When no place feels like home

It feels like Tuesday to me, but I just realized it's Wednesday. I'm definitely looking forward to this weekend and having a long weekend with a short week next week. I could use a break! We went and saw two houses last night but neither of them felt like home. They were actually on the same street, both big corner houses and were essentially the same, but they had different areas where they had spent money. The second house was marginally more expensive, but had put a lot of detail into their home. Even the bedroom doors were beautiful. They both had massive kitchens, but the second home had this huge amount of pantry space (which is my dream) and nice potlights in the kitchen. Still, it didn't feel like home. There was enough that we liked, but having things we didn't like made it hard to imagine spending so much $$, when we'd have to turn around and put more in. For example, neither home had a finished basement, which would require several thousands of work. The cheaper homes we looked at on the weekend had finished basements. It's all such a mystery to me. Either way, the hunt continues. We are slowly closing in on not having our house for Christmas, but at least I know we will have it for next year. The important thing to me is just getting out of the condo (especially before the maintenance fees are jacked up again in January).

Last night, with curtain steaming and house hunting taking up a considerable amount of time, we resorted to breakfast for dinner. Always easy, and always delicious! Tonight I'm working late again (the Fall is just packed with evening events), so husband is in charge of starting dinner. I also desperately need to grocery shop, but have no time to do so. I'm actually contemplating just ordering my groceries, produce and all, from grocery gateway. Otherwise we will have to manage until Friday. It's already so difficult to find time to grocery shop now, that I have no clue how I will find time once I have kids.

In other no-time news, I am slacking so badly on the gym and running and need to just accept that morning workouts will be what I need to do in order to get it done while we have the house hunting going on. My first goal is to get back to my 6am swim classes this week. They started two weeks ago, and the last two Fridays I knew it wouldn't be possible, but this week I am hoping to get enough sleep Thursday night so that I can swim Friday morning! Fingers crossed. At least now there's some accountability out there.

Well, that's it for now! Have the best Wednesday!

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!

 

 

 

Fall decor and crockpot dinners

 Happy Monday!

Another weekend has passed by so quickly that there was barely any time for enjoyment. My parents came over and while my mom and I got manicures and pedicures, dad and husband worked on the condo. Ha, so fair of me :)
I've been waiting for the day that I could get grey polish -- apparently it's just not appropriate for summer ;) So I was happy to get a beautiful grey on my nails. It just screams "fall" to me!

This is going to be a busy week (as always) with celebrating Rosh Hashanah on Wednesday, and finding some time to paint the bathroom, clean all of the windows, buy a smaller desk chair, put up and steam all of the new curtains, move the last items out that are cluttering things up and make it all cozy and minimalist at the same time ;) Not sure yet how that will pan out. I've finished the dining room (aside from the pile of boxes) and the second bedroom. I am in love. Wish I'd done this while I could enjoy it more, but it will be how our new home looks for sure. Husband has finally seen how delightful fall décor makes the home ... maybe I can buy more while it's still on sale (haha, he'd kill me for that one!)
Here are the dining room back table and the second bedroom photos (terrible lighting -- it was dusk).

 

Gosh that lighting ... but check our my gorgeous curtain work with the sheer in the middle!

 

My favourite part of the room. Fall, antique furniture and pumpkins!

 

Pumpkin spice and everything nice! I also added a little pumpkin beside the sign later that day

 

 

For the bouquet on the dining thing, it will go on the table. It's just waiting there for now. I couldn't find anything at Michaels that I liked (and that my picky husband thought was acceptable), so I decided to make my own bouquet. The guy in the floral department was kind enough to cut the flowers down for me, so it was all ready to go once I made my choices. I feel like these colours can be acceptable for any season, even though they have that rustic fall feel to them.

 

 

Pretty pretty flowers

 

Before I go, super proud of myself today. I set up the crockpot last night, and just whipped it out of the fridge this morning and it's ready to go! I'm not sure how it will turn out, but here's hoping! I had potatoes that were seasoned with the big Italian 3 (basil, parsley and oregano) and mixed them up with some evoo and minced garlic, then on top I put chicken with the big 3 plus onion powder and garlic powder which had been seared for a couple minutes on each side. When I get home I will add some kale for the last 30 minutes or so. I haven't used the crock pot in ages, so I'm a little worried but the convenience is huge so I hope this works and can become a regular thing!

Have a great start to the week! Happy Monday, friends!

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!

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!