Big Plans for This Little Blog

3 more days. 3 more days. 3 MORE DAYS!!!

I have 3 more days left of work before a nice 2 week holiday. Can you tell I am excited!!!! 

As much as I am counting down the days, I still can't believe how quickly the time has gone. It seems like yesterday I was just starting work and moving to Toronto, but it has been almost 6 months already. Crazy. 

What is even crazier, is that in January I will mark my 1 year blog-a-versery and I am planning to "relaunch" the pink hard hat for that occasion. I started this blog as something to do so I wouldn't get bored. I had no idea about blogging, or even what I was going to blog about. To be honest I didn't even read very many blogs. It was completely foreign territory to me. 

In a year though, I have started reading blogs, I figured out what I like to read about, what I like to blog about and what other people like to read about. As much as it is easy to write the "Here is what I did on the weekend" posts, and as much as it is a great way for me to journal, I feel weird expecting people to continue to pay attention to my completely normal life. 

I like blogging about food and fitness, as demonstrated by my Totally Typical Weight loss challenge side project. I also like venting on my blog...posts like my letter to FB and one of my first ones about Sidewalk etiquette got good feedback, and even made some people laugh. I have learned I love reading about what people eat in a day, but not necessarily recipes, and I like reading about people's day to day lives retold with some humor. 

So where does that leave me?

For one, I think I need to blog more. It is hard to actually write what I want when I feel the need to fill everyone in with what I have been up to. For example, this blog post could have been all about my fun-filled weekend, but I just wasn't feeling it. Sometimes when I write about what I have been up to I am writing it with a big fake smile on my face, just because what I am writing about was fun, but how I am feeling that day isn't as fun. That is not keeping it realz yo. 

I also want to get a little more organized, have some focus to this bloggity blog. I really like the blogs that have a specific day for a specific topic, so I may follow that trend. 

I think I actually have to do something to make this blog exciting and fresh. The TTWLC worked because I was blogging about cooking, and going to the gym. It was easy to write because it was focused. Because of the limitless options with this blog, I often have writer's block. 

Soooo in January, I am kicking off year two of blogging with a fresh look of the page, more focus, and more posts. I still want to keep people updated on my life, but that will be a once a week post, not the only posts I do. I am going to spend some time on my Christmas Vacation thinking about this and planning ahead to figure out how I want this blog to go forward.

It is kind of silly actually that I started this blog with no plan and it makes sense that I'm not completely satisfied with my end product. As someone who is typically oober organized, and is obsessed with planning things out, doing something willy-nilly (bonus points for throwing that phrase in there) just isn't going to keep me blogging. 

I may not be blogging much between now and January with Christmas Craziness settling in, but stay tuned for January...because this is when this blog gets legit!

Christmas Decorating

I made possibly the best rib sauce in the world tonight for supper. I loosely followed this recipe from Epicurious, but I didn't really measure, and made half of it following a similar recipe earlier this week. Whatever happened it was AMAZING, sweet and spicy and garlicy! Sooo good!

But that is just a side note to my actual purpose of blogging...which is that IT IS CHRISTMAS TIME!!!

This is my first offical on-my-own christmas where I wasn't worrying about exams. I am taking full advantage of this.

The "mantle" is decorated

Christmas!!!

The mini tree is up!!!

It is shorter than me!!!

Straight No Chaser's 12 days of Christmas was listened to whilst decorating the tree!

I love that I get to do this all again when I go home closer to Christmas. 

I really wanted to share with you all a nifty little Christmas idea:

Awww homemadeness

I know I totally read this idea somewhere, but I can't remember where (probably a blog). The people got an ornament to represent something new in their lives that year. I think that idea is fantabulous so I stole it. 

At first I was just going to buy a 2011 one, but they were all red and green and expensive, so since I went with a blue and silver theme (to match my normal decor) I decided to make my own. 

I started with a cheap plain silver ball. I bought some scrapbooking letters and numbers and put 2011 on the front, and a M + K on the back (for Mike and Kaylee, if you didn't figure it out). This is our 4th Christmas together, but our first actually being in the same place!

Next I took a pencil and traced the CN tower and city skyline to represent moving to Toronto. I then added silly "Welcome to Toronto" lettering. I then traced over the whole thing with a black pen to keep it simple. 

It probably cost me a total of 50 cents, and is way more personal than a wal-mart 2011 one. I like that anyone could do this and totally personalize it. Yes it looks homemade and kinda thrown together, but I like that about it! I also like that it has the potential to become a tradition, which is awesome!

Christmas decorations make me happy!

Anyone else have cool holiday traditions?

Some Late Night Blogging

If by late you are like me and like to be asleep by 11 pm.

I wanted to blog before going to bed for some odd reason, but I'll go with it. I wanted to blog about the November Blahs. I really don't like the month of November. It is too early to be fully Christmas-y, and to me all it is, is cold and dark. November is like the Monday of Winter, it makes me sad because I know I have so much more winter to go. This month was actually a lot of fun because I had a lot of visitors, but recently the lack of daylight, cold weather and FLURRIES have been bugging me.

I think that humans were suppose to hibernate. I seriously dislike winter, and it isn't just because of the cold or the snow, it is simply because it is dark all the time. It makes me want to be a vegetable. Motivation to go the gym is lacking, motivation to do anything productive is lacking, and all I want to do is stay in bed and watch movies. Anyone else get like this in the darkness of winter??


So tonight I tried to get stuff done, even though I really wanted to watch TV. I cleaned a little, made peach oatmeal muffins from Two Cups of Happy (SOOO GOOD!!), cut up 5lbs of carrots and decided to make a veggie soup with kale for lunch/supper tomorrow. I also edited a gas turbine combustion report for the BF. Exciting. Tomorrow I actually have to get up semi early, because I want to go to Body Attack and Body Flow at the gym after work and I need to get my butt moving to get out of the November blahs.


However getting up early has been an issue the past few weeks because it has been so dark out.

Some background info...where I work has relatively flexible hours. You need to work 9 hours, and you can start between 7-9 and work until 4-6. We get half an hour lunch, but if you take a longer lunch you just work longer in the day. Some guys come into work at 6 and leave at 3 because they are crazy.
So this is good in a bunch of ways, it isn't a big deal if you are 5 minutes late, there is no missing the alarm stress, and it is flexible for anyone's personal schedule (ie picking up kids from day care etc).

The downside to this is I like sleeping in too much, and even though I would love to work from 7-4, my morning brain does not like this idea and I end up making it into work around 9. So today I was at work at 8:45 had choir practice at lunch (an hour long) so I was at work until 6:15 and then by the time I got home it was close to 7. And I am in bed by 10:30. That isn't a lot of time to get stuff done.

I have often joked about Morning Kaylee vs Normal Kaylee. Normal Kaylee makes plans to go to work from 7-4. Morning Kaylee has the worst logic in the world, always goes for the snooze alarm, and negates any reasoning to get out of bed early. So at 5:45, which is when I have to get up to make it work at 7, my alarm goes off. I always have an alarm set for this time even though I rarely get up. I think about getting up, then immediately fall back to sleep. This process repeats itself at 6:15, 6:45, 7:15, and FINALLY at 7:45 I haul myself out of bed.  Within 2 minutes of actually waking up I am slightly annoyed that I slept in that long. This happens almost every day.

I find now that is dark until about 7:20 in the morning, I am having an even harder time getting out of bed. I have pretty much given up getting to work from 7-4, and instead have embraced the 9-6 routine. Perhaps once it starts getting lighter outside I will wake up earlier. But that can cause havoc on days where I actually want to get stuff done..like tomorrow. If I go to work from 9-6, I will miss body attack, and then I will probably be discouraged and not bother going to bodyflow.

Ok Morning Kaylee you got the message loud and clear right...work from 8-5 tomorrow so gymmage can happen as planned ok???

How much do you want to bet that tomorrow morning I will sleep in again.

Is it Christmas Vacation yet???

Just a Normal Busy Week

I can’t believe it is the end of November already! Crazy! It feels like just yesterday that it was June 20th and I had just moved to Toronto.

This past week seemed to go by especially fast, and unfortunately so did the weekend.

My week started off kind of weird with a PUFFY EYE. I woke up Monday morning with a sore eyeball and a puffy eyelid, and thought it may have been something contagious so I called in sick, went to doctor, was told it was just a blocked duct, he gave me some eyedrops and I headed to work for the afternoon. So because of all that mess I didn’t go to the gym on Monday or Tuesday (because my eye still felt weird, that is a valid excuse right).

On Wednesday I went to my first work Christmas Choir rehearsal. At work they form a choir to perform at the xmas party. I joined with some hesitation, but after that first rehearsal I am totally hooked. Taking lunch to go sing fun Christmas carols kept me smiling the whole afternoon. It also totally reminded me of High School, which was the last time I was in a choir, and how much I miss singing/performing.

On Thursday I really really really really didn’t want to go to the normal yoga class I go to (mostly because the normal teacher wasn’t going to be there) so I didn’t go. Didn’t even feel bad about it. Instead I watched repeats of cake boss and made a cake using limited supplies and ingredients. Turned out delicious.

On Friday Mike and I went on a road trip up to Yorkdale mall for Christmas shopping and movies. The issue was that the mall closed at 9:00 and the movie only started at 10:30. We decided to grab food while we waited. The two restaurant options were Moxie’s and Rainforest café, neither option really excited me. Moxie’s had a ridiculous wait, so we went to the Rainforest Café, we got in at 8:50 and they closed at 9:00 so I felt really rushed even though we were allowed to stay for a reasonable time to eat. The food wasn’t that great and somewhat overpriced but our server was really nice.

Since we STILL had time to kill before the movie we went back down to Moxie’s and got dessert. The desserts were really tasty, however if you have never been to Moxie’s, the waitresses are dressed very…umm how shall I put this, minimally. They wear little black dresses, which in theory is fine, but some of them were so short or so low it was actually gross. Gross enough that I probably wouldn’t go back by choice.

We finally went to the movies at 10:30. We went to see the Muppets and it was hilarious. Mike is huge Muppet fan, and we both are huge Jason Segal fans. I got a kids pack of popcorn even though I had just had all that food. I need to have popcorn at a movie, even if it is just a small amount.

On Saturday instead of being a good person and getting up and going to the gym, I slept in and skipped the gym, did groceries, some walmart shopping, and went to buy some kijiji winter tires out in Vaughan. Then Mike and I met up his friend who was in town for a university business competition and we went out for dinner at Real Sports Bar and Grill. I had my favorite the Black and Blue burger. It was very good, but I was so full. On Sunday we went out for Breakfast at Eggspectations with friends and afterwards we gave Mike’s buddy a tour of Toronto (in the rain) since he is moving to Toronto in January for a co-op work term. After he left for the airport, I decorated and Mike did some homework.  I also had a wonderful skype chat with one of my besties who is teaching in France until the summer!

After a homemade supper we watched copious amounts of you-tube bloopers from our favorite
shows. Very productive evening. It made up for doing so much this weekend.

So if you have been following along this past week I didn’t go to the gym at all. AHHHH. And
I ate out quite a bit. Ahhhhh! So for the next three weeks I am going to the gym 5x a day, and
other than Christmas Party events, every meal is going to be home cooked (to benefit my wallet
as much as my health). I started the week off right this time (no puffy eye) and went to Zumba
for the first time in a while. I had so much fun, I am so mad at myself for missing it for the past
few weeks!

Healthy Noms on a Budget

Ok here is my beef (hehe) with the show extreme couponers. I was watching last night and this woman saved 99.9% of her grocery bill. Good for her. My issue is that she bought hotdogs, and pop, and chips, and cookies, for her toddler age children. I am totally for saving money, but I don't think you need to eat junk to do it.

When I first moved to Ontario started shopping at Loblaws because it was nearby and I knew the brand. Every week my boyfriend and I would be spending around 130 a week for groceries. This is included shopping the sales, and the coupons (not extreme coupons though). We typically buy fresh food, and avoid the frozen food aisle and the junk food aisles. So this means we make 90% of our meals from basic ingredients, including lunches.  

At some point I wondered, even though we were saving money by eating home cooked meals, was there anyway to save money on groceries??

First we found a website called soscuisine.com  where you register, for free, then the website looks up all the flyers in your area and gives you budget menus. I don't have enough time to go to multiple places to get the best deals so I use the website to see what is on sale at one spot and plan my meals accordingly. I have used some of their recipes and they are pretty quick and easy. This helped me save money a little bit more, but we were still spending way too much.

Next we tried the going to multiple stores thing. Groceries that week took us 2 hours and we actually spent more than normal. That was a big old fail.

Finally we tried going to No Frills. No Frills is the President's Choice version of Price Chopper for those of you who have never been. The first week we spent $100. The next we spent $80. From then on we averaged out about $90 dollars a week. Some quick math..that is $40 a week, or $2080 a year. That is significant. Only negative that we have found shopping at No Frills is that the fruit goes bad slightly faster than at Loblaws, and...that is pretty much it. There meat and frozen fish is good, and we just make sure to watch expiration dates closely.

So a typical grocery week for me starts on Friday with looking over SOS cuisine for the things that are on sale. I then base my meals on what is cheap that week. Then I am may have to do some recipe research if I can't come up with anything. On Saturday we go do groceries in the AM and fight off the old people loading up because a certain item is really on sale. Very exciting. So on Saturday night not only is my fridge full but I know exactly what I am eating for the rest of the week, and I can spend Sunday doing any prep work, like making healthy muffins, or homemade hummus.

Some quick grocery saving tips:
1. Buy the no-name brand. Sometimes it tastes even better
2. Look above and below. The more expensive items are placed at eye level, so cheaper options are on lower/higher shelves.
3. Shop sales and flyers and coupons, but don't buy something if it is on sale just because it is on sale
4. Plan meals so you don't have a bunch of random food items and nothing to cook
5. Make stuff yourself. 2 cans of chick peas and the spices needed to make 1 L of hummus cost me about $2 bucks, compared to buying a 300mL container for $4 dollars!
6. Eat all your food. It kills me to throw out food so some times I have to be creative to make sure something doesn't go bad!

I guess the entire point of this post is that you don't have to eat poorly to eat on a budget, you just have to be organized! For example this was our meal plan this week, it was pretty delicious:
Saturday: Steak with a blackberry compote, asparagus and roasted potatoes.
Sunday: Veggie pizza (we had a free coupon to Panago, it was really good)
Monday: Whole wheat pasta, shrimp, veggies, cheese and THAI CHILIES
Tuesday: Slow cooker curry chicken thighs, tomato and cucumber indian salad
Wednesday: Healthified Fish and Chips and Coleslaw (first time making coleslaw, it was very pretty!)

Coleslaw w/ LF Mayo, lightly breaded sole, potatoes boiled then slightly grilled for fries

Thursday: leftovers
Friday: Whatever we have left in the fridge and can create a meal out of

For lunches I either have leftovers or some sort of salad. This week I also made pomegranate pumpkin muffins, and spicy hummus for snacking.

I also made a delicious lunch on Saturday that I would like to share:

Open Faced Avagadro Sammich

Avagadro's Sammich

Yes it is a Avagadro Sammich. The nerd that is the BF thought it was HILARIOUS that Avocados sound like Avagadro, and hence we have the sammich name

Makes 2 sammichs, serve with chips and salsa if you want!
Ingredients include:
4 Pieces of Chicken bacon, or Breakfast Chicken as the brand I have calls it.
1 Avagadro Avocado
2 Whole wheat bready pieces
6 slices of cheese (motza tasted good)

Step one. Toast the bread
Step two. Cook the chicken bacon
Step three. Mash the Avocado
Step four. Put half the avocado mash on a toast.
Step five. Top with bacon and cheese.
Step six. Nom

Ok, I realize this recipie was oober simple, but it was SOOO DELICIOUS it had to be spelled out.

And there you have my food life. Organized, on a budget, and delicious. Just like the rest of my life!

Do you have fun grocery/cheap food tips?  I would love to hear it!

Visitors Round 2!!!!

This blog post has been ready to go since Monday, but since I have been having computer issues it's actual posting has been delayed. HOWEVER, I have good computer news! The Mike installed Ubuntu on my computer (Linux based operation) and it is 1000000 times faster than windows. I can now blog and stream videos with ease. It is pretty much amazing. Anyway back to the point....


This past weekend (as mentioned before) my friend Erin came to visit! Well actually she was here on Tuesday night, so technically she was here for more than a weekend which was awesome! On Tuesday Mike and I drove to the airport for a dinner with my dad who was over-nighting before catching a plane to the States for work. It worked out really well since I had to pick up Erin anyway. While we were waiting for Erin, Mike decided to do some studying with this book...

An Introduction to Combustion

It's amazing he didn't get accosted by security. Once we got Erin, we arrived back home late so I was not the most social host and went to bed, since morning was quickly approaching.


On Wednesday, we went out for Sushi at To-Ne (Queen St) with some other friends of Erin’s. She met these two girls from traveling around Europe post-grad. They were both super nice! I was so impressed at how put together these girls looked, especially since I felt like (and think I looked like) a zombie from being up too late the night before. The sushi was good, and the presentation was very well done. Oh look, a lovely picture I took (once again, blogging fail):

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By the time we got home it was getting late so once again I had to be lame and go to bed.


On Thursday, Erin and I did something CRAZY. We decided to go to the gym for 3 CLASSES IN A ROW and a hour walk total to and from the gym. We started at 5:30 with Body Pump, then a 6:30 Body Attack, and finished off with a 7:30 Body flow. I have done the attack then flow thing before, but never 3 in a row. It surprisingly wasn’t too bad (at the time). We stopped at Starbucks on the way home (as a treat for surviving) and then made it home and had some supper…and then I went to bed.


On Friday I woke up and still wasn’t that sore from the gym, and went to work, then I came home, we had a nice home-cooked dinner, went to the movies (PUSS IN BOOTS!!!) and out for drinks. We ended up at Nirvana on College St. and had veggies and dip as a snack..healthiest bar snacks ever. The prices were good, and are waitress was fantab. This was a picture from one of the bathroom stalls.

Nerdy Awesomeness

No I don’t normally go around snapping photos in the bathroom, but this couldn’t be missed.


And by the way, by this point both Erin and I were having trouble walking..not from drinks, or from shoes, but from the 3 workouts the night before. It was also freezing outside when we left, so we caught a cab home.On Saturday Erin and I hit up Queen St. West for some shopping. I got a sweet poster that I had been eyeing last week for Mikes office, a clock for an empty space on my wall and some second hand clothes from a "clothing exchange" (aka thrift store)


And we stopped and ate poutine. I don't eat poutine often, but when I do...it better be delicious, and this bad boy from Smokes Poutine was all kinds of delicious.

Mushrooms, cheese, fries, chicken, GRAVY

Erin wanted to find a bag and a new coat, and found both at Winners! Yay shopping success.


Then we came home and made lasagna. I forgot how long it takes to make lasagna, so in a rush we finished it, ate it and then peaced out to get to MAMMA MIA on time. The show was out in Mississauga, so we had a 35 minute drive (or more). We literally got there and sat down one minute before the show started. The show was amazing. The lady who played Donna was one of the best musical theater singers I have ever heard. She blew my mind. Also for those of you who do not know Mamma Mia, it is a pretty funny musical, but for some reason whenever we laughed (at the appropriate parts) a lady in front of us would turn around and glare at us. Sorrrry we were enjoying the show.


After the show we had a super exciting night of watching Gold Rush Alaska, and then falling asleeps. Erin’s flight left at 6:30 am, so she had to be at the airport by 4:30 (silly international flights). After dropping her off, and getting home, I promptly fell back asleep.


It has been a pretty boring week without visitors! Anyone want to come and visit me this weekend??

Visitors!!!

One thing I love about living in Toronto is that it is a city that people visit, whether it is for work or fun. So this month there are definitely more people saying “I am going to be in Toronto this weekend” than normal and I love it!

It started last weekend with a surprise lunch with my friend Trish (as I mentioned here), and quick trip by Mike’s uncle and little cousin. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see them, but Mike did meet up with his uncle for a after-hockey game beverage on Saturday night. I had a date with Survivor (online from Wednesday night) and a phone date with my friend Lynsey, who got me hooked on Survivor again. It is so weird whenever I think about watching an episode, she normally calls. Survivor telepathy.

Whoa went totally off topic there, anyway….this weekend Trish came back to write the National Dietitian exam so she can become a legit Dietitian. In engineering we do a similar thing where at the end of our Engineer in Training years, we need to pass a law and ethics exam. Difference is the dietitian one is 7 hours of multiple choice, that are all “correct answers but choose the best one” questions. Yikes. Trish is a much braver soul than me. So she arrived on Friday night, and she got some studying done, and Mike got some studying done (midterms) and I watched Americas Next Top Model on my computer (with headphones to not disturb the serious peeps getting their study on).

On Saturday we all got up nice and early (read 6:30am) drove Trish to her test, then Mike and I proceeded to have the most productive Saturday Morning ever. We went to the gym, went and did groceries, and I even went and got a library card and a book for book club. And we were home by 11:00. Then I had a nap to make up for all that productivity.

After Trish was done her test, we went out for dinner with one of Mike’s friends from Halifax who was in town. We went to Salad King, on Yonge near Dundas Square. If you like Thai, and you like being thrifty, and don’t mind noisy restaurants this is the place for you. It was really good and the portions were huge for the price! They also had sweet colorful decor going on. (And yes I am a blogging fail and didn’t take any pictures all weekend so I am borrowing them from the interwebs/old pictures I had, you all can pretend I took the pictures myself this weekend…)
Ooo look it is the Phud Thai I ate

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Ooo look at the lovely picture I "took" of the decor

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On Sunday Trish and I spent the entire day walking around Toronto. We went down Front Street to Union Station (because it is pretty)...

Union Station (3 years ago, pretend its from this weekend)

....through this place near the Hockey Hall of Fame (because it is pretty)....

Sooo coool (also from 3 years ago)

And then over to St. Lawerence (because it is old, and pretty). We found a sweet antiques sale going on at the market which I may have to hit up at some point. Then we went and checked out Occupy Toronto. It was way more intense than I thought, but it I mean the actual camp set up not the protest. Not much was going on.

Then we went down Queen Street, and headed to Little India for lunch. It was a buffet.  We ate a lot of food.

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It is funny, because when I moved to Halifax I hated going to the same restaurant over and over again. I wanted to try as many new places as possible. Here it is the opposite, once I find somewhere I like I keep going back, and Little India is one of my favs. After lunch we spent the rest of the day walking around Queen Street and going west of Spadina (my normal Queen street adventures are mostly between Spadina and Yonge). Little did I know I was missing out. There are so many cool home decor places. Totally out of my price range, but fun to look at!

We drove Trish up the airport on Sunday night, and was back to the normal grind on Monday…but tonight my friend Erin (my roomy and bestie from uni) is coming to visit from Louisiana where she is now living! We have 5 days full of food, intense gymage, and MORE which I will blog about later! This time I will actually remember to take pictures like a good little blogger.