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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Beef and Turkey Stew/Soup

11 Dec

My mom cooks great food. Growing up I didn’t appreciate it as much as I should, probably because it was just a given that there would be a good meal on the table every evening for dinner and good choices of foods for my lunch box every day. I suppose most children don’t really think about it all that much, except for when they are eating something they really don’t like or want, then all you focus on is the torture of eating something that you’d rather say no to. I was a child in the not so distant past where the rules clearly stated, you eat what is on your plate. None of this pandering to the child and making a whole new meal for them, or making multiple dishes so everyone can eat what they feel like. Nope. We ate what mom cooked, and compared to a lot of kids, we were lucky. She made food that tasted good and was healthy.

Whenever I try cooking something I try to make it taste as good as my mom would be able to. I generally fail on that lol Every now and then I request a recipe from her so I can recreate something I grew up eating and really miss.

My attempt this evening was her beef stew. Theoretically an easy dish, I say this because that is what she wrote in the email when she sent me the recipe, she said it was easy to make. While I won’t go as far as to say she lied about the easy level of making the stew, I did something wrong because while it came out ok it is not at all the way she used to make. No walk down memory lane when I eat a bowl of this, just me getting used to a new dish – which ok fine, new is good, but a little disappointing when I was hoping for a taste of home.

You start with browning the extra lean ground beef, I didn’t have the quantity her recipe called for so I combined extra lean ground beef and extra lean ground turkey. Instead of breaking up in to nice little pieces like mom’s always did my meat stayed in larger chunks, which I didn’t appreciate but didn’t know how to fix lol After the meat is brown you throw in chopped onion and let that cook while you prep the rest of your veggies.

turkey, beef and onion

turkey, beef and onion

I used quite the random assortment of veggies, basically what I had on hand and a couple things I bought yesterday specifically for this dish. I put in the remainder of a bag of mixed veggies that contained cubed carrots, peas and beans. I also chopped up some baby carrots (cause I’m not eating them fast enough and don’t want to have to throw any of them out lol). Then I threw in a mixture of frozen veggies I have that is meant for stir-fries and lastly I put in a can of sliced mushrooms, tomatoes and sliced potatoes.

look at all those veggies, Mmm!

look at all those veggies, Mmm!

Oh, I also have a beef broth in there and seasonings. I used a Knorr Beef Bouillon jiggly odd little thing that you mix in to 3 1/2 cups boiling water before you pour it in to the pot. I am trying not to think about what was actually in that jell-o like substance that was the broth cause I’m pretty sure it’s nasty lol 😛

So yeah, once all the veggies and broth and seasoning are in there I brought it to a boil, stirred it a bit then lowered the temp and let it simmer (with a lid on) for, um, a while? The instructions said to let it simmer until the veggies were cooked and I had no idea how long that would take so I did the dishes, and checked on it, and puttered in the kitchen, and checked on it, at one point it looked like this…

simmering, simmering, simmering.

simmering, simmering, simmering.

After a while it seemed like it was cooked, I tried a carrot and it was cooked all the way through so yay! I added some more spices cause it was a little bland, stirred it all together and let it sit off the heat for a bit. I was hoping the extra liquid would go away, there didn’t seem to be too much and I was worried if I left it cooking until all the liquid was gone I’d scorch the bottom. When I got myself a bowlful for dinner this is what it looked like…

the final prodcut

the final prodcut

Sooooo, not like how mom used to make lol when I called and asked her what I did wrong she said I could have left it on the heat for longer and no I wouldn’t have overcooked it, go figure! lol She also said I could add cornstarch to help thicken it but by the time I called her it was sitting in individually portioned containers so that wasn’t happening. Also, I used a different broth from what she uses so that is probably why the colour is different from hers and well, there is always the fact that I have some turkey meat in there not just beef. All in all, I guess I can’t be surprised it doesn’t taste like mom’s stew cause I had too many differences from what she does, shrug.

It is more like a meat soup than a stew, which is a little odd, but it doesn’t taste bad, shrug. It made enough for one bowlful today and 6 single serving size containers, yay!

2014-12-11 19.22.51I put all but one container in the freezer and am quite happy knowing that I have a ready to heat, healthy meal at my fingertips. 🙂

 

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Care Package From Across The Pond

6 Dec

I have awesome relatives over in England whom I adore, and not just because they send me junk food, though that does help! lol 😉

My cousin sent me a care package that I received the other day. I wasn’t going to open it at first because I was thinking it was probably meant for Christmas but since I go to Alberta for Christmas I would of had to open it so I could pack the contents in my suitcase anyways so why not open it now?

She doesn’t use nearly as much packing tape as I do, which meant the opening process went super fast lol Here is what she sent me…

Junk food from the UK, score!

Junk food from the UK, score!

There are:

– two packages of Weight Watchers hot chocolate, flavoured like Jaffa Cakes

– two packages of Cheese & Onion flavoured crisps (those are potato chips)

– a Quality Street The Green Bar chocolate bar (hazlenut praline covered in milk chocolate)

– lots of Fox’s Party Rings (a type of cookie, a seriously delish cookie!)

– two packages of Weight Watcher’s cakes, one chocolate and one jam

– and a massive box of Jaffa Cakes (an even better cookie than the Party Rings, quite possibly the best cookie ever created!)

So yeah, talk about a box filled with magical wonders! 😀

I have already started in on the Party Rings, Mmm! I gave a sleeve of the Jaffa Cake cookies to a friend at work, she is from England but doesn’t have family there anymore so she doesn’t get lovely treats like I do. I am saving a sleeve of them for my trip home for Christmas, along with the chocolate bar, some of the Party Rings and both of the Weight Watcher’s cake packages. I’m not the only one on this side of the pond that likes these treats so I am opting to share them. Makes me sound so nice doesn’t it? It’s partly out of being nice and partly wanting to spare myself some calories *sheepish grin* lol

I sent the cousin that sent me these treats a care package also, it should be getting there soon-ish, hopefully it makes her as happy as her package to me made me! 🙂

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Back To What Worked

6 Dec

Waaaaay back, like 4 years ago, I started Weight Watchers. I didn’t go to meetings, I didn’t officially join, I got the books from my mother, the slider to calculate food points, a small notebook I could take everywhere and I started the program. If you really want to know how it went go to the very first post in this blog because that is when I started blogging. (First Post) I used this blog to hold myself accountable, since I wasn’t going to meetings or being an online member. I also blogged on an almost daily basis and listed each day what I ate, how many points it was, and if I was over, under or right on the dot with my daily points. Once I started exercising I also started blogging about that.

It was slow progress, as in suuuuper slow, my body did not want to lose the weight. I was hoping for losing two pounds a week and found I was lucky to lose one a week. Not because I was cheating, I was actually pretty good at following the plan, it was just how my body chose to be, shrug.

Well, after following Weight Watchers for hmm, a year and a bit I think, it stopped working for me. I hit a plateau and nothing I did would get my body to budge. It drove me nuts! And if staying at the same weight wasn’t bad enough, I started gaining weight! I wasn’t sure if what I was actually gaining was muscle since I was working out more, or if it was fat, all I knew was the number on the scale was freaking me out and I was having issues dealing with it.

That was when I realized Weight Watchers left me ill equipped to deal with eating healthy on my own. I didn’t really understand calories or fat grams since everything got converted to Weight Watchers points, I had no idea how many calories I should be eating, what I should be doing to get over the plateau, how or even if I should incorporate going no carb, or gluten free or any of the other fads out there. I felt adrift, with no rules to follow, no program to cling to and no idea how to continue on.

I know, I’m soooo dramatic! 😛 lol

Sooooooo dramatic!

Sooooooo dramatic!

I tried a variety of things once I stopped following Weight Watchers, none of them amazing. Mostly I focused on eating less, but ended up eating way under what I should be eating on a daily basis, and not really getting the right variety of food groups in my daily food, oops! A friend put me on a super strict eating plan, designed to get me lean, because the agent I had at the time wanted me 10-15lbs underweight even though I was at the low end of the weight range I am supposed to be at for my height. The problem with that plan was it is not possible to maintain long term. It was high protein, low carb, high healthy fat, which sounds great but the quantity I was allowed a day was quite small and left me hungry all the time.

When I started the job I am at now I fell off the wagon and fell hard. The plan is also strict about timing, timing between meals and timing of meals to when you exercise and my work schedule impeded that greatly. Combine that with being oh so amazingly strict and I’ve never been able to manage to get back on that plan.

Well, obviously the various things I have tried since falling off that plan didn’t really work. I am not as large as I was when I first started Weight Watchers all those years ago, but I am larger than I want to be, and I am pissed off at myself that I let myself gain some of that weight back. I worked so hard to lose that weight, and it took so freakin long to come off and what do I do? I let myself gain some of it back?? Idiot!

Calling myself names, and feeling bad about what I let happen will not create change. A friend and I have decided that instead of just talking about how we want to look different we are going to actually start working towards creating that change, novel idea huh? 😉

For me, this means going back to what once worked for me, that’s riiiiight, I am going to once again be Weight Watchering it! I know I said the program didn’t teach me how to lose or maintain weight or be healthy when not following the program, and I stick by that, however, when following Weight Watchers before it did work for a time. I am hoping it will work for me again and help me get a little more control over my eating plan and from there, well, I’ll have to figure something out lol 😛

So, I have dug out of the drawer my Weight Watchers books and also found the Points Calculator. I won’t be following the same Weight Watchers program I followed last time because there is a new program out, called Weight Watchers Points Plus and it works a little differently than the program I followed. There is a different way to calculate points, both the amount of points you get in a day and how many points a food is. I can use the calculator to track my points for the day and for the week, eliminating the need for the notebook, but I like being able to flip back and see my progress so I am sticking with using a notebook for tracking. Also, calculating how many points a food is will be a bit more complicated, in the old program you just needed the calories, fat and fiber but now you need more information, so its looking like the points calculator will become my new best friend lol

My Weight Watchers Stuff

My Weight Watchers Stuff

Don’t mind the cat’s leg in the picture, I couldn’t convince him to move, lol.

Today was my first day following the program, I can’t say for sure if I ate the right amount of points as some of the food didn’t have nutritional information so I had to estimate, but I figure it’s better to track and estimate and be close to my points than not be tracking or checking the food’s points values and leaving it all up to chance, right?

That being said, it is the end of the day and omg I am crazy hungry! *rolls eyes* I have a feeling I’m in for a rough first week…

im-so-hungry

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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 Friendly Meal

5 Dec

One of my friends from work is an amazing cook, which is not surprising since she is one of the chefs lol I often ask her cooking advice and I know I provide her with a lot of amusement because of how dumb I am when it comes to food and cooking and well, anything kitchen related lol

The other day I was stopping by her place after aquafit class to pick up an empty tin can (it’s for a craft project but I don’t buy food in cans so I didn’t have one) and when I got there she invited me in to hang out. I think she worries I don’t eat enough, or eat enough “real” food (she seems to think a spoonful of peanut butter doesn’t count as a meal, weirdo! 😉 lol ) because she kept offering me food. In the end I got fed dinner, which was nice cause I wouldn’t have eaten anything once I got home due to lack of food and money to buy food lol, she heated up some minestrone soup and made me some toast, isn’t she so nice? 🙂

Then, on my way out she gives me a huge container with food in it, she made me dinner to take home so I’d have food over the next couple days! Crazy levels of nice or what?!

The food this morning before I warmed it up.

The food this morning before I warmed it up.

Doesn’t it look delish? It’s chicken with some sort of parmesan topping, steamed broccoli and rice with carrots and peas mixed in. I think there is something else mixed in to the rice but I’m not sure what…whatever it is, it’s tasty!

I was so worried about warming it up, do I microwave it or put it in the oven or go stove top? Too many options, ack! I felt sure whichever way I chose would be the wrong way and I’d somehow screw up the food lol

Eventually I decided to warm it up in a pan, seemed safest, and I remember my mom warming up leftovers in a pan on the stove and if that’s what she does than it must be right, right? Right!

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I put the chicken in first and then sliced it up to ensure it was warm all the way through, when it was close to being done I added in the rice and the broccoli since even I know those wouldn’t take as long as the chicken lol The parmesan topping ended up breaking in to smaller pieces so some of it got a tad burned but for the most part it was ok.

Heated up and on a plate, Mmm!

Heated up and on a plate, Mmm!

So there we have it, the final product! It was super tasty and I sent her a text thanking her for about the billionth time for the food lol I can’t wait to eat it again tomorrow! 🙂

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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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2014-11-30 06.56.31

2014-11-30 06.56.43

 

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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A Cupcake Candle Experience

23 Nov

I saw a youtube diy video about how to make a cupcake candle. I am attempting to make candles for Christmas presents this year and have been watching a lot of tutorials lol This tutorial is for a birthday type candle and I thought it’d be perfect to make and give to a friend of mine whose birthday was last week. The tutorial made it seem really easy but it didn’t quite work out the same for me as it did for the girl in the video…

Here is the video, see how easy it seems?

Lemme explain to you how my experience differed from the video…

(1) She says to use craft glue, or a glue gun to attach the wick to the bottom of the jar, I don’t own a glue gun so I went out and bought craft glue, sorta. See, every bottle of craft glue explicitly said “flammable” and “do not use near fire” so um, hmm, how exactly am I supposed to use any of these types of glues in a candle? I ended up buying Crazy Glue but no matter how hard I tried the glue wouldn’t bond the bottom of the wick to the jar, all it did was get on my finger and make my finger feel all weird for a couple of days – that’s how long it took me to get it off lol 😛

(2) She uses Glucose Syrup to coat the inside of the jar so the sprinkles will stick. She says Corn Syrup is the same thing and since I couldn’t find Glucose Syrup anywhere I bought Corn Syrup. I don’t think it works quite the same lol. She uses an unknown ratio of water to syrup to coat the inside of the jar, I attempted to get the corn syrup to the same consistency but am not really sure if I did. After I mixed some syrup and water together I pulled out my brand new silicone brush (like what she used) to brush the inside of the jar, only, I used a smaller jar and the head of the brush wouldn’t fit in the jar, oops! Instead, I spooned some of the mixture in then rotated the jar around until I could see that the sides were coated.

(3) She pours sprinkles into the jar and they effortlessly and evenly coat the inside of the jar. I poured sprinkles inside the jar and they haphazardly stuck in clumps. Whats up with that? I did the only logical thing and poured more sprinkles in to the jar, which of course meant they stuck in bigger clumps lol So I used a spoon and tried spreading them around a bit and smooshing them in to the syrup to get them to stay put. It kind of worked…

(4) She melted her soy wax until she thought it was the correct consistency. The package of paraffin wax I had specifically said what temperature to melt the wax to so I opted to follow the package’s directions. The package also said what temperature the wax should be when adding the scent and dye. I wasn’t adding dye, I wanted the wax white to better show off the sprinkles. As for the scent, she used scented wax cubes but I was using an essential oil. But hey, scent is scent, right? I couldn’t find any birthday cake scents so I used the only one I owned, Sweet Pea, which yes, I know, makes no sense in a birthday cupcake candle but it’s what I had and scents are expensive and I couldn’t afford to buy another one…sigh…

(5) Something else that was different, but this my fault, she keeps her water at a much lower temperature than I did, my water ended up coming to a boil which lemme tell ya, created quite a mess! I did however copy her technique and put my large pyrex glass measuring cup in a pot, hooked on to the edge like she did, which was brilliant and something I wouldn’t have thought of on my own. I don’t own a double boiler but this trick worked great. 🙂

(6) Because the wick wouldn’t attach to the jar with the glue I took a trick I saw in a different video where you pour a small amount of melted wax in the jar, then hold the wick in place until the wax hardens, boom! Wick is in place! Once the small amount of wax hardened I used the trick I’ve seen in pretty much every candle tutorial and wrapped the loose end of the wick around a chopstick and rested the chopstick on top of the jar, this holds the wick straight so when you pour the rest of the wax in the wick doesn’t get all crooked.

(7) At this point she (and I) poured the wax in to the jar, trying hard to pour in to the middle of the jar so as not to dislodge the sprinkles. She poured all her wax in at once, let it harden, and had a perfect candle. I opted to play the safe route and save a bit of the wax as recommended in other tutorials in case there was a dent. Apparently when a candle hardens sometimes a little dent appears on the top so you save a bit of wax to fill in the dent. My candle was perfect, no dent, but I didn’t know what to do with the extra wax so I re-melted it and poured it in to the jar, kind of topping it up so to speak. Well go figure, when that last little bit hardened it had a dent! I of course had no more wax to fill in the dent sooooo the candle ended up with a dent, oops!

After my candle hardened, which I was sooooo impatient for it to do lol I took a close look at it and realized one thing…I am not good at making candles! lol 😛 Not only was there a dent in the top, but the sprinkles were still uneven and you could see a glisteney type substance (the syrup) if you looked hard at the side of the jar, I guess this means I used too much syrup? I’m not really sure…

Try not to laugh too hard when you look at how it turned out…

Look at that dent!

Look at that dent!

You can see the glisten of the corn syrup, you aren't supposed to see that...

You can see the glisten of the corn syrup, you aren’t supposed to see that…

Here you can see how the sprinkles are in no way evenly placed along the side of the jar, and some melted while others didn't!

Here you can see how the sprinkles are in no way evenly placed along the side of the jar, and some melted while others didn’t!

So that was my first attempt at making a candle. I felt really bad giving it to my friend for her birthday considering how it turned out but I was so sure I’d be awesome at this I didn’t have a back-up plan lol. Luckily, my friend is awesome and seemed happy with the candle. 🙂 …course, she could have just been saying that…nah, I’m gonna pretend she liked it, makes me feel better about the whole thing lol

Something I learned from the experience? Use kitchen tools that you don’t normally use for cooking! Why? Because I still have wax on the tools I used when making that candle and I made it this past Wednesday! Wax on the inside of my soup pot, wax on the knife, corn syrup on the silicone brush, wax on the cutting board and in the pyrex measuring cup…no matter what I do there always seems to be a bit more wax that I missed *rolls eyes* Eventually I’ll get it all off (hopefully!) and next time I make a candle I’ll use knives etc I buy from the dollar store lol 😛

*The Youtube name for the person who made the video I used as my inspiration is Carstina DIY Beauty*

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A Happy Day

21 Nov

Ever have one of those days that you look forward to, and fully enjoy and when it is over you wish you had someone to thank for allowing you to have such an awesome day?

keep-calm-and-smile-its-a-happy-day

That was my Thursday and I’m still smiling when I think about yesterday. 🙂

It’s not one big amazing thing that happened, and to be honest, when I tell you what my day was like you’ll probably roll your eyes and think I’m being silly, but for me, it was such a great day that I wish I could relive it over and over again lol

So what was my day like yesterday? Here’s how it went down…

First, I got to sleep in a bit, not so much my day disappeared but late enough I didn’t feel I was dragging myself out of bed early and not getting enough sleep. Hey, sleeping in is a good thing in my book! 😛

sleep

Then I went to an audition for a tv show, I found free street parking, score! The auditions were running a bit late so I had extra time to kill in the waiting area, I like not being rushed before an audition, shrug. The audition itself went really well. It’s always hard to say how an audition went but I had a good feeling when it was done which put a happy little bounce in my step – literally, a happy bounce was in my step lol yes, apparently I am that person! 😛

Happy-Walk

After the audition I had an appointment with a debt counselor person, I’m trying to get a better handle on my debt (duh!) and thought some advice might help, it for sure couldn’t hurt! I found more free street parking, had enough time to get a bite to eat (thankfully! cause I was sooooo hungry at that point, oh poor empty tummy!). The only place nearby that I could get a quick bite was Starbucks so I grabbed a half-sweet peppermint hot chocolate made with skim milk, no whipped cream, no chocolate sprinkles (I know it sounds really boring but I like it and using skim milk and saying no to the toppings saves me calories), I also got the oatmeal, which was perfect on the rainy kinda chilly day that Thursday was. I made my appointment on time, had a super nice lady helping me, learned a lot about what I am doing right (which was shocking cause I thought I was doing nothing right lol), I also got told some options I have to help me get out of debt faster and left with some hope, some print outs and some names of people I can speak to for further advice if I so choose to contact them.

debt

I had some quick downtime at this point so I went home, made some tea and toast, cuddled with the cat, packed a bag and went to set because I was filming my final scene in a short film that is going to be entered in to a couple of film festivals!

I had a great time on set! Filming went really well, nice n smooth, didn’t have to do a ridiculous amount of takes to get it right, it was like it was meant to be lol 🙂

filming

After filming was done I headed over to my friend’s place, it was her birthday this week and Thursday evening was our evening to get together and celebrate, yay!

We both are hooked on the Hunger Games movies so I bought (in advance cause wow tickets were selling out fast!) tickets for us to the VIP theatre to see the third installment of the movie, Mockingjay Part 1. Have you ever been in one of those VIP theatres? Niiiice! Food on par with a restaurant, being served in a snazzy bar/restaurant or right at your seat. Every seat has a table, the chairs are large, and recline a bit, and are leather, and omg there is leg room! As in actual leg room, enough for tall people! No sitting with my legs at an angle so my knees don’t hit the chair in front of me, nope, lots of leg room, I stretched out my legs, stretched! Oh, and even better is the theatre is 19+ so no kids, and if I so choose it, alcohol. All in all, best movie theatre ever and totally worth the extra money to go there. 🙂

look at that leg room!

look at that leg room!

To round it all off, on the drive back to my friend’s place to drop her off, she played for me a song she wrote and recorded a couple of years ago and wow. Wow! Her voice is amazing, and the song was beautiful and I felt lucky that she chose to let me hear her song.

So yeah, that was my day. Since you’re probably wondering why I think it was so amazing lemme break it down for you, I had a ratio of acting and non acting activities that was equal. I had an audition and I was filming yesterday! Any day where I get to do something acting related is a good day, but having both filming and an audition happening and then other things tucked around that were positive well, tickle me pink cause that makes for a happy day in my corner of the world, lol. 🙂

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