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December Fitness Challenge

1 Dec

I came up with a challenge for myself to try to encourage more physical activity in the month of December. See, I am going back home for Christmas and don’t want to be the same lazy blob then that I am now. Yes, I know that in 20 days I won’t be magically transformed, but hopefully I will feel better about myself when I am there and even if I don’t manage to get smaller hopefully I will at least not get any bigger before I go! Hey, it’s the Christmas season which means more food and drinks and parties and all that stuff which means waaaaay more things to tempt you off your healthy eating plan…assuming you are on one lol 😉

christmas challenge

Originally the challenge was just going to be for me but I decided to rope my co-workers in to it and turned it in to a work fitness challenge. I also strong armed a friend in to it but she likes being active so it won’t be that much of a challenge for her I don’t think.

The challenge itself is super simple, please feel free to join! Basically it is:

20 Workouts In 20 Days!

Boom! Mind blown with the simpleness of this challenge am I right? lol

I fly out on Dec 21st so I had 20 days to work with. I decided to challenge myself to be physically active every one of those 20 days. The activities don’t have to be just traditional fitness activities they can be anything that keeps you physically active for 30 minutes or longer. Some suggestions I gave to my co-workers were:

  • go for a walk
  • go up and down the stairs at work
  • clean your house for 30 minutes
  • decorate your house for the holidays
  • drop in on a fitness class
  • do body weight exercises while watching tv
  • exercise dvd
  • swimming

My list of suggestions is not exhaustive but I wanted to make it clear to do this challenge you don’t have to be hitting up the gym every day for 20 days to succeed. You just have to be consciously engaging in some form of physical activity for 30 minutes every day for 20 days and reeeeally, shouldn’t we be doing that anyways?

Oh, and if you are thinking that life sometimes gets in the way and you legit won’t always be able to work out for 30 minutes some days that is ok because you can make up the missed session. This isn’t an all or nothing type of challenge. It is flexible, like how we have to be in order to navigate life lol So say today I just didn’t have the time or energy or drive or whatever to work out in some manner, ok, that’s cool, I’ll make it up tomorrow and do 60 minutes. Before you freak out! that 60 minutes doesn’t have to be all at once. I could go for a 30 minute run in the morning and then clean the apartment when I am home in the evening, or run the stairs at work at the beginning and end of my shift and on my way home hit up the gym, or do weight work while watching tv in the evening, you get the idea I’m sure. 🙂

I made up, and distributed at work, a cute Activity Tracking sheet. It is a picture of a Christmas Tree with the numbers 1 through 20 on it, randomly placed, like an Advent Calendar, so you can cross off numbers as you go. Visual reminders of the work done help encourage you to keep going when you hit a day you just don’t feel like working out. Or at least they do for me, shrug.

So there ya have it, my December Fitness Challenge! I would put a picture of the Christmas Tree Activity Tracking Picture on here but it is saved on my work computer sooooooo it will have to wait. 🙂

 

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Remembrance Day Poem

11 Nov

In Gratitude of Silence

By: Debbie Holick

Silent now the soldiers sleep, their tales long laid to rest.
I knew them not yet still I weep and place a poppy o’er my breast.

They were husbands, brothers, fathers, sons; so valiantly they fought.
On shores stained red,on hands and knees; it was our freedom that they sought.

Courageously they stood their ground but freedom carries a cost.
Thousands of men were wounded and countless lives were lost.

So in gratitude of silence and all those who have served,
sleep now, you have earned it. Your peace is well deserved.

Remembrance2015

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Vacation Talk!

9 Sep

I went on vacation for two weeks and recently got back. I had intended to blog while on vacation but yeah, that soooo didn’t end up happening lol It was a simple trip back to Alberta to visit my family and friends, you know, the ones I left behind when moving to BC. 😉

Instead of making multiple posts about the trip I’ll see if I can condense everything in to one post…or maybe two…

The cat came with me so instead of flying we had ourselves a 13 hour road trip through the lovely Canadian mountains then through the lovely Canadian prairies. Striker, the cat, spent the first 45 minutes of the drive loudly expressing his displeasure over his forced confinement in his carrier as well as being manhandled out to the suv. I took a book on cd (from the library) to listen to and he was so loud I had to turn the cd off because I couldn’t hear the narrator! He eventually stopped meowing at me and decided a better use of his time was to pout…for approx 12 hours…

This is what a pouting cat looks like.

This is what a pouting cat looks like.

When he wasn’t sitting on the floor under my legs he was sitting in his carrier with his face squashed against the mesh side ignoring me. Blatantly ignoring me.

I have two nephews and I like to take each one of them to hang out one-on-one.

My first day there I took the older nephew (he’s 14) horseback riding. He agreed to go but he wasn’t really feeling the whole riding horse thing, he’s such a trooper! 🙂

Giddy up!

Giddy up!

After the trail ride we went to a movie (Fantastic 4) and dinner (food court). I tried to get him to go to a real restaurant but there is a pasta place in the mall he loves and I’d rather he eat something he really wanted than drag him somewhere he doesn’t like.

I went to a place called Freshii and had an amazing rice bowl called Pangoa…

Pangoa from Freshii

Pangoa from Freshii

Imagine my surprise and horror when I got home and found the nutritional information online for this dish, it has 900 freakin calories!!! There is brown rice, grilled chicken, beans, various veggies and some bbq sauce but as you can see not a lot of any one ingredient so where all those calories came from I do not know. I do know that I won’t be ordering that ever again, even though it was tasty.

The next day I went for brunch with my mom, we went to Tutti Frutti and I had a lovely vegetarian omelette and one slice of Maple Crisp crunchy french toast. Yes you read that right, crunchy french toast! Mmm!

Crunchy French Toast

Crunchy French Toast

The omelette was a tad odd, IMO, because it was open not folded or rolled but it was tasty and really that is all that matters lol

Veggie omelette with potatoes on the side.

Veggie omelette with potatoes on the side.

My mom got the Casa Blanca which is French toast topped with fresh fruit & coated with delicious English cream only she got the cream on the side so she could decide how much of it she ate. Smart lady! 🙂

French toast with lots of fruit!

French toast with lots of fruit!

Later that day I guest paddled with a dragon boat team called The Raunchy Rodents. They practice on the river and have a freakishly short training season because winter is a long and cold season there, can’t really practice on the river when it is frozen! lol I had a great time, they are a fun bunch! 🙂 They had about half of their team at that practice due to a variety of circumstances which kinda made me feel better about taking a spot on the boat, I would have hated to be an extra body if all their team showed for practice.

The Raunchy Rodents - well, about half of them lol

The Raunchy Rodents – well, about half of them lol

A view from the middle of the river

A view from the middle of the river

Some of us went out after practice for a drink and a nibble, we went to a local pub called Duggan’s Boundary Irish Pub and had a fun time. 🙂 The brunch I had earlier with my mom powered me for the whole day, though I did cave and get some Potato Pancakes cause uh hello, how could I not? lol

Potato Pancakes with sour cream

Potato Pancakes with sour cream

The next day was a big day, I took my younger nephew (he is 7 and will proudly tell anyone who asks! lol) to Drumheller to go to the Royal Tyrrell Museum. It is basically the mecca for anyone in to dinosaurs and this little guy is most definitely in his dinosaur phase! It’s a three hour drive there and we spent the entire time talking about dinosaurs and life and music and playing pretend, it was a highly entertaining drive lol

Little hand, big footprint.

Little hand, big footprint.

I was abandoned 20 minutes in to our arriving at the museum so he could participate in a Dino Dig, basically he got to go be a paleontologist for 90 minutes while I wandered around doing nothing of much interest because adults aren’t allowed on the expedition…well, minus the adults running the expedition that is lol He loved it! They went on a 2.5 km hike through the badlands, used real paleontology tools to excavate part of a fossil then learned how to cover it properly and transport it back to the museum. After the day was over he told me everyone should move to Drumheller because why would anyone want to live anywhere else? Oh, and we are all supposed to work at the museum…oh boy…lol

If you were thinking he fell asleep on the way home after a long and busy day you my friend are oh-so-wrong. We played pretend and chatted the entire three hour drive home, although I would have been ok with a bit of quiet time because I was tired lol

Let’s see, the next day I got to spend with my friend Nicole, we had plans but they fell through so I ended up going with her while she bought kitty supplies and then adopted two adorable kittens. Yay for kittens! She was going to get just one but the brother and sister were in a cage together and how can anyone be heartless enough to separate siblings?

Meet Solar and Lou.

Meet Solar and Lou.

If I remember correctly the girl is on the left, she is Solar, the boy is on the right and is named Lou. I don’t have a great picture of the two of them because they are super fast and oddly enough don’t much care for staying still…go figure lol We had so much fun playing games with them we basically spent hours playing games and just watching them be silly lol

Sunday (the day after the Day of Kittens!) there was a family brunch where I ate pretty much everything lol I don’t have any group pictures from that day, I do have a bunch of individual pictures but that’s too many to be putting on here. Later that day I went to hang with a friend, Jasmine, and her family which consists of a husband, three kids and a dog. Her brother came over as did her parents, all of which I have known for a loooong time. Her youngest is my Goddaughter and all three kids think of me as an Aunt. They are great, the whole lot of em. 🙂 That evening involved a decent amount of alcohol, lots of reminiscing and my camera being dropped in to a glass of water by the middle child.

sigh.

Yup, there went my camera. 😦 We fished it out immediately and put it in to a bag of rice to dry it out but the camera didn’t recover fully. It could take a picture but the flash was dead and the picture quality was not good after it went swimming. Sadness.

I spent Monday working in my parent’s basement sorting out all the stuff I have stored there lol My parents got the basement renovated and my mom wanted me to go through all my stuff and sort it in to things I am bringing back with me, things I am keeping stored in my parent’s basement and things I am getting rid of. I got rid of quite a bit, brought back a chunk and left the rest in rubbermaid containers on shelves out of my parents way. Aren’t I such a good daughter? 😉

Tuesday was a day of awesome, well, sort of. I went to Calgary to ride the Olympic bobsled track and ride the zip line they have. Calgary hosted the 1988 Olympics and now the Olympic Park is a tourist place as well as where current and future Olympians train, for only $99/month I too could have a gym membership there lol

Decked out and ready to bobsled!

Decked out and ready to bobsled!

Ready to zip lining!

Ready for zip lining!

I have gone zip lining many times but this type of harness was new to me. When I was hooked to the line it is like sitting in the most comfortable hammock ever lol It is supposed to be the fastest/longest zip line in North America (if I remember correctly) and there was a parachute I had to deploy to get me slowed down in time for the stop but it wasn’t so fast or long that it was scary, sigh. I think I am done zip lining since it no longer brings out any nervousness or fear. The bobsledding was interesting, there are 14 turns in that track and it was fun but not “oh my god I’m so scared and nervous and can’t wait for the adrenaline rush” type of fun, which was what I was hoping for, shrug.

On the way home from Calgary I stopped at Peters’ Drive In and ordered heaven, seriously, their food is sooooo good! If I lived in Calgary I’d be a thousand pounds because I would always be at Pete’s lol

The most amazing of all amazing burgers and mouth watering onion rings.

The most amazing of all amazing burgers and mouth watering onion rings.

The thing about Peter’s is that they have the best milkshakes you will ever find! You choose your flavour and can combine up to three flavours to make your own custom milkshake.

All the flavours available.

All the flavours available.

The rest of the trip was filled with dinner with friends, hanging with other friends, hanging with my parents, helping out with stuff around my parent’s place, basically just enjoying being there. Oh, and shopping! There was some super impressive shopping! I got boots, and flats, and a blazer (so grown up of me don’t ya think?), Christmas presents for various people, random things that I wanted to buy there because there is only 5% tax vs the ridiculously high tax where I live, stupid tax *grumble*

I had a great, fun filled, always doing something, type of trip and I’m really glad I went. 🙂

The drive back went much better, the cat decided I wasn’t subjecting him to some random form of torture and he spent most of the drive sitting on various objects so he had a better view out of the window. The only time he got vocal was when I had to swerve to avoid a deer and the cat did not appreciate that, I’m pretty sure he would have hated the experience of hitting the deer more though so I wasn’t too worried about his bruised feelings lol. 😛

This is what I woke up to my first morning at my parent's place.

This is what I woke up to my first morning at my parent’s place.

That adorable picture is the site I woke up to my first morning of vacation, there was a head board on the bed I slept in and the cat figured out he can watch me from above…scareeeeeeee! lol 😉

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Brownie Strawberry Trifle

3 Jul

This my friends is not a healthy living friendly desert…consider this a fair warning! 😉 It is however quite tasty sooooo if you’re willing to eat outside the boundaries of whatever diet, or healthy living plan, or life change you are currently following than read on!

You will need:

– brownies (yeah, you’ve gotta make those)

– 1L (12oz) Cool Whip (I used Light Cool Whip)

– 1 135g (5oz) package of Vanilla Instant Pudding

– 2lbs fresh strawberries

Instructions:

Bake brownies. You can use your own recipe or a brownie mix, whatever floats your boat.

Slice the strawberries, seems fairly obvious and yet it is mentioned in the original recipe so I thought I’d tack it on here also.

Make the pudding, once it is set fold in the Cool Whip. You’ll need a large bowl for this. It makes what the original recipe refers to as a custard. This is not technically a custard, duh, but who am I to judge the original recipe person? Well, ok, I am judging a little bit lol

Once the brownies are completely cooled cut them in to small pieces, I tore the brownies in to small pieces instead of cutting them because that’s how I roll over here. I’m sure Martha Stewart would not approve. 😛

Put half the cut brownies in the bottom of your trifle bowl, pour half the custard on top of the brownies and spread it around so all the brownies are covered. Layer half the strawberries on top of the custard. You can stand up some of the cut strawberries around the edge of the dish so it looks prettier, ya know, if you want, no pressure to make this presentable or anything…

Repeat the layering. Brownies, custard than strawberries.

The original recipe also wanted you to melt chocolate chips and drizzle it on top, I chose not to do that because I thought it would be sweet enough and I was right. Not saying it wouldn’t be an extra level of delish with the melted chocolate, and I’m sure it would look even more impressive but I liked how it looked with the fruit on top, easily seen, not covered by anything and hey, I’m making it so I get to make these oh so important decisions. Ooooooh the power of me!

Here is how it turned out…

Chocolate Brownie and Strawberry Trifle

Chocolate Brownie and Strawberry Trifle

I added some raspberries to the strawberry topping because who doesn't like raspberries?

I added some raspberries to the strawberry topping because who doesn’t like raspberries?

Side view!

Side view!

A couple side notes:

– Keep the trifle in the fridge until it is time to serve it, otherwise the custard melts and stops looking so pretty.

– I doubled the amount of brownies I made, so two batches instead of one, which turned out to be a good thing because it took one entire batch for each brownie layer. Depending on the size of your trifle bowl you may also need to make two batches of brownies.

– I did not double the amount of Cool Whip or Vanilla Pudding used. I realized once it was too late I probably should have, especially when I had poured half of it on for the first layer and I was struggling to get all the brownie covered. You’d never know it from the picture though, shrug. When eating the trifle the ratio of chocolate to custard was a good one so flavour wise it turned out I didn’t need to double the Cool Whip and Vanilla Pudding, just be prepared to use slices of strawberries to help cover thin custard coverage areas.

– I did not use the entire 2 pounds of strawberries, despite my going to all the effort to clean, and destem, and slice them. I used a good chunk of them, as you can see. The way the hidden layer is placed is identical to the top layer, only minus the raspberries so not like I skimped in the middle with my strawberry usage. But hey, rejoice, this just means extra strawberries for you!

– I added the raspberries on a whim because they were on sale and because they are a personal favourite. I had originally intended to make a little design with them but I was running late so I just popped some on where there was space between strawberry slices. I didn’t get to use them all so oh gee, I have leftovers of those also, what a shame! 😉

– The original recipe is from an American site so the quantity of everything was a little off to the size of things here, except for the strawberries because, well, I don’t know why to be honest. Normally I do all the conversions before I go shopping so I know what size packaging to look for in my grocery store but I didn’t this time so I winged it. It turned out ok.

– I would recommend making the brownies the night before, I made them the morning of and it seriously cramped my style. I had everything else all ready to go and I was stuck waiting for the stupid brownies to cool completely, it took forever and that’s with me living in a basement suite apartment!…In case you don’t get the significance of that, my place is always cold, it will be 29C (84.2F) outside and I will be inside wearing a sweater and sweat pants with a little throw over my feet. It’s like I live in the place that summer forgot.

I calculated the Weight Watchers Points Plus points for the trifle, a portion of my trifle comes out to 12 points. If you make it I would recommend calculating your own points because you will be using your own brownie recipe, and may be using only one batch of brownies, or maybe you doubled the amount of custard, or perhaps you decided to drizzle the melted chocolate, who knows!  Then there is always the trifle bowl size to take in to account…The point is this strikes me as a desert where every person’s version will be slightly different which means so will the nutritional information be. But that’s ok! This is a super easy recipe that is also super easy to personalize, which makes it great for everyone, enjoy! 🙂

Oh, the original recipe can be found here

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Canada Day!

2 Jul

Ok so depending on your time zone I am a day or longer late with this, oops! I’d apologize, which would be oh so Canadian of me 😉 but the reason I didn’t write anything on Canada Day was because I was busy celebrating Canada Day and if I hadn’t done something to celebrate Canada Day than I wouldn’t have anything to write about now, would I? That’s right, that is my logic and I’m sticking to it! teehee

logic

July 1st is Canada Day, in case you didn’t realize that from the above paragraph lol It is a day filled with hanging with friends and/or family, food, some form of alcohol, proudly displaying a flag or maple leaf or at least wearing red & white, and fireworks. Whether those fireworks are the official display put on by your city or some cheap ass stupid ones your neighbour’s kids set off in the park down the road well, whose to make that distinction?

Canada Day is the one day of the year we are unapologetically Canadian. We don’t refrain from wearing something with a maple leaf on it while in our own country because it is tacky, we don’t shy away from sharing videos on YouTube that say how great we are (though most of those videos say how polite we are lol), we jokingly embrace the stereotypes that are out there and eat something maple flavoured, or order the poutine, or wrap bacon around something and claim it is a legit meal. Our large cities have family friendly activities that include our military showing us simulators that they use for training, you can sit in a tank, or wear one of the backpacks the soldiers wear to see juuuuust how heavy it is (which fyi, I tried, they are ridiculously heavy!). It is the one day of the year we allow our Canadian pride to show…although we are still fairly understated about it, shrug, but ya know, that is just our way…sorry! 😉 lol

This year I went to a friend’s place for a bbq and just general hanging out. It was a fairly chilled event which was nice because it was a roasting hot day and none of us felt like doing anything super active.

There was video game playing, on an old system, so really it was retro video game playing lol We were playing on an N64 and I can’t remember the games names, they were games I had never played before and oh wow did I suck lol Luckily I was with nice people who didn’t make toooooo much fun of me 😛

After game playing there was the food! 🙂

For dinner we bbq’d kabobs…

Dinner!

Dinner!

We actually had a lot of kabobs, I just forgot to take a picture until they were almost all eaten, oops! They had chicken or pork, corn, red and green peppers, zucchini, red onion, pineapple and baby potatoes on them. Three of us made a little assembly line to put them all together, my section had the stabbing of the zucchini, peppers and corn which you’d think would be ok except I stabbed myself in the palm of my hand when putting the skewer through one of the corn pieces, sigh. It is a very me thing to do lol 😛

Then there was dessert! I brought it, thought I’d try a new recipe. My only goal was to have the finished product look somehow patriotic, so I wanted there to be red and white incorporated in to the dessert. Sounds stupid I know but meh, I was baking it so I get to pick things like that.

I made a brownie and strawberry trifle…

Chocolate Brownie and Strawberry Trifle

Chocolate Brownie and Strawberry Trifle

I’ll do a separate post with the recipe for the trifle, in case any of you are interested in giving it a try. 🙂

Because this is my Canada Day post will I put a video about Canada, and of course, being a Canadian pride video it is made by a beer company *rolls eyes* 😛 I like the video though, it shows how we are a multi-cultural country and how if we all work together good things happen, least that is my interpretation of it. 🙂

https://youtu.be/-z9d1sk3N-M

Aaaaaand here is another video about Canada, just because…it is a song instead of a commercial if that makes it anymore enticing for you…oh and there is an astronaut in it! Who doesn’t like astronauts! 😉

I know July 1st was yesterday, and a lot of my readers aren’t from Canada, but regardless, I hope you all had an awesome Canada Day (even if it was just a normal Wednesday for you lol)! 😀

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My Christmas Season Jaunt

4 Jan

Every year I go home for Christmas. Depending on which way you lean home is either where the majority of your stuff is or it is where your family is…this means I have two homes. 🙂

It was only a short trip because of not being able to get a lot of time off work, including my travel days I was gone five days, really though, more like 4 and a bit because I flew out after work in the evening and didn’t get to my parents until sometime after 11pm, that doesn’t count as a day, right?

While back home I celebrated my birthday on Dec 23rd, yay for birthdays! I went to the mall (one of my happy places) with my bestie NH. We did some shopping, mostly wandering, I highly enjoyed the teeny tiny 5% tax they have lol Then we got lunch where I decided to eat whatever I want cause it’s my birthday! Calories don’t count on your birthday, it’s practically a law! lol

I had a so-so burger, the fries were freakin delish tho! lol

Mmm fries!

Mmm fries!

I also decided a birthday dessert was in order 😛

Ecstasy!

Ecstasy!

It was described as a small chocolate cake with ice cream. Imagine my happy surprise when it turned out to be a lava cake! Holy crap was it good, a little bit of food heaven on a plate, Mmm! 😀

After hanging with NH I went back to my parents where I had some down time, attempted to digest my late lunch in time to make room for dinner, and then happily hung out with the family. Which, fyi, consists of my parents, my brother and sister, my sister’s kids and their dad. It was a loud (cause of the kids) jumbled (cause of the amount of people) evening and I loved it. 🙂

Now, pictures were taken of me blowing out my birthday candles but I don’t have them yet so instead I will show you what the cake looked like the next day when I was having a piece for, hmm, breakfast? Mid morning snack? Lunch? One of those three! lol

Queen Victoria Sponge Cake

Queen Victoria Sponge Cake

I requested a Queen Victoria Sponge cake for my birthday cake. The layers go: sponge cake, jam, whipped cream, sponge cake, and is topped with a sprinkle of icing sugar. It is quite lovely. 🙂 Mine had raspberry jam because that is my favourite type.

After the time out from Christmas stuff to celebrate my birthday we all get back in to Christmas mode. Christmas day was quieter than normal because my sister and nephews and their dad all spent Christmas day with his family. We have been spoiled and get them most years so it’s only fair they spent this one with his side.

With it being just my parents, my brother and I it was quite a different experience lol Everything was so calm and orderly, I kinda liked it, not that I don’t love when all the others are also with us though!

The rest of my time there was spent visiting with a friend and her family and chilling with my parents. 🙂

It’s always sad when it comes time to leave even though I really enjoy where I live. It seems especially hard to say bye when the trip is so short, but is any trip ever long enough?

While I was there I ate horribly! I ate larger portions than normal, and wasn’t as picky about what foods I ate (proven by those food pics I posted lol) 😛 I opted to not feel bad about my eating habits while there because most of what I was eating were foods that I wouldn’t have access to once back home. My mom made oatmeal squares which are by far one of my fave foods, and oh man did I eat a lot of those! lol I also ate all that food on my birthday, then Christmas day was another foodie day, plus the next day when I had prime rib and all sorts of side dishes at my friends place, plus wine, a very yummy wine that I hope to find here…basically it was 4 and a bit days of food lol

When I got home I immediately went back to my normal eating habits and actually had a couple days where I felt super full and gross and bloated, I think I was still digesting all the food from when I was away, or at least that is what it felt like, ugh. It was so unpleasant. I was really upset because I figured I’d put on a lot of weight and felt so heavy and was really mad at myself but after a couple days of eating light and exercising I woke up and felt fine. No more feeling fat (well, fatter than I normally feel lol), no more feeling bloated or gross or anything…I was so relieved!

To make things even better today was my weigh-in day and not only had I not gone up, I went down! Not by a lot, only 0.4 lbs, so barely anything at all, but I don’t care lol Over my birthday and Christmas and New Years, plus a friend’s get together that I went to last night I was certain I’d gone up so learning today that I hadn’t made this girl a happy camper! 🙂

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An Unintended Hiatus

3 Jan

I didn’t mean to go offline for so long but life has a nasty habit of getting in the way of blog posting time lol Heck, it gets in the way of updating facebook and twitter also, which is vaguely impressive considering how quick it is to update those two sites.

sooooo busy

sooooo busy

Prior to Christmas I was busy making Christmas presents…yes, you read that right, making the presents. I chose to make the majority of my Christmas presents for family and friends this year in an effort to (1) give gifts that will mean more to the recipient and (2) would cost me less.

The people I gave the presents too seemed to really like them, so I think I succeeded in giving gifts that meant more than something store bought. I’m not so sure about the saving money part of my plan though…oops?

I made a couple different things but couldn’t mention any of them here because some of the people I was giving the presents to read this blog and I didn’t want them to know in advance what they might be getting. It’s hard to be sneaky when you blab about stuff online all the time lol

Let’s see if I can remember what I made, there were…bath salts, candles, coasters, port wine jelly, Christmas popcorn, granola with nuts and seeds, marble peppermint bark, vanilla extract, rum butter (technically my mom made that one for me so I wouldn’t have to transport it on the plane, same with the vanilla extract), spice rub, a pedicure themed mason jar and a dragon boat themed mason jar…I think that is everything…

I am not a naturally crafty person so to learn how to make all of these things I did a lot of research (which means I scoured Pintrest and googled a lot, oh and watched multiple youtube tutorials) lol Thank goodness other people are crafty! 😛

Luckily I had no craft fails with the presents I was making, phew!

Luckily I had no craft fails with the presents I was making, phew!

The item that caused me the most stress was the port wine jelly, that particular item was for my brother and the fear that it will taste horrible or that I might have screwed up when sterilizing or canning and food poison him was (and is) intense. I don’t know that he’ll tell me when he eventually opens one of the jars, so I may never know if it tastes ok, which means I just have to let it go…sigh…

Like a dummy I didn’t take pictures of the items I made sooooooo yeah, I have no filler for this post in the way of images lol The bath salts were white and green, as were the candles. The food was the colour of food, duh, um, the coasters I made used pictures I nabbed from people’s facebook accounts, or pictures that had been texted to me throughout the year or in one friend’s case pictures I got her daughter to email me lol The coasters are 4×4, so normal size, but a bit thicker and heavier than most coasters you’d buy in a store, mostly cause they are made with a 4×4 wall tile and those suckers are kinda heavy.

I’m happy with how things turned out. 🙂 It took a lot more time and organization than I had thought it would, which left me in a bit of a panic when it was only a couple days until I was getting on the plane and I had yet to make the majority of the items. Then again, I work best under pressure lol 🙂

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German Christmas Market

5 Dec

For the fourth year in a row I went to the German Christmas Market that is held in the downtown core. It runs for a month or so and can be a lot of fun. It is based on the large Christmas Markets that happen in Europe and is German themed. I’ve never been to one of the Christmas Markets in Europe so I couldn’t say for certain how this one compares, I’m pretty sure this one is way smaller but the gist of it is the same…I think?

There is a carousal for all ages that my friend and I meant to go on but forgot, we kind of purposefully forgot as it was pouring rain and we didn’t like the idea of sitting on a wet horse lol There is also a massive Christmas tree that every single person there tries to get a picture in front of, for real, every single person lol, we had to wait for people to clear out so we could get a picture without strangers in it lol

Me

Me

My friend

My friend

Close up!

Close up!

One of the main things about the market is the food, I’d say half or maybe a bit more than half of the booths are food. Most of them are German foods but there is one booth that is all maple flavoured foods, we are in Canada after all! lol 😉

For dinner we each got a, hmm, a glorified hot dog I guess, mine was all beef, I think KL got the one that had beef and pork in it but I could be wrong about that. They are topped with sauerkraut and fried onions and if you want there is also ketchup and mustard.

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With your entrance ticket you get a free mug of either apple cider or mulled wine. I know from previous years I don’t like the mulled wine so apple cider it was! Lucky for me I like apple cider lol You get to keep the mug, which means I now have 4 of these mugs lol they are small so normally not a useful size, after all, if you are having a hot drink you want a normal sized mug right? I find them the perfect size if I am having juice though. 🙂

We also got dessert, I got a hot apple strudel and KL got waffle on a stick, which now that I think of it is probably not a German thing since it is at every fair type thing I’ve been to for years now and one of the few booths not manned by an actual German person lol

Hot apple strudel with vanilla sauce on top

Hot apple strudel with vanilla sauce on top

Of the two desserts KL’s was the better option, her waffles on a stick were covered in a strawberry sauce and whipped  cream and I thought it was way better than my strudel…kind of because the strudel was a bit bland and had raisins in it, ugh, raisins, blech.

There was also live entertainment, it ranged from good, to meh, to funny.

When we got there a group was performing whose name I didn’t catch, they performed a variety of songs, all Christmas themed. The lead singer had the cutest little hat on which you can’t see all that well in the picture because she kept standing directly under a light which made my camera unhappy lol

Can you see her hat? It's adorable!

Can you see her hat? It’s adorable!

There was also entertainment provided by some extremely well dressed drag queens who are way better at walking in heels than I ever will be, not even joking about that! There was a Simone Says game, and at least three separate musical performances, lemme see, there was a Celine Dion, a Taylor Swift and hmm, I’m not sure who the other person was supposed to be but she was entertaining! Basically it was a bunch of people having a great time. 🙂 The Taylor Swift impersonator was wearing such a skimpy outfit I felt bad for her lol even with all her dancing she must have been freezing!

The weather was cold, not super cold but cold, shrug, it is December after all. It was raining the entire time so thank goodness for waterproof jackets and boots! lol I bent my head forward at one point to look down and had a whole bunch of water pour off the top of my head where apparently my hood had been collecting it *rolls eyes* The rain is totally manageable if you are dressed for it, which luckily both KL and I were. I’ve gone other years where I wasn’t dressed for the weather and while I had fun I was also freezing which drastically lowered my enjoyment level, this year I was prepared! 🙂

This market has quickly become part of my Christmas season tradition, I really look forward to it and hope to continue going in the years to come. 🙂

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A Work Party

4 Dec

Last Friday was my work’s Christmas party. I have been with this company, at this location, since it opened but this is my first year attending the party. Why? Because the people at head office always choose to have the party on a Friday night and I work that shift. No matter what they do there will always be staff that can’t make the party, that is what happens when you have a company that is open 24/7 but it surprises me there isn’t more effort put in to making sure it’s not always the same people who don’t get to go to the party. This year I got to go only because the casual girl who we call on when we need a shift covered had her birthday plans change, she took pity on me and offered to work my shift because she knew I wanted to go to the party…she knew because I had already asked her to work for me but initially she said no because she thought she was going to be out of town for her bday (which was the day after the party).

So yeah, this year I got to party, yay! I didn’t know what to expect, the previous years my friends at work always downplayed how the party turned out so I wouldn’t feel so bad for missing it lol

This year it was held at the Pan Pacific Hotel which is a fancy hotel in the downtown core. The space was really nice, huuuge windows overlooking the water, a decent sized dance floor and a nice large space for all the tables and the food.

There was a photo booth with lots of funny hats and glasses an stuff to wear, they’ve had this each year, lemme tell ya, that photo booth was never empty lol I’m not exactly sure why it is such a popular thing, I mean yeah, it was fun, but the amount of times I was dragged in there when once or twice would’ve been fine…having said that I have four of the picture strips and they make me giggle everytime I look at them. 😛

goofy people! lol

goofy people! lol

The food was super yum, it was a massive buffet with a carving station at one end where an oh so lovely turkey was sliced up for our eating pleasure. 🙂  I attempted to make healthy choices while choosing my food and I think I did fairly well. Some food choices (like the cheesy potatoes) were obviously not healthy but I don’t feel bad about those choices because the rest of the plate was covered in veggies, and salads, and protein…so a little bit of cheesy potato won’t kill me lol There was a separate loooong table covered in all the deserts, oh so many deserts! 🙂

Here is how the food portion of my night went:

Get a plate of food from the buffet.

Eat about half my dinner when I get dragged to the photo booth for a picture.

Return to my table after an absence of less than 5 minutes to find my dinner is gone. Servers cleared away my plate. Sadness.

I decided that meant I should start on dessert so I go to the dessert buffet. I got a small slice of a fruity thing (I’m not really sure what it was…) and was reaching for something made of chocolate when someone got all “omg you have to come dance to this song!” so I take one bite of the dessert, put it at my spot on my table and make my way to the dance floor.

After one dance I return to my table to find my dessert gone, servers had cleared away my plate.

Arg!

One of my friends encouraged me to go get another dessert but I didn’t want to be that person who went to the dessert buffet twice. She went for me and got me an amazing slice of chocolate cake that was super rich and covered in fruit, there was kiwi, and strawberries and mandarin oranges on top. I got about two bites in to it when someone was all “you hafta come to the photo booth!”.

You would have thought by now I’d learned my lesson but nope lol

Off to the photo booth I went, took goofy pictures, returned to my table only to find an empty spot where my plate used to be, sigh.

By this time I decided to quit the food, it was obviously the Universes way of telling me to stop eating lol I went back to the dance floor and stayed for who knows how long, remembered that I still had half a glass of wine and decided to go finish it before that also got nabbed by the servers but alas, I was too late, the servers had taken my wine.

Of all the thefts I was most distraught about the wine lol A person’s alcohol should never be taken, that is just…inhumane! 😉

Despite the over eager servers and the constant theft of my food, it was a great night. The group of people I work with are a fun group and we danced most of the night, luckily the DJ was good! lol

It started snowing around 9pm, it was so pretty, made the drive home a bit treacherous but meh, that’s winter for ya!

The pictures below are from a couple days after the party when I was walking to work in the morning, see how pretty? 🙂

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Oh I forgot! I got tons of compliments on my hairdo, I did this updo that was a combination of a couple different things I saw in various YouTube tutorials and surprisingly it turned out well. I wish I had thought to get a picture of it…I started a braid on the left side of my head that wrapped around the back of my head to end in a side pony on the right side of my head. Then the hair in the pony tail was twisted, tied in a knot and pinned in place so it looked like a loose bun. I topped it off with a clip that had a flower on it with a faux diamond centre, it was put just above the bun. You’d think the clip was there for decorative purposes but it was actually to make sure the hair stayed in place lol I was paranoid the entire night about the bobby pins falling out and the bun coming undone but it held up the whole night, dancing an all! 🙂

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UK Trip Day 7: July 20/14

21 Sep

Just a quick recap for Day 6 of vacation, after the cliff jumping I got a taxi ride back to the B&B had a quick shower and went to the attached cafe for lunch where I devoured fish n chips, Mmm! 🙂 I didn’t have anything else planned for the rest of that day, I wanted to wait and see how I felt. I was told there was an interesting lighthouse that people liked to go to, you can climb all the way to the top but I just wasn’t feelin it, ya know? Normally I’d have been all over that lighthouse excursion but after lunch I went back to my room and napped lol Yes, that is right, I napped. I was exhausted! I think not just from the cliff jumping but the whole week, I think it caught up to me and knowing that I had my own room (no more hostels, woot!), and knowing that starting the next day I’d be surrounded by family, my body decided forget climbing a hill and then a bunch of steps, it was time for sleeeeeep.

Some might say I wasted that afternoon and evening, but I don’t feel I did. I worried a bit that evening I’d regret not having done something once I no longer had the chance but nope, I still don’t regret it. I made endless cups of tea in my room, took my time packing and getting organized, had that lovely nap, watched some tv, read some of my book, went on facebook cause that was one of the only places in Wales I’d had internet and well, that’s pretty much it, shrug. Heck, I even went to bed early! *gasp*

July 20th aka Day 7

I wasn’t sure how long it would take to drive to Manchester from Holyhead Wales so I decided I should probably leave around 9am. My rental car was due back hmm…noon or 12:30pm, somewhere around there and I was worried what would happen if I was late. I went to the cafe for breakfast and when the lady took my order she commented that she noticed the day prior I hadn’t eaten the bacon or sausage, I apologized and told her I forgot to mention to her I don’t eat pork. She seemed so worried I wouldn’t have enough to eat so with my full Welsh breakfast she didn’t bother with the pork but instead I got an extra egg and some fried mushrooms, yum! I dallied a bit over breakfast, had an extra cup of tea, basically did whatever I could to stay longer. I really didn’t want to leave.

I didn’t want to leave The Beach Hut B&B (seriously, nicest people ever!). I didn’t want to leave Wales (I fell in love with that country). I didn’t want to leave that section of my vacation (I learned I looooove going on vacation alone, who’d of thunk it? lol). I just didn’t want to leave, sigh. But leave I did, and only a tad behind schedule. 🙂

Thanks to the wifi at The Beach Hut I looked up directions to the Manchester airport the night before and wrote down quite possibly the most detailed directions anybody in the history of the world has ever written lol Oh, and Dave being the awesome man that he is, when I was partway down one of the flights of stairs with my stupid heavy suitcase he saw and came rushing up the stairs to take it from me! When I said not to worry he made a comment, I don’t have the exact quote or anything, but it was something like of course he would help and I should have come and got him because of course he’d have brought it down all the stairs and not just the final flight of them. Love that man! 🙂

I said bye, told them I had a great stay and I loved the place, loaded up the car and *sniffle* left Holyhead. 😦

I was so sad to be leaving I took pictures while driving, *rolls eyes at self*

I was so sad to be leaving I took pictures while driving, *rolls eyes at self*

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Driving back towards Manchester I was much more confident on the highways, heck, even on the little roads and within city limits. At the beginning of the trip, when I was leaving Manchester and on my way to Llanberis I wasn’t sure of the speed limits anywhere so I am sure I was going slower than I needed to. On this leg of the drive not only was I more comfy driving on the left side of the road, and more comfy with the style of driving over there, I was also more used to the road sign placement so I actually noticed signs in enough time to read them properly which meant I knew the speed limit, yay! This meant I got to Manchester waaaaaaaay earlier than I predicted lol

Returning the rental car was thankfully a lot easier than the ordeal I went through picking it up – if you don’t know what ordeal I am referring to feel free to click here to read all about it. I had to fill out a form when I dropped the car off, there were all these questions asking about how happy I was with the service etc. I chose to fill out the form truthfully, and then when I was giving it back to the lady at the returns section of the lot I mentioned I had a horrible experience at pick up and now that I’ve told the truth on my form I was probably going to get charged for something (damage to the car that I didn’t do etc) because the powers that be within the company would be unhappy with the review I gave. She said no, she was the one who assessed returning vehicles and she promised she wouldn’t charge me for anything just because I wrote the truth on the form. I wasn’t sure if I trusted her, which is horrible to say, but it is true, shrug. I never did get random charges by them on my credit card and I even got an email asking me to fill out a longer online survey because they heard I had an unpleasant experience. I filled out the form and their response was that next time I rent a car from them I can get a discount. I won’t ever be renting a car from them again, but the offer is nice.

All this time I’ve been talking about the car, I don’t think I ever put a picture up of it, here ya go…

The little Kia that got me through Northern Wales

The little Kia that got me through Northern Wales

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It really was a cute little car, great for the tiny roads. It handled well and was comfy, go Kia! 🙂

I had time to kill waiting for family to pick me up, originally it was going to be Sue, who when I was younger I used to call Aunt Sue even though she is my cousin cause she was an adult and I wasn’t and it is polite to have a prefix in front of an older than you family members name but now that I am all grown up I just call her Sue…actually…most of the time I found ways to get around calling her her name cause I felt a little odd calling her Sue but she’s not my Aunt so I can’t call her Aunt Sue anymore and well, it was kinda awkward lol By the end of the trip I got it sorted out though lol So anyways! She was going to pick me up but then I got a phone call from her son Liam saying he was picking me up, along with Samantha (his sister), and Bryan (Sam’s son)…still with me? 😉

Liam ended up calling me from the car cause they were lost and needed me to give them directions to where I was waiting (I was at the car rental office) which I thought was hilarious cause I have absolutely nooooo sense of direction, however! I had my freakishly detailed handwritten notes I had made for how to get to the car rental place from Holyhead so I read off to him the section of the notes that were pertinent to him and eventually he found me, well, they found me. 🙂

It was great seeing family, and it seemed almost magical how for a week I’d been travelling on my own and sorting things out by myself and all of a sudden I was in a car with people who had my back, aaaaaand who understood much better than I how everything worked lol Finally! People who could answer all my random questions about all the odd little things I’d been noticing but had nobody to comment to about them lol Oh, and even better, someone to drive who knew (roughly) where they were going. What a relief!

To be continued…dun dun dun… 😉

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