Bye bye!

I've moved to a shiny new home. Please keep following my blog over here: clicky clicky.

 

Apologies, dear readers. My first post of 2013 is not only tardy in the extreme, it is also going to be composed of a large pity party for one.

While the year started out fantastically (Orange river trip followed by various summery outs and abouts and dramatically reduced stress at work), the past two weeks or so have all but made me believe I'm in the throes of some terrible karma.

ExhibitA
Credit card cloned and used to shop at Bed, Bath and Beyond in New Jersey. 'Must have been a woman,' says La Editrix.

Exhibit B
Awesome weekend at Up the Creek resulting in an agony of sunburn. Seriously, I'm not wimping out – I was feverish, swollen and struggling to walk. Not ideal. It's over a week later now, and I'm peeling in the mankiest way, removing strips of leathery skin from my upper thighs (the sneaky bits where the water rubbed off my religiously applied SPF50). Plus I look like I have a case of dandruff on steroids, since my burnt scalp is flaking off in massive chunks. Boyfriend and I looked like primates on the couch yesterday, hungover and both picking bits of me off me.

Exhibit C
Reversed into my neighbour's Mini Cooper on Friday morning, during what must have been an out of brain experience. Happily (can't believe my luck in this regard), her car is all fine and dandy, and I just have a slightly bent bumper. Not even a paint scratch. Thank the gods.

Exhibit D
Dropped R250 on the dance floor at Deco Dance on Saturday night. There is something soul-destroying about losing money, especially in those figures. And to think, not 12 hours prior to that, I'd restrained myself from buying something at Cotton On for the exact, ironic price of R250.


Okay, I think I've got it all out now. Feel free to offer me some cheese with my whine, or whatever other witty comments you feel are necessary.

Some days, you really need a double gin and tonic by 5 pm (oh, who're we kidding, 2 pm).

Other days, a simple compliment will do. And since the universe is not always forthcoming with random kind words, some clever people have invented a website that'll do it for you. It reminds me of one of my all-time favourites, the Make Everything OK button (even if they neglected to append the -ay). You can click that one here.

Anyway, because I'm (generally) a nice person, I thought I'd share it with ya'll.

I give you: Emergencycompliment.com

Here are some of my favourites (in case you're just too down to click the link).

I bet she does.

Why thank you.

Who wouldn't want me?

Creepy, but I'll take it.

My personal favourite.

A little animal-based humour to ease you out of Monday

Oh, and a little more...

Can you tell I'm wasting some of my valuable morning work hours on Pinterest?

When I was little, my older brother would sing the
alphabet so quickly, I actually thought that there
was a word – ellomenopi – in the middle
of the other letters, and kept trying to get
people to spell it for me. #specialcase

And a bit of silliness for a Monday morning

Okay how cool is this?

Fuelled by the amazing triple-decker ice cream cone mentioned below, I have investigated rumours I've been hearing about something magical called an ice cream club.

It exists.

I know. What a magical world we live in.

The amazing team at The Creamery (read all about them here, or pop into the Neighbourgoods Marker or new V&A Wharf Market to sample their wares) is behind this clever idea. They produce natural, handmade ice cream, with ingredients sourced from local farms. And it's slicker than your average, that's for sure: the likes of honey ice cream with lemon and poppyseed cookie dough sounds pretty good, right?

Anyway, so, ice cream club. Basically you sign up, pay a membership fee and then receive three 500 ml tubs every month. But the exciting bit is that the flavours are all either limited-edition or ones that are experimental and are not yet available at the stores. Yip, it's like Willy Wonka – you get to be experimented on with ice cream. Forget what Spur tells unwitting kids – this is actually the coolest club around.

Here's how to make your life a little more magical:

STEP 1
Go to thecreamery.co.za.

STEP 2
Buy a three-month or six-month membership.

STEP 3
Pick up your ice cream from a preselected point in the third week of each month. Take home, enjoy, feel free not to share.


Boom. That easy.

You can thank me later. I am partial to the High Tea (five roses ice cream with shortbread crumbles) flavour.

The weekend that was

I've accepted the fact that, at least for the near future, my life is going to include an awfully unnatural number of hours at work. But I cannot accept that work and sleeping is all I have time for. To that end, I am now officially time-managing like a boss, in order to fit as much as possible into the final two months of 2012.

To start with, how's this for a productive weekend? Over the past 72 hours, I...

• Performed in a show on Friday night
• Fit in a birthday party after the show, despite being tired and having my hair in a ballet bun
• Cleaned my flat top to bottom on Saturday morning early
• Worked for most of the daylight hours of Saturday
• Went to the ballet with my mum
• Adopted a kitten for an hour. My neighbour's tiny white and ginger kitty shot through my front door as I got home from the ballet and didn't want to leave right away. And who am I to deny a kitten hours of fun with my laundry drying rack?
• Worked for a few hours early on Sunday morning
• Had a lazy Sunday seafood lunch
• Consumed the hugest triple-decker ice cream cone in Hout Bay after lunch
• Watched mass amounts of series with Le Boyfriend on the couch
• ... and got drunk on said couch. On a Sunday. 

Look at me go. Not bad, huh?

So, Le Boyfriend and some other crazy people he works with were selected to compete in Red Bull Flugtag 2012 (see the madness here).

In order to drum up some hype, they did what any sane, logical people would do: they made their own Gangnam Style video.

Have to say, I've seen very little sexier than this since Ryan Gosling took off his shirt in Crazy Stupid Love.

Go on, give them a 'like' on YouTube. Please? Clicky clicky.

Here are a few tasters...

Oh my god this product is amazing, it'll make you look JUST like a cover girl! (Disclaimer: years of therapy sold separately)

I am about to annihilate a small investment I have, in order to pay off my credit card debt so I don't get mired in interest over the next few months.

This is important for two reasons:

1. I think my fiscal responsibility deserves public scorn so that it doesn't happen again. 
2. I can't believe I'm actually using words like 'credit card', 'investment', 'debt' and 'interest' all in one sentence. Does this mean I am officially an adult?

ARGH!

In what was a strong contender for Jade's Most Humiliating Moment of 2012, I split the seams on my jeans this morning.

You know when you've just washed them, and the denim is all stiff and unyielding, and you have to do that weird dance to get into them that looks like you're one of the failed auditions from So You Think You Can Dance? – it's kind of like hop hop hop, plié, plié, plié, do the twist a little, kick your feet out country-style, and then hop a bit more? It's like the Special K ad, only you don't have abs of steel and you're a lot less graceful.

It looks nothing like this.

Well, somewhere around the third grand plié I think, the seams started to come apart a little. It's not hugely noticeable but I know.

I'm trying to convince myself that my jeans shrank either in the wash or while I was drying them hurriedly this morning with my hair dryer, but the sad truth may be that I've actually just become gargantuan over the past few weeks, and there's only so much give you can ask of a pair of Levi's.

The bleakest part is, I now have to go hunting for another perfect pair, which is demoralising both because the search is so very long and arduous, and because I have about 50c to my name.

Put foot, baby!

Had our first official team meeting last night for Put Foot Rally 2013.

I am so excited about this event, I had butterflies in my tummy last night, despite the fact that the little countdown on the rally website informs me we still have 259 days to go.

So far, we have our team name and not much else, but if the discussions over beer and nachos last night are anything to go by, it's going to be one amazing trip. Mostly because when you're the youngest person at a table by at least five years, and you're not the only person laughing when someone says 'penetrate', then you know you're in good company.

On the downside, my teammates have taken the decision not to allow me to drive, despite the fact it's been four years since I last rolled a car in an African country. Hmmpf. 

For those of you who are completely lost, kindly head over to www.putfootrally.com and educate yourself.

I'm just going to go ahead and say it

I cannot believe that we are officially nearing the end of 2012.

Three months to go until the new year, three months into which I can't even imagine squeezing all the things I still need to do.

And yet, despite how busy the next 12 weeks or so are going to be, I'm feeling relieved we've hit the final slide. I won't be sorry to see the end of 2012. Sure, there have been some amazing times, but mostly what I'll remember about his year is spending far too much time at my desk, feeling stressed out and chasing deadlines every five minutes or so.

I feel like I need to do something about the whole situation. Sure October to December is, if anything, the busiest time of our work year (which doesn't bode well for my sleeping patterns), but I really can't keep going the way I have been going lately. I fear I am in danger of leading a very, very small life if things continue in the same vein. It may be idealistic to imagine life should be anything more than work, gym, sleep (repeat) for the greater portion of the time, but hey, I'll just be idealistic then. I've had worse labels, I'm sure.

Besides, it's summer now, officially. Which means the days are longer. Which means I may have time to be a worklaholic, an alcoholic and a vaguely intersting human being.

Let's see.

Public service announcement. You may want to save this somewhere.

The weekend that was

Finally, a non-working, non-manic, almost-no-plans-to-speak-of weekend.

Of course, it did include the following:

• After-work drinks on Friday
• After-work rehearsal for iKapa and On Pointe's next show (Yes, after after-work drinks – not clever Jade. My theory that a drink before dancing may help the creative process has been proven 100% incorrect. You try jumping and rolling around and landing your turns after downing a Savanna or two in all of five minutes.)
• A cowboy party at which, fuelled by too much cowboy juice, we thought it was a good idea to
  a) Try to line dance and
  b) Shave a sheriff star into one guy's chest hair
• Lots and lots of hungover Olympics watching – got my fill of synchronised swimming, artistic gymnastics, diving and athletics. 

They all deserve medals for smiling in nose clips

Sunday night silliness

I herewith abandon my public food diary.

Thought I'd save you all the boredom.

Foot in mouth disease

I seem to be suffering from this terrible affliction lately. My foot has been quite firmly lodged in my mouth for about a week now. Good thing I wash my socks regularly.

Example one
Was in the lift at Cavendish when a cute little girl asked me what my name was. When I, in turn, asked her, and she said 'Leah', I expounded on how that had been the name I wanted to change mine to when I was little, after reading a series of books about a ballerina. I then asked if she did ballet. To which her mother replied: 'No, no ballet, I'm afraid. And it's Leo ... it's a boy.'
Blush much? Then again, if you're going to let your pretty two-year-old son have hair down to his shoulders, you're asking for trouble.

Example two
A little background: Le Boyfriend, much to my dismay, is sporting a moustache again. He (and his moustache) spent most of Saturday with a friend down from Durban (let's call him Crispy), drinking beer and goading each other into eating too much chili sauce. Consequently, there was a bit of a gaseous situation going on (of the belching variety only, thank god) by the time I arrived home from work.

Crispy (after Le Boyfriend had released yet another burp, though the first, to my knowledge, of the evening): How do you put up with that?
Me (assuming Crispy is referring to the 'tache): What, his face?

Thank god Le Boyfriend was a six pack in and didn't take too much offence*.

Example three
Colleague: Is it weird to stalk a girl who works with your boyfriend, and who he's suddenly all buddy buddy with?
Me: Of course not. That's what Facebook was invented for.
Colleague: Okay, I'm going to search for her. Tell me if you think she's pretty.
Me (rolling my chair over to her desk where Facebook is open to a profile page): Well, for a start, that's a weird profile picture.
Colleague: We're still on my page.



Going to keep my mouth firmly shut for a while.


*Love you baby

Monday, 23 July

• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• All Bran flakes with fat-free milk
• Instant (plain) oats with honey and cinnamon
• Three Ryvita with salmon cream cheese
• A big ass bag of popcorn
• Latte
• Woollies prawn hot pot
• Four TimTams

Apparently the shame of eating chocolate every night before bed has not been enough to get me out of the habit yet. Might be a good idea just never to buy anything chocolate-covered ever again.

Yes. Duh.

Thursday, 20 July

• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• All Bran flakes with fat-free milk
• Chocolate croissant
• Woollies club sandwich
• Mocha
• Banana muffin
• Veggie wraps

Not exactly a whole lot better, huh?

You know what? I'm going to just go ahead and blame work and the fact that I get home far too late to even think about grocery shopping, and end up eating crap at my desk every day because I barely have five minutes to run downstairs in search of food when it occurs to me it's well past lunchtime. And the fact that I have lovely colleagues who do things like bring chocolate croissants because they know I'll already have been working for an hour or so by the time they get in.

Here's to next week...

Wednesday, 18 July

• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• All Bran flakes with fat-free milk
• Instant (plain) oats with honey and cinnamon
• Crave chicken and veggie soup with bread and butter
• Mocha
• Cheese on toast
• Aero
• G&T

Wow, well done Jade. Toast, chocolate and gin for dinner.

The only bright side here, is that knowing I'd have to report to the world means I didn't also have:

• Rusks
• Chocolate digestive biscuits
• A giant chocolate chip cookie

... all of which I came into contact with yesterday. 

Tuesday, 17 July

• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• All Bran flakes with fat-free milk
• Instant (plain) oats with honey and cinnamon
• Tea with low-fat milk and sugar
• Four Ryvita with sundried tomato and basil cream cheese and wild rocket (that's the last of the tub, thank god)
• Chai latte
• Banana muffin
• Massive bowl of popcorn
• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• Half a slab of Bourneville chocolate left over from making chocolate truffles for a tea party over the weekend

Okay so yesterday sucked. I have 14 kg to lose, and this is NOT the way to go about it I'm guessing.

I suppose the fact that all I seem to be doing during the week these days is working and sleeping and trying to fit in exercise (I missed Pilates last night though, from sheer exhaustion, and was in bed by 9:30 pm instead) means food becomes the one little highlight in my day (hence all the chai – an excuse to leave my desk for five minutes to pop to the coffee shop downstairs, since we no longer seem to take lunch).

I also seem to be doing fine until I hit the 3 pm slump, and start fantasising about muffins and pizza.

But no more excuses. Get in line Jade.

Monday, 16 July

• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• All Bran flakes with fat-free milk
• Instant (plain) oats with honey and cinnamon
• Tea with low-fat milk and sugar
• Two mini Lamington cupcakes (office birthday)
• Soy and linseed toast with sundried tomato and basil cream cheese and wild rocket
• Chai latte (they're going up in price today, which means I'll have to bid goodbye to at least one of my vices)
• Woolies beef tepanyaki hot pot
• Tea with milk and sugar
• Six Provita with cheddar cheese (I know, I know, but I promise I was legitimately still hungry... How am I supposed to sleep with my tummy audibly rumbling? I blame it on a grueling rehearsal)

So all in all not the best start to the week, and on the back of a weekend which included two pizzas and a shit load of macarons, among other things.

Oh well, back to the drawing board today.

Friday, 13 July

• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• All Bran flakes with fat-free milk
• Instant (plain) oats with honey and cinnamon
• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• Soy and linseed toast with salmon cream cheese and wild rocket
• Apple
• Chai latte
• Tea with low-fat milk and sugar
• Fresh white roll with real butter (I have a problem)
• Two G&Ts
• Pizza (what do you expect when you're out for drinks with Le Boyfriend and his bud, and the boys get hungry?)
• Three glasses of red wine

Oh well, I suppose it could have been worse...

You know you're working too hard when...

• You type your work iMac password into your home laptop all the time.
• You're the first one at your desk in an office full of workaholics. 
• The security guards in the parking garage at work haven't changed shift since you said goodnight to them the evening before.
• You spend more hours at work than you do at home.
• You blog before 6:30 am, when you're already at work, because there won't be time during the rest of the day.

Thursday, 12 July

• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• All Bran flakes with fat-free milk
• Instant (plain) oats with honey and cinnamon
• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• Two wholewheat rusks
• Soy and linseed toast with salmon cream cheese and wild rocket
• Apple
• Chai latte
• Tiny cupcake (I know, I know, but it was a thoughtful little surprise from a friend)
• Woolworths pork and jasmine rice and Asian greens hot pot (exhaustion = microwave meal for dinner)
• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• Three buttermilk rusks

What is with the after-dinner snacking, you may ask? Yeah, I don't get it either.

I seem to have about six meals a day, on average, which may have something to do with the fact that I usually have breakfast before 6 am. I swear I only eat when my tummy's rumbling, it's not like I'm just idly stuffing my face.

Also made it to gym last night, although my cardio session was pretty pathetic. This whole work exhaustion thing is cramping my style.

The (diet) offending cupcake. How could I not?

In entirely unrelated news...

This is how I want to have my hair cut on Saturday.

Cute, no?

Wednesday, 11 July

• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• All Bran flakes with fat-free milk
• Instant (plain) oats with honey and cinnamon
• 3 x Ryvita with salmon cream cheese (for some reason I was starving around 10:30 am and lunch seemed a long way off. Hmmpf)
• Chicken and veggie soup from Crave (and with bread and butter – apparently my weakness)
• Tea with low-fat milk and sugar
• Instant (plain) oats with honey and cinnamon (seriously, what was with the hunger yesterday? My tummy was grumbling and I didn't think I'd make it through an hour of cardio without eating something beforehand)
• 1 x slice soy and linseed bread with Flora (tummy grumbling AGAIN after dancing, and my roast veggies were going to be another 40 minutes)
• Roast veggies in a wholewheat wrap, with a little sundried tomato and basil cream cheese

Okay, so, again not the best of days eating-wise. I know what a friend of mine – let's call her Tiny Gym Machine – would say: too many carbs, too much fat, not enough protein, not enough veggies.

But – and please don't think I'm copping out here – I'm going to cut myself some slack. As laden with food as the past three days have been, they're still better than the last six months of just putting whatever I felt like into my face, whenever I felt like it.

Plus the fact that I've switched on my stove and oven three times in the last three days is a miracle. Usually it's just cheese on toast for dinner, or popcorn, or a selection of whatever random junk food is in my kitchen.

Plus plus there has been cake in the office the past two days, and though it's taken every fibre of my being, I managed to walk away from it (yes, yes, the fact that I had a chocolate muffin with Mum probably cancels that out, but small victories...)

Plus plus plus I've done four hours of exercise in three days, two of which were cardio. That has to count for something, right?

Have to keep my eyes on the prize, right?

Okay so this may get old fast but...

Tuesday, 10 July

• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• All Bran flakes with fat-free milk
• Instant (plain) oats with honey and cinnamon
• Tea with low-fat milk and sugar
• Soy and linseed toast with salmon cream cheese (so that's carbs topped with fat, right?)
• Chai latte
• Tea with fat-free milk and sugar
• Chocolate muffin (I know, it's like I'm retarded and don't know what a diet is. Also, one should never go to one's mother for comfort about work stress around tea time, as it usually results in the aforementioned cake-like muffin)
• Two poached eggs on low-GI toast with Flore (In my defence, I was all prepared to have roast veggies for dinner, but was surprised by a friend popping round to borrow shoes, which meant I only got around to the whole having dinner thing about 9:45 pm, and watching veggies roast for 40 minutes didn't seem logical).