Welcome to Calgary

I am so falling behind on my blogging this week. I’m trying to get the apartment unpacked, job hunt and get back to the gym and because of all this blogging has become second to real life.

I’ve been planning to do this post for a couple of days now. We’ve been in the apartment since Saturday (almost a week) and I still haven’t posted pictures. I figured we’d have a while before our stuff showed up so there was no rush - boy was I wrong. Our estimated delivery date was Friday (tomorrow) but I got a call two days ago (Tuesday) saying that they were hoping to deliver our stuff. Imagine my excitement. I was getting tired of sleeping on an air mattress and eating off the floor.

I quickly realized I didn’t have any pictures of our apartment ‘before’. So I ran around taking pictures quickly. Here’s the empty (well almost empty) apartment before our stuff arrived.

Kitchen:

All the sunlight that we have in this place caused for some dark pictures (don’t worry I’m not complaining).

Living Room:

Linen Closet with washer/dryer (one unit – which is pretty cool).

For some reason the bedroom picture turned out blurry.

Now this is what the apartment looked like after all of our stuff was dropped off.

Living Room:

Kitchen:

Bedroom:

Hall:

Bathroom:

As you can tell there’s a lot to do. Since taking (most) of those pictures the living room and kitchen have been unpacked so it’s a little more liveable. Today I’m going to tackle the hall (linen closet and front closet) and then only the bedroom will be left. I’m confident by the end of the weekend all the boxes will be gone.

As mentioned earlier in the post on of the reasons I’ve fallen behind on the blogging is my return to the gym. This also includes my return to healthy eating. I have been so excited to eat vegetables again!

Yesterday morning/afternoon was the last of the paper plates/glasses before unpacking my dishes.

Breakfast yesterday was Special K Strawberry Cereal with a glass of oj.

  

After breakfast I headed to Starbucks to use their internet to search for jobs. While there I had a non-fat vanilla latte and a low-fat banana chocolate chip loaf.

After spending a few hours job hunting I headed for the gym. This is the first time hitting the gym in weeks. When I got there I hopped on the treadmill and ran 2.5 km. I’m not going to lie. It was hard. The hardest I’ve had in a long time but it felt great to get back to the gym even if it was only for a short run.

After the gym I headed home for lunch. Veggies, hummus, cheese and crackers.

Veggies included cucumber, baby tomatoes and carrots along with some roasted garlic hummus.

And some cheese with multi-grain wheat thins.

After lunch I spend the afternoon unpacking the kitchen. I’m pleasantly surprised that I was able to get all of our stuff in there.

After Matt got home from work dinner was leftovers from the previous night. Lasagna with a whole wheat roll.

 

And a side salad with spinach, carrots, baby tomatoes, cucumber, red and green peppers.

Overall, it’s been great to get back to a regular routine and I look forward to getting even more settled in my new city.

Stay tuned for my first giveaway! I will be posting it very soon.

I’m going to leave you with one more picture of Charlie. He seems to be enjoying the unpacking process as much as he enjoyed the packing process.

~ Katie :)

My Growing Love for Cooking

I’m going to apologize in advanced if this post is a little long. I have lots to say and I definitely think should have blogged twice today.

I actually wasn’t sure if I was going to blog at all. I have been in a bad mood most of the day today and when I finally had a moment to myself and was going to blog I just wasn’t in the mood. I sat around, watched some lame tv and just really moppy. Eventually, I got up made dinner and by the time it was done my mood had done a 360.

It’s funny because I’ve really only started cooking in the last few months. Before that it was either BBQ, stir-frys or the husband and I would cook something simple together. Now I’m really enjoying being in the kitchen by myself and cooking. I find there is something extremely satisfying after a meal is done and everyone has enjoyed it.

Last week the husband and I made a decision to not buy anymore take-out before we move since we’ll be eating out for at least week once we leave so I’m really loving trying different recipes to keep myself excited about cooking after long days of packing. It seems to be working.

I keeping with the love of cooking theme I thought I’d start with you the yummy recipe that I made last night for dinner. This is a super easy and quick dinner without a lot of calories. You can find the original recipe on Danica’s site: Lemon Garlic Fettuccine with Broccoli. Mine basically was the same with a few minor changes.

The first change was I added chicken to the recipe. The husband isn’t a fan of pasta without some kind of protein (meat protein) so I added chicken but this would also be very good with shrimp or great on it’s own without the chicken.

Lemon Garlic Pasta with Chicken and Broccoli

• Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
• 1 box of whole wheat pasta
• 3 cups of broccoli
• 2.5 tbsp of margarine**
• 3 cloves of garlic – minced
• 1 lemon juice and zest + 1 tbsp**
• 1 tbsp of EVOO
• 1/2 tbsp of red pepper flakes
• 1/4 cup of grated parmesan
• 1/2 cup of water from cooked pasta
• Salt and Pepper (optional)

**I added a little more then the original recipe called for since I was adding chicken.

Cook pasta according to directions on the box. When the pasta only has a few mins left add the broccoli to the boiling water. Make sure to remember to keep 1/2 cup of the water when it’s  finished.

While doing so cook chicken in a little EVOO.

After chicken is cooked in a separate pan melt butter then add the lemon juice, zest and garlic. Heat until boiling.

Add the pasta, broccoli and chicken to the lemon sauce. Added the parmesan, red pepper flakes, the 1/2 cup of pasta water (if you think it’s a little dry) and mix together.

 

I served with with a piece of seven grain bread and a little more parmesan on top.

 

This was super easy and was very tasty and made at least 6 servings. We still have tons leftover in the fridge. According to Danica it is approx. 213 calories per serving but with the the chicken I added it estimated it would be about 60 more so about 273 for the pasta. Not bad at all!

Breakfast today started out pretty much the same as the last few days but this time it was half a whole wheat bagel with pb and oj.

Lunch was leftover pasta but I left out the chicken this time.

This also re-heated very well.

An afternoon snack consisted of grapes, light laughing cow cheese and some crackers.

Dinner tonight was another fabulous meal but I want to catch you all up on my packing so I’ll leave that for tomorrow morning.

Packing has been going very well lately. The husband has been working from home the last two days (he goes back to the office tomorrow) so we’ve been really productive and accomplished a lot.

Yesterday we tackled the downstairs. At the beginning of the day the living room looked like this.

Now it looks like this.

Empty.

The dining room has now become our central location for all our packed boxes.

The dining room table that is now going back to my dad’s.

Our Mac that is now in the kitchen for the time being (I enjoy having a computer in the kitchen while cooking – it is very convenient).

Yesterday we also saw a deer in our pack yard. Since we live in city I always find it strange to see wild animals and wonder how they got there.

She didn’t seem scared of us at all.

Today we worked on the bedroom. First we went through out clothes and now we had two garbage bags of clothes that we are going to give away. We also worked on the bedroom which is now pretty much done.

 

I know we have a few boxes in there but they are half empty and we are just saving them to fill with other things.

Empty walls as well.

Charlie is also enjoying the packing.

And finding clean packed towels to sleep on.

I’ll be back in the morning with another yummy dinner recipe.

~ Katie :)