Green Girl Gardener

I decided, when I entered this wonderful world of blogging, that I wouldn’t write on days when I was feeling a bit fed up or down in the dumps, when I found myself in the doldrums or feeling out of sorts, and especially not when I was in that worst of Eeyoreish states: GLOOMY! Today has been one of those days yet I feel inspired to write, so I am. I may not finish the post today because we’re entertaining tonight, but my normally perpetual glass-half-fullness is elbowing its way through the gloom and urging me to put a positive spin on my melancholy, to turn that frown upside down.

Let’s start with a picture of what I call my Gloom of Eeyores, for surely there has never been a more apt collective noun.

There! It’s a nod towards today’s disposition, but also I feel so much better already just looking at all those Eeyores in their gloriousness.

I know what’s caused my glumness, and luckily it’s entirely fixable. There are two main reasons. One is a lack of the zzzzzzzzzs which can be fixed by spending some quality time here.

Do you spy another Eeyore? This one came all the way from the Big Apple itself! He was a brilliant pillow for me on that red eye flight home, and every cat we’ve had since has fallen in love with him. Here’s our Olive and Tink when they were little showing him some love.

Same duvet cover! We do change it regularly, I promise!

I need my sleep. I make no bones about it. If I don’t get enough sleep I’m horrid! As irritable as a really irritable thing living in irritableville! My tolerance levels, normally at least average if not beyond that, become close to zero and it really is best to leave me alone to wallow in my irritableness. Take a wide berth, leave a safe distance, maybe even turn and run the other way. Alternatively, you could feed me, that might work (although it’s probably wise to edge the food towards me with a cattle prod in case it backfires!)

This brings me to the second reason. I like to eat. A lot. Really, I love it! Love it, love it, love it. We’re so lucky over here in the affluent side of the world, that food isn’t really considered as a necessary part of staying alive, as a fuel. We don’t live on bread and milk, or rice and peas because that’s all we have access to, we basically use food as a mood enhancer. We eat to celebrate and we eat to commiserate. We eat to cheer ourselves up and we eat to be social. We eat when we’ve had a bad day telling ourselves we deserve it, and we eat when we’ve had a good day to reward ourselves for a job well done.

Last night I went out for my final birthday meal with some friends, and I had a lovely evening. Curry was consumed, wine was drunk (this may have contributed to reason one, but it was a work night so I didn’t go mad!) and much laughing filled the night. We went to the Kababish which is infamous round these parts due to the restaurant’s claim to fame – Robbie Williams took Geri Halliwell there about a million years ago when the teenyboppers of the world were speculating on the nature of their relationship.

Anyway, enjoyable as the curry was at the time, today I’ve felt like if someone had prodded me (maybe with that cattle prod) I would’ve just rolled and rolled and rolled like a slightly deflated beach ball. Beware! I’m going to use the ‘f’ word!

Fat! I’ve felt like the fattest person in the world today, and that makes me gloomy! I’m completely aware that this is a first world problem, but I can’t help it making me blue. Moving on from the gloom, how to fix this predicament.

Reason two doesn’t have as quick a fix as putting my pjs on and snuggling under my duvet, but it is still fixable. I have spent my life yo-yo dieting. Maybe yo-yo is too extreme an analogy because I never go up or down too far, just far enough up so that I become aware that I’m heading in a direction I don’t like and far enough down to make myself feel reasonable again. Maybe I’m more of a metronome dieter, much closer extremes than a yo-yo.

Anyway, I’ve tried lots of diets and inevitably I fall off the wagon, so I thought if I tell you lovely people that I’m going to try again, it might give me the motivation to carry on. I have taken a photo of myself in my under garments (don’t worry, I’m nowhere near brave enough to show you that) and I intend to use it to track my progress.

I have also taken measurements using this lovely tape measure which came in October’s Little Box of Crochet.

I will share with you the sum of those measurements so I can at least chart my progress on my blog in some way. 182.5 inches. I might even make a spreadsheet. I do like a good spreadsheet! I don’t know what I weigh and there’s no way I’m weighing myself at this end of the day. Maybe I’ll steel myself to it in the morning.

I have tried to eat more healthily today. Tesco do a really nice caesar salad kit which I had at lunchtime. As well as your leaves, you get croutons, Parmesan and the dressing and I always add barbecue chicken. Last week I discovered a nice red slaw which adds a nice extra crunch to the salad. Today I also threw on a handful of mixed seeds and some nuts and dried fruit.

I never thought I’d use these words in the same sentence, but this salad was amazing!

When I got home, still in the midst of my gloomy fuzz, hubby took pity on me and cooked a quorn stir fry to continue my healthy day.

We’re jetting off on holiday in five weeks and I really hope that I’ll be able to share some progress by then. If anyone has any tips or nice healthy recipes to share please let me know.