It comes around every year

Friand Birthday cake made by my Bible Study friend for morning tea  today.

Yep! The annual graduation to another year of life known as the 'birthday' has swung around yet again. Today I am 43! My birthday is usually an understated affair, wedged between my son's birthday and Valentine's Day. This year is no different to any other year since I turned 30 and had my last birthday dinner with guests. And 43 is inauspicious anyway...I mean it's an odd number and also a prime number. 


However I am happy to be 43. It's very grown up and well into middle-age. The funny thing is that I don't feel any different inside than when I was 23. And I can hardly believe that significant year of my life was TWO DECADES ago! I can still remember conversations from that year like they happened yesterday. But in truth after 3 children between 35 and 39, my body is VERY different! It carries many stretch marks, poor core strength, sluggish metabolism and an extra 8Kg that just won't shift. I tried WW last year and gave up a dismal failure. 


So I bought myself a book for my birthday, in the hope that I could be inspired to improve all of the things above.

Michelle Bridges is one of the personal trainers on the Australian version of 'The Biggest Loser' and after reading about how she overcame an assault when she was in her early 20s recently, I figured that she knew all about overcoming. 


I have a feeling that I will need to be accountable somewhere otherwise I will just continue on and be griping about the same things in a year from now. One of the girls in my Quilt Club Australia, Erin, has been blogging about her weight loss journey since January. And she has inspired many other quilters and sew-ers. So I may just join up. 

Meal Plan Monday


Here's what's on the menu this week at our place:

This week I plan to do 2 meals in the slow cooker - one of my favourite kitchen appliances. The other is a searing convection oven which I bought for only $15 at a garage sale late last year. The instruction booklet is very light on how to use it, so I am kind of muddling through.
But it is great because it does not heat up the entire kitchen on hot summer days.


I have used it for heating and browning fish and chicken fingers, hash browns, ham/cheese/tomato croissants, mini-pizzas (made on half and English muffin), lamb roast, chicken roast and roasted vegetables. I hope to find many more uses for it.

Whole roast chicken with tuscan seasoning in the convection oven last week.