home at last

It feels like we have been gone alot lately. Well we have been, I suppose. When Rob and I can manage days off at the same time, we try to take advantage of them.  We love travelling (mostly because he wants to find new places to eat, seriously) so that’s what we do.  When we aren’t gone, Rob works almost everyday and I work my schedule so that I can get my fulltime shifts in around our trips. That’s how we live. This is how it will be until we have kids to take care of, and so, we are trying to do as much as we can until other responsibilities enter our lives! We don’t plan on looking back and saying “we should have…”

A few more pictures from our trip…

We rented this scooter to cruise around the island.  I had never driven one before, so i was a little nervous. This is a picture of my first time on it, turning in the parking lot! EEK! Rob did the driving.

Feeling a little more comfortable..

Roberto on the speed demon (he was pretending go really fast here). Taking a break for sore butts!

the view from our room…

a stop at the beach while out on the scooter.

After a tough run in the sand (or maybe i was just wearing runners on the scooter

He was getting really sick of me taking pictures of him!

We went for a very delicious dinner that night and arrived back to our hotel to find a Christmas Party going on in the courtyard. A group of schollaged kids in a Carribean band were playing their hearts out. Drums, Horns of all sizes, Dancing. It was awesome. All of the party guests were up dancing and cheering, it was pretty intense.

So we are back home and I am thinking alot about changes that I need to make to my eating.  I think that my lax attitude about food lately has held me back from the results I want.  I have been working with a trainer, as you guys know and was running with my nike+ program.  Now, I think I have a stress fracture in the outside of my right foot and haven’t been running on it. My body has changed since working with the trainer, but my trouble area is my stomach and I hate that I look through pictures from my trip and want to delete every one with my stomach showing.  When I started gaining weight when I was younger, my stomach was the first place it would go. I had a really big belly and it continues to be the last place that I lose fat from. That is just the way I am. Let me find a picture here to illustrate what I mean…..

…well, here is one, sort of, i have deleted most belly shots already (i can’t help it, i have a problem!)

see how i have a pudge shelf that just hangs over my belly button. it casts a shadow! i feel like that will never go away..

I know, get over it! It’s not important in the grand scheme of life…but it just bugs me.

What is your PART that bugs you? How can I get past this ridiculous obsession wih my belly fatness?

Cable Beach, Bahamas

We swam with dolphins. It actually kind of scared the crap out of me!

Paris pictures….

I just remembered that I had never gotten around to posting many of these…

Happy Saturday.

Off to the Bahamas for a 4 day vacay! Love a warm vacay! I have the best fiance evs! It’s a little getaway for my bday which is tomorrow.

E

struggle

I have been having a real tough go the last week.  I missed my runs last week because i had 6 shifts = 72 hours of work. ICK! I could have gone when i got home at night, i suppose, but when i get home at 8pm and have been out of the house since 7am, i really ust don’t feel like running.  My feet are already killing me from being on them all day day at work.  It didn’t help that my coach program on the nike+ was calling for me to do 3 long ones, something like an 8k and two 9ks and a short run. So basially i just didn’t do anything and then felt bad about it.

Rob made me go for a run the other night.  I programed in an 8.43 and we were out for about 10k, but walked at the end.  I have been having alot of foot pain. The bones hurt. the bone in the pad of my foot below my big toes, the middle of the bone on the outside f my feet.  They are sore and feel sharp on the floor.  I have been living in slippers on our wood floors. OUCHie ouch ouch.

I went to the gym this morning to meet my trainer at 1030 and he informed me that we train TOMORROW, not today.  I instantly lost motivation. what would i do if i wasn;t with my trainer.  I didn’t feel like doing anything really. I went on the elliptical to save my feet for 15, then did some planks and abs and then went on the stepper for 20 minutes and that was about all folks.  I know, at least i did something, but really, I felt liek a waste.  I hate doing strength work without my trainer because i don’t push myself when i am alone. Things are hard, so i don’t do as heavy weight, or do as many reps. If i am not with my trainer i feel like i am wasting time. Bad attitude! i know!

that’s my rant

sorry for that

tomorrow i will meet the trainer and punish myself for today’s poor effort!

project

I posted this picture a while ago and asked how we could restore it…

You guys had ZERO tips for me….but that’s ok! I ended up figuring it out.

Google Mapped out address, clicked nearby and typed in furniture restoration…which led us to Maple Leaf Furniture restoration.  I called them up and explained that we had a found a very rough looking chair on the sitting on the sidewalk and we wanted to see fi it could be repaired.  After emailing these pictures to them, they told us our little chair could be saved.

It wasn’t exactly cheap to restore, but I kind of felt like we were adopting an abused little animal.  The chair could be saved it got a little lovin.

So here we are, our little chair is all better now!

 

I LOVE the colour.  It was inspired by the lovely colours in this throw blanket on the bed here. I couldn’t get a very good picture of it though.

 

So that was my little project. Complete!

pushing through lack of motivation

Yesterday I had a run to do.

                  I didn’t want to do it. 

My Nike+ Coach was telling me that I had a 6.3 km to do. 

I was busy yesterday until about 4:30 so I didn’t get it done before that. 

 Then I got home and made somehting to eat. …..I sat around in front of the fireplace and watched a bit of that Mall Cop movie on the Rogers on Demand (clearly this is me stalling people!) 

I looked at the clock and it was about 6:00 and i started my mental battle…

                         “I really don’t want to go, but if i don’t i will feel guilty.  I am not doing anything else so why don’t i just go and get it over with??  If i go i will feel better.  My hamstrings are really stiff from my last workout with my trainer. Go get this over with!   Just go do it, your legs will loosen up. I don’t feel like it. It is dark already. I wish Rob was home to make me go….” And then I finally said to myself , “STOP THIS CRAZINESS. Enough crap excuses. You are going, it will be done in less than an hour.”

And so I went.

I bundled up and headed out into the cool evening.  I started off with Rhianna pumping in my ears. I was moving quick and feeling great.  Around the 3rd km i got a stitch in my left side that felt like my intestines were poking through my muscles.  It slowed me down, but didn’t stop me.

I FINISHED that fricking run.

That run i was dreading. That run that was going to go undone because i didn’t want to do it. 

If I had chosen to let me talk myself out of doing that,  I would be no further ahead. I would have been disappointed in my lack of commitment.  I would have mentally punished myself.

So I did my run. It felt good….. and I will continue to do my runs because I am going to FINISH what I started !

WOOHOO

 

e

Cookin’ With Class

*** Warning this contains images of a graphic (dead animal) nature. Viewer discretion is advised! Oh and it also turns into a bit of food porn, do not view hungry!***

Rob planned a surprise activity in Paris (other than the engagement)! We met our chef Pino at 9am, along with three other travellers, for a class in Parisien cooking.  What a great surprise!  I really do have the greatest heterosexual, life, partner ever..hehe!

Our first stop was the Fromagerie to learn about and choose cheese for after lunch!!

 

that is Pino, our chef

Rob loves cheese!

tips:

 

-Did you know that you can eat the rind off of brie (i always wondered if u should or not)?

-Sometimes cheese rinds are made of wax, these you shouldn’t eat – although you can, if you really like…wax… otherwise the rind forms from the cheese being “painted” with a penicillin/salt/water, mix.  Sometimes, there is also beer or wine added to the mix.

-The mold in blue cheese forms from loaves of rye bread that are left to mold on the cheese. The moldy crusts are scraped off and ground down into a powder and then that is mixed in the the cheese as it is formaing.  Each “eye” f mold is from one of those moldy rye crumbs.

- When eating blue cheese at the home of a french family, do not cut your piece from the centre on the wedge (so getting only cheese from what was the middle of the cheese wheel).  This is considered rude because it is the creamiest and best part.

We choose some yummy cheeses including some that you cannot get outside of France.

Then we stopped at the Butcher….

yes, that is a rabbit

Bunnies, quail, duck, pheasants, oh my…everything you can imagine, but no beef.  France is not known for beef.

The shop next door sold only horse meat, but the owner was an a-hole and was screaaming NO PICTURES! So, there are no pictures (except for this one of there great sign)!

tips:

- It really isn’t that hard to cut apart an entire rabbit.

- Some butchers will try to sell cats as rabbit because they look almost identical when skinned.  Make sure to buy rabbit with the head attached so you can check for rabbit teeth.

- Rabbit tastes a lot like chicken (i know people always say that about strange meats, but it really does).

We went to the fish monger, but our group chose to have le lapin and le carnard, so no seafood was purchased.  It was impressive to watch the guys here work! They can really skin a fish! I want to work there, just to learn how to do it.

We stopped at the market to get veggies.  I suggested we make something with mushrooms because i am always intimidated by the mushrrom selection at markets. hos DO you use all of those, and what DO they taste like?? Well we bought a lot of mushrooms, including to two big Porcini mushrooms that cost 39 euro for a kilo…that’s like $75 cnd for a kilo (~2.2lbs) of mushrroms. Hence why we bought just two and filled out the mushroom dish with other types. We also bought the potatoes, celery root, herbs (they sold the thyme with the whole root system attached so that you can take it home and replant it! Genius!), greens (the best i have ever had), carrots, shallots, onions…. i am sure there was more.

MUSHROOMS!!

Lastly we stopped at the Boulangerie to get some delicious bread to have with the cheese! MMM, the french know how to bake! Nobody here eats a baguette that is more than  hours old.  They were setting up for lunch (everywhere sells fresh sandwiches on tasty baguette) and by this point i was starving and my mouth was watering from all the tasty shopping we had done.  You could get a sandwich, fresh tartlette and a drink for 5euro…i almost did it, but knew we were heading to the studio to make our delicious lunch!

Now, it was time to cook! The class did all the prep and cooking with the guidance of our Chef.

Yes, that is a jumbo ox of chocolate bits, which i promptly asked rob to pry from my hands!

Rob chef’ing!

Melt that chocolate BABE, oh yeh!

learning how to cut apart the bunny…specifically where the kidneys are in order not to cut them open. Apparently they really stink if you do that.

kidneys out! success! (i am a tad grossed out here)

I was impressed to see what we could do with the right instruction.  Everything we did he was telling us how we could use the other parts of the animal/vegetable is other ways (stocks, cooking oter foods) so as not to waste anything.  I wish that i had the foresight and know how when I am cooking. It would be great to put everything to use.

So here are the final products!

Seared Duck Breast with Confit d’ognions

Braised Rabbit with White Wine and Shallots, Celery Root Puree and mushroom

Chocolate Lave Cake

The Cheese Plate

(This was Rob’s most highly anticipated part of the meal, but he ended up getting sick halfway through the class and couldn’t eat anything! Poor guy – this was pure torture for him. He still comments on missing out on all the great food!)

This was my favorite thing we did in Paris!

still runnin

To avoid making any decisions about this wedding that now needs to be planned ( i am so hard done by!) i have been doing my runs as per my Nike+ 10k coaching program.  These were the last two torturous days. The first we did right after getting home from the airport and the second this morning.  The balls of my feet hurt – alot!

This run today killed me!  My limbs felt like velcro covered lead pipes being dragged across carpet! We took a new path heading north from home and basically running uphill for the first 3k – not cool! This resulted in a few walk breaks and me pouting! But, what goes up must come down (right shug? your mom told me that as she tried to get down something we had gotten stuck in your big, front yard, tree) and so the end of the run was mostly downhill – bonus!

Look what happened in Paris!

**please disregard my eye wrinkles!!