going green: exercise

Well, if it's one thing I've learned, changing your life to include more healthy habits is a long term process. I'm trying to not beat myself up because I've been eating more processed food than I would like, I use all sorts of harsh chemicals, and my coffee addiciton has only gotten stronger. It's all about taking it one day at a time and making small changes here and there that turn into long term healthy habits.

I want to talk about exercise today and more specifically - running. I have always told myself that I am not a runner. I'm not an athlete. I'm not in shape. I don't exercise. These things became my motto and what I truly started to believe about myself. This September I have made a challenge for myself to run/walk at least a mile a day and documenting it on instagram #mileaday. Today's the 12th and so far I have only missed one day when I was quite sick. Some days it's just a walk and other days it's a slow run. Some days it's long and some days it's short. Some days it's hard and some days it's easy.
I have learned to push myself though and realize that my body is capable of a lot more than I thought. It's kind of fun :)

project life 2013

I have been actively working on a project life album for 2013 despite not sharing any pictures of it yet. Maybe actively is the wrong word, but I have documenting each week! You may remember that I tried project life for the first time in 2011 and you can see all of those posts here. This year I am doing a lot of things the same, but a few things are different this time around.
     - I am still using a two page spread for each week, but I am mixing it up with the different style of page protectors. The basic design A continues to be a favorite though.
     - I am not using the day stickers or date stamp in my album. I used those for a while in 2011 but discontinued somewhere around the middle of the year because they just weren't working for me.
     - I am not putting any 'traditional' scrapbook pages in my album, or at least I haven't yet and don't plan on it.
     - This year I am using the Olive edition designed by Heather Bailey. It is super girly but the colors in it are beautiful - greens, blues, pinks and oranges! Product available here.

Design A & D

This week I included a newspaper clipping that I was interviewed in about the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. I also included a screen shot from the online highway hotline showing all the roads that were closed near Moose Jaw from our awful weather.

Design F & A

I like to use design F when I am short on pictures for the week or have several small iphone photos to use.

Design A & C

Design C is great for when you want to include more pictures but don't have the space. I have used this pocket page to high light two trips to visit family as well as house pictures.

Design F & A

Again, just bits of life that make up why project life is so great.

Design A & D

This is by far my favorite spread from the year, the colors in the pictures just work great with the colors in the Olive kit!

Design F & A

Design C

This is exactly why I love project life - getting to document the big and small moments in life like buying our first home!

out for coffee v. 3

'Out For Coffee' is a series based on my love of catching up over a good cup of cofee with friends or re-charging with some alone time. So as I sit with with my cup of coffee in hand, here's what I would tell you if we were out for coffee...

If we were out for coffee I'd tell you that I stayed home from work today because I didn't feel well. This darn headache has got me down again.
I'd tell you that I spent most of the day thinking about life and heavy things that sometimes I think I'm crazy for thinking. I'd tell you that I prayed for Trayvon Martin's family today and it makes me so sad. It makes me sad that this turned into a case of black against white when really we're all the same. I am sad that one life was senselessly taken. I'm sad that thousands of lives are also taken everyday by war, famine, and greed.
I would tell you that this house is slowly becoming my home. That I love being a homeowner, but still wish I had a landlord to come and fix my washer. I'd ask your opinion on where I should hang my new Kal Barteski print and what kind of curtains you think would work in the living room. One's that these two little kitties of mine wouldn't destroy. Speaking of destroy, I'd show you the corner of my Bible that they chewed, those little boogers. I'd pretend to be mad at them but we'd both know I was lying and would kiss their little bellies all day long if I could.
I would tell you that I started sewing again the other night and it feels so good. Crafting is my happy place. I've come to realize that I have been spending way to many evenings wasting them away by watching TV and that I've really come to miss crafting, tidying up, and just being quiet for a bit. So often I have a TV show playing on the laptop while I mindlessly check blogs and pinterest on my iPhone at the same time. It has been a nice change to simplify for a bit.
Thanks for the coffee ladies, until next time!

see all other 'out for coffee' posts here

inspire me monday

 

source unknown

going green: what we eat

Eating clean food (ie. food without a bunch of articial junk) can be pretty tricky living in a small city in the middle of the prairies. Grocery stores are starting to carry more and more of organic products  but things are still very deceiving. It's shocking to read the ingredient lists on things that are marketed as healthy and natural and find out that that that granola bar your eating as a healthy choice has more grams of sugar in it than the chocolate bar you passed up in its favor.

I wanted to give you a better picture of what my average weekly shopping looks like. Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less, but this was just for an average week at home for us looked like. Eating clean can be a little bit more expensive so I like to check out the marked down produce section. They basically put everything there that may have a tiny little bruise on it or be nearing its expiry date. I scored a cauliflower that had a tiny brown spot on it, a giant bag of mixed peppers that I have no idea why it was in there, they seem perfect to me, a perfectly good cucumber, and a mostly good container of strawberries.

Note* This food lasted us much longer than just one week*

Since starting to eat clean our taste buds have changed dramatically. I don't enjoy restaurant food nearly as much anymore and much prefer the things I can cook at home. I love the convenience of restaurant food, but now that I am used to home cooked meals my taste buds (and stomach) can't handle all the extra salt and sugar. I can actually taste the preservatives and artifical flavorings that they put into food which I didn't notice before.

Ok, homework time! Next time you in the grocery store actually read the ingredient list on those 'healthy' granola bars and 'natural' tortilla chips before you put them in your cart. It's time to see what you are actually putting into your body! One good example of this was the supposedly healthy almond milk that I picked up and only after reading the ingredient list did I realize that there was more added sugar than there were almonds in it!! Yuck, no thanks!

Happy eating!

going green: resources

This year my word is "health". Some days that is the farthest thing possible from where I am, but then there are some days where I'm right on track.  Today I wanted to share some ideas about where to start.
I've been intrigued by the idea of "going green" for a long time but never really did anything about it. Eventually I started watching several documentaries and reading some books on the subject which really got me hooked.

Some resources that I would recommend are:
Films:
Supersize Me - While this documentary doesn't necessarily talk about going green, it shows the extremely detrimental effects of fast food on our bodies.
Vegucated - Follows a handful of people that agree to go vegan for a set amount of time and then exposes them to the sources of our food, etc. etc. It's a real eye opener for sure.
Books:
Healthy Weight Canada - Explains the unhealthy additives that are in almost all of our store bought food.
The Art of Eating In - I found this book so inspirational to read and really spurred me on to get more active in the kitchen.
Blogs:
www.100daysofrealfood.com
www.onehundreddollarsamonth.com
www.foodbabe.com
www.katheats.com

There are a million resources out there on clean eating but I just wanted to highlight a few that I found to be helpful! Next up, the food we eat!

IKEA hack

Wanna see how I transformed two ugly and scratched LACK coffee tables from IKEA into a functional and fun coffee station? Side note, this is not my original idea, I originally saw it on pinterest from apartment therapy. See the original post here.
This is how it started:

You can buy these tables form IKEA for about $10 a piece and they come in a variety of colors. Why we choose to get the fake dark wood I have no idea! But I was completely over them and was about to donate them to Salvation Army when I saw the idea to transform them into something else.
I started by giving them a light sand and priming them white:

After they dried I gave them two coats of a super light grey paint that we also have in our living room and bedroom. Once they had dried over night I used wood glue to stack them on top of each other. I still find the paint to chip really easy and am planning on sealing them somehow (dad, any ideas?). I am still on the lookout for a butcher block or any piece wood really to attach to the top, but it's good for now, and I am so happy to have a designated coffee station in our kitchen. Here's a closer look at the bottom and top:

Total cost of this project:
2 coffee tables: 0 - rescued from heading out the door
Primer and paint: 0 - leftovers from painting earlier
Wood glue: 0 - already had
Green mats: 4 - these are simply to protect the paint

Total: 4 - not bad at all!