Wine of the Weekend and Sundry

I have had a cold all week and as a result of my inability to breathe without blowing snot bubbles, my running has slowed to a walk, complete with stopping every five feet so the dogs can smell a telephone pole or rotate themselves into crapping position.

Enough moping. I am so happy the weekend is here! It’s supposed to hit around 22 degrees Celsius (which is about 71 degrees Fahrenheit). This means I will be outside doing one of my favourite things-gardening!

I will also be drinking this (unless I end up switching to a more appropriate crisp, cool white wine):

$12 Cdn

This is a Canadian wine from Oliver, British Columbia. Medium bodied with some spice and berries. 

On another note, when I took the dogs out for their morning walk, I couldn’t help appreciate these blossoms:

I love our early morning walks before everyone else wakes up

Then, on my lunch hour walk around the city, I couldn’t help but notice the striking, deep (almost black) colour of these tulips:

Finally, I wanted to share some recipes I tried this week. These come from one of my favourite blogs: Eighty-Twenty

Both of these recipes got a thumbs up from my husband and son. They were easy to make and I will definitely be making them again

Turkey Burgers

Lasagna Stacks

Cheers to the weekend!

Music to Make You Run. FAST.

I love to run with music.  I blare it from my Ipod shuffle and change the songs like I change TV channels; fast and frequently (only difference is that I’m not shovelling chips into my mouth). My playlist is strategically comprised of what I think will push me farther or set a reasonable pace. Despite my efforts over the years, there is not one song out there that makes me go faster than SLOW. That is, until very recently.

Yes, I know the headphones are tangled. Thanks. 

Picture this:

It’s a Spring day, light wind and the sun is shining. I don’t have to be anywhere any time soon so I can run for as long as I want! Fast or slow, it doesn’t matter. I pop my ear buds in, find my pace, relax and listen to my playlist. Here’s a sample:

• Ho Hey: The Lumineers
• Hall of Fame: The Script
• Paradise: Coldplay
• The Fighter: Gym Class Heroes
• Levels :Avicii
• Don’t Stop Believin’: Journey (AAAhhh, the 80′s!)
• Lose Yourself : Eminem (doesn’t everyone have this on their playlist?)
• Yeah!: Usher
• Black and Yellow: Wiz Khalifa (I totally look like a badass running to this. Yes, even at 42)
• Inner Ninja: Classified
• Don’t You Worry Child: Swedish House Mafia

These songs drown out the lawn mowers and barking dogs. I can dodge slow walkers as I run down a long road towards the ocean. Running along the ocean side (I usually pause the music because I love the sound of the waves) I can climb up a winding hill to the very top. I am far away from home when I hear it. A new song. I must have grabbed it from my son’s playlist but hey, it sounds like Justin Timberlake and he’s a good singer right?

Now, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge that in seeing my playlist, you have in all likelihood, applied some judgement about who I am.  Let’s add some more fuel, shall we? But before I do, I will take a moment to slam a big fat WARNING EXPLICIT LANGUAGE WITH SEXUAL CONTENT into my story right now!

Yes, that was Justin Timberlake. Call me a prude. Ninny. I can handle the odd f-bomb or sexual innuendo but I was not expecting THIS (FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO OFFEND EASILY; SERIOUSLY-OPEN AT YOUR OWN RISK, DON’T SAY I DIDN’T TELL YOU):

• Motherlover  

Nope. I was not.  Oh yes, the more I listened to the lyrics, the faster a ran. I ran like a mother who is desperate to set her son straight on the meaning of appropriate in order to save him ASAP. I thought of all the things I would yell say to him when I got home.  I have never been so motivated to get there to tear a strip off that damn kid of mine. Half laughing (in disbelief), eyes bugged out and mumbling under my breathe, I don’t think I’ve actually ever run that fast before!!

Dare I ask…what’s on your playlist?

Monday Memoirs

Every time I ask my son what he thinks of something (anything) he always responds with the word good :

What did you think of the movie? It was good. 

Did you like the pizza? It was good. 

How was school today? Good. 

The list goes on but I assure you, it always ends the same. Good. I asked him why he never uses another word. Surely, there are things that warrant an ‘outstanding’  (because a teenager would use this type of language) or even  an ‘awesome’. He agrees there are things that do warrant more but that he’s just too lazy to say anything else. Really? REALLY? 

Well, on a scale of good, this week was exhausting and amazing. Hell, it’s my scale. Here are some reasons why:

• Conferences. Sometimes, it’s just nice to get away to a different place, meet new people and learn new things. I was only gone for 2 days but that was just enough time to have a run along the seawall in Vancouver and hear Shane Koyzan. Take a listen to his TED presentation. I am so thankful poetry is good (in the mind blowing, connection to your soul kind of way). 

I couldn’t help but take a picture of the light fixture in the conference room. It was not good. It was hideous.

•  Sleep. I generally don’t sleep very well but this week I managed to get some shut eye. It was probably stress. I don’t care why, it was just great to be able to.

• Friday night drinks. It’s not often that I go out for drinks after work. Usually, I am rushing home for one reason or another. This past Friday, I did stop by the local watering hole to hang out for a couple of drinks. It was great to connect with friends I don’t get to see everyday. Having a few glasses of wine makes the bus ride home seem super fast. Which is good. 

Have a great week

Wine of the Weekend

I will spare all the details but will say this: decorating my old ‘new’ home has come to a grinding halt at the moment which is why I found myself sipping this lovely wine while living vicariously through the home decorating shows on TV.

$14 CDN

My husband picked this one up. I generally try not to let labels influence my wine pics but to be completely honest, they do. I suppose I’m not the only one because it seems to me that companies are always trying to come up with catchy artwork or names for their creations. I digress. Did I mention I love the label on this bottle?

This is a California Zinfandel. It’s got a bit of spice and fruitiness to it. I would say it’s medium to full bodied. Not a bad wine and I think it would go great with a fancy hamburger.

Can I just say that if I had my own wine, I might name it Cardiac. It would be red of course and would full bodied with oak and spice. Oh, and ‘jammy’.

If you were to create your own, what would it be called? What would it taste like?

Monday Memoirs

OK, so now that I’ve concerned everyone with my last post… I must apologize. I should have prefaced it by saying that my world is not in fact ending. Sometimes, crap happens. Crap happened last week but good things also happened. Here’s a few I am celebrating today:

1. My relationship with my husband. Thank goodness we can communicate and comfort one another with a glance or the squeeze of a hand. Also, he vacuums and cleans the bathroom.

2. Movies. Jurassic Park in 3D to be exact; because nothing makes you feel better like shoving nibs and popcorn into your pie hole while watching dinosaurs eat people.

3. The bus. It takes me about 15 minutes to commute to work. The bus driver and I are becoming fast friends and his stories, especially the ones laced with conspiracy theories, are an entertaining way to start the day.

Cheers to the upcoming week

Running with a Broken Heart

You know those runs where everything falls into place; it’s a cool temperature with a slight breeze, your breath and pace align and you feel you could run forever? This is not that type of run.

When you have a broken heart, it feels like a sickness in your bloodstream

I am sitting on the front stoop, lacing my shoes around two cement blocks that will lead me aimlessly around this beautiful neighbourhood. I am so numb that I’m not sure how I managed to get this far. I stand and make my way to the curb. My breath, body and mind are not in synch. This moment is neither is here nor there because time has stopped. I am separated from Mother nature but I don’t want to be.  I want so badly for her to save me.  I start. Slow and methodical. I am on autopilot. The people I pass don’t see me. They have no idea. My sunglasses hide the tears streaming down my face.

Time passes unnoticed but at some point I feel myself catching up to the present moment. It feels good and I push faster. I am motivated to get there. To feel again. I end where I started but it feels just a bit different.  I am a little lighter.

Heading back to the front stoop, I notice the yard needs some maintenance. If I do a little bit everyday, then it won’t seem overwhelming and will eventually start to look the way I want it to again.

Monday Memoirs

Last week was full of a  ’rewiring the entire house’ kind of adventure. I came home last Wednesday to the entire house covered in about 3 inches of dust. No word of a lie! Needless to say, the biggest thing I’m thankful for is that last week is well-in the past.  Here are a couple of other things I’m thankful for:

1. In laws or out laws. Call them what you want but I am incredibly blessed to have my husband’s parents in my life. Despite the chaos of renovating, they came to wait on us hand and foot visit. They cooked, cleaned (I mean they REALLY cleaned),  fixed things, walked dogs, spoiled my son and brought wine. Enough said. 

2. Braces. My son got yellow and black ones attached to his teeth. Back in my day, they were just plain metal. Apparently he can change the colours every month when he goes in for a check up. Say what? I’d just go with the clear or white ones. Just thinking about braces makes my teeth ache.

3. Personal missions. Some people have great aspirations. Me? I just wanted to find a set of headphones and the charger for my ipod shuffle. Is that too much to ask? We still haven’t unpacked the house and every time I thought I’d narrowed my search down to a specific box, I would open it only to find NOT WHAT I WANTED. I should have given up the search but the more I couldn’t find them, the more I NEEDED them. It truly was a sad state of affairs. Schlepping from room to room, wine glass in hand, complaining, asking my family over and over again if they’d seen them. Pathetic. In the end, I triumphed! I found them in a corner of the basement. I sounded like my husband does when the Canucks score.

An example of the fabulous food my in laws create.

This has shrimp, tomatoes, parsley, and parmesan  cheese-yum!

Aren’t these beautiful? My mother in law happened to pick these up at the grocery store.

Yes, grocery shopping for us. SPOILED.

CHOP

Funny how attached we can become to our hair of all things. I say this with the assumption that a lot of other people beyond just me  are in fact attached. Does this mean that some people have let it all go and that somehow short hair is a sign of this? Probably not.

I would also like to point out that if you flip through countless magazines, most of the women in them sport long flowing hair. Why is this? Does long hair really sell more stuff? Plus, it’s likely that many of these magazines are indeed selling haircare products of some sort and if you use these, your hair will look flowing and fabulous. No really, it will.

I’m just simply asking, where are all the short haired chicks? I will let you know and I pray for myself that they are not riding the bus to the pet shop to get yet another cat (p.s. I like cats).

In a brief moment of bravery, I decided to chop my hair short. Real short (at least for me).

  

Ignore the goofy look on my face…this is my BEFORE hair

Here is my AFTER hair

I’m still not entirely sure the big chop was the thing to do but it’s hair, it will grow back if I end up missing it.

It been about 2 weeks now and here’s what I think so far:

1. I look AMAZING in the early hours of the morning (yes, I am being sarcastic);

2. It takes about as much time to style as long hair only it looks better’;

3. I’m still feeling ‘bald’ without longer locks

Are you attached to yours?

Operation Detox!

As I stand to shake the crumbs off my shirt and shed my cravings for all things sweet and salty, I give you my latest and greatest detox creation:

Everything green and red from the fridge (and some light feta) with a side of kale chips

This is NOT the perfect salad or even very creative by my standards but nonetheless, here’s the list I generally use to evaluate what’s on my plate:

• greens and other veggies -I use a lot of spinach, parsley and kale
• healthy fat (i.e. olive oil, avocado)-have you tried coconut oil? I have been meaning too.
• protein-I like chickpeas and tuna
• lots of water on the side! although I am huge tea and ‘potion’ drinker (meaning vitamin and detox teas), oh yeah; then there’s the wine.

To be completely transparent, I chased this plate with a spoonful of peanut butter. I couldn’t help it.

Here is; however, a salad creation I also made and loved this week:

Here is the recipe (I use this term loosely):

1/2 cup fennel

1/2 cup celery

1/2 cup snap peas

1 small or medium apple (I used a Gala)

1/4 cup sliced almonds (it would also be good with walnuts)

Dressing is made up of peach yoghurt (because that’s what I found in the fridge) with some lemon juice mixed in.

Have you eaten something green today?

(Not so) Wordless Wednesday

Doorknobs; sometimes hard to turn and pull but a lot of times well worth it.

This one leads to our basement.

The biggest and fastest spider was spotted down there yesterday.

Spiders make me run. 

Have a great Wednesday