Archive for the ‘Bike’ Category

Spitty

Monday, November 30th, 2009

Have you ever tried to do something, hoping you can pull it off and make it look natural, but it doesn’t end up going as planned?

I was heading out on a run and I could feel a fuzzy thing in my mouth.  I will spit it out on the grass beside me and look all business, shooting spit as I gear up to go.

The plan backfired.

I spit all over my leg. 

That never looks cool, and sure doesn’t look natural.

Note to self: don’t try to be a spitter when you’re not.

I Eat

One thing I can do is make oats that fill up a tummy.

Check out my new Christmas bowl!  My mom sent this to me for my birthday.  Who knew La Senza has moved into the dish market?

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Toppings on this oat bran were all over the place: t-mix + bluebs + raspberries + peanut butter.

Not to be out done, the next day’s oat bran took toppings to a whole new level.

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Pom seeds + pumpkin seeds + bluebs + cacao nibs + peanut butter.

It would appear that the butter trumped all other oat toppers.

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That’s a big blob.

And Saturday’s oats, double the fun.  A friend came over for brekkie so I doubled the usual ingredients for oats: 1 c. oats + 1 c. almond milk + 1 c. water + 1 whole nan.

Friend’s bowl:

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My lame bowl:

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Today’s bowl of oats was in the American Thanksgiving spirit.  Lots of the American food blogs have been loaded with pictures of delicious food lately, so I decided to make an impromptu sugar-free cranberry sauce yesterday with leftover berries from an apple/cranberry/pecan crisp I brought to a friend’s last night for dinner.  Well, the crisp wasn’t dinner.

But imagine if that was an appropriate main course!  Half the world’s problems would be solved if we all ate apple crisp as an entree on a regular basis.

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Simple toppings, just cranberry sauce + slivered almonds + peanut butter.

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How to make a small amount of the sauce?

  • Boil 1/2 c. water + 1/3 c. Splenda until it’s bubbling.
  • Add about 1/2 a small package fresh cranberries and let the mixture come back to a boil.
  • Reduce heat, and let it simmer for about 10 minutes.
  • Take it off the heat, let it cool, and store it in the fridge.

Only one lunch to post – other lunches have been at work and today I was at East Side Mario’s for an impromptu lunch with some church peeps, and found myself cameraless.  How exciting is a chunk of chicken to look at, anyway?

Yesterday’s lunch needed some rah-rah.  I found that excitement in an ancient butternut squash in our potato drawer.  Really, I can’t even remember when I bought the thing, and I like to think my memory is decent.

So that’s scary. 

I roasted it with some extra virgin olive oil + cinnamon and thought it tasted A-okay.  I still have all ten fingers.

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On top of some spinach + green onions and sprinkled with pom seeds + balsamic vinegar and a bit of S n’ P

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And a side of GF toast + laughing cow fromage.

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Suppers?  Mostly MIA.

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Salmon salad + GF bread + baby spinach + tom slices.

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And green beans because they were seeing their final days.

One another dinner was a pathetic Sandwich Supper with yellow-tinged photographs.

Yellow-tinged photographs look like they should smell weird.  Do you know what I mean?  They’ve been vetoed.

Last night’s dinner was a great meal at a friend’s place.  In addition to delicious gluten-free food, the company was entertaining and I might have had too much fun. :) Getting up early this morning was painful.  Good thing I could hear the oats calling from the kitchen.

Now, here’s a sample of the highlight from the last few days:

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A friend baked me sugar-free, GF brownies and they.  are.  divine.

Umm, they were divine.  I ploughed through half a large pan in two days.  Am I embarrassed?  No, because if you tasted them and hadn’t eaten a brownie in over a year, I’m sure you would have done that too!  Unless you have self control, which I clearly don’t have, but that’s for another post.  So, so delish.

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It makes me sad to look at those pictures and know they are gone.  The good news?  My friend had brownie mix left over so I not only got plenty of brownies, I have the mix to make more!

Dangerous.

I Move

Thursday – off to see Jim after work.  I did 10 minutes on the bike to warm up and then headed to the free weights for an unenergetic twenty minutes.  What a lazy workout!  I was annoyed with myself for not putting in any effort.  So, I walked home from the gym.  It was a mild night, so nice for November, and I had my home church that evening.  Solution to a sad workout?  Make up for it later!  After walking back from the gym and eating a quick supper, I pumped up my tires and biked the few kilometres to and from home church.  It felt awesome and even though it started raining on my way back, I think I was smiling the whole way … I’ve been missing my bike!  Exercise intention fulfilled.

Friday – a good run on the treadie.  Heading to the gym right after work on Fridays can be tough, but it’s always a choice I’m glad I made.  It gets the weekend started right!

Saturday – I jogged a short 2 km to the office gym (I think I need to go back to see my other Jim for a change…) and did some core + chest weight training.  It was focused and logical movement – and left me hurting the next morning, in a good way.  I jogged back home

Sunday – I hadn’t planned on doing anything today because I am tired.  All of a sudden, I just felt like going outside and doing a short run.  Why?  I don’t know, I don’t question these things, I just go with it.  I had a snacky, munchy afternoon and it’s easy for me to reign that in if I go work out.  Also cool?  It was my first evening run in a really long time and I got to see Christmas lights in the neighbourhood.  It was nice.

I was also chased by a dog the size of my foot named Champagne.  He (she?) tried to bite my ankles and I almost clomped on its little paws.  Its owners were chasing her down the road.  Oh Champagne, bad little puppy.

Time to find something to eat for supper… maybe I’ll just have something snacky…

Have a great week!
Adi

Oatonomy’s Getting Zesty-ed

Monday, November 9th, 2009

Before Friday, the coolest thing I had ever won was a keychain flashlight.  The coolest thing I’ve ever won also happens to be the saddest draw prize of all time.  Really, what am I going to do with that?

But it was free, and I won it after all, and I never win anything.  Ever.  If ninety-nine pieces of paper with my name on it were thrown into a bowl, and one piece of paper that said “Adi never wins anything” was also thrown in, guess which one would be picked?  Statistics would say there was a 99% chance my name would be drawn.

Statistics aren’t reality though, and I guarantee the “Adi never wins anything” would be drawn instead.

So imagine my sheer delight, my endless excitement, the annoying squealing that came about when I saw that I won Zesty’s blog make over contest!  I think I almost know what dying of happiness would feel like, because that’s what nearly happened.

A billion big thanks to Zesty – and after he works his bloggy magic, I hope you’ll come back and see what he’s done to Oatonomy.  I’m sure he’ll do a fantastic job.

I Eat

Lately, eating seems to be all I’ve been doing.  It’s time for me to pull in the reigns.  I’ll show you some oatmeal pictures anyways…

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Too bad all the full bowl shots are blurry.  Argh.

The other thing I’ve been doing, besides eating, is stopping nose bleeds.  Nose bleeds are never in fashion, friends, especially when you’re at work.  That’s no way to impress the boss – but it’s a sure fire way to creep him out.  I’m trying to keep the bleeding from the nose to a minimum at the office.  Today is the first day post-pig flu I haven’t had one – and here’s to hoping it stays that way.  Ick.

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Ah yes, oats in the almond butter jar.  Is there anything more divine?  If the stars collide, pigs fly and money starts growing on a tree in the backyard – all in the same day – and I end up getting married, I think an oatmeal buffet served in old nut butter jars is a must at a reception.  A wedding for the books!  (Okay, maybe people wouldn’t be saying positive things about it, but they’d remember it…)

One of the best things about a weekend is weekend lunches.  Lunches that aren’t eaten out of Tupperware containers, not at a desk, and not partially heated through from a rotten office microwave, are a good thing.

This was a seriously good turkey + lettuce + tom + red onion + Miracle Whip sandwich and an apple, to keep the doctor away.  I don’t really want to go see her again.

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I’ve been eating lots of these GF banana-blueberry muffins lately.  By “lots” I mean about fifteen pounds worth of them.

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I’m on my way to becoming Veronica Salt from Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.  I’ll turn into a blueberry and just roll around the rest of my life.  I think she was pretty happy when she met her demise though, so it wouldn’t be all that bad.  Right?

Today’s lunch was good too…

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Some eggers on some bread.  Didn’t say it was exciting!  I ate muchos watermelon after this.  It’s a balmy 16 degrees here today and I wanted to pretend it’s summer.

Ooo, almost forgot this morning’s breakfast.  I ate this pink sludge at the tech booth at church.  It was overnight oats made with 1/2 c. oats + 1/2 c. plain yogurt + 1/2 c. pomegranate applesauce + cinnamon + honey + pecans.

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It hung out in the fridge last night and made for a tasty breakfast while I pretended like I knew what I was doing with an audio mixing board.  Unfortunately, I fooled no one.

In a couple of weeks, the teaching pastor is going to be speaking about – gasp! – blogs.  Well, blogging and Facebook and twitter and all those fun things.  It’s part of a series called “Get Over Yourself” – ha!  Maybe if he loved oatmeal he would understand the need to blog about it…

Suppers have been excellent – because I didn’t make them!  A friend dropped by some yummy soups that I’ve been loving.  The first was a chicken ginger soup that I ate with some raw veggies + hummus + awful “biscuit”.

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The other soup was a ham + leek + broccs soup that I had with toast.

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Definitely loved them both!  Know what I also love?  Sushi.  I ate some serious raw fish + rice with my roommates tonight.  It’s been too long, my sushi, too long.  Did I eat too much?  Yes.  Did we end up hiding sushi in our purses to avoid paying their eyes-are-bigger-than-your-tummy fee?  Absolutely.  Does my bag smell like wasabi?  No comment.

I Move

Not exercising makes me feel yucky.  I’ve been itching to get back into a workout routine since I’ve been sick.

Friday – back to the gym for some ellipticalling + bit of lower body weights.  Oh, Jim, I missed you so.

Saturday – laced up the runners and did a breezy 5k in the neighbourhood.  I ran through a park that has been overtaken by Canada geese.  No, I didn’t see any geese, but they left evidence behind.  I had to dodge their poop all over the running path.  I felt like I was doing tire conditioning, not running.  Other than that, a pretty uneventful run.

Sunday – time to enjoy the spring-ish weather!  I did a 9.5k run along the canal.  One thing I love about Ottawa is how active the city is.  There were lots of people out running and biking, all ages, some alone and some with families or friends.  I saw one guy doing the cross country “skiing” on skate shoes, too.  It’s easy to get out there and get going in this city and I don’t take that for granted.

And because I wanted to feel like I was 8 years old and my bike allows that to happen every time I ride it, I biked to the grocery store.  It takes me three minutes, so it’s not exactly taxing, but it was fun.  J’adore ma bicyclette!

Is it really Monday tomorrow?  Feels like I have lots to tackle at work, so maybe the day will go by quickly…

Hope all is well at your corner of the globe!

Adi

Stretch A Turkey

Friday, October 16th, 2009

Wouldn’t it be great if Thanksgiving was every single day for the rest of time?  I think it would be.  In honour of that, I ate lots of leftover turkey.  It’s gone now… but it was delish while it was around.

It didn’t make any oat appearances, though.

I Eat

Another bowl of Thanksgiving oats 1/2 c. oat bran + 1 c. water + 1/2 c. almond milk + 1/2 c. pumpkin + pumpkin pie spice + honey + cranberry sauce + chewy granola crumbles + almond butter.

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Another bowl of pumpkin oats this morning, but with raspberries and the largest blob of almond butter I could scoop.

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… in my new Crate & Barrel bowl + spoon.  Yippee!

I don’t photograph my lunches anymore, but I had a pretty Thanksgiving salad (if you put turkey in something, you can call it “Thanksgiving _____.”  Just because.).

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… yes, raspberries were on sale.

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No turkey in this supper, sadly. 

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Mom’s spaghetti sauce + rice noodles + broccoli.

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And tonight, Thanksgiving stir fry.

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Buried brown rice + zucchini + yellow pepper + broccoli + mushrooms + onion + carrot + turkey + garlic salt + soy sauce + ginger + garlic + lemon juice.

And leftovers for lunch. 

I Move

Yesterday, it was back to hot yoga.  I hadn’t been in two weeks and really didn’t have much energy, so I couldn’t hold my poses for as long or go into them as far, but today I woke up feeling sore.  Guess I worked out some muscles!

I had packed my gym bag to go right after work.  I stepped outside, saw how beautiful it was outside, and knew the last place I wanted to be was the dark basement gym.  So instead, I walked home from work and then biked to and from home church.  My heart was a pumpin’!  It felt great to breathe in cold air and bike fast.  Way better than the gym.

And tomorrow is Friday!  I have a great weekend coming up – hope you do too!

Adi

Back On The Date-ing Scene

Monday, October 5th, 2009

There’s a reason I haven’t been eating dates – I haven’t bought any.  There’s a reason I haven’t bought any – I can’t stop eating them when they’re in the house.  Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.

I had a moment of weakness last week and bought a giant bag of gems.  For every letter “e” in this post, that’s about the number of dates I’ve eaten since I bought them.

And just to make sure…

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Hm, that’s the same sound I make when I eat a handful.

I Eat

Even though it seems like I’ve been doing a lot of date-ing, I’ve managed to squeeze some other food into the tummy lately.  Oats, indeed.

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Purple people eater oats.  Remember that?

This was 1/2 c. oat bran + container of blueberry applesauce + cinnamon + 1/2 c. almond milk + 1 c. water + trail mix + peanut butter. 

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Yummers.

And some more oats…

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The banana oats were back!  A delish bowl of 1/2 c. oats + 1/2 nan + 1/2 c. almond milk + 1/2 c. water + cinnamon + huge blob peanut butter + granola.

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My nut butter scoops seem to be getting larger.  At this rate, I’ll be eating nut butter off a soup ladle in a month.

More oats.

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This was a lazy Saturday morning bowl.  It was the usual nan base, but toppings were almond butter + slivered almonds + dates + dried apricot.

Today was a breakfast-on-the-run day.  If I’m volunteering on Sundays, I need to leave the house at 7 (public transit on Sunday mornings is pathetic) and I don’t have time to squeeze in a big bowl of oatmeal before I leave… because sleep is also precious. :) Overnight oats are perfect for those mornings!

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The night before, I mixed 1/2 c. oats + 1/2 c. plain fat-free yogurt + cinnamon + honey.  In the morning, I stirred in about 1/3 c. almond milk and added 1/2 chopped pear + trail mix.  I devoured this  while sitting at the tech booth – my nerdy AV side is back!  That stuff was the best part of broadcast journalism and I admit, I actually enjoy that stuff. 

Packed lunches have been ridiculously boring.  Trust me, you’ll be glad I didn’t take pictures.  Lunches have been so dull lately they’re verging on offensive.

Worth noting is today’s lunch – another weekend saves the day!  I met a friend for sushi at a different restaurant: Takura.

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How colourful!  At the top of the photo, veggie tempura and a rainbow roll.  I got a tuna roll + salmon roll + shrimp tempura roll.

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Miso soup got the party started.  So did this fantastic chopstick holder:

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It was definitely a tasty Saturday lunch.

My tasty Sunday lunch went unphotographed – just picture a tom + Laughing Cow sandwich + pickles + bean salad.  But have no fear, the lovely dessert plate was crying out for a picture.

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That’s a gluten free apple muffin + dried apricot + dates + lemon essence prune (all the way from New York!  These things are ridiculously, insanely good.) + no bake, gluten free chocolate chip cookie.

The cookie recipe is from a summer issue of Clean Eating but it’s not on their website.  Because I’m scared of having the pants sued off me for posting copyrighted material on the blog, all you really need to know is what went into the cookies: oats + dates + raisins + honey + cinnamon + salt + cacao nibs.

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Chop the stuff up in a food processor, fold in a bunch of nibs and voila!  Cookies!  Are they good?  Umm, they’re okay.  They’ll grow on me.  (Just wait, soon you’ll be hearing me complain about eating too many of them.  This is a given.)

Suppers?  A bit better than my work lunches.  But not much.

This was my I-have-10-minutes-before-I-need-to-run-out-the-door supper.

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Leek + potato soup and an egg sandwich on gf flax bread.

Despite the oesophagus-scalding (note to self: don’t eat boiling hot soup immediately after it comes off the stove), this was good!  Not exciting, but my tummy agreed with it.

Friday night was an experiment. 

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I threw frozen “Asian veggie mix” in a pan with ginger.  In a little dish I combined soy sauce + red wine vinegar + lemon juice + cornstarch and threw it in the veggie pan.  It thickened up right away and made a decent sauce.  Served on top of rice noodles and called it dinner.

Pretty easy stuff.

Saturday night’s supper went unphotographed.  Why?  Battery died!  I have leftovers though, so my roasted veggies + chicken mishmash will make a late appearance.  Who knows what dessert was.

Sunday’s supper was year-old, freezer burned quinoa lentil stew + margarinized bread.  It’s so old, I have no clue where the recipe came from.

And yet, still edible!  I was also really hungry and would have eaten the table by this point, so maybe that’s why it was good.

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Lentils were getting artsy with their photo.

Ready for the close up:

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And more dessert…

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Blueberry applesauce + 1/2 pear + granola.  Good stuff.

I Move

Thursday – nada.  I was too busy scarfing down an egg sandwich and running after the bus.  Literally, running after the bus.  Maybe that counts?  It was a hard sprint.  (And no, I didn’t make it.)

Friday – most pathetic run of all time.  It was a painfully, dreadfully slow 6.5 km route.  I kept switching between running and walking but wasn’t feeling either.  I went right after work – not ideal for this girl – but I’m giving myself a pat on the back for dragging myself out there. 

Saturday – awesome workout.  I biked to the gym, did a quick 15 minutes on the elliptical to get my heart rate up before I did some shoulders + triceps + abs with the free weights.  I biked back and felt great.

Sunday – lazy workout.  After an hour long nap, seeing rain outside didn’t inspire me to suit up and go to the gym.  Instead, I did about half an hour of free weights at home.  I’m telling ya, invest in a pair or two of light dumbbells and you’ll find all kinds of exercises you can do with them.  I did some quick upper back exercises and then some abs on my yoga mat, followed by easy leg lifts and hamstring curls.  All while watching a documentary about the demise of the automotive parts company, Ed Shaw, and the union battles. 

And now, the channel is back over to the Slice network.  It’s important to balance docs with flighty reality television. ;)

20-Day Total Health Challenge

Hard to believe the challenge is more than half over!  I guess I should step up my game these last eight days.  A recap of my ups and downs will be posted once it’s finished.

… so another weekend ends.  But guess what the next one is?  Thanksgiving!  Yep, we Canadians celebrate a bit early.  That means turkey gets here faster.

Looking forward to gobbling some of the gobbler bird.  Turkey is the sole reason I could never be a vegetarian.  Is there anything more awesome than getting a case of the turkey sweats?  I think not.

Adi

Pumpkinified

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

Pumpkin season is here!  At least, in my oat bowl it is. 

I Eat

Another cool morning meant it was time for pumpkin oats. 

I think this was 1/2 c. oats + 1/2 c. almond milk + 1/2 c. pumpkin.  Topped with good stuff.

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Starbucks has its pumpkin spice latte out, so why oh why oh why won’t Tim Hortons bring out the pumpkin spice tea?!  I love that stuff.  The suspense is too much! 

Lunch out with the co-workers today was decent.  We went to a little Vietnamese joint called Springroll House.  It was good, but the stomach ache I had afterward was not. 

Happier news – I had some sweet, sweet corn for supper.  Literally.  So sweet.  I cooked a cob in the microwave for the first time – it worked awesome!  Two and a half minutes did the trick.

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Some random egg slop with veggies + spinach and some gf cinnamon toast.

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And I love grapes.

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I think I’ve eaten my weight in produce the last two days.   Feels good.

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Where did those dates come from?!  Who put those there?!

I Move

I’ve had to pass on the before-work-work-outs now that the sun doesn’t get up until later.  I’m not crazy enough to bike to the gym by myself in the dark in the morning.  My mom would be mad if I did that. ;)

I ran errands (errr biked errands?) after work by bike.  It was under an hour of biking but part of the route was with my zillion pound backpack, uphill.  After yesterday’s lower body workout, the biking was a bit of a challenge.  But errands and exercise at the same time – two birds with one stone!

Things are good right now… with my summer vacation behind me, I’m ready for the fall.  Work is going well and it feels great to be back into a routine. 

Just bring out the pumpkin spice tea, Tim Hortons!

Adi