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Victoria Dragon Boat Festival

19 Aug

Alrighty, so two things…

(1) Sorry for the inconsistency of my posts, I have been having internet difficulties and have been going for days with NO internet! None! It is quite annoying, sigh.  Shaw has replaced the modem so theoretically I should have internet access again without disruptions…we shall see *glances with suspicion towards Shaw*

(2) This post is not going to be about my vacation (no, I’m not done with those posts), I just want to let you know what happened this past weekend, then I’ll get back to my vacation posts – hopefully with a bit more speed than I was posting them before because of ya know, actually having internet access again lol.

On to the fun part! This past weekend I was in Victoria BC dragon boat racing, it is a two day festival, August 16th-17th. I didn’t go with my team (The Twisted Hips), instead I went as a filler for a team called Dragon Hearts Attack. They were short some paddlers and my coach works with that team so she asked if I was interested in racing with them. I had already booked the time off work assuming I would be racing that weekend and since I didn’t have another team I was racing with I said yes. I love the festivals, the competition, the fun of it all and I was bummed that I didn’t have a team to go with so I was really glad this worked out. 🙂

Three of my Twisted Hips teammates were also going to be competing at that festival but for one of the sister teams of the team I was on, they were with Dragon Hearts Burn. Three of us went over on the ferry together Friday night and spent almost all of the weekend together. 🙂

This picture was in the bathroom at the ferry terminal, because apparently people need to be told to not stand on the seats *rolls eyes*

Seriously?

Seriously?

There are two races per team a day at this festival and once you are done your second race on the Saturday you are basically free to do whatever you want…within reason! lol You still have to be able to paddle the next day! 😛

It was our coaches birthday on the Sunday so we all went out for dinner on the Saturday to a Greek restaurant, it was yummy, nothing amazing but not horrible either. Ray got this appetizer that they light on fire, it is cheese, he ordered it because it gets lit on fire which I think is a perfectly valid reason lol

That's the waiter, not my teammate lol

That’s the waiter, not my teammate lol

Here’s what it looks like when it isn’t on fire…

Cheeeeeeese!

Cheeeeeeese!

The restaurant had a belly dancer…

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Who then came over and tried to teach some of our guys how to belly dance…not gonna lie, they weren’t very good lol

It was a funny lesson!

It was a funny lesson!

They then had a dance off which I was too busy laughing through to take pics of, there is a video but I can’t figure out how to get it off facebook and on here so you’ll have to take my word for it that it was freakin hilarious!

Coach got a birthday dessert of baklava, hey c’mon, it’s a Greek restaurant, what did you expect?

A candle in a piece of baklava, classic? ;)

A candle in a piece of baklava, classic? 😉

After the dinner some of the team spent the rest of the night partying and having fun, nothing too wild since we had to be up and in the lobby by 6:30am the next day, ugh.

Races went exceptionally well on the Sunday for my team and we ended winning gold in our division, yay!

Gold! Gold! Gold!

Gold! Gold! Gold!

One of the main sponsors for the festival was Denny’s, hence the name Denny’s on the one side of the medal, I feel I should now get free pancakes for life from them as a congrats lol 😛

The three of us that came over on the ferry together spent the next chunk of time wandering around a small piece of Victoria. We couldn’t go far cause one of us, Kathryn, rolled her ankle coming down The Chief prior to the festival so she was gimped. She was thankfully off the crutches but still limping quite a lot and she had to sit often to rest it. Sucky. She was supposed to race that weekend but wasn’t able to cause of the ankle. 😦

Some of the sights we saw included…

A whale made out of a bush.

A whale made out of a bush.

A fancy hotel covered in ivy.

A fancy hotel covered in ivy.

A woman being a statue, I'm surprised she didn't melt.

A woman being a statue, I’m surprised she didn’t melt.

A statue of Emily Carr that makes her look like an unattractive man...that is a monkey on her shoulder.

A statue of Emily Carr that makes her look like an unattractive man…that is a monkey on her shoulder.

The Netherlands Carillon

The Netherlands Carillon

The Netherlands Carillon was a gift from BC’s Dutch community to honour Canada’s 100th birthday in 1967. Her Majesty Queen Juliana of the Netherlands unveiled the cornerstone of the tower on May 23, 1967. A carillon is a musical instrument with a set of 23 or more bronze bells. This carillon, the largest in Canada, has 62 bells. It is housed at the top of this tower, which stands 27 meters (89 feet) tall. The largest bell in this carillon weighs 1500 kgs. To play the Netherlands Carillon, a musician climbs the 75 steps of the spiral staircase and then a 10-step ladder. There, the carillonneur depresses the keys and pedals of a clavier to play a song on the bells. Carillon bells do not swing like church bells; they ring when struck by clappers connected with wires to the clavier.

We happened to be there when the carillonneur was up there playing, at first it sounded like a song, then it sounded like a child hitting bells at random, then it sounded a bit like a song again lol it is an interesting sound.

Memorial to our courageous dead.

Memorial to our courageous dead.

Parliament building and a pretty fountain.

Parliament building and a pretty fountain.

The harbour - those tent tops and the crowds of people are the dragon boat festival.

The harbour – those tent tops and the crowds of people are the dragon boat festival.

hitchBOT!

hitchBOT!

We came across hitchBOT lounging on the sidewalk! When I first heard about his journey across Canada I so badly wanted to come across him and yay! I actually did! He managed to hitchhike from Halifax to Victoria in three weeks. 🙂 People had written happy messages on him and attached cute little magnets to his chest, magnets of Canadian flags etc, to show where he had been. I’m so glad he made it lol I was kinda worried for him. Here is his website link if you are interested in learning more about him http://www.hitchbot.me

This statue is called The Homecoming and commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Canadian Navy

This statue is called The Homecoming and commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Canadian Navy

This random building that I like the look of lol

This random building that I like the look of lol

So there we go, that is my weekend in a nutshell. 🙂 I would like to go back for 2-3 days as a mini vacation and actually have lots of time to wander and do things. It’s great travelling places when racing but you don’t have a lot of time to play tourist ya know? So I’m thinking maybe next summer going over on my days off and seeing what I can see as well as go off and have some adventures.

Had an awesome time, lots of fun memories and I am so glad I was able to go. 😀

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UK Trip Day 3: July 16/14

12 Aug

My first two nights in Wales I stayed in the YHA Llanberis hostel, here is their website: http://www.yha.org.uk/hostel/llanberis

I can not say enough amazing things about the people that work there and the location. It may have been a bit tricky to find (due to bad road sign placement) buuuuut we do have to keep in mind I have a poor sense of direction lol. I conversed with the staff a bit more than I normally would have due to my lost luggage debacle (thanks British Airways *rolls eyes*) but they were so friendly I’m glad I did. 🙂

My first full day in Wales I woke up early and was fed a lovely Full Welsh Breakfast, Mmm! I didn’t take my camera with me to breakfast cause uh, who does that? 😉  so I don’t have a picture but a Full Welsh consists of: bacon, sausage, fried egg, baked beans, toast and fried tomato. Because I don’t eat pork I got the vegetarian option which meant no bacon and sausage and instead I was given this batter covered something…I’m still not sure what it was lol I think it was supposed to be a vegetarian sausage option but that’s a guess. It wasn’t good, whatever it was lol The lady serving the food also gave me some sauteed mushrooms, yum! If you didn’t want to pay for breakfast there was free toast, cereal, juice, tea, coffee, yogurt, continental type breakfast foods.

The day prior at the airport British Airways had told me my luggage would be delivered to me the next day between 8a-4p, the hostel reception area and front doors are locked from noon to 5pm daily. If you are staying there you are given a code to unlock the door otherwise you’re outta luck. This meant that I had to stay inside and wait for the delivery of my suitcase all day. It sucked.

I was supposed to be climbing Mt. Snowdon that day but even if reception had been open and I didn’t have to be there to receive the suitcase I still couldn’t have gone because my clothes and water-backpack were in the suitcase. So yeah, no gear for the climb, bummer. The only up side was that the weather was crap that day, and I mean serious storm weather! Pouring rain, strong winds, absolutely brutal. It wasn’t cold though, which was odd. Even though the weather was horrible I was the only person staying in. I waited until a minute after the British Airways call centre opened and called them to discuss the luggage situation, it was once again confirmed I would have my luggage delivered sometime today. I stressed to them that was very important because I was leaving the next morning for a different town and would no longer be in Llanberis to receive the luggage. The lady was nice, said she understood, said she put a rush on it, she said a lot of things which would later prove to be lies, sigh.

The only place in the hostel I could clearly see the driveway from was the dining room so I made some tea, grabbed my backpack and claimed a table.

 

Where I spent most of my first full day of vacation - exciting huh?

Where I spent most of my first full day of vacation – exciting huh?

Luckily I had a book, a notebook to write in, a deck of cards and a bottle of water. I also had my ipod if I wanted to listen to music and my ipad if I wanted to play games…no wifi connection sadly but oh well. Oh, and I also had the phone a friend of mine let me borrow. She is from the UK so she had her old blackberry and she let me use it so I wouldn’t have to worry about roaming fees with my phone or finding a converter for the plug, nice huh? 🙂 I found it funny that I used to have a blackberry and for the life of me couldn’t figure out how to do a bunch of different things on that phone, drove me nuts! But at least it gave me a way to call British Airways and get updates on my suitcase lol

While I was writing in my journal I kept looking out the window hoping to see a delivery van, here is what I saw instead…

The driveway

The driveway

There be horses in that field!

There be horses in that field!

This sheep was baa-ing the whole time I sat inside, it was so cute! and sorta soothing...who knew?

This sheep was baa-ing the whole time I sat inside, it was so cute! and sorta soothing…who knew?

Close up of the sheep. Why? Cause I can lol Sheep are a bit of a novelty to me lol

Close up of the sheep. Why? Cause I can lol Sheep are a bit of a novelty to me lol

Around lunch time a girl came in to the dining room and asked if I was staying in all day. I explained why I was stuck inside and she commiserated, said BA is known for losing luggage and when they lost hers it took 4 days to get it back, ack! She then did the nicest thing! She said she was staying in for the next couple of hours so she could stay in the dining room and watch for the delivery if I wanted to go in to town to get some food or walk around or even just to look at things. I was oh-so-grateful! I was going stir crazy just sitting there, plus, I had no food for lunch and the hostel doesn’t serve lunch so I was looking at a loooooon wait till dinner. I left her to keep a look out and I dashed in to town. I didn’t want to take too long, I was paranoid about what if they brought the suitcase but wouldn’t leave it with her cause it wasn’t hers, thoughts like that…so all I did was hit up this super tiny grocery store called SPAR, walk the main street rather quickly then drive back to the hostel. Even though it was a short trip it was nice to get out. The rain had stopped by then and the air was so fresh smelling, it made me want to stay out for longer.

I didn’t get anything fancy but what I got made a nice little meal…

 

My lunch, a turkey and apple sandwich with the rest of the apple on the side, along with a rice pudding cup, two jaffa cookies and of course tea and diet coke lol

My lunch, a turkey and apple sandwich with the rest of the apple on the side, along with a rice pudding cup, two jaffa cookies and of course tea and diet coke lol

At 4pm on the dot I called BA back since the suitcase was supposed to be delivered by 4pm and it had yet to arrive. I was informed that whoever told me earlier I would get it today was wrong and I wouldn’t get it until the day after or maybe even two days after. Grr! So I spent all day inside waiting for the suitcase and it wasn’t even on the way! I was pissed!

I figured since no way I could miss the suitcase now I might as well go out for a walk. I walked in to town than wandered. I found a slate mine museum type place but didn’t really want to go in. Then I found a little mountain that when I got to the top I found an old castle that used to be a prison, exciting! I’m putting all those pics in the next post, enjoy! 🙂

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UK Trip Day 1: July 14/14

8 Aug

I started my first day of vacation by working, weird huh? But normal for me lol I like to start my vacations as soon as possible and not waste even a moment of time. 🙂

I worked 7am-1pm then scooted off home to finish packing, cuddle with the cat, shower (I like showering as close to leaving as possible if there is more than a couple hours travel time, shrug) and all that other stuff you have to do last minute before leaving for an extended period of time. For all that I planned huge parts of my trip I didn’t give much thought to how I was getting to the airport or what time I should be there by, or really, any part of the first part of my travel, oops? I guess I figured it had to work out so why worry about it in advance, right? 😉

My flight left at 6:30pm so I started for the airport a bit after 4pm, took a cab then a skytrain and meandered in to the airport a bit before 5pm. I breezed through the baggage check in, was randomly chosen for “extra screening” at security, sigh. I had the option of being patted down in such a manner I would feel the security person should buy me dinner first or being put in that machine that takes a super detailed picture of my body. I have experienced both before and opted for the body scan, it is quicker and it means my shirt won’t be lifted up in public lol

Random question: Am I the only one who sucks in their tummy when that body scan picture is taken? I know it is pointless to do so but I still do…

Anyways, I had enough time to get a snack from Tim Horton’s, my last little bit of Canada, before flying out. Sadly the donut I bought was stale, ugh, but the iced capp was yum! 🙂

Last little bit of home :)

Last little bit of home 🙂

The first leg of my flight was great, course, I love flying so I generally find my flights great lol I had a window seat, I always book a window seat, I’m a diva like that lol 😉 It was a two seater row and there was nobody in the seat next to me so I got to stretch out which was an unexpected surprise. My plan was to wear myself out for days prior so that I would sleep during the flight, why else book an overnight flight right? I had to stay awake for dinner though, I love airplane food, but not only do I like the food I didn’t spend all that money on a plane ticket to not get my food! lol I chose the pasta dish, seemed safer than the chicken. There was a super moist chocolate brownie, how sad is it that the brownie on the plane was better than the donut I got from the Tim Horton’s in the airport? Something is seriously flawed there, tsk tsk Tim Horton’s! 😉

Airplane food, yay!

Airplane food, yay!

I watched the movie Labor Day, which fyi, excellent movie! Then semi-watched Mamma Mia, I say semi-watched because I purposefully chose it because I have seen it before and figured I could doze off to it. My plan sort of worked…I did sleep on the flight but not a solid sleep, I was constantly drifting in and out of sleep and didn’t reach a deep sleep like I had hoped I would. I bought a sleep mask to wear and am grateful for it, I think I only managed to sleep as well as I did because of that and the weird u-shaped travel pillow I had. I must have looked ridiculous lol

We landed in London July 15th, a bit later than planned but that’s ok, I got some nice shots from the air…

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I had to run through Heathrow Airport to get to my next flight, fyi, an hour and a half between flights is not enough if you are at Heathrow. When I was going through immigration the lady looked at my boarding pass and said “is your flight at one??”, my response was “if that is what the boarding pass says then yup”, she gave me a funny look then said she was fast-tracking me. I took that to mean I was running late but not like I can make the lines move faster, shrug. Even with being put in the fast line for security it took for freakin ever and since I didn’t have anything on me that had the time and couldn’t see a clock anywhere I was torn between mild panic because maybe I was about to miss my flight and didn’t know it and just chilling cause there is nothing I can do about it if I miss the flight and I’m sure it’ll all work out in the end lol.

Security didn’t like me, sigh, I forgot to take my water bottle out of the side of my bag so my entire carry on had to be searched because of that, oh, and I also got patted down to such a degree I felt like I was on a third date *rolls eyes* lol That was when the running started, running to the escalator, running down the escalator, running to the gate where luckily they saw me barreling down on them and kindly waited for me. Thank goodness they had snacks on the plane cause there was absolutely no time to get anything at Heathrow and the breakfast I got served on the first flight was long gone, it was a simple breakfast of yogurt and banana bread.

The flight between London and Manchester is short and I dozed through most of it, well, dozed or chatted with the cutie in the seat next to me. 😉

Aaaaand this is turning in to a huge post so I’ll finish the rest of it in a second post…see you there! 🙂

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Return to Real Life

2 Aug

So, I’m back. Back to Canada. Back to my little apartment. Back to work. I think I’d rather be on vacation lol but who wouldn’t, right? 😛

I absolutely fell in love with Wales, there is something about that country that just clicked with me. It could be because it is beautiful, or the people, or just the fact that I was on vacation and having a blast…whatever it was I loved it there. 😀

The vacation didn’t go perfectly, in fact, the beginning of it was so sucky I was actively wishing to go home. By the end though I was having such a great time and I swear I blinked and boom! vacation over! What’s with that?? Boo!

keep-crying-the-vacation-is-over

I had intended to write posts every evening after my days adventures while on vacation, I was actually really excited to do that buuuuuut even though the websites for the places I was staying said they had wifi they didn’t, sigh. Nothing I could do about that, shrug. I also planned on keeping a journal while on vacation. I am horrible at remembering the names of places I go, and the details of things I do and I hate that I forget that stuff. I figured I would write in my journal every night so that years from now I could read it and laugh at all the random crap I was thinking or better remember all the stuff I did. I only did that for a while unfortunately. I was super tired one night and couldn’t stay awake enough to write everything down so I did some bullet points and thought I’d write more the next day but who has that kind of time? Not me, least not when I’m on vacation. So I let it slide. I’m surprisingly not too worried though because the trip has really resonated through me and I am grasping tight to all of my memories because I can’t bare to not remember. I figure I’ll remember long enough to write a bunch of blog posts about them and put together a photo album at least. *crosses fingers*

Since coming home I have embraced the new schedule jetlag has given me, I am awake early every morning and tired much earlier every evening then normal for me. I am kinda liking this whole get up early and have lots of time during the day thing…I don’t kid myself that it will last very long, I am naturally a night owl and all it will take is one day of sleeping in to mess with this new rhythm but for now I’m enjoying it. Today, before it was ten in the morning I had read a bunch of my book, showered, dressed, done dishes, done laundry, played with the cat and was sitting down to breakfast and a lovely cup of tea. Oh yeah, that is one other thing being up early has changed with me, I am eating more than once a day! Weird huh? I am up early enough I have breakfast, then lunch, then dinner, oh and somewhere in there I have a snack. Super weird lol 😛 I’m making conscious food decisions, that means I’m not eating super super healthy but I am trying to balance every meal, I make sure every meal has a fruit or veg in it, is not huge portions and I’m working on increasing my protein (I always suck at getting enough protein). I’m hoping little changes will help implement bigger changes, healthier changes. For now though I’m focusing on eating three times a day, for me that is a big change and I want to cement the new routine before changing a bunch of other stuff.

I have decided that instead of doing one small-ish post about my vacation and trying to fit all the deets in it I will do a series of posts over the next week or so, each one detailing a different adventure or day of my trip. Consider yourself warned that my next week or so will be all about vacation memories, complete with pictures! 🙂

For now though I have to go get ready for work, ugh. That is the hardest part for me when I come back from vacation, getting used to a schedule again. Sure, while on vacation there are places I have to be at by certain times or things I have to do at certain times but for the most part those are activities and places I chose, and I want to be there. Coming back and getting used to a schedule that I don’t have control over, and that requires me to be places I don’t wanna be, well, let’s just say laaaaaaame! Why do we as a society let ourselves get trapped like this? Ok, wait, I won’t even get in to that rant right now cause I so don’t have the time lol 😛

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Nanaimo Weekend

9 Jul

This past weekend (July 5-6) was the Nanaimo Dragon Boat Festival. Last season there was drama! drama! drama! And since you probably don’t memorize my blog posts if you would like to refresh yourself on what happened click here.

We had a goal, win a medal to redeem ourselves from last year.

Well…we didn’t quite make that goal a reality. We did redeem ourselves by having a strong presence at the festival, by racing hard, by having new jerseys the other teams were envious of and by moving up a division to the highest division at the festival, yup, that’s right, highest division! Awesomeness! The only part of our plan that didn’t quite come to fruition was the whole winning a medal thing but hey, we tried and we were close and having close times with the teams we were racing against, teams that consistently rank in the highest division, well, that is nothing to sneeze at.

Overall we ended up ranking 8th place out of 80 teams, not so bad, right?

My team The Twisted Hips

My team The Twisted Hips

The people there are still the friendliest people ever, it is a beautiful location for a dragon boat festival, the water is warm and clean, even with the rain the temperatures are still high. There are so many great things associated with this festival! 🙂

Overall the weekend rocked, we all got there Friday night, I didn’t get motion sickness while on the ferry going over to the island (yay!), the three teammates I was bunking with were hilarious, the food was tasty, there was lots of walking and racing and just in general physical activity. There was free paddle boarding both days, two of my teammates and I gave that a try on the Saturday. It was ok, I was paranoid about falling in to water while wearing my racing clothes so I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I might have if I didn’t have the worry of spending the rest of my day in soaking wet clothes lol Having said that, even if I had been in a swimsuit and not worried about getting wet I don’t think it’s an activity I’d do for an extended period of time, it’s not that interesting lol 😛 There were all kinds of food trucks but our team pools money and we have a little buffet of food at our tent (as do most teams) so I didn’t get anything from the food trucks, I did hit up Tim Horton’s for tea multiple times but tea is a whole different story, I can’t survive without tea lol

There were also lots of booths set up with people selling everything from home made jewellery, to official festival clothing, to dragon boat gear to scarves…the list goes on and on. There are also booths set up to educate people on things like drinking tap water or recycling as well as booths representing banks and other boring  things lol.

I bought two bracelets as thank you gifts for the daughters of my friend, they came and checked on my cat while I was gone and I thought they’d get a kick out of some jewellery, shrug. I also bought myself a festival t-shirt. I buy a shirt not from every festival but from a lot of them, I like having a memento that is also functional lol

One of my teammates and I are taking part in a plank challenge, on the Saturday we decided to plank while in the middle of partying (cause isn’t that how everyone planks? lol) and the teammates that were present decided to get in on the action lol Planking is now a team sport!

The plank challenge!

The plank challenge!

Even though it was slightly overcast most of the time, and raining for chunks of both days I managed to get sunburned, a special talent of mine lol Oh, and I also managed to get injured, another special talent of mine lol

While planking someone leaned on me and somehow I ended up hurting my lower back, I don’t mean a twinge I mean I was in massive pain and had trouble standing up straight. Luckily one of my roomies has a mothering instinct and she helped me out, she got me a microwavable gel pack thing from the hotel office and walked me through some yoga that she thought might help the back get better. A combination of some sort of cream a friend had, plus pain pills, plus yoga, plus the heating pack led to me being ok to race on the Sunday. To be honest, it wouldn’t have mattered what level of pain I was in on the Sunday I would have still raced but it was nice to race and not be thinking I was screwing my back up even more lol 😛

The other injury is just stupid *rolls eyes* when I was paddle boarding sand got in my shoes, didn’t matter how much I rinsed them out some sand stayed in them and while I could feel the sand rubbing against my feet it didn’t seem like that big of a deal, I was wrong. By Sunday I had 5 open and quite nasty wounds on my feet, ugh. Couldn’t do much about them till I got home and really all I could do once home was wash the feet, put some polysporin on the wounds and wrap with bandaids. The feet are healing well, slower than I would like but meh, whatcha gonna do? I wash, reapply the polysporin and bandaids daily and am basically waiting for them to finish getting better. I’m down to three bandaids instead of five now so that’s a nice improvement! 🙂

The trip home went smoothly, once again I managed to not get sea sick on the ferry, this is a big deal for me in case you were wondering lol I had an unpleasant surprise waiting for me though, a spider apparently decided the best place ever to have her eggs mature was in my bathroom, ick! ick! ick! I came home to this…

Baby spiders. Lots of baby spiders. *shudder*

Baby spiders. Lots of baby spiders. *shudder*

I went on the offensive asap, obviously, and became a mass murderer. Thought the situation was taken care of but the next day when I got home from work I had a smaller web with fewer inhabitants in the exact same spot. wtf?? So they died also. I then sprayed the entire area with Mr. Clean all surfaces cleaner, and I don’t mean a gentle spray, I mean I drenched the area, it was dripping off the ceiling! Chemical warfare at its finest lol Since then I’ve seen an occasional baby spider but no big webs and en masse gatherings so I’m hoping they have moved on or died. 😛

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Happy Canada Day Eh?

1 Jul

Ah yes, it’s that time of year again, that one day in the year where we show our Canadian pride by waving flags, wearing red and white and watching fireworks. How is watching fireworks patriotic? I have no idea, it’s just somehow become associated with Canada Day, shrug. They aren’t even red and white fireworks, or shaped like a maple leaf or sponsored by Tim Horton’s so really, how patriotic can they be? 😉

That's one big flag!

That’s one big flag!

I had planned to go hiking today, get out there, enjoy the beautiful summer weather, be one with nature an all that but I am still coughing (been coughing for over a week now, lame!) and oddly enough I had no desire to have a huge coughing fit in the middle of some trail on the side of a mountain, I know, I’m so weird *rolls eyes*. Instead I slept in, cuddled with the cat, read a bit, watched some tv and then went to go hang with KL.

The first part of my day may seem lame, although I enjoy staying at home doing whatever but just so you don’t think I’m a hermit or anything I’ll tell you about the social part of my day. 🙂

KL and I made dinner at her place, I love her place, it’s so cute! I had this brilliant idea that we should do burgers and some sort of side dish, maybe even bbq it…it seemed like the perfect summer dinner idea. However, the lack of a bbq was an issue, though not as large of an issue as you might expect since I’ve never actually cooked on one and would probably have killed the burger patties lol Instead we cooked them in a frying pan, well technically I cooked them, yup, that’s right, I cooked. Me. The one who sucks at cooking actually cooked. Oh and get this, not only did I cook the burgers I also made them, from scratch! Anybody fall down from the shock of reading that? Oh wait, you’re already seated cause you’re reading my blog so phew, you are all safe! 😉

It is a dead easy burger recipe but one I very much enjoy. Each patty is 4oz of lean ground turkey meat, 2 tblsp salsa, 2 tblsp diced red onion. That’s it. No, I’m not kidding, that really is all you need. The amount of turkey I bought was enough to make three patties so I just tripled the amount of salsa and red onion and voila! I had these…

home made turkey burgers

home made turkey burgers

Three oh-so-lovely but omg-icky-I-touched-raw-meat turkey burgers. The salsa adds flavour and moisture, the red onion helps the patties to bind. Once cooked the burger is moist and yummy. You have to be careful to not overcook them, after they have been flipped you can tell when you need to stop cooking them because a bunch of moisture starts releasing in to the pan, seriously, it is like the burgers are leaking or something, it’s weird lol, take em off the heat then and they will be perfect-o! 🙂

Normally I eat them with the normal everyday burger toppings but I had an inspired idea (don’t ya love how I’m tooting my own horn over here? lol 😉 ) and topped them with goat cheese and diced jalapenos. Mmm! Mmm! Mmm! Well, if you like goat cheese and jalapenos it’s a good idea lol We also used the more normal toppings, garlic mayo, ketchup, relish, mustard, lettuce, sauteed mushrooms and sliced tomato. The burgers were messy, as a good burger should be, but really tasty. KL, who is an amazing cook, really liked them so yay! I cooked something, for someone else and not only did I not food poison us or screw up the recipe but they really liked it! *happy dance*

KL’s contribution was a super delish salad! It had, hmm, lemme see if I can remember, spinach, apple, blackberries, poppyseed, home made dressing, sunflower seeds um, shoot…I can’t remember the rest. Oh, and so you don’t skip over what I wrote there, she made the dressing, from scratch! I’ve never even thought of doing that and she did it amazingly well! After her hard work the end result looked like…

KL's amazing salad

KL’s amazing salad

Look at that! Not only delish but beautiful too. That picture is before the home made dressing was put on – in case you were wondering lol

So the end result of dinner looked like…

A tasty dinner. :)

A tasty dinner. 🙂

Not only tasty, and pleasing to the eye buuuuut healthy too! Yay! 😀 Always nice when you can make a healthy dinner also taste good lol

After dinner we went to watch the fireworks. There was a live concert and during the earlier part of the day there had been all kinds of things going on but being the people that we are we waited to go until later in the night so we could avoid all the little kids and families lol. The band we were near was actually really good, they were doing covers of all different sorts of music, people in the crowd were dancing, the band was funny between songs, overall a good choice by whomever picked them.

The fireworks show lasted a half hour, started at 10:30pm. It was kinda funny, KL and I had a great seat, on a log on the beach, it was still warm, you could hear (and see) the water lapping up against the sand, see people standing on the pier to our right, see the bridge to our left, it was really quite a beautiful night. So, this great atmosphere is happening and right on time to our left the fireworks start, then boom! To our right more fireworks start. Turns out we were between two different fireworks displays so everyone for the first little bit was turning their heads quickly from side to side trying to watch both shows and not miss anything – the crowd must have looked like one of those cat videos on youtube…

After about five minutes or so, yes, it took that long! the realization dawned that both shows are identical, yup, identical. So really you only had to pick which one you wanted to look at, or really, which direction was most comfortable for your neck, and you were set. The fireworks were pretty, and I would show you pictures but all my pictures of them suck, they either look like this…

that little red blob is what was actually a big beautiful firework, I swear!

that little red blob is what was actually a big beautiful firework, I swear!

or this…

again, looked waaaay better in real life, honest!

again, looked waaaay better in real life, honest!

I don’t know why my pictures of fireworks never work, sigh, guess you’ll have to take my word they were good but you can do that, right? 😉

After the fireworks I came home and watched the movie Crazy Stupid Love and am now crushing a bit on Ryan Gosling. He looked yummier than my dinner lol 😉

I have no words. No. Words.

I have no words. No. Words.

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My Foodie Weekend

16 Jun

Mmm! Such amazing food at work this weekend. Made it hard to follow the new rules I was attempting to implement to fix the damage I learned about from my weigh-in on Friday but I don’t think I did too badly…course I could be deluding myself! Who knows? lol

Friday and Saturday were normal, I took food Saturday so that day was healthy, I forgot my food on the Friday so I ate at work but I was careful. Dinner was a fish dish with veggies and potatoes. I had about 3 bites of the fish (I didn’t really like it), I did however eat all the veggies (I love veggies, Mmm!) and I ignored the potatoes (unnecessary carbs). Oh and for dessert I had an apple instead of a cookie, I was kinda proud of that swap out, I love those cookies, swapping out for an apple was harsh lol 😛

Sunday, oh Sunday! It was Father’s Day so we had a bbq at work for lunch. We had to move everything indoors due to rain, lame! And one of the poor cooks got drenched cause he was the one who had to brave the elements to dash to the bbq, cook the steak, then dash back in to the building, all while keeping the steaks dry cause obviously the food is more important than a mere person 😉

one just makes the chef stay outside while everyone else is inside

one just makes the chef stay outside while everyone else is inside

Lunch was steak, prime rib if I remember correctly, corn on the cob and baked potatoes that were double baked with cheese an stuff on top. That would be the second time I have had steak and I’m still not sure what I think about it. Because I am staff and not a resident I didn’t get a prime piece of steak I got a less than prime piece I guess you could say, shrug. It was kind of fatty and I didn’t like that. The last steak I had wasn’t like that so I’m not sure which way is normal, the fat or the not fat…anybody? It was red inside when I cut in to it, I checked with one of the other staff to make sure that was ok, I’m used to chicken where that would be all kinds of bad, she said it was all good and for her would be perfect so I decided to ignore the red colour of the meat and give it a go. It was tender, tasty, there was a green drizzled sauce on top, not drenching it or anything, it was artistically placed on top and that was where the flavour seemed to be coming from. Otherwise all it would have tasted like was meat and what’s with that? That’s not good, ugh. See? This is why I never order steak (that and the cost lol), I prefer to not have meat be the overwhelming flavour, shrug. I don’t remember what dessert was but that is because I skipped it, I figured I’d just eaten steak, and half a baked potato and corn on the cob, that should be enough to keep the tummy happy for a while lol

Today (Monday) was our company’s two year anniversary so we celebrated! 🙂 There was a fancy lunch and oh man, waaaay better than the steak lunch! There was a butternut squash soup, easily one of my favourite kinds of soup, cedar wood planked salmon and cheesecake with a raspberry sauce. The fish, oh the fish! My taste buds were so happy! I’ve never had salmon cooked like that, who knew that putting salmon on to a piece of wood and cooking it that way would make it so much better? The flavour had a depth to it that I had never experienced and will miss the next time I eat salmon. The sides were halved baby tomatoes and spinach cooked in a pan with some sort of sauce drizzled in there…they really like to artistically drizzle sauce at my work lol and some baby potatoes, also halved, cooked in some way I have no knowledge of and seasoned with, um, something? lol There were herbs of some sort on the potatoes but I am not sure what they were. Since I never plan on attempting to recreate the dish I didn’t feel the need to find out what they did with the potatoes, shrug. As for the cheesecake, it has been a ridiculously long time since I have had cheesecake and as I savoured every bite I was reminded of the knowledge that a person could definitely survive on cheesecake exclusively and be super happy about it. Yum! Yum! Yummmm!

cheesecake!cheesecake!cheesecake!

cheesecake!cheesecake!cheesecake!

So there we have it, my foodie weekend. 🙂 I wish I’d taken pictures of the various dishes so I could show you but I didn’t, I know I know, I suck 😛 Next time, promise! 🙂

Oh! I forgot the champagne! We had champagne today and hey, you can never go wrong with being allowed to drink alcohol while at work -especially when it’s the big boss who hands you a glass of it lol

champagne-toast

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30-ish

13 Jun

Alrighty so today was THE day, the day I was stepping on…dun-dun-dunnn…the scale! (insert scream here!)

It was NOT a pleasant experience at all! 😦

Everything started off ok, I got the new battery in, chose a flat non-carpeted spot to place it (as per the sticker on the bottom), stood on it once to get it calibrated (still following what the sticker said). According to the sticker you step on, wait till it flashes a number, ignore the number, step off, wait till the screen goes blank then step back on because only after all that is the scale actually able to properly weigh you.

I gotta say, after all that, the number that showed up on that stupid silly little digital screen made me so upset I couldn’t decide if I should hit something, cry, pout, break the scale, crawl back in to bed and hide or immediately sell my car so I could find a doctor and get liposuction.

Of course I did none of those things,  I hopped in the shower with that horrible horrible number repeating itself in my head and gazed blindly at the wall of the shower wondering what the hell happened. How had I let that happen?? Talk about epic fail.

I had thought I’d gained 10-15 pounds from the last time I weighed myself, which, in case you are wondering was hmm, two years or so ago? I stopped weighing myself when I started building more muscle and the scale number stopped giving me proper feedback on my progress. Um yeah, no, according to the scale I have gone up 30 pounds. THIRTY POUNDS!!!

fat cat 2

I just don’t get it, I mean yeah I have gone up a pant size, but usually a pant size is 10 pounds, and my top half hasn’t changed size in years, where are these thirty pounds? Where?!?!

Why didn’t any of my friends give me a heads up I was headed back in to porker land? Aren’t friends supposed to tell you things like this? 😦

pig

I’m so mad about that number!

A friend of mine, who is also a co-worker, was at work today and I spoke to her, I was in such a funk and I needed to vent to someone. Turns out she doesn’t even own a scale so as soon as I said I stepped on one she was asking me why I would do that lol Only the supremely fit wonder why the rest of us rely so much on the scale *rolls eyes* She is a personal trainer and couldn’t believe the number the scale gave me. She also said that:

(1) the scale can’t tell the difference between fat and muscle and since we’ve known each other (about a year) I’ve put on muscle

(2) unless it is one of the scales that tells you your body fat percentage, muscle and water retention the number doesn’t mean anything

(3) if I’m wearing the same, or close to the same clothing size as before then the change in number can’t all be fat gain

(4) never pay attention to a scale

During our convo another co-worker walked in and heard what we were talking about, she said she gained 40 pounds in a year so my weight gain is a totally possible thing to which my friend asked about her clothing sizes and she admitted she went up 4 clothing sizes in that one year…so she most likely gained fat (I’m not being mean, she is the one who said that!) where as I apparently gained some combo of fat and muscle…I just don’t get it, sigh. I mean, I get it in theory, but that doesn’t help me with how I’m feeling right now.

It especially doesn’t help that I have an audition tomorrow and have to be in a swimsuit. 😦

So I don’t know what to do…I was freaking out when still at home and getting ready for work and decided that things need to change asap. I made my healthy breakfast (dropped an egg on the floor while doing it, ugh, messy!), made a healthy dinner to take to work (which I accidentally left on the counter when I left for work so I had to throw it out when I got home, talk about a day for wasting food, sigh), decided I am no longer eating food from work unless it is legit healthy or I stupidly leave my healthy food at home *rolls eyes* and I took workout gear with me so when I was done at 9pm I changed at work and went for a run in the area I work. I find by the time I get home at 9:30pm it is too dark to run but if I run at 9pm it is still decently light outside hence the running where I work.

I was paranoid about how I looked when I left the house but while at work I went to the washroom and thought I looked good in the mirror…am I trying to subconsciously delude myself about how bad the situation has gotten? Are my eyes tricking me? Maybe the mirror is faulty?

When I was finished at work and changed in to my workout gear I could see all my problem spots but I was still confused about the change in number, no way I would have been able to wear the t-shirt I was wearing the last time I weighed this amount, it is too slim fitting, and I only bought these work out pants when I was a lower weight then I am now (about 15 pounds lighter than I am now) but they still fit and more importantly they still look good.

So what gives?

I’ve decided to let that number spur me in to motion, be my reason for moving more, eating better, being fitter. I hate that number and even though I have no idea how much of it is fat and how much of it is muscle, I don’t care, I still hate it and I want it to get smaller. I will make it smaller!

More workouts at the gym, more evening runs after work, more proper meals, more focus, more dedication, more pushing myself.

More!

never quit again

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Race Day: DZ 500m

7 Jun

This weekend is the DZ 500m Dragon Boat Race Festival! 🙂

My team. :) We didn't all realize there was a camera looking at us lol

My team. 🙂 We didn’t all realize there was a camera looking at us lol

It is a two day event but each team races for only one day, there are three races per team per day. In the grand scheme of things it is a fairly small festival, mostly used as a qualifier for the Rio Tinto Alcan Dragon Boat Festival (the largest North American dragon boat festival). It’s a good festival to gauge where your team is in comparison to other teams, and a great chance to see how your team does in a 500m race since you most likely haven’t competed in a 500m race since last season.

Racing during practice, either against a stop watch or other teams that are on the water practicing is a completely different thing than racing in festival, obviously lol.

We had an early start, we met at 8am and our first race was scheduled for around 9:30am…I think…I know it was around there but these things almost never run on schedule lol When we were getting ready for warm-up we were told they (the race officials) were running behind then in an almost magical turn around they were running early *rolls eyes* Ah well, keeps things interesting! 😛

We had excellent race times for all three races! 🙂 Yay!

First Race: 2:15

Second Race: 2:14

Third Race: 2:11

wOOt! wOOt!

Even though we are racing against other teams we are also racing against ourselves, we always want to do better than our previous race and we are oh-so-happy that we got faster with each race!

Plus! Not only did our times get better with each race we came in first place in our division! FIRST PLACE! *happy dance*

This is an excellent way to be heading in to our next race festival and talk about a boost to team morale, what a truly awesome way to start the race season!

Oh and on a vain note, we have new jerseys this year and we all looked amazing! 🙂 Last year we kept having jersey issues and we ended up going the whole season without a jersey, it was really nice to actually look like a competitive team this year lol One of my teammates designed the jersey and wow did he make them look sweeeeet! I didn’t take any pictures during the day, our races were back-to-back so there was no time during the day and afterwards when we were hanging out it didn’t really cross my mind but next festival there will be more time between races and we’ll probably take a team photo so I’ll post one then so you can see the jerseys, we all love em! 🙂

I’ve been pretty good about eating healthy today, well, except for a cookie I had earlier after our third race as celebration for doing so well lol Yeah yeah, I know! I shouldn’t celebrate with food but those cookies were staring at me all day and I’d just done three races, gimme a break lol 😛 Other than that cookie I did ok, oatmeal, banana, babybell cheese, salad, turkey bacon, egg, toast with peanut butter, tea, water…I think that’s all of it…that’s not sooooo bad, right? *nods head* Right!

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Admitting The Truth

6 Jun

I didn’t think I was that person who lost weight, then gained it back. After all, I’m nowhere near the size I was at the beginning of my weight loss journey buuuut…I’m also not the smallest I have been on this journey.

I haven’t wanted to admit this to myself, let alone to anyone else, but it is time I faced the truth…I rebounded a bit. Does this mean I am now a yo-yo dieter? I dunno. Does it mean I am doomed to gain back all the weight I lost? I dunno. Does this mean I am destined to gain and lose and gain and lose for the rest of my life? I don’t know that either…sigh.

Seems there is a lot I don’t know.

I know that I have to get back on track, but I feel lost and not sure how to do that. I keep thinking I am not going to go back to Weight Watchers because I plateaued so badly on that program. Don’t get me wrong, I am super grateful for Weight Watchers, I lost 35 pounds with them, I learned about proper portion sizes with them, I learned I can happily swap out junk food for fresh fruit and enjoy healthy eating but I also feel there are limitations to that program and that I outgrew it. I don’t feel like going back to Weight Watchers is the right choice for me but that doesn’t mean that I know what the right choice for me is.

I also know I am not good at extreme programs. I can only maintain eating paleo, or the bodybeach program, or super restrictive low calorie eating plans for so long before I cave. Even if I like the food and am getting good portion sizes it is more about all the foods I am not allowed to eat. Knowing that on an extreme program having even one spoonful of peanut butter could be considered cheating messes with me. I need a bit of wiggle room, space so I don’t get all down on myself when I step outside of the food rules that I am following.

I need something realistic, and affordable!

My scale has been tucked away for over a year and I am scared to pull it back out, I am scared to see what the number will be when I step on it. I’d rather be back in boxing class getting hit during sparring than stand on that scale again. How pathetic is that?? I originally put it away because I was building muscle and the scale number was no longer an accurate way to measure my progress. It was sloooowly going up as I was getting more trim and it was messing with my head. For so long I relied solely on the number it gave me every week to know if I was doing well and to see it go up, even though I knew it was because of muscle gain, made me feel like a failure. I started gauging my success/failure by other means, how my clothes fit, what size I could now buy, every now and then I would check my size with a measuring tape. For a while these methods of tracking worked but then they didn’t work so well anymore and I was left with no solid way to hold myself accountable.

I’m thinking that is around the time I started to slowly go up in size. For a while it was easy to ignore, my clothes still fit, just maybe a bit tighter, I could still reach the same levels at the gym, even though I wasn’t at the gym as often, I was eating roughly the same amount calorie wise but the calories were coming from more processed foods than fresh healthy foods.  The pounds snuck up on me and now I have to face reality that I have gone up an entire size, so that’s what, ten pounds? That’s depressing. All that work I did to lose weight and I have gone and gained some of it back. What was I thinking?! 

What’s twisted is that even with the weight gain I am more active then before, just in different ways. Instead of going to the gym daily I will swap out gym visits for a hike, or a run or my dragon boat practice. I am still active just not in a regimented gym equipment kind of way, and I guess the activities I am doing now aren’t as good for weight loss or weight maintenance as following a gym program is. Kinda sucks cause I enjoy the hikes an such but if I have to choose between enjoying the activity and getting results from the activity I will choose results every time…well, except for dragon boating, I will always choose dragon boating lol.

I don’t want to be writing this, I don’t want to be that person that gained weight back. But ya know, I follow a lot of other blogs that deal with weight loss, healthy lifestyles etc and I’ve noticed over the years I don’t seem to be the only one this happens to. It seems a lot of people, before they reach their goal weight have a slip up and gain some of the weight back. Most take a while to admit it to themselves and the longer you take to admit it the more weight you have gained back. I know with me part of it was the way I was thinking about food, I started getting cocky, thinking I didn’t have to be as strict cause I’d lost so much, I could let down my guard a bit. Well, proved that idea wrong! I let down my guard and look what happened! 😛

Even though I’m feeling down because I am facing the truth about my weight gain I am glad I am facing this truth now rather than a couple more months down the road when I will have possibly gained back even more weight.

I don’t have a solution for this, I wish I was concluding this post with some great awesome plan that would get me back on track but I don’t have one…yet! For now I am going to aim to get a new battery for my scale (mine died) and I plan to stand on that scale Tuesday morning. I also have a 4 week eating plan that I am going to research a bit more, see if it is doable on my budget, and I am going to schedule exercise into my days instead of leaving it as an up-in-the-air thing that happens more sporadically then it should. Hopefully I can get myself back on track within 5 days or so and huh, look at that, I may not have a solution yet but it seems like I actually do have a bit of a plan, at least a plan in the making…I’ll cross my fingers it works!…Uh, anybody wanna step on that scale for me? 😉 lol

Must remember this

Must remember this

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