Friday, June 30, 2017

Fifth Tiara Check-In!

By now, you should be expecting a regular "French Friday" (see what I did there?) tiara post as I check in with you and report on my own progress on this summer tiara-deserving journey.

As is usual, some things are great, while others are challenges. Let's look at the challenges first. I had a hard time working in exercise the way I had planned this week. Late June in North Carolina tends to be hot and humid (not kidding, we're talking about "fog-up-your-glasses-by-stepping-outside" humid) and it was the end of my summer school teaching responsibilities, so I didn't use the inside walking track the way I could have. So that's something to keep working toward.

On the other hand, I lost weight again this week and I'm now officially down seven pounds. Maybe that doesn't sound like much, but think of it like this: that's the weight of a bag of sugar and a pineapple. Or a baby wolf. For fans of the nearly-forgotten movie 1941, that's a joke. But seriously - a six-week-old wolf cub weighs about seven pounds. So do about 12-and-a-half stoats, but the idea of losing 12-and-a-half stoats is just - weird.

I tried my hand at making mousse au chocolat since our last check-in. It's actually really easy, although I didn't quite master the trick of beating the egg whites enough to be super light and fluffy. So the end product was a little more like regular ol' 'Merican pudding, but was still super-tasty. Fresh orange zest, cherie. That's the secret! (Shhh. Just try it, don't tell anybody. Then it wouldn't be a secret, would it?)

This next week, I hope to try three things:

  1. Try to move a little each and every day - walk the dog, try a local trail, or maybe even walk around before the July Fourth fireworks. 
  2. Try my hand at at least one new recipe. I've been doing more of that, and my slow-cooker tikka masala wasn't half bad. I'm thinking of trying crêpes this week.
  3. Look back on one nice thing I did every day to treat myself like company.
Shoulders back, We Who Sparkle! Keep that tiara straight until next week!

And here's an extremely odd video of a stoat hunting a much larger rabbit. The stoat is utilizing the often-dismissed "freak out" tactic that uses dance moves as hunting strategy. Just think about that.







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