Monthly Archives: February 2012

Moments on a Sunday

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Today ended up being a relatively pleasant day considering the fact that we had no great plans in store and that Sundays are often low-key anyway what with easing back into school and work. Moments that contributed to my Sunday:

  • I did my third day in a row of the current BexLife challenge, doing ten burpees followed by a two-minute plank. Day one was easy. Day two and three were a bit harder now that soreness has helped me identify the exact location of every single abdominal muscle in my body. Ow.
  • I went to my favourite thrift shop and bought myself a tank top (to wear under low-cut shirts), five shirts, a pair of name-brand jeans, and two My Little Ponies for the kids. Grand total? Just over $28. Yes, I do love thrifting, thank you very much.
  • I finally found kale at a semi-decent price. I don’t know if there’s a better season for kale but every time I wanted to get some it was a tiny little wad of green leaves, often somewhat limp, and cost close to four bucks. Today it was still a bit on the pricey side at $3.49 but at least it was a HUGE bunch and it looked perfect.
  • Related to the above, I therefore was able to FINALLY try kale after hearing its benefits sung from the rooftops from most of the health blogging population. I sauteed half of my bunch with some onion and garlic, and it was quite tasty. I need to find more recipes to try out, so please feel free to share. I’m planning to use the other half tomorrow after work to try out kale chips.
  • Along with the kale – which was a HUGE hit with Hayley, by the way, and she even had two servings and asked for some with her lunch tomorrow – I made chili that I served on brown rice, and I cooked up a small pot of quinoa to take with the leftover chili for my supper tomorrow.
  • I saw a robin today. A robin! In February! That’s insane and practically unheard of. I wonder if that means an early spring after all or if a flock of robins are going to get screwed over.
  • After putting the kids to bed I enjoyed a fairly terrifying episode of The Walking Dead. While I always love this show, it’s been awhile since I’ve had to fight off the urge to climb up onto the back of my couch and hide my eyes. Good stuff!
  • After having taken Friday off, I’ve enjoyed a nice long three-day weekend. Much needed, oh yes.

How was your weekend?

My attempt at the 7-day BexLife Burpee & Plank challenge:

And apropos of nothing in particular, last week I took my favourite of George’s cover songs, Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry” and I put it up on YouTube. It’s been years since he recorded it and I still love it.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend, let me know what you did!

11 things, 11 questions

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One of my favourite fitness people is Bex and she did this post and challenged others to do the same. I have a bit of time to pass until the kids need to go to bed, at which point George and I will watch a movie, so I figured I’d go ahead and do this so as to stop seeing that depressing post I wrote last week every time I open my blog.

The way it works: I have to post 11 random things about myself, then answer 11 questions asked by the blogger I got this from, and then write up 11 questions for others. Whew. Here goes!

11 random things about me:

1. I am insanely competitive. I can be happily lazy or indifferent to something right up until the moment that I’m challenged in a competitive way and then I will lose my ever loving mind trying to meet and/or exceed it. I’m even competitive with myself.

2. Despite the fact that I REALLY WANT TO WIN at things, I’m not a sore loser in any way.

3. In my first year of high school I was so bummed by my first term grade in Ecology (I believe it was 83%) that I went up to my teacher and asked him how I could improve for the next term. He mumbled something about staying engaged and studying harder, but later told my dad at parent-teacher night that he had only answered that way because he was taken aback; no student had ever asked him how to do better after getting a grade in the 80-something range.

4. I failed Advanced Chemistry in a spectacular going-up-in-flames kind of way, getting grades around 35 and 40%. I never meant to take the class. I had chosen Advanced Biology so they decided to just throw me into Advanced Chem too. To this day I haven’t got a single clue as to what we were supposedly learning in that class. Thank God I did much better in Bio!

5. I am fully bilingual having started in French Immersion in elementary school and then Advanced French in high school. By the end of high school, when I was in grade 10 and 11 I was taking the exact same French curriculum as kids in French high schools. I even have a certificate, all formal and stuff.

6. I didn’t learn too much in the way of useful French as far as having actual conversations until after high school when I worked in environments where I needed to use it and dated a couple of French guys. Like many things that you learn in a classroom, actually applying it in life requires a bit of immersed modification.

7. Although I love the hell out of yoga, am pretty good at some of it, and enjoy certain fitness workouts I was not an athlete type in high school. I was very active outdoors, including biking and TONS of cross-country skiing, but I sucked at organized sports.

8. It’s kind of the same thing with the fact that I have a strong sense of spirituality but suck at trying to involve myself in organized religion.

9. I like living in a place where things are convenient – grocery stores close by, bus lines (when the union isn’t on strike – STILL!), parks, etc – but I really would prefer living in a nice house in the woods.

10. The ocean brings me peace. I haven’t been to the ocean in far too long, I can’t wait for warm weather so I can throw on my bathing suit (goal for this year: bikini!) and go back to Crystal Crescent Beach.

11. I love Halifax but frequently wish I still lived back home.

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The quiet unspoken truth

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I love it here. Halifax is a beautiful city, it’s right on the ocean, and in the summer I can be at the beach in about 20 minutes or less. Swimming in the Atlantic, being on the coast, it’s all a wonderful and amazing thing. Also, the people in the Maritimes are generally just as nice and friendly as the stereotypes claim them to be.

You know there’s a “but” coming though, right?

But.

Photo via montreallimo.ca

I miss home sometimes. I miss our families, I miss our friends, I miss the old school and the community I had there, I miss being at home with my kids, I miss the dog we had to leave behind, and I even miss the silly “should be inconsequential” things like Chinatown, the Biodome, and good poutine.

I know that sometimes it takes time to get settled and feel at home and for awhile I thought I had, but lately I have an ache that won’t go away no matter how much I love it here.

I’m homesick and there’s very little I can do about it except breathe and wait for it to pass.

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Coconut bread

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Here’s the thing; George and I are both creative people and we will always find an outlet for that creativity in some form or another just like anyone else. For me it once came out in writing and lately it’s in using my phone to take pictures while I’m out and about. George primarily lets his creativity out with music (did you know you can buy the album he did with his friend James over here?) but in recent weeks he’s been channeling it into food.

He makes delicious suppers, many of them in the crockpot, which is something I appreciate since it then translates into a supper for me the next day at work. He’s been making good use of the bread machine too, baking up fresh bread a couple of times a week. However, his latest endeavor has been to make coconut bread like his mother makes and it’s just as delicious as it sounds.

Here’s the tasty recipe:

Coconut Bread

  • 2 cups of flour
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup of butter or shortening
  • 1 cup grated coconut
  • 1/2 cup milk (you can add up to 1/4 of a cup more if it’s too dry)
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp cinnamon

Sift flour and baking powder, and combine with sugar, coconut, and spices. Add in the butter or shortening, and use two knives or a pastry blender to combine. Add milk and mix gently.

Pour into a greased and floured loaf pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for one hour.