I don't like celery

A while ago, my nephew had commandeered my phone when an email notification popped up with the subject line You've been paid. Here's how our conversation went:

"Hey, I've been paid!" he announced.
"Oh, good! I like those emails," I replied.
"Who paid me?" he asked.
"No, I've been paid," I said.
"What for?" he wondered.
"It's my salary," I told him.
"You get paid with celery??" He didn't sound impressed.
"No, I get paid with money. But I can buy celery if I want," I explained.
"I don't like celery," he concluded.

That's a pretty fair reaction. While we all like salary of the financial variety, my father in particular is always keen to voice his dislike for celery the vegetable and his mistrust of any food that is calorie neutral - because eating shouldn't require such hard work. I don't mind celery and will add it to soups or keep stalks in the fridge to munch on while trying to distract myself from cheese cravings. It sometimes works.

One of my summer projects has been to plant my first ever vegetable patch - a tiny square metre garden in a sunny spot in the back yard. I planted some seeds for salad greens, beans, cucumber and celery of the vegetable variety. I'll see if anything comes of them in the coming weeks. In the meantime, I'm happy to receive salary to buy celery. But my nephew is still not convinced.

Two thumbs up

The winter lurgy has well and truly visited our home this past week and is yet to fully leave. It brought with it some nasty symptoms and a raft of questions about its status. Have you been to the doctor? Can you work from home? Is it flu or is it another virus? How come you can't walk 200m/get dressed/fold washing without puffing? Why don't you just relax and read a book? Can't you take something for that cough? Maybe you should rest and not worry about work? Do you have to cough so loud?? At least you're not [aching any more/losing a limb/facing real problems/dying].

But really, what does it matter? After a week that saw me cancel Every. Single. family and social event as well as work, it's easy to feel sorry for myself and feel like I've achieved nothing at all. But maybe all was not lost while I systematically forfeited all my plans and commitments? Stranger things have happened.

If I think about it in a cheesy two thumbs up, fake grin and get-over-myself kind of way, this last week actually looks pretty good! Well, maybe.

Two thumbs up moments

• I saved a small fortune in transport, takeaway coffee and food expenses by not leaving the house, making coffee at home and barely eating anything for a week. This went a teeny way towards paying for the expensive Wellington on a Plate event tickets that went to waste on a night I was too sick to go out.

• Our 8-year-old nephew loved his birthday present from us: a boxed set of all ten Diary of a Wimpy Kid books - so much so that he was still reading with a torch under his duvet at 10:40 pm! He eventually accepted his mother's pleas to go to sleep on the understanding that he could wake up early the next morning and read more. And Mr Weka thought he wouldn't want books for a present! #lovereading #lifelongreader

• I conquered my fear of baking with topsy turvy cake pans by successfully practice-baking one off-set layer. It worked perfectly. Now I need to repeat the feat three more times, decorate each cake and work out how they will stack without falling over.

• I binge watched season 2 of The Good Wife.
• And season 1 of Call the Midwife. As well as the first Christmas special.

• I discovered how far two big pots of soup and a loaf of homemade potato bread can go when you're just not hungry. Several days' worth of meals from pantry staples. WhatWho have I become?

• I also discovered the Ear Hustle podcast and had a bittersweet binge through the first few episodes. I couldn't wait to listen to the next but wanted to savour the series rather than being left with a long wait before the next episode drops.

One hundred trillion dollars

100 trillion dollar note
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe

Our pub quiz team won a special round on last night and were awarded a whole collection of junk and joke prizes. I got to take home the purple fairy wings. :-) We divided up the toffees, someone grabbed the magnetic snakes and ladders game, but we all had our eyes on the money: a 100 trillion dollar note from Zimbabwe. (Count the zeros - there are 14!) We speculated what the note might be worth; guesses ranged from $NZ5, $NZ10, a can of Coke, or even a negative value. I took a quick photo of it with my phone camera before one lucky team member finally claimed it as hers.

This morning, she emailed the rest of our team with the results of her investigations: "I thought I'd let you know that one hundred trillion Zimbabwe dollars is worth about 40 cents NZD, and that's only if you convert the old ZWD to the new ZWD (conversion rate 1 trillion to one) and then exchange those dollars for your NZD dollars." Did she strike the jackpot or what??