Something that ISN'T a picture

So a little update and to give you all a break from the photo a day thing.

This month I wanted to drink less Coca-Cola and more water. I'm doing alright on that. I'm managing to not drink a Coke a day which is good. I'm drinking way more water which is also good! I'm not tracking how much I'm drinking because I'm lazy like that but I do know I am drinking more water and more consistently through out the the day.

I also wanted to move more and work on my posture. Still works in progress. I haven't wanted to go out much as it's been freaking cold here. I'm just going to have to start sucking it up and make myself get outside a bit each day. I do think I've found a home work out plan that will work for me. Details coming in January. As for posture I have a post it note above my computer reminding me to have good posture.

As for sleep it's also a work in progress. I think most nights I'm getting a solid sleep in. I'm still trying to figure out the best routine for me. This will probably be a continuation into January.

I've been pretty good on the Christmas treats mainly as I haven't received many yet nor done my Christmas baking yet. I'm starting that today and I will not pig out.

And well as you noticed I've been really good on the picture a day thing. I've been enjoying it and it's been a guaranteed way of getting regular posts up.

Hope you're all enjoying the Christmas season!

Photo a Day #18

Today's theme: WANT

My lovely best friend holding up a want from my childhood!

I loved my Spirograph and would love to get a set again.

Photo a Day #17

Today's theme: TREE

Bet you were expecting my Christmas tree weren't you? LOL! That's coming up in a few days don't worry.

I really like how pretty this looked with all the snow on it!

Photo a Day #16

Today's theme: GAMES

Some of my favorite games! From top to bottom: Time's Up!, Apples to Apples, Pandemic, Milles Bornes, Settlers of Catan, and Ticket to Ride.

If you'd like to learn about  Pandemic, Settlers of Catan, and Ticket to Ride check out Wil Wheaton's Tabletop. Good way to learn about new games!

Photo a Day #15

Today's theme: SHOPPING

Taken with my iTouch so I apologize for the quality.

This was taken while browsing around at Pottery Barn. I found this and went SQUIRREL! (like in UP!).

Photo a Day #14

Today's Theme: RECIPE

This is a recipe for fruit crisp. This comes from The Best of Chef at Home by Chef Michael Smith.

This is a pretty flexible recipe so use whatever fruit and spices you want!

Ingredients
2-3lbs of fruit (I used two very large apples and a bag of frozen fruit [peaches, blueberries and strawberries])
1tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup of white or brown sugar (I use brown)
1 tsp of nutmeg
1/2 cup of melted butter

Preheat oven to 350 F. Toss the fruit with the cinnamon and spread evenly into baking dish (I used a casserole dish; use what you got!). In a mixing bowl mix the flour, sugar and nutmeg together. Drizzle in the melted butter and stir until well mixed and crumbly. Scatter evenly over fruit mixture. Bake until fruit juices are bubbling around the edges and fruit is tender and top is golden brown approx 1 hour.

I recommend serving with vanilla ice cream!

Photo a Day #13

Today's theme: STAR

This is my best friend's tree topper. Mine is an angel so hers makes an appearance here.

Photo a Day #12

Today's theme: LISTEN

Love this CD of Christmas Music. Katherine Jenkins has such a beautiful voice!

Photo a Day #11

Today's theme: UP CLOSE

These are  the matching earrings to the necklace in the glitter/bling photo.
I might retake the necklace photo now that I have a better idea of how to take a picture!

Photo a Day #10

Today's theme: RED.

I have a feeling most of these were meant to be Christmas related but I'm interpreting things my way! Although really there's no wrong way.

Love these earrings. They look like they're old but I bought them in October 2012.

Photo a Day #9

Today's theme: YOU.

So my goal for this was to take all of the pictures but for this one I'm going to use one the boyfriend took of me back in 2010. It's one of my favorites!

Photo a Day #8

Today's theme: TEMPERATURE

My interpretation of temperature. You look at this and think it's cold! Taken at the end of November.

Photo a Day #7

So I'm a day late with this one...whoops.

But because I am late with it, this got taken while I was playing with the boyfriend's SLR. So it should look better I hope!

The theme for day seven was: SOMETHING SWEET

This lovely bowl of Lindt Truffles came compliments of one my boyfriend's birthday presents. He turned 45 this year and his cousin & wife gave my boyfriend a box filled with marbles, marshmallows, buttons, clothes pins, googly eyes, and Lindt Truffles with there being 45 of each. There were also gift cards, playing cards and a puzzle.

I am slowly working my way through these.

Photo a Day #6

Today's theme: GLITTER/BLING

This is a very shiny and sparkly necklace that I own.

A pain in the ass to shoot with my point and shoot camera.

My boyfriend has said I can use his SLR but I'm responsible for learning to use it.

I'll be doing that hopefully by the end of the month.

Photo a Day #5

Today's Theme: MESSY.

To be honest I do try to keep the mess to a minimum as it drives me nuts.

However, when I do up Christmas cards (40+) it gets messy (temporarily).

Glad to have them in the mail.

Photo a Day #4

Today's Theme: HANDWRITING.

I did up all of my Christmas cards yesterday. Hope you enjoy my loopy handwriting!

Photo a Day #3

Today's theme: HOME DECOR.

We like our masks!

It's the Small Things....

A little thing that makes me happy.

I really don't like getting into a cold bed in the winter. As soon as I'm even close to falling asleep I turn into a furnace so having an electric blanket is overkill.

So what's a girl to do?

Heat up her magic bag and stick it under the sheets where her feet go and let it warm up for a minute before actually getting into bed.

It's so nice and I really love having a spot for my feet to get nice and warm.

It's the small things I tell you.

Photo A Day #2

Today's theme is: HANGING

So here is my darling boyfriend hanging our new painting.

The painting is called Ruby Feathers by artist Jennifer Annesley.
Her art is amazing.

My boyfriend has for a long time wanted one of her pieces; specifically one of the masks.
This year at her show he got this one (with a little input from me).

It is so beautiful to look at.

Photo A Day #1

So I found a photo a day thing on Pinterest that caught my eye and I decided to do it. It originally comes from onestorydown.com but I can't actually find it on their site.

Today's theme was JOY.

This was my boyfriend's birthday cake that I made (we had his birthday dinner last night) at his request. It's a mocha chocolate cake and fair to say he really enjoyed it. So you could say it brought him (and really all of us who ate it) joy.

I apologize for the not so great photo quality. I'm using an okay camera and I really don't know how to use GIMP to fix them. I'm practicing and hopefully they will get better.

The Happiness Project

So I'm doing a Happiness project. I'm still not sure how long I want it to go for so for now I'll post a monthly plan and just take it one month at a time.

So my goals for December are:

Take care of myself by:
Drinking more water and less Coca-Cola
Move more
Work on posture
Making sure I get enough sleep

Enjoy the holiday season:
Enjoy treats responsibly and not pig out
Post a picture a day. (Challenge found on Pinterest)

Do something everyday that brings me happiness whether it be big or small.

I think this is entirely doable.

Let the happiness spread!

This, that, and a whole bunch of other...

So.

Last time I wrote here was in July.

Yikes.

I find that I have been in an apathetic rut. Not motivated to do much of anything really.

That has to change and that change is starting today.

I have two primary inspirations.

The first is the book The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. I saw this in Chapters a few weeks ago and then got it from the library. It's an interesting read and I'd recommend it to anyone.

The second was this blog post by Cait over at Blonde on a Budget. In it she talks about the biggest lie she's told herself is"One day..."

Until I read that post I didn't realize how guilty I was of that. One day I'll start working out. One day I'll get my desk organized. One day I'll write a blog post. One day I'll start eating healthy. And so on and so forth.

No more. Today I start doing things. Today I'm going to start planning out my own Happiness Project (details forthcoming). Today I start planning out a daily routine (inspiration again from another of Cait's posts). Today I get more faithful about sticking with the http://unfuckyourhabitat.tumblr.com/ cleaning methodology.

I will be cross posting over at my other blog: http://nadiaintherealworld.tumblr.com/ There is where I occaisionally post my UFYH successes. Everything I post here I'll post over there but I won't always post everything I write there here. Hopefully that makes sense.

I hope that by making an effort I'll get out of this rut and start living again.

Douchebaggery

So I think this brings douchebaggery to a whole new level:

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20715102,00.html

If you didn't read the article it basically states that Charles Saatchi is divorcing Nigella Lawson because she didn't defend him after he choked her in a public restaurant.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Could there be a bigger douchebag out there?

Let It Rain

After being such a tease it's been raining on and off since last night.

Please just dump some heavy rain here. My lawn would appreciate it.

I'd also like the fire ban to go away. I'd like to be able to do a hot dog roast.

So Let It Rain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gas Prices

So here in Canada this weekend is the May Long Weekend (Victoria Day on Monday) and coincidently (or not) today gas prices here in edmonton went from 115.9/liter to 122.9/liter. (4.39gallon and 4.66gallon for those in the US)

The big companies state that they don't jack up the prices for holidays and long weekends but I'm not inclined to believe them.

So today I created a spreadsheet and I will be tracking when gas prices go up and down and when they do so. I'll see how many of these changes are in fact occurring around holidays.

Have you noticed this trend?

Doctor Who Rant

So I'm a little late to the Doctor Who party I'll admit. I just watched the first season of the new Doctor Who.

I LOVED it.

I thought Christopher Eccleston was amazing.

Which brings me to the rant part.

In all my wanderings of the internet I see TONS of love for David Tennant (Tenth Doctor) and Matt Smith (Eleventh Doctor) but hardly any love for Christopher.

I don't get it. He was absolutely brilliant and deserves WAY more love than he gets.

If you haven't watched it I highly recommend you do so.

Not Something I'd Normally Discuss

So I admit it I like reading TMZ but this article made me shake my head.

It compares the baby bumps of Kim Kardashian, Jessica Simpson and the Duchess of Cambridge.

First of all who cares about how big they are?

Secondly Kim is 5'2", Jessica is 5'4" and the Duchess is 5'10. The Duchess is way taller than either of the other ladies. Comparing their bumps is kind of pointless because Kate is so much taller. They could all gain 40lbs and it's going to show more on Kim and Jessica because they're shorter. I know because I'm 5'2" and any weight gain more than 5lbs shows up readily.

Can't we just let them enjoy their pregnancies in peace?

The Best Thing Ever?

So yesterday I was hanging out with a friend and she suggested that we go to an organic grocery store that she knew. Having seen her talk about it on Facebook before I was all for it. The store is Blush Lane Organics.

It was awesome! They had produce, meats, cheeses and a bunch of gluten free products. While there I picked up some raspberry jam. d'arbo raspberry jam to be specific. Seriously the closest jam I've had to homemade jam. It only has 4 ingredients: Raspberries, sugar, concentrated lemon juice and pectin. No funny sounding ingredients here! Really, really good jam.

But that's not the best thing ever. Nope. This morning I discovered the wonder that is the Grilled PB&J sandwich. OH MY GOD. Seriously amazing. Warm gooey peanut butter, crispy bread. Why, oh why did I wait so long to try one? I see another one for breakfast tomorrow.

Catch up

I think I'm getting over this cold. I hope so as I miss having energy.

On Saturday I went to the Star Wars Identities exhibit at the Telus World of Science.
It was so cool! Not only were there props, costumes and artwork but you also got to create your own Star Wars character. If you're interested this is mine. Some of my favorite items were the Han Solo in Carbonite prop and the Darth Vader Suit. If you're in Edmonton I recommend going. It runs until April 1.

The great unfucking of my house (see previous post) has recommenced. Saturday morning saw me and the other half move the mattress and boxspring off of the bed frame and I vacuumed under the bed. It was unbelievably dusty. I will be cleaning under there a little more frequently.

Stripped off the sheets, mattress cover and the duvet cover and washed it all. It will be nice to crawl into a super clean bed tonight.

Also washed out our big garbage can that sits in the garage. It had developed a nasty odor. I didn't want to do it but it had to be done.

The great paper shred happened today. I now have a big bag of confetti!

More unfuckery will be happening later this week.

My goal for the year is to get my house clean and then keep it this way.
Also to deal with any paperwork as it comes in and get it put away promptly.

Blargh. Sadly Sick.

Warning some swearing ahead.

So I got inspired to get my house clean yesterday by a site called Unfuck Your Habitat (seriously: http://unfuckyourhabitat.tumblr.com/) and got the bedroom sparkling clean (aside from under the bed. I need my other half's help to move the mattress and boxspring to vacuum it's dusty down there). There are some great ideas and inspirations there as long as you don't get sucked into reading all of it LOL.

I thought I'd continue today but work up with a sore throat and feeling tired so the cleaning is on hold today.

Instead I went to the drugstore and grocery store and picked up some stuff I needed for some home remedies.

This one is for a homemade cough syrup. Seriously the last time I had a cold it did wonders for me. That and using my neti pot twice a day.

This one is for a detox bath. If nothing else sweating it out will help.

I also enhanced my beef noodle soup with green onions, a couple cloves of garlic and some freshly grated ginger.

Every little bit helps right?

Google Can Make You Fat?

Well if you work for them...then yes. Or at least they used to anyways.

This is an interesting story about how the food offerings at Google was causing their employees to put on weight and what Google did to reverse the trend.

Seriously more companies could take a lesson from Google about caring for their employees health.

Feel Good Story

Seeing as the news tends to focus on crappy stuff I think I'll start posting a feel good story at least once a week.

Today's comes from the People Magazine website. All I can say is rock on ladies; you're awesome!

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20667648,00.html

Addicted to Tetris?

Came across this article and it gives a possible explanation as to why Tetris is so addicting.

I admit it. I love Tetris! Such a simple concept yet so maddingly fun.

Excuse me, I must go play a game now.