Laundry plates

You know on laundry-day how you have to wear your ugliest clothes, because all the clean ones are dirty?

These are my laundry plates.

I'm too cheap to run the dishwasher unless it's full, so all the pretty ones are dirty.

On that hideous looking plate is a bbq'ed chicken breast, alongside something pretty delicious.

It's a mixture of roasted butternut squash, steamed kale, sautéed red onion, dried cranberries, toasted walnuts, quinoa, EVOO, salt and pepper.

I dirtied a kazillion pots making it, but the flavour/texture combo was pretty excellent. The squash got a kinda mushy, which kind of held everything together and the walnuts added a great little crunchity-crunch.

Side note: now that I don't blog about food very often, writing about it kind of irritates me. But this combo was pretty good, so I thought I'd share - regardless of my crappy adjectives!

Bake-Off

Three little tid-bits about moi:
1. I like to bake, but I kind of suck at it.
2. I don't often bake because I don't trust myself around baked goods
3. I like to make everything a competition

I sent this email out to my colleagues last week:

I like to bake - but I don't like to have baked goods in the house. I know many of my colleagues feel the same way.

How about a "Bake Off" on Monday April 2nd? What is a bake off you ask? Well it's my fancy way of saying "Make something delicious and bring it to the office to share" No rules, no judging, but I was thinking of keeping it to a Spring/Easter theme. If you want to bake something - great, if you want to eat - even better!

I'm thinking a team coffee break with treats at 10:00am on April 2nd. Who's in?

Based on the amount of responses, April 2nd is going to be a pretty gluttnous day.

This isn't my first time hosting a bake-off. You may recall this Hallowe'en one.

Here's the interesting part about this one: I gave up chocolate for Lent.

This eliminates A LOT of Easter'ish options. I know I won't be able to eat many of my colleagues contributions (blessing in disguise?) but I want to be able to taste my creation to make sure it tastes good.

I found this recipe on Pinterest (where else?) for Lemon Brownies. I think I have a winner!

Image source

I also may have entered into a bake-off with my cousin for pies at Easter dinner. I think I may have bitten off a little more than I can chew on that one, especially since I've never made a pie in my life.

We'll see how that one goes. Good thing I'm on holidays next week. I'll have ample time to prepare!

Reminders

Today I needed to remind myself of these two things:

First of all:

Body Combat = check.

I left the office not in poor humour. Lounging on the couch with a little side of Victor Newman sounded like heaven. But I knew I’d hate myself for not working out.

Body Combat is always a good workout, but it’s especially a good workout when you pretend your punching irritating colleagues who were under your skin all. day. long.

Secondly:

I’m never going to be a size 2. Sometimes I eat too many Nibs. I drink too much diet pepsi. My arm skin flaps when I punch at Body Combat.

But I don’t weigh 267lbs anymore. I’m pretty fit, and I’m healthy.

I’ll take it.

Weekend Synopsis

• Friday night I was in bed by 8:47pm.


• I am trying reallllly hard to get into The Hunger Games, but it's too sci-fi'ish for me.


• Saturday I had big plans to do a double class: Pump, then Combat. It all went to shit when I woke up at 10:00am. It quickly became an impromptu day of rest.


• Saturday evening involved meeting my friend Amie's new baby, Zak. He was little, and perfect. Motherhood suits her well. She's a complete natural. Not to mention, when I first saw her I actually forgot she had a baby. She looks completely like herself... lucky!


• Saturday night was Sens vs Pens. Enough said. It appeared that Sid's vagina was in good form though.


• Sunday started with the good intentions of going to spin at 10:00am. I know I write frequently about the ridiculous "first come first served" policy at Goodlife, but it's a real piss off. I was #16 in line. There are 24 bikes. Should have been a shoo-in, right? WRONG. I went to the far side of the spin room, only to discover all the bikes were full. By the time I fought the crowds to get back to the other side of the room all the bikes were effing full. I AM SO SICK OF GETTING SCREWED OUT OF A SPIN BIKE! I realize I just need to grow a set and start removing towels/water bottles. That would end my problem. It also might start a war. You think I'm joking, but I'm not.


• I killed an hour by having a Starby's, then went back and did Pump/CX Worx. Can't walk down the stairs today. Hurts so good!


• I spent the rest of my day in sloth mode which involved banana popsicles and 6 episodes of The Killing. It's addictive.

It's Monday. Frig.

Walking is exercise too!

I arrived home craving a night of sloth and gluttony, and had every intention of indulging.

I came upstairs, got into bed, got out my Playbook to start reading when I caught a glimpse of this:

Yep, the guilt eyes.

It was another gorgeous evening in Ottawa, so I really couldn’t up with a good excuse. I didn’t really feel like running, so I decided to go for a long walk.

And that I did.

Almost 7k in just over an hour. Not too shabby.

Confession: Sometimes I feel like walking isn’t really a workout.

I wore my HRM, and it told me that I burned 420 calories. That isn’t too shabby either!

Let the weekend begin – on tap for tomorrow: Sens vs Pens. Here’s the thing: I hate the Senators and I loathe Sidney Crosby.

My attendance alone should earn me the Wife of the Year award, right?

Shoes

I'm in a grumpy mood and I don't have anything earth shattering to write about.

...so I shall post a pic of my new shoes by Liz Claiborne. I kinda feel like Dorothy, except when I click my heels and say "There's no place like home" I don't go anywhere.

Also, note that I am wearing capris... in MARCH. Craziness!

Happy hump day.

BBQ!

There's a little bit of work drama happening in my life that's doing it's best to get me down.

I refuse to let drama ruin the beautiful weather we're having in Ottawa of late. It was 26 freakin' degrees out yesterday.

I have a tendency of working waaaaay past my official end time of 3:00pm. But yesterday, I looked up and it was 3:02pm and I decided to beat it. I hit up a sweaty spin class, and took the pootch for a nice long walk.... in shorts......AND flip flops. It's March, and yesterday was technically still winter. I'll take it!

I kept getting wafts of BBQ when I was walking the Jersey, so I declared yesterday the first BBQ of the season.

2 lean burger patties, topped with 1/2 a cheese slice, ketchup and avocado. Roasted asparagus on the side. I was trying to keep is on the low carb'ish side, but I was starving and went back and got a bun for one of the patties. I have an appetite, what can I say?

It's going to be another great day in Ottawa. That being said, I can't wait for 3:02pm. :)

Roll up the Stupid Rim

At the beginning of this year, I declared 2012 the year of financial success.

The first thing to go was my $4.10 Americano mistos.

As a result, I had to retrain my tastebuds to accept Tim's again.
I can successfully tolerate the taste again.

But I cannot accept my stats on Roll Up the Rim.

I'm 2/24.

Tim's claims the odds are 1 in 6. I call bullshit on that one.

What's your Roll up the stupid Rim stat this year?

Confession: I kinda heart Hedley

On Wednesday night, I went to see these guys – Hedley.

Image Source

I must admit, I was lured there with free box seats (free booze!) courtesy of one of my ball teammates.

I wasn’t expecting much, because honestly I couldn’t name 3 of their songs. I especially wasn’t expecting much when I was the oldest person there by about 15 years!

But you know what? I had a good time. In fact, I had a realllllly good time.

Hedley is one of those bands that is on the radio constantly, so even if you think you don’t know their songs – you do.

…and he had a red piano. Hot.

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I’m not a huge hip hop fan, but Classified opened for Hedley and I’m kinda digging their song Oh Canada.

How could you not like it? Canada is pretty awesome.

Have a great Saturday.

Cookie Monster

In the afternoons when my sweet tooth kicks in, the first thing I want is a cookie.

A delicious, chewy oatmeal raisin cookie from the cafeteria in my building.

I went on a quest earlier in the week so find something to satisfy my sweet tooth, and came up empty handed.

There were no oatmeal cookies. A muffin didn't sound appealing. And everything else contained chocolate - friggin' Lent.

I saw this recipe for date cookies and was intrigued. I made a few changes: I reduced the sugar to a tablesoon (the dough was plenty sweet) and opted not to frost them, because that just sounded gross to me.

I even prewrapped them like the cafeteria does. They are delicious and moist - and even kinda healthy'ish.

I also arrived to some peanut butter sandwich cookies on my desk this morning. A colleague made some festive St. Patty's Day brownies for the team, but made me some cookies since she knew I gave up chocolate.

There are still nice people in the world. :)

I've had a pretty rough week at work, so I'm beyond happy it's FRRRRIDAY!

Ciao!

Well that sucked…

It was 13 degrees when I arrived home from work yesterday.

Far too nice to spend the evening at the gym.

I downloaded some new music and finally figured out how to fix my Ipod. Last night I synched it, I lost all my playlists. A little Googling helped me remedy this problem.

Armed with a fresh  new playlist, my dog and my Garmin I hit the road.

The first 10 mins were fine. Stopped to let you-know-who do her thing, and that’s where the run started to fall apart. Or at least I did mentally.

My legs felt stiff. My breathing was heavy. My pace was too fast.

Walk breaks became frequent. More frequent than not.

This is the Google street view of the hill at the end of my run.

After running down it, I was suddenly pissed at myself for not trying harder.

So I turned around and ran back up…. as fast as I could.

I arrived at the top completely winded, but somehow I felt a little bit of redemption.

I turned around and ran back home. Slowly.

And I walked for the last half a kilometre.

My philosophy is that “any running is better than no running.” so I have to be happy that I at least got out there and tried.

There will be better runs in my future. I’m certain of that.

My 600-lb Life

Has anyone watched this show?
Image source

I caught a glimpse of it last night, and it left me... well, thinking about a lot of things.

The episode I watched followed the story of Ashley who lost 364 lbs. Amazing!

This is where I must warn you, my thoughts are a little over the place and you may not agree with all of them and I respect that.

My heart totally broke for Ashley - mainly due to the fact her mother was quite horrid to her. She constantly nagged and teased her, despite having quite a significant weight problem herself. At one point Ashley was in the hospital for a skin removal surgery, and her mother was teasing her about not being able to eat her Father's delicious homemade buns at Thanksgiving. Who does this?

Which brings me to my next thought: skin removal.

Admittedly, I was uber jealous that she had skin removal surgery covered not once, but twice. TLC called it "qualified" and I'm not quite sure exactly what that entails, but regardless she had it done.

I just can't help but feel like it's not fair.

Like many people out there, I lost all my weight without it costing a dime to the tax payer. I have kept it off for years, but every single day, I'm plagued by my access skin. Yes, it's not as extreme as someone who once weighed 600lbs. But it's still there. I feel like there should be some sort of compensation in our health care system. I realize it is mostly cosmetic, but trust me, there's more to it than having a flat stomach. Anyone that has lost a significant amount of weight can attest to the infections that can occur underneath, the slapping sounds, and the stinky belly button.

I can literally grab handfuls of skin from my stomach and inner thighs. Not hot.

Unfortunately at this point in my life, I cannot justify the costs associated with skin removal.

There is no way to really end this post eloquently. I think though, for my sanity mostly, it would just be best for me not to watch this show anymore. My blood pressure can't handle it.

It makes me stabby.

A pretty fantastic Sunday…

It was a rather splendid day in Ottawa yesterday.

I started the day out with a wicked 75 min spin class that left me a sweaty mess. Love a challenging class to start my day.

After a quick shower, we then headed to Perth to lunch with my MIL and her “friend” to celebrate her birthday. I was surprised to see a sweet potato/black bean burrito on the menu. I enjoyed every bite!

The afternoon was spent at my cousin’s place – maple syrup production was on the schedule.

You may recall the maiden voyage from last year.

This year the production has left the “just trying this out” mode, and is definitely leaning towards the “sophisticated production” side of things.

There is an evaporator.

 

A sugar shack.

A sap collector thing that feeds the sap into the evaporator. 

Syrup!

For the first round of sap collection, I was the driver. I’d drive this thing-a-me-gig around the bush while the boys collected the sap. For the other 2 round, I was a collector. It looked like they were getting quite a workout, so I couldn’t bare the thought of not burning a few extra calories. Sap collecting is no joke! My heart rate was definitely pumping!

Jersey had a WONDERFUL time. Of course… she found every puddle!    

Just like last year, Jersey got to visit her favorite cousin Sierra.

And Auntie got Connor cuddles. He’s now just over 2 now. He’s getting so big, and cuter every single day. I think I’m going to make this picture an annual tradition… the start of every maple syrup season!

This my friends, is what Sunday’s are all about.

It’s kitchen cabinet day!

For the last month or so, my kitchen has looked like this:

Oranges being stored on the counter

Dining room table has been used as a pantry

So has the floor beside it.

There are holes in the ceiling from the new potlights.

A lot of holes actually.

There are back splash samples all of the place – still undecided btw.

More holes… no hood fan.

It’s not ALL going to change today, but today marks the day I’ve been waiting for for a loooooooong time.

This is the beginning of the resolution of my kitchen woes.

Kitchen storage starts today. Wooo.

Adventures in AM exercise

My gym used to have a 'sign up' policy with regards to spin classes. They would put out a sign up sheet 15 mins before the class began, you'd sign up, and be guaranteed a bike. Seems easy enough right?

I'm not sure why, but effective January 1st they decided it make it on a first come, first served basis. The caveat being you had to physically be on the bike - there was no saving a bike with a towel etc.

It worked well for the first little while, although you'd have to be there 30 mins before to actually get a bike. People were afraid to go to the bathroom at risk of losing their bike, etc.

Now, people are just saving their bikes with towels.

I arrived at 5:45am today, to find a room full of towels on bikes. I was not impressed.

That being said, (and this may surprise any of you who know me in real life) I don't have the balls to actually move someone's towel and steal their bike. I'm a regular face in the spin room, and I don't want to be known as 'that bitch that stole my bike'.

What ticked me off the most was that I didn't bring my running shoes, so I just headed home and decided to wake up this girl for a run.

She looks impressed dosn't she?

It was a mild 11 degrees this morning. Perfect weather for capris!

We started out in the dark and ran for about 50 mins.

Luckily she perked up a bit.

Worst part about the spring time when you own a dog? Muddy feet!

We did some stretches in the driveway and on the front step, when I think she realized her fun for the day was over. Sad face returned.

My morning started out a little miserable, but it all ended up ok.

I exercised. Jersey exercised. All before 7am too.

Not a bad start to the day. :)

My three favorite faces

When I glance away from my computer screen at work, these are the 3 faces I see.

Lewis, Jersey, and Samuel aka Black Swan, Lebron James, SAMCRO.

They're not kids - they're pets. I know.

Just a little PSA/point form summary of my thoughts on this matter:

- I'm not weird because I don't have kids.
- I'm not selfish because I don't have kids.
- The choice to have children is personal - not always a topic for discussion at the office
- I don't have get gaga for babies.
- Just because I don't have my own children, dosn't mean I hate kids.
- Health blogs turned preggo blogs drive my batty. Yes, it's my choice to read. I know that. But sometimes it's like a car wreck, you just have to peak. Maybe it's because I can't relate, but get over yourself already. People have babies every day dammit.
- My ovaries are not old at 31.

Vent over.

How cute are those 3 faces?

A cup of tea

One of my biggest challenges in the healthy living department, is my sweet tooth.

If you were to rewind back to my youth, we never had dessert after supper and if I was to choose a treat it would be something salty like chips over something sweet.

I think my sweet tooth developed in my university days. Actually, I think I just liked everything in my university days now that I think about it.

I generally have a little something after dinner just about every day. Sometimes it's a bowl of berries with cool whip, sometimes it's chocolate pudding or a few squares of dark chocolate. More often than not, it's a bowl of frozen yogurt.

With Lent upon us, I decided to give up chocolate. This eliminates 90% of my desired after dinner treats.

Desperate times call for desperate measures: I've turned into a tea drinking gramma!

Tea has really helped me in the evenings, believe it or not. I have them with no sugar, and just a touch of milk. It warms me up, fills me up AND satisfies my sweet tooth.

Some of my favorites:
Spicey orangey goodness.

Lemon!

Lemon Blueberry. I had this one last night for the first time, and oh my... it's deeeeeeeeelicious!

And for an extra treat: Apple Cider. This borders on the almost 'too sweet' category, but I can't lie.. I realllllllllly like it. All of my research tells me it's only 10 cals a cup, but I can't help but feel that it's wrong.

Happy Tea-Drinking Tuesday!

Bag-o-Bananas

Hidden in my freezer you will find this little gem.
It's my bag-o-bananas - ugly discounted bananas that were bought in the ghetto section of the grocery store that were destined for the garbage.

They may be ugly and gross but they're perfect for smoothies, baking and impromptu banana pancakes!

I nuked 2 of them for about a minute, mashed them and added them to my pancake batter.

They were pretty delicious.

Served alongside 2.5 slices of bacon - cooked in the oven. I don't love bacon, but I love bacon cooked in the oven. It's a relatively new concept for me (Thanks for the idea Ape!) but it makes bacon taste better. I just cook it on my baking stone at 375, and flip is when it looks ready to be flipped. Perfection!

I shall leave you with this picture of my dorky-camera-shy dog.

She's all smiles until she sees the camera. She's getting to be an old girl - look at the gray hair around her mouth. Time to bring her to see my fabulous stylist! :)