Day 4

Today was marked by my decision, after night duty, to buy a microwave. As I've mentioned previously, microwavability is a key component of many of Lite'n'Easy's meals, and I don't have one. Or didn't.
The problem with nights is that severe sleep debt makes decision making difficult - I can make clinical decisions easily, but dither over less important choices, like which three potential models on sale at Target would be best. There was a sale, which meant my choices were a $99 functional model with a heavy lifting (17-25k) warning, a reduced from $109 to $99 prettier model that was under 16k, and a really lovely silver and black Breville microwave reduced to $109 from $179.
I think you may already have guessed my choice. It didn't have any information about weight. I suspect it weighed more than I'll be losing between now and Christmas, because it got progressively heavier the further I had to carry it, and without a car that was a bit of a trek.
But now I have it! Of course, I then had to find somewhere in my already full kitchen to put it, which meant clearing off the top of the fridge (formerly used to house a big bowl of packets of nuts, dried fruit and seeds, a rolling pin too long for the drawers, and a roll each of foil and kitchen towel. The fridge has had a wobble for a while, so I decided to clear it out, defrost the freezer, clean the fridge, then tilt it so I could adjust the balance of the unit. Now I have a pretty microwave atop a clean, well-balanced fridge. And, because it's hard rubbish week, I continued the tidying theme by chucking my old computer monitor (bought when Windows ME was introduced) and attaching the flat version I bought two years ago.
I'm already regretting that I ordered next week's meals at the same time as this week's, instead of waiting to see what the program was like. Today was a little disappointing in comparison with previous days - I thought I'd be missing chocolate by now, so I chose the optional lunch over the popular/default version (savoury meatballs with salad and Moroccan relish, pear fruit cup, sultana & date cookie, corn fritters with spicy tomato salsa). I did that because the snacks were popcorn and a chocolate muesli bar, which were quite nice. But the tuna, tomato and mayonnaise on multigrain was a little unexciting, even though I substituted the insipid mass harvested tomato for the last of my pre-Lite'n'Easy cherry truss tomatoes.
On the plus side, I discovered that my life-long avoidance of chicken noodle soup has been unnecessary, because I enjoyed it a lot, and the apple crumple was quite delicious.
There's no question that my diet is more varied than usual, and with the exception of yesterday's vodka and juice, I haven't had so much as an extra apricot. I also haven't felt at all deprived, nor hungry. I suspect that I'll eventually find the dinners, despite the available, rotating range, hard to stomach because of the ever-present slightly watery frozen vegies, but so far it's all good, and I'm earmarking my favourites. So far I've been very taken with the battered fish (which comes with potato wedges, carrots, beans and corn), and the roast lamb. - Alex