Thursday, June 25, 2009

A glass and a half-full

You know how my reward for drinking water was that I got to drink it out of my pretty glasses? Well here's a little photograph of them.



I'm honestly in love with them. I bought them when I went on vacation with a friend and her family to a little holiday town named Busselton. They had lots of neat little shops there, selling lots of little quirky bits and pieces and some really good thrift stores. A lot of the places sold organic and eco-friendly products so I stocked up on organic skincare products. I also bought this organic vanilla cupcake mix. Now personally I'm not a huge cupcake fan(I'm more of a savoury girl) but I had to buy these as they were organic and I am so so glad I did. They tasted 'divine'! They just had this delicious natural vanilla bean flavour, instead of the artificial flavour you usually get with those packet mixes. I was a bit sad once I'd eaten all the cupcakes as I didn't think I'd be able to get the mix again but luckily for me I found them in this store called Liquorice that sells dried pantry foods and such. I was ecstatic once I found them and to my delight the store also sold other varieties in the range, as well as pancake mixes! They are quite expensive though, at $15 a packet but for the occassional treat I definitely think they are worth it. Next time I buy a mix I'll take a photograph for you all.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Good/bad habits

I recently read this really good article in a magazine about breaking bad habits and also,forming new ones. I have lots of bad habits but I didn't want to overwhelm myself with bad habits to tackle so I focused on two small ones. The main points the article went through to break your habit were:
- Find the underlying problem that causes the habit to happen
- Look at all the positives of breaking your bad habit
- List how you will tackle the habit and stop doing it
- Think of a reward you can give yourself for breaking the bad habit

The first habit I want to break is, always forgtting to take my fish oil tablet in the morning.
Underlying problem: I'm always in a rush in the mornings and then I forget it
Positives of breaking habit: tablets will make me healthier, ensure I get my daily dose of omega-3's and keep m bright and alert for the day.
How to tackle: make sure not in a rush in the morning, put a note on the fridge to remind me to have it each day.
Reward: I get to use my pimple spot cream if I take my fish oil tablet(extremely weird reward but it works for me, as I definitely don't want any pimples!)

Speaking of fish oil, they now have some new-fangled fish oil tablets in the stores that are eco-friendly and I LOVE anything that is good for the environment, so as soon as my fish oil tablets run out I'll be buying these new ones. They only use small fish varieties that are not endangered and have a faster reproduction rate,and it's all done in controlled fisheries.

The second bad habit I want to break is not drinking enough water.
Underlying problem: I just don't make time for it and forget it and prefer other drinks more.
Positives of breaking habit: My skin will be less dry, I'll be more alert and refreshed throughout the day, less stressed and have many other health benefits that I don't know about :D
How to tackle: Have a glass of water every morning, bring a bottle of water with me when I leave the house each day, have a glas of water when I come home and have a glass of water with my dinner.
Reward: I get to drink my water out of these really pretty glases we have but when I have normal beverages I have to drink them out of plain glasses. For some reason pretty things appeal to me!

After seeing this water count iPod App I really want an iPod Touch. You just tap one of the empty glasses each time you drink a glass and try to finish 8 by the end of the day. It would be a really great little incentive!

Monday, June 15, 2009

Bento

Something you all have yet to know about me is that I love bento and bento boxes. If you don't know what bentos are then you really are missing out. They are basically just small lunchboxes and you fill them completely with food, usually cooked items and things like rice. They originate from Japan and everybody there has a bento everyday and theirs are usually very appealing to the eye. I first fell in love with Bentos when I came across this lovely lady's blog:Lunch in a Box. The blog's author, Biggie has written basically everything you need to know to start bento-ing, she's a genius. She really needs to write a book about it!

I myself haven't made many bentos before but here is the one I had today:

The bento box is a double tiered one and the lower container had a pumpkin & ricotta gourmet roll(bought at my local deli) and ketchup in a sauce container in it. The upper container had a little salad of snow pea sprouts, cucumber, cherry tomatoes and coriander. Yummy! I'm going to have the rest of the sausage roll tomorrow.

In other news, I went to China last year with my school and I took lots and lots of photos. I recently got round(a year later :D) to getting the photos printed but when I went to put them on a USB, the photos just came up as a black screen with "invalid image" on them. I was freaking out, I couldn't find any way to retrive them. But luckily I found I still have most of them on my camera memory card. Now I just have to re-edit all 800+ of them......Gotta love technology.