Weightingfor50's Blog

Today’s Photo A Day Challenge prompt was “From Down Low”.  I put this photo up….it is the City Hall of Bellingham Washington.  I took it a few weeks ago when we crossed the border to visit Trader Joe’s.   It is a beautiful building.

My Sunday started with a power yoga class.  I was a sweaty mess when I came out.  And the clouds in the sky were very ominous!

When I got home, I made some birds in a nest and had them with fruit (figs, orange, mango).

Dennis and I then ventured out for a “date day”.   Our favorite berry farm which is about 45 minutes from home, Krause Berry Farm, has opened up a winery and we went out for a tasting.

I wouldn’t have said I’m a fan of fruit wines, but the wines we tasted today were delicious!!   Krause Farms has evolved and grown over the years, I’ve been u-picking berries there for years, and each year, something new and fun is added. Here I am with Mr. Krause himself!

Here is the general store area and grounds.  So many treats and trinkets to see!!  And yes, my husband is a good sport!

Here we are at our tasting in the winery. (I look a bit pie eyed in this shot…and this was only the first of the 6 we tried)

As you can see, the winery has a western theme.  LOVE the saddles at the bar, the little glass boots for tasting glasses, the western entertainment (‘Slim, Clare and a pig’) and the whole ambiance of the new building.  Cheers to Krause!

Another new thing (or at least, I don’t remember it being there last year) was the U-pick flower garden.  Peaceful, gorgeous and colourful!

The bees liked the flowers too.

We bought some of the early season strawberries and two strawberry shortcakes.  I’d like to say they made it home…they didn’t, the strawberries were eaten in the car, and the cakes (lunch of champions! ) we eaten at our next stop!

We took the VERY long and very scenic way home via Crescent Beach.  We took off our shoes and had a good walkabout in the tidal pools.  Walks in the sun like that are good for the soul!    I took a trillion pictures, here are a million of them.

This last one wasn’t on the beach, but it was by our car, and I loved it.

We had cocktail Sunday when we got home….today’s cocktail was a Shandy.  Part beer (we used ginger beer), part lemonade (leftover from last Sunday’s brunch) and a little soda.  Cheers.

I also had a little piece of Canadian Asiago cheese.

Dinner tonight was a glass of white wine from Krause that was delicious with our baked salmon, brown rice and steamed beans that was all drizzled with Bolthouse honey mustard dressing.

Wow…hard to believe the weekend is over already.  (I say that every Sunday night! ) I’m off to hit publish, then watch the end of the Tony Awards.  Have a great week all!!  Your turn…what was the highlight of your weekend?

Big, Big Happy Birthday to my good buddy Suz!!!

The prompt for today’s Photo of the Day challenge was “Animal”.  I don’t think it will come as a surprise that I posted a picture of my FAVORITE animal.   (and no surprise, so far, this picture had the most “likes” of any of my other posts.  Shhh…don’t tell Neva, it’ll go to her head.  )

On my way to yoga this morning, I found these yarn bombs on some trees.  Fun!

Yoga itself was REALLY different.  The second Saturday of each month, the instructor that morning “shakes things up a bit” and gets creative.  Today, we were each given a little strip of fabric when we walked in.  Turns out, we did about half the class blindfolded.  Sounds weird (and a little “50 Shades of Grey”), but it was really interesting.  We had to “feel” poses, “listen” to prompts not watch, and realize what it would be like with no sight.  I loved it….and I have very very limited balance if I can’t stare at a little spot in front of me.

After yoga, I went to weight watchers, and the scale continues to inch down.  Slow and steady…that will win the race.

Melisa and I went for coffee afterward, I was starving by that time and had an english muffin with egg, ham and cheese with my coffee.

Later on, I did the weekly grocery shop, and Dennis and I went to Home Depot for a few plants for the containers on our deck.  We won’t be planting until tomorrow but here are a few shots from our venture. We were on a pretty strict budget this year, but I think we made some wise choices and will be a ton of color “bang” for our bucks.

While we were there, we saw the prettiest lilies…..beautiful succulent pots…

….and dhalias which are probably my favorite flowers.  Our deck is north facing, I’ve tried to grow them myself in the past, but they just don’t get the amount of sunshine they need, so I’ll just admire them in the garden centres and in my Dad’s garden when I’m over there!

When we got home, I had some rice cakes with hummus, a cup of tea with fat-free creamer and honey, and two chocolate chip cookies.

Dennis is out with the boys tonight, it’s just Neva and I.  I had a glass of wine that we had leftover from Helen’s brunch last week.  It was still good….yay!

I made myself a veggie burger and oven fries for dinner.

Now, I’m going to hit publish, then watch Pitch Perfect.  It’s a chick flick that Dennis isn’t too interested in, but I love this kind of thing.  I will probably have some of this fat/sodium reduced popcorn too.

Hope everyone’s weekend is going well.  Do you like Chick Flicks?  What is your favorite movie?

The prompt for today’s Photo of the Day Challenge is “Bright”.  Picmonkey helped me make a bright flower look even brighter by drawing the focus to the middle.

I wasn’t too bright myself today.  I woke up tired, and kinda stayed that way for the rest of the day.   Our building’s elevators weren’t working most of the day, so I was up and down 7 stories a few times.  Normally, that would energize me…today, not so much!  My yoga class was brutal too, it was a power yoga class but I struggled.  I was very glad for Savasana tonight.  BUT…check!  One more class done for my 30 in 40 day challenge!  Speaking of savasana….a work buddy sent this to me today.  I believe she found it on the Huffington Post.  Hilarious!! 

Anyway….here are a few photos from my walk to yoga…I’ll recap the day’s menu, then I’m going to go and watch Randy and his Wedding Dresses (my Friday guilty pleasure).

Breakfast this morning was a wrap with relish, arugula and an egg.

I toted an iced almond milk latte with me.

I had a banana during the morning.

Lunch was a kale “extravaganza”!    Kale salad with nutritional yeast, light feta and sun dried tomatoes, leftover kale/quinoa patties from the other day, a bit of tzatsiki to have with the patties and a few grapes.

I also had a grapefruit/sage kombucha.

I had taken some greek yogurt to eat before yoga….but I forgot to eat it.  sigh.  I now have yogurt in the fridge at work, an orange on my desk, and was thinking to myself while I walked to yoga “I could use a snack”.   Duh!  As I said earlier, I wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer today.

Weird thing, when I got home I wasn’t very hungry, so had some little big bread with light cream cheese and smoked salmon.

I will now go and have a few frozen cherries, or maybe a smoothie.  I dunno..  I’m sure tomorrow will be more energetic.  Bring on the weekend!!!

Picmonkey has helped me post quickly tonight.  I’ve used the collage feature more times than normal so I can paint a picture of the day, and still get to bed at a reasonable time. (it’s a little late here in the land of weightingfor50….you’ll see why in a sec)

First of all, the Photo of the Day challenge prompt for today was “Transport”.  I went with the oldest form of transport used by man/woman and beast….feet.  Thanks to Dennis, Doris, Anna, the stranger in Starbucks who let me photograph her feet with a “love” tattoo, Neva, Ozzy the dog, and a duck by a pond for letting me add their feet into the collage!

I took this photo last night from our deck….the sky color was amazing.

I walked by this meditating woman in a park on my way to work this morning.  It looked very tranquil despite the industrial pipes around her.

And tonight’s token Neva shot….”extreme closeup”….

Breakfast this morning was Little Big Bread with light butter, the last of the strawberry jam from last summer and a smoothie made with blackberries, banana and almond milk.

I had some strawberries during the morning and had also taken an orange for later.  The orange is still on my desk.

I left the orange picture in, because I’m sharing the pic below.  While I was eating the strawberries, I was doing a mind dulling task…it had to be done, but I was easily distracted.  I saw a strawberry that looked just like the nose of Mr. Potato Head…..I didn’t have a potato, but i did have the orange and a sharpie….voila…instant bird!  Sigh.   Then I went back to work…..

I met my friend Jen for lunch today.  She was just back from Paris, and I wanted to hear all about her trip.  Sounds like a magical city, I can’t wait to go myself one day!!!  We went for sushi, I had the lunch special and my usual; miso soup, spicy tuna roll, BC Blaze roll and tuna tataki salad.

After work, we had dinner at our friends Clint and Tom’s home.  We started out with a glass of wine with hummus and crackers.

And I also had a walk around Clint’s beautiful garden.  It is just starting to fill in, and is full of greens, blossoms and colour.   (thank you Clint for the care package of kale, lettuce and rhubarb that you sent us home with!!!  It will ALL be put to good use!)Dinner was bbq pork tenderloin (with Clint’s famous “mojo sauce”), mashed potatoes and an arugula salad with strawberries, light feta, sunflower seeds and scallions that we’d taken along.

We ate outside….for Dennis and I, that was a first this year!!

Dessert was cherry/rhubarb crumble with vanilla ice cream.

Thanks so much Clint and Tom, we had a great time!  Speaking of time…its bedtime.  Only a few hours to sleep ’till I have to get up and do it all over again.  (minus the strawberry/orange bird!)

 

Generally speaking, I’m pretty good at making decisions.  Today, I was waffling over and over about what picture to post for my Photo of the Day Challenge.  The prompt was “environment”.  I was toying with forest pictures, logos from the folks who clean the city, my travel mug that says “green is not just a colour”, a “green wall” (with plants growing out of the wall) on a building close to where I work, a sunset….I finally decided on this shot.  I took it last month at the University grounds when I was there for Helen’s award event.

Not my best picture ever, but the eagle was spectacular, the greenery around and the water he stood in needs saving…voila – “Environment”.

I’m going to give a rundown of today’s point menu, and Michelle’s Wednesday hand….then show you a few other photos (no geese!) taken during the day.

Before work,  the Wednesday tradition continues….I met up with Michelle and her hand for coffee.  She was waving today.  “Oh Hey!!”

I toted breakfast to work with me, greek yogurt, blueberries and some stewed rhubarb.

During the morning, I had the last of the cantaloupe from Helen’s brunch last Sunday.

Lunch was a recipe based from one on Gina’s wonderful Skinny Taste site.  Gina made quinoa and spinach patties, I made quinoa and kale.  These were the perfect way to use up some cooked quinoa that needed to be dealt with!  I put two patties on some greens, had a mini pita with it, some tzatsiki and some carrots and cucumber.   Another winner from Gina!!!

Before yoga, I had two laughing cow wedges, rice cakes and grapes.

I’ll share a couple of “weightingfor50 out takes”.  As you can see, Neva photobombed twice while I was trying to get the shot of the above.  NEVA!!  I think she wanted to chew the poor monk, or maybe she was getting back at me for missing “National Hug Your Cat” day yesterday. 

And after yoga, I had a salad with grilled veggies, fresh basil, greens, light feta, 2 tbsp tzatsiki and 2 tbsp spicy hummus.

And tonight, I’ll finish with a few shots from my day.  On the way to meet Michelle this morning, the clouds looked pretty interesting.

Also interesting, these masses of mushrooms/toadstools that are growing.  These are all over in the autumn, but I don’t remember seeing them in spring before.  Maybe I just wasn’t looking….

I had some errands to run at lunchtime, and took a photo of the ‘green wall’ I talked about in the opening paragraph….And I also saw this flamingo, which made me smile.

I realized tonight I like walking TO yoga as much as I like yoga itself.  I could take a faster route and shave off MAYBE 10-15 minutes, but I like walking along the water and seeing all that the seawall has to offer.  Even when it rains, it’s a very pretty walk and a nice way to separate the work day from my evenings.

Today, I saw bees buzzing around a flower….

Pretty, bee-less flowers in general….

…I didn’t notice the ants walking on the flower in the bottom left square until I saved it on my computer.  Is everyone itching now?  I am…..

…this man with a stroller also had 6 dogs.  All his, one is the mother and the other 5 are from various litters she had.  (I asked if he minded me taking photos, so got the low down)

…awww….and this sweet old guy with one ear up was adorable.

Speaking of adorable, how cute are these two little boys playing in the fountain?  I’ll answer that…pretty cute!  (I like the red shoes and the hair of the one on the right.  AWW)

Time to call it a night.  Back tomorrow….

Today’s prompt for Chantelle’s Photo A Day challenge is “After Dark”.  I took this photo last night, I liked the way the two wispy clouds were just visible in the dark sky.

And am I the only one who sees a resemblance in shape between Neva and a Hershey’s kiss?   Or maybe she’s more of the top of a soft serve ice cream cone.  silly me….

Here are a couple of shots I took on my walk to yoga tonight.  It was a power yoga class, and I was a sweaty mess afterward.  It was fun!!

Um…why is only one paddler paddling?

I liked the way this duck made a wake behind him when he was swimming….

Incoming!!

Just a few goose/gosling shots tonight.  The flock walked around people on the sidewalk without a care.

This one was looking for his genitals.  I don’t think I’ve used the word genitals on the blog before.  Mark today on the calendar.  Not! 

Wait for me Mom!!!

And finally….Three backup dancers and Beyonce!  (one of the funniest SNL skits IMHO!  Thank you Google images!)

Enough silliness…here is the day’s point friendly menu.  Dennis and I both had smoothies this morning (almond milk, 1/2 banana and frozen blackberries) and Little Big Bread with 1 tbsp almond milk and more banana.

I’m still picking away at the fruit from Helen’s brunch.

Lunch was a sandwich thin with turkey, mustard and chutney, some celery, carrots and cucumber and a cup of blueberries.

Before yoga I had rice cakes, 2 light Laughing Cow wedges and some grapes.

We’d planned on grilling some meat and veg for dinner tonight, but my friend and egg “dealer” Doris replenished our supply of “just pulled from the coops” Ninja Chicken eggs this morning.  They truly are amazing, so we put off the grill and just had birds in a nest instead.  Thank you Doris!  And thank you Ninjas!!!

I will now hit publish and hit the hay!  OMG…how corny was that?????

Happy Birthday to Cousin Helen and to my Absente pimp Lachlan!     Cheers to you both!!

And I can’t take credit for today’s title, but it is suitable…you’ll see why in a sec.

Today’s prompt for Chantelle’s Photo of the Day challenge was “On My Table”.   This was taken last night, Dennis’ lemonade, my blueberries and the shadow of the setting sun.

I also have to share this….this was in our mailbox.  A promotion for “Gangnam Style Chicken” at a Chicken fast food place.  Isn’t the dancing chicken hilarious?  And isn’t Gangnam style so 2012??  Whoopa!!

Neva has had a very stressful evening while I post….

I haven’t posted flower pictures for a few days.  Here are some from my walk to yoga tonight.

And also on my walk…..the flock of geese I’ve been following since the goslings were tiny.  I didn’t see them in their “normal” stop tonight, and wondered if they’d “flocked off”.  Nope, they just moved a little further along, then swam back to their spot.  The little ones are now well into the gawky teen phase.  Less cute, but still “aww” worthy.

But have no fear….not ALL the babies have grown to  teen-hood.  (good word!)  AWWWW!!!!

I actually bumped into my yoga instructor at the pond with the babies, she was taking photos too.  Namaste!     I’m still on track and on schedule to hit the 30 in 40 day challenge.  Yay!

Here is the day’s point friendly menu, then I’m off….

Breakfast was exactly the same as yesterday, a bagel thin, light cream cheese, smoked salmon and capers.

During the morning I had some leftover fruit from yesterday’s birthday brunch for Helen.

Lunch was a piece of leftover bread braid (with ham and egg), a small kale salad with nutritional yeast and grapes and a cup of blueberries.

I picked at this celery and cucumber as well.

Before yoga I had 1/3 cup greek yogurt, a few blueberries and a little stewed rhubarb.

When I got home, we had some whole wheat spaghetti with sauce made from crushed tomatoes and leftover turkey sausage and peppers from yesterday’s brunch.  (the parts that didn’t fit in the braid)

I also had a little leftover cupcake from yesterday.

That’s Monday, and I’m going to hit publish and get to bed.  I’m yawning like Neva. 

Before I get to today’s post, I’ll share my June 2nd photo for Chantelle’s  photo of the day challenge.  Today’s prompt was “A Moment”.   Here is a moment I caught this morning…..Dennis was on our deck getting a little fresh air and taking in the view we, after many years of living here, never take for granted.

I was up really early this morning, and had a bagel thin with cream cheese and smoked salmon.  I made lots of coffee too.

Why was I up and busy?  We had Helen and some of her friends (who have become our friends too) over to celebrate her big day…which is officially tomorrow.

Apologies to Ed and Ray for the “back view” but didn’t want them to feel left out.

I tried a recipe I saw on the Cooking Light website, bread braids.  So easy, get some pizza dough, roll it out, cut a fringe on each side, fill it, fold it, bake it and voila.  (not particularly pretty in their unbaked form, are they?)

As an aside, I pulled a cookie sheet out to cover with parchment and bake on, and soon as I took it out of our cupboard, whooooop, look her plopped on it.  NEVA!  Any pan, any baking sheet, any bowl, she’ll just sit in it….crazy cat!

I made 3 kinds, turkey sausage with peppers and onion, ham and egg, and spinach ricotta. We also had some roasted potato (unphotographed), tomato and cucumber slices and fruit, juices,wine, tea and coffee.

Cheers to Helen!  (mine was the white wine)

After brunch/lunch, we had cake.  (I found this “pull apart” cake in the grocery store yesterday.  What a great idea….cupcakes all “co-iced” so no knife required)

Happy Birthday Helen!!!

And with cake, we had sparkling wine.

Neva disappeared for most of the party, but begrudgingly made an appearance later on.

We had a lovely time celebrating one of our favorite people.

When the gang left, we were going to go for a walk and get some fresh air.  I slothed on the couch, and surprisingly fell asleep.  I’m not a napper….but two hours later I woke up.  Guess I needed it – or it was an effect of two glasses of wine and some sparkling wine. 

Tonight we just picked at leftovers and things in the fridge for dinner.

Back to work tomorrow, back to yoga, back to the routine!  Hope you’ve all had a good weekend.  What was your highlight?

Huge thanks to my blogging/facebook buddy Christina, who posted this June Photo a Day on  facebook today.  I’ve joined via Chantelle’s blog.  I’m really looking forward to participating.  Thank you Chantelle and Christina!

As you can see….June 1st’s prompt is “B is for…”

Voila…B is for BEE!!!!  (I took this photo this afternoon, bees were buzzing around a tree close to where I’d parked the car)

I’m also pretty excited that I can cross a food fantasy off my food bucket list! Thanks to my friend Lachlan, who knew I wanted to try Absente.  He was given a little bottle, had tried it before, said it tasted truly awful, so passed it along to me!!! 

We did exactly as the bottle said, liqueur in a glass with sugar cube over top (we didn’t have absente spoons…slotted spoons had to do)…..

Pour water over…..

Stir sugar in…..

Cheers, then shoot it!

Know what?  It wasn’t bad!!!  I was very licorice-y, harsh, but not burning like I thought it would be.

FUN!!!!  Thanks Lachlan, check, another one off the food bucket list!!!! 

However, before that, I was up bright and early this morning for a yoga class.  2 down, 28 to go in my challenge.

After yoga, I went to weight watchers.  Happy to report, the scale was kind to me this morning.

We had our meeting in a church today, the area where we normally are was locked off for the centre’s spring bazaar.  I LOVE stained glass windows, and snapped a couple of shots.

I met my good buddy Suz at the spring bazaar afterward.  Find of the day….I thought these two girls from the Willow Tree collection were cute, and were $2.00 for the pair.  I’ve since gone on-line and seen them for $55 on Amazon and about $25-30 on ebay.  SCORE!!!!

Suz and I went for breakfast afterward, I had a Starbucks turkey bacon and egg white sandwich.

I also had a banana and a cookie that I bought at the bazaar.

The rest of the afternoon was spent running a bunch of errands.  While I was out and about I ate the sample pack of ketchup baked chips that I got at this morning’s meeting.

We had a glass of wine and spinach/kale dip with flatbread later in the afternoon.

We lit up the grill for dinner tonight, here are our little beef steaks (I was craving red meat tonight….weird) with a pack of mushrooms.

Here is the view from the deck while we were grilling….can you see the plane?

And here is the final product, beef with mushrooms and a salad with arugula, blueberries, light blue cheese and croutons with greek dressing.  We had a little horseradish on the side.

What is happening in YOUR world this weekend?

I really hate when I become something I don’t like.  That happened to me tonight….I hate being nitpicky, but I have a REAL pet peeve when people pronounce words with “e’s” as “a’s”.  Which I know, is pretty ridiculous, it’s not REALLY worth getting tithered up about – but I do.  Anyway…tonight, my yoga instructor did just that.  The class itself was great, she was very nice, but to me;

• “laft” isn’t the opposite of right, it’s what I did with a funny colleague earlier in the day
• “averybody” is Averil Lavigne’s body, not EVERYbody
• “axhale” is what a lumberjack does when he flags down a cab with his weapon, not when I breathe out
• “Santer” is the white-haired, red suited man who comes at Christmas, not the place between “laft” and right
• ..and “stratch”…well…I got nothing for that….

Sigh.  As I said, despite that, it WAS a good class, and all is set for the upcoming yoga challenge.  And I know it’s just an accent or a pronunciation, or maybe I’m becoming a nitpicky be-atch…but oh well.  We let (or “lat”) it go and move on!    Namaste!

It has been very cloudy and rainy here in Vancouver for days.  But tonight, the clouds blew away.  LOVED the way the clouds looked as the sky was clearing.  (these were taken on my walk to yoga)

I also liked this shot with the kayaker and a line of geese.

Speaking of geese….

…you knew this was coming…    Look what gawky teens the cute little fluffy goslings are turning into.  I could clearly see adult tail and back feathers on quite a few of the little ones.  Awww….

Seeing them all with one leg stretched out behind made me go “hmmm”….so when I got home, I googled to find out why.  I found countless articles as to why geese STAND on one leg, but nothing about young birds sitting with one leg extended.  If anyone knows, please share.  I’d love to know!

There was a little bit of aggression going on.  (maybe the flock have spent too much time together and need a break from each other!  )

Some were REALLY “chatty”, there was much honking.

And because I’m silly, I captioned a few of the shots with picmonkey.

And THAT concludes the “Roz needs to either get out more, or get a more creative day job” portion of today’s post. 

NOW…we move on to the day’s point friendly menu, and we’ll call it a night.  Breakfast was a yogurt parfait jar, that I ate at my desk.  It had some frozen blackberries (behind Toro, the broken horned bull mascot), stewed rhubarb and greek yogurt with 2 tbsp granola.

During the morning, I had one of Sally’s little sesame snaps.

And one of my colleagues brought in a container of crack peanut butter filled pretzels.  I had three.  I could have eaten 3 containers….they’re THAT addictive.

I was at the grocery store at lunchtime picking up a couple of items, and tried a sample of ceviche that was on sale.  I LOVE ceviche, and thought it would be perfect on top of the salad I’d taken for lunch (which was arugula, cherry tomatoes, grated carrots, dried kimchi and 2 slices of smoked chicken with greek dressing) so I bought 100g and mixed them together.

Later in the afternoon, I had some celery sticks, rice cakes and 2 light Laughing Cow wedges.

Dennis and I did the “ships passing in the night” thing again tonight.  While I was at yoga, he cooked some turkey sausages, and when I got home, I had a sausage, peppers, scallions and spinach with egg white scramble and an english muffin.

I finished the day off with a cup of frozen cherries, which taste like cherry sorbet.

Tomorrow is going to be a full day, so I’ll hit publish and call it a night.  And I’m serious, if any bird people know why the goslings are sitting with one leg extended, I’d love to know!  Have a great weekend all!!!