Finding a Routine

Hey bloggies!

I know I’ve been absent the past few days but for a good reason. I finally started working again. Just subbing but it’s a start. Remember when I posted a few days ago that my first day was on Friday – grade 5. Well just after that I got a job working Thursday as well so I’m two for two in the (can work:did work ratio).

But getting back into a routine as not been quite so easy. Before working I was cooking every night – new and exciting new recipes. Since working those two days I haven’t cooked either night.

Thursday – we had leftovers. Wednesday I made Tina’s recipe for mac and cheese with cauliflower – with a few minor changes (recipe to come soon so check back) so we had that with leftovers.  I also had it for lunch Thursday as well.

Friday – we ordered pizza. I gave into the husband and let him order a meat pizza. This is the first time I’ve eaten meat in about 3 /12 weeks. Honestly, I really don’t miss it and the pizza last night wasn’t really that great. Definitely going to stick to veggies from now on.

This morning I woke up and had one of the best days I’ve had in a while.

It started with a little cleaning and laundry. Once that was done I enjoyed breakfast with the hubby (scrambled eggs) and then spend the rest of the morning relaxing with a cup of tea, listening to Christmas music, catching up on my favourite blogs and enjoying the sunshine.

After lunch (more leftover mac and cheese) I headed to the grocery store to pick up a few things to do some baking later on (will share tomorrow).

Then came home and when for my first run in months.

I ran only about 2km but it really felt great. I miss exercising and am really looking forward to getting back into it. I feel that now that I’m working again it time to really create a routine for myself which will include exercising, eating right, blogging, having some me time and of course hanging out with the hubby.

Post run I was starving so I toasted 1/2 a whole wheat English muffin with pb and a few chocolate chips (the sugar is good for after a run – right? hehe).

Well I’m now off to do some baking (I’m getting a head start for the holidays – I plan on freezing most of it) and then cook some dinner. The husband wanted steak tonight so I’m making black bean and sweet potato burgers. I’ll let you know how they turned out.

~ Katie :)

Blogging Choices

I’ve been thinking about blogging a lot lately (don’t worry I’m not going anywhere). I love it and honestly I’m not doing it to become famous, to make money or even have hundreds of readers but I have noticed a lack of traffic and comments lately. I’m not blaming my readers at all. I feel that my lack of consistency, following through and participation in the blogging community is to blame.

Let’s discuss the reasons behind them then I’ll discuss my ways to solve these:

• My lack of consistency – I am very sporadic with my blogging. I really have no reason to be. I’m not working at the moment so I should be better with my blogging and I thought I would be but sometimes I’ve just been frustrated with the whole not working situation and I really don’t want to write depressing and feel sorry for me posts so I’m just not blogging at all. The other reason might be the lack of healthy choices I’ve made sometimes (eg. pizza, greasy fatty ribs, homemade granola bars, more homemade granola bars, and even more homemade granola bars – I don’t feel that these are bad for me but when they are the only food item to sustain me for the entire day I feel that might be a lack of healthy choices).
• Following Through – I’m terrible at following through. I owe you a number of posts including an about me post, our first wedding anniversary post, an apartment update and a Calgary update post. I keep promising these but never delivering.
• Participation in the Blogging Community – I actually read many, many post but never comment. I’m getting better at interacting on twitter but still lacking in the commenting/getting involved part of blogging.

So now that I figured out some of the issues I’m having here are my solutions:

• I’ve been reading, ‘Eat Pray Love’ and although I’m not too far into it Elizabeth has taught me something. I need to be happy and not feel guilty about not working. This is a problem that I’ve been having and I know its not the husband that is upset about me not working it’s me. That is one of the reasons we made the move across the country, we could afford for me not to work for a while if it happened but I’ve still been feeling guilty. I’ve decided to enjoy my time off because sooner or later it is going to end and I’m going to be complaining about how much I’m working.
• Also, I know healthy living is a process so I’m working on eating healthy one day at a time and making good choices one choice at a time and if I have a bad day – it's ok and I can just start fresh again the next day.
• In regards to following though – this is going to blend well with my first point about not feeling guilty and enjoying my time off. I’m going to spend some time over the next little while working on my blog and catching everyone up.
• Finally, stay tuned…more comments on your blogs to come.

Ok…that feels better. I’ve been thinking about all that for the past few days and it feel good to get it off my chest.

Back to what this blog is all about…HEALTHY LIVING!!!

I do have a few pictures to share with everyone.

Over the weekend Matt and I hit up the local Calgary Farmer’s Market for the first time. We were so busy looking around that I didn’t even take that many pictures and a few of the ones I did take didn’t turn out but I do have these few to share with you.

Rows and rows of fresh, local fruits and veggies.

We ended up picking up quite a few local goodies: green beans, snap peas, baby cucumbers, green, yellow and orange peppers, onion, tomatoes, baby tomatoes, sliced turkey and free range, organic chicken sausages.

We also did something different we decided to base our meals around our fresh veggies instead of decided on meals and then picking up veggies to go with it. It was a great idea and a wonderful market. We’ll definitely be going again and next time I’ll take some more pictures.

I don’t have too many meal pictures to share with you today but I did have a couple of yummy, healthy eats over the past day or so.

More leftover Hearty Veggie Soup.

In my new fall bowl of course.

I only have one more container left in the freezer. I think it might almost be time to make another batch.

Amy’s Veggie Burger with mozza and spinach on a whole wheat bun.

Served with roasted brussel sprouts

And baby tomatoes from the farmers market.

Breakfast this morning was a two egg cheese omelette served with a whole wheat cheese roll from a local bakery.

Do you see that sunlight? The sun if finally back in Calgary and it looks like it is here to stay for a while.

The floor sometimes takes the nicest pictures.

Lunch was a grilled spinach wrap with hummus, mozza and veggies (cucumbers, carrots, green and yellow peppers).

 

More new plates.

So adorable and great for taking pictures.

Just look at all that yummy gooeyness.

Thanks so much for everyone who continues to read and enjoy my blog. I have lots of fun and interesting posts planned for the next little while so please come back or subscribe in your google reader on the side.

Also if your just catching up here are some of the latest posts:

• Fall Decorating
• Ali’s No Back Oatmeal and Angela’s Granola
• Grocery Shopping with Me
• Apple Blueberry Breakfast Cobbler
• Hearty Vegetable Soup

~ Katie :)

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 :)

Exercising Again and May Goals

So today was the day. After over a week off from exercising today was the day to get back at it.

This morning started off with oat. Since I don’t have time for oats on the weekdays I’ve been trying to have them once on the weekend. It’s a nice change.

In the pot: rolled oats, UVAB, flaxmeal and vanilla extract.

Topped with a tbsp of pj and a tsp of chocolate chips.

I ended up eating about 2/3’s of the dish. I just couldn’t finish it.

After breakfast Matt and I headed out to get some groceries. I went through my recipe books and found 5 new recipes I’m going to try this week. Hopefully, I’ll have lots on interesting posts for you to read over the course of the week :)

After we got home I really just wanted some veggies for lunch (I’ve been craving veggies for a couple of days now) but I also wanted to use up the last of the progeries in the freezer so I decided to through them in the pot to boil.

Lunch ended up being carrots…

Cucumber…

Progeries…

After lunch it was time to get back to exercising. Today’s plan: a distance run.

I haven’t run in about a week and a half and I will admit I was scared. Matt wanted us to run 4km but I just wasn’t sure I can do it. If you’ve read my blog before you know I have a mental block when it comes to running. I still haven’t quite got past it but I’m really working on it.

Today we headed out. I ran the first 2 km without too many problems but once I reached the 2km mark it really started to hurt. During the run I fought with Matt (twice) and I almost quit. I really didn’t think I could do it but I pushed through the pain and ended up completing 4.2km.

That is another running accomplishment for me. I really want to thank my husband for pushing me and believing in me even when I didn’t believe in myself. We have another distance run planned for Wednesday so hopefully this one is a little easier then today’s :P

After my shower I made us both green smoothies. In the blender: organic spinach, banana, pineapple, UVAB, the last of my vanilla greek yogurt, flaxmeal and ice.

Another good one :)

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April Recap May Goals

I’ve decided against doing a recap for April. Really, there’s not much to say. I didn’t workout that much ( I took a total of 2 weeks off in April) and I ate out a little way too much.

Since it’s a new month I decided instead of getting upset or depressed about April I’d focus on the positive and look at my goals for May.

Nutrition:

• Eat a salad at least 3 times a week. I’ve been lacking in the veggie department lately and I've been craving them so hopefully this will help.
• Cook with fresh herbs as much as possible. I learned quite a bit about this yesterday at the Saltscapes Expo and you can read about my review of the expo here.
• No eating out. At all! This is going to be the tough one. We’ve been really bad this month and that has to change so our goal is to not eat out for the entire month.

Exercise:

• Matt and I set up a workout schedule we’d like to start following. It includes at least some form of exercise 7 days a week. That is a large goal but some days are pretty light so I think it’s possible. If we feel it’s getting too much then we might take a day off as needed but we just want to do some form of physical activity everyday. With the weather getting nicer at least a walk or a short run should be possible.
• Right now I’d like to do weights 3 times a week, running 3-4 times a week (mixing between interval and distance running), yoga once a week and maybe throw in a difference cardio workout here or there when I have time.

I know I have pretty big goals for the month. To start off the month off right we spent some time today cleaning out the fridge and the cupboards to get rid of any junk/unhealthy food that was in there. It went well and I don’t think I will actually miss anything we threw out.

I will let you all know how things are progressing as the month goes on. Have a great evening all!

~ Katie :)

Confessions

As some may have noticed I have been absent over the past week or so. I have a few reasons for this. First, as I mentioned before my friend has been in town so I’ve been trying to spend as much time with her as possible. The second I could say is that I’ve been too busy but that’s not entirely true. I haven’t felt much like blogging and these are my confessions (now I have Usher in my head)…

I have not been very healthy this week.

As I posted on Monday, Matt and I went out for dinner. I had salad (which was good) but we also split the calamari and that was definitely not healthy and of course no gym.

Tuesday was actually pretty good. I hit up yoga at Breathing Space with Keri. We went to the Hot Power Vinyasa Class.

Hot Power Vinyasa  is a practice of linking powerful breath with dynamic flowing movements in a heated room.  Often referred to as meditation in motion, Baptiste Power Vinyasa Yoga encompasses many different styles and teachings into the ultimate experience for people who are ready to tap both their physical and spiritual power.  It will tone your body, torch calories and electrify your mind.  This flow has many different levels, allowing beginners, intermediate and advanced students to be challenged in the same class. 

It was actually a really tough class. Movements were fast and at some points although I knew all the poses I just felt like I couldn’t keep up. The class says it’s open to all levels but there were lots of advanced students there and if I had been a beginner I don’t think I’d have made it though the whole class. When we got home Matt made us a yummy chicken stir fry – chicken, asparagus, red onion, red, orange and green peppers along with fresh garlic and soy sauce.

Yesterday was another day of missed gym and dinner last night was store bought pizza and lots of snacking on mini eggs. Today wasn’t much better. No gym and wings at Your Father’s Moustache with a friend.

I don’t really have any pictures to post. I find when I’m not eating healthy I don’t want to take pictures and I don’t want to blog. I guess I just don’t want to share with all of you my unhealthy ways.

I decided to write this post so it will be in writing and I will have someone to be accountable to. I need to get back on track and it’s starting tomorrow. I already have a gym workout planned for tomorrow and a new healthy recipe for dinner I want to try. Hopefully, I will have a much more upbeat post for everyone tomorrow.

Thanks for listening.

~ Katie :)