Early mornings

So it’s about 1am here in Melbourne and I am blogging whilst watching the mens Wimbeldon Grand Final. Roddick has taken the first set, Federer the second, and it is 5-6 in the third. If you’re not watching this, you are missing out! It has been great tennis so far! I hope Roddick wins because he’s such a cutie and definately the underdog, but I’ll be happy if Federer takes it out (which I predict is what will happen). Hopefully I can stay awake to see the end of this!

I was up early on Saturday morning to meet with my running group. It was such a wet and yucky morning – pouring down with rain, windy and cold! But the thing about running group is that you become so consumed with simply surviving the session, that you end up forgetting about the rain and stop caring about the puddles. It’s always a hard session, but like my personal training, I feel so awesome afterwards. No pain no gain.

I came home to a bowl of outgurt blended with cauliflower, banana and tofu. Topped with ABC spread. There’s nothing like over-ripe bananas in oats. Makes such a difference.

After my great breakfast (seriously, how did I survive before discovering outgurt??) I hit the couch for some sloth-inspired laziness. A friend of mine lent me the book “The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic” by Sophie Kinsella, which is the book on the which the movie “Confessions of a Shopaholic” was based. It’s such a fun read. It’s what I like to call a ‘popcorn’ book – it’s entertaining despite not having much substance. Books like this definately have their place. As much as I like a deeper, more intellectual read, I love this kind of thing too.

Given all the exertion in the morning, I actually ended up taking a nap on the couch in front of the fireplace. I haven’t napped at all since my exams finished (I used to nap all the time while I was studying).

I spent Saturday watching lots of movies. I started with ‘I am Legend’ with Will Smith. I think Will Smith is great and even though the ending of this movie disappointed me, I still enjoyed it. But I cried in the bit about the dog. Nothing makes me cry more than a dog dying in a movie I watched some Harry Potter too!

For dessert on Saturday I had two of my favourite things - cherries and 70% dark chocolate. I tried some 85% dark chocolate the other day and it was so intense! I could only eat the tiniest amount of it. Are you a dark chocolate fan? If so, how dark do you go?

I figure I might as well tell you about my Sunday, given that I’m sparse on Saturday pictures.

For breakfast I had more outgurt and tofu, and blended through some broccoli and vanilla protein powder as well.

After breakfast, I met my friend at the gym and we did an hour of weights together. We did legs, chest, back and abs. It was a good session and it made me realise I’m going to miss lifting weights when I’m overseas. And imagine all the muscle I will lose! That makes me sad. It’s one thing to squeeze in a run while in a foreign country, it’s harder to hit the gym for some strength training (especially if you are cheap like me!)

I had some Abu topped broccoli and two hardboiled eggs when I got back from the gym. I also had an (unpictured) green monster with a scoop of protein powder, spinach, mango and cottage cheese. Has everyone tried Pbu/Abu already? It’s good stuff!

In the afternoon my beautiful friend Jess, who will be house-sitting (and more appropriately, dog-sitting!) while my parents are away (they are going to spend a month with me in Poland) came over to get a run-down on our house. Most of the discussion revolved around Phantom (our dog) and his likes/dislikes. I swear, the dog is so spoilt! But we love him to bits and I have no doubt mum will be using Skype often to call back home and check up on him.

Dinner was some delicious stuffed red capsicums. I should have taken a photo of the stuffing but was too hungry to even think about it! These were filled with a minced chicken and sweet potato mixture and topped with a little bit of cheese. So delicious!

And the other part of dinner consisted of possibly my favourite food – a tomato, onion and eggplant bake that my dad makes. Here it is out of the oven.

… and what it looks like inside.

And of course – there was some salad too.

I read somewhere that iceberg lettuce isn’t very good for you. Does anyone know? We don’t normally use iceberg lettuce, but mum has temporarily stopped buying romaine after all the bugs on it really creeped me out. We clean our lettuce really well, but still, those little fly things make my stomach turn. I’m quite neurotic and spend ages looking over each piece of lettuce to make sure it’s clean. It’s quite time consuming.

On a final note, I wanted to wish luck to the ever-talented Susan who is participating in a triathalon tomorrow (well, my today!) Good luck Susan!!!

And I hope everyone else has a fabulous Monday