Information Overload

I am so over homework today. And yet, my homework is definitely not over

I’ve spent an excessive amount of time cramming psychology information in there, mixed in with some food ethics readings and discussions. But I finally dragged myself away from my workspace (the dining room table, much to my mother’s dismay), and down to my other computer, which I am keeping free of anything homework related, at least for the time being. That way, blogging is more fun

After some much needed sleep this morning, I got up to make breakfast brunch. Alas, all the decent sized bowls in the house were in the dishwasher, not clean. Bah! So I had to revamped my breakfast plans for a big bowl of cereal.

Instead, there was a little bowl of cereal – Nature’s Path Mesa Sunrise, craisins, and unsweetened vanilla almond milk.

And a slice of Silver Hills “The Big 16” bread toasted with peanut butter & raspberry jam.

Plus the usual glass of juice – still on the cranberry.

A very red breakfast, completely unintentional.

Yes, I was even studying at breakfast. Or maybe that’s what I want you to believe. Only I know for sure

There was some definite studying after that though. I did take a short break to do some yoga. My cousin lent me a DVD with some short 20 min yoga sessions on it, so I figured I’d try one of them out. Rodney Yee was the instructor in this one. Can someone tell the man to put on proper shorts or pants though? I felt a little violated watching him in his weird yoga underwear.

There was more psych studying, and then I got hungry. It was too late to have a real lunch, so I just grabbed a larger snack.

Some sort of grainy bagel with herb & garlic cream cheese. Not my favourite bagels ever, but it was there, and made the perfect vehicle for the cream cheese.

Uh…more studying? Probably. And important email writing with my group members. Then dinner – which was take out Chinese, because no one felt like cooking tonight.

All the usual suspects here – chow mien, fried rice, sweet & sour pork, beef & broccoli, breaded almond chicken, spring roll. You know how it goes.

We got fortune cookies with our order this time. Mine had two inside!

Yes, that is a diagram of a nerve cell off to the left. At least I sat at the kitchen table, text book free, to eat my dinner!

So then there was more homework, with a hockey game (we won), and SYTYCD Canada in the background. Once those finished, I declared homework time officially over, so I could bring you my ever exciting day. I’m all about my readers

Now I’m off to find sleep. Mostly so I can get up tomorrow, and do this all again. Night!

All Downhill

Story of my day. It started out strong, and progressively went down from there. Fortunately, I’ve gotten away without any major injuries, and it’s almost bed time, so hopefully sleep will turn it all around.

I started my morning with some oats inspired by a few bloggers (who I would love to link to, but wouldn’t you know it, my auto linking in WLW still doesn’t work from my laptop. ARGH). I broke out the caffeine this morning for some mocha almond oats.

• 1/2 cup oats, milk, water
• 1 tsp instant coffee
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• splash of vanilla
• 1 tbsp flax seed
• brown sugar (to take the edge off the bitter coffee flavour)
• chocolate chips
• almond slivers

I guess you could say it was a take on the mocha almond fudge cheesecake I made for Thanksgiving dessert

And of course, there was a glass of juice. Today was cranberry peach. Meh.

It was a lovely oat mocha to start the day, and the caffeine definitely did it’s job. Too bad it also wrecked havoc on my digestive system for the rest of the day. It made sitting through lectures less than fun – and I’ll just leave it at that.

I spent part of my break today tending to my virtual farm & cafe finishing up my journals and submitting them before the deadline. Then it was time for a little UBC blogger lunch. I met up with Bronwyn from Will Work For Peanut Butter at Red Burrito. From what I gather, it’s similar to Chipotle in the US in terms of menu, but I have no idea if the quality is similar or not.

When at Red Burrito, what do you order? Well, I figured a burrito was a good idea

Seems like all the food I order on campus comes in wrap form. HA!

I went with the chicken burrito, stuffed with chicken (duh), rice, black beans, lettuce, roasted corn, spicy salsa, and a wee bit of sour cream.

Lots of fun flavours and textures going on that burrito, that’s for sure. I’m no Mexican connoisseur or anything, but I enjoyed it. There are other fillings available, like salsa verde, tomatoes, cilantro, cheese, and guacamole. I totally wanted to go for the guacamole, but it cost extra, and I’m a poor student, so I refrained. But I bet it would have totally taken that burrito to the next level.

And let me tell you – this burrito kept my hunger at bay until I got home. I didn’t dig into any of the snacks I brought with me – can’t go wrong with that!

I completely failed as a blogger though – Bronwyn and I never took the obligatory blogger meet up photo. And I failed to take any restaurant pics. Seriously, where was my head? I blame the morning oats – they were still making me feel funky.

I went off to my 4 hour class, which we ended up leaving early, and made my way home on transit. Lucky me, a total cracked out meth head decided to get on my bus. It was such a joy to watch him have a very loud, profanity-ladden conversation with…no one. And spit on the bus. And throw his bag around. I was glad when we got to the train station, and I’m sure everyone else on the bus was as well.

Finally I get home, and see that soup & grilled cheese sandwiches were on the menu. There was leftover soup for me to heat up, but I was on my own to build the grilled cheese.

I made mine fancy – Silver Hills bread, aged white cheddar, ham, and red pepper jelly.

Too bad I completely charred the damn thing on one side (you’ll see in a minute).

I cut up a carrot to have with some dill dip.

And my tomato soup.

And then…

I dropped my camera…

in the soup.

*insert profanity and frantic clean up here*

I don’t know what happened. I was leaning over the soup to take a photo, and just spazzed out, and it went straight in. Soup everywhere – on the freshly washed kitchen floor, counter, cupboards, camera. UGH. It seemed to be confined to only the lens, but still! I worry it’s going to get stuck if there is any more soup in there.

As I was cleaning, and cleaning, and making sure all the parts were still moving, I snapped a test photo of my charred sandwich – to prove how craptastic my day was now going.

The blur is due to the fact the lens still had a slight tomato soup coating on it. If you notice though, the top left corner is pretty much in focus. And I’ve taken some more test photos, and other than the shutter sticking ever so slightly when I turn the camera on, so far so good.

I eventually sat down and ate my lukewarm dinner, but not before Sienna helped herself to some of my sandwich when I wasn’t looking. BRAT!

Later on I settled in to watch some SYTYCD, and thought I’d get started on some psychology studying for my midterm next week. Wouldn’t you know it? I get a freakin’ papercut from my textbook. Seriously. Not my day. I gave up on the studying, and just sat on the couch so I wouldn’t get hurt anymore.

When I wandered back in the kitchen, what did I find?

Oh yes, not only did she steal my dinner, she was curled up on the laptop. But hey – proof my camera is still working!

So, I’m thinking I should head to bed to avoid the last hour of the day. And it’s only Tuesday. Ugh. Night.

Squashing Hunger

Turns out I was on my own for dinner. My sister called me from work, and said she was picking up McChoke-n-Pukes McDonalds for dinner. She was kind enough to ask me if I wanted anything. That’s something, right?

Strangely, I passed on that option, and went searching for appealing dinner ingredients. I decided upon two main ingredients.

Lundberg Garlic Primavera Risotto.

And this beauty I made my mom buy at the farmer’s market a few weeks back.

Kabocha squash! I was pretty excited to see them at the market, and for a wicked price ($0.79/lb). I’d still never tried them…until now!

So I set about cooking the risotto per package directions, while my kabocha wedges roasted in the oven (400 F for 45 min, with a light brush of olive oil to help it out). I think it turned out fantastic.

I also steamed the small amount of broccoli left in the fridge, and stirred that into the risotto. Then it was plating time.

I filled one wedge (1/6 of the squash) with some risotto, and topped it with a little shaved parmesan.

Now who would choose McShits McDonalds over this? I mean really.

For a prepackaged risotto, it was quite good. It definitely benefitted from the addition of broccoli and parmesan, but it was a decent boxed dish on it’s own. And the kabocha – totally not like any squash I’ve had before. It has virtually no stringy-ness, and such a sweet flavour. Similar to a sweet potato I find. I can totally see why people add this squash to sweet foods or breakfast oats. It was a really nice contrast to the savoury, salty risotto.

I finished dinner just in time to enjoy me some hockey! My Canucks were playing again this evening, and boy, did they redeem themselves. They ended up winning the game 7-1, making me a very happy fan

This happy fan was then in the mood for a little snacky snack.

Frozen raspberries & blueberries in milk, with a splash of vanilla and sprinkle of brown sugar. Love that frosty slush that forms around the berries

I have an extra long day on campus tomorrow, so it’s time to get some shut eye. Night!

Early Bird Special

Man, I never get around to posting my dinner this early! I must be getting old – or at least getting onto a schedule that’s more conducive to my early mornings

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. We haven’t “had” lunch yet.

I threw together something quick when I walked in the door, because I was hungry. Not that breakfast didn’t tide me over – it was almost 2 pm when I got home!

I started with a slice of Silver Hills “The Big 16” bread that I toasted up, and spread with ED&BV Lemon Cashew Basil Pesto, and topped with leftover shredded BBQ chicken.

Proof there is pesto under there.

On the side there were carrot sticks. When do I not eat carrot sticks? Especially if they are already in the fridge, cut up and waiting to be consumed with some dill dip.

I also had a hankering for some yogurt.

I *thought* there were some canned peaches in the fridge still. Nope – turns out someone ate them. Hmph. So I went the frozen fruit route – yogurt topped with Nature’s Path Pumpkin Flax Granola, Saskatoon berry creamed honey, and frozen blueberries.

Out in the sunshine – can you believe it was 30 degrees Celsius at my house today? It’s supposed to be fall people!

It was way too hot to stay outside, so wandered back in to do some biochemistry reading. Actually, I had wanted to go to the gym, but couldn’t get out of our driveway. The city is currently digging up parts of our street, and they were working in front of our house all afternoon. They even had some of their vehicles parked in our driveway, so alas, I was house bound. At least I got some school stuff done.

Dinner eventually came around, and mom made one of my favourites.

Wild coho salmon, done up on the BBQ with lemon & dill.

A pile of steamed green beans.

And brown basmati rice with soy sauce.

Fresh wild salmon is the best!

Unpictured were the handful of concord grapes I munch on while clearing the table and tidying the kitchen. But I’m sure you all know what grapes look like

Now I’m off to settle in with the laptop for some blog reading & tv watching. Night!

Bountiful Blackberries

Ah, leisurely Sundays. Something I always look forward to, even if it means Monday is just around the corner. I got plenty of sleep until my mom woke me up and asked me if I wanted to go to the Farmer’s Market. Umm, of course! I was up and out of bed, throwing together a quick breakfast so we could get out the door.

I had every intention of making some oatmeal this morning, but the Farmer’s Market trumped that, and I went with a smoothie.

• 1 banana
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp peanut butter
• scoop of vanilla whey protein powder
• 1/3 cup oats
• milk, to fill the glass

Enjoyed in the morning sunshine

We did a quick shop at the market, picked up a few tasty treats. I’m sure you’ll see them all eventually around here.

Once we dropped off our loot, we headed back down to the mall. I had to go back to my cell phone provider, because whatever they did to my Blackberry yesterday when I changed my plan & number, well, all my internet access and email stopped working. Not cool – if I’m paying for a service, I damn well better be getting it. The guy got my internet working, but the email still wasn’t. I fiddled around with it once we were home, and finally got it back in action. Ah, technology.

Then it was time for lunch.

Per usual, I scoured the fridge to determine what leftovers needed eating. There was still a wee bit of chana masala and brown jasmine rice, so that made my mind up for me. I added a little yogurt and mango chutney for fun.

I threw together a simple salad of romaine lettuce, red leaf lettuce, carrot, and cucumber to go along with the curry. I used some Annie’s Organic Green Garlic dressing.

Again with the al fresco dining.

This was my first time trying this flavour of Annie’s Dressing. I really enjoyed it – great garlic flavour. I think it would actually make a great garlic bread. Toast up some good bread, drizzle on a little dressing? Yum!

I decided to spend the afternoon outside on the deck with my laptop, getting some blog reading school work done. I was feeling a little snacky, and went searching for something chocolate. I found this in our freezer.

I think it was a Skinny Cow frozen treat. It was a little freezer burnt, but not bad enough for me to not eat it. I also munched on a handful of Peanut Butter Puffins with a side of Blackberry.

Sienna was very sad that I was outside all afternoon and she was locked in the house. So I decided to let her out to explore our backyard for the first time. Of course, her and Wilson found each other and had some words.

Fortunately, I was able to keep them from killing each other. Unfortunately, Sienna was a total brat and kept bolting under the deck when I was trying to get her in. I finally wrestled her down in the garden. Then it was time for dinner.

Mom did up a scrumptious roast beef on the BBQ, with a dijon mustard rub and red wine in the drip pan. I totally grabbed the rarest pieces – my family doesn’t enjoy their meat cooked the same as I do, so it’s a treat for me when I can find some pink pieces.

We also had potatoes roasted on the grill. I smashed mine with a little butter & pepper.

Plus some locally grown green & yellow beans from the farmer’s market.

Since we’d opened the bottle of red wine to cook the roast, I figured I should have a small glass with dinner

It’s so nice to have a traditional Sunday dinner every once in a while. Especially when it’s followed by homemade dessert.

My mom was on a roll this evening – homemade apple blackberry brown betty. Topped with a little dab of Cool Whip, mostly just to use up the container.

Talk about great day of eats, eh? I also got a ton done on our group presentation, and have emailed it out to solicit some input. Now I can relax with a little TV and interweb. Night!

Fresh Food – Fast

Long day, long post ahead. I’ll try and keep the commentary brief, for your sake, and mine as I have some important reading to get done before bedtime.

As our milk had gone bad, I decided to forgo my regular oatmeal or cereal for breakfast.

Peanut butter + + honey on toast!

I toasted up two slices of Silver Hills “The Big 16” bread, and topped it with peanut butter, banana slices, and honey.

Check out that honey drizzle.

The usual glass of juice – pomegranate cranberry – joined my pb+b+h toast.

*insert public transit commute & psychology lecture here*

Lunch time came around, and I had more of that delicious chana masala & brown jasmine rice I made earlier this week.

As you saw in my previous post, there was also a gala apple

And I packed a bag of my custom trail mix to keep me going during my 4 hour lecture this afternoon.

With the whole wheat naan & mango chutney accompaniments, it was an excellent packed lunch

Let me tell you, that trail mix was the best idea for my long days. I didn’t even eat the whole bag, but it kept hunger at bay even on my way home from school. Three cheers for trail mix

I actually wasn’t even that hungry when I got home from school, so I threw together a small plate of food, much like my tasting plate from Tuesday.

There were veggies already cut up in the fridge, ready to go – thanks mom! I threw in the cheese because, well, I have a cheese problem.

Some of those spectacular sweet local shrimp.

And the other half of my naan, toasted & wedged.

With a little bit of bubbly

The meal was capped off with two of my mom’s homemade cookies.

I think dinner & dessert took me what, 5 min total to put together? If that. Which is interesting, because we were talking in my afternoon class (Land, Food, and Community) about how it’s deemed easier to just stop and pick up some fast food instead of making your own meals at home, and that as students, we just don’t have time to do so. Now, I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but come on – that is just an excuse. I agree, sometimes, it is easier. But it takes very little planning to have a few go-to items in your fridge/cupboard/freezer so that you don’t HAVE to pick up a burger & fries. I think I threw together a pretty good meal. Or even a sandwich – how long does that take? No reason you can’t eat a sandwich for dinner. It was really interesting to hear the perspectives of many of my fellow students in class, because it seems like that is more the norm than my way of thinking, and I guess I just take for granted that everyone would see it my way because of my involvement in this whole food blogging community.

That’s all I have for insight tonight. Off to read something intellectual. Night!

The Roaming Blogger

3 hours break from classes + new laptop + all required blogging software = post from school!

Probably less exciting for you than me, but not posting everything in one giant post at the end of the day will be much easier on my end

Although I felt like a sack of crap when I got up (damn head cold), I wasn’t going to stay home from school – one of my classes is 4 hours long, and it’s just too much to miss for a cold. So I pulled myself out of bed, and made a decent breakfast.

I had one serving of kamut flakes left, so I decided to cook those up.

• 1/2 cup kamut flakes, milk, water
• 1/2 cup frozen blackberries
• splash of vanilla
• sprinkle of nutmeg & cinnamon
• 1 tbsp flax seed
• dollop of Artisana Pecan Butter
• sprinkle of brown sugar

With a glass of cranberry pomegranate juice to wash it all down.

It’s been so long since I’d had any kamut flakes, I’d missed their lovely chew

Then it was time to pack up my lunch for the day. Curious to see what I spent hours slaving over last night?

Chana Masala! I had seen Rose make this recipe for chana masala and rave about it, so I knew it was one I’d need to try. Who doesn’t need a good chickpea curry in their life?

It only requires a few ingredients (and the right spices), and a little time (hours may have been an exaggeration, but it was over an hour in the kitchen). I only made some minor tweaks – I cooked my own chickpeas from scratch, and used medium curry powder instead of garam masala, only because that’s what we had, and I didn’t want to buy any more spices. Oh, and I left out all that nasty cilantro. And as you can see, I served mine with some brown jasmine rice.

So what else did I pack for my long ass day at school?

A little whole wheat naan – can’t have curry without some good naan.

More of those red grapes. I’m trying to use them up before they go bad!

An Honest Foods Cran Lemon Zest bar, as a snack for later this afternoon.

And a little mango chutney for the curry as well. If only I had access to a fridge, then I would have included a little plain yogurt too.

 

I just realized how void of green my eats are so far today – I’ll have to rectify that at dinner tonight.

Well, I’ve finished all my readings for class this afternoon, so I’m free to play online for awhile. Hope you all are enjoying your Tuesdays

Lessons Learned

Oh, what a long, tiring day I’ve had. While I only have 1 hour of class on M/W/F, I’m on campus from 9:30 am to 6:00 pm on T/Th. I left my house at 7:30 am, and got home just after 7:30 pm. Good thing I only have these 12 hour days for this semester. I was one tired person when I got home!

But let’s go back to early this morning. I made a hearty bowl of oats for breakfast – need some good fuel for those long days.

• 1/2 cup oats, water, milk
• 1 gala apple, chopped
• splash of vanilla
• lots of cinnamon
• raisins
• 1 tbsp flaxseed
• sprinkles of brown sugar (added after pictures, mostly because I forgot)

With the usual glass of juice – still working on the Happy Planet Mango Peach Party.

That whole apple sure made for a huge bowl of oats!

I made my way to the school for my 9:30 am class – Introductory Psychology. I think it will be pretty enjoyable. Our prof is pretty funny – he’s apparently “retired”, but has been teaching for the past couple years still, and he reminds me of some other profs I’ve had close to retirement. They are always candid, and don’t give a crap. Colourful characters I tell ya!

After that class ended, I had an interview for a volunteer position on campus. It is with Sprouts – a student run organic & local food cafe/grocery store/bulk buying co-op. It wasn’t so much of an interview as a “get to know you” kind of thing, and I will be doing some training on Saturday. I’m looking forward to getting involved in something on campus.

I then made my way to the Student Union Building, and planted myself in a semi-comfy seat to do some reading, play on the internet (hurray for laptop), and eat my packed lunch. I didn’t get any pictures, but it was nothing exciting – a peanut butter & rhubarb jam sandwich on Silver Hills Squirrelly Bread, carrot sticks, cucumber slices, and a Peanut Butter Cookie Larabar that I munched on throughout the day. Sadly, this proved to not be enough food for my stay at school, as I was ready to eat my arm off before the end of my last class. I’m going to have to figure out more voluminous lunches that don’t require much refrigeration, since I have no desire to carry a big, insulated lunch bag with me. Any lunch suggestions would be greatly appreciated

My 2nd (and last class) of the day was Land, Food, and Community. It’s a 4 hour long class, twice a week. It looks like it’s going to be quite interesting, but we have to do most of our work in groups of 6 or 7. And we didn’t get to pick our groups, they were assigned to us. Today we had a breakout section where we had to put together a food flow chart/web diagram for the home, looking at everything from production, distribution, waste, environment & health issues, etc, etc. It was more to get us going on something in our groups, but I don’t know about my group – seems like we have a few timid people in there, so hopefully that changes.

And of course, I ended up with some random free things today – a wallet sized transit map, and a lollipop. HA!

 

When I got in the door, I changed into my pj’s stat, and made a beeline for the fridge. Mom had my dinner all plated up and waiting for me. Gotta love moms

Looks like there was some sort of roasted, maybe BBQ’d, pork tenderloin.

A vegetable stirfry – broccoli, carrot, yellow pepper, zucchini, and onions. Not sure what, if any, sauce was on it.

And some brown jasmine rice.

Good thing they left me a large plate of food, cuz I was starving!

So starving that I also wolfed down these cookies – they have dried blueberries in them, and flax seed. Nothing to write home about, but they aren’t bad.

And after some biochemistry reading (blech), I was still munchy. And wanting something chocolate. I satisfied that with a piece of whole wheat toast spread with a little Artisana Cacao Bliss.

Now it’s time for me to make my way to sleepland – another early morning for that 8 am class. At least it’s Friday, right? Night!

Going Dutch

Another day of summer holidays = another fun outing

Today turned out to be a pretty great day. I started out sometime after breakfast, and made my way back to the lake for yes, more walking/running. Who am I these days?! I even got a little more hard core and did 1 lap walk, 1.5 laps run, 1 lap walk, 1.5 laps run, and 1 lap walk to cool down. I decided today would be a good day to test out the running again, since it was cloudy and only about 18 or 19 C out. Aagin, it went as well as could be expected. I didn’t die, but started to feel some pain in my knees. Hopefully nothing comes of it.

After a quick jaunt to the grocery store to pick up a couple things, I made my way home and put together lunch for both myself and my mom.

Tostadas were on the menu today, as I wanted to try and use up the refried beans in the fridge. I topped our corn tostadas with the beans, salsa (that’s why I needed to go to the store), chives, jalapenos (for me only), and a mix of white and orange cheddar cheese.

I’m obviously not quite used to my mom’s oven, as they got a little extra crispy on the edges. Oops!

And no, I wasn’t nibbling on the shells before I cooked them up – I seem to have a large number of broken ones left. They might not look as pretty, but they still taste good.

What better way to end lunch that with a double dose of chocolate?

I spread some Artisana Cacao Bliss onto one of those Fudgy Wudgy Blueberry Brownies. Perfect brownie icing!

After some relaxing, we got cleaned up so we could head on out to our destination of the afternoon – downtown Vancouver. My mom wanted to see the current exhibit at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and on Tuesdays they have admission by donation from 5:30 – 9:00 pm, so it was the perfect night to go. We made an evening out of it, starting off with dinner at Cardero’s.

Cardero’s is located right in the heart of Coal Harbour, with views of the city, and out over the water. The restaurant has a very West Coast vibe, and specializes in seafood dishes. We managed to snag seats on the patio, so we could get in some of that fresh sea air with our meal. The people watching is always fun as well.

As it is a very good seafood restaurant, we both went with the fishy stuff for our meals. I ordered the Wok Seafood – scallops, lobster tail, prawns, salmon, vegetables, soy, ginger, garlic, fried rice.

 

I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of seafood I was served. Sure, I could have used some more vegetables on my plate, but it was still delicious. I was especially impressed with the scallops – they were perfectly cooked. I have no scallop cooking ability whatsoever, so I always appreciate one that has been cooked to perfection. I found the lobster to be a bit difficult to get out of the shell in any sort of graceful way, so good thing I was dining with my mom

We had considered sharing a dessert, but nothing really spoke to us on the dessert menu, so we paid our bill (mom had a gift card – score!), and went for a little after dinner walk along the harbour. Of course, I got the camera out to take a few pictures.

See the angular gardens in the background of the following picture? It is actually the roof of the new Vancouver Convention Centre. They have planted indigenous plant species on the roof, to both act as insulation, and to collect rain water for irrigation. It’s actually quite a site to see, and only one of the “green” features of the new building.

We walked over to the convention centre to get a closer look.

And checked out the view of the harbour.

Then we were off to the Vancouver Art Gallery to see their feature exhibit – Vermeer, Rembrandt, and the Golden Age of Dutch Art.

Obviously, there was no photography allowed in the art gallery itself, and frankly, there were so many people there (donation Tuesday – pay what you can), it would have been pretty hard to get any good shots anyways. We had actually visited the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam three years ago, so I think we saw some, if not most, of these works before. Honestly though, I didn’t actually remember any of them. Mom said she did though, so I’ll take her word for it. The Dutch Masters aren’t necessarily my favourite pieces of artwork, but it’s still interesting to see the evolution of Dutch painting throughout the 17th century. Now, if they brought a Van Gough exhibit back to the VAG, I would be all over that!

On our way home, we had to make a stop at the Vancouver Winter Olympics countdown clock (located outside the art gallery), to see how many days are left til the Opening Ceremonies. Too bad it was dark out – the photo is a bit blurry.

I’m so excited for the Olympics!

We made our way home on transit, and got in some prime So You Think You Can Dance Canada time. I also made some popcorn, but failed to take a picture. I’m sure you all can use your imaginations on this one

Time for this blogger to get to bed. I really need to get myself on a proper sleep schedule soon, or I will have a rude awakening (literally) come Tuesday morning. Night!

Grill Skillz

Another come and gone. My “vacation” before school starts is dwindling away before my eyes! I can’t believe I only have just over 2 weeks until I’m a student again. Crazy. I’m going to have to make the most of it, that’s for sure.

I was up bright and early…okay, so it was 8:30 am, but that’s early for me lately. I was heading to a 9:30 am class at the gym with my mom, so I needed some time to get in a little fuel before getting my sweat on.

I figured a smoothie would be a good choice – not too heavy in my stomach, but packs a little nutritional punch. I threw some random things into the magic bullet to yield this frothy, delicate pink wonder:

• frozen watermelon
• cranberry juice
• 1 scoop of vanilla whey protein powder
• 1 tbsp Meadowpure Ultra SmoothOmega Flax Seed 
• few spoonfuls of non-fat plain yogurt

Another sunny day means breakfast outside again!

Then we were off to the gym. This class is called 20-20-20, and you do approximately 20 min of step, 20 min of weights, and 20 min of strength/abs/stretching. It was actually more like 30 min of step, but whatever. I haven’t done any step classes in FOREVER so I was having a few coordination problems – mostly me kicking the damn step with my giant feet when I was trying to step up on it. I think the cardio kickboxing is more my kind of class, but it’s fun to mix it up, and get in some quality time with mom.

I needed a little non-liquid food when I got home, so I toasted up a slice of 100% whole wheat bread, and topped it with macadamia nut butter and organic apricot jam.

Yeah, I took a bite before the photo. What? I was hungry!

I then retreated to the basement to avoid the hot weather, and the horrid smog outside. It’s the only real cool place in the house. I parked myself in the lounger with some sudoku and Food Network, and promptly fell asleep for an hour. Obviously my early wake up call was too early still. Then it was time to hit the showers and beautify, and find something for lunch.

There were plenty of leftover containers in the fridge, so I did my part to help eat them up.

Plain ol’ rice with soy sauce – my favourite way to eat the stuff.

Steamed broccoli & cauliflower, with a little aged sharp white cheddar. Cheddar always makes it better.

And a few almonds, because I felt like my plate was missing something.

I ended up mixing the almonds into my rice as I ate, and it was delightful.

Then…you guessed it, it was time to head back to the basement. More Food Network, more interweb surfing, blog reading, sudoku, and cat refereeing. Sienna has been settling in pretty well. I think she’d claimed the rec room (also my new office) as her own. Do you think she looks at home?

Isn’t she just miss princess?!

Then it was time to help prep dinner. Mom was roasting a chicken on the BBQ, and put me in charge of vegetables. I remembered we had a zucchini in the fridge needing some lovin’, so I sliced it up along with an onion, brushed on some olive oil, sprinkled on some salt & pepper, and threw them on the grill until nice and golden. I don’t usually get to play with the BBQ, so it was my first time testing out my grill skillz. I think I deserve a little pat on the back, if I do say so myself.

Some of mom’s awesome chicken – she seasoned it with garlic, rosemary, thyme, salt, and pepper, and poured a little beer in the pan below to keep it moist & tender.

There were also some BBQ baked potatoes – I topped mine with butter and chives from the garden.

Dinner is served!

My grilled veggies met rave reviews. I’ve been told that I’m in charge on the grilled veggies from now on. And my sister is determined to get another zucchini from her coworker, just so I’ll make the again. LOL.

It started to cool off here this evening, so I spent some time out on the deck reading some Rolling Stone mags & listening to the iPod. Once the bugs appeared, I made my way indoors, and figured it was time to eat the dessert my mom whipped up – Chocolate pudding!

That photo is so misleading – it looks like I ate a vat of pudding! I swear, it a normal sized portion. I topped mine with some coconut and mini chocolate chips. It’s all about looking pretty for the camera.

I’ve also spent some time with my cookbooks this evening – I have a baking project for tomorrow, and want to test out some new recipes next week while my parents are in Vegas. It’s easier for me to make “weird” foods when I don’t have them here to harass me about it.

Time to hit the sack – still trying to beat this eternal sleepiness, plus I’ve broken out in hives again. Not that sleep will cure that, but I can pretend. Night!