All the best to you, wherever you are, on St Patrick's Day
In past years I've cycled in the parade with the Dublin Cycling Campaign but they aren't taking part this year.
In fairness, it's a fine day here in Dublin with no rain. About the best you can hope for in Ireland!
So wherever you are in the world - have a great day.
I was up early this morning to start on a big chore - cleaning my oven....which had not been done, let's say "in awhile".
I started the cleaning at about 7am by applying "Oven Mate" to all of the surfaces in the oven that had baked on grime. This was pretty much all of the sides and the door on the mini oven that we use the most and just the bottom of the regular size oven that we generally only use at Christmas time or when we have friends over for dinner. Along with the two ovens, there is also the built in microwave but I cleaned that the other day.
I bought Oven Mate in Supervalu and looking online it got lots of good reviews, so I was interested to see if it would work. If it didn't work, I was going to go with Plan B which was to get a professional oven cleaner in to do the job.
After I applied the gel, I had to leave it for a few hours (or it can be left overnight if it is really bad) so I headed off to my parents house for a visit. I drove over to their house after booking a "Go Car". This was my first time to use a Go Car and my first time to drive in since about 2020!!
When I returned home after a few hours, I started on the removal of the Oven Mate gel which had turned to a disgusting brown gunge.
Here's the oven before I cleaned off the gel:
And the results speak for themselves, here's the after!
Got a cute new wreath for my front door and I adore it!
I had a browse in TK Maxx for a Spring or Easter wreath and among all the ones with eggs and bunnies on them, I found this unique one with lemons on it. To me it looks more Spring like and less Easter like which is exactly the look I was going for. I added the yellow ribbon in order to tie it to the front door and it is all set. So cheery and uplifting.
And speaking of when life gives you lemons....
Ciaran had a slip and injured his knee. Currently awaiting MRI report to see what the diagnosis is. Fingers crossed it is not as bad as it currently seems, given that he can't put any weight on his leg.
Hopefully we will know more early next week, but for the moment he is icing it and taking medications as prescribed. Watch this space....
I haven't had Cheese O's in ages but I saw some being delivered to Super Valu the other day as I was walking through the car park so it prompted me to put in an order for delivery.
Since the last time I ordered some, I saw that some of the flavours have oils or other ingredients that I don't want to consume. However, I think the Cheddar and Salt & Vinegar flavour are clean enough and contain only ingredients that I am comfortable eating.
PIGSY is one of the participating artists in this group show and you can read more about it on his website here.
See you at the opening if you plan on dropping in!
And in the meanwhile you can also watch a short film about PIGSY's last exhibition in Ranelagh Arts below
While looking up the macros of Sardines (which I love) I happened on a video by Dr Annette Bosworth, otherwise known as "Dr Boz", all about sardines and fasting.
As I said, I love sardines, both their taste and their convenience.
So what do you think I am doing this week?! Yes a sardine fast!
With a variety of tins of sardines available in Tesco, including John West, King Oscars (spratts) and Shines which is an Irish brand of spratts / sardines, I picked up a few cans today. And then for dinner I had sardines along with some cauliflower cheese left over from yesterday. Really delicious and really easy!
What do you think? Will you give the Sardine Challenge a go?!
Last Thursday myself and Alice met up to go to the theatre!
We had met about two weeks previously and Alice had suggested we go to John B Keane's "Sive" which was showing in The Gaiety.
It was a marvellous performance and a thought provoking tale. A really enjoyable evening out and great to see the very well known actress Fionnula Flanagan in the role of Sive's grandmother.
I had to work on Saturday but it was up and early on Sunday where I meal prepped for the week and made amongst other things Meatloaf and Keto Bread.
And then later on in the day, I went to a 5pm Hot Yoga class (Bikram) in the gorgeous Yoga Yard Studio in Irishtown. It was a nice cycle to the studo with no traffic due to road closures around the Aviva stadium because Ireland were playing rugby in the 6 Nations. Coming home was a different story because it started raining just I started unlocking my bike.
It was a great class and probably even better because I was fasting all day and was wondering if I could manage the class in a fasted state having not eaten since probably about 8pm the day before. I did manage the class buy was well ready for dinner when I get home. I was glad I had meal prepped and had food ready literally as I walked in the door!!
