Back at it

 Finally back from the land of the sick. I pretty much slept for the entire weekend, and by Sunday afternoon felt well enough to go for a walk, do the laundry and do some little things around the condo.
Last week, by the time I left work on Friday I had a fever, my body felt bruised everywhere, I had the chills, pounding headache, congestion, even my teeth hurt from the sinus blockage ... I'm not actually sure how I managed to function. I took a nap in my car on my lunch break, and I'm the kind of person who cannot sleep anywhere but my own home. It was ridiculous. So once I got home I took a bath to try and regulate my body temp and get rid of the body aches. It worked temporarily, and then I slept oh how I slept. Hours upon hours and hours. They aren't kidding when they say sleeping cures all ailments. I dosed myself up with Nyquil, used my essential oils blend on my spine and feet both morning and night and must say that this is the fastest I have ever gotten over the flu. I've been unfortunate enough to get the flu three times in my adult life. The real flu -- not just a bad cold. Most times it takes over a week to get back to life and this time it was just a weekend. So I'm guessing it was a combination of sleeping and essential oils that did the trick. My new favourite blend - FLOOM - give it a shot! I used this alongside some infused Breathe.


Frankincense - 6 drops
Lemon - 12 drops
Oregano - 6 drops
On guard - 6 drops
Melaluca (or tea tree) - 6 drops


-Add this into a 10 ml rollerball bottle, top up with fractionated coconut oil and roll onto your spine and the bottoms of your feet twice a day. I smell like oregano right now, but aside from a cough and some lingering congestion, I feel pretty good! Thanks Beka for introducing me to doTERRA and for this blend! If you want to get in on this awesome-ness, feel free to connect  with me or visit this link

Picture from here

Now onto this week. Tonight I am making the "Autumn Harvest Skillet" from Speedy Spatula. It's easy, customizable and looks delicious! (The link is her summer version, but you can easily edit the veggies for fall).
I have to go grocery shopping after work, so figured I would do some meal planning this weekend before I went. We have decided that this will be our last week of the CSA produce. Now that the temps are getting cooler, a lot of what we get is going to be greenhouse grown anyways. We are still going to make an effort to eat organic and as local as possible (given our cold winter climate approaching), but we are ready to go back to choosing our veggies rather than being surprised each week. I didn't take a picture of last weeks (I was already feeling pretty sick by that point and didn't even have the energy to put it in the fridge. However, we got purple grapes, cucumber, tomato, watermelon, onion, garlic, green peppers, carrots, beets, green beans, blueberries, apples and pears. I think we have already eaten most of it. Except for the carrots. We have gotten 2lbs of carrots for the last four weeks. It is ridiculous! Thankfully carrots, even organic ones, have a long-ish shelf life, because we are still working our way through the second bag. Needless to say, there will be carrots in our skillet tonight.
Since this week will be our last CSA, we have added eggs and 2 lbs of potatoes to make it count. The potatoes have been our absolute favourite thing this summer - the flavour is unreal! Baking them with a bit of olive oil. salt and pepper has just been divine! I will miss those for sure! It will  be much easier to meal plan once I actually visit the grocery store (because I haven't really gone real grocery shopping in around 3 months - which I haven't missed AT ALL) so I'm hoping Fall can feel a little more organized!

Well, this has been a long rambly post. I am so sad that I missed out on Friday favourites, but there will be lots this week to make up for it!

Happy Monday!

Monday, we meet again

Well, what a whirlwind of a weekend. Saturday I had a planned open water swim and let me tell you -- if there wasn't any accountability, I would have stayed in bed. Mornings are always hard for me - 4 hours of sleep is even harder to get up from. However, I know myself, and so I had people that were waiting on me and that got my butt out the door. It was only 9.5 degrees when we arrived and we quickly put our wetsuits on just for the warmth. I don't think any of us were keen on actually getting into the water. Thankfully the water was significantly warmer than the air and it was just gorgeous to swim in. Mary and I did a 1km loop together, and our friend Krista did 2 loops in preparation for her half ironman coming up. Then we met up with our 3x Ironman Cathy and went for breakfast where we all talked about past races, upcoming races and what 2018 holds. Even though they ran out of gluten free pancakes, we still had a great time! There's not much time left for open water swims, so we will definitely be going this week and that might be it. Then it'll be back to the pool.

 

 

Would have missed this gorgeous view if I slept in

 

 

After I was home and changed I packed up a few more boxes and husband and I headed to my parents house where we had a wake for Molly. My dad spread her ashes around the backyard that morning. The backyard was her favourite place to chase rabbits and squirrels, bird watch and just be nutty, so it was the perfect place to let her go. We talked about some funny/happy memories and how sad we all were that she is gone. I brought over some pictures that I'd taken over the years and my dad took one to keep in his locker at work. We all miss her terribly. My dad has decided to wait until January to get another dog - in his words "2017 is Molly's year". Can't argue with that.

Sunday was a productive day. I volunteered in the morning while husband worked and then we got into full "gotta get out of this condo" mode. He finally finished putting the bed together (which is too big -- sigh) and I cleared out our bedroom, and vacuumed in places that I'm fairly certain have never seen the vacuum since we moved in. So much dust! Our room just needs the curtains to be changed (which means I need to iron the new ones) and for me to wash and put the new bedding on and it's ready to go. The second bedroom will be a little more work. With the bigger bed, we need to re-evaluate the furniture choices so it doesn't appear too cramped, and I need to iron those curtains as well. I wish they just came flat.

While I was clearing out our room, I used the doTERRA easy air in my diffuser and it was such a pleasant smell (and really kept it smelling fresh and clean. Obsessed friends -- Obsessed!! I'm putting in an order this month for a few more scents (that I've been dying to get) -- can't wait!

 

 

Today I'm going to go on a run after work (and after picking up some necessities) and see what my knee feels like doing. That 10k is looming closer and closer and I've heard it's a hilly one!

 

One day closer to the long weekend! It's going to be a busy one, but I'm ear-marking that Monday as a (hopefully) big ol' day of NOTHING. I can't even imagine the delicious-ness of a "nothing" day. Fingers crossed!