* but, when you think about it a little more, it becomes decidedly less impressive

I made pesto kale

And when I say “I made pesto kale”, what I really mean is “I added pesto to some pre-chopped frozen kale”.

I have been buying the frozen cubes of this stuff for some time now in a bid to up my veggie intake of a morning. If I eat them with eggs for breakfast, I’ve got a running start. And while I love fresh kale fried in olive oil, I don’t really rate the chopped, frozen stuff. Sure, it’s convenient, but it tastes like sad, yucky grass.

I persevere with it, hoping to one day consume enough so that I look like the kind of girl who could easily flog teeth whitening treatments as an Instagram influencer but chose to take the high road by having a full-time job.

Into my mouth I would begrudgingly shovel the stuff, telling myself it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever had in there.

But those days are now behind me. The other day I was hit by inspiration like a non-stick frypan to the face.

I’d bought some basil pesto in a jar for an eye-rollingly healthy zoodle dinner and was apparently still buzzed from it. Wanting to get a hit elsewhere, it became apparent that I could peso-late my breakfast while loading up on them antioxidants (I think that’s what’s good about kale? I don’t really know).

I microwaved a few of the grassy ice clumps in the microwave, stirred in a teaspoon of pesto and mixed the two together. I even made my curly-haired friend (and current landlord) taste it, like I was a goddamned Michelin chef.

“Try it!” I said, as if it was the first person on earth to discover pesto.

I tipped it out into a little mound, eating it with boiled eggs on toast, pleased I had found yet another way to trick myself, a grown up, into eating vegetables.

I took myself to the dentist and was able to pay my own bill without borrowing money or putting it on my credit card

Now, this does sound rather good on my part, but there are a few facts to consider:

• First of all, it was the first time I’d been to the dentist in five years.
• Secondly, I don’t currently earn enough to warrant private health insurance a necessity to avoid paying the Medicare levy.
• Thirdly, I have been couch surfing for weeks, paying next to no rent.
• Fourthly, I am nearly 27-years-old and have been working fulltime since I was 19.

Add all these things up together and it becomes less of a celebration and more of a wakeup call.

The questions these facts raise are confronting, but valid: How did you let yourself get this bad? How come you can’t budget? Why did you chose such an unstable, financially volatile career path? Should the court appoint you with a power of attorney to keep your affairs in order?

However , leaving worrying life choices to one side, when I was able to tell the delightful receptionist/dental nurse that I was putting it on “savings, please”, I felt like a financial success.

I went on the stair master

A stair master is those sets of automated stairs you see at gyms that look like mini escalators. And while the thought of climbing up an endless circle of meaningless steps while getting nowhere sounds as if it would send you into a sweaty, nihilistic spiral of depression, it seemed kind of fun to me (read into that what you will).

I thought I cold handle it. I mean, I’ve been going to the gym for ages. I’m young. My skin is still supple. My age means my body is at its peak performance.

I managed for all of five minutes.