Don't dig your grave with your own knife and fork

My recent health kick has me conscious (obsessive?) with what I’m eating for each meal and over the course of the day.  I am the candy and chip queen and I’ve been blessed with kind enough genes to allow my addiction to carry on for 20 odd years without any serious repercussions.

BUT all good things must come to an end.  I’ve gone cold turkey and cut out the junk.  It has been extremely* difficult but, the competitive nature in me has me pushing myself day by day to prevent myself from cheating. 

It has only been a few short weeks on the new and improved diet but, I cannot believe how great it feels. For any of you out there considering a new eating style- it’s totally worth it! I recognize I am saying this a week before Halloween (however I refuse to recognize how difficult it will be for me to not eat candy over the next two weeks) but, there’s no better time to make a change than the present.

I’ve had several people ask me at work how I’ve made the switch so smoothly (ps. it hasn’t been smooth AT ALL!).  It boils down to 3 easy points:

1.       Be organized: this means have your meals planned out on a day to day schedule.  That might mean you work on a variety of 5 types of meals and circulate through, or, as I have done, have a meal assigned to each day of the week.  Prepare these meals before you wake up!!! Eating right is only 40% of the difficulty, finding the time to prepare the meals has been far more difficult

2.       One is too many: Do not allow yourself even one dirty treat.  It cracks open the sweet tooth and spirals into uncontrollable situations

3.       Drink lots of water: and by lots I mean a GALLON A DAY. Yes, a gallon. Yes, that’s a 4L milk jug. Yes , I get up to go the bathroom 10+ times a day

*by extremely, I mean I’ve been incredibly bitchy and irritable and I often have headaches from sugar cravings (not exaggerating at all).

As of lately

I gave the blogging concept a try and got lazy real quick.  Yet, I still have time to read the 100 daily blogs I enjoy.  So I'm back at the blogging idea. And to my surprise, while I was away, I had plenty of "post view". Thank you to whomever you are.


Enjoy my first "as of lately" post:

The JETS are back in town and the city could not be more alive!! 

 I was lucky enough to have tickets to the first ever Jets WIN! On home ice! Great moment to be a part of!

 The leaves have fallen and its certainly getting cold quickly in Winterpeg

 Cold weather is perfect for learning some new recipes in the kitchen!

 As well as trying out new restys!



Waiting on the (long) Weekend

Long weekend ahead! Last one of the summer!

I'm heading to the lake, rain or shine! Ice cream, farmers markets, bike riding, steak dinners, beers on the the beach and spending time with family and friends.

Hope you all enjoy the long weekend!

On the Move

This month has been a crazy month for close friends re locating and moving into new beautiful homes! Although I'm slightly (ok, extremely) jealous of their new living spaces and all the great decorating they will get to do once they are settled in, I'm grateful that I'll have plenty of experienced mover friends to help me  along with the process when the bf and I are ready to take the pludge.  Not to mention, I'm grateful to know I'll have plenty of friends to return the favor and help me move all my stuff!


With all the moving, it has me inspired with ideas of what I'd love to make my living space into.  Of course, most of my inspiration will be long term as I'll need to take baby steps when first moving out.  Here are some images that I've found inspiring lately: (all photos from decorpad.com)

 I love how both these kitchen images take the simple, elegant and crisp white theme and combine them with sophisticated and modern dark accents.

What I like most about these bedroom is that they take simple and affordable concepts and combine them together to create unique spaces.  I hope to have unique personal pieces in my bedroom that combine nicely with fresh flowers and fancy picture frames! 

Green Thumb

I've taken up a recent interest in decorating with plants.  They are a fairly inexpenisve but, still an expressive way to spice up your living space! I do not have a ton of plant knowledge but, between Google and my Mother (who is a gardening freak), I've managed to find quite a few plants that work great!

Recent additions to my plant family:

 

This is the staple viney plant -The Pothos- that drapes so nicely over window siles and bookshelves.  For $8 how can you go wrong? These plants require very little work, minimal sunlight and I only water mine about once a week.  Mine has been growing really fast and I'm assuming I'll need to re pot it into a bigger "room" fairly soon.



The Dracaena has such seamless color coordination.  It manages to combine the most bright and feminin colors without being too over the top.  The ones I purchased were $15 each and were about 3.5 feet tall.  I've bought them at a young age and they will apparently fill out and grow quite a bit still.  I've decided to plant them in larger pots than needed at the moment so I do not have to go through all the trouble of moving the roots into a new pot. 

My very first plant was this guy:

I must admit, it looked really beautful and colorful when I first bought (and For $15 he was a perfect match!) but, a few weeks ago, it slowly started dying!  All the leaves were shedding off.   But, with a little TLC it has sprouted tiny new leaves and seems to do very well in it's new location with more sun light!  Apparently this plant requires more attention than it's tag let on.  It needs plenty of sunlight and watering every 2 days.

Waiting on the Weekend

With the bf out of town Monday through Friday, Friday's always have a buzz of excitment hovering over them as I impatiently await the phone call saying "I'm home!". 

For many other obvioius reason, Friday's have a buzz about.  And today, my Friday buzz is centered around helping my best friend move (To a home closer to me! Making it even easier for me to see her practically everyday), a lobster dinner on Saturday (I must confess, I'm truely not a lobster fan but, I've promised the bf to give it a second try.  I figure it's only far since, the first and only time I tried it and sternly concluded I disliked it was when I was 15), breakfast in bed one morning and a breakfast outing the next, and finally, relazxing and catching up on all the pathetic shows I watch!

Speaking of shows! I just stumbled across this fabulous new TLC show! I'm a serious TLC addict.  Any show they put out I somehow find myself growing addicted to.  But, this show is not the average show.  Yes, its the average home living idea that TLC loves to over due, but, its vintage and DIY home living style from scraps found on road trips. 

Check it out here!

These girls are very handy, not to mention adorable.  Reminds me a lot of the two girls from Oh So Lovely Vintage! Check out their blog. Its a daily must read!

Off to the Races

The races were fantastic.  Ran into plenty of friends, ate plenty of greasy food, drank plenty of beer and had plenty of fun! Wish I could say we won plenty of money but, this was not the case.  However, we all had a case of some small luck as the group of us walked out $15 richer than we came in.  Our winnings were celebrated (and spent) with more tasty drinks!

 The finish line!!

Sorry for the poor pictures, there was far to much movement for my handy dandy iPhone to pick up on a quality pic!