Let There Be Oats! (round 2) This time, with oats

So in my ongoing search for a healthy breakfast muffin I've moved onto my second recipe. Although due to a lack of muffin tins (still packed away at my Mom's house) I decided to look for something that would work better baked in a pan. I naturally found a recipe for an oatmeal bar that was made to be baked into a 9x9 square pan (lo and behold my 9x9 pyrex is also packed away at my mothers). Once again I ended up using a circular cake pan (I really need to get my baking life in order, this is getting ridiculous!)

Alright, so to the recipe! I found this one on Kath Eats Real Food blog and from what I've seen I will be on there more often! She has an entire section for a 'tribute to oatmeal' (woman after my own heart).

Basically it is oats, walnuts, dried fruit (of your preference), seeds (of your preference) and cinammon. I added raisins, dates (my fave), as well as some from a mixed bag, it had things like cherries, blueberries, and cranberries. As for the seeds I threw in some flax, sunflower, and pumpkin. I also threw some coconut in but I would definitely add more next time cause I can't really taste it.

Mixin' the dry ingredients

Ready to go in the oven  

Ready to eat

I'm a pretty big fan of these. They are very hearty and natural, not a lot of added anything. I did add some brown sugar as there isn't really any sweetness in these except the dried fruit. I think if I made them again I would cut up some apples and add extra cinnamon only because if you don't have any dried fruit in your bite it is pretty tasteless. Also because I absolutely love oatmeal with apples and cinnamon. Now rest assured if you do have fruit in your bite it is very very tasty.

Damn that's domestic

Finally(!) I got my sewing machine fixed (at the small cost of $100 - ouch!) which means that I finally(!) got to finish the sewing project that I started weeks ago. So as you might remember I said that I went thrifting with my friend Mary I bought a dress (for just $3), a dress that needed some serious alterations. So that is just what I did, I shortened the dress and sleeves, removed the collar and made the neckline different. To be fair, the dress is quite a few sizes too big for me, which you can still tell in the top part.

Well I don't really know if I'll wear it a lot - I mean I do think it is quite cute now but I don't really know how I feel about it altogether. That said, I had fun altering it because if there was no real pattern so it was all about what I wanted to do and no real way to do it (that) wrong.

What do you think?!

     

Oh the English language

So back in say March I was sending my brothers some packages from the Netherlands back to Canada, mostly the packages included delicious stroopwafels. That is, however, beside the point.

I had to find a store that I could buy packing materials and pay for postage, etc to send the aforementioned  packages.

So I found a TNT shop, went in, picked out two large envelopes and proceeded to ask the attendant if I should pay for the package then pay for the shipping or if I could address the envelopes, pack them, and then pay for shipping altogether.

At this point the sale lady looked at me and said "We don't ship them, they will go by air"

I paused, thinking for a moment, nodded and rephrased my question.

Oh English, you are a silly thing.

Dream a dream...

Oh Amsterdam!

Let there be oats!

I'm not much of a breakfast person, my stomach has never been able to handle great deals of food early in the morning. So you'll never find me flipping eggs or frying bacon in the morning, well unless it is the weekend and I've sat around for a long lazy morning. I find those are brunch foods, but thats mostly because the thought of eating them first thing in the morning make me queasy. 

That said, I still need to eat something in the morning (at least something in my stomach to calm all the coffee I drink). The problem is, I like to eat either on the way to of when I first get to work. This can be tough and means that I have to think ahead of time what I'll be taking, and it needs to transport well and be easy to eat. Although I do enjoy a bowl of cereal with banana in it, it doesn't really work all that great in a car.

For this reason I am attempting to find a great muffin recipe. Now when I say great I mean it needs to simultaneously be healthy for me, filling enough to get me through to lunch, and delicious. Now I have no aversion to health food so I'm not afraid to bake with whole grains, oat, add nuts, raisins, dates, ground flax, wheat germ, and other hearty things. The only issue with these things is, when done wrong, they end up being dry, dense, and generally not that enjoyable. 

For round 1 I found a 'breakfast muffin' recipe online that I thought sounded good that included many of the above mentioned ingredients. I quickly discovered, however, that my muffin pans are still at my mother's house from my last move, or maybe the second last move, who really knows? 

So I decided to try and make it in a pie plate and just cut it up into bits. I'll say that the product is better looking that it is tasting and I am embarrassed to say I forgot to put in the egg and I think I had too little yogurt (it called for yogurt and orange juice as opposed to other liquids). So the muffin loaf tastes alright it is very dry and very dense. Even with the egg and some extra liquid I don't think I'll be trying this one again.

Do you have any great healthy/hearty breakfast muffin/loaf recipes? Willing to share? 

I'll keep you posted on the other recipes I try :)

Bloglovin

I'm tentatively on bloglovin because newsfire (the rss feed I was using before) now wants to charge me. Not really sure how I feel about it, but follow my blog with Bloglovin :)

Knitting Lately

Well friends I've been crazy busy, but I've tried to make time to knit this cute infinity scarf. It was beyond easy. I had to sew the two ends together and I'm not totally happy with the seam so I'm still working on it. I think it'll be a good addition to my unnecessarily huge scarf collection. Knit on friends! Knit on!

Eurotastic!

One of my all time favorite things about traveling around Europe is the experience of walking out of a metro station. It has to be one of the most magical moments you can have. You really don't know what to expect and so often it can take your breath away. I saw this video the other day and it took me right back to my travels.


Sub City Paris from Redglass Pictures on Vimeo.


I hope one day you get to experience this, if you haven't already done so. :)

Greatness and Stress

Well I had a lovely relaxing weekend. I successfully ran my second 10km race, it feels great to have another race under my belt and I feel like I will keep doing it, at least for a little while. I am really happy with this race because my body hurts considerably less this time around then compared to time #1 also I ran it in almost the same time!

 In other news my Mac died Sunday night so I'm in the midst of tying to get that organized and kicking myself for waiting so long in between backing my data up. Now I've been assured that noohing is ever really lost (if you are willing to pay for it). Because I have no idea what kind bill it'll run me, at this time I'm ping to commit to trying to get my pictures back because so help me if I lose my Europe pictures twice, even if it is only some of them.

 So until that is fixed and back to normal I'll be away from here because blogging from an iPhone is not an activity I enjoy.

What A Week and Why I Listen to Country 105

This week was a proverbial "big week" for me. I started a new job. New things and changes are always a little nerve wracking but generally I like to face them head on and try to get excited instead of afraid. I started Tuesday at the Kids Cancer Care Foundation of Alberta and I must say that I am really genuinely excited about it. I am excited because it is an actual foundation that does amazing things for kids and families dealing with cancer, also I am excited about it because it consists of a staff of more than 5 people - which has not been the case in any of my other positions. Also, I get to work with other people, and people who are close to my age. Anyways it was a good week because I got to start something new and although I spent most of my time reading policy manuals and entering data into a database I am totally stoked for this position!

Now, this position is also quite ideally located. Well it is ideally located in that if there is no traffic I can get there in less than 10 minutes, however, as this is not the case I find myself spending a great deal of time in my car. Unfortunately, as much as I would like to take the bus to save money and have the convenience of reading to and from work it takes about twice as long to get there. I digress. My point is, while sitting in traffic I need something good to listen to. As usually happens my radio dial usually switches regularly between any one of the multiple stations Calgary has to offer. This can get annoying so in the mornings there is a good chance my radio is tuned to CBC Radio 1 or 2. They offer a good variety of interesting material and something other than some stupid 'top 40s' hit. As it were if you are looking for good music post 9pm in this city you should tune your radio to 97.7 as they play local, Canadian, and folk music. Very choice.

Well to make a roundabout to my point, the top 40 stations can be great when you are cruising along with the windows down, but when it comes to actual musical enjoyment I think we should all give Country 105 a chance. My reasons are simple. Country music is so closely linked to folk music, and I love folk music. Folk music has meaning, class, and a message. So I implore you to try listening to country every now and then. I'm not saying there won't be the stereotypical, my dog died, my wife left me, and my truck quit working song, but it is worth a shot, you can always switch the station back and forth.

Staying Warm and Looking Great

In an attempt to make some useful crafts I've been spending my time knitting and crocheting a few headbands/ear warmers. Now the first two went really quickly but the third one (of which I bought the pattern off of etsy) has been causing me some problems. My gauge is seemingly correct but it ends up way too huge for my head so although I have already done it once, torn it out, and redone it, I think I will just have to tear it all out a second time and reduce the number of rows I crochet.

The first headband I made was a simple 15 chain (the pattern recommended 11 but I wanted it wider), crochet in the back of the stitch until if fits your head sort of thing. It is a little big for me so I am thinking I might try to take a row or two out. Also I am pretty proud of my rose, even if it sticks out really far.

The second headband, my favorite, and by far the easiest was done by knitting. Cast on 20 stitches, then knit 14 inches (I did more as my head is clearly bigger than the girl who made the pattern). Then you sew the ends together, cinch them up and wrap your extra yarn around. It is totally adorable. You can find the free pdf to download here.

Hopefully I'll be able to show you the third one soon but honestly, I've lost a little bit of my motivation for it. First I am going to make the second one in at least 2 more colours!

Live a Little

I'm not really an overly optimistic person, that's not to say I'm a pessimist. Basically I like to take it as I see it and I understand that things don't always work out and sometimes bad things happen. This considered, it wouldn't be surprising that I generally find 'goal' setting activities somewhat mundane and useless. When I think about the times we were forced to do these activities in school I really feel like they didn't work because they were not about things that I genuinely cared about. For example, although making goals for how I will improve myself in my work terms is likely a very worthwhile activity I find it unrealistic and annoying, if I'm being honest.

However, when I take those same principles and apply them to goal setting for my life I find it a hugely rewarding activity. Why did I go through all the work to tell you that this defies my reasoning? Basically because I want to convince you to do it to. Now even as I write this I feel hoakie.

The thing is, these goals can be just for you and when you achieve them it is amazing. I also think that writing them out or even making something a goal is like a little commitment to yourself to work towards achieving. 

I was talking with a friend of mine the other day (who is moving to Korea to teach English). She was talking about how a friend of hers had commented on how well she had her 'shit together' in order for her to get organized to go. This led us to discuss how so many people talk of awesome things they want to do, but never actually do them. These people frustrate me. If you want something, go out and get it!

This is where these lists can come in handy. I remember seeing an Oprah or some similar show about making life lists and well, I made one. This was quite a few years ago and it included things like:

• Maintain a B+ average
• Live in a foreign country
• Finish my coop 

I wish I could remember more but my computer that has the list is not currently working. The point is, I wrote them down and when I went back I realized that I had done almost everything on the list or was well on the way to completing it. This was phenomenal. It gave me such a sense of achievement.

This past weekend I, for the first time ever, entered a 10km race and ran then entire thing. I had never ran that distance before. It was so great. Now I don't mean I did so great, what I mean was, it was a goal I set for myself that I didn't actually think I could achieve but I pushed myself to try because the worst thing that could happen was I would fail and have to try again.

Traveling and having so many new experiences has pushed me to continue to pursuing the scary things I don't think I can do or the things I've never tried that I'm scared I'll suck at. Because if you can have a sense of humour about it, the worst thing is you'll discover that you aren't good at something then you can move onto the next thing.

So my friends, throw caution to the wind, try something scary, make a list, you really can do whatever you want! And it feels fabulous :)

Recent addition to my list:

• Learn to ride a motorcycle

Should be fun!

Crochet Crafts

After a little bit of strife and tearing out a few rows and then a few more rows, then making a phone call to my mother I figured out how to successfully crochet.

Project number one was a neck warmer or 'convertible cowl' as the pattern labeled it. I know my tension was not consistent all the way through, but I'm pretty happy with the results. With a little practice and a re-do I'm sure I could make it stay on my head like a cowl should.

It was actually quite easy.

Also, by the sounds of it my sewing machine is going to take more than I thought to get it fixed, as such my dress that I was altering is still on hold. Sorry, I really want to show you it totally finished!

Weekend Projects

Friday night I got inspired to get after my weekend project. Recently I went thrifting with my friend Mary, and bought two dresses for $6. Steal of a deal. The thing is they need to be altered so they look a little more modern.

Friday I took the opportunity to sit down at my sewing machine and start clipping and hemming. It was all going so well until I discovered that part of my sewing machine wasn't working so well, turns out the feed dog (the part under the presser foot that pulls the fabric through) is made out of rubber and it has disintegrated and was leaving gross black marks on everything I was sewing. So until I can get that replaced I will have to put that project on wait.

Then I shifted my focus to my new project of learning how to crochet. This has not gone great but I am holding strong that I will get a handle of it. I think it'd be easier if I got a run through of how the patterns worked first because I have a feeling that it works differently than knitting patterns. It is a work in progress.

For now I will leave you with a teaser pic of what I was up to on Friday night. It is coming together really well and I can't wait to post the before and after pics :)

Shift Focus

In an attempt to keep blogging, at least occasionally, and in an attempt to keep it from getting mundane I am going to try and focus on crafts. I will still post about books because I really love books and I hope that if you see me reading all the time maybe you will to then we could talk about books because talking about books is about as good as reading them.

I've always been a crafter. I think I can attribute this to my Mother. She would sew, cross stitch, and other like things and I picked it up. I started cross stitching young and it was my craft of choice for quite some time, then I took sewing in school, learned to knit, made some baby blankets, sewed a dress, completed a huge cross stitch, and now I feel like I've fallen into a crafting rut. I'd love to learn how to quilt and although I learned how to crochet I don't really remember how to do it.

Right now I generally just make dish towel after dish towel. Now I won't sell these too short because they look lovely, come in amazing colours, and people love them, but I want to do something more challenging. Don't know exactly what form that will take but hopefully it will be inspiring. For now I leave you with a picture of some of the infamous dish towels, which if you know me well, you have probably had a few gifted to you.

My Bookshelf

Mockingjay, the third and final book in Suzanne Collins' series The Hunger Games. I literally just finished this, I read for quite a while today because I was so eager to see how this whole series would play out. The books are a fun read and the third one is no exception. I don't really want to give you any plot details as it would clearly spoil some of the first two books but as usual it is following the main characters around a dystopian world of the future.

All things considered this was a very enjoyable and easy series to get into, however it didn't end the way I thought it should. And I know I shouldn't be picky but I just reeeeaaallly wanted it to end one way and I feel like it was a little incomplete for me because it didn't end that way. Sad face. That said I would still recommend reading it, maybe you will enjoy the ending just the way it is.

Next up: Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. The first of a lengthy series of long books. ha. I've been avoiding this recommendation for quite some time, my friend Meghan has been telling me to read them for years and I will admit it wasn't until the HBO show came out that my interest was peaked. That and the fact that I have lots of time and a newfound passion of reading.

Keep Calm and Read On Friends!

My Bookshelf

Catching Fire, the second book of Suzanne Collins' trilogy The Hunger Games was quite enjoyable. It pulls you quickly back into the dystopian world where children are forced to flight to the death. The plot thickens and the characters grow. It was a good read but undeniably the second book of the trilogy in that it was a bridge between the second and third book but I almost wanted a little bit more from it. That said it definitely sent me running for the third book of the trilogy as it leaves you wanting more, immediately.

I'm excited to pick up the third book, probably this afternoon. The great thing about these books is that they are quick and easy to read and the story is so engaging that you will run through this series in a matter of weeks if not days. I think this took me just over a week to read only because I was too busy to pick it up. You could easily fit this series in between whatever books you are currently reading. I highly suggest it. Also a movie is coming out soon but I have to be honest, (although I've only seen one teaser trailer) it isn't looking too good to me, too much like a bad teen movie where the characters are unrealistically beautiful, but I'll have to investigate more.

Favorite...

Favorite County... Countries

I refuse to choose just one! I loved so many different places for so many different reasons. And when I think about all the different places I went I feel guilty singling out just a few as better than the rest. I honestly loved everywhere. Each city, country, local had a different feel and different reasons that I adored it.

That said I've been forced to choose a top few as people keep asking me.

1. The Netherlands.

Honestly, I adore it. It is beautiful, just gorgeous and the time I spent living there definitely made an impression on me. Canals, windmills, english speaking people who are so blunt it makes you laugh. I loved it! I would highly recommend a trip around the Netherlands.

2. Croatia

Crystal blue and green water, killer heat, friendly people, Italian inspired food. Really the only bad thing about Croatia is that you never want to leave. Perfect holiday local where you still feel like you get to do stuff to. It'd be perfect to rent or hire a sail boat and just cruise around from different tiny islands to different tiny islands. AND there are Roman ruins there. I love Roman ruins.

3. Italy

I've now been to Italy twice and I can honestly say that it always leaves me wanting more. The food is divine and the landscape impeccable. Every city is very different and I've heard the coast is gorgeous. I'm also a sucker for history and Italy does not come up short in that department. I know that I'll be back one day, I just have to! I would highly suggest a trip to Italy, for at least a month. And as I said the other day, bring stretchy pants. The food is just too good to say no to.

Well I think that's all I've got for now. If you'd like any other "what was your favorite...?" or any other questions or queries let me know and I'd be happy to answer them. However, if not I might be taking some time off from blogging. Who knows though, I might get in a few small posts every so often.

Thanks for following along on my adventure! Until next time, which hopefully will be sooner rather than later :)

Anecdotally

The other day at work one of our regular swimmers came up to me as she was leaving, she often stops to say goodbye, she's a real gem.

She came up the the lifeguard chair and said that when she moved from France 40 years ago she always used to say that white people couldn't dance and had no rhythm but she would have to take that back after seeing me dancing on the pool deck.

I am going to say that is a life win.

So to summarize, this white girl can dance and I do it often while working on a pool deck and perhaps more people notice than I initially thought.

Favorite...

Favorite Food

Well Food is a tough subject because there is a lot of amazing food to go around in Europe, but some of my all time faves was Italian anything - Italy is heaven for food, everything, and I mean even the street food is delicious! My favorite meal in Italy was an aubergine pasta dish with an olive oil sauce, it was so delicious I still think of it to this day. Of course Italy also has the most delicious gelato around and wonderful coffees and mozzarella, and well as I mentioned before, everything is delicious there.

Another meal of memory was in Prague I ordered a traditional meal, I can't remember its name, I blogged about it at the time, but it was beef and potato dumplings in a sweet orange cream sauce and it was amazing!! So delicious, I wish I could eat it on a daily basis.

So to summarize if you want a trip that will never disappoint you in the gastronomical department book a flight to Italy and bring along some stretchy pants. Italy tastes delicious!