I am always surprised by the number of people that either say they don’t like eggplant or have simply never tried it. It is super easy to prepare and is now in season here in new Zealand so you can pick them up from around …
Twenty-ten is going swimmingly so far. The days are long, hot and lazy, the weather has been great and we are all happy and healthy. Even more so due to the odd appearance of a Resolution List prepared by Dave on New Years Day.
It wasn’t a list of resolutions though, more like commandments and was called The New Deal.
So, 10 days in we are doing really well. Neither of us have had a drink and the desire to have an evening glass of wine or cocktail seems to be waning as well. The best part apart #1 is that I have lost 1kg! I’m so happy about this, I have also been exercising more (which is quite easy as living with Dave is akin to living with Jillian from TBL – the man LOVES to run).
My sleep has proufoundly improved also. I am so used to waking up in the morning with a stiff, sore, exhausted jaw from grinding / clenching my teeth in the night, I was astounded when I awoke one morning early in the New Year with a pain free and relaxed jaw. I’m not sure whether I can attribute this to the lack of alcohol or the reduction in caffeine intake due the removal of bourbon & cokes from my nightly routine – but whatever is responsible, it can only be good.
As for the rest of the list, well there has been no impulse buying because there is literally no money to buy anything so we are doing well there!
I have also got everything rolling for uni again, my course manuals came in the mail yesterday so I plan to get ahead on my reading before semester starts.
So considering that I never make resolutions and sticking to them may be an even rarer occurrence, I think The Jacks are kicking 2010 off in a very good way.
We had another awesome no-spend day today, as is my goal most days it seems! Luckily there is heaps to do around here so it is quite easy to plan adventures that keep Ethan amused and happy. Today we borrowed our landlords kayak which has …
See what Twitter and Bookface can achieve! In less than 24 hours 160+ like-minded people have gathered to say “NO! I don’t want to dress like a ho-bag…..even if I could fit into their Huss-Plus clothes”. The interweb is a beautiful thing – just like …
Well, he did it. I don’t know what else the world could possibly have in store for Ethan that would even come close to the thrill of catching his first (baby!) shark. It was the only fish caught today yet somehow that little shark managed to get foul hooked on just the right persons rod, because it caused Ethan to go silent in absolute awe of reeling in a shark for the first time. He was ‘tagged’ and released (of course) and swam off to live another day.
It must have been a day of figurative self-flagellation or something because I did two things I have been putting off for ages. One, I cleaned all of the fly poo off the lounge / kitchen ceiling. I am quite sure there is no worse …
As decided by moi.
Jacquelyn Mitchard – The Deep End of the Ocean
This book bears the ‘honour’ of being selected as the first ever inductee to the hallowed halls of Oprah’s Book Club. But that isn’t why I read it, it just happened to be on my neighbours book shelf when I was looking for some holiday reads.
In a nutshell, scatty mother, middle child gets abducted, not found for 9 years, she loses the plot, eldest son loses the plot, marriage failing, boy turns up, things don’t quite work out happily ever after.
I guess if one were to measure an authors success on the believability of the writing then this book would score pretty highly. Her ability to really encompass the human experience of a family living through a child abduction is uncanny, but this is what made this book so dark, depressing and maudlin. It is seriously a MISERABLE book. The boy comes home, still MISERABLE. There is nothing gritty and exciting about this book, just the full gamut of human emotions as they range from terror to hope to acceptance to mild resignation blah blah blah.
I read the whole thing but it was a overdose of misery. If you want to read to escape the real world avoid this book like plague. On second thought, just avoid it all together to be on the safe side.
John Niven – Kill Your Friends
This book was one of my random picks from the library. I found the page with the critics reviews and one of them lauded it the best book since Trainspotting. Now I loved Trainspotting and have since read everything written by Irvine Welsh, but this book is in a whole other league, one that is completely f*ing insane. Main character is a closet psycho in the music industry. So combine good ‘ol American Psycho (a great read) with the British edge and ghetto-ness of an Irvine Welsh novel and you might get a good picture of the characterization Niven paints in this novel. But the content is nuts. Completely cold and deviant drugs, sex, murder and rock ‘n roll on a level of sickening depravity I have never read before.
It was definately a page turner, I finished this smallish book in 2 days of light reading – THANK GOD. But do you really need to go there? I say no.
Thanks to Sarah-Rose @ Oh Darling for the idea to post a Tweet Cloud of my most tweeted words in ’09. Funny. I love them all – quite a succinct picture of Jack-life really!
