The Wild Things, Homemade Pizza, Soccer win and Wii Active

Hello blogging world,

The weekend was relaxing and fun altogether. On saturday I invited friends over and we made ourselves a pizza dinner, not store bought, homemade. It tastes much better. We made my variation of a recipe I found online for Onion Olive pizza.

I usually had peppers, mushrooms and chicken as it does not have much toppings and switch the feta cheese for regular cheddar. St-Albert, the best, if you cannot get P'tit Quebec that is. ;)

Than we went to see "Where the Wild Things Are". I had seen previews for it and knew I had to see it. No regrets. It is the story of a boy, who can be quite a handful, acts up and gets punished a lot and also misunderstood I would say. He uses his imagination to invent himself a world, with different creatures who have quite distinct characters similar to some of the people he has encountered in his life, and that he can quite relate to. Instead of eating him they make him their king.

I loved it and can relate to the story because I did just the same as a kid, use my imagination to invent myself new worlds. Making up various stories and getting lost in my imagination.

On another note, tonight I had a soccer game at 9pm. Quite late for a game, I was already a little tired to begin with. I don't think I was in my best shape, but nonetheless we won 8-4 if I am not mistaking. And I also got to play up a little, defense and offense. I have to say: "It's a whole lot of running". But I still like it more exercise, we just sub more that is all.

I did go back to goalie, it gave me time to catch my breath. I think I may have little remnants of a cold because I was more exhausted than usual after running.

After the game I went to drop off catherine and we got stuck for a while waiting behind three fire truck as a fire alarm obviously went off downtown. No flames or smoke though, must have been either a false alarm or someone tried to make toasts and burnt them.

So, when I came home I did some Wii Active. I know it is a little crazy especially after playing soccer, but I started the 30-day challenge and this time I HAVE to keep up with it every day. Tomorrow is a rest day though so will relax.

I just took two tylenols to make sure I do get rid of any cold symptoms and am currently sipping echinecea tea.

And now, I am going to bed. I need the rest.

Hopefully I will see you tomorrow.

Soccer, drawing class, the sorceress and catching fire

Well, it has been a while since I have written anything on here. I know I am bad, I cannot keep a daily blog. ;)

The only free nights I have during the week are thursdays and fridays, which will change around mid-october since I will have a photography class on thursdays. I know I might be nuts but I love to keep myself busy rather than work, go home and sit in front of the computer or tv.

On monday my soccer team won 18-2. I am goalie, ME, a girl who always has been afraid of the ball. I really didn't want to let any goals in though winning 18-0 would have been good. I might ask if sometimes I can play defense or offense sometimes though, I want to trya nd run a lot more and learn to play other positions.

I received the ball on my nose, from my own teammate of all people. By accident of course, I did not expert it. I am not certain to be human though since most people would have been bleeding, I did not. I don't think I have blood in my veins. lol

Yesterday was the drawing class I signed up for. I know what you will think, but you already can draw. True indeed but this class is different it teaches to draw from the right side of the brain, forget what you know and draw what you see, which sometimes I have trouble with especially when trying to draw hands. I can draw fantasy things because I can make them look any way I want, using my imagination, but when it comes to drawing something real I have always had some issues.

The class is quite interesting, it forces us to see the object as shapes, a bunch of shapes put together to create the said object. And it works! According to the teacher, anyone can draw and she tells us don't call it a hand, or eye or whatever the object is. Call it a shape.

Taking a drawing class also has gotten my creativity flowing once again, it has given me an idea for a painting, all I need to to find the time to paint. That is a whole other story.

Tonight I have volleyball. I quite loved the first game last week. The people are nice, and even though they are better than me and have been playing longer, they do not make me feel like I am not good. I still feel part of the team and allowed to try and if I miss it is ok. They gave me some good tips as well to improve. And I actually smashed the ball for the first time ever.

I am pretty good at serving I might say. Better even then the other time I played with the Alicats. I used to hit the ball over the net once and had trouble repeating that good move a second time, last week I was on fire! lol

I bought a wrist protector. It is just basically a cushioned wrist band that people can wear when they play sports, but I am hoping it will give me a little bit of protection until I learn to hit the ball properly. It is always the left wrist, the ball always ends up right on the bone on the side and it hurts. So I thought I would do something to protect my wrist.

I finished "the Sorceress". The third book of the serie by Michael Scott. One word comes to mind: AMAZING!

The story has everything, fantasy, based on historical landmarks and characters, adventure, magick, 21st century technology, etc. I love reading a novel and clearly seeing that the author spent a lot of time to do research and add some historical facts into his story.

I will review the book on my nerdfighter bookclub blog since this blog is just for quick updates on what I am doing or what excites me.

I just wanted to mention how amazing this book was. And that I suggest this serie to anyone who loves reading about magick, adventures, shadow realms, mixed with historical facts and characters and set in a 21st century environment.

And if you loved the Harry Potter serie, I do not doubt that you would get into this story as well. I am super excited to know that there is a fourth book being written. It is called the Necromancer. I can't wait.

In the meantime I have a lot of other great books to reads. I started Cathing Fire, the sequel to the Hunger Games. This two is an amazing storya nd the second novel is even better than the first. I have already read part one of this book. It is safe to say that I am devouring it, figuratively speakign of course. The story is quite different from Michael Scott novels but just as great. I highly recommend them.

I just picked up Dan's Brown new novel as well which came out mid September I believe. It is called The Lost Symbol. Ever since Angels and Demons and The DaVinci Code I have been a fan of Dan Brown's novels. Well written, captivating to the end, for the first two uncovering some hidden truths about christianity and the church. The lost symbols has a picture of the white house on the cover, I am hoping it will have some truths and mystery abotu what goes on in the united states.

The book ended up costing me 14 cents. hehe. It was not really 14 cents, it is just that I had this chapters' gift card and the amount left on it since I bought catching fire with it, covered the price of the book minus 14 cents.

I can't wait to start reading it. I have way too many books to read and not enough hours in a day.
Ok well, that is about it for now.

I will see you later. I will not say tomorrow since I am not sure if I can stick to blogging every day.

The Hunger Games and jogwalking

I am currently reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I had never heard of this author before but this would not stop me from picking up her book and quite enjoying it I must say. I like discovering new authors and I can say from what I read so far, I am two chapters away from the third part of the novel, it is very well-written.

The story depicts a US of the future where twelve district are controlled by reality TV. The Hunger Games feature glamorous opening ceremonies, sponsorships, personal interviews and end in a fight to the death.

Normally district 12 tributes do not receive much attention but this time it all changed when Katniss volunteers to take the place of her little sister Prim in the games and Peeta declares his loves for her during the interviews, possibly as part of his strategy is what Katniss concludes but as the games progress she questions her conclusions especially when he saves her life and by default betrays the career tributes with whom he made an alliance.

This book kind of reminds me of the show survivors minus the fight to the death part of course. I cannot say I watched survivor much, I started during the very first season but later on got bored of it. I am not one for reality TV. In fact I always say if you want reality, just get out of your house and you will see reality.

I personally believe that TV producers or writers have gotten quite lazy with all the reality TV shows out there. I gather the shows write themselves, no need to actually sit down and think up an original story. That is why my TV has been off for at least a year, save the occasional Family Guy or Simpsons episodes once in a while.

I must say, I have not missed TV that much, except perhaps for House, MD. The show is on mondays and usually I have soccer then therefore I cannot watch it. It's quite allright, I could just get the DVDs and watch all the episodes I missed. Quite frankly it will be better because there is no commercials.

I recently decided to try something new. Jogging. I should probably call it jogwalking in my case because, as I found out two days ago, I do not have much leg endurance. So I jog for a while and alternate with walking. It works and I like it.

I have a newly found respect and admiration for the people who do the 5k or 10k in Ottawa. Running is hard. Okay perhaps I am a whimp or just not in such a great shape. I am all set to keep this up though and am hoping it will give me more running endurance for soccer. I find, when I am not in the goal, I run a little and get tired way to quickly.

On that note, if you are looking for a great book which will keep you reading until the end for the summer vacations or just for relaxing after a long day at work, just go to your local boo store and pick up a copy of The Hunger Games.

DFTBA
(Don't Forget to be awesome)

See you later.

BEDA 27: Last soccer game and 33 celcius weather

Hello fellow bloggers

I know I am bad I haven't posted all weekend. It is hard to do BEDA and stay inside when the weather is beautiful. Saturday was gorgeous, I went back to a little park I used to go to rollerblade and read sitting under a tree. Had a picnic and played some frizbee with my boyfriend.

Until rain tarted to fall on us and we had to go. It is a funny thing because that has always happened in that area and when i drove back downtown, the park is in the west end, The rain stopped and it was beautiful again. There is something about this park clouds seem to form only over it for some reason.

Saw these guys, high school I am guessing, doing stunts on skateboards. Jumping on the rail and everything. One kept getting hurt and going back, isn't that stupid, I mean I don't believe I would try again if I got hurt, to be honest that is not something I would even thing of doing to begin with, but I suppose guys like to show off like that. ;)

Moving on...

Tonight was our last soccer game and ... we lost. :( I think I need to practice goalie more, I foudn this video on youtube showing how to properly stop the ball and I think I will try and practice this a lot more, I know what I am doing wrong, the ball always ends up going between my legs because I don't have the proper way to be a soccer goalie. Hey, it is my first time playing.

I never thought I would actually enjoy sports. I have never been one for sports before. Still afraid of the ball but I think I am getting better with that as well.

I had some good saves still despite the fact that we lost.

I will still play for spring soccer but this time it will be outside. Surely it will be different then benchball soccer (indoor). Looking forward to it. Might play some volleyball in the summer with the people from the team I played with in the fall, one guy said he was thinking of getting a net and setting it up at a beach and invite anyone who wanted to play. I think I would like that.

Today was 33 degrees (celcius). Sorry for anyone who are used to farenheit, I do not know what it is in farenheit. All I can tell you it was scorching hot. For april that is a record I think, for Ottawa that is. I so wished I was at the beach yesterday, swimming and enjoying laying down reading a book. I love summer. Though it isn't summer yet technically but it sure felt like it yesterday.

I wanted to go through boxes with my summer clothes and store my winter stuff, yes living in an apartment, one has to do this to save space.

Healthy tip of the day:

At restaurants, only eat half your meal. Ask for a “to-go” box when ordering, and place half your meal in the box.

This about wraps things up for day 27 of BEDA. See you tomorrow.

BEDA 14: Speeding of metabolism and taking better care of myself

Hello everyone

Today is back to work day. It is all right, can't always be on holidays.

I have been noticing lately that I tend to gain weight a lot faster these days. Perhaps due to lack of exercise which slowed down my metabolism. So I decided to do some research on what is best to eat and how to speed up one's metabolism.

I found that one of the best way is to make sure not to skip breakfast, after all it is the most important meal of the day. Lately I have been a lot more tired which also can slow down metabolism and keep hitting the snooze on my alarm and waking up later and rushing to get to work thus failing to eat a proper breakfast that can sustain me throughout the day. Sometimes I grabbed a muffin, mind you not the worst muffin of all, it had oats and chocolate chips of course not all that healthy.

I figured that the fact I have been tired has been going to bed too late as a result of chatting on msn.

I have decided first and foremost to stop it and go to bed at a reasonable hour (9pm 9:30pm) to try and catch up on the sleep that I have missed. It is good since I wake up really early to get to work at 8am.

Hopefully this will help give me back all the lost energy.

I also decided to make sure I set aside time to eat a proper breakfast.

A sample of the food that I found, from my research, are likely to help boost the metabolism and speed it up:

Spinach, plain yogurt, berries, beans (lima, kidney beans, lentils, quinoa, etc.), eggs (they say we should apparently eat some every day), and of course a lot of vegetables, chicken, turkey.

Drinking green tea at least five times a day, I have a little trouble scheduling a fifth cup though. breakfast, lunch, dinner, evening. When else can I drink another one? :) Apparently green tea, I already knew that, is great to help burn fat consumed and also speeds up the metabolism.

They also said coffee. Yuk. Sorry that is something I just won't commit to. I hate the taste. Plus it may have the speeding up the metabolism good point but has other negative aspects that I just don't like.

Drinking a lot of water! That is something I NEED to commit to. I always start to but then I find that it is just too much water, always need to go pee. That is good to get your kidneys functioning well but man is that a lot of water, eight glasses a day. They say really cold water helps speed up the metabolism, emphasis on COLD or REALLY COLD.

I am also going to get back to my morning Yoga and possibly running (on the Wii). Of course I have a 10 minute walk every morning to the bus stop and sometimes, when weather permits, an hour walk from work to home. Now that the weather is finally nice, I plan to hop on my rollerblades and go every day after work when weather permits of course. And soccer, possibly twice a week now that the weather is looing better.

I found a lot of speed your metabolism diet but I won't follow a specific diet. THEY DO NOT WORK. Instead I am just incorporating the list of food that are said to speed one's metabolism into my regular daily food intake.

That way there is no giving up of favourite food for a certain time that only makes people want to binge later on and gain the weight twice as fast.

Knowing what you are eating and eating proper food that are sure to sustain you for the entire day without making you crave the junk, is the way to go. It is easy, just incorporating more vegetables in your diet, some spinach, plain yogurt, nuts after workouts, etc.

Something from every food group, giving you the proteins and vitamins your body needs. And also doing simple exercise that you love and that are fun rather than forcing yourself to do an exercise for the sole purpose of exercising.

I choose rollerblading, soccer and walking simply because that is what I do anyway. Or rather what I used to do a lot more. It does not feel like exercising since it is all things I quite enjoy.

I know most people reading this will say that I have nothing to lose since I am 5'1" and 107lbs as of tonight.

But the thing is I used to keep my weight easily around a 100lbs. I found I had more energy and now if I exercise I am more out of breath than I used to be. And the fact that I gain faster than I used to whenever I ate something.

I think it is time to take better care of myself and get back to my healthy weight and therefore my more energetic self.

Some of the links I found with my research, might be of interests to others as well:

http://thyroid.about.com/cs/dietweightloss/a/12ways.htm
http://daytimetalk.com/2008/03/17/seven-ways-to-boost-metabolism-today/

http://www.myfit.ca/foods_that_speed_metabolism.asp

http://www.quick-weightloss-results.com/negative-calorie-foods.html

http://www.uweightloss.com/3secrets.aspx

Current weight: 107.8lbs

That is it for today's fourteenth day of BEDA. Off to dreamland.

See you tomorrow.

BEDA 6: Haunted Apartment, Snow and Soccer

Hello everyone

Day six of Blog Every Day April.

I want to talk about three things today:

1- Haunted apartment
2- Snow
3- Soccer

Haunted apartment: A while back this weird thing happened when I was chatting on the internet with my boyfriend. Webcam was on and when I stepped away from the camera he saw this white shadowy ghostly figure. Since then not that much has happened except that this morning I woke up to the sounds of water flowing in my kitchen, well in truth I heard that only after I got out of the shower.

There is this dishwasher in my apartment, which I have never really used. I don't have that much dishes plus I can always managed to wash it by hand.

So I get out of the shower and I hear the sound of water running, at first I thought it might be someone in another apartment taking his/her shower and I heard the noise, but it seemed way too close. I decide to investigate and make my way to the kitchen, to my surprise I saw water coming out of the side of the dishwasher. And looking inside the dishwasher and it was filling itself with water. That is not the oddest part though, I looked at the knob and it was set to the OFF position.

Now I take it I don't know much about dishwashers but can a dishwasher just fill itself up? It could be that it was broken, but I do find it odd that it was filled with water when it was clearly OFF.

I emailed the landlord and they came over today and fixed it as it was fine when I got home, but I still find this bizarre.

Snow: It was snowing today. RAWR! In april, ok I know it is Canada and bound to happen but last thursday was so beautiful, warm and nice out, I cannot handle snow anymore. Spring please get here SOON.

Soccer: I started playing soccer at the beginning of this year with OSSC, Ottawa Sports and social Club, and I love it. I had a game today and we WON 11-8! Yes I am overly excited because we don't win that much but I think we played much better today and I seemed to be a better goalie.

GO BLUE DEVILS! I also designed the logo for our team shirts.

Check it out here and at the same time you can see my excitement: http://dailybooth.com/SweetyGirl/168620

I practiced in my apartment, kicking the ball and stopping it.



I definitely need to practice more. I am going to play spring soccer, this time it will be outdoors. Indoor soccer is great, the rules are quite different but being outdoor when it is beautiful and sunny, enjoying summer will be great.

Beda day 6 down... I feel accomplished.

See you tomorrow and in the meantime enjoy this:

Art tip of the day

TRACING THROUGH A WINDOW
Tracing implies the act of copying someone else's artwork or outright stealing. However, tracing can also serve as a valuable resource for artists. Perhaps you have a photo of a car that you just can't get right by simply drawing it out by sight. Well, there is nothing wrong with tracing the form of your image, then finishing it freehand to add all the details and originality. Tracing also has many other benefits, since it gives you the ability to overlay images, change an object, and locate your perspective.

Let's say you have something to trace, but you don't want to buy a trace-box. Well, here is a great idea for tracing through a window. Simply tape the image you want to trace on a window, and then tape your paper over that. The sunlight creates an instant trace-box.
- John Cleary