A Day of Eats (for a working girl)

Well, I made it through my first day of work. I completely forgot how exhausting it is to wear a bra for that long. 

I thought I’d share my full day of eats from my first full day on the job. It was all good stuff too, as I’d spent a good chunk of time in the kitchen yesterday making sure everything was prepped for the entire week. 

Just before heading out the door, I blended a green smoothie to slurp on the road. It consisted of spinach, frozen tropical fruit, chocolate protein powder and unsweetened almond milk.

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Late morning snack: whole wheat zucchini blueberry muffins (I had two). Let me know if you think I should post the recipe. Ok, twist my arm, I will. THEY ARE TOO GOOD TO KEEP TO MYSELF!!!!! Look for the recipe soon.

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Late lunch: quinoa topped with sauteed broccoli, zucchini and red pepper mixed with garlic hummus

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Road Soda: 1/2 of my favorite flavor of kombucha!

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Dinner: Asian chopped salad and sourdough toast

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So there ya have it. In other news, I completely cleaned out my closet yesterday. Fortunately for you, I didn’t take a ‘before’ shot, but I managed to take about 60% of what I own OUT of there.

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That’s the ‘after’. I feel so zen now that I can actually see what I have in there. Now if only I could find someone willing to buy the rest of my clothes off me….

Plus, I need the cash to stock up on more clothes. Because I’m getting good at the whole shopping thing. Check out my new little belt friend. He kept me company all day:

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But he got a little tight after a day full of quinoa and 4 liters of water. Rude.

And with that, I leave you with some rhetorical questions posed by singers:

What is Love?

Who Let the Dogs Out?

What Rhymes With Hug Me?

Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?

What’s My Age Again?

Can You Feel The Love Tonight?

What’s Your Fantasy?

Do Your Ears Hang Low?

Do You Like Pina Coladas?

Got any to add to the list? 

What’s your go-to packed lunch? Snacks you keep at your desk?

The Return of Sunday No-fun Day

Since I can remember, I hated Sundays. The weekend is over=the fun is over. Time to either to get ready for a week of work, or to complete last minute schoolwork (or both). Up until this past December, I would wake up on Sunday mornings and just be in a day-long state of anxiety because of what the week would bring. Granted, the stress of work was eliminated from my mind about 18 months ago, but I was still in school- which in some cases was even worse. 

The last 8 months have been pretty great. No stress. Ok some stress, because I was TRYING to find another job. But that whole Sunday shitty feeling was gone. 

NOW IT’S BACK.

I start my new job tomorrow. I’m kinda nervous. Mostly because I am going to be responsible for stuff again. Like MONEY stuff. Not just making sure the house is clean and the dogs are still alive. 

Plus, there’s my sanity. I’m really hoping to enjoy this new experience while also maintaining all the fun stuff I’ve been able to enjoy in the last year and a half. Fun stuff being: workouts, baking, dog walking and napping. Not to mention the ability to not acquire desk job muffin top.

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Ok, so my last ‘free’ weekend was pretty good. We picked Reggie up from the vet on Friday night after his surgery. It went really well, and he ended up snuggling with us on the couch for the rest of the night.

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Saturday, Tyler and I headed out to Canmore. We had lunch at our favorite place, The Grizzly Paw, then took a quick drive to hike the High Line Trail. We didn’t do the entire trail, but we got through a good chunk of it before turning around and heading back (rather than completing the loop).

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We parked near Quarry Lake, where a lot of families had come to make it a beach day. By the time we were ready to leave, there were tons of vendors setting up for what looked to be like a wedding. If it was, it was a beautiful location to get hitched!

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And of course, I napped in the car on the way home. And Tyler made us dinner. Yum yum.

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Time to meal prep for the week!

How was your weekend?

Oops

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Oops is right. Guess I was in too much of a hurry yesterday to give some deets on the new J-O-B.

Truth is, I don’t want to tell TOO much about it. But I can tell you that it’s and Accounting Coordinator position for an industrial company. I’m really excited about it because I’ll essentially be the only person in my department, so I can really organize everything the way I want it. And the perks aren’t bad either! Good hours, benefits, and the dress code is up to me (ok, he didn’t word it like that, but he said I could wear jeans or ‘whatever’ so you know I’m having a field day at the mall)

Today is my last weekday of unemployment and I’m both excited and sad. I’m really ready to get to work, but after having all this time at home, I’m going to miss taking the puppies out for long adventures. And naps. And all-day pajama wearing.

Another thing I’m REALLY going to have to work on now is meal planning. I’ll have to get back to sitting down each weekend and planning our upcoming wee’k dinners, and also prepping lunches and snacks for work. Which reminds me, I need to buy a lunchbox. Or lunch pail. Or whatever they’re called these days.

On to other topics…

Two words. Sound like Schmike Yuelmand. Guesses? If you guessed Nike Fuelband, you would be correct. The dang think broke AGAIN!

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Tyler got me the first one for Christmas, and by January it already busted. (Tip: Don’t plug it into the wall. It needs to be plugged into something with a time clock. The instructions don’t tell you that.) I called customer service and they were SUPER nice and sent me a replacement right away.

This time, I pressed the button to see how many fuel points I earned and it said ‘Memory Low Sync’ so I plugged it into my computer and got an error message right away. Customer Service said it was a hardware issue that couldn’t be troubleshooted so they’re sending me yet ANOTHER band.

Couple of things with this situation:

  1. NIKE customer service has been AWESOME. I honestly don’t mind speaking with them to have an issue resolved.
  2. HOWEVER>>>>I’m not a huge fan of the fact that I’m on my third band in 8 months.

That said, anyone have suggestions on possible alternatives to the fuel band? I really do love tracking my activity and I love how simple this band is. I really don’t want to invest in something that’s $$$$$ or complicated to navigate.

(insert 4 hour delay in typing this post while I got to the mall)

….and buy this stuff:

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3 pairs of pants, a pair of jeans, leggings, 2 dresses, 3 tops, a sweater and a belt. I’m a FANTASTIC bargain shopper. In fact:

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Yes, yes. This is what all that education prepared me for. Shopping. Shopping for clothes for the job which I acquired with the same education.

BARBECUE FRIENDS (OR: TOMATO FRIENDS)

Please go slice a tomato in half. Drizzle with EVOO/S&P and slap that sucker on the grill. You’ve love it. And me for telling you about it.

 

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Funny little tweet I sent out earlier today that has yet to generate response (I obviously know the answer, I’m just trying to be funny AIGHT?!)

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LAST THING BEFORE I LEAVE YOU TO YOUR WEEKEND:

I want to try to reach 200 Like on my Facebook page. And if I do, I’ll be hosting a giveaway (I know, pretty crummy I’ve never hosted a giveaway before, but umm I’m not sponsored by any company nor did I have any money to personally send you anything anyways.) But since I got this jobbity job, I feel I could scrounge up a few pennies and send one lucky winner something pretty sweet- just not sure yet what it’ll be. So tell all your friends to go like my page so we can get this giveaway started.

Have a great weekend!

 

I Ate a Cauliflower

Hi guys. Happy Thursday! Some things from the last couple of days…

Dog Park with the puppies..wanted to get a few more trips in with my babies before Reggie goes into surgery tomorrow. He broke a tooth and it having it removed and needs to go under. Layla is going to love having the house to herself for a whole day!

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BV yoga on Tuesday and Traditional on Wednesday. I also squeezed in a full-body strength workout and 10 minutes of cardio at the gym in the early afternoon. Feelin’ good you guys!!!

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I bought a head of cauliflower on Tuesday. CAULIFLOWER IS THE ONE VEGGIE I DESPISE. And yet…I wandered into the store and bought one for the first time ever. I chopped it up, tossed it in EVOO/S&P/Garlic Salt, baked for 20 and broiled for 10 and bam, it was delicious. I ate most of it, but Tyler liked it as well (odd enough, he doesn’t like cauliflower either!)

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A few weeks ago when we were in Edmonton, we stopped to have lunch at Local after an afternoon of shopping. We chose the restaurant because it looked like it had a cool vibe and the menu sounded pretty good. Plus, the patio was really nice. I ordered what was called the West Coast Chopped Salad and Tyler got a burger. My meal was super underwhelming, so Tyler was nice enough to let me take a bunch of bites from his yummy burger. I tweeted about the disappointing meal and was quickly contacted by the restaurant regarding my experience. After a couple of back and forth chats, they offered to send me a gift card!

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The good news is that there is another location here in Calgary, so we will be able to take advantage of their generosity pretty soon (I’m totally ordering the burger next time)

Hmmmmm……what else……..

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549 days after saying goodbye to my last job in MA, I FINALLY SNAGGED A JOB AS A PERMANENT RESIDENT IN CANADA. So excited. I start on Monday, so that’s why I must leave you now and hit the mall for a new wardrobe!!!!!!!!

Music Memory Association

Yesterday morning I woke up and wanted to bake a cake. So bake a cake I did. I pretty much perfected my moms wacky cake. And by ‘perfected’ I mean that I actually waited for it to cool before icing it. I have never had that kind of patience before. And it paid off. So tasty.

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And I ate a big dumb piece of that cake, so of course I had to take the dogs out somewhere so that I can burn at least one bite off. And I guess they needed the exercise too.

We headed to Edworthy Park because it was close and gave us what each of us wanted: water to ‘hippo’ in for Layla, bushes and trails for Reggie to sniff and pee on, and a steep hill for me to break a sweat. Happy group all around.

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I watched Vegucated. Have you seen it? It’s a documentary about a vegan women who chooses 3 different people in NYC to live a vegan lifestyle for 6 weeks and see how it affects their health and whether they’ll continue the lifestyle. Also, it showed lots of raw footage from slaughter houses which totally grossed me out. I mean, I was already aware of how yuck it was, but the images are just…..well, yikes. Tyler caught part of it and suggested we go vegetarian at least once a week. Ha! We shall see. PS: I like bacon.

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I FINALLY got a strength workout in. It has been almost two weeks since I did a legit strength workout, and I could almost immediately feel it. Heading to a yoga class afterwards really helped. Anyhoo, I opted for the workout at the bottom of this post. I chose to do each circuit 2x through. Layla joined in for most of it.

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In case you were wondering, I am a master at the camel pose (haha rhymes with camel toes!) Ok, not a master, but it was one of the few moves I hated and could never do without wanting to pass out, and now I really get into it.

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I came across this post on Job Applications. I am on THE EXACT SAME PAGE as this gal. Like take anything you’re frustrated in and raise it to the Nth power. Points include:

  • long application processes
  • the internet is a black hole
  • i have lots of education but never the EXACT stuff that’s desired
  • Full time v part time
  • It’s not what you know, it’s who you know
  • Social media
  • I’m so much more than a piece of paper!
  • No Canadian experience- you have no idea how much of a factor that is, although no one will admit it

If you’e still reading (fingers crossed at least a half dozen of you will make it this far) I thought I’d close out this post with something *i think* might be fun. You know when certain songs or smells or words or whatever consistently remind you of something else? Well, I decided to put my iTunes on shuffle and listen the first 10 songs that come up and explain what I think of whenever I hear each of those songs. Get it? Here goes:

1. Rude Boy- Rihanna. I always think of the route I take when I do an outdoor run in my hometown (Glens Falls, NY) I would run from my parents house to the high school and back and I think I did it a few too many times when I first added this song to my playlist because I think I heard it almost every time I got to this one intersection and would have to run in place.

2. Genie in a Bottle- Christina Aquilera. I can ALWAYS picture the outfit she wore in this video. It prompted me to buy a pair or baggy orange pants, too. Believe me, I didn’t look anything even CLOSE to her.

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3. Lose Yourself- Eminem. Oak Square YMCA Tuesday night Kix class and having Sarah freak out because it was her favorite. (Sorry only about 6 of you will get this. And probably laugh. Hi Sarah! Now you know I’m thinking of you!) And I picture Mekhi Phifer.

4. Paradise- Coldplay. Makes me want to be in the crowd of one of their concerts and wave glowsticks.

5. Just Dance- Lady Gaga. First time I heard this song I was at me then-favorite bar, McFaddens (in Boston. And I just read that it closed! So sad, that was my favorite place when I was 21) and was wearing a gaudy purple top and only knew the words ‘just dance’ and jumped throughout the entire song. Then the bartender gave me and my friend shots.

6. Kung Fu Fighting- Carl Douglas. Class talent show back in elementary school. The grade above mine did a routine to this song and I can picture it like it was yesterday. Plus, I want to kick someone when I hear it. Not out of anger. Just out of awesome kung fu-ness.

7. Steve McQueen- Sheryl Crow. The summer I moved to NY I would ride my bike to the high school track then run the track while the boys football team was practicing. Like, every day. (Hi, are any of you from high school reading this? Are laughing about it? Cause I can’t believe I would do that.) I listened to Sheryl Crow ON MY DISCMAN. THAT I HAD TO CARRY IN A DRAWSTRING BACKPACK. #firstworldproblems

8. What’s Your Fantasy- Ludacris. HAHAHHAHAHAHAHA ok, this is ridiculous. I remember being on the middle school track team and one of the girls on my team would sing it verbatim. Odd song for a pre-teen to know. And now I just laugh. And also know the WHOLE song by heart (singing aloud to it RIGHT NOW)

9. Harder to Breathe- Maroon 5. Held a party at my house while my parents were gone the summer I graduated high school. String christmas lights in the basement (you know the kind that have all those different flashing options) and someone brought the Maroon 5 CD over and it played on repeat the whole night. Also, I was fascinated that the beat of this song went oh so well with the particular flash setting for the christmas lights.

10. How Bizarre- OMC. Driving from NY to MA when I was little. And going to Salem, MA and seeing a liquor store named ‘The Bunghole’

So there you have it for odd memory associations! I’d love to hear some of yours!!

**If you haven’t already, go like my Facebook page! When I hit 200 likes, I’ll be hosting a giveaway!!**