Miracle Vegetable

Hi friends,

Do you know crinkly vegetable called Kale?

I went to Asda to get two bags of Kale yesterday. (Yes, Juno at Asda!) Kale is, my dear ladies and gentlemen, our new best friend in 2014. It is a superb vegetable with so many benefits such as;

• Rich in Vitamin A, K and C
• High in fibre, no fat
• High in iron and calcium
• Powerful anti-oxidants containing flavonoids and carotenoids
• Anti-inflammatory contains fatty acids Omega 3
• Good for detoxing

It costs me only 99p for a bagful of them.  So, why not adding it into daily diet?

My breakfast this morning – Kale Rice Bowl

I do not cook anything contains Vitamin C in high heat as it destroys goodies. Half raw is good enough but wash them thoroughly. I had it with spicy Korean sauce. Lovely.

Kale can be versatile and you can use it for omelette, soup, stir-fry, salad etc.

Highly recommended!

What is happening?

Hi friends,

This is what is happening outside my cottage right now.

What is happening to this country? We had terrible thunder and hailstones yesterday and now this.

Hope you are OK wherever you are.

Take good care and see you when the weather is slightly less wet…

Happy Anti-aging Breakfast

Hi friends,

Breakfast this morning. My lovely friend who lives in Okinawa Island sent locally produced tea to me as a new year’s gift. Can you see the brown liquid in a glass? It is the blend of 38 different plants and herbs which are all supposed to be good for health and beauty.  Wow, let’s see how it works on me.

Wakame (seaweed) and sesame rice balls, spicy chicken, shishito peppers, onion and sweet corn omelette, cherry tomatoes, and miso soup with tofu.

  

Elegant Carrot & Old Donkey

My dear gentlemen, sorry but this post is for girls only.

My dear ladies, how are you fighting against gravity and aging? I have to admit, I nearly gave up last week.  Because of the vertigo I have been suffering, I felt exhausted and had no energy to do anything for days.   

However, my beautiful darlings, I don’t know why but my life always gives me a booster whenever I nearly give up. This time, it was a call from the Earl.

He used to be one of my most important business contacts but few years ago, he left the company in Germany to set up his own business. The Earl is the nickname we gave him because of his beautiful manner and the elegance he naturally holds.

Trust me my darlings, he is absolutely gorgeous!!!  There is such a gentleman who is too good to be true. Tall, good looking, intelligent, elegant, good tastes in general and earns a lot. The only downside of being with such a man is, I have to pretend that I am living in a body con dress and high heels for 24 hours 7 days a week. A worn out set of fleece pyjamas with chocolate stains around chest? What are they? Never seen such things in my wardrobe.

Oh, I am actually wearing one right now…… ;-p

Whatever my interfering yet totally sweet engineering friend (who declared to find a man for me) thinks, I am quite happy in my little cottage, spending lazy Saturday mornings in my old pyjamas.

 However, it seems that  my life is telling me to sort out this hideous woman immediately not to embarrass such an elegant beautiful man for the sake of his kindness and my last drop of pride & dignity as a woman.

OK, ladies, watch me. I shall transform myself before I see the Earl. He wants to take me out for dinner as an old friend this time, not a mere business contact. Wow, I am flattered.

Soooooooo, my friends, what do you think old girls need before a date?

Pore minimising serum and aging spots corrector.  I ordered them on line the moment I hung up the phone! How sad is that but I am desperate!!

I shall show them to you when they are delivered. Until then, keep scrubbing!  ;-)

Gyoza Breakfast

Hi friends,

My usual topic. Breakfast this morning.

Gyoza dumpling and chicken stock & egg soup. 

CC Cream - Rachel K

Hi friends,

This is my latest craze. CC Cream.

CC stands for colour (or complexion) correction. It is multi-tasking cream and lots of ladies’ magazines are talking about it in these days. CC cream is thought to be more sophisticated version of BB and it can give you more benefits if you have issues like hyper pigmentation.

I chose Rachel K’s CC cream simply because of its reputation. It is SPF35+ but unlike BB, so light and smooth. 

Rachel K is a Korean company. Those lovely Korean people are the pioneer of both BB cream and CC cream and they certainly know their stuff.

If you prefer the products from familiar brands, companies like Clinique, Nivea, L’Oreal and other major cosmetic companies have their own creams.  

Ladies in her 40s and plus, go for it! 

Kiehl's Patchouli and Rose Mist

Hi friends,

I am still suffering from vertigo and it makes me so tired. In order to cheer me up, I went for my usual remedy. Buying something for me….

This is Kiehl’s aromatic mist – Patchouli and Fresh Rose.

When I saw the blend, I thought it is very unusual for fragrance. Patchouli ‘s another name is Asian Parsley. Who on earth thought about using parsley for fragrance and combine it with rose?

The idea amused me, hence the purchase.

My verdict?

Well………………my nose is blocked and I cannot smell anything right now.

Oh dear. My dear ladies and gentlemen, I am rubbish! 

How much do you spend on grocery? - Breakfast & Lunch

Hi friends,

Despite this ill health, I have not lost appetite yet and somebody said that it is not Juno’s blog without breakfast and lunch. Here we go ladies and gentlemen. My breakfast and lunch.

I am reviewing my weekly spend and noticed that I spent £100 on grocery and petrol yesterday. I am still living on £50 budget per week for foods and household stuff such as loo paper and washing powder but I must admit, it is getting difficult to keep, especially in these days.

I live on my own. That is not the best thing when it comes to cost performance, but as you see, I normally do not waste much.  

When I said that, my good friend AML teased me that I paid £7 for soy sauce. Come on darling, I need it!!  I have to say, it is bargain for an organic soy sauce and it is special low sodium one.

“OK, I will live on beans on toast then.”

“Oh yeah?  You mean, a tin of Duchy’s organic beans from Waitrose?”

….HOW CHARMING!!

Duchy do not do beans, doncha know? :-p

Highly recommended - Honey Citron Tea

Hi friends,

This is what I found in Coventry yesterday.

Honey Citron Tea.

Available from the Korean Grocery Shop in Coventry Cannon Park Shopping Centre where big Tesco is.

It will be definitely my winter warmer for the upcoming freezing weeks. Keep Warm…

It has to be an early morning in winter

Hi my gorgeous darlings,

Many thanks from the bottom of my heart to those who texted me after reading yesterday’s post on my messed-up balancing organ.

No worries, my dear ladies and gentlemen. I have every intention not to give up until I hit my 70^th birthday. After that, God knows.

What a beautiful day we had yesterday! Hope you made most of it.

As a token of my thanks, I would like to send the serene air to you. These photos were taken at dawn, my favourite time of the day. It was totally divine.

According to the most famous and sophisticated courtesan in the 10^th century of Japan, "it has to be an early morning in winter.”

Indeed, what a magical moment. 

La Campanella by Nobu Tsujii

Hi friends,

If you missed last year’s Proms, here we go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbAoeZZvntk

Nobuyuki Tsujii from Japan. This boy’s performance always gives me goose bumps.

La Campanella is the nickname for the third of Franz Liszt’s six Grandes Etudes de Paganini. My old favourite and possibly the most difficult piece of all Liszt’s music.

As well as Liszt, his Beethoven is unbelievable, needless to mention Rachmaninov.

For a person who gave up piano lessons after few years of struggle, this boy is simply a miracle. 

2014 Create Your Amazing Year Workbook

Hi friends,

How has your new year been? I have been enjoying myself working on this book.

This is what my friend gave me for Christmas and it is really good fun to fill in. It is like a homework book for a school kid. The inside of the book looks like this.

It starts with the review of 2013, and then, move into 2014. Each page, there are questions and boxes you have to fill in….

Consider your word of the year. What currently DOESN’T feel like in your life? What activities, times of the day, relationships, habits, emotions don’t resonate with it?

What would bring more of that quality into your life?

Brainstorm all your actionables for making your word happen.

Describe your dreamiest day that you would love to happen this year.

Books I would like to read

Places I would like to visit

There are plenty of questions like this and the book encourages you to visualise them and same questions appear few times in different ways. I thought this is very good from a psychological point of view. If you would like to make your dreams come true, it is always best to visualise it and imagine how you would feel when it is achieved. It is a good old trick being used in coaching and mentoring. Lots of athletes adopt this technique to achieve their goals, too.

It is always good to see what my heart really desires, where I want to go and what I want to reach. Without clearly realising them, it is impossible to achieve. If you have something you would like to create or achieve something, I highly recommend anyone to write them down with honest words. They are only for yourself. There is no need to feel embarrassed or create a grand façade for them.

Right, I finished my workbook now. Let’s see what will happen to my new year.

You know what? I have very good feeling about it….

Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo

Hi friends,

Hope you all had a good break. Sorry that I have been so unsociable in these days.

As well as the exam coming up in a couple of weeks, I have been suffering from .

Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo

OMG, I even don’t know how to pronounce these words properly.  It started on 2^nd January and my doctor said it would take a couple of months to fix it.

It is not life threatening or anything but just so uncomfortable. Basically, my balancing organ was messed up and because of that, I get intense dizziness every time my head moves, especially when I get up.

This is the drug I was prescribed but to be honest, it won’t improve the condition at all. 

They make me really drowsy. My dizziness becomes less intense simply because my senses become dull. That is all these tablets do. How annoying…

Only good thing happened so far is, someone I adore called me after he heard my ill health in the early morning on Thursday. My goodness, that man still has got such sexy chuckles.

Oh well, let’s see how it goes.