Cinque, thank you for posting that link for the Neapolitan sweet wheat berry and ricotta pie (pastiera Napoletana). Definitely a NFD treat, but NFDs are just as much a part of this eating plan as the FDs. It looks wonderful. What is caster sugar? I may have to look that one up. Wheat berries are an interesting addition. I’ve purchased them in the past but don’t have any now. I do have pearl barley which they suggest as a substitute. Does the recipe you’ve used in the past have the wheat berries?

Cali – a while ago you mentioned ordering the T2 creme brulee tea. For me it’s a tea I have occasionally rather than daily. It’s more of a winter taste for me and I like it milky. Something to try – blend a teaspoon each of lamington and creme brulee teas together and make a pot of tea. I like this blend better than either alone.

I read the posts, promptly forgot what I wanted to say in response and then the page flipped over so I’m done for. Trying hard to remember as with one of those trays where you have to recall which of the objects you’d memorised has been removed – definitely Arel featured in there for losing more than desired goal weight, hurray Arel, well done!

Also Cinque, I remembered that I DO, in fact. have a recipe for chilli con carne and that LJ had kindly calculated the calories for me (a little over 400 per serving). It is very similar to the one I linked for you though. I rarely bother with a recipe for it so, obviously, it’s not a FD meal.

It was CalifD that I should have thanked for the denim jacket links, not Cinque. Sorry. Is your house all decorated for Easter, CalifD?

LJ, I loved the stories about your ex’s vet house mate bringing home the zoo critters, how cool! And thanks to all who made such kind comments about DD’s photography. Cinque, thanks for answering CalifD’s question about how we let go of our young adult children. A bridge we will be crossing all too soon but you summed it up so well as always. My OH said last night that he couldn’t believe he was tracking the plane his daughter was travelling on across the continent when it had seemed only yesterday that he wasn’t sure whether to let go of her hand so that she could run to the other side of the local park with the dog. On the other hand, some of my friends have lads who don’t ever seem to want to leave home. I remember my dad had to downsize to a 1 bd bunglaow in order to get my brothers to move out when they were about 25. I was long gone at that age.

Oh yes, and Cinque, apparently Melbourne airport has the best pizza ever – with goat’s cheese – and for only $12.

Here’s to pets that warm our hearts, children who make us proud and the joy of non fast day food. I wish my memory were better, then I’d be toasting a few other things on the previous page.

Have fun everyone but try not to sabotage your great efforts! Is anyone joining me for a FD tomorrow?

Good morning,
this is my recipe for Pastiera Napoletana
I’m posting it as it is different from the one I linked (although I bet that one is wonderful too)
I do use wheat berries. The main work is getting them wonderfully soft and milky and flavoured. It takes a couple of days to make, but easy steps.

Ingredients
125g wheatberries
pinch of salt
2 cups (500g) milk
1 cinnamon stick
1 vanilla bean, split,
peeled strips of lemon skin (4 strips?)
3 eggs, separated
50g caster sugar (1/4 cup) plus another 2 tbsp
300g ricotta
prepared baked pasty tart base

Method
Soak the wheat 24 hours in water. Drain.
Then boil it in plenty of water and a pinch of salt, for an hour. Drain
Use a food processor to pulse it a few times to break up some berries, if you have one, but don’t make into a paste.
Add the wheat to a saucepan with the milk, cinnamon, vanilla and lemon strips. Cook slowly for 1 and a 1/2 hours until most of the milk is absorbed.
Cool and refrigerate overnight,
Remove the cinnamon, vanilla and lemon strips.
Mix the 3 egg yolks with 50g caster sugar, then mix in the ricotta and blend in.
Whisk the egg whites to soft peaks, sprinkle in 2 tbsp caster sugar and whisk to firm peaks, gently fold these in to the mixture.
Pour the mixture into the prepared base and spread evenly
Bake 50 – 60 minutes.
When cooled, sprinkle with icing sugar.
Serve at room temperature. Even better the next day.

Happy Easter SHs

After my unrestrained biscuit eating yesterday I am feeling bloated and uncomfortable this morning. It’s a NFD, but I’m hoping that feeling this way will help me behave with more restraint. After I get home from the family brunch, laden down with chocolate gifts, I am going to have to get create with hiding it.

Cinque, I actually think I would have enjoyed one biscuit eaten slowly and savoured rather than the amount I managed to stuff into my mouth – I think the final tally was 7 and they were large biscuits. In the end you don’t really taste and enjoy them it’s just feeding the sugar craving that won’t go away. Yesterday I think it was driven by tiredness due to poor sleep the night before.
Thanks for the Pastiera Napoletana recipe. I would rather work with raw wheatberries as I’ve never seen the jars of pre-cooked ones and I am familiar with working with grains. One of the breads I bake contains wheatberries that require a lot of pre-soaking and boiling.

Apart from watering the lawn, I’ve done nothing with my extra daylight saving hour this morning. I’m taking the morning off before getting back to house cleaning this afternoon. Yesterday I finished both bedrooms, so now it’s just the wet areas and kitchen to do. I’m leaving all the windows and mirrors for my niece, who’s coming back to help on Tuesday – she does a much better job than I do, I always seem to leave smears or lint on the surface.

Have a lovely easter everyone. I hope you are all able to enjoy whatever easter treats come your way with restraint – that’s what I’m aiming for today.

LJoyce, hope you have had a lovely day and the bloating has gone.
I have bad days that I don’t mention here, and I am familiar with that regret. And fatigue is a killer.
I hope you got some good cleaning done.

I had a fasty fast day but not very productive outside fasting well, even the knitting I did started with a mistake so I had to pull out all my work and pick up all the stitches. Hate that.

Thin I was pleased at how quickly the time had gone and jumped up to start my miso soup at 6:30, only to realise that I hadn’t adjusted the dvd clock. 😀 😀
Oh well the hour went and now I have just finished my bowl of miso soup and very nice it was too.

Your root and barley stew sounds scrumptious. You will enjoy every mouthful.

Best wishes everyone. Hope it was a lovely Easter.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DZpcJreVoAAxaNY.jpg

My poor eating did continue into today. I ate a modest amount at brunch, and had a boiled egg with wholemeal toast as a late lunch. I ignored the biscuits and easter eggs in the house mid afternoon and just had a cuppa. I reheated leftovers for dinner and then had the stupid idea that I’d just have one small bit of easter chocolate. I ate about 8 mini eggs before I managed to stop myself. I am very glad that it’s a FD tomorrow. Depending on how I feel in a couple of days, and how my clothes are fitting, this may end up being a 3 FD week.

Cinque, commiserations on the knitting. I used to knit a lot before the arthritis and there was nothing worse than a mistake that required work to be unraveled. I hope you make up the lost ground soon.

Thin, it sounds like you are getting ready for winter with that stew – I hope it’s good. I love the easter bunny story. No wonder they crashed their plane, they were distracted by chocolate. I never did an easter egg hunt as a kid, it just wasn’t something my parents did. I did however follow a 5 & 1.5 year old around my cousin’s 1 acre garden this morning as they hunted for the eggs left by the easter bunny.

This afternoon I pulled out the brushes and tins of paint an did touchup where the paint finish had been marked or was just poor. I’m hoping that’s the last I see of a paintbrush for a long time. I then tried to hang pictures. So far I’ve only managed to hang two. I’m about to go back and have another go. I’m struggling particularly with the kitchen prints as there are three in a row and that have to be evenly spaced and all level. I struggle to get one picture hung straight, three is quite a challenge.

Hope everyone has had a nice day.

Good Morning All

yesterday was FD, which was really, really necessary as I had spent Saturday with friends and had plenty of food and bubbly.

I put on my first batch of tempeh about 20 minutes ago, so now it’s just a matter of temperature control (which I can do) and patience (which I am not very good at) to see the final result in about 24-36 hours. Gosh – I hope it works out ok :-)) Coming home from my walk a couple of days ago, I met an Indonesian lady who lives just around the corner from me. So if the tempeh turns out ok, I’ll present her with some of it – can’t wait to see the look on her face when I tell her that I made it myself!!

Have a good day everyone and celebrate your 5:2 WOL

Good morning,
It is cool in old Melbourne, and I am waiting to see if my neighbour is coming down for coffee. So I might disappear and finish this post in a couple of hours.

Thin, lol yes re the cartoon. Nice to know we are an hour closer.Yay for the barley stew, I have some nice veggie soup at the moment that has barley in. So comforting.

I was going to have exciting news for YamDaisy as I had a meeting today with the person who is helping with the business plan and we were going to get down to the nitty gritty. Unfortunately she has called in sick, so it will just wait until she is better. My hospital appt is this Thursday, but as my specialist has referred me to the clinic I think that is a good sign.

LJoyce, enjoy your fast today, hooray for a wonderful reset. Oh dear, I hope you have some great music on to spur you along as you bleach grout. What a job!
Tomorrow you are getting an evaluation I think you said? I’ll have all my fingers crossed.

Sybs, so exciting about the tempe. I do hope it works wonderfully.
I’m glad you had a good Fast Day yesterday to balance out a feast. How nice to have found that Indonesian lady in your neighbourhood!

Hmm, no sign of my neighbour, he might even be away for Easter. Today has turned into a quiet day. That is nice!

Cheers all.

Hi everyone

Still enjoying reading everyone’s posts. It’s now been 6 months since I started 5:2 and I’m thoroughly enjoying it all. I really appreciate the flexibility, not having to count calories every day, and no real restrictions as long as I’m mindful with my oral intake. There are times when I indulge, but I never feel guilty – just enjoy! My FD today is going ok! The inspiration gained from all of you is wonderful – thank you, and also to those lovely comments for my recent weight loss achievement! If I hadn’t ‘found’ 5:2, I’d still be ~ 6kg heavier and still telling myself ‘I must lose weight before my next birthday’ every year!!!

Thank you to those who shared nice thoughts in regards to my precious Dad – he will be 86 in October, he never thought he’d reach ‘old age’, so I like to enjoy every moment, as able! Just back home from visiting him at the nursing home – all the staff are lovely.

Just drove past an op-shop, in town, that I didn’t know existed – looking forward to looking in to it on Thursday – encouraged by all the op-shop comments! Might just find a bargain to good to refuse – thank you Cinque, Calif and LJoyce.

Thin – you have a very talented daughter – photos looked really good, and she is enjoying the vet work and getting lots of experience – the zoo will be amazing. That was a lovely gesture of yours to hang a chocolate filled rabbit on the fence for the boy next door. He would have been so surprised!

LJoyce – Hopefully, the tile grout is now looking like new – if I work with bleach, my clothes get all speckled! All the best with your appraisal from the real estate tomorrow (Tuesday).

Cinque – all the best for Thursday’s clinic appointment, will be thinking of you

Hi to all those not posting at the moment – you are really missed!

Enjoy whatever you are getting up to and bye for now!

Hi all. I haven’t been well enough to post or to read anything. I had my intraveinous medication last Saturday (a week ago now) and have struggled since. Also had a debilitating headache for the past 10 or so days. Anyway, weighed in yesterday and have lost 1.5kg for the week. So super stoked as I had put a little on the previous week. So woohoo for me. Starting to get into a routine with our FD. My daughter cooks dinner on that night. A recipe she found and that we all love so super cool, and only 175 cal per serve. Winner all round. I hope you have all had an awesome Easter. Paula

Hi Cinque – I can watch the tempeh doing it’s thing – it’s in the oven with just the oven light turned on, which generates the correct temperature! Of course having the tempeh in the oven stops me from wanting to bake delicious sweets win:win
You just never know with cyclones – it could swing north again – I’ve got a cyclone kit, so not too worried. Hope your nephew is / stays safe

Could the insomnia be because of the full moon? – I sometimes find it a little difficult to sleep at that time

Hi Paula – would you have the recipe for that lovely 175 cal dinner?

NFD today – so just had a huge bowl of stir fried mushrooms and vegies for breakfast!

Morning everyone,

Sybscairns the recipe I will have to get from my daughter – it is on her mobile phone. It is a vegetable chowmein (from memory).

Cinque thanks for the encouragement.

Califdreamer also thanks for the encouragement. I get the intraveinous every 8 weeks and normally don’t have any dramas with it. This time was a little different for some reason. Anyway onward and upward.

FD today so will see how I go.

Well here I am in cold rainy England. Such a change from the heat and quite refreshing.

You would not believe the nightmare trip I had. Just briefly.

Flight was due to leave at 9.45pm. Delayed due to weather.

Flight arrived into Sydney 11.25pm. They literally bundled us onto the aircraft as Sydney has a curfew of 12 and if we didn’t leave before then we weren’t going anywhere. We took off with 4 minutes to spare.

Diverted to Melbourne to refuel as there wasn’t time in Sydney.

Sat on the Tarmac in Melbourne for about an hour which made it nearly 2am before we left. 4 hours late.

All early morning connections were missed in Dubai so they had to then put us all on other flights. My original flight to the UK was due to leave at 8am getting in at 12.30. New flight left at 3 arriving 7.45pm.

I had paid an extra $45 to sit up the front so that I could get off quickly to get through immigration. They put me right at the back of the plane and not even a window as requested. Not happy Jan. I was a little upset and told them what I had already been through and the answer was get in touch with customer service 😬😬😬
Immigration wasn’t too bad. Waiting at the carousel for my bag. Waiting, waiting, waiting. No more cases. Baggage hall empty by this time and had to try and find someone. Directed to baggage services only to be told my bag was still in Dubai. I’m living a nightmare. My poor daughter is wondering what the hell has happened to me and luckily rang me while I was at the counter.

When I finally came out, and by the way there were no customs people or anyone in authority I just walked out. My grandchildren were there and nearly bowled me over. I promptly burst into tears.

What a nightmare. I finally got my bag early afternoon the next day delivered to the door.

Have not done any FD’s but have been doing mindful eating. Turkish, Chinese, paella etc etc. trying to leave at least twelve hours before eating. Have been having apple cider vinegar every morning and must say I don’t feel bloated and my size 12 jeans are still feeling comfortable. It is only the first week I have been doing more walking than usual and I have to climb stairs several times a day.

Lovely spending time with my daughter and grandchildren.

Congratulations to all the losers,this really is the only WOL to maintain for the rest of our lives. Love reading all your news but hope you understand if I don’t acknowledge your posts.

Hi Thin, Cinque, LJoyce, Cali and all other lovely 5:2’s

Take care everyone

Sent from my iPad

Hello Intesha,
So lovely to see your post, but omg so glad that dreadful trip is over and you are safely in the comfort and company of your daughter’s family. The best place to recover!
Nice to think of you walking (and climbing up and down stairs) and hooray for mindful eating!
Looking forward to hearing what you get up to next!

Oh dear Intesha, as I was reading your story I became more horrified with every further problem, until you described your grandchildren welcoming you so wonderfully – that made me smile. I’m sure it was the balm you needed too after such an awful series of flights – and I’m sure your returned bad was the icing on the cake. Enjoy your time with family.

Cinque, thankyou for that very embellished medal. I suspect it would be rather a weight to wear, but I do actually feel like I earned it. I hope Penguin sees your feral pigs link – I’m starting to worry that he’s ok. Last time we started to worry about his absence it turned out he’d gone to Portugal, but he only just got back this time before he disappeared, so that’s no comfort. This is the drawback of an anonymous online forum, we have no way of checking that the people we’ve come to care about are ok.
Cinque I’m glad your sleeplessness didn’t continue, a good night’s sleep makes the world of difference.

Arel, enjoy the yoga. Now that I don’t have reno’s to keep me active I might have to start doing that daily again. I will hang onto some of my work clothes for a bit longer as they’ll be useful for gardening. However I did take great delight in throwing away my painting jeans – they never fitted properly as the waist was too big – they kept creeping down my hips and trying to take my knickers with them – I was forever hitching everything back up again.

Cali, I grew up in a family that never threw anything away. I’m the only one who’s broken free of that curse and it took me a while to change that habit. Something that helps me to clear out things I no longer need or use is to remind myself that they’ll go to a good home and someone else will need them and use them more than I do. I find it helpful too if the op shop proceeds help a trusted charity (most of our op shops are for that purpose). I find that helps me let go of things I might be tempted to hang on to for a bit longer. It’s one of the reasons I donate so many things rather than binning them. Although it’s more work, for me donating is easier to do.

I am very glad for a day off. I’m feeling a bit sore, bruised and battered but glad that the house is done for now. Although as with all houses it will need a thorough clean again in a week to keep it looking this way!

I also hope I find some jeans that fit, I haven’t had luck lately finding anything suitable. It will be nice not to have to rush around for once.

FD for me, so I need to take a bottle of water with me. I have baby spinach, mushrooms and eggs in the fridge so I’ll make a veggie omelette for my FD dinner tonight.

Hi ALL

Be a few days I have not been online. Reached by 7th FD yesterday – all going good, and last weigh in last Friday I had lost 0.6kg – so very happy.

Hope you are all well. I have been looking into the BDS diet or adding a 3rd Fast Day. I am really enjoying the control I gain when I am on a FD, and want that a bit more on my journey. If that make sense. :))

Good Afternoon everyone

Well today was back to work for me after a five day extra long weekend. I am on a FD today and it is going really well. Feeling a bit hungry at the moment but have just caught up on all your posts to distract me.

I had planned to do three FDs last week to try and make up for the weekend ahead. This didn’t happen. I ate and drank as I liked all weekend and have put on a little bit of weight on the scales. I’m not worried. I weighed myself every day and yesterday (the 5th day) was about a 1.5 kg gain. This morning it had dropped about 800 grams again. Just goes to show that the scales are not always the best indicator!!

I had planned on making a quick veggie soup for dinner but I have just been reminded that the girls from work are going for a drink after work to send someone off that has recently left. I will be ok with just having a mineral water or a soda water but I will be sooooo hungry by the time I get home and make my soup. I actually feel quite down about it as I don’t really want to go but am being coerced into it by the work girls. I really look forward to dinner on FDs as that is all I eat all day.

Last week I was telling one of the work girls about 5:2 and she was very interested.
Another girl overheard me and proceeded to tell us how important breakfast is and how it kick starts your metabolism. We should never miss eating breakfast blah blah blah.
I have really found that 5:2 has kick started mine. I used to always eat breakfast and found that I was ‘hungry’ all day. I rarely eat breakfast now but when I do I find I am ‘hungry’ again all day. I am writing ‘hungry’ like that because I know that I am not truthfully hungry but that I just feel like eating and can not stop thinking about food.

Back to work 🙂

Hi Quacka, carry on and ignore the noise. I hope that breakfast-eating co-worker is an ideal weight! I like to think of metabolism* in a different way. If your co-worker’s car required more petrol to yield a specific mileage than yours, would you consider it more or less efficient than yours? Similarly, if your body requires more food than mine to perform certain functions, I would argue that your metabolism is not as efficient as mine. The object isn’t to have a body which allows us to shove in as much food as humanly possible! Quite the contrary, surely.

Arel & LJ, a few of us have exchanged email addresses for that very reason – that if someone suddenly stopped posting for some reason, others could still maintain contact and hopefully offer support if needed. I suppose, if they don’t answer their email, we still wouldn’t know whether they’d dropped dead or perhaps we’ve just annoyed them in some way. (More likely the latter with my tendency to speak my mind and not worry too much about being PC 😆 ). I’m a WYSIWYG person. Don’t take it personally anyone!

*Disclaimer: science lurkers, please don’t write in!

Nancy, I too enjoy the discipline required of me on a FD. Yesterday, one of my neighbours arrived with a sweet dessert for my DD. She knew it was a FD but she also knows that it doesn’t tempt me. Even today, I don’t feel particularly drawn to it. How much weight have you lost since starting?

Arel, it is great that you have interesting places to drive to. I remember going for ‘a drive in the country’ with my parents and grandparents on Sundays when I was growing up in the UK. It was so green and beautiful.

Sybs, I haven’t used MFP for a while but, from memory, I could scroll down through a food item until I found the unit of measurement I wanted.

LJoyce, I’m glad you’re getting a second estimate on your house. I think we had 4 different agents come out on our last house. We ended up choosing the 4th one because she seemed the most detail oriented. The estimates were each different, within about 10% of each other. The realtor we chose was in the middle but explained the reasons for the sales price proposal better than the other 3.
I bet your home will sell fast from everything you’ve said here about it. Fingers crossed for a quick sale.

Quacka, I have never liked eating breakfast. At the most, I’ll have maybe a bagel or toast with Vegemite. But usually I just have coffee or or tea and don’t eat until noon. I never eat until noon on FD. Like you, I end up eating more if I eat breakfast. Was that lady who lectured you about breakfast thin herself? I like thin’s analogy about the human body and a car.

I do ferment my own sauerkraut, just sliced cabbage and salt. I weigh out the cabbage to salt ratio. Cinque, I ate about 2/3 of that batch of sauerkraut and then kind of forgot about the rest for a while and even though It was covered, too much of the liquid evaporated and I got a layer with some mold on the top, so I dumped the rest. This was the batch where I let the cabbage sit too long in the frig and I was concerned because it seemed a little dried out, and not as fresh. In the future, I won’t buy the cabbage until I know I have time to put it up right away. I never had that problem in the past, no matter how long it sat in the crock.

Sybs, MFP has a bunch of calorie values for most items, not all of them the same. Good question about the measurements though. Are cups different in the UK, US and Aus? I know tsp and tbsp are a little different. I never considered it on the software. But calorie contents aren’t that absolute anyway even though we all act as if they are. I figure I just need a close approximation, and then use that consistently. It seems to work well enough since I lose or gain weight based on those assumptions.

I agree that it’s good to have a way to keep in touch or check if someone’s missing for a while. Thin and I email sometimes. If anyone here who’s a regular wants my email, I’m happy to share it.

Good to see so many of you having fun shopping at the op shops. LJ, glad you found some good jeans. I have a pair that are waiting to be hemmed too. If it’s a small amount, I just fold them under like I would hem a skirt. I keep a couple long, to wear with higher heeled boots or shoes. I’m noticing some dressier shoes with jeans lately, and shorter jeans, somewhere between regular length and cropped. I kind of like the look, but most of mine are below ankle. https://lookastic.com/women/looks/long-sleeve-blouse-skinny-jeans-pumps/7933 I hadn’t thought of wearing pumps with jeans before.

Question: Stockings or bare legs with dresses? Ay my age, my legs don’t look very good without stockings, preferably some with at least a little tint to them. But it seems like nobody wears stockings anymore. What do you think?

Cali, I agree with Sybs on the stockings. In summer I wear sandals and bare legs. In the colder weather with closed shoes I wear stockings – not just because they look better, they also keep my legs warmer. The exception would be an evening event or a wedding etc – I would wear stockings even with sandals.
I also agree on the measurements. American cups are based on 8 fluid ounces, which I think is 232ml. The rest of us use a metric cup of 250ml. An American tblsp is 1/2 a fluid ounce which is approx 14.5ml and their teaspoon is 1/6 of a fluid ounce. You can safely use an American teaspoon measure in metric countries as it’s only 0.1ml different. Tablespoon measures in Australia are 20ml so you can’t use American tblsp measures in calorie counters or recipes without adjusting for the difference.
I don’t trust any cup or tablespoon measures on calorie counters unless I’m certain they are metric. Most of them give you several measurement options, so I use whichever one is a certain quantity (grams, mls, ounces etc) and work from there.
I think the only reason I cope with both sets of measurements in cooking is that my mother continued to cook in imperial measurements after metric was introduced and all of her (and my grandmothers) hand written recipes are all in imperial measurements.

Cali, the days when I wear heels like that are long gone. The arthritis in my toes and ankles means that I only wear sensible orthopaedic shoes these days that have boringly low heels. Also the shorter length jeans do nothing for me – as a short person I need my jeans/trousers to have a full length leg, otherwise they make my legs look even shorter than they already are.
I even went so far as to ask others if I could borrow some high heel shoes to make my shoe collection look a bit prettier if my house went onto the open market. I just wanted one shelf of shoes that were frivolous rather than sensible. I used to own lots of shoes that fitted that description but not anymore.

I had the second agent through this afternoon. His estimate range was exactly what I had thought. So both agents estimates were within $10,000 of each other. I also have a clearer idea of what is a realistic price for a fast sale and what the absolute price ceiling is likely to be for my house. Thankfully all of the estimates sit above the level I need to buy the next house with little or no mortgage – that’s a big relief, given that I’ve increased my search budget by $100k recently.

I hope you are all showing more control than I am today. I got stuck into the easter chocolates again. I’m going to have to hide them better.

I promised photos.
These are pretty average quality, taken on a mobile phone, so unfortunately not the nice wide view shots that real estate agents take for their glossy brochures. But they’ll give you a general idea of what I’ve been working on lately. (I also put one of the interior of the kitchen appliance cupboard in for Cali – she asked for a pic quite some time ago – it has far fewer appliances in it now that I usually have crammed in there)
Kitchen & Lounge: https://imgur.com/a/XfOvu
Bedrooms & Study: https://imgur.com/a/yfHXb
Bathroom: https://imgur.com/286U10W
Laundry: https://imgur.com/P6dMbss
Garden: https://imgur.com/a/Siwt3

LJoyce, your home is beautiful! I would never want to move out. What an amazing job you did on the floors! Everything looks sparkling clean and ready to move in. I love that appliance cupboard. What a great idea to contain the clutter of small alliances. My cupboards are white too and very similar to yours. We have the exact same hardware knobs on the upper cupboards, but different handles on the lower drawers.

You did an amazing job of getting the house ready for sale. If we ever sell our house, will you come over and stage it for us? I predict your home will be sold in the first week. There is nothing to do but move in. Thank you for posting all the pictures. It’s nice to see what you have been working so hard on for the past several months. I look at the walls and think, “Yeah, I remember her picking out that paint.” Or, “Yes, I remember the day those appliances were delivered and how the first stove didn’t fit.” Or, “I remember the day she hung those pictures in the kitchen and how long it took to get them properly aligned.” These photos pull all of that together. I’m sitting here smiling, looking at them. I hope the home you move into is as well taken care of and beautifully decorated as yours. You have reason to be proud of all the work you put into it. It was worth it!

Cinque – I am going to make kimchi next week – will let you know how it goes. It’s something I have not tried before, so if you have any hints for me that would be great

LJoyce – wow! your place looks absolutely fantastic