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Fix It Girl

23 May

A little while ago my vacuum stopped working properly. Every time I would use it there was this nasty smell, like something electrical burning, and it barely picked anything up from the carpet, making my vacuuming attempts a complete waste of time, ugh. I noticed that when I took the carpet attachment off the vacuum worked fine, and didn’t make that horrible smell so I used what little logic I have to deduce the problem lay in this part of the vacuum…

2015-05-14 16.09.16

Figuring I couldn’t screw up the vacuum anymore than it already was I took it apart to see if I could figure out how to fix it, and go figure, I did! Crazy huh?

There is a belt inside this piece that had snapped, also, I have long hair and it was wrapped around the bristle part to the extent I thought my hair was trying to strangle the inside of the vacuum lol

I went to a vacuum repair shop, got the new belt, put it in, closed it and voila! working vacuum that no longer smells like it is about to explode, yay!

It works so much better now, so well in fact I accidentally sucked up one of the cat’s toys, oops! Luckily he has lots of toys so I don’t think he has noticed yet…

The cat was traumatized from the vacuuming I did once I got it fixed, to him the only thing worse than the vacuum is the vet so my pulling it out, fixing it, then using it basically meant his day was ruined. Poor little guy, all his spazzing after the vacuum was put away resulted in his eventual collapse…

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While I was trapped under his dead weight I enjoyed a little treat a friend of mine brought back for me from the Philippines. He is from there originally and he and his family went back to visit other family members. He brought me a keychain and these cute little cakes…

Winter Melon Cake

Winter Melon Cake

They are Winter Melon Cakes, which mean nothing to me lol There are 4 in the package, they are covered in toasted seeds and the center is soft but firm, hmm, that doesn’t make sense, it is soft without being gooey, that makes a bit more sense, I think…lol

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They have a distinctive flavour but since it is like nothing I have eaten before I don’t know how to describe it. I think most of the flavour was coming from the seeds, the center was a subtle taste of what I can only assume is Winter Melon.

I liked them, they aren’t like anything I’ve had before, which is partially why I like them, switching things up is good for you, and keeps the taste buds from getting bored lol 😉

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Ikea

22 May

I love Ikea, I am that weirdo that genuinely likes putting Ikea furniture together so buying something from Ikea is fun for me, not just because of getting new furniture but because I get to build it! 🙂

I got a gift card for Ikea a couple of years ago for Christmas. It was initially going to be used to buy a new dresser but the one I wanted got discontinued and I didn’t want to use the gift card on just anything so I waited, and waited…and waited some more! Until eventually there was something else I wanted aaaand it was on sale lol Lucky for me Ikea has been having a sale, all bed frames 15% off which meant that after the gift card was used my out of pocket cost for the bed frame was not quite forty dollars, oh, and that is including the chocolate bar I bought lol

Patience is a good thing my friends! 😉

I broke the first rule of the Ikea instructions, it showed a picture of a person by themselves and had that crossed out (like a no sign), then they showed a picture of two people with a check mark, they seemed to think it would take two people to build this piece of furniture, silly Ikea. Its like Ikea doesn’t realize that having someone help you build the furniture isn’t always an option *rolls eyes*

It took dare I say, some ingenuity, on my part, plus some muscles, to get the frame put together – serves me right, buying a metal bed frame lol but in the end the sweat was totally worth it. The bed frame went together perfectly, it looks great and I’m super happy with my purchase.

The cat however is traumatized from the disruption to his routine by my building the bed frame – oh, and he doesn’t seem too sure about how high the bed is now either lol.

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Voila! My new bed! 🙂

And yes, that is an Eeyore on the side, don’t judge, he’s cute and he is a comfy pillow. 😛

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The next time you are at Ikea, if you see this chocolate bar you should grab one, it was yummy. It is milk chocolate with hazelnuts in it, can’t go wrong there! For the possible Weight Watcher in you, half the bar is 7 points (in the Points Plus Program) which some people might think is ridiculous but hey, good chocolate is always worth it. 😉

One final thought, I feel putting furniture together should count as exercise, by the time I was done I was sweating, it was gross. 😛

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Vegetarian Lasagna

21 May

Tonight for dinner I made Vegetarian Lasagna. I got the recipe from a friend, she made it one night when I was over at her place and it was oh so yummy. She’s really good in the kitchen whereas I am so-so. I thought since I watched her make the lasagna, I had a copy of the recipe that she had sent me right in front of me, and there was no meat I could probably make this dish without screwing up too badly lol

Well…it wasn’t hard to make, though I made some rookie mistakes that I will correct next time (if there is a next time!) but despite it not being that hard to make it wasn’t anywhere near as good as when she made it. Le sigh.

The layers go like this:

Noodles

Sauce

Sliced yams

Noodles

Sauce

Ricotta cheese

Mushrooms

Noodles

Sauce

Zucchini

Red and yellow peppers

Onion

Yams

Mushrooms

Sauce

Noodles

Sauce

Ricotta cheese

Lots of layers!

I used the Compliments brand Oven Ready Pasta, the Compliments brand Six Vegetable Pasta Sauce and some randomly chosen brand of Ricotta cheese…I figured all ricotta cheese options would be the same, regardless of the brand. Actually, I figured that about the pasta and the sauce also so I chose Compliments brand because it was the cheapest lol 😛

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Side view

Side view

It didn’t plate well, at least the first piece didn’t…

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The first piece basically became a mooshed all over the place mess, there was definite structural integrity issues. sigh. I figured every piece would be like that but when I was putting the left overs in tupperware it held together a lot better so maybe the mess you see above is just a casualty of being the first piece taken out of the dish?

Like I said, it didn’t taste as good as when my friend made it, I’m not sure what I did wrong…maybe I missed some seasoning or something…I know I didn’t use as much cheese and sauce as her, she just sorta put it on until it looked right whereas I measured everything so I knew exactly how good/bad the end result would be calorie wise lol

Even though it wasn’t as good as KL’s version it was still good, all those veggies, how could it not be? 😉 I’m pretty certain you could use any combo of veggies you like, personalize it to your taste buds. 🙂 It took almost 40 minutes in the oven at 400 degrees. That’s one of the things I would change next time, I’d cook it at 350 instead because some of the noodles got really burnt, and I don’t mean burnt but still tasty, I’m talking burnt so they are so hard it hurt my teeth when I bit down. Not cool.

Despite some issues that stop the lasagna from being as good as it could be I am happy with it. It made 8 portions which is great because I froze some and put the rest in the fridge, I plan on using it as meals for when I am at work over the next 4 days, yay for pre-cooked meals! 🙂

Oh, and in case you are following the Weight Watchers Points Plus program, one serving is 5 points.

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The Sweat of a Mushroom

7 May

Have you ever wondered why, when buying mushrooms, you put them in a brown paper bag instead of a plastic bag like all the other produce? I haven’t, shrug.

mushrooms

When I was a child and would tag along with my mom as she went grocery shopping I noticed that mushrooms went in the the mini brown paper bag, and I thought it was fun (yeah, weird, I know), but I never wondered why. It was just the way it was done.

As an adult, when I grocery shop, I automatically put mushrooms in the supplied brown paper bags and never question why I do it, it is just how things are done.

Normally I question everything so when I realized I had never questioned this it got me wondering why I never wondered about it, and would I have ever wondered about it if my grocery store hadn’t run out of those mini brown paper bags, thereby forcing me to either buy the over priced pre-sliced mushrooms or buy the non-sliced mushrooms and put them in a plastic bag?

Oh the oh-so-deep places my brain goes… 😉 (sarcasm people, that’s sarcasm!)

Last week I bought mushrooms and put them in a plastic bag because that is all the store had, I vaguely wondered if this was going to affect the mushrooms but once I put them away in my kitchen I didn’t think about them again. Go figure that mushrooms don’t hold a huge section of my brain’s thoughts. 😉

I discovered why we don’t put mushrooms in plastic bags and ew, it was not pretty!

Mushrooms sweat.

I thought about saying they cry, since that seems less gross, but nope, with the amount of liquid on those suckers it just has to be called sweat. Icky, gross, dripping sweat.

Why was I never told this??

I innocently pulled a mushroom out of the bag and was all “what the hell, why is it wet?” I washed it, then peeled the top layer off of it, sliced it and threw it in the frying pan and when it was mooshed in with the other ingredients I was eating that meal I didn’t notice it all that much.

My lesson from this was that it may be gross but it can be washed and salvaged.

However, the next day I went and grabbed another mushroom and it was even wetter, ugh. I washed it, and peeled it and well, there’s no nice way to say this, it had died a tragic, liquidy death, it just couldn’t be salvaged. It was gone.

Well ok, not gone gone since it was in my hand, but gone as in it wasn’t going to fulfill it’s life purpose which was to be eaten and provide nutrients to someone’s body.

I couldn’t even slice that thing, it just fell apart in my hand.

So my new lesson was: Don’t ever put mushrooms in a plastic bag, you will regret it!

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A Delayed Dinner

29 Apr

You know when you wait too long to eat and you are no longer hungry but you know you have to eat? Yeah, sigh, that was me this evening.

I went for a nice long walk (4.94 miles or 7.95 km) and when I got home I decided instead of showering, doing my hair, picking out a semi-decent outfit and running out to take care of a quick errand I’d just go in my workout clothes, that way I could keep my baseball cap on and since it had been raining while I’d been outside I just looked damp, not sweaty. Well, after the errand I got back to my place, showered, got in to comfy clothes, threw a load of clothes in the wash and realized I had missed my “hungry time” and was no longer wanting any food. I was super tired though, which I was attributing to the lack of food in my system. Crap. I hate eating when I don’t feel hungry, ugh.

I figured if I made something yummy it’d waken up my tummy so I popped some salmon in the oven and got to work building a salad to put the salmon on top of. I figure it’s almost May, break out the summer salads! 🙂

Well yeah, my plan failed, lol, I get the meal ready and am staring at it like it is something disgusting instead of something that’ll taste good. Stupid stomach. Obviously I ate it, I knew my body needed the fuel but there was not as much enjoyment out of the meal as there should have been. Also, by the time I was done eating I felt so overly full, even though it was a normal sized salad, that I sat on my living room chair and actually groaned. Groaned! From too much food, that is so not my style lol 😛

I found some snap peas in the grocery store the other day that are a “complete kit”, it is already washed snap peas with a little package of peanut sauce and a second little package of sesame seeds. According to the instructions on the bag you can either eat the snap peas hot or cold, well, duh lol. I opted to heat up the snap peas and use some of them as topping on the salad, the rest I put in the fridge and will eat tomorrow.

I bought them cause they were on sale lol

I bought them cause they were on sale lol

Second from the top layer of the salad

Second from the top layer of the salad

Underneath the snap peas there was half an avocado (sliced), yellow pepper (diced), mixed raw veggies (corn, carrot and beans), pumpkin seeds, and mixed greens. Everything except the snap peas and avocado had been mixed with a small amount of light ranch dressing. The snap peas had the peanut sauce and sesame seeds on them and then for the final touch I put the salmon on top.

The final product!

The final product!

I know the salmon looks a little suspect but I promise it tasted good! It is from M&M Meat Shops, you can buy these great salmon steaks individually packaged and they come with a variety of sauces, this one was herb & garlic. The reason the salmon is cut in half is because when I took it out of the oven at the 17 minute mark, when the packaging said it would be done, it was so obviously not cooked that I cut it in half and put it back in the oven. I am always paranoid about not cooking my meat or seafood properly and giving myself food poisoning so I’d rather cut something in half so I can be sure it is cooked and risk my meal not looking pretty if it means I can feel safe putting the food in my mouth lol 😛

Despite the random combination of flavours (the fish being herb & garlic, the snap peas being coated in peanut sauce and the rest of the salad being tossed in a small amount of ranch dressing) everything gelled quite nicely and tasted good. 🙂 …trust me, I wouldn’t have shown it to you if it didn’t lol

I was shocked at how filling it was, I mean c’mon, it is salad! *rolls eyes* but there ya have it, the salad that made me groan because I was so full after eating it. I didn’t even have room for dessert, and that’s just crazy talk! 😉

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Surprise Care Package

28 Apr

When I got home the other day I had a surprise waiting at my front door, a package that came all the way from across the pond – fyi, that means  England! 🙂

It is from my Uncle and contained an Easter card and some yummy goodies.

Mmm!

Mmm!

The small red package at the front is a Maltesers Bunny which I have to say is one of the best Easter goodies I have seen this year lol It is basically a large Maltesers and since those are one of my fave treats well, let’s just say good choice Uncle P! 🙂

Oh, and I love that the Jelly Babies became Jelly Bunnies, hey, don’t judge, its cute! 😛

It’s always nice to get something in the mail, to be reminded that someone out there, at some point was thinking about you and put the time and effort in to sending you something to let you know that they care. So many people only send emails or texts nowadays, its depressing. I love getting stuff in the mail, and I love sending stuff, imagining friends or family opening a card or a small package and smiling because who doesn’t automatically smile when opening up something they got in the mail that isn’t a bill?

I could get all moody and ranty and start on about why don’t more people send more things through the mail but instead I’ll enjoy glancing over and seeing the Easter card sitting on display and knowing that each time I eat one of those goodies I am eating something that was sent to me with love. 🙂

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A Green Smoothie Challenge

17 Apr

Last week a friend of mine suggested we try a green smoothie challenge she found online. You can sign up for free, every week you get sent an email with 5 new green smoothie recipes and a shopping list. The smoothies aren’t meant to be meal replacements, although you can add things to them to make them more substantial if you want them to be. The smoothies aren’t meant to be part of a cleanse or weight loss gimmick or anything like that. The point of the smoothie is to get more veggies and fruit in to your body in a healthy and tasty way.

I like 30 day challenges, I don’t know why but I do lol 🙂 I especially like 30 day challenges that don’t cost me money so I signed up!

We came in to the challenge late so we won’t get all the recipes which initially I thought was too bad; since I’ve received two weeks of recipes I don’t feel so bad about this anymore.

These smoothie recipes are not all that great. Between the two of us we’ve tried 4 recipes (I think) and none of them have impressed us. For liquid they use a lot of water, or coconut water, which means the smoothie turns out liquidy not thick, plus, some of the ingredient combos result in really bland smoothies. It’s not like I was expecting the most amazing tasting smoothies in the world or anything but I’ve come up with better tasting smoothies on my own which is fairly pathetic when you think about my lack of ability in the kitchen lol 😛

One thing most of the recipes have in common is the ratio of fruit to veggie to liquid. Most of the recipes favour a 3:2:2 ratio. For example, one of the recipes has:

2 cups fresh spinach

2 cups water

2 cups cherries, pitted

1 banana

Now just swap out the spinach for kale and the cherries for a different fruit and you’ve basically got another of their recipes. In case the ratio thing isn’t clear, there are 3 cups fruit, 2 cups veggie, 2 cups liquid…yes I am counting the banana as a cup because it makes my life easier to do so lol

So yeah, it’s not going great in the enjoyment-of-smoothie part of the challenge but it is going great in the I’ve-had-a-smoothie-every-day-since-we-started part of the challenge.

Both of us have decided to not follow the supplied recipes any longer. We got our second week of recipes on Thursday and ugh, they do not look good. One thing I learned from one of the recipes I tried from the first batch of recipes we received was I very much do not like oranges in my smoothies. I hate pulp. Pulp is oh so gross. The recipe had 2 oranges in it. I didn’t think much of it, figured the blender would smooth out the pulp but nope, it didn’t. With every mouthful of smoothie I was pulling pulp out of my mouth, ugh, how do people stand that stuff?? Blech! The only ok part with that smoothie was it used almond milk so it wasn’t as liquidy as some of the other recipes. Pulp combined with a runny smoothie might have been too much to handle *shakes head*. 😉

Something I do like about the recipes are the size. They purposefully make the recipes large enough you are making two servings of smoothie. On the website they say they do that so you can “share the smoothie love”, basically they are trying to get you to convert other people to the way of the smoothie but if you want you can just put one portion in an air tight container and store it in the fridge for the next day, which is exactly what I have been doing. So far I am loving that part most of all! Two smoothies out of one smoothie making session, nothing a lazy person likes better than a two for one lol

Of the recipes I have tried I have yet to see an actual green smoothie. I followed the recipes as they are written and this is the colour of my first green smoothie…

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In case you can’t tell on your monitor the smoothie is purple. Purple! Not green. It has 2 cups of kale in it which you can’t tell from looking at it. It also has 2 oranges, one cup of blueberries, 2 bananas and 1 cup almond milk. It has a sickeningly sweet taste to it due to the oranges (I think) and lots of pulp. Never again will this smoothie be made by me, nuh-uh.

I am going to stick with the challenge, just tweak it a bit so it isn’t disgusting lol. I will use the same ratio of fruit to veggie to liquid but I will use combinations of fruit and veggie and liquid that I choose, not some random recipe some person I’ve never met says is good.

I’m treating the smoothies like the meals I have been trying to make, following guidelines that have been explained to me so I know what I am making is healthy but experimenting with flavours so I find enjoyment in what I create and eat. Hopefully it works! 🙂

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Two Meals One Kitchen Session

16 Apr

Last week I bought some pulled chicken. Now, a chef friend of mine says there is no such thing as “pulled chicken” but like I am going to argue with the packaging? Pfft, don’t think so! The first meal I made with it I kept the chicken chilled and unsauced (yes, I know that isn’t actually a word lol) but I thought I’d try to be a tad creative with it and so my second meal went something like this…

I put some of the chicken in a frying pan with BBQ sauce on a low heat to warm up the chicken, making sure to stir it around a lot so each piece was evenly coated. In a second frying pan I heated up some frozen veggies, the ones I used are from a huge bag I bought at Costco and are “stir fry veggies”, so mostly a combo of broccoli, carrots, snap peas, water chestnuts, baby corn and some other stuff I can’t recall at the moment. While the chicken was warming and the veggies were cooking I threw a couple handfuls of stir fry noodles in to boiling water and let them cook for 2 minutes. Once all three items were properly cooked I loaded them in to a wrap along with mixed greens, chilli sauce, diced cucumbers, diced yellow pepper, sliced mushrooms, a slice of marble cheese that I tore in to small pieces and half a sliced avocado.

The result looked like this…

with the avocado...

with the avocado…

without the avocado...

without the avocado…

I figured I’d show you a picture without the avocado because you get a better view of everything else, once I put the avocado on a lot of the veggies and chicken are hidden.

I then fought valiantly to get the wrap closed and succeeded only because I had toothpicks lol 😛

took forever to close!

took forever to close!

I purposefully cooked a little extra of everything, mixed it all together, added a little extra chicken and mooshed it in to a tupperware container then threw it in the fridge. Originally I was intending to save it for the next day and make a second wrap but mild inspiration struck and I thought of something else to do with the leftovers.

I took a medium sized tupperware container, filled it with mixed greens, tossed in diced cucumber and diced yellow pepper, Then I grabbed a little container and put in some sunflower seeds, sliced almonds and dried cranberries. When I went to work the next day I took all three containers and when I had my dinner I created this wonderful looking meal…

My salad of leftovers

My salad of leftovers

Okay, granted, it doesn’t look all that great in the picture but I swear in person it looked delish aaaaand it tasted delish, bonus!. 🙂 As you can see, I put some ranch dressing on the salad. Normally if I use dressing I put it on the side and dip every second or third forkful in to the dressing but I opted for putting it on top this time to make my life easier. I don’t really get a break on my evening shift so eating becomes a speed event and taking the time to dip every second or third forkful in to the dressing is just awkward…especially since I’m not only eating super fast but usually standing, shrug.

I was really happy with how the wrap and the salad turned out. Not only did I only have to cook one time to make two meals, both meals tasted good, were different enough I didn’t feel I was eating leftovers and filled me up. Also, I think both meals can be counted as healthy, maybe? I’m never really sure but I think I followed the guidelines set out for me, there is protein, veggies and well, ok the one meal didn’t have any whole grains/wheat (the salad), but the wrap did soooo I’m gonna say I did ok. 🙂

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Some Food

9 Apr

I’ve been working on putting together actual meals and not relying on spoonfuls of peanut butter for my main source of food, lol, I laugh but I’m not really kidding…

Anyways!

I’ve been cooking, and had a decent amount of success, success in the form of I have not gotten food poisoning and I’ve liked everything I’ve been eating, so yay! 🙂

Tuesday's Breakfast/Lunch

Tuesday’s Breakfast/Lunch

The above was my breakfast/lunch from Tuesday. On my days off I almost always combine those two meals cause ya know, I’m lazy, and I’m usually not up till noon-ish and well, why not? shrug.

So I made a two egg omelette and stuffed that sucker till it was hard to fold lol I put diced yellow pepper, mixed greens, a slice of marble cheese, turkey, and some diced avocado. On the side I had some baked beans in tomato sauce. Oh, and I had some toast as well. All in all a large, slightly too large, but yummy meal. 🙂

The mixed greens I used are these…

my mixed greens

my mixed greens: kale, chard and spinach

First off, no I didn’t buy them because they are organic, I bought them because they were on sale and therefore the cheapest option lol I have no idea how to tell kale and chard apart so when I randomly pull pieces from the container to add to dishes I don’t know what I’m picking, this means I tend to attempt to get an equal number of the various looking green leaves so I get the same amount of everything…being that I’m not completely inept in the kitchen I actually know what spinach looks like, so at least I know when I’m picking that one lol 😛

On Tuesdays I have dragon boat practice in the evening, after practice I had to stop to pick up some milk and bread and somehow that simple two item grocery trip turned in to a two bag trip, how does that even happen? *rolls eyes* While I was in the store I decided I wanted to make a burger for dinner, now, I already had the burger patty but no buns cause usually I just cook the patty, put some cheese on it, and eat it with a knife and fork. It’s not at satisfying but it is healthier so I suffer the horrors of a naked burger patty, or rather the burger patty suffers that horrible fate. Well, that evening I decided I’d buy a bun and make it a “real burger”. Once I picked the bun I figured I should go all out so I bought a couple other things to slap on to my creation, nothing crazy, just normal yummy burger toppings that I didn’t have.

In the end I had this lovely dinner…

My oh so lovely burger

My oh so lovely burger from Tuesday night

Ok, granted it doesn’t look like much but its whats inside that counts! There is the standard ketchup and mustard, I also added a smoked chilli deli sauce for a little kick, a slice of havarti cheese with jalapenos in it (fyi, I looooove that cheese lol), there was also sauteed mushrooms, the mixed greens again and thinly sliced tomato. On the side, as you can see, was sauteed yellow pepper and asparagus. The asparagus is cut up because I was using a small pan and it fit better that way lol

It was a messy, tasty, hit-the-spot, kind of meal. 🙂

And bonus, I cooked beef and didn’t kill myself! booya! 😉

The smoked chilli deli sauce I used is this…

The smoked chilli deli sauce from Weight Watchers, one of my faves!

The smoked chilli deli sauce from Weight Watchers, one of my faves!

It is from Weight Watchers and is da bomb! I put it on so many different things, its delish! 🙂 The only downside is I can’t buy it in Canada, laaaame! But lucky for me I have awesome cousins in England and they send me some when I run out and I beg and pester them. 😉

Then Wednesday for my combo breakfast/lunch I made a tortilla wrap. I found something new at Safeway the night prior, pulled chicken, I think its one of their rotisserie chickens that they shredded, least, it was in that area. So in the wrap I put 1 tablespoon of light ranch dressing, cheese, diced yellow pepper, sliced mushrooms, mixed greens, diced avocado, salsa and the chicken. I toyed with the idea of warming up the chicken but decided against it, mostly out of laziness.

2015-04-08 14.19.12

2015-04-08 14.20.50Some helpful tips from me to you:

(1) When I buy a pepper, the first time I pull it out of the fridge to use I dice 1/4 of it and store it in the fridge, the rest I slice in to large pieces, remove the seeds and store that in a separate container in the fridge. That way when I’m putting something together if I think “oh pepper might be nice in this” it is easy to grab and add to whatever I’m making.

(2) I like putting the dressing, in the above case it was ranch, on the wrap first unlike how restaurants like to put it on last, this way I use less and I’m guaranteed to have the flavour in every bite.

Dinner on Wednesday I heated up a delicious soup from Campbell’s called Tomato Basil Bisque, it is part of their “Everyday Gourmet” product line and I love it. 🙂

Mmm Mmm Good!

Mmm Mmm Good!

With it I had two dinner buns, I know, I know! I’m not supposed to be eating white foods but I am a sucker for these dinner buns and they go great with soup and well, I’ll never cut them out completely so there! 😛

But instead of just slathering the buns with margarine I took one of the dinner buns, put some miracle whip, some mustard (both in super small amounts!), mixed greens (starting to see a trend with those mixed greens? lol), a small amount of cheese and some sliced turkey. Basically, I made a dinner bun sandwich to go with my soup.

Wednesday's Dinner

Wednesday’s Dinner

Ok, yes, there is a second bun on that plate that is not a healthy mini sandwich but is instead meant to be eaten as is but let’s not dwell on that..instead, dwell on the rest of the meal! lol

So there we have it, my food from the past couple of days, all tasty, all made by me, all eaten with no side effects…other than making my tummy full that is lol 😉 None of it is hard to make and I tried my best to get a combination of protein, veg or fruit and whole grains in every meal, it doesn’t always happen (like the white bun incident) but for the most part I think I did ok and hey, I’ll keep working at it and I’ll get better, just gimme some time! 🙂

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A Little Decomp?

8 Apr

First things first, you need to know the layout of part of where I live. I am in a basement suite within a house, when I leave my suite I am in a hallway, go to the right I end up in the laundry room, go to the left I am at the door to the wooooorld!…well, the backyard, but hey, it’s part of the world! 😉 lol

About a week ago when I came home I came through the door from the outside to the hallway and was struck by an unpleasant odour. It was faint but definitely there and I had no idea what it was. I wondered if the landlords (who live upstairs) cooked something that went horribly wrong and the scent made its way downstairs but other than that didn’t give it too much thought. I figured it’d be gone by the next day so no biggie.

Ha!

The next day it was still there, only stronger. The smell didn’t reach in to my suite, thank goodness, and it wasn’t in the laundry room, just the hallway. On the other side of the outer wall is where the garbage can and compost can are kept so I thought maybe its that and somehow the smell is getting inside but when I went outside I was greeted with the smell of fresh air, not the stench from the hallway. Well, what the hell…where is it coming from? I poked around the hallway a bit, moving shoes and random bits and pieces around thinking maybe food spilled and was going bad and if it was me that spilled it I’d better find it before my landlords did! Didn’t find a thing, except for a lot of dust, hey, neat freaks we are not, don’t judge! 😛 lol

Well, the landlords came home yesterday and today I ran in to one of them so we were chatting and the hallway smell came up in conversation. He had the door to the outside open to air the hallway out. Turns out the joke I made yesterday to a friend about something decomposing was the truth, ugh. A mouse got in to the wall, died, and is now in the process of decomposing and the oh-so-lovely smell is that…the smell of death when it isn’t buried.

dead mouse

Note to self: if I ever kill someone, bury them! 😉

So you’d think because of the open door for most of the day the smell would have at least faded a teeny tiny bit right? Well, wrong! I got home around 9pm and it was worse…Worse!! How that is even possible I do not know but oh man, it is so much more potent now, aaaaaaand it has spread so the laundry room reeks. *gag* I really hope it doesn’t spread in to my suite…

My landlord said this happened one other time, a mouse crawled in to the heating duct and died right near the vent so he had to take out a huge chunk of the heating duct because apparently the smell doesn’t come out of metal. He started talking about how the juices spread and lemme tell ya, all kinds of visuals popped in to my head, none of them pleasant!

Thing is, I am so sympathetic to all animals, well, not spiders but c’mon, they are creepy! that I feel really bad for this poor dead mouse. I keep thinking of this little mouse, thinking it has found a safe place and then falling down in to the deep dark depths of the wall, maybe it got hurt when it fell, maybe not, but either way it is stuck down there, unable to get back up cause it can’t climb the wall, slowly starving to death, being able to smell the food I’ve been cooking in my suite, thinking about all his mouse buddies who are wondering where he got off to, then being so desperate for food he starts gnawing at the wall only to get wall splinters in his stomach that make him hurt, maybe even slowly hemorrhage, until eventually he dies a horrible lonely scared death. Nobody deserves a death like that, poor little mouse. 😦

So yeah, I’m feeling bad for the mouse, cause that’s how I roll. But at the same time I’m really not enjoying the smell that I encounter every time I go in to the hallway and laundry room and even though its not the little mouse’s fault I really wish he could have not gotten caught in the wall of this particular house and brought this smell in to my life. Which is awfully selfish of me…sigh…

In case you are wondering, the landlord says there is nothing he can do, we have to “wait it out” which I guess is code for “wait till the maggots eat the flesh and juices from the corpse and there is nothing left to create a smell”.

Lovely.

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