"Would you like some donut with your sprinkles?"

I was concerned that my 365 Photos project is only up to #81 and I'm repeating myself. Deliciously. But really, Krispy Kreme doughnuts are sooooooo photogenic.

I used my iPhone to send a pic direct to Facebook, and it garnered ten funny comments before I could get it onto my Flickr account. Food gets attention, what can I say?

The rocky road to dieting?

Rocky Road doughnut from Krispy Kreme, Central Station.

I first saw this delectable new, limited edition Krispy Kreme variety on Monday afternoon, and I realised today that, if it was still in production, it might make a great subject for a photo. The one I had my eye on was actually right at the front of the glass display cabinet - it had twice as many marshmallows! But I was a little reluctant/guilty to insist on buying it.

I have since eaten the evidence. All in the name of art.

"No breakfast for you!"

I had plans for a sumptuous breakfast in a cafe in the lower Blue Mountains this morning, but the day was quite gloomy and my plans were dashed.

Having just jumped on the scales for my weekly weigh-in, I'm so depressed I wanna just eat everything the fridge, and then go polish off some Krispy Kreme donuts.

Admittedly, it's been too rainy to get much walking in this week, although I've certainly been out there in it. The only way I'm feeling a little more positive about the situation is that, this time last year, I'd avoided the scales altogether, because I knew I'd managed to reverse a whole previous year's worth of dieting in just a few months of post-Christmas mystery.

As I've said before, I don't feel like I'm over-eating, or having too many treats, and I do an incredible amount of brisk walking. I do not want to have to go to a gym, and my body seems to be saying it likes being the size it is. It's been about eighteen months of quite resisted meal choices now - I still get so envious on a Thursday night when I pass all those glassed-walled CBD restaurants and cafes with my banana skim milk smoothie, and see people seemingly eating a normal meal. Or when I go to a movie and I'm the only person not nursing a huge bucket of hot, buttered popcorn.

Sunday's not so magic number: 95.6 - Sob.

Falling off the wagon - deliciously

I expected bad news. Stepping onto the bathroom scales today was never going to be anything else, but it was a worthy experiment. I can now say with confidence that a two-week celebration, with a food frenzy free-for-all can add over a kilogram eeach week. Especially when the weather has been too dismal to do much walking (ie. the dog ducks off under the bed when he suspects there is rain outside).

This is definitely how I reversed last year's dieting efforts so effortlessly! Fifteen weeks of carefree eating leads to fifteen kilograms of ugly fat; I didn't need to really repeat the experiment, but gosh it was fun doing so. Two Krispy Kreme donuts on Thursday - despite walking the length of Pitt Street, Sydney, in the rain - was not the wisest move. But then, neither was today's Big Mac - my first Big Mac in about eight months!

You know, you can really taste the vinegar in Big Mac Special Sauce when you haven't eaten it in eight months.

Sunday's magic number: 93.7. Okay, I detect a pattern here. After the catered morning tea and lunch tomorrow, for the professional development day at school, the diet's back.

How does your garden grow?

It's a little bizarre that the grass is growing so wonderfully in the middle of a drought, but we've been getting a combination of frequent storms, that can dump a month's rainfall in ten minutes over parts of Sydney, followed by days of gorgeous sunshine. You can practically watch the blades of grass growing!

I'm particularly thrilled about my gardenia bushes, which are blooming extremely well this year. Gardenias were my paternal grandmother's much-treasured flowers, due to her daughter Elaine's fondness for them (Aunty Elaine died at age 17, although she has ben an influence over several generations who never met her). I once bought my grandmother a potted gardenia for her balcony as a gift and it was an annual celebration whenever that first fragrant bud burst open. When I bought my own flat in 1984, a gardenia for the balcony was one of my first purchases.



Since moving to the house in 2000, I've made a point of picking up a new greenhouse-reared, ready-to-bloom gardenia plant each year, mainly because they have had more promise of many blooms than the ones here, which have traditionally granted only about ten blooms each per season. The last few years, despite careful spraying for pests, some little caterpillar has been tunnelling through the tiny unopened gardenia buds and this either mutates each bud as it grows to full size, or causes it to not open at all.

This year, anticipating disaster again, I bought a new, ready-to-bloom gardenia plant - which has started performing well - but all of the other plants are covered with buds and flowers, too! Mind you, there've been some black caterpillars threatening to start munching but so far so good. (I squished one in the centre of his body the other day - and his brains shot right out of his head. If that's where a caterpillar keeps his brains.)

I'm also enjoying the development of this year's agapanthus blooms (but so far no action from my two Black Panthas), the gorgeous self-seeding portulacas, and the amazingly hardy pigfaces (first time this year) in their numerous colours.


Fingers crossed for a black pantha!


Sunday's magic number: 88.6 I'm so excited! It was a difficult week, watching a friend tuck into Krispy Kreme donuts when I had a skinny milkshake, and I even refused to partake of free Christmas cake at work. Sigh... I guess it's been worth it.

Homer says, "Mmmmm.... Cookie puffs..."

Okay, I've found an equivalent, morish snack food that may perhaps rival the Krispy Kreme Donut.

I saw them last week in the World Square shopping arcade, which was (and still is) about two decades being built on the old Anthony Hordern's building site in the city. I resisted then, but yesterday I could not go past a second time.

And they are... delectable.


PUFFY COOKIE PUFFS

Puffy cookie puffs are seemingly an Asian delight, said to be "fresh 'n natural", and need to be refrigerated at or below 4 degrees C. If they ever get home to your fridge. Cookie puffs have a light crumbly pastry crust, sort of flaky on the bottom, craggy on the top and - even though warm from the oven - are filled with a cold, light, rather eggy custard. One can buy them singly, but why would you? Because they also come in boxes of six and twelve!

I mean, if they are "fresh 'n natural" they must be good for you, yes? For a moment, I even worried that the texture of the top of the puff might mean the presence of (ick!) coconut, but no. (Snicker, snicker. Good. Or perhaps bad.)

There were still five left in the little six-pack carrier carton when I got home yesterday. Then two more for me, two to share with a friend - and one that had to be eaten at about midnight, lest it go soggy in the fridge overnight. One just never knows when a fridge might stop being "below 4 degrees C" - and cookie puff spoilage would be such an incredible waste.

Monday: the return of Fat Free Forever. Alas, poor cookie puffs, I knew you (too) well.

Birthday blog

Happy birthday to me. Luckily, I don't feel any different. Nothing else to report yet, 'cos I just got out of bed...

Captain's Log: Supplemental
A rather uneventful day. The morning was spent finishing off the snowman, as mentioned in yesterday's post. And much of the rest of the day involved snatches of time to rehearse the class with their lines for Friday's assembly. I even tried a little blackmail to keep them calm: "Now, it's my birthday today, and I'm sure no one wants to spend my birthday in Discussion Time at lunch." Okay, I know it made no sense, but it did seem to work. A bit.

The students were very charged up about the play. We haven't had time to practise with a live microphone yet - and probably won't - but they've been drilled to go slowly and loudly, since stage fright and the sight of their parents in the audience is bound to make them too fast and too quiet in their delivery of the script. I'm hoping to over-compensate now and solve a potential problem.

The afternoon was spent on my regular "trip into the city" on the train. Thursday nights have become a ritual, since 1977, when I first started travelling into the city daily to go to teacher's college in Broadway. I discovered the joy and convenience of visiting all my favourite bookshops, toy shops and comic shops all on the one night, and I can't imagine a Thursday night without new "Star Trek" items, or "Starlog" magazine, or other exciting things to buy and/or read on the way home.

It would have been nice to share my birthday evening with someone in the city, but I didn't really put any thought into who might have been available, until I found myself trudging around alone, feeling peckish and realizing some company would have been cool. Oh well, I commiserated with a Krispy Kreme donut (or two), from the tiny outlet which has opened on the site of the juice bar where I used to buy my non-fat fruit smoothies. Oh well...