughing so hard that he just looked at me in a concerned and pitying sort of way that I stopped reading, and he went off to work, probably wondering about my mental stability.

Happy Friday to everyone, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! xoxo

“Look out, world. I have a giant cart.”

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Maybe it’s a function of age, maybe I’m just busy, but lately it seems like the days are speeding by, like one of those cartoons where each daily calendar page is flying off in super fast-motion. Yesterday I noticed a work deadline of April 29. April 29, no problem! That’s tons of time, I thought, until I looked at the actual calendar and realized that April 29 is Friday. Where did April go? I don’t know. I just don’t know.

So work is busy and classes are busy and everyday life is busy but everything is good, good, good. Yesterday was another PD day and, in contrast to Friday’s zoo day, I took the boys to the optometrist. One child had been complaining that he was unable to see the Smart Board at school, and the other boy was on the “watch list” in terms of his vision, and to make a long story short, I bought two pair of glasses yesterday. One child is thrilled with this, and the other is not, so it’s a bit of a roller coaster around here.

I will say this, though: children’s glasses and glasses in general are much, much more attractive than they used to be. When I was in grade six I got my first pair of glasses, and let me tell you, they were as ugly as fuck. Or, ugly AF, as the kids say. The frames were pale pink and were gigantic, and a few years later they were replaced by burgundy frames similar to those worn by every teen girl’s idol, TV host Sally Jesse Raphael. What thirteen year old girl doesn’t want to look like the fifty-something host of a tabloid talk show?

Our friend and optometrist said that it seemed like in the Eighties, people really wanted you to KNOW they were wearing glasses. It wasn’t enough to have glasses, they had to take up half your face in a statement that said “Look out, world. I have glasses.” Sort of like how we all teased our bangs so the tips of them were several inches off of our foreheads. “Look out, world. I have bangs.”

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All I’m saying is that kids these days do not know how lucky they have it.

My other exciting PD day activity was a giant Costco trip. I had a thought when I was leaving the store, as my entire upper body was practically vertical pushing the cart, and it was taking every ounce of effort in my body to control that cart and not accidentally run into anyone, that an interesting concept that Costco should adopt would be a cart weigh scale, similar to those that they have for large transportation vehicles. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see how much your giant Costco cart actually weighs? I mean, it’s not like it would change anything, but it would give me empirical data for when I tell my husband about my day. My husband is a wonderful man, but he does not view Costco trips in the same light that I do. For example, he thinks they are “fun.” I think they are “a chore.” I go to Costco approximately every three weeks with the hypothesis that more frequent trips mean lighter trips, and for the most part this is correct. Every so often, however, I find myself inexplicably out of all the heaviest/ most expensive things at once, and then my Costco trip takes on the properties of an epic journey, or a Sisyphean task.

If there were weigh scales, I could quantify the effort that is put into the actual Costco shopping trip. Because it’s not just about the time in the store, is it? I don’t know if I’ve ever spent more than about forty-five minutes actually in the store. I’m pretty efficient at filling my cart and then getting the fuck out of there. The actual effort involved is a) pushing the cart through the parking lot and silently cursing the people who leave their carts everywhere but in the cart corral, b) loading the groceries in the car, c) unloading the groceries from the car and bringing them into the house, d) putting all the groceries away, and, finally, e) separating out all the items from the gargantuan value packs for individual freezing, washing grapes, slicing strawberries, etc., etc. I mean, you can’t just put a giant pack of chicken breasts in the freezer as-is. I can’t just put the grapes in the fridge unwashed because that defeats the purpose of having a quick and easy healthy snack for the children on hand. Also, I’ve seen those videos where strange insects/ arachnids are hiding in the grape bunches and I would like to avoid that if possible. Strawberries will disappear quickly if they are washed and sliced but a clamshell of strawberries is doomed to either go bad or I am doomed to be asked at very inconvenient times if I would help with the washing and slicing of said strawberries.

Very very long and fairly dull story short, it is always better to deal with all those little things at once than to let them go, which means that a large Costco trip takes hours to complete. Again, a weigh scale would be nice, so I could tell my husband/ write in my fitness journal that I carried however many pounds down the stairs. It’s all about celebrating your accomplishments, isn’t it? And yesterday I accomplished both a Costco trip AND the selection of glasses for two boys, so I feel that I deserve some praise and adulation indeed. Or maybe a Costco-sized treat, at the very least.

The Mayday is blooming IN APRIL

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It’s been quite the eventful week! Today is, somewhat inexplicably, a PD day and so the boys and I decided a zoo trip was in order. We hadn’t been since last summer and, as usual, it was a great time. The boys always force me to walk through the aviary, which is terrifying. This guy gave me a look that I took to heart, and we left shortly after snapping this photo:

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Eeek! It was a bit chilly today, as opposed to the massively above-normal temperatures we have been experiencing. It has been unbelievably gorgeous here, and I can’t help but wonder, is this what people in normal climates feel like in the spring? I mean, it is incredible. This is the first bloom on my Mayday tree – taken on Tuesday – and now the entire tree is in full bloom. It’s beautiful.

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My Mayday blooming in April? It’s like a gift from the universe because yesterday was my birthday. I spent the bulk of the afternoon working in my rose garden…IN APRIL. This is a climate in which it’s not unusual to see May come and go without the lilacs blooming, and tulips are more often than not beaten down by five inches of snow. Not to say this cannot happen still, but just look at my Nanking cherry:

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The boys have been eating freezies in the backyard; lately they have been going for little runs after supper and this week they have been cooling off afterwards in the sprinkler. IN APRIL.

Well, today was more like an average April day; cloudy and cool, with a sharp wind. We were dressed warmly and it was still cold. At the zoo, it seemed like people had simply assumed that the past was the best indicator of the future, in terms of weather. There were purple-limbed people wandering around in shorts and tank tops, and it was seven degrees. I saw one little girl with what looked like a fleece baby blanket wrapped around her shoulders, and I’m sure people were flocking to the African exhibits just to warm up.

Anyway, my birthday was just lovely. Thanks to everyone for your kind wishes. I love birthdays – everyone’s, not just mine – so I like to extend the celebration as far out as possible. Yesterday was mostly just a regular day, with the addition of our newly-hectic Thursday night schedule: getting the boys to karate and then driving through rush-hour traffic to yoga teacher training. Being able to garden felt like a special birthday treat, though.

A few weeks ago we were at my parents’ house and my mother baked me my favourite strawberry cake. I was sure to leave one candle burning, just so my husband wouldn’t feel slighted.

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(photo credit: my dad)

The boys, including my husband, had given me some lovely cards and also some new yoga clothes, which I am always happy to receive. And this weekend we are going to see The Jungle Book, which I’ve wanted to see since seeing the trailer at The Force Awakens. All in all, very lovely.

I know many people do not enjoy birthdays, viewing them more as a step towards the grave than something to celebrate. I, obviously, do not share this view. My thoughts on birthdays are Hey, I’m still here! It’s a great excuse to eat cake and drink wine (which I will be doing very very soon). So cheers to all of you and thank you, as always, for your readership and support. xoxo

Practicing non-attachment, except when it comes to clothes.

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Have you ever had one of those weekends where you are just so super-productive and motivated that you find you are marvelling at yourself? That was me, this weekend. I don’t know if it’s a Spring Cleaning Urge or a Nesting Without The Pregnancy thing, but I just had that feeling that I needed to Do All The Things. I probably would have accomplished even more, had it not been for the necessity of meal preparation and sleep. I had one of those wash the windows, scrub down the kitchen cupboards, clean every possible surface kind of weekends, and I’m still riding the wave a little bit.

The boys and I cleaned out their drawers and donated everything that they didn’t like or didn’t fit, and then Jake and I cleaned out his bookshelves and toys. Let me tell you, that kid is a good purger. Maybe he was just in the same mood as I was, but we have bags and bags of donations, with a sparkling clean room to boot. I have started to do the same for Mark’s room, which is much more difficult as he has slight pack rat tendencies.

Well, I can’t fault him too much. I was at a gathering with friends over the weekend, and we were talking about the Kondo Tidying-Up Method. One of my girlfriends (HI JO) cleaned out and donated three-quarters of her wardrobe. She told me she has something like four t-shirts and five tank tops now, and upon hearing this my face looked exactly like this:

I mean, I tried the Kondo method for my wardrobe and it turns out that everything I have “sparks joy.” YES I DO NEED TWENTY-FIVE BLACK SWEATERS WHAT OF IT? When I did go through the process again recently, I ended up getting rid of a couple of pairs of shoes and two workout t-shirts that I SWEAR gave me body odour. I am not kidding – they were made of some kind of “sweat-wicking” bamboo, and every time I wore them I actually smelled like some teenage kid’s gym locker. Right now you’re probably thinking Sure, blame the t-shirts, but it’s true! Any other t-shirt I wear just smells like deodorant after a workout, but these smelled like actual body odour. Not wanting to smell like some kind of feral hippie, I gave up and donated them.

I just had a thought – what if that’s bad karma? What if someone else now has those shirts and is wondering why they suddenly have BO? What if this is a monkey paw situation?

Well, it’s too late to do anything about it at this point.

The point is, I love my wardrobe. I feel like I’ve been cultivating it for years and I love every garment in it. This was the entire motivation for my twelve pound weight loss since August. I know I haven’t been talking about it much, but last summer I had put on a “few pounds,” and that was in addition to a “few pounds” that had been slowly creeping on with time. It’s funny; if you saw me every day you might not have even noticed, but my clothes  were gradually getting tighter. My right hip was bothering me a lot, and that was affecting my yoga practice, which in turn was probably negatively affecting my weight. My energy levels were lower, but it was gradual so I didn’t really realize it. It wasn’t until after I came home from my in-laws’ house after consuming way too many Palm Bay coolers, and snacking mindlessly, that I really noticed. I had been wearing stretchy skirts for most of the summer, so it was a bit of a shock when I put on my jeans and…well, they buttoned up, but the button was a potentially deadly weapon, if you know what I mean.

Then I got on the scale and I saw a number that I hadn’t seen since Jake was a baby. That was a bit of a wake-up call; it’s so easy to slowly put on pounds, and there are obvious health implications to it. I thought, if I gained five (or more) pounds every year, things would start to add up and none of my clothes would fit. Also, as we all know, with weight gain health, energy, etc., suffers but MY CLOTHES.

I’m happy to say that those “few pounds” and more (TWELVE!) are now gone; it was a combination of much more mindful eating and also adding in three cardio exercise workouts a week. I have dessert only once or twice a week, I don’t snack after supper, and I have a spinach smoothie every day. I have so much more energy now – even on weekends that I don’t decide that I need to clean the whole house top to bottom. I still have wine on the weekends, because life isn’t worth living without a glass of Cabernet, in my humble opinion. I mean, I have to draw the line somewhere.

The important thing? My clothes fit again. I don’t have to re-buy my wardrobe and my favourites are still my favourites. Which is good, because if you don’t want to part with any of your clothes, you need to be sure those clothes fit.

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