Taking Stock // March 2020

March started out like any regular month, with a long list of goals to work towards and tasks to get done but then, just a few days in, a worldwide health crisis erupted, and none of those things seemed to matter anymore. I spent a couple of weeks just trying to make sense of what is unfolding, but throughout it all, one thought kept coming up in my mind - that, even in the darkest times, light is still present. In other words, even when things feel particularly hard and scary, as they have for many of us, there is still plenty of good to be found as well. 

In that spirit, here are a few of the things I want to remember about March 2020: 

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making lemonade out of the oversized bucket of metaphorical lemons that this month served us

 

cooking lots of brussels sprouts; we found them at a great price and stocked up on 10 pounds of them (yes, really!), so I made this recipe several times - that marinade makes all the difference (I make 4-5 times the amount recommended, use most of it on the brussels sprouts, and save the rest for other dishes) and the sprouts come out so juicy - I love eating them both hot & cold

drinking so much water (I really notice when I get out of the habit, whether it's getting a headache, my skin being dry - especially with all the hand washing - or feeling low on energy, so I'm making it a priority every day) and trying out some orange peel and fennel tea too, inspired by Olivia’s post & stories on Instagram (check out her immuniTEA highlight too for more ideas and options of ingredients to add into this tea)

reading The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin, and starting to figure out how to work best for my own tendency

enjoying all the sunshine - we’ve gotten quite a bit of it throughout the month, and it just doesn’t get old; I guess if there’s a silver lining to these long winters, it’s how much I notice and truly appreciate the light and sunshine during the rest of the year

waiting eagerly for spring to arrive - and thankfully it did! We had temperatures above zero almost exclusively for the second half of the month, and by the end, most of the snow had melted - which doesn’t seem like much, but it definitely is in our area. Usually, in March, we still have several feet of snow left, so this early start is pretty unexpected but so welcome

loving Notion; I found out about it from Michelle’s video and decided to try it out. I started out using her Life Dashboard template and have been slowly adjusting it to fit my own needs ever since

needing some time to find a new normal, like most of us, I’m sure; once things started getting serious around the middle of the month, I really had a hard time focusing on, well, practically anything, and perhaps as an involuntary “survival” mechanism, disconnected from my goals and dreams - it wasn’t until the end of the month that I started finding my focus again

smelling spring flowers - these beautiful hyacinths and daffodils that my mom and I received for Women’s Day - and getting excited about seeing the ones in our front yard pop out of the ground in just a few weeks

watching our favourite TV shows on the weekend; everyone in our family is on such different schedules now, that there’s just no way we can keep up with most of our favourite shows as they first air on weekday evenings, so it’s become the perfect excuse to sit down together on Saturday afternoons and catch up with them after doing some work around the house

knowing that, among all the hard and scary, there is still plenty of good around too - and leaning in to that as much as I possibly can

feeling like myself again; to say the last few weeks have been a rollercoaster of emotions would be an understatement, but after feeling unfocused and disconnected for most of the month, by the end, I started to get a sense of normalcy again

bookmarking all the positive quotes and reminders on Instagram - like this wise quote about gratitude, this helpful approach for dealing with overwhelm and this collection of positive news amongst all the heartbreaking ones

listening to a few episodes from two of my favourite podcasts, The Perfectionism Project (this one helped me start writing and documenting again) and Grow with Soul (this one shared a refreshing perspective on tracking & using numbers in our businesses)

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Tell me, besides the health crisis and social distancing, what's standing out in your mind from March?

Life Currently // May 2017

It's been a while since I last shared regularly on this blog, but lately I've been thinking more and more about it, and itching to make it a bigger part of my life again. I do have some ideas for posts, but it seems that I've gotten so out of the habit of actually sharing those ideas that, every time I open a new blank post to start writing, my mind goes blank too. So, I thought I'd start simply for now, with a little snapshot of what life looks like these days:


cherishing all the short periods of sunshine in between the clouds and pouring rain

smiling every time I take a peek at the daffodils and hyacinths in our front yard (so happy that it's finally that time of the year again!)

getting back to daily morning walks around the neighbourhood with the pup

trying hard to get into the habit of working out regularly

working on two knitting projects at once: a pink scarf that keeps my hands busy on evenings when my mind is tired after a long day, and a set of placemats that is the perfect excuse to learn a new stitch

staying organized with the Bullet Journal system, and feeling thankful to have found a way to wrangle all the thoughts that are constantly swimming through my mind

making progress on the content I am planning and creating behind-the-scenes for my health coaching website, and looking forward to sharing it with everyone who is ready to start being proactive and taking charge of their health and wellness

feeling excited about new work projects, especially a potential new collaboration with a fellow coach I've really been enjoying connecting with over the last few months

watching loads of Instagram Stories and losing track of time a little too often

dreaming of seeing more of this world, in no small part thanks to all that time spent watching Instagram stories


Well, that about covers most of the things that I'm spending time on and thinking of right now. I'd love to know, what's going on in your life these days?

Roadtrip Sights

At the end of last month, I had the chance to go on a short, overnight roadtrip and, oh my goodness, was it so needed! I had been dreaming of going on a longer roadtrip for months (maybe even years at this point?!) and I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I went to Toronto (for the second time ever) with my brother for a mix of business and pleasure, and I'm quite proud of how much we were able to fit into the short time we had there. I'll have more pictures and words about our adventures in Toronto later, but for now I just wanted to share a few snaps I took on the road, both getting there and back.

The views on the side of the road. It doesn't seem like much, especially because I'm generally a sunshine girl (and we had very little of it the whole trip) but at that point, we still had well over a foot of snow in our neighbourhood, so seeing this and not even a little bit of white around had me ridiculously happy. Not to mention, the whole way there and back, we saw gaggles of geese flying overhead constantly, which was just another much needed reminder that spring was not going to be far behind even at home. (Fast forward to today, just over two weeks later, thanks to much warmer temperatures and loads of rain, we now have barely any traces of snow left, the flowers in the front yard are popping up from under the ground at rapid speeds, and the tree buds are just about to burst - spring is in full swing!! But I digress.)

 Seriously, seeing the green of the trees against something other than snow made me so happy!

I kept seeing these signs on the side of the road every few kilometres, and it made me think that, in all of my years of life, I never actually saw any deer from the road. Well, as fate would have it, on our way back home, I saw no less than 4 of them (3 on one occasion, and another one later), so I had to take a picture of one of these signs as a happy reminder of this good fortune. :)

As we got closer to home, of course we started to see snow again.

I really enjoyed this trip. It was everything I hoped it would be: a nice break from the routine, a chance to explore and discover new things and places, and an opportunity to rest and recharge. Of course, as it always is, it's also been the reason for even more roadtrip daydreams ever since we got back...

Spring Memories

Summer is finally here, and I'm absolutely thrilled; it is my favourite season after all. The beginning part of the season always feels even more special, because it is filled with so much excitement and anticipation for the months ahead that make up my favourite part of the year.

There's always so much to look forward to in the summer, but before I do that, I want to take a look back and acknowledge all the sweet moments from the past few months. After reflecting on it for a few days, I've come to realize how special this spring has actually been. It's been the time when I've gradually started once again to come out of my shell, to share more of myself, and to be a part of something, after a long while of feeling a strong need to keep to myself, to do inner work, and to find my own individual rhythm.

As a result of this outward shift, I've also started to notice and enjoy the little things around me again, and looking back on the ones I've documented helped paint a much clearer picture of just how sweet and special this spring has been.

Everybody needs a little afternoon nap sometimes. Seeing the ways in which she sleeps is always entertaining, but on this particular afternoon, I really liked how she laid on the couch with just her head on the pillow, like a little person.

These beautiful flowers in our front yard. Every year I post pictures of them, and it's because every year I can't believe how much joy I get from seeing them pop out of the ground after so many months of mainly white and grey all around.

Our Easter eggs. For the past few years, we've used only natural materials to colour them, which can be quite unpredictable. So, every year I tell myself that I will test out different materials beforehand, and every year I fail to do it. Luckily, we still got some beautiful colours, though not necessarily the ones we were expecting: the grey, although beautiful, was supposed to come out as red by using black cherries (that is what the article said, but thinking about it, it does make sense that black cherries would produce a black-ish colour); the vivid yellow came from turmeric, and the gorgeous blue that I can't get enough of from purple cabbage; the slightly darker yellow was supposed to be green (although in real life, it did have a sort of chartreuse tint to it) by combining the yellow and blue liquids, but it seems like the turmeric was too powerful.

Superfood oatmeal inspired by Drea - not the most photogenic breakfast, but I had it for a week straight and absolutely loved it, so I thought it was worth mentioning. Every morning, I added an assortment of nourishing extras to the basic oatmeal to make it even better: ground walnuts for added protein, rosehip powder for extra vitamin C, spirulina powder for all over super-goodness, cinnamon for its blood sugar balancing properties (and great taste!), and vanilla bean powder for even more flavour.

I'd love to know, what moments or things stood out to you this spring and made the season special?

Growing More

This is our sixth year planting a vegetable garden here in our backyard, and each year we've learned more about the process, and grown our garden a little big bigger and wider than the last. Of course, this year is no different. In fact, my brother and my dad spent a big chunk of this past long weekend building three more raised beds for our veggies.

This week, the new beds are getting filled with soil, and by the weekend we should be able to add the plants that we started inside and the seeds that we'll be sowing directly there - if, fingers crossed, the weather cooperates. We already have quite a few eggplant and pepper plants started (we've never had much success with any of them in the past, so this is new and exciting territory!) and, if it's even possible, even more tomato plants than last year, so the additional space will be very welcome.

Another new thing that we're doing with our garden this year, besides adding more raised beds, is trying out both spring crops (seeds and starts went in the ground mid-April) and fall crops (that we'll be planting mid- to late summer). These are all those veggies that don't do very well in the high heat of summer, things like lettuce and all sorts of greens, spinach, kale, beets, radishes, and cabbage.

Speaking of spring gardens, last night we picked our first harvest of spring crops from the garden: a small batch of Ovation Greens that we mixed into a salad with some sliced red onion, salt, lemon juice, and olive oil - it was delicious!

I'd love to know, are you growing any of your own food this year?

Our Loyal Winged Friends

It was the middle of April, the early evening hours of a beautiful Sunday, and the end of the first day of the year warm enough to allow us to work outside. I spent some time both inside, helping my mom file our yearly income taxes and outside, helping my dad and my brother do some garden prep work. My brother pruned our apple tree, my dad cleared our raised beds of the dried plants left over from the fall and prepped them for this year's plantings, while I raked some of the leaves we didn't get to before winter came, to uncover a few bits of green that had already come up underneath and to bring a little colour to our yard.

It was the end of the day. My parents were now both inside, getting dinner ready, and my brother and I were still outside, finishing up our first seed sowing session of the season. We were sprinkling lettuce seeds when we heard a loud noise, of flapping wings, behind us. If I'm being honest, to me it sounded like a bird was rapidly falling to the ground, erratically flapping its wings in a struggle to stay above ground. We turned around quickly to thankfully realize how wrong I was (and, apparently, how little I know about birds) and to see that not one, but two birds had safely landed into the little pond of rain water and melted snow that had formed on top of our covered pool. At a closer look, we realized they weren't just any birds either, but rather the same sweet duck couple that has been visiting us every spring for the last few years. We had completely forgotten about their yearly visit, and once again, it was such a beautiful, unexpected weekend surprise to see them literally landing into our backyard for their fourth consecutive short stay.



I grabbed my iPad right away and started snapping pictures and videos, while the neighbours living in the house behind ours, after hearing the loud noise as well, were lifting their small kids up to see the ducks over the fence and pointing to them. The pictures and videos I took weren't the best, I knew, but I didn't care. I just wanted to have a snapshot, no matter how blurry, of this moment in time, of these shy, beautiful creatures who chose us once again as the family whose yard would serve as a well-deserved stopover in their journey.

Our whole family - quietly, so as not to startle them - gathered around to see them for their quick visit, knowing that once we went inside to have dinner, we'd have to wait another year to get a glimpse of them, as they would already be gone by the time we were finished eating.

I can't say that living in this house, in this neighbourhood, in this town, has been my favourite, but seeing these two beautiful pals each year, however briefly, will be one of my favourite memories of this place once we do move somewhere else.

In the meantime, we hope to see you next year too, sweet friends!
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I rediscovered these pictures now, just over a month after taking them, and the story of that beautiful day came rushing back into my mind and pouring out of me, so I wanted to jot it down to help me remember it, with all its beautiful little details, even a long time from now. I learned a while ago - in big part, thanks to this little space of mine here on the Internet - that the beauty of life is in all the little things, and I haven't done a great job of stopping to notice and take them in lately, so I think it's time to change that.

Tell me, what little things have made your life beautiful lately?

Life Currently // March 2016

The last few days and weeks have been filled with a lot of...


watching the men's tennis matches from the Miami Open

wishing I was on a tennis court with a racquet in hand

launching the website for my new health coaching practice (!!!)

finishing up a knit blouse I've been working on and off for almost 3 years now

thoroughly enjoying the arrival of spring (snow melting, geese returning, flower buds popping out of the ground)

listening to new favourite podcasts from the first episode - 100 Not Out specifically, which is so good!!

reading this life-changing book

getting back into the swing of things on Twitter

starting new seedlings for this year's garden (or actually, I should say, gardens)

trying out new recipes (like this vegan lasagna and this buckwheat banana bread) that were a raving success with everyone in my family


What has been going on in your life?

The Little Things

Now that the weather is finally warmer, I'm spending more time outside and realizing how good it feels to go at a slower pace, to enjoy more of the little things in life: the trees turning green, flowers blooming everywhere, playful birds or squirrels, and geese returning home.

This time of year, there is so much happening all around with nature coming alive again that, even in the city, I find that I can't help but "stop and smell the roses" from time to time no matter where I am or what I'm doing. It's such a welcome change from the cold days of winter when all I can think about while I'm outside is how to make my way quicker from one place to another. Sure, there are just as many things piling on my to-do list as ever but, once I've stopped for a second to notice a bunch of bright yellow daffodils, switched my attention from my phone to the chirping birds nearby or caught an intoxicatingly sweet whiff coming from a lilac tree, everything seems a bit more manageable and a little less threatening or overwhelming. It's a good reminder that I need to do this more throughout the year, and not just in the spring.

This past weekend was a long one, and it was long enough to be outside enjoying the beauty of our garden and prepping it for even more beautiful (and delicious!) things to come over the next few months; long enough to rest and recharge with my family, and yes, long enough to fill my camera with snaps of everything that caught my eye; my favourite, by far, was the blooming apple tree from our backyard.

Currently

Last week I talked at length about what my life has looked like over the last few months and about everything that has been on my mind, so I thought now would be a good time to focus on the present and look at what is going on right now.

These are a few of the things filling my days lately:

enjoying the evening sunlight until long after I get home from work (read: for another hour or so)

finally seeing bigger and bigger patches of ground as the snow is melting (read: happy dance!)

wearing slightly fewer and slightly thinner layers to go outside

jumping for joy about this short workweek followed by a full week off from my 9-to-5 job

taking short walks in the sunshine every day at lunchtime

listing new items in the yarn shop: thinner yarns perfect for spring and summer in all sorts of pretty neutrals

joining this year's session of B-School and loving it

Skyping every week with some wonderful ladies who are keeping me accountable and helping me move through any challenges that come up

using every free moment (ha!) to write and write some more so I can get myself out of this terrible block I've been in

eating chia pudding almost every day and craving it on all the other days

chasing a particularly playful kitty around the house

I'd love to know, what's going on in your world? Let me know in the comments!


PS: This post was inspired by similar ones I've seen - and loved! - on Elise's blog

Homegrown Flowers // Spring & Early Summer 2014

Until three years ago, I was a city girl raised in apartments for as long as I knew. Three years ago, I became a city girl raised in apartments who would start calling a house in the suburbs home. Needless to say, it's been a complete change of scenery, and the adjustment process for me hasn't been quite as smooth as I had hoped for. Sure, some of it has to do with more than just the location and type of house I live in now, but so far I have not - and I'm not sure I ever will - turned into a suburb-loving girl.

I have to admit though, that like everything else in life, the challenging parts of living in the suburbs come along with a few good ones too; one of them, that I've been enjoying every year since I moved here with my family, is the fact that we get to adorn our house, inside AND outside with as many green and flowering plants as our hearts desire. After long Canadian winters, it's honestly been one of the most enjoyable parts of living in this house. Each year, we've added a little more colour and variety to our garden and there's so much pride we get in seeing everything bloom and thrive for the entire warm season.

Downtown Blooms

Another one of my favourite things about spring are the flowers that pop out all over the place: on the ground, in the trees, and even in beautifully arranged pots. They're everywhere and, after the many grey days of winter, they make for the most wonderful burst of colour (aka happiness and energy!) that I could ask for.

I don't generally spend much time in the downtown area during this time of the year, but now that I'm there most days, over the last couple of weeks I got to pass by the most beautiful trees filled with pale pink blooms each morning. The first time I saw them was such a sweet surprise since I had no idea there were even any blooming trees around, and still now when there are only a few blooms left here and there between green branches, I'm just as happily surprised when I get a peek at them.

Oodles of Gaggles

One of my favourite things about spring - besides, you know, everything (and especially the fact that winter is over) - is seeing the Canadian geese return home. I've noticed over the years that geese are quite the smart animals and they know exactly when to come home: they don't get fooled by those teasingly warm days at the end of winter that are always followed by yet another bitter cold spell before the real warmth arrives. So, seeing them, I know for sure that winter finally loosened its tight grip and won't return for many months.

This spring I had quite a special experience one morning when, on my way to work, I got to see - no kidding! - hundreds, maybe thousands, of geese returning home. Every way I looked, I could see more and more of them approaching from the distance. Though every year, I look up at the sky to spot the odd gaggle flying above my head, never in my entire life have I seen them in such great numbers. Sadly, being in a rolling car and with no camera on me, I didn't get to capture those special moments, but they are deeply imprinted in my memory and I hope that they will stay there forever, because it was truly an unbelievable sight to see.

I took this picture a few days later of one of the last gaggles I saw this year, and I know it will serve as a wonderful reminder of that experience.

May Sunshine

The sun is finally out shining more often than not and it's truly soul soothing. It's a good lesson to remember too, especially right now, that dark clouds (of all kinds) will always pass and let the sun shine brightly - and victoriously.

Breathing & Reflecting

Image via Death to the Stock Photo

I really like the monthly "... : currently" series that Elise writes on her blog and I've seen similar ones pop up on several other blogs too, so I wanted to try it out for myself. I titled my version 'breahing & reflecting' because in order to write it I literally had to stop, take a deep breath and reflect on my life at the moment. This is something that both my body and my mind are in dire need of right now - and something that I don't do nearly enough - and, I think, it is also the reason why I like this type of post so much.

Here it goes. These days I am...


feeling frustrated with the hectic schedule of my days

anticipating lots of spring flowers in our front yard (just like last year and the year before). Their green leaves are already a good few inches tall.

enjoying Pinterest a lot and spending considerable amounts of time on there

rediscovering one of my long-time favourite blogs, Jen Loves Kev; it's the kind of rediscovery that makes me fall in love with this crazy awesome world of blogging all over again

catching up on my IIN lessons and getting ready for the first test

noticing that it is almost light out at 5:30am when I wake up (don't even get me started! - see first point)

trying hard to put more time and energy into this space; I miss it so

commuting by subway again and not minding it at all

seeing gaggles (yup, I've looked it up and this is exactly what they're called :) I love it! ) of geese returning home

Happy Easter, Healthy Easter

For the second year in a row, this Easter we painted our eggs with all-natural plant-based colours. This simply means that we used plants and other kitchen ingredients in either boiling or very hot water, mixed with some vinegar and/or salt, instead of the traditional chemical-filled dyes.

Even though this is our second go at it, we are still very much in the experimenting phase. The process isn't nearly as simple and reliable as those Internet articles that we've been reading make it seem. There were times when we were seriously worried that we would be left with completely colourless eggs and frantically added similar coloured items into the mix in the hopes of getting even a hint of colour, and we have yet to find the right ingredient for a true red, but in the end it is so much fun to see the results.

This year we ended up with four colours: yellow from turmeric and yellow onion peels (by far the most reliable ingredients and the most intense colour), blue from purple cabbage, green from a mix of wheatgrass and liquid chlorophyll, and purple - that was actually meant to be red - from a combination of cranberries and sour cherries. I couldn't even believe how pretty they turned out. I honestly like them so much more than the colours we get from the chemical dyes. I find that the colours are - unsurprisingly! - so much more natural, and I like the little details like the lack in uniformity of the colour and the generally lighter, more pastel shades.

Now I can't wait to try out new colours and I'm thinking we should conduct a few egg painting experiments throughout the year to avoid those Easter Eve nerves of potentially colourless eggs.

Photo Memories: Green

By now, even the fall foliage is long gone. A few weeks ago already, we were left with bare trees and that grey shade that will stay until sometime in April, if we're lucky. It's no secret that I love the warm seasons much more, so the arrival of these temperatures that hover just above or below the zero mark is a crude awakening that there is no going back, and that winter is just about to get settled in our corner of the world for many long months. In fact, last week we had one of the first dustings of snow around here.

What makes this particular cold season even more bitter than the ones before is that this year we were barely greeted by the sweltering hot summer temperatures that I was waiting so anxiously for, before they were gone without a trace. Even fall went by in a blink; I could swear that the leaves took no longer than two weeks to turn from green to the rich yellows and reds, and then to be all fallen from their branches. I actually missed taking pictures of them altogether, when I skipped the occasion one weekend and by the next they were all on the ground.

Needless to say that the cold has kept a firm hold of our parts in the past many months, but the little time that we had to delight in those warm temperatures and lively green shades of spring and summer was glorious. So before I prepare myself for what's to come, I want to look back at that beautiful colour that we won't see much of for a long while.

Old Friends

Something that I think doesn't translate very well in pictures is height. So, probably many people don't know that I'm only 5'2'' tall. To be honest, I never had a problem with being so small - having really small feet that are practically impossible to fit from a regular store at the mall, that's an entirely different story - in fact, I've quite enjoyed it. One perk of my short height is that I've stopped growing out of my clothes a very long time ago, which means that even at only 24 years old, I have pieces in my closet that date back sometimes more than a decade.

Some good examples are the pieces in this outfit, which are all around that age. The pink shirt was knit by my mom for me, the sleeveless button-down layered underneath was a birthday present one year - though it is so old that I don't even remember exactly which year - and the Jordache jeans were a gift from my older cousin back when we were living continents apart (sometime around 1997, I think...), that I have kept for a few years hoping I would grow into them, only to have my mom shorten and tighten them once I realized that wouldn't happen - which was still quite a few years ago.

One of the reasons why I have kept these - and many other - clothes for so long is that I get attached to them. I don't shop very often and when I do, I try to make sure I buy something that I really love, and often that love doesn't go away, even many years later. In fact, I've never even thought of the idea of regularly combing through my closet and giving away things, the way I've learned most girls do; that is something that I've only heard of once I started reading blogs. With a few exceptions, my approach to my clothes is, once I really get tired of a piece or don't like the fit of it anymore, I get it altered so that it gets a new life. This is what I've done over the years and what I'd like to keep doing going forward, especially since I have become so passionate about green living and, consequently, having a green wardrobe.