Friday Favourites!

Friday favourites is just the best post! So I'm linking up with some other lovely bloggers to share my favourite things this week!


1. Fresh Sugar Rose lip balm

This stuff. I can't get enough. I think I mentioned before how I just love everything Fresh puts out and that is the truth! I'm not a huge fan of wearing lipstick, but this balm has the perfect amount of colour and moisture. I got this a few months ago and it's almost finished. I carry it in my purse (you can see the wear and tear) and use it every single day! They have a wide spectrum of colours, including one without any shade. It's just the best!

2. Our Last CSA

Not pictured; the incredibly muddy potatoes

Well, at least they went out with a boom! This was our last order until next spring/summer-ish. It was jam-packed. I guess since more of the autumn fruits are in season they are cheaper leading to us getting more. We had the green beans last week and this week they gave us more (and a larger amount!) They were SO good! We also got corn, eggs, spinach, spring mix, patty pan squash, potatoes (so many - I ordered extra), apples, pears, bananas, grapes, garlic, cauliflower, watermelon, green beans ... I think that's it! It will certainly be enjoyed!


3. ALL THE FALL things.

 

 

 

I don't know why they are all sideways. Sorry :(

Friends, Michael's has all of their fall stuff on sale and it is not good for me!! I swear I've spent so much time meandering through their aisles. I want my entire home to be bursting with Fall. Unfortunately, we have to maintain some neutrality for the showings. I'll be damned if they make me put away my "hello fall" pillow though!
I also made a nice flower bouquet for our table. Fake flowers make so much more sense! I couldn't find anything I wanted, so I made my own!

4. My new doTERRA cheer rollerball.

Such a happy scent. I love this one. I also got serenity this month, for sleep which I mix with my lavender. It's such a lovely scent to fill the room and makes for a very tranquil space. The cheer scent is great for a general feeling of overall "cheer" and also reduces anxiety. It is my definitely my favourite!



5. Dinner last night

 

Must work on lighting

This was so good! I love bruschetta (so much so that I actually make it for myself as a snack when I'm feeling ambitious). Now admittedly I love anything with tomatoes (except actual tomato juice), but mixing together two of my favourite things (pasta and bruschetta) ... well it's a match made in heaven. My only edit to the recipe would be to drain the juice a bit from the tomatoes because it was a bit liquidy. I would probably only do about 1/4 of the liquid. The only changes I made to make it gluten free were that I didn't add the pasta until the very end. Gluten free pasta is fairly sensitive so I cooked it al dente and then once I had cooked everything I took it off the heat and added the cooked pasta. It still ended up breaking a bit, but since the recipe actually called for the noodles to be broken before cooking, it worked out.
Overall, super delicious. I enjoyed it last night and for lunch today!


That's all for today! Happy Friday & Happy Weekend!

 

 

Tuesday Talk

 I am linking up today with some of my favourite bloggers for Tuesday Talk where we can talk about anything we want!

 

Anything? Well then I'm going to talk about moving, because that's what is on my mind all the time as we prepare to list our home.

 

First things first though, dinner last night! I'm not the most creative with recipes (in terms of cooking -- baking skills are something I do have!) but this is still a tried and true favourite.

 

Last night we had pasta with a homemade Bolognese sauce. I didn't take any pictures, because I'm still forgetting to document stuff. Anyways, it's super easy to make, incredibly versatile and can be tweaked to fit most any allergy.

I start out by sautéing onions, garlic (loads of garlic) and mushrooms, then I add in ground beef and brown that with the onions, garlic and mushrooms and once that's ready I drain all of the fat and add in tomato sauce, 2 fresh cut tomatoes and some basil, oregano, parsley, onion powder and garlic powder. Then I just cook that on a low hear until the flavours come together. I used to cook everything separately and add it all together, but who wants to do all those dishes? Plus, cooking the meat into the onions, garlic and mushrooms gives them some of the flavour of the fat without actually having to leave any extra in there for flavour.

 

Picture from here

For pasta I used barilla gluten free rotini. I love their gluten free noodles - they have such a great flavour. Gfree noodles have really come a long way, but some of them are still not so great and go mushy or clumpy. I mainly rotate between Catelli and Barilla depending on what's available and what's on sale.

Picture from here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to moving. We have decided to attempt to list on comfree first because the fees that realtors are paid is just ridiculous and if we can avoid that, why not. My husband does a lot of research before he decides to do something, so we will see if this works. We have a time limit after which point we will just switch to a realtor. Our last experience with a real estate agent was TERRIBLE. He was the agent for the sellers of the condo we ended up buying and he was friends with them as well. He talked us out of all of the other homes we went to look at and encouraged us to buy the condo his friends were selling (for more than it was worth I should add).
I'm not saying we didn't make mistakes -- we did. We should have hired another realtor, we should have looked around on our own and we shouldn't have thought that he would have even been capable of being impartial. We bought a condo that should have been condemned for the condition it was in and had to spend 2 months (and a lot of $$) renovating it enough to be livable. Our plan had been to live there for a year and then sell, but of course we were young and employed in "starter" jobs, so in reality we had to wait for financial stability to be able to finish the rest of it and get out. We made the decision back in June that this was it so we booked in the last of the renovations and started making plans for what else needs to be done.

We had our backsplash done (the cabinets and counter were finished back in the Fall and we just had this awful battered wall. Sometimes we are lazy). My brothers friend does this as his career, so he helps out friends/family on the side when he has free time. He did all of our tiled floors when we moved into the condo as well.

 

Before and After. Not sure who though red cabinets would be a good idea, and those tiles? Same as the ones in the shower. Yup. The shower.

 

The appliances have since changed, but this picture is a nice before and after. I will have to do some fully updated photos of the condo soon! This picture was from back in July before our shiny new appliances came.

Two weeks ago we had bathfitter come in and cover our hideous shower and bathtub. We actually had this work done while we were on vacation and it was amazing coming home to that! We were a bit unsure of having it done initially -- we were concerned it might look cheap or like a hotel, but with one bathroom we couldn't exactly go with any other option that would have put it out of commission for at least a week. I have to tell you -- we were so pleased with our choice! For starters, it looks fantastic, but it also feels amazing. The floor has this grooved anti-slip thing going on, but it's also soft. It's not as hard as a regular bathtub. We also went with an arced shower curtain rail so there's so much more room inside.
There's something to be said for using a contractor for a bathroom, but for us, this option was the most sensible and I'm so glad it worked out well!

Our "second bedroom" (as it was sold to us) was not really a bedroom because it didn't have a closet. We had toyed with the idea since the beginning of breaking down the wall and putting one in, but we finally made that a reality when my dad came over and cut a hole In the wall. By the end of the week we had a closet. We were fortunate to have a storage closet directly behind it to cut into and so we took about half of that for the second bedroom. Then we had to order a bed to make the second bedroom actually look like a bedroom. It should arrive on Monday.

Left for an appointment, came back to a hole in the wall and my dad drawing out his plan for the closet. Can you tell we were using this room as storage? It's empty now except for a bookcase and desk.

Right before it was painted and the clothing rack was added

 

 

 

The door. Looks like it was always there, right?

 A few weeks ago we received the last of our new appliances so now everything is done in stainless steel. I am in love with our new dishwasher btw -- will need to buy it for our new home, lol

Now we are just putting on the finishing touches. We need to buy new curtains because the ones we have are all just so bulky and don't look very nice, and we need to continue to de-clutter so our place is nice and neutral. It's such a process. I'm wishing I had the interior designer gene because that would really make this a lot easier. Pinterest is my best friend right now!

That's all for me right now!

 

 Alright, getting the hang of this now! Last night was super busy - I went grocery shopping and it somehow took three hours (3 stores, Costco being one of them), and simultaneously tried to cook, and unload the dishwasher when we had what could only be described as a meat explosion which resulted in beef blood everywhere. Costco - you suck at packaging beef. Honestly. Then, because there wasn't enough drama, I dropped the package of sausage I was cooking and the casings fell on the floor. Ah, more meat contamination. My husband is a total germaphobe so he was all over cleaning it up, but omg we were laughing so hard. I mean really, if you can't laugh about that stuff you'll go crazy.
On the menu for dinner? Rachael Ray's Sausage and Kale pasta -- so good and so fast. The only changes I make to convert it to gluten free is I use gluten free linguine from Catelli (the Barilla one is also incredible and I think they do fettuccine) and I make sure my sausage is gluten free, because a lot of them have wheat crumbs hiding inside. This meal makes it into our rotation at least once every two weeks, if not once a week. It also does well for leftovers.

Still working on doing pictures, but we started off this morning with our hemp heart shake, which in reality tastes like banana chocolate milk. I can't handle synthetic protein/protein powders, so we go with hemp hearts. They probably cost about the same, but at least they are a healthy, whole food. I have been thinking about trying the aloha protein powder, but since I've yet to find one I can stand the taste of, I'm reluctant to spend the money on buying it. I wish there was a way to test these things before purchase.

For those of you who enjoy a good smoothie in the morning, here's a nice one to add to the mix:

3 tbsp. of hemp hearts (which is 10g protein)
1 cup almond milk
1 banana
1 tbsp. cocoa powder
Blend till smooth and you're good to go!

I use frozen bananas because they add cold to the smoothie and I find that unfrozen bananas make the smoothie chunkier. If you were going to use a fresh banana, I'd suggest adding a few ice cubes to the blender as well.

Today's plan is for a quick strength training session followed by a 5k run. Wish me luck - it's hot out there!