Poster girl for guarana
Food
First things first - the lovely veggie lasagne recipe, courtesy of szandara. You should all make this, as even hard-core meat-lovers like alasatyr and bigtaz ask specifically for it to be made again :)
(As an aside - in New Zealand pretty much all lasagne comes pre-cooked, so it doesn't need to be boiled first like it says in the recipe. And, through experimentation, I've discovered that sheet lasagne works better than lasagne noodles).
szandara's Amazingly Good Veggie Lasagne
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 large egg(s)
10 oz chopped frozen spinach
28 oz canned crushed tomatoes
10 oz canned tomato paste
9 items dry lasagna noodles
2 Tbsp minced garlic
1-2 Tbsp ground basil
1 Tbsp ground oregano
16 oz fat-free ricotta cheese
Boil lasagna noodles for 5 minutes; drain.
Mix ricotta, 1/4 cup parmesan, eggs, spinach in one bowl. Mix crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, garlic, oregano and basil in another bowl.
Spray pan with olive oil cooking spray. Layer as follows: thin layer of tomato sauce, 3 noodles, 1/3 of tomato sauce, 1/2 cheese mixture; 3 noodles, 1/3 of tomato sauce, 1/2 cheese mixture; 3 noodles, remaining tomato sauce. Top with 1/4 cup of parmesan and bake at 350 ( 180 for you metric folk) for 45 minutes.
Work
A mixture of successes here at work. I've been challenging myself quite a lot, playing with field switches during my mail merges so that dates look the way they should, and currency has two decimals rather than seventeen.
And this morning I discovered that I need to do a V-lookup to get some information, and much to my surprise I remembered how to do it successfully on the first try. Nothing like overachieving ...
A very good *ahem* friend of mine started temping in the same office as me this week, and it's been quite disconcerting at times. Especially as my damn hormones won't behave themselves, and I'll have moments of complete spaciness as I drool at the business-shirty goodness, or think about possible uses for a tie and tie clip. Still, it's all been very professional, and despite my best (and most inapropriate fantasies) there have not been any encounters in the filing room or the elevator. A girl can dream, though!
(Not that I'd do anything to jeapordise my burgeoning temp career ...)
But we've been heading out to lunch every other day, and it's great to have a reason to choose my clothes carefully in the morning. Being complimented (as I just was) always brings a smile to my face.
And Ben's enjoying the fallout, as he can attest when I pounced on him yesterday afternoon *grin*
Play
The head pain is 90% gone, thanks at least in part to a quite different acupuncture session on Wednesday. Usually I'm lying down with needles in legs, arms and head. This time Shandy got me to sit on a chair facing the table. She put four needles in my neck, two above my right eyebrow, two on the right side of my head, one in the fontanelle, two in each arm and one in each hand. And I spent half an hour looking at the pillow my arms were resting on.
The electricity on the back of my neck felt like clackety spiders (like in ep 2 of Dr Who), and I actually stretched just the wrong way and knocked the electrodes off. Ah well.
After the needles and electricity was a lovely acupressure session, focusing on my neck and head, and the outside of my fourth fingers on each hand - good for fixing head pain, apparently - which were rubbed up and down until the skin went hot, about 6 minutes each.
I only had one pain killer yesterday, and none as yet today (although I suspect that I will have one this afternoon). Yay me!
I talked to Ben on Wednesday morning, and he and I agreed that if I still have this next week, I will go and see my doctor. She's on the Shore and a long way to get to, but I originally started seeing her because another migraine sufferer recommended her to me. So it might be the right thing to do.
I spent Wednesday evening curled up re-watching Serenity (the pilot, not the movie), and then the commentary. Me and cats and the heater and warming food. It was all good.
Ooh - lunch time! Off to the pub :)
First things first - the lovely veggie lasagne recipe, courtesy of szandara. You should all make this, as even hard-core meat-lovers like alasatyr and bigtaz ask specifically for it to be made again :)
(As an aside - in New Zealand pretty much all lasagne comes pre-cooked, so it doesn't need to be boiled first like it says in the recipe. And, through experimentation, I've discovered that sheet lasagne works better than lasagne noodles).
szandara's Amazingly Good Veggie Lasagne
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 large egg(s)
10 oz chopped frozen spinach
28 oz canned crushed tomatoes
10 oz canned tomato paste
9 items dry lasagna noodles
2 Tbsp minced garlic
1-2 Tbsp ground basil
1 Tbsp ground oregano
16 oz fat-free ricotta cheese
Boil lasagna noodles for 5 minutes; drain.
Mix ricotta, 1/4 cup parmesan, eggs, spinach in one bowl. Mix crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, garlic, oregano and basil in another bowl.
Spray pan with olive oil cooking spray. Layer as follows: thin layer of tomato sauce, 3 noodles, 1/3 of tomato sauce, 1/2 cheese mixture; 3 noodles, 1/3 of tomato sauce, 1/2 cheese mixture; 3 noodles, remaining tomato sauce. Top with 1/4 cup of parmesan and bake at 350 ( 180 for you metric folk) for 45 minutes.
Work
A mixture of successes here at work. I've been challenging myself quite a lot, playing with field switches during my mail merges so that dates look the way they should, and currency has two decimals rather than seventeen.
And this morning I discovered that I need to do a V-lookup to get some information, and much to my surprise I remembered how to do it successfully on the first try. Nothing like overachieving ...
A very good *ahem* friend of mine started temping in the same office as me this week, and it's been quite disconcerting at times. Especially as my damn hormones won't behave themselves, and I'll have moments of complete spaciness as I drool at the business-shirty goodness, or think about possible uses for a tie and tie clip. Still, it's all been very professional, and despite my best (and most inapropriate fantasies) there have not been any encounters in the filing room or the elevator. A girl can dream, though!
(Not that I'd do anything to jeapordise my burgeoning temp career ...)
But we've been heading out to lunch every other day, and it's great to have a reason to choose my clothes carefully in the morning. Being complimented (as I just was) always brings a smile to my face.
And Ben's enjoying the fallout, as he can attest when I pounced on him yesterday afternoon *grin*
Play
The head pain is 90% gone, thanks at least in part to a quite different acupuncture session on Wednesday. Usually I'm lying down with needles in legs, arms and head. This time Shandy got me to sit on a chair facing the table. She put four needles in my neck, two above my right eyebrow, two on the right side of my head, one in the fontanelle, two in each arm and one in each hand. And I spent half an hour looking at the pillow my arms were resting on.
The electricity on the back of my neck felt like clackety spiders (like in ep 2 of Dr Who), and I actually stretched just the wrong way and knocked the electrodes off. Ah well.
After the needles and electricity was a lovely acupressure session, focusing on my neck and head, and the outside of my fourth fingers on each hand - good for fixing head pain, apparently - which were rubbed up and down until the skin went hot, about 6 minutes each.
I only had one pain killer yesterday, and none as yet today (although I suspect that I will have one this afternoon). Yay me!
I talked to Ben on Wednesday morning, and he and I agreed that if I still have this next week, I will go and see my doctor. She's on the Shore and a long way to get to, but I originally started seeing her because another migraine sufferer recommended her to me. So it might be the right thing to do.
I spent Wednesday evening curled up re-watching Serenity (the pilot, not the movie), and then the commentary. Me and cats and the heater and warming food. It was all good.
Ooh - lunch time! Off to the pub :)