Lists of 5 Things

This year for Christmas, I told Brian about a few gifts that I really wanted and most of them were "necessities" like maternity clothes, leather gloves (I had NO gloves and we live in Canada!), slippers (our floors are cold)...etc. etc. He did an awesome job of rounding up the items from my links to the stores, and all was good. One of the things I mentioned on my list was a day planner/agenda, and he got a bit creative with it and gave me this one:

You can buy one here!

At first, I was unsure about it...but now I actually love it. The only thing I don't love about it is that it has no month-at-a-glance view. Overall, though, it's been invaluable so far keeping track of blog posts and ideas, writing down LISTS as prompted (which I love) and tracking appointments. I love it. My work life isn't busy enough to require a day planner, and I manage it fine with Outlook & my e-mail, so this planner has worked for me so far. Brian got it for me because he knows that I love to make lists :) 

That being said...here is a fun post I saw ages ago with a lot of little lists!! Feel free to borrow it or even add your own 5 things in there somewhere!

Five Things I Have a Passion For:

(1) My Family - Every single member, immediate family, extended family, in-laws...I am so blessed to have wonderfully supportive family members who mostly get along.
(2) Music - I love listening to most types of music, but I also love to play - fiddle, piano and French horn. We also love to have dance parties around our house :)
(3) Research and Knowledge - I love to know why things happen, and I love Google because you can find the answer to any question you might have about anything. Based on my educational background, I also believe that research moves the world forward.

(4) Friends - Life would be nothing without friends to share it with, and we have some of the best friends around.
(5) Words - I love to read and write. I love getting lost inside a book. I love discovering new blogs or fun articles to read. I used to love writing letters and e-mails to friends.

Five Things I Would Like to do Before I Die

(1) Travel (see list below!)
(2) Watch my children grow up and have children of their own
(3) Truly feel like I am in the best shape of my life
(4) Run a half marathon
(5) Take a belated honeymoon and renew our wedding vows

Five Things I Have Made in the Kitchen Lately

(1) Zucchini Lasagna (recipe coming soon!)
(2) Chicken Fajitas (recipe tomorrow!)
(3) The best chocolate cake in the world for a friend's birthday last weekend (I really should share this recipe ASAP)...
(4) Egg Muffins to eat this week
(5) Protein pancake for breakfast this morning

Five Books And/Or Magazines I Have Read Lately

 I don't think I've read any magazines lately but I've definitely been reading some books! 

(1) The Divergent series
(2) The Book Thief (currently reading!)
(3) Hop on Pop (one of Molly's favourites)
(4) Barnyard Dance (another Molly favourite - she likes to dance to this one)
(5) The local newspaper (online version)

 Five Favorite Movies (Maybe I've Seen Them Five Times?)

(1) The Princess Bride
(2) Inception (although I still can't quite figure out the ending)
(3) The Lion King
(4) Pride and Prejudice (version with Keira Knightley)
(5) Love Actually (Ok, it's sappy, but "I love [it] and true love lasts a lifetime")

Five Places I Would Love to Travel

(1) Ireland and Scotland
(2) Hawaii and/or Costa Rica
(3) New Zealand
(4) Northern Canada (Yellowknife or Whitehorse?) or go on an Alaskan Cruise
(5) Locations from Dan Brown's books in Europe

(All images Via Google)

It's hard to stop at just 5 places but these are my top ones!

Five Useful Smartphone Apps

(these are for my Samsung Galaxy but I'm sure iOs has equivalent apps)

(1) 3G Watchdog - to monitor your data usage in a month
(2) Relax Melodies - great white noise for little ones or if you can't fall asleep
(3) gStrings - tuner for any instrument
(4) Songza - we've been listening to playlists on this one a lot lately
(5) SoundHound - similar to Shazam, but I find it a bit better

Five Blogs I am loving lately

(1) Camp Patton - just discovered her and I find her stories about toddlers hilarious
(2) The Life of Bon - just announced some big news this week! Her posts are always entertaining.
(3) The Daily Tay - makes me laugh almost every day
(4) Let Life be Like Music - I love reading about her life in Toronto and her fun pilot boyfriend and cute dog!
(5) Truth Be Told - another fellow Canadian who writes posts like this one that are awesome

What are 5 things on your mind today?? 

A Fun Recipe and Thirsty Thursday

Hey there!

I bet you were all waiting with bated breath to get your eyes on that recipe I said I was going to post yesterday. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the pictures to load properly, so here it is today! I bring you SWEET POTATO PIZZA via Well-Girl.  If you haven't checked out her blog or website, there are tons of awesome healthy recipes on there and she posts a lot of Fitsperation on Facebook too. 

Yum!! I made this about a month ago, and hubby loved it. Molly did not like it nearly as much, but she was going through a weird supper-eating phase at that time anyway. I found it a bit too sweet for my tastes, but the crust was a pretty good consistency. 

Here are the directions, taken from Well-girl's recipe: (I hope it's ok for me to post this if I include the source and the link!)

Ingredients

• 1 cup of mashed sweet potatoes
• 1/4 cup milled flax seed
• 1 egg
• 1 egg white
• 1 tbsp of no salt seasoning
• 1/2 tsp of baking powder
• Few dashes of salt

Directions

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
• Mix everything together very well.
• Spread the dough out into a circle (or square) about a quarter of an inch thick on a greased cookie sheet.
• Bake for 30-35 mins, or until the edges are crispy and the middle is firm.
• Top with marinara sauce, tons of veggies, your choice of protein and a little bit of low fat cheese.
• Put it back in the oven for another 5-7 minutes to allow your cheese to melt and all the flavors to come together.

I added the following toppings to our pizza:

Tomato sauce

Lean chicken sausage

Peppers

Onion

Spinach

Mushrooms

Hot peppers on hubby's half

Skim Mozzarella cheese

It was great! It was good the next day too. It's great too because it is gluten-free and full of health(ier) carbs than flour! 

Let me know if you try it and if you like it. Next up on my list to try is cauliflower pizza crust with this recipe. 

It's rainy and miserable here today, but I am headed out tonight for a friend's bachelorette party. We're bringing gifts because she didn't really have a wedding shower, so I picked up a couple of little things on my lunch break today. 

1) An infuser water bottle like this one:

(Image via Amazon)

2) This amazing little book with a great sentiment (especially on the eve of a wedding!) 

(I kind of wanted to buy one for myself too but I have enough journals)

That's it for today!! I'll be back tomorrow to link up with the girls for Five on Friday! 

Monday's Post on a Tuesday!!! *gasp*

HEY!!!

I originally wrote this post yesterday, but I'm going to post it today because I didn't have access to the internet yesterday to get it up on the blog! Next Tuesday I will be starting a series on parenthood called Tuesday's Tot Talks. Hope you like it!!

So what’s new with me these days? Here are some updates!

JOURNEY TO WELLNESS: As of today (Monday), I am starting an intense 6 week eating and exercise program set out for me by Journey to Wellness. Essentially, in the blog world, I think this would be defined as #sixweeksnocheats but 3 cheat meals will be allowed at very strategic/specific times. This is going to be challenging in the summer to go without alcohol or treats, but I truly want this and I feel as if this is what me and my body need right now. I will be working out more frequently, eating strategically around exercise, and changing up my strength training a bit. I started this morning (at 5:20 am) with some lemon water (see benefits below) and a 30-30 HIIT workout. Tonight I’ll be doing weights targeting arms/chest and core.



(via Google)

THOUGHTS GOING INTO THIS: I am a bit nervous about resisting the temptations, but I am going to be informing everyone I know (sort of) that I am hoping to do this and that I need their full support with it. I’m excited to see how I feel after the 6 weeks, and I know that overall, they will go by quickly! : ) I am at the point right now where I feel like I am putting in about 80% effort and not seeing the results that I want. I feel like I need to put in that extra 20% and see where it takes me. No treats, hard workouts, healthy food. Bring it on!! This post from Elle Noel really inspired me last week to say no to peer-pressure when it comes to poor eating if you are following a meal plan.

WEEKEND RECAP: We had a great weekend in the 30 degree+ heat in Halifax. We beat the heat on Saturday by spending time at our friends’ house and in their HUGE kiddie pool. It was fun to see them and Molly loved playing with their kids. We also had a bonfire at their house that night, and stayed over. Yesterday was unbearably hot in our house and I truly felt like I couldn’t think straight due to the heat. I had a long list of things that I wanted to accomplish, and I made a bit of a dent in it, but there’s still a lot more to get done this week. It’s hard to try to clean in the humid, sticky heat!! Our veggie garden is sprouting, which is really exciting! I can’t wait to see how the veggies turn out!! Our herbs are mostly blooming but a few died in the heat. I think we will try those again indoors in the fall & winter because I love access to mint, basil, oregano and even stevia (still gotta figure out how to use it as a sweetener though! Any tips?!)!

I got 3 sessions of 30 Day Shred in over the weekend too, which was the perfect length of workout for the summer heat. I really NEED to get back out for a run this week, and tonight might be the night since it’s cooling down a little bit today.

MEAL PREP/EGG MUFFINS: I did a bunch of meal prep on Sunday and Monday night. I made huge batches of brown rice, steel cut oats, lentil salad, homemade hummus with basil, and egg muffins for breakfasts. Here’s the recipe that I use for egg muffins:


Let me know what you think of them! They save me tons of time in the mornings, and I also love not doing breakfast dishes every day!!

Here's to a great week! I am really feeling committed to this 6 week program and I am excited to see where it takes me. I'll be posting before & after pictures when I'm done!

Wet (and totally wild) Wednesday

It has been insanely humid in Halifax these days, so I was actually really grateful when it started to rain on the way to work this morning. That's actually saying a lot, because I hate rain. haha. It was wet all day, so hubby's ball game was cancelled, and it's looking like rain for the long weekend too, which is disappointing.

I got a 3.5km run in this morning before all the rain. It was difficult getting out of bed at 5 am and getting out the door but I knew I wouldn't get it in unless I did it this morning. I was glad I went once I got out there and pounded the pavement!!! When I got back I was starving though!

We had a delicious supper tonight: tilapia, sweet potato fries and roasted asparagus. YUM. Brian had a bit of a hankering for something sweet so I made him a 5 min mug chocolate cake. Lucky hubby!! :) My daughter loved supper, but she got fish everywhere!!! So I went to sweep it up after supper, and she "helped" me by also sweeping with her little broom. Has anyone else out there ever tried to sweep with an almost 2 year old "helper" around? It can be frustrating, but also cute. She loves to step in the dust and spread it everywhere with her broom, so it keeps me on my toes to do it quickly. Haha!

***Speaking of sweeping, as I was writing this, two glass pot lids randomly fell off their rack upstairs and shattered into a million pieces, so we had to go upstairs and sweep/vacuum...luckily, we have a Dyson to get all the little pieces of glass away from tomorrow's toddler toes. :)



I am going to spend some time in the next month or so deciding how I want to make this blog appear to the general public. I'll be working on the design, header & social media aspect of it as well as starting up some weekly posts. I am thinking of something along the lines of a "parenthood" weekly post. I'll keep you posted!! :)

Have a great Thurs/Fri!!