Silly me...

Yesterday's spa day was amazing. Susie and I spoiled ourselves with breakfast at Le Petit Dejeuner, then our body bakes and massages at Body Blitz and then a very late lunch at Le Select Bistro (it was a French themed food day). I felt very gluttonous but it was well worth it!

I guess after a day of relaxing, I was a little "off" at work today. I had updated my computer last week to protect against a Windows virus and I think it changed my computer clock. All day I kept thinking to myself "wow I must be working so hard because this day is just flying by!" When it was time to eat lunch, the clock said almost 3 pm. Then by the time 6pm hit, I got my coat and left for home. I was thinking what a great sunny day it was and how the "spring forward" time change really makes such a difference since it was SO bright at 6pm! I got home, played a few video games and then went to the gym. After my one hour workout, I came back up and my clock said 6:45. I thought to myself again, "oh the power must have gone out at home and all of my clocks are off". So I turned on the tv to confirm the time and I noticed the news was still on. Again I thought "how strange, this must be a very late news cast." When I changed to CP24, I finally realized that I was the one that was "off". I had totally walked out of work over an hour early and didn't even realize it. No one said anything, our office manager just said "bye" and that was it.

I feel a little guilty after coming back from a vacation day to leave "early" but hey, I definitely enjoyed my extra hour at home!!

Happy Birthday Sooz!

This weekend was Susie's 34th birthday. Susie has been my friend since we were 4 years old and I'm so happy that we are still so close and she is still one of my very best friends. We celebrated at her friend Hana and Grant's place. They made a delicious Japanese dinner and Josh and I provided the dessert. He made a chocolate cake and I made Williams Sonoma brownies using my new brownie pan. (See pic above) The pan is the shape of a large chocolate bar that you break apart once baked. They didn't turn out as good as I had hoped but everyone at the party seemed to enjoy them. The recipe from WS was very rich and chocolatey but a little too cakey for my liking. Thanks Carol for providing me with inspiration with that big huge slab of pure chocolate you gave me!

The rest of night was spent playing with Susie's new games, Lips (a singing game on the Xbox) and "The Big Taboo". Its like regular Taboo where you try to describe a word without using any of the taboo words but with additional challenges like having to draw the words or use "Bendy Bob" (a fuzzy purple character that actually comes with the game,) to act out the word. Everyone enjoyed Bendy Bob so much that we ended off the evening making up our own actions for Bendy Bob to re-enact.

Today I went to see grams in the morning and then had lunch with mom before coming home to do taxes (yeeech) and then try to make homemade calzones. I found whole wheat fresh dough at the supermarket and thought I would try to make mini panzerottos for lunch. They turned out to be not so mini (I stuffed them a bit too much,) and the dough didn't have enough salt so it was a bit bland. But will still make good lunches for the rest of the week. Then Mel and Norm stopped by to bring me a very pleasant surprise, Mel's homemade cupcakes. They were sooo good. I think even the best vanilla cupcakes I've ever had. Just as good as the Sweet Bliss vanilla. I ate two right away but managed to save 2 more for tomorrow. Thanks Mel!

Tomorrow Susie and I took the day off and are going to Body Blitz for a day of pampering. Body Blitz is a water therapies spa. They have 4 or 5 different pools (hot green tea, cold plunge, sea salt, plus wet and dry saunas) and you are supposed to do a circuit of each pool one after the other. In addition to the pools, we are both getting mud wraps and massages... makes Mondays not so bad afterall!

Ready to Eat!

Here's Charlotte before lunch on Sunday. She learned something new since the last time I saw her, how to say "cheese". Its hard to take a photo of her now without her making this face. As soon as she sees the camera she just turns it on, its hilarious.

A new invention...

Ok so its not really "new" but Gerwyn and I discovered our new favourite dessert: homemade chocolate chip cookies sandwiched around vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce... YUM!

Foodbabies

If you've watched the movie "Juno" then you're familiar with the "food baby". This phenomenon occurs when you eat so much that your belly sticks out far enough to be 4-6 months pregnant. I've experienced many food babies in my lifetime, in fact, I probably have a food baby at least once a day. Today my food baby was the result of Peter Street Deli's Lemon Chicken. Three deep fried chicken cutlets smothered in lemon sauce (or on side as I prefer it,) and served on a mile high pile of fried rice all for $5.85 (tax included). Its really enough for two full meals and luckily I managed to show enough restraint today to save enough for tomorrow's lunch.

It one of those meals that is so bad for you but just oh soooo goooood.

The verdict is IN!

Yesterday I met Mahi, Saadia and Raju for breakfast at Joy Bistro (which was deeleecious by the way, I highly recommend it for brunch!) and then Mahi and I did a little furniture shopping along Queen East. My friend Stephan was having a sale at his store so I thought I would take Mahi there since he's been looking for cool furniture for awhile.

Along the way, I also decided that we would have to make a pitstop at Sweet Bliss Bakery so I could finally try the famous cupcakes and cinnamon rolls. I bought 8 cupcakes and one roll (Mahi picked up four cupcakes) and we were back at Stephan's so I could buy some lamps. Although there was a ton of great stuff at Stephan's that was on sale, I of course had to pick the items that weren't on sale. But at least he gave me no tax and promised me he'd get me some large antique frames that I had been looking for ever since I saw them at his place. Now the picture of the lamps above is not my lamp, but it was the only lamp shot he had on his website. To take a look at some of Stephan's stuff, go to flikandcompany.com. They are located on Queen East around Carlaw.

After shopping, Mahi dropped me off at Saadia's again where we had a great lunch with her sister Camilla and friend Lisa. Saadia made these amazing fried rice balls that I will have to try at my next WND. She also made a lovely chocolate cake from scratch for Lisa's birthday. I was so full I could barely try any cupcakes so I decided to leave them for later and instead took a bit of the cinnamon roll which I must say was quite tasty. (It was crispy on the outside, kind of like brioche and then soft in the middle.)

This morning I woke up and made my morning coffee. I was looking forward to trying out one of my 6 remaining cupcakes only to find that there was only one in the box this morning. "Someone" (I won't mention who but I'm sure you can guess,) came by last night and although I do recall him "tasting" one or two, he must have snuck in a few more when I wasn't looking! Luckily one is all you need since the icing is super duper sweet (which I prefer over the more buttery type icing at most bakeries.) My verdict is a big thumbs up! The vanilla cake was soft without being too dense and you could really taste the vanilla that was used in the batter. My verdict isn't quite in on the red velvet or chocolate as I didn't get a real taste of those (only a quick bite last night) but I have to say, Sweet Bliss Vanilla are my new fav.

Just one of those days...

You know those days where you just feel like nothing is right? You have everything you could ever want but you still feel like there's something that's just not right. Nothing is good enough and although the sun is shining outside, you feel like there's a grey storm cloud sitting above your head. Well today was one of those days. I was sitting at work just watching the time ticking by minute by minute and dreading anyone coming by to ask me for anything because I just might take their head off. As I walked home, I just got gloomier and gloomier and eventually just felt like there was nothing that could make me feel better.

When I finally got home, I sat myself down on my bed and thought, I just have to get myself out of this mood. So I forced myself to put on my gym clothes, put on my ipod and ran my butt off on the treadmill. (Ok, so it was only 20 minutes...) After the workout I started to feel better and by the time I came back to my condo I was struck with the most powerful craving... for you guessed it, c.h.o.c.o.l.a.t.e! I've been working so hard to cut down on sugar and be healthy but when the craving comes knocking, there's just nothing you can do to stop it. I scoured my cupboards for any sign of milk chocolatey goodness and found a half bag of old milk chocolate chips. As I shoved my first handful of chipits in my mouth (and realized that they were still good), I noticed a recipe on the back for chocolate chip cookies. And so, 3 cookies later and eyeing my fourth, I'm starting to feel much b.e.t.t.e.r.

Weekend Update!

Here is a picture of Charlotte that I took today while visiting. She was wearing a rather interesting outfit, a metallic dress and shrug. Pretty stylish for a one year old!

Saturday I met my cousin Mad and 2 of her 3 kids for lunch at Wah Sing. Between the four of us (2 adults and 2 kids under 11,) we ordered two orders of lobster, cantonese chow mein, green beans, spicy squid and chicken/crab and corn soup. Besides a few remaining squid that I took home with me, we managed to eat everything! After lunch we took Jessica to get her hair cut. She hadn't cut her hair for 2 years in order to be able to donate it to "locks of love". They make wigs for kids with cancer. It takes four bundles of 10" long hair to make one wig. Jess has a lot of hair though, so I think she was able to provide at least 2 bundles.

After her haircut (and my bangs trim,) I headed home to meet Gerwyn to go to the Home Show. It wasn't too interesting but Gerwyn ended up meeting my entire Loblaws gang when we ran into Ken and his wife Lilli and then my old friends Stephan and Janet (who were working at his booth.) They shared a Sweet Bliss cupcake that they had brought with them (which was VERY tasty) and then we left the show and went to the Real Jerk for some Jamaican dinner. Gerwyn ordered the jerk chicken and curry goat combo and I had just the 1/4 jerk chicken. It was my first time there and except for the sudden bout of nausea that I think I experienced from drinking too much "ting", the food was great.

Today has been rather quiet, just sleeping in with grams, playing with Charlotte and then a visit to the gym. I'm trying to get back into the swing of running again. I'd at least like to be able to run another 5K this year.

Getting a little GOOPed!

I'm not big on surfing the net. In fact, I often ask people how they are able to spend hours upon hours "surfing". Where do they go? What is so interesting that would keep you in front of a life sucking computer screen for hours on end? In my quest to discover, I just recently stumbled upon a website called "GOOP". (www.goop.com). It was created by Gwyneth Paltrow and is basically a weeklyish newsletter of tidbits of advice from her own life experiences. She's divided the site into 6 different sections. There's info on food, travel, clothing, etc all centred around the Oprah-esque "living your best life" or "nourish the inner aspect" as GP says.

I was definitely intrigued. I have to admit, her writing style is quite personable and if you think about it, like Oprah, she's had the benefit of living a priviledged life. Why not pass on all the useful and interesting tidbits of her life experiences to everyone? After checking out only the first few sections of the site, this is my favourite "tidbit" so far. Much of her "advice" is common-sense. But sometimes, in our hectic, material driven lifestyle, we sometimes forget the "common" stuff. So here's a little "goop" from GP on raising children, which I think is actually something people should employ all the time, whether you have children or not.

"...it has been my personal experience (both as a child and a mother) that children are like little radios picking up our frequency. They know the real truth about what we are feeling versus what we are presenting and it is incredibly isolating to find a major discrepancy between the two. When in my grown-up sphere I am confronted with disappointment or my own intolerance and a bad mood to boot, I often name what is going on (in other words, I say, "Mommy is having a hard day, and I am feeling upset") so that the very mundane human “bad” feelings do not turn into some grim phantom in the room with me. Sometimes I don’t have the maturity in the moment, and when it fails me, I apologize at bedtime when my children and I are having a talk. I have felt my daughter’s whole body sigh in relief when I have simply and very specifically voiced regretting my own behavior. Here’s to doing the best we can. "

Kale!

Meet my new favourite vegetable: Kale. As many of you know, I often discover a new ingredient to try, and once I decide I like it, I'll cook with it as much as possible often to the point of overdose. There was my beet phase, my polenta phase, my reintroduction to mushrooms (specifically cremini,) and now its Kale. I always walked by it in the vegetable aisle and thought it looked just too healthy to try. It was enough for me just to eat spinach. Then I watched an episode of Rachel Ray on the food network and saw a recipe for "kale au gratin" that looked tasty. The recipe didn't turn out as good as I had hoped but when I took my first bite of Kale, it was nothing like I had expected. I thought it would be bitter (similar to rapini) or else have that "green vegetable" taste (i.e. spinach, green beans) but it was neither. It was just tasty! Thus began my "kale kick". I've basically used it wherever I would use spinach. In lasagna, in stirfry and today in a soup. The only thing is that it is quite hearty so you have to cook it a bit longer to get the stems soft, but once its cooked (with lots of garlic of course,) its deeleecious! I won't even bother going into all its health benefits (there are many,) but if its good enough for me to blog about it, then you know its worth trying! Gooooooo Kale!