Udaipur, India
That pesky May update…
I’m very conscious of the fact that the month is more than half over, and I haven’t updated anything on this blog. I did post a recipe for my coconut lemongrass tea cake earlier this month. The post may have gone un-noticed, but definitely check it out when you’ve got a minute because it’s the best afternoon indulgence I’ve made in recent days.
So, what’s new in May?
Our lives have been rather consumed with a multitude of things life- and work-related. We’ve spent every Saturday (and sometimes Sunday) since before Easter trying to find a new place to live. Our lease expires in July at a very inconvenient time, so we thought we’d get be on top of things and start looking early. So far, I’m just bitter that our weekends have been consumed with no end result! Some of the areas have just ended up being a lot more expensive than we’re willing to pay for, and some of the homes have been left to shambles with no house pride whatsoever that I don’t even want to bother. Properties also come and go very quickly, and extremely competitively. (We actually queued outside with 18(!) other couples/people waiting to view a flat one weekend.) So it’s been anxiety-inducing with no real results.
Another funny thing about London is just how big it is, and how many “pockets” there could be within London itself. It takes me about 45 minutes to get to work. We live in Zone 2, considered quite central London, and I work right in the heart of Soho. Yet because of how massive this city is, my commute takes me 45 minutes. However, if I lived out in Zone 4 or 5 near a National Rail train (how suburban), I could have a shorter commute due to the fast trains. It’s just bizarre. Don’t worry, not compromising to move out to the shires yet, but we’re definitely in the middle of the classic dilemma of having too many choices for where we could live.
Work has also gotten really busy for both me and Alex. I am really loving my job and all that I do daily – no complaints there – but I am also finding myself rushing out the door in the mornings and stumbling home late at night. I can definitely be Spanish these days, if we were to purely judge me by the time I eat dinner every night. (And those who know me know that I enjoy my dinners at 6pm on the dot.) Haven’t gotten back into exercising or running, but I have a couple of runs coming up in June and July, so all I’ve been doing is fretting about the lack of running everyday while not having time to do it at all.
Another thing that’s totally new in May is that we’ve been following the paleo diet for a few weeks now since late April. At first I thought it was going to be hard and I wouldn’t really like it. Now I am going to sound like a cliché when I say that I actually don’t miss bread and I feel great. It’s very unexpected, but now even when I’m really hungry, I don’t crave bread or noodles or anything like that. I might think about getting pizza once in a while, but when it comes to actually committing myself to eating something that has a lot of carbs, I find myself turning away from that option. I haven’t been able to resist a bite of cake or brownie once in a while, but overall I have changed my palette. I’ve also noticed my body slimming down from this, which is totally unexpected. Initially I wanted to try paleo because I’ve heard great things about how much more energetic people feel when they’re eating paleo, and for a while there in late April I was really living a blurry dream from day to night, so I thought I’d give it a try while cleaning up my eating habits. I never thought that I would actually notice a difference in how my clothes fit. Weird, but definitely a welcome side effect!
So that’s why the baking has slowed down a bit, too. I’m dreaming up my birthday cake for the end of the month, though, so stay tuned on that one!
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