Six Months Later

Well, it's been half a year now since Vaughn showed up. I know I've been focusing on him for most of my posts (because, really, what else have I been doing with my time?), but here's an update on "everything else" - which, sadly, isn't much.




Fitness: I'm still volunteering at the Y on Wednesday mornings, teaching my step-and-sculpt class to a pretty large group most days. I'm managing to get in 2, 5k runs (and sometimes 3), as well as 2-3 days of weight training, too. I've decided that I'm able to be consistent enough that I can switch my whole-body routine into an upper/lower split, so I'm having fun adding in more variety, supersets, and of course, plyometrics! I'm definitely feeling like myself again, bodywise. It's about time!

Food: The Domestic Goddess shows up at our house quite frequently now. Since we finally got cable in September, I've been (over)exposed to the Food Network, and Husband Supremo gets subjected to my creativity pretty often! I make a nice dinner at least 5 nights a week, with one night of leftovers and one night off for good behaviour.

Chris had some issues with the health factor of my early attempts (mmm....butter), so I've switched it up to very healthy meals again - it's challenging to keep variety and flavour, but I sit down every Saturday night and plan the menu for the week.

Laurel (aka Test Pig #2) lent me a copy of her Clean Eating magazine, and we've tried a few of those recipes out. At right, you see a blend of agave nectar, chia seeds, mint and lime. The seeds form their own "gel", and sort of have the same consistency as papaya... all in all, not bad, but could use more rum.

At left, a delicious "cookies and cream" sammich, made with Very Healthy Cookies (flax meal, oats, whole wheat flour, that agave nectar again...) and strained frozen yogurt (low-fat yogurt, vanilla, agave nectar...sense a theme?). Not TOO labour-intensive, and hey, I can't believe you can lose weight eating all the sammiches you can swallow! So far, I haven't lost any. Maybe I need to eat more sammiches.

Or maybe I need to just drink the agave nectar plain... or in its distilled form... TEQUILA!

The house is trying not to look like Baby Central, and is maintaining a balance between toys and order. V and I try to spend as much time outside as possible, with daily checks on the "gardens" for watering, etc. I had planted two planters and 2 window boxes on the two-four weekend, and decided on Tuesday that they needed reworking, and not ONLY because some of the plants were dead (apparently, 10 days in Ottawa without watering the plants left in the desert climate will cause some casualties. Who knew?). I would see other peoples gardens and pots and notice that theirs all had style and texture - different heights of plants, etc. - and that mine were sadly lacking.

Below, the first garden.

This sad bunch of pansies (and assorted dead things behind the pansies) greeted us at our front door.

With a simple reshuffling of the lavendar from the window boxes out back, and a few tall purple thingies that were on sale, there's a lot more character and presence, I think. :)

The back gardens were rearranged, too - I don't have any before pictures, but trust me, the afters look better.

My herb garden. If you squint, you might be able to see the Last Basil Standing. I'm still sort of hopeful for its survival, but chances are, it won't make it. The parsley and oregano are still going strong, though. And another tall purple thingie really adds to it. I'm pretty sure it's non toxic...

So there you are - my life in a nutshell! Add in some strollercise and Baby Time here and there, a few tea dates with other moms, my awesome, sanity-saving SATC nights with Laurel, and very, very few minutes away from the little pooper (but I've got the babysitter coming over this afternoon so that I can run some stairs with Laura (I'm doing WHAT in my moment of freedom?) then get a haircut (first one in oh, six months), and voila!

Uh oh - duty (and probably doody) calls...