Try It Tuesday:Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

14 Jun

So obviously this isn’t the first time I have eaten Strawberry Rhubarb pie, it is just the first time I have eaten this particular pie. It is from M&M Meat Shops and currently costs $9.99. If I remember correctly mine was on sale so it cost a bit less, who doesn’t like a sale? 😉

First off, the finished product does not look nearly as good as the one on the package, the filling doesn’t hold its shape nearly that well. The filling is less chunky and more pureed, if that makes any sense? There is a lattice topping with the pastry but it is pretty lackluster, I mean c’mon, not like it is that hard to make the pie look pretty, this just looked lazy. Or maybe I am too harsh about the presentation of pies, meh, who knows? lol

To bake it you bring your oven to 350C, take the plastic wrapping off the pie, put the pie on a cookie sheet and pop it in to the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, then take it out and let it sit for 20 minutes. I am not certain why it needs such a long cooling down period, maybe they are worried about people being burned? lol Nah. I think it is most likely to give the filling time to solidify enough that it doesn’t completely ooze out when you cut a slice.

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frozen still wrapped in plastic

 

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fresh from the oven

The flavour was nice, had a stronger strawberry flavour than rhubarb and the strawberry seemed to more closely resemble jam rather than freshly chopped strawberries. Hell, I would have settled for frozen strawberries, thawed and cut, before being put in the filling but I guess I am asking too much from a commercially mass produced pie.

Even with the 20 minute cooling off period the pie was still warm-ish so I topped my piece with some ice cream and settled down to enjoy. 🙂

It’s not that it wasn’t an okay pie, but I wouldn’t really recommend paying the ten bucks for it when you can find a better quality pie at a bakery or one of those stands that pop up with fresh home made pies for sale at completely reasonable prices. Or hell, you could always make one. Not to boast but I have made a better strawberry rhubarb pie from scratch wiiiiiith a more complex lattice top and if I can do it so can you!

In a pinch I guess it will suffice but you can find better so my advice to you is to keep searching! 🙂

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Cat vs Human

9 Jun

A month or so ago the awesome cat I live with was puking every single day. Being a cat he didn’t choose to puke on the linoleum floor, nooooo, he chose to puke on the carpet putting my chances of getting my damage deposit back when we move in jeopardy. Oh, and on my bed, nothing like coming home at 10pm after work to find yourself having to do a load of laundry because your bedding has the contents of the cat’s stomach on it.

Don’t get me wrong, I felt bad for the cat, it sucks he was feeling so sickly he was throwing up daily but c’mon, the carpet? Whyyyyyy??

Neither of us like his current vet, she is mean and a pill pusher, and we haven’t found a new vet yet so I did what any sane person would do, I googled reasons my cat was puking daily.

The main result I found led back to his food. Apparently a cat can develop an allergy to their food and the lower quality the food the higher the chance they will develop an allergy or sensitivity. The recommendations for this problem is to swap the cat to a higher quality food but cats being cats you can’t just put some new food in front of them and expect them to eat it. Heaven forbid!

Cats tend to be picky about their food and this little guy is a champ at hunger strikes. If he is very unhappy, like the one time I boarded him while I was away, or he is travelling, or I try him with a new food, he just doesn’t eat. And I don’t mean he nibbles a bit but doesn’t take in enough to count as a meal, I mean he doesn’t eat. Anything. For days. Sometimes even weeks. It is ridiculous. He really is the example all the articles talk about of a cat who will starve himself to death rather than eat a new food he doesn’t like. How he knows he won’t like it if he doesn’t try it I don’t know but my pointing that out to him did not result in him being willing to try a bite, it just resulted in a sad kitty face and a meow. sigh.

More research taught me that I have to slooooowly switch his food over to a new kind. This involves putting a ratio of food in to the bowl that is 4 parts his preferred food and 1 part the new food. Over the span of a week gradually change the portions so eventually he is eating all new food and the original food is a thing of the past. The article said it should take a week but for some particularly picky cats it could take up to a month. I knew before even starting this wasn’t going to be easy and he’d take the month rather than the week. At this point I think it may take us all summer!

I did what the article suggested, a tiny amount of the new food mixed in with the old and it seemed ok. The cat ate, he didn’t look offended or shocked and he didn’t swear at me or try to kill me in my sleep: Point human!

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Look at those claws! Deadly weapons!

Over the next couple days I slowly added more of the new food and slowly decreased the old food.

The cat caught on.

Crap.

This resulted in his being picky about which pieces of food he put in his mouth. At the end of a day the only food left in his bowl was the new kibble, the old kibble was eaten. Sooooo I’d say that means: Point cat!

I didn’t back down though! I stayed at the same ratio and kept giving him a mixture, hoping he’d cave and eventually start eating the new stuff. At this point I am fairly certain he eats some of the new stuff but at the end of every day the only food left in the bowl is the new kibble and he won’t touch his food once it is only the new kibble in the bowl. sigh.

So now we are fully in the battle. I won’t back down and give him only the food he wants. He won’t back down and eat the new stuff in large enough quantities that he won’t starve to death.

Stalemate.

The only upside is he has stopped being sick. I guess he is eating enough of the new stuff, or maybe it is just that he is eating less of the old stuff, that his stomach is happy again. I think that is Point human and Point cat because it is a good thing for both of us.

The old food – apparently it is the McDonald’s of cat food, who knew?
The new food, supposedly better for the cat but only if I can get him to eat it!

In case you are wondering what foods I am talking about. Purina One smartblend for indoor cats is the food the cat has always eaten. After researching I learned it is basically the McDonald’s of cat food, who knew? The Hill’s Science Diet is theoretically better for the cat…assuming I can get him to eat it that is! Won’t do me much good if he keeps snubbing it, sigh.

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Try It Tuesday:Ancient Grains with Millet

7 Jun

I found something new at M&M Meat Shops, well new to me anyways, people who shop there often probably found this ages ago. It is a two serving dish of Ancient Grains with Millet and Vegetable Blend in Tomato Sauce…long enough name? Eesh. lol

It is a microwaveable dish, you just put this frozen squat tube shaped thing that doesn’t really look like food in the microwave and cook it on high for 3 minutes, then you squish it around with a spoon, microwave for 2 more minutes, stir, and let sit for 2 minutes. Easy peasy.

It costs $2.99 and contains millet, steel-cut oats, brown rice, red and white quinoa with carrots, kale and onions in a tomato and roasted garlic sauce.

I bought this before I went low carb so it has been sitting in my freezer for a little while. I wasn’t feeling great today, not sick, just sorta “off” and I couldn’t face my normal food, all that protein, ugh, not today thanks. So I went searching for something that would most likely be gentle on my tummy and came across this.

I forgot to take a pic to show you the unattractive frozen blob it is prior to being popped in the microwave so here it is after the first 3 minutes…

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Aaaaaaand here it is once it is cooked and covered in salsa…

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Now yes, I realize I should have taken a picture before the salsa got put on top so you can see how it actually looks but I was only intending to put a small amount of salsa on so it shouldn’t have been a problem. However, I maaaay have gotten distracted and tilted the salsa jar too far and boom! salsa all over the ancient grains and millet hence ancient grains with millet and vegetable blend in tomato sauce covered in salsa…its like my own version of the dish! lol

It is quite bland, so the salsa made it tasty, you definitely need to put some sort of sauce or topping on this.

Nutrition wise it isn’t horrible but it isn’t great. Depending on what type of meal plan you follow this may or may not work for you. I would have expected it to have a higher fibre content considering all the grains and oats and whatnot that is in it but what do I know? I expected it to have an actual tomato sauce and it didn’t have that…advertising lies! 😉

If you are okay with eating carbs and want to add some grains to your meal plan it would probably be a good side for you, I bet it would be nice paired with some salmon or even a seasoned chicken breast. 🙂 For me though I probably won’t buy it again, too many carbs, not enough protein, and too bland for my taste. Not that I mind adding salsa or other condiments to things but I would prefer not to so I can save my calories for something more interesting…like cake! lol 😉

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Chia Seeds

3 Jun

I’ve been wanting to make those overnight oatmeal recipes in a jar for ages now but all the recipes for them seem to contain Chia Seeds and I (1) had no idea what that was, (2) figured they were ridiculously priced as all weird fad foods seem to be and (3) wasn’t willing to shell out a lot of money for something that I might hate…I learned that lesson the hard way with Flax Seed, ugh.

But then I came across this…

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Yoghurt mixed with oats and chia seeds, oh and raspberry, can’t go wrong with raspberry! 🙂 It is over priced considering the size, almost $4 for that little thing, but I thought it was a safer way to try chia seeds than buying an entire bag and being stuck with them if I hated them. Turns out this little yoghurt thing is freakin delicious! It has yoghurt but isn’t the texture of yoghurt due to the chia seeds and oats, it is thicker, and while you don’t need to chew the oats or chia seeds you still feel like you actually ate something substantial vs slurped down some simple yoghurt. But still, too much money for me to want to buy them all the time, shrug.

Which of course means I am trying to make my own…and so far have failed miserably lol I can’t get quite the same consistency in mine but that isn’t to say my concoction is bad.

In the evening I combine:

  • 1/3 Cup almond milk
  • 1/4 Cup Greek Yoghurt
  • 1/4 Cup oats
  • 2 tsp chia seeds
  • 2 tsp honey
  • dash of cinnamon
  • fresh or frozen fruit

All but the fruit gets put in to a jam jar or tupperware or whatever you have, mix it all up, then throw the fruit in. I toss in some frozen fruit because well, that is what I buy, lol, but you can use fresh also. Put the lid on and toss it in the fridge. By morning the chia seeds and oats are soft, it has thickened up a bit and magically turned in to something tasty that looks like this…

Granted, not the prettiest colour but whatever, get over it, it tastes good and is decently healthy lol 😛

When I started researching chia seeds the very first article I clicked on started out with blasting in large font about how chia seeds are a super food whiiiich instantly turned me off. Any food that gets paraded out as a “super food” and the next “it” thing to be eaten I automatically want nothing to do with. What can I say, I am a bit odd like that, but despite that annoying article I persevered and found some good reasons to try the little guys out.

(1)  A 1 ounce (28 grams or 2 tablespoons) serving of chia seeds contains

  • 11 grams of Fiber
  • 4 grams of Protein
  • 9 grams of Fat (5 of which are Omega 3’s)
  • 137 calories
  • there is also a decent percentage of your daily Calcium, Manganese, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Zinc, Vitamin B3, Potassium, Vitamin B1 and Vitamin B2

(2) Chia seeds are high in antioxidants

(3) Almost all the carbs in Chia seeds are from fibre making Chia seeds a low carb friend

(4) Chia seeds are high in quality protein

(5) Chia seeds are high in many nutrients that are important for bone health

(6) This is something I can’t find scientific research for but many sites claim Chia seeds will aid in weight loss because they expand when exposed to liquid so they help keep you fuller longer thereby decreasing your desire to snack or have your next meal early. I have noticed when I have my little concoction for brekkie at work I’m usually good until lunch time and skipping that mid morning snack comes in handy during a busy day at work. Weight loss though, I can’t say that has happened since I added them to my meal plan, shrug.

Because I liked the little yoghurt cup thing I bought a bag of Chia Seeds from Superstore, all the options they had are organic, which is annoying as I try to avoid foods labelled organic but oh well. One bag cost me $7 which was less than what I was expecting and I am eating them often enough I don’t feel the bag was a wasted food investment. I am considering upping the amount of chia seeds in my yoghurt concoction to get more of the health benefits since I currently only put in 2 teaspoons and 2 tablespoons seems to be the standard daily portion. I think that will mean upping the other ingredients so as to not have it be too thick, not sure though, so I’ll do some experimenting with that and see what happens.

If you are thinking of trying chia seeds, well, ultimately the decision is up to you but I’d say go for it, it can’t do any harm and just might do you some good. Just don’t be like the idiot who swallowed a spoonful of them then drank some water and ended up choking because the seeds expanded so quickly they blocked his esophagus. Seriously, what is with some people? *rolls eyes* And before you freak out about me being soooo callous, the guy is fine, docs saved him.

 

 

One of the sites I got my nutritional information about the Chia Seeds from:

https://authoritynutrition.com/11-proven-health-benefits-of-chia-seeds/

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My Coach Experience Part 2

2 Jun

After I wrote a post a week or so ago about my horrible experience shopping with Coach via their customer service line I did something I have never done, I emailed the company and in my email I added the link to the post I had written.

If ever I needed proof the written word can at times have power, that did it, because in less than 24 hours I had a voicemail from a gentleman at Coach wanting to talk to me about my shopping experience.

Go fig.

We played phone tag for a couple days but did eventually manage to speak on the phone. He wanted some more details about what happened. He explained why it happened, then said that is no excuse and they are looking in to things, and apologized. He also said they were refunding the entire cost of the bracelet and that refund should show up on my credit card within the next 3 days.

Pretty awesome, am I right?

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I really didn’t expect them to do anything, let alone respond to my email with anything more than an email saying we got your complaint and am forwarding it on to the appropriate department so I was impressed with the speed at which they phoned me. I was even more impressed with the refund.

Apparently, if you call Coach after business hours the call doesn’t go to the Coach call centre it goes to a call centre that they outsource to. My guess is it is cheaper to outsource evening and overnight calls to people not working at Coach because then they don’t have to worry about things like benefits, and handling such a large work force etc. Oh, and in case you were wondering, no they aren’t outsourced to a call centre outside of America, I was talking to Americans every time I phoned, so don’t even try to climb on to that soap box about outsourcing cause it won’t fly with this incident. 😉

But yeah, they outsource and the gentlemen I spoke to said that even though it is not Coach employees handling the evening phone calls they are still held to certain standards and the other company had been contacted so the phone call could be pulled and listened to and the employee dealt with. Which sounds ominous but I’m sure will result in nothing more than a quick “mute the phone so customers don’t hear you yawn” comment on her next evaluation, shrug. Can’t be expecting miracles lol

So yeah, I thought I would update all of you and let you know that while my shopping experience with Coach was horrible, the follow up and fixing of the problem was handled with speed, manners, and generosity. Oh, and a compliment! The gentleman I spoke to apparently actually read my post and said I write quite well…probably something that given the circumstances didn’t make him all that happy lol 😛

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My Missing Books

1 Jun

Oh geez. I have not had the best luck with online shopping lately, which surprises me because I prefer to shop online and usually it goes smoothly. But alas, I suppose I was due for some bad luck with online shopping, keeping the scales balanced an all that.

I ordered a book from Chapters online, it is for my dad as a super late birthday present and I ended up buying a book for myself because as the online checkout pointed out I only had to spend $8 more to get free shipping and hey, isn’t spending $15 more and getting a book a better deal than spending that money on shipping? 😉 Gotta love a book lovers logic!

So yeah, I ordered the books, knew they were due at my place around the end of the month and impatiently waited the delivery. I got home Monday and saw the cardboard box that is what Chapter’s books always come in but the entire box was inside a plastic bag from Canada Post.

It looked like this…

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Now, the writing on the Canada Post plastic bag mentioned my package was found damaged in the mail system…it wasn’t damaged, it was empty! The books were gone! The box was in perfect condition, except for the whole nothing-inside-the-box issue. I was momentarily rendered speechless, I mean c’mon, I went from excitement that the books had arrived to shock that the box was empty to freaking out about where the hell the books were.

I called Canada Post and got left waiting since they were experiencing “higher than normal call volumes”, a claim I never ever believe lol The automated system eventually prompted me through a bunch of menus and one of them was selecting an option for a damaged parcel. As soon as I selected that option the automated voice informed me that only the sender can open a claim if a parcel is damaged, sigh. Instead of waiting for a person who would most likely tell me the same thing as the machine I hung up and called Chapters and got the most helpful person! 🙂

Apparently because the parcels they mail go out in bulk some of the boxes sometimes end up getting opened because the glue isn’t quite dried and the boxes rub against each other and that ends up opening the seal.

All I did was explain I got the parcel but it was empty and boom! She made a duplicate order and sent out the same two books at rush delivery, no cost to me. Yay! In case you were wondering I did have the option to get a refund but why would I do that when I still wanted the books? lol Oh, and in true Canadian fashion the lady who helped me apologized multiple times even though it wasn’t her fault – customer service skills people! 🙂

The problem was solved so quickly it barely caused me any stress but I do feel badly for the two lost books. Out there, alone, exposed to who knows what kind of elements, its sad and I hope the books find a good owner who takes good care of them. Which yes, I know, makes me sound crazy but hey, no judging! I take excellent care of my books and for all I know those two books are in the care of someone who is folding down the pages, or bending the covers, or letting them get wet! *fans face* I have to stop thinking of the horrible possibilities lest I faint! 😉

 

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Glucosamine – The Pill Of Almost Death

25 May

Ever try to swallow a pill and it just won’t go down your throat so you keep trying but with every new swig of water the pill starts to disintegrate a tad bit more and taste worse and worse but finally you swallow it but it feels like it is stuck in your throat so you try to swallow more water and you have a brief moment of panic when you realize the only one around you if you fall to the floor choking on the stupid pill is the cat and he won’t exactly call for help so by the time someone finds your body the cat will have nibbled on it and you’re in your pj’s, not an outfit you want to die in, and you haven’t done dishes in two days or vacuumed in longer and this is not the state you want your apartment to be in when someone discovers your body so you swear if only this pill will go down and you don’t die you will do a full apartment cleaning and then poof, the pill goes down, imminent death is no longer imminent and all of a sudden you find lots of reasons to not clean the apartment and instead you make a cup of tea and start blogging about how you almost died while trying to be more healthy?

No? Just me then? Alright.

choking

A friend told me about Glucosamine, it is supposed to help with joint pain. I can’t say for sure that it works because I keep having issues with the swallowing of the pills, sigh. A couple of times the pill has ended up in the garbage cause getting it down to my tummy just isn’t happenin. Other times it goes down fine. Then there are the times I think I am going to choke to death and I curse my living alone status.

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I have to take it three times a day for a month before noticing it working…I figure with the decreased amount of pills I am managing to swallow a day it’ll probably take me around two months or so to notice anything.

I’ll let ya know if they work! 🙂

 

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My Coach Experience

24 May

Oh boy, talk about an online shopping experience taking up way too much of my time and energy *rolls eyes*

Let’s start at the beginning shall we?…you might want to get a fresh cup of tea for this…

I saw an item that I wanted to get for my friend for her birthday, it is from Coach and was only available on the website so I decided screw the horrible exchange rate, I’m buying it. Now, I am weak and saw a bracelet I loved and on a whim decided to tack that on to the order also. The website wouldn’t accept my delivery address postal code for some reason so I called in, explained I was having issues with the website, and asked if I could place the order over the phone. The lady said yup.

That has got to be one of the worst customer service phone calls I have ever had…

She kept yawning while talking, and muttering about her computer not working so she’ll just leave a note for someone about that, she took forever, at one point she did something that wiped all the information she’d already put in so we had to start over. I don’t know if she is new or Coach just has horrible training for their call centre employees or what but eesh! Then she tells me the bracelet I want is out of stock, but it is clearly showing on the website as being available. I asked if it was possible the one the website was showing was in my “shopping basket” was the last one and should I close the tab so it cancels the online order I had been trying to place to free it up and she said I could try, so I did, and after she did something on her end she said she had the bracelet on my order. So okay, it took forever, she was horrible at her job, but I got both items ordered, had to pay through the nose for shipping, was told I would have the items in 3-5 business days and voila, shopping done!

I was told I couldn’t get the tracking number yet because it isn’t generated by the system until the items are removed from the warehouse but if I want to call back the next day I can get the tracking number then. Seems fair.

I called the next day, explained I was just wanting the tracking number, the lady I spoke with (different lady than the original call) pulled up my order and said it was showing as “pending” and she had no idea why it wasn’t processed yet and I had to call back during regular business hours because there is nobody there in the evenings who can check on that for me.

Annoying, and concerning, why is it pending? She has noooooo idea, and didn’t really seem to care, so fine whatever, I’ll call back tomorrow.

I call back the next day and get my first nice Coach customer service person! I told her the order was showing as pending and I was wondering what was wrong with it blah blah blah, she pulls it up, says it has processed through and there is a tracking number now. She doesn’t know why it took longer than normal to process but it is on its way. Yay!

I wait about a week and go online to check the tracking (it is with DHL) because the package hasn’t shown up yet and I’m wondering where it is.

DHL shows there is a problem with the delivery address and they have been trying to reach me and are now waiting for the customer to contact them.

What the hell? Nobody tried to reach me! And what address problem? So I call DHL to find out what is wrong and they said (1) the delivery address doesn’t exist and (2) the phone number they had for me didn’t work. So we compared information and it turns out Miss. Yawning While Working wrote down the delivery address wrong, the building number is 3633 and she wrote 3622…which is not a place. Then for the phone number, the last digit in my phone number is a 7 and she put it down as an 8. Grr. So DHL had been sitting on my package for daaaaaays because of this and were at the stage where they were about to send it back to Coach. They couldn’t ship it to the correct address without Coach filing some paperwork confirming the proper address so the DHL lady suggested I come pick it up because it would be the fastest solution. Annoying, but fine. They agreed to move the package to a DHL location near me and told me that would take 24-48 hours and I should call back to confirm it had arrived at the new location in 2 days.

As soon as I was off the phone with DHL I called Coach and complained. I actually got a second nice person, she kept putting “Miss” in front of my first name and she had a slight accent and I decided I liked her lol She took a look at the order, listened to me bitch, stayed calm and handled things well. I pointed out I had to pay $26 American for shipping, which turned in to way more in Canadian dollars and they were waaaay past the 5 business days the package was supposed to take, all because Miss Yawning While Working was incapable of inputting simple numbers accurately. She agreed it was not acceptable and refunded me my shipping charges which I thought was fair.

48 business hours later I call DHL and my package is where it should be so I go pick it up. Finally! After 2 weeks of dealing with Coach and wondering where my over priced items are I finally have them!

Well, jokes on me! I opened the shipping box and inside are two very nicely wrapped boxes, the one with the bracelet looked like this…

Cute right? I opened it and there was this little sticker on the tissue and the bracelet itself was in a dust bag…

Then…then I opened the dust bag…and that is when the pictures stopped because they sent me the wrong freakin thing!

The bracelet comes in black or brown, I ordered black, Miss. Yawing While Working sent me brown.

This woman really needs a new job…

It may not seem like a big deal but the brown one was ugly, ugh, I wouldn’t wear that in a million years.

So once again I call Coach, I get a lady not as bad as some of the others I have spoken to but someone who definitely didn’t care about customer service, or not sounding bored out of her skull, and she said best she could do was put one on hold at a location that is semi-near me and I could go exchange them. At this point I was so done with having to deal with the call centre that I said yes.

The next day I go traipsing to the store, walk in mentally preparing for battle, and meet the two nicest people ever. There were two sales people near the door when I walked in, I explained I was there to swap a bracelet and they instantly knew who I was, called me by name, offered me water, one stayed with me to chat while the other went to get the right bracelet. They both apologized for what I had to go through with the call centre, they had nothing to do with it and yet they apologized! They printed me out a receipt for the bracelet showing Canadian dollars so if I have to bring it back I have a store receipt which will make it easier. Then the lady corrected all the address and phone number mistakes in their computer system because with all the phone calls I made to Coach’s call centre, and all the times I explained to different people there the situation, and all the different call centre reps that looked at my order, not one of them bothered to correct the shipping address information or correct the last digit of my phone number. Nice huh?

The lady at the store also told me that if there is ever an item I want on the website that isn’t in the store to tell her and she can order it in to the store, saving me from (1) dealing with that horrible call centre again (2) saving me from paying duty and (3) saving me from paying shipping. Niccccce! 🙂

Overall I am not impressed with Coach. Considering how much they charge for their items and the fact that they market themselves as a luxury goods provider, you’d think they’d have people working in the call centre that provided a higher level of customer service, and a consistent level of customer service! I called them 5 or 6 times and of those 5 or 6 times only 1 of those people was actually friendly and nice and pleasant to deal with, there was 1 other person who wasn’t bad but wasn’t amazing, just average, which is fine, and the rest of them were different levels of bad, all of them being topped by Miss. Yawning While Working.

Never again, never again will I order from their website or deal with their call centre, too much drama for moi!

Oh, in case you were wondering, this is what the correct bracelet looks like…

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It is a surprisingly hard bracelet to get a good picture of lol but trust me, it’s pretty. 🙂

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Poor Little Bee

15 May

Yesterday was race day, yay! It was the FCRCC Knockout Race which means your team races three qualifiers then you go on to the knockout round which sounds pretty much exactly like it is.

There are 7 teams in the heat, you race, the last two get knocked out, the rest of you immediately paddle back to the start line and you race again. This happens for three races in a row. The final race there are only three boats and the pressure is on!

It is soooooooo much fun! 🙂

There are no medals for this race, just bragging rights.

We earned a tad bit of bragging rights since we came in second place in B Division. Not too shabby!

However, despite a day filled with racing, and fun, and hanging with the team, and repeated sunscreen application, and the joy of not being at work on a day I normally work the one big memory that won’t leave my brain is of…*dun-dun-dun*…a bee.

Yup, that’s right, a honey bee. Ya know, those cute little guys that are integral to our ecosystem and that are dying out? Those bees.

honey bee clip art

Might as well lean back in your chair and be comfy for this…

Some of us went to McDonald’s to get drinks, hey, it’s Summer Drink Days, don’t judge! I decided to try the lemonade, which fyi, delish! I didn’t quite finish it when we had to go warm up for our next race, the Knockout round, so I left it in the cup holder in the arm of my camp chair.

When we got back after our three back-to-back races I figured take one last gulp to finish the lemonade off and throw away the cup. Seems a fairly normal decision, right?

Well, note to self, next time look in the cup, and the straw! I take my sip of drink and something solid-ish is all of a sudden in my mouth. I thought it must be a lemonade seed and was kinda surprised cause this is a McD’s drink, so, not real lemonade, right? I mean, it comes out of a machine, it is processed in some way I am sure…but maybe I am wrong and there are real lemons involved in the making of this drink…who knows!

Not wanting to swallow a seed I pop a finger and thumb in to my mouth to remove it and what do I remove but a dead honey bee.

Yup.

Let that sink in a minute. I had a honey bee in my mouth.

My. Mouth.

*shudder*

What if I had opted to chew and swallow the “seed”?? Ugh, the thought makes me cringe. (seriously, cringing right now from having written that!)

I guess the lure of the sugar in the lemonade was too much for the bee to resist and down the straw it went, where it promptly got stuck and drowned, poor little bee. And then instead of having a proper funeral, or whatever it is bees do when one of their own goes down in the line of duty, I almost ate him! Then I threw him to the ground in a silent freak out! *shakes head at self* So disrespectful.

I actually do feel kind of bad. I don’t feel bad about killing certain creepy crawlies, especially if they are in my apartment, but I try not to kill them when I am outside and in their home environment. Plus the whole endangered thing! Oh the guilt! So I’m going to take some wild flower seeds with me when I hike this Wednesday and scatter them around, maybe some of them will grow, and help out the honey bees in that area, and karma will be balanced once again…or the bees have a little bee network and they now know I was indirectly responsible for the drowning of one of their own and the desecration of his body and now I’m on the honey bee hit list…

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A Hike and A Workout

12 May

Wednesday was Day 3 of this new workout plan I am trying (you can read the deets on the plan by going back a post or two). Even though Day 3 is a body circuit day I figured that didn’t mean I couldn’t do other stuff as well, so I went for a hike. 🙂

I worked Wednesday, my normal day off, 10a-4:30p and when I was done I was sooooo close to this hike called Quarry Rock I figured I shouldn’t pass up the opportunity to go. I used to climb this particular trail on an almost weekly basis two years ago, last year I didn’t climb it as much which is unfortunate. I didn’t do as many hikes in general last year, not really sure why.

So this was my first time on the trail in a while. It has changed a bit, not in a bad way or anything, just natural changes that you will find in a forest. It is definitely showing the signs of lack of rain though, which sucks. The trail is drier, there is less green, the bridges built to get over the water aren’t really needed since there is barely any water. It is kind of sad when you think about it.

But! On the plus side I took pictures, so lets focus on those! lol

New signs have been put up, I’m thinking because of the stupid people you see on the trail wearing flip flops (not even joking!). Or I suppose they could be because some people head in to the wilderness with no idea about what they might encounter, and might not be properly prepared for the possibilities. Meh, who knows!

The next pics are views from the top…

2016-05-11 17.48.372016-05-11 17.48.442016-05-11 17.50.322016-05-11 17.47.46

Isn’t it so pretty? Makes the hike up completely worth it! 🙂

While I was sitting up there, even with my sunglasses on, it felt like the sun was searing a hole through my eyes straight to the back of my head. Poor eyeballs. 😦 So I didn’t stay up there as long as I wanted to, but I did stay up longer than I used to. When I hiked this trail on a regular basis I used to get to the top, take a quick glance, then go right back down because I was hiking the trail primarily for exercise, not to enjoy nature. This time, it was such a harder climb than it used to be for me that I decided to enjoy being at the summit.

That climb really made me realize how lazy I have been. I used to be able to hike Quarry Rock without even thinking about it, which is why it was a great hike to do at the end of a busy work day once a week. It was exercise without being extraordinarily demanding. Now? Ha! Now it is hard apparently. There were parts where the only positive thing I can say about myself is that I was still technically going forward, felt like I was moving in slow motion through molasses, but I was still moving, so that’s something…

I have decided that I will hike Quarry Rock once a week, weather permitting, for the next couple months, get back in the groove of dealing with inclines and rocky surfaces an all that.

Here are a couple pics I snapped on the way back down to show you the shape the forest is in, see what I mean about drier than normal and a little sad looking?

2016-05-11 18.07.052016-05-11 18.07.01

When I got home from the hike I immediately started on the exercises for Day 3. Each set included:

30 seconds jumping rope

15 squat jumps

10 bench dips

15 standing calf raises

20 shoulder presses

10 side lunges (each leg)

25 crunches

I had to make some modifications due to a variety of factors but I did my best to keep to the spirit of the exercise I was modifying so I’d still get the same, or at least a similar, benefit.

The exercises I modified are the jumping rope, the squat jumps and the shoulder presses.

The jumping rope I can’t do because my apartment has an extremely low ceiling, there isn’t enough clearance for the rope. Also, there isn’t enough open space for the rope when it is going around my body. So yeah, not happening. Instead I ran in place for 30 seconds, I didn’t half ass it or anything, I basically sprinted in place for the same amount of time I was supposed to be jumping rope.

As I learned on the Monday, squat jumps and my knees are just not friends. Instead I did normal squats. I didn’t realize until just now when I was re-reading the exercise list that the alternate for the squat jumps was a 30 second wall sit, oops. I’ll do that next time. I don’t think it was soooo bad that I did normal squats though…

The shoulder presses, ok, so this is a weird one. I have free weights, they are only 5lbs and 8lbs but whatever, it is a start! So I have the weights and I know how to do a shoulder press, but I can’t do them in my apartment because the ceiling is too low. I can’t raise my arms above my head when standing and straighten the elbows because I am hitting the ceiling. Instead I did a forward lunge, maintained the lunge position, and did 10 shoulder presses. Then I stepped back, did a forward lunge with the other leg, maintained the position, and did the other 10 shoulder presses. I figure it might even be better than just doing shoulder presses because I am utilizing my core more to maintain balance and using my leg muscles to ya know, stay in the lunge position.

So yeah, that was how the workout went on Wednesday. Haven’t quit the new program yet! lol 😛

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