Life needs to slow down!

Seriously, I'm the worst at blogging when I'm busy. Things have been nuts, as usual. We finally listed our place. We saw a dream house and were outbid on it (sigh), so back to the house-hunting drawing board. People think the market has cooled, but when you're actually in it, it doesn't seem that way. We sent 10 listings to our realtor to go and see, and only 4 were left by the time we got to the weekend.

 

We spent the entire weekend cleaning and clearing the place up. My dad came over to bring us a closet shelf that he made when we failed to find one that fit our closet (so he made a custom one within a few days), to do a few last minute fix-its, and helped me move some furniture since husband was fasting.

It's a relief to finally have our home listed - felt like it would never happen!

 

This house buying/selling is very time consuming, and is frying my nerves, but I'm trying to operate on the "everything happens for a reason" mantra, and remind myself that there was a reason that we didn't get that house we wanted so badly.

 

In other news, I am being sent to Winnipeg for a conference for work, so in a few weeks I'm off to the prairies!

 

 

Doesn't look too prairie-ish! Photo found here

 

 

 I've never been to any other provinces, despite travelling in many other parts of the world, so I'm excited to go. Even though it might be very cold. I should probably unpack my winter coat. Goodness knows how deep that box is buried in my parents basement. We were a little starry eyed and didn't think about closing dates while we were packing everything away. So at least it's just at my parents and not in a storage locker or something.

Even though it's only October 3rd, I feel like time is just flying past and October will be over before I know it. I'm looking forward to November and December (short trip to Miami, office closed for two weeks over Christmas, celebrating the holidays in general, etc). October just feels so busy.

 

Last nights dinner was quick, easy and super delicious. I used a recipe I found online at myrecipes.com that and can be found here

and let me tell you - it was the best fish I've ever made (that wasn't deep fried and served with fries that is). We had a wild rice and quinoa blend with it and some broccoli on the side and I could have eaten 10 more pieces. I am not a seafood lover by any means, but we do try to incorporate white fish and shrimp into our meals because chicken and beef become boring very quickly.

 

Anyways, the recipe had very few ingredients and was ready in 20 minutes. it was super easy to coordinate everything to be ready around the same time too. I'd highly recommend giving it a shot. I gave up looking for gluten free recipes a long time ago for meals and now just search up what I want and modify it. For this meal I omitted the lime juice (because I hate the taste of lime) and used gluten free breadcrumbs. Easy peasy! While I am happy to see so many gluten free recipe websites around, they often require way too many ingredients or finicky cooking. For baked goods I think gluten free recipes are needed but for dinners, the substitutions are generally pretty easy. I have only had issues when I come across something that has to be made to be gluten free, like hoisin sauce. That can add a lot more time to cooking.

Today I have to bring our curtains in and exchange them for longer ones. Our ceilings and windows are such a ridiculously random height that nothing works. I think it's better to have too long than too short though, so back to bed bath and beyond yet again. The house we buy had better have good curtains because I don't want to deal with curtains for a long long time after this.

Well, I'm off. Wanted to check in for a random Tuesday post. I will hopefully be able to post more this week. I was especially bummed out to miss my Friday Favourites, because I love that post (and it gets a lot of traffic :)!)

Till next time!  

 

Oasis Zoo Run 10k Race Recap

 Happy Monday! I have so many late nights this week for work that I am just counting the days till the weekend! I feel like I'm already sleep deprived (last night there was a spider web in my room and I of course knew there was a spider lurking somewhere and thus couldn't sleep).

I am excited to give a race recap of my Oasis Zoo Run 10 k this weekend though!

 

#realtalk

I haven't done a 10k in so long, that I actually can't remember when. If I had to guess, I would say it was probably within the half marathon I did in May 2016 so y'know ... it's been awhile. So I did my 8k last Monday, felt good and knew I could have run 2 more kilometres.

Saturday was an early start. We left our home around 6:15 because the race was pretty far away and I needed to do day-of race kit pickup. Because we got there around 7, the parking situation wasn't bad. We were in a traffic line up to get in for about 5 minutes and were able to park with no problem. The downside was that we were SO FAR from the actual race start. I guess the later people got the closer spots, which seemed unfair ;)

 

The line up for kit pick up was insane. We waited for about 30 minutes and it really felt like it could have and should have been more efficient. They had to delay the start of the race by 10 minutes and I'm thinking that crazy line up was why. The t-shirt in the race kit is so lovely, but that's really all that was in there aside from the chip, an Oasis juice box and some hand cream.

 



Photo link here

 

Then we went onto the porta potties. I can't stand them (who can?), but it was a long drive and frankly, I had no choice. We had to wait another 20 minutes to get in to use the porta potties so despite getting there an hour before the start, I ended up getting to the corral about five minutes before the start of the race (that was before the delayed it). They started the groups in waves that were about 3 minutes apart. which was a nice way to start without giant crowds. The first 4.5k of the run was animal-free which was kind of disappointing. We were basically running through backroads of the zoo. But at about 4.5 I saw the baby panda bears and nearly died because holy bananas they were cute!

 

So hard to get pics with this glass wall
 

I wish this was a better photo. They were adorable!

 

 

I had to stop to adore them for a minute and snap some pics through the glass. They were just sitting there all fluffy and eating bamboo. Oh I could have stayed there forever! I eventually dragged myself away and went back on my route.

 

I also stopped briefly to see the two humpback camels, flamingos, a leopard (jaguar?), red tree pandas (oh so adorable) and llamas. It was actually really fun to run and see all these different animals but the hills... Oh gosh those hills. They warn you before you begin that the route is hilly, but wow it was harsh. I didn't exactly hill train so let's just say there was some walking up hills involved.

 

 

Red tree panda!

 

As for the actual run (minus my brief animal stops), I stopped quite infrequently. As I result, I probably didn't drink enough of my electrolytes. I stopped at about 3, 7, and I think 9 for fuel but probably only for about 30 seconds. I also walked up some hills and tried to drink at those times as well but didn't always. I had a really bad headache later on in the day which was probably from dehydration. The water on the course also tasted terrible. I'm not sure what was wrong with it but it was nasty. I was glad that husband found a water bottle after because instead of passing them out to finishers, we got more cups of the weird water.

My official time was 1:06:48, which I was actually pretty impressed with, given that I stopped several times for animal pictures, and walked up some hills. And of course because I didn't exactly train for it. Doing races again has definitely amped up my motivation to run, so I'm going to register for a half marathon in the winter (chilly half) and try to keep it going. It's not about timing for me right now, but more about learning to love running again. So I know my speed will come back eventually, but right now I want to enjoy my runs rather than suffer through them. I think this will help me to move forward in a more positive way.

 

 

 

I was so exhausted after the race that I actually took an afternoon nap, which I rarely do. It was awesome and super cozy with my dim bedroom and frankincense in the diffuser. A delicious Saturday for sure.

We met with a realtor on Friday who we really liked, so we are now in the process of looking for a house to buy. While he wants us to buy first, we are going to try to list and buy somewhat simultaneously. He has a good track record and comes recommended from husbands work. Our goal is to be in our new home by Christmas. So keep your fingers crossed! We are going to look at houses next weekend, which makes me excited and nervous. Even with a decent budget cap, we are still looking at insane prices. The market is slowly dropping, and more and more houses are up for sale. The unfortunate thing is that a lot of people are stuck with insane mortgages on houses that have probably lost a significant amount of value now that the market is cooling slightly. So they are still trying to sell for close to what they paid. I'm not sure how the offers will work on those. I guess these are all things we'll find out!

Well, that's all for today! Have a great Monday!

 

 

 

Need more hours in the day

 

Time has not been on my side lately! Work has been crazy busy, as has life! We *may* actually be able to list next week. This weekend should finish everything off and then we wanted to have a cleaner in to do a deep scrubbing before the photos and everything.
Yesterday I had a volunteer meeting in the evening and very little time in between work and getting there. I had also had a fairly sedentary day with back to back meetings and was not even close to my needed steps for the day. So I made the decision to run a short run instead of no run at all. It was great because not only did I hit my steps, but I also felt better getting out there! My sinuses are still kind of blocked up and I still have a cough, but otherwise I'm definitely on the road to recovery, and getting back to the fitness is a good way to get there. Also, new running shoes always make things more exciting!
I'm heading to the gym tonight. Not sure yet what I plan to do, but I'll have a plan before I get there.
This step bet is really keeping me on track. It's much harder than I thought it would be. We have already lost 35 participants and it's only the second week (and last week, as the warm up, didn't count).

Tomorrow is our very last CSA delivery (as I mentioned in Monday's post). Go figure this is the week they remember to send out the info as to what's in the order. No surprise veggies this time! Thankfully, we aren't getting carrots. Still have 2.5 bags left. Sigh.

Tonight I am making Bruschetta Spaghetta from Daily Dose of Pepper's website. It looks and sounds delicious, so I'm pretty excited! I will try to remember to take a picture and post it tomorrow. I (of course) failed to take a picture of our dinner on Monday when I made the Autumn skillet (link in Mondays post), but I will say that it was delicious, incredibly easy and definitely is something I'll make again. I also made a Cajun spice sauce to go with it (because I need sauce for everything) and that just took it over the top. My husband did a snapchat of it, so I'll post his silly photo here. Ignore the text. Also, it's blurry because it was a video. Ah well.
I realize it isn't actually very pretty, so you'll just have to make it and believe me that it's worth it. I used sausage, potato, carrots, yellow squash, green squash, mushrooms and Cajun spice. I sautéed the sausage first in a bit of olive oil, then added the veggies, another good drizzle of olive oil and covered it up and just let it cook for about 30 mins. Easy peasy. Also smelled so good! These recipe websites are keeping me motivated

 

 

Oh and in VERY exciting news, I FINALLY found a set of curtains that works in our second bedroom (still with the sheer for added bulk in the middle). It only took 4 (5?) different sets, lots of swearing and dropping curtains rods, some marks on the wall that will need to be painted over and too many trips to BB&B than I'd care to admit. Now, our building has a very strict rule that curtains have to have a white backing ... these do not. I do not care. Fingers crossed no one notices before we move. I'll take my blue-backed DKNY curtains with me if I have to, but they're staying up for now. No photo. Maybe tomorrow.
Yes, curtains are incredibly exciting to me right now.

Happy Thursday. Tomorrow I will be back for Friday favourites - lots to share this week!