What Have You Done For Your Body Today?

Happy National Women’s Health & Fitness Day!

I do not normally blog about fitness because lets face it, these days everyone who lifts up a dumbbell occasionally feels the need to tweet, blog and Instagram their fitness exploits.

Honestly I try not to, it is just not me. If it keeps you in the gym and on the right track, right on! Keep it up! To each their own.

Today I celebrated National Women’s Health and Fitness Day by kicking it off with a big Canadian Protein order. It has been a long time coming and I am so excited for the Quest bars that I have treated myself to.

I woke up pretty sore and since we are being honest here I really did not want to go to the gym. Yesterday morning I worked back and biceps and then had my first ice time for hockey in well over a year so my body’s muscles were sore from all the skating.  I could have made excuses; my boyfriend stayed in bed (still sore from hockey) and I worked late last night and was on my feet until 9:30pm. But, I exercised my willpower and chugged my pre-workout and got in my car to head to the gym as quickly as possible. Sometimes as strong as our bodies are from working out our lazy minds can still win the battle to be active.

Today I pushed it. I trained legs and shoulders with intervals of intense cardio between supersets. To adjust to my soreness I cut my heavy lifts by one set and during my cardio intervals listened to my favourite gym tracks. I treated myself to half an infrared sauna session after to sweat a little more and relax with my book after my solid gym session.

Someone once told me that you will never regret getting up and going to the gym; you will regret not going. I really took that message to heart. It may sound silly buy my cookies and cream protein shake tastes better when I know I have had a successful workout.

I am now off to throw together a great reward lunch, a spicy chicken salad (you can see that below) with a FOLDit Chicken club sandwich.

Remember: Crap in, crap out! If you are expecting your body to perform physically fuel it properly! Just like at the gym you only get out what you put in!

Today marked my 28th week since I returned back to my training plan, today specifically was workout 156. 

Carbs, Crafts, Sickness and a Very Special Lady's Birthday!

I’m sick.

Clearly no one wants to talk to me because I look and sound like I have been smoking a pack a day since I was four and have been forced to walk across Canada all summer in the same outfit without showering. That might be a little harsh but I bet you are get the picture, I feel pretty gross right now.

My weekend was a celebration for my weakness for carbohydrates disguised as my Grandmother MacDonald’s birthday. So I am feeling doubly crappy today. It is like a massive food hangover crossed with a fall flu. Yes, it is totally possible to be hung from food.

Anyways, I bet you never would have guessed that this blog was crafted to wish my Grandmother MacDonald a big ole’ happy birthday. She reads these blogs when I’m not around so someday she will stumble upon this and hopefully smile.

My weekend was incredibly productive until the sickness hit me Sunday morning after a quick staff meeting at work. The productivity started when I made a delicious dessert for our fish and chip party at my parent’s house Saturday night. Peanut butter bar squares garnished with a little grated skor bar.

To be honest with you, my food hangover pretty much centers on these squares. My amazing dessert arrived at the party via a proxy and had melted together so I may have had a little cry in my childhood bedroom with the pan before supper. Yes, that happened. Sometimes I am a grown ass child about things. It is not a family event until someone cries, right? That only lasted about 10 minutes and only a third of pan was sacrificed to my sad. I call it having a sad. Having a sad happens every once in a blue moon and usually before sickness hits.

On top of getting my bake on in a totally domestic fashion I also crafted this weekend. Like most crafts, it sits nearly complete today (Monday) and cost way more than just going to Walmart to buy the item that I originally needed. Breanna and I set out to make corkboards this weekend, hopefully next weekend we will finish them and I will tell you about them here in the blog. You can see it truly is a beautiful work in progress…

As you can tell, now that we have a house I am attempting to be more domestically inclined. This is really conflicting with my desire to not bring in any crap to my house that I do not absolutely love for furniture. I still do not have a dresser, but that is on my list of musts for the week. Our house is a mess.

Anyways, in my hunt for things to make our new house our own I am constantly snooping around my family members homes for things we can use for our house (with permission of course) and I found this hilarious read at my grandmother’s house.

Part of me wants to read this cover-to-cover and learn from it. I hope this book was important and informative for young adults in my Grandmother’s day (much like Adulting by Kelly Williams Brown was for me). And the cynical/bitchy part of me is angry that there are only women on the cover of a book for “Young Canadians”. I am a little conflicted; maybe I will come back to this topic in the future.

Regardless, a big “Happy Birthday” to Grannie MacDonald! I was a tad craft-bitchy at her house on Sunday so I will leave this apology here as a permanent tribute to such an important lady in my life. Sickness and failing miserably at crafts are not a good combination; I hope to someday lose my temper and gain some patience. I also someday hope to be as happy with a Palm Bay tiki girl for my birthday as you were after your trip to the LC with Lisa and Kim. Seriously.

Until then, I’m just a (temporarily) sick 25-year-old inadequate crafter with a weakness for carbs. Happy Birthday Gram, I love you!

Lay's Canada Chip Challenge 2014

Last year Lay’s Canada started an annual competition called “Do Us A Flavour”. Jenny Fines and I were pretty pumped up and tried the four chip flavours competing for the first championship title. Our (and our entire office’s) least favourite chip “Maple Moose” ended up winning the contest, before flopping in the real world potato chip market. You can check out the 2013 edition of the competition here.

“Do Us A Flavour” is back again this year as I am sure you have noticed if you frequent gas stations, pharmacies, grocery stores or well pretty much any place that sells food in Canada. This year at my Grandmother’s 72nd birthday party I thought it would be fun to throw the chips on the table and see what everyone thought of the four new flavours.

This year there is a new twist to the competition; two of the proposed new flavours are featured in different Lay’s textures (wavy and kettle cooked). Over a million flavours were suggested; here are the four that made it into production:

-Lay’s Wavy Jalapeno Mac’N’Cheese created by Randall Litman from Calgary, AB.

-Lay’s Kettle Cooked Tzatziki created by Denise Vella from Cambridge, ON

-Lay’s Cinnamon Bun created by Gloria Melanson from London, ON.

-Lay’s Bacon Poutine created by Guillaume Lorrain from Trois-Rivières, QC.

Last year everyone agreed that Maple Moose was the WORST. Maple Moose chips actually made it into the office garbage can. Clearly we were all surprised when it ended up winning the contest.

This year there is no clear worst chip. Honestly we all thought the Lay’s Cinnamon Bun bag of chips would be gross, but they actually were not that bad. They were more sweet than cinnamony and the balance between sweet and salty was not that bad. People had warned us against them, but they were not even close to being as gross as “Maple Moose”.

My favourite (because I cannot choose just one) are the “Lay’s Wavy Jalapeno Mac’N’Cheese” and the “Lay’s Kettle Cooked Tzatziki”. This may just be because I like the different textures. Honestly, I don’t think I would choose any of these chips over my go-to favourite simple ketchup chips. I think they could have done better with the flavouring for them all.

If the house votes say mean anything it will be a battle between “Lay’s Bacon Poutine” or “Lay’s Wavy Jalapeno Mac’N’Cheese”.

You can vote for your favourite in the 2014 “Do Us A Flavour” contest by clicking here. The winner will receive $50,000 and 1% of their chips sales.

Lay’s is all over Twitter and Instagram and you are able to use the following hashtags: #VoteBaconPoutine, #VoteCinnamonBun, #VoteJalapenoMacNCheese and #VoteTzatziki.

Or you can text your vote to 101010.

Voting closes October 12, 2014.

In case you are wondering, here are the finalists for the 2014 American version of the contest “Do Us A Flavor”:

Lay’s Cheddar Bacon Mac & Cheese

Lay’s Cappuccino

Lay’s Wavy Mango Salsa

Lay’s Kettle Cooked Wasabi Ginger

Learning From My New Hood: More On Moving!

We finally bought coffee today so I have a feeling that means good things for my neglected blog. 

I have learned a few things about moving this time around that never have been an issue before. No two moving experiences are the same; moving back to my hometown (well the next town over) has been a very strange experience. Let me explain (for a little background click here).

In the months before leaving the Kootenays I learned an important lesson, one that you should learn from watching one episode of Hoarders; that buying lots of crap is the enemy. This time around I am not bringing anything into my house that I don’t want long term, this is annoying the hell out of my relatives/anyone with things they want to get rid of and give away. Yes, it is important to get things together in your living space in order but this time I am putting my foot down and waiting it out.

We have picked up some important things for the apartment from my family like a bed and mattress; we bought a couch, TV, fridge and oven but other than that things are pretty bare bones around the house.

The strange thing is I have no desire to buy anything large. I would like a new dresser and vanity but everything I want right now is small. I have a new obsession with decorating that I have never had before. No, I have not been spending hours on end on Pinterest (I actually just set my iMac up yesterday and have been spending barely anytime online).  

Joss & Main has become a weird love of mine as well. I could spend every dollar I make for the next ten years on that website. Seriously, I welcome all housewarming gift card gifts.

My question for you is what is the first thing you bought for your house? Did you get excited about it?

The first thing we bought for our new house was a set of dishes that made me as excited as the boys were that day when they bought their new toys (Kev’s new car and Butter’s new motorcycle). It was a great call then and I am still very happy with it now. My first BIG buy for the house was the couch and reclining chair. I was happy that I managed to get it delivered to the house and set up before the boys got home in time for our weekend guest. Folding chairs were not cutting it. 

What is your favourite thing about moving?

Clearly for me it is looking at the walls and the space and all the potential we have for decorating and making our little cookie-cutter lodge our own. Seriously, it is like being in elementary school and getting to decorate baked goods for Halloween.

What is your least favourite part of moving?

Mine was waiting for things to arrive (specifically my car). Honestly, I am not sure that I would ever ship my car again. For the first couple of weeks I felt like I was back in high school. No car (well other than my parent’s mini-van). No space. No freedom. I am so happy that is over!

Life still feels like a vacation (kind of) at this point. It is weird to think that this is what real life is like. Everything is coming together slowly, the boys are settling into their routine with the Air Force and summer is coming to an end.

On a happy note, the neighbourhood kids are back in school now so the hours that they are screwing around on our lawn have been cut down. I sound like a horrible person saying this but it is so nice to have kid-free afternoons. Generally they do not speak to me (I do not make eye contact) but they love the boys. The neighbourhood children would follow them into the house if they could. The posse of children seems to know exactly when we are coming and going during daylight hours and always greet us. Toys appear on our lawn (sometimes intact), other times large sticks and other children’s debris show up too.

If I ever go missing it maybe because of a children’s reenactment of 2008’s “The Strangers”. You may or may not remember this classic Liv Tyler film that basically comes down to the following:

Anyway, I think the coffee will help with focus for the next blog. This one has been all over the place. There is so much to talk about! I know I skipped over some great events and happenings here in Nova Scotia on the blog and I am hoping to be more diligent in the future. I have to update my social profiles to my newly out of the radio world details so the blog maybe a work in progress for a little while.

Now to drink my embarrassingly bad cup of coffee without cream and sweetener, I may have the appliances to do the job but nothing else is clicking right now. After two years using k-cups my ability to brew a pot of coffee at home leaves a lot to be desired. Struggles.