My Week (Mar. 24-30)

This week has been a little crazed for me.  I have been wrapping up stuff at work so that was really my main focus. However it is never healthy to purely focus on work so I did try and squeeze in some fun time.

I swung by Micheal's on Friday to get my contribution for craft night (gold and silver paint sharpie pens).  While I was there I checked out the flower section so I could update my "winter" vase with something a little more spring like.  Well all the spring flowers were 40% off and I had a 20% off coupon that also worked on sale items also.  That was a deal too good to turn up.  So I grabbed a bunch.  I couldn't stop there though, I went and checked out the decorative vases and picked up a pretty blue one for 60% off (40% off sale and my 20% coupon).   

I worked on Saturday to help meet deadline but I also had my craft night, so the lil sis met me at work at 430 to pick me up and take me back home so I could skip the bus ride (the hubs needed the car so that he could get out of the house for craft night).  So to thank her I treated her to dinner.  We tried out a sushi place that has undergone some renovations and now you order with an iPad.  It was pretty cool, but I prefer my regular place.

The lil sis ordering on the fancy ipdad

The lil sis enjoying the first of the food to arrive

So much good food it, I was very stuffed when we left

Than it was off to craft night/girls night where everyone had a great time sitting around chatting and making sparkly galsses.

I had to 'try out' my new sparkle glass.  Sorry it's a really bad picture the glass looks much cutier in person. 

 On Sunday the hubs and I had a date day with lunch at The Flying Banzini. A FABULOUS sandwich and cheesecake place in Ottawa.  I will be doing a separate post on the restaurant but if you live in the Ottawa area head over to the Westboro/Hintonburg area and grab some grub.  You will not be disappointed.  

The hubs getting ready to enjoy his pulled beef with provolone on a soft bun.

After our great tasting lunch we headed out to a couple open houses and met up with our Realtor to look at a few more.  Grabbed some groceries where I just had to pick up some gorgeous orange and yellow tulips.  Hey maybe if I buy them Mother Nature will finally get the message that it's spring out and stop with the snow storms.

Now it feels like spring (if you ignore the snow)

The great 7cms of snow that we got last night. 

That was my week, crazy busy at work but I was still able to make a little time for fun.
How was your week? What do you like to do if you are trying to fit in some "fun" time?

This weeks message:

You cannot control the wind, but you can direct the sail. 

 

XOXO

Girls Night In/Craft Night

My second Girls Night/Craft Night was a great success.  It all started last month when I figured out that I was only seeing some friends maybe once a month, and that I was always going out for dinner to hangout with them.  That gets really expensive and is just a bad idea if you are trying to live on a budget and save money.   

I was reading a blog where she said that her and her girlfriends used to do Margarita Friday's but with getting married and having kids they had switched to monthly craft nights.  I thought this was a GREAT thing.  I have a TON few crafts that I have saved on Pinterest so I thought I would steal borrow the idea and start doing a monthly craft night also.

Everyone hard at work. 

How I work it is that everyone brings their component to the craft, a part of the supplies needed and a food item.  I added the food item 'cause who doesn't want to eat/drink while hanging out with the girls.  Everyone gets to have a blast and the cost stays less than $10.

That brings us to my Saturday night.  This month I really wanted to try this post for DIY Glitter Wine Glasses so that was my bases of craft night.  So I sent out the evites and invited everyone to make sparkly glassware. And it was a success!!!

Everyone said they had a great time, and we really spent more time sitting around the living room chatting about life and stuff than we did actually making the craft.  And really that was always my goal of the monthly craft nights.

Taking a break to smile.

 I can't wait to see what we do next month, and who is able to show up.
Do you have any monthly get togethers that you try and do? 

Fiscal, the end is near...

It is now the last few days of the fiscal year 2013/2014.  I only have about 2 more days of craziness at work.  But it feels like 2 very long days away.  I think I had forgotten how crummy it is working with a large deadline, and this one is not nearly as crazy as last years.

However that being said it has still been a little rougher than a normal week.  I am working approximately 44 hour weeks leading up to March 31, and last night my normal 9 hour days have flipped over to 12 hour days.  Now I will admit that the switch over to 12 hour days is my own choice, but I know how much work needs to be done before the 31st and so I can't justify working normal hours.

With all this extra work  I have been extra a little more touchy, and the hubs has been extra awesome.  He has been making the dinners so I can just come home and sit around and relax.  And when I am extra cranky he does everything he can to make me laugh.  All of this is something that he never gets proper recognition for and more often he gets the brunt of my annoyance.  I do really appreciate all that he does and it makes me really grateful to have such a great partner in life. 

The bright side is that fiscal is only 2 days away and after a day at the office on Saturday I have a fun girls craft night Saturday night and a couple days off to do my nails and just be lazy.  There is a light at the end of the tunnel and with a couple more cups of coffee I will be able to reach that light.
 

As the end draws near this is what a typical day for me looks like.  This is how I make it through deadlines.

Do you have crazy deadlines at work? What do you do to make it through them sane?

To Smoke or Not Smoke.....

To smoke or not has been a question for a lot of my life.

For anyone who doesn't know I used to be a smoker.  I quite 2.5 years ago but the hubs and I had a bit of a rough year (with his mom passing away) and I had a few slips.  However I have renewed my commitment to being a non-smoker again.  I feel so much better when I am not smoking.  But this time I have not had an easy go with the quitting.  So instead of getting the medication like last time (I did have great success with it) I decided to try an "e-smoke".

I miss at times the actual act of smoking (I know it's a weird thing).  This I thought might be a way for me to get the "act" while still staying smoke free and healthy.  So the hubs and I checked out a local store on our way home from work. 

The people at the store were very informed and helpful.  I explained that I wanted something that had NO nicotine and NO tobacco, no chemicals.  Something that would be safe enough to use while pregnant (No I am not, but I thought this would be a good healthy baseline). 

The lady explained all the options, the ingredients in the flavours and really took the time to explain why and how it is completely safe and healthy.  So after some direction and I'm sure annoying questons from me the sales women helped me pick out a model and flavor.

Now you can get tobacco flavoured syrups but since I am trying to get my brain back to a nonsmoker's I thought I would start with a "fruit" flavoured syrup.  I ended up getting a peppermint thinking it would be a good starting flavour.

It hasn't been very long, but I am liking it so far.  It allows me to have the action of smoking without the guilt and shame around backsliding to smoking again. 

Have you had any vices that you've had a hard time giving up? Even after a long break from them? What worked for you?

My Week (March 16-22)

My week this week has been a mix of good (presents, shopping and girl time) and not so good (sick, blah).  But since the good has definitely out ranks the bad I am going to say my week has been a great one.
I was sick this week unfortunately I woke up on Tuesday with a killer headache and all congested.  I had been feeling a little off for the last few days/week, but Tuesday was the worse day.  I called in sick and spent the whole day on the couch drinking tea.

A little "me" time was needed this week.  So I took sometime for myself and gave myself a gel manicure.  I have really soft nails so I LOVE the gel polish.  It stays on for a couple weeks and I can play my sports, or just abuse my hands and my nails always looks shiny and pretty.  But at $20 for a salon version that is just too steep for my wallet so I was so happy when they started releasing at home versions.  Right now I only have 1 colour (purple) but I am trying to find a dark grey to add to my collection (Sally's perhaps??)

The hubs had a work event to go to this week, and while he was schmoozing with the big guys I was left to fend for myself.  And while I make him soup each week and I make some sort of meat dish or casserole for us to munch on all week, if left on my own, I am hands down the laziest cook on the planet.  But I was able to break out of that cycle a little and made some healthy coconut chocolate balls.  They were pretty yummy. 

 Friday was a bit of a long day for the hubs and myself.  After working all day we went with our realtor and saw 3 houses (in 1.5hrs).  It was a little crazy but we both really liked the first house we saw.  Not sure what our next steps will be but I will keep you posted.  Sorry no pics of the house but after a long day we used a Christmas present that the lil' sis and her lovely got us and went to the movies.

It was a great movie and seeing it in 3D was pretty awesome.  And just for a little added bonus my earrings that I ordered off Etsy for my birthday arrived.  They are my first pair of rose gold and I am absolutely loving them. 

Saturday was both good and bad for me.  I had a fabulous afternoon with B we had burgers and went thrift store shopping.  Where I was able to find 2 great sweaters, a pot for my aloe plant, mirror to store stuff on, ties for the hubs and more.  It was also a little sucky since I went into the office for a couple hours.  But at end of year with all the crazy deadlines everyone has to dig in a little harder.  All-in-all though the shopping more than made up for the 4 hours at the office. 

Which brings us to the end of my week Sunday.  I was heading into work again for a few hours (only 1 more week till fiscal is over, yay!!!) and since I am married to an AMAZING hubs, he made me a great breakfast to fill me up before sending me off to the office.

Work was all discombobulating (especially with it being Sunday) and it wasn't going as smoothly as I would have liked (it's possible the gods were mad I was working on their day) but it all turned around when I was able to move my Thursday sushi dinner with V to tonight.  We met up, ate our fill and had great girl chat.  It was a fun way to finish off my week.

 
That was my week, how was yours?  Did you also have a mix of good and bad??

Weekly thought: 

Love your enemies. It makes them so damned mad - P.D. East

Coconut Oatmeal Energy Balls

Last night the hubs is at a work event so I am left to fend for myself.  I cooked reheated myself some leftovers for dinner (after controlling the impulse to order takeout), set up the reality episodes that I have missed for the week and settled in for a chill night.  About an hour into my night I get restless and start craving chocolate and feeling guilty about blowing off the gym.

I ignored contemplated these feelings for about another 30 mins before I decided to get off my couch and leave my apartment.  Before I can change my mind I am out the door and on my way to..........the Bulk Barn to get the ingredients for Coconut, Oatmeal Energy Balls. 

After strolling around Bulk Barn for about 30 mins in an outfit that is pretty much pyjamas (yup I was that person) I gather my ingredients and head home to make some yumminess. 
Now the original recipe calls for agave nectar but since my Bulk Barn didn't carry this and I was feeling oh so stylish and didn't want to go to any other stores I decided to just add extra honey. 

To view the original recipe click: Chewy Coconut Chocolate Chip Energy Bites

For my version:

2 cups old fashioned oats 
1/2 cup honey 
1 cup ground flax 
2 cups shredded unsweetened coconut 
1 cup mini chocolate chips 
1 cup natural creamy peanut butter

Dump all ingredents into a large bowl and mix throughly (or until your arm falls off).  Now the original recipe calls for letting the mixture sit in the fridge for 30 mins.  So I mixed everything up and put it in the fridge, cleaned up the counters (there was a coconut mishap), washed the dishes and figured that was long enough (or about 7mins and I'm impatient).

My arm almost fell off while mixing these up but they were totally worth it. 

I started pressing the mixture into balls and ran into some issues (rolling it made it worse).  I was having problems getting it to stick together.  Just as I was about to throw in the towel I washed my hands off and decided to give it one more go.  It turns out that wet hands were the missing key.

So with renewed energy I roll/press them into balls (while sampling a few just to make sure they weren't poisoned.  It's all about safety).  I filled up a big container and put them into the fridge so they could set up. 

 I took 5 to work this morning for breakfast and they were AWESOME!!!!  I only actually ate 3 for breakfast and I was full.

These are a great snack to have on hand, they will statify your chocolate craving while not blooning out your waistline (and when you skip the gym to make them this is an important feature).

You could add a TON of different add-ins into them.  What combo would you do?

Healthy Gummies

The hubs and I are really trying to make the changes for a healtheir lifestyle.  We try to go to the gym 3 times a week (hasn't happened yet but it's a goal), we play volleyball once a week and we are trying (sometimes harder than others) to stop eating so much unhealthy food.

That last part seems to be the hardest for me.  I am a junk food addict.  I LOVE junk food, chips, ice cream, takeout, candy, chocolate and on and on.  So to help with our healthy resolve (and to not have me in the kitchen at 2am eating raw cookie dough in a fit of passion) I try to find healthy versions of some of the foods that I like.

This past weekend I decided to try and make "Homemade Healthy Fruit Snacks".  All the recipe calls for is some fruit (fresh or frozen), honey or agave syrup and gelatin. 
So I picked up some gelatin while grocery shopping and decided to give it a whirl.

(Sorry I didn't take any pictures of the processes, I'm still new at this blogging thing)

The final yumminess.

They weren't too bad, and I love that I can eat a bunch and not feel guilty at all.  I do have a couple "tips" though:
1- Don't use raspberries.  I used them and now there are a ton of seeds in them.  If you do use raspberries I highly recommend that you strain them so that you avoid the seeds.
2- The recipe calls for 5 TBS of gelatin but I only had 4 (that's what came in the box) and they turned out good.
3- Use a smaller dish than the recipe calls for.  I used the 8x8 dish and my gummies are a little thin.
4- Adding a little bit of fruit extract would punch up the flavor a lot.  The raspberry flavour became a little muted once it was totally set.  However even without it, they are still yummy. 

These were super easy to make and are totally worth the annoyance of dealing with gelatin (I ended up re-blending mine since I had little gelatin lumps, worked perfect).  I think keeping some on hand will have to be a must from now on.

Check out the original recipe Healthy Fruit Snacks and try your hand at making some.

What flavour combinations do you think would make a great gummy?

My Week (a recap)

It has been a pretty awesome week this week.  The blog has been up and running for a week now and while I am still working out the kinks and know-hows associated with blogging I am liking the journey. 

One of the things that I really want to get into the habit of doing each week on this blog is to do a recap of my week.  I'm sure that some weeks the posts will be a little sparse and other weeks there will be lots of things to post.  At the end of my weekly recap post I want to try and add a message/quote at the end.  Something that I have seen that spoke to me.

So here is my maiden attempt at a weekly recap (this one will be a little longer since I wanted to include my previous weekend before the blog was started):

Last Friday (March 7th) the hubs and I had a mini date night in complete with homemade pizza.  Since we have VASTLY different tastes when it comes to pizza we both made our own.  I was even able to make some pizza dough from scratch.  Thank you mom and dad for letting me steal borrow your bread maker.

My pizza half regular pepperoni half olive oil and pesto.  Yum Yum

 

The hubs pizza, spicy all the way with spicy BBQ sauce, hot peppers and pepperoni.

The next night while the hubs was working at our church I went over to our friends C and M's house to see their new baby, have dinner and catch up.  Since I can't go over to anyone's house for dinner without bringing something I brought my fallback dessert, easy custard pie.  I always have all the ingredients needed in the house and you whip it up in a blender.  What could be easier?  To check out the recipe  click here 

Yumm super easy to boot.  Could be the perfect desert.

Sunday was a bit of a lazy day I missed church service in the morning but was able to make a birthday brunch with a friend who couldn't make it out to my festivities the weekend before.

MMMMM coffee my life's blood. 

A great birthday breakfast with M

 After a great weekend of friends and food it was off to work.  Since I was going to be onsite for my work and therefore not able to make coffee I got an opportunity to use the coffee sleeves that my baby sis made for  me for my birthday.  And they worked great.

I LOVE the bright colour just what I need to brighten up my morning.

Of course on Friday the hubs surprised me with an amazing date night at the Keg.  I won't go into the details again but you can read all about it on my previous post.

I am such a lucky girl.

Saturday was a pretty great day with a massage and a much needed haircut.  I was getting a little bored with the same old style so my AMAZING stylist Katarina mixed things up a little with a new bang.

I love it. 

And that was my week.  It was a week that had ups and downs (spilling my coffee Friday morning while freezing my tushie off was definitely a down).  But I had more goods than bads and in the end that's what counts. 
I hope everyone else had a mostly good week.


This weeks message: You Matter - always remember that.

Fabulous Surprise Date Night

My Friday started out rough. I woke up with a killer headache which I seriously considered calling in sick to work  got up and pushed through my morning.  Than while waiting at the bus stop to take me over the border (to Quebec) I knocked my coffee over while struggling with my bags.

That just seemed to be the foreshadowing for my day.  However at the end of the work day I was back at my office in Ottawa so the hubs swung by the office and picked me up. Where he told me he had made reservations for tonight at 8pm at the Keg Manor.  Of course this is after a full-on crummy day so let's just say I was less than enthusiastic about the plans.  All I wanted to do was put on sweatpants and spend the night watching bad reality TV.

But I got all dressed up and headed out for dinner.  And I have to admit it was EXACTLY what was needed to turn my day around.

A perfect romantic surprise

We were sat in this little room upstairs that only had a couple other tables (nice, quite and romantic) where we were able to just let the stress of the day melt away.

We decided to share an appetizer (since I was getting the creme brulee desert I needed to save some room).  We both agreed that the baked brie was the perfect choice to start off our meal. 

Sooooo yummy

The cheese came out really quickly which we were very thankful for since it was about 8:15pm and neither of us had eaten since lunchtime.  The cheese was AMAZING!!!  It was all melty on top but the middle was warm and still solid so you could spread it no problems.  It came with a pesto and a red pepper jelly and I loved them both.  If my spilling the coffee and headache in the morning as the foreshadowing of how my day was going to go, then this brie was a foreshadowing for how our night was going to go.......fabulous!

The hubs ordered a giant steak (and like a trooper ate it all), and after the advice of our waiter I ordered a creole chicken which had scallops and shrimp on top in a yummy tomato sauce.

The hub's giant steak

My amazing chicken with shrimp and scallops

The dinner was so good and we both ate it all up (much to our tummy's amazement).  But I just had to have the creme brulee to finish it off.  Creme brulee has to be one of my ultimate favourite deserts.  There is just nothing that I don't like about it, the crispy caramelized sugar top, breaking through it to get to the smooth warm vanilla custard.  Ugh it's just the best desert around.  And the Keg's version did not disappoint at all.   

Absolutely perfect

Dinner was amazing, the conversation was great and it was a perfect way to turn around a day that was otherwise a little gloomy. 

Look how handsome he is.

I felt like the luckiest wife by the end of the night to be married to such a great man that put together this dinner date just to turn around my night.