Lobster Shorts cooking

New Plants – Burger Salad – A Thrifted Shirt

It poured rain for most of the weekend and we spent a lot of time indoors. We went out for breakfast with friends and I wore the top I got from the thrift shop. It’s really cute and I like how it fits. I found a lot of wonderful things, I’ll post the video link below if you want to see what else I found

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaoKnr-MgJw

On the way home from breakfast, we stopped at Canadian Tire to get some things for around the house. I ended up in the plant department… of course.

The scrappy plant on the left was on clearance for $0.49. I have no idea what it is, but it looked sad and near death. I wanted to rescue it. The middle plant might be a fish bone cactus and the right I’m hoping is a goldfish plant. The two to the right were $4.99. The little pots were so tiny and would dry out too fast.

I didn’t have very many small pots, so my hoya on the right graduated to a bigger pot before it should have, but it will be happy in there. I don’t love the two pots on the left, they are nursery pots, but they’ll work for now. The mystery plant has been put in indirect sunlight, and the other three are in a sunny window.

My rock tumbler completed the second week of tumbling. The rocks are very smooth but still dull. They’re now halfway done.

The rocks are back in the tumbler with Step 3. Steps 1 and 2 were gritty, while Step 3 is more powdery. It’s back on the tumbler for another 7 days. It’s so fun to see how they change. Jay decided putting bolts in the rock tumbler isn’t a good idea. He felt the threads were getting too beat up in there, but it was fun to try.

I’m trying to eat healthier (although I ate a bagel while I wrote this) and instead of having a burger, I experimented with turning a burger into a salad. It was good! I will be skipping the bun in the future (maybe not weekends though). I used a Beyond Burger and pan-fried it and used the spatula to turn it into little pieces. For the salad dressing, I used two tablespoons of red wine vinegar, one tablespoon of avocado oil, around 1/2 tablespoon of Dijon, some salt and pepper, and half a shallot. In the salad I put in tomato, cheese, and romaine. I put a dollop of hummus on the top and a spattering of spicy mayo and had it with a scoop of potato salad. Jay loved it too. We did notice how sweet the potato salad was because of the really vinegary dressing. I didn’t even realize they would have put sugar in there. I loved the salad and will be making it again. It’s a super easy meal for commuting days – skipping the potato salad.

Lobster Shorts card making, crafting, Food, Plants, vegetarian, weight loss

Breakfast, Cards, and Saving Nubbin

I paid for one of these plants, the other I traded years ago for an espresso maker, I didn’t use anymore. Guess which is which? The large dieffenbachia is the one I traded for. It was half the size and not very happy. Where the trunk(?) stalk(?) curves is how tall it was when I got it and it only had a couple really droopy leaves. I had to move it around a lot before I found a place for this guy to be happy. Turns out it likes a really dark corner. It’s beside a window, but it still doesn’t get very much light at all. It’s taken over a year, but this plant is finally starting to grow. It’s doubled in size and growing a lot more leaves. The leaves are getting big too.

The second plant, the leafless stem, I got on clearance at a big box store a long time ago too. It had a couple leaves on it when I bought it, but it was doing poorly. I decided to see if I could revive it. I also moved this plant to a lot of different places (including a dark bathroom), but I couldn’t make it happy. Eventually it dropped all it’s leaves and I was going to give up on it. Then I saw a video of Harli G on YouTube (she’s a plant Youtuber) and she picked up a stem that looked just like this one and was going to replant it. I thought once a plant lost all its leaves, it was done for. I decided to repot the plant in different soil (I don’t know why I didn’t try this a long time ago) and put it beside it’s sister plant (I call it sister plant because they are both dieffenbachias, but the leafless stalk has much lighter leaves), and try again.

It seems to be working. Something is starting to happen, and this is also why this plant will forever be known as Nubbin. I’m going to keep it where it is and hope it can be revived.

Sunday breakfast satisfied a craving I’ve had for days. My spouse was craving bagels, which got me craving berry cream cheese. So for breakfast today, I made scrambled eggs and bagels and cream cheese, and I loaded that bagel with cream cheese. The coffee was an instant cappuccino that I got as a sample, and I hated it. We both did. It tasted artificial and chemically. We dumped it out and made a regular coffee that was much better.

My healthy eating took a nose dive this weekend. We ordered a pizza last night and I had it for lunch today too. I went on a short hike with my spouse, but it was really cold and the trail was mucky so we turned around. I had another bagel with cream cheese when I got home, followed by a piece of dark chocolate. and I’m currently craving another bagel (I think shark week is coming). I’m going to wait and have a proper dinner, made with much healthier options. I don’t want to get on the scale Monday.

I made some cards this weekend. I like these vanilla bean cards. I don’t know what sentiment I want on them yet, so they remain unfinished. I was thinking something to do with beans, but nah, I’ll probably just stamp a “Hello” on them, or something similar.

I was meh about these two. I would like the autumn one more with a different colour. The green didn’t go very well, and this castle card needs something more.

I liked these two. My favourite of all of them was the girl reading on the chair. I liked the Hello card a lot too, but my glue seeped out at the edges. I can get rid of that with an eraser and a little patience. I’ll post a video of the supplies I used to make the cards, below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r00KGp4OhlI&ab_channel=LobsterShorts
Lobster Shorts Food, Plants, vegetarian, weight loss

Sprouting Jars and Healthy Bowls

I retried my new sprouting lid and I love it! Alfalfa sprouts worked perfectly in there. The pictured jar is 1L and I used 1 tablespoon of alfalfa sprout seeds. I will only use 1/2 a tablespoon of seeds next, this made a lot. So far the jar has worked great, these seeds are around 5 days old (I can’t remember really). The seeds grow so fast! You can see the difference in size from morning to night. The seeds drained exactly how they were supposed to, they didn’t get gelatinous like the arugula seeds. So far the contents of the jar are fresh with no sign of rot. The arugula seeds sprouted on the paper towel degraded fast and quickly rotted. I had to toss most of the sprouts out. I won’t buy arugula seeds anymore because of that. I’m sure it was more to do with my sprouting methods, but it was a hassle and I like growing sprouts in the jar over the tray. Sprouts are so healthy and this jar makes it easy to have them on hand all the time. All I do is rinse and drain the jar twice a day. Another great kitchen gadget! Or would this be a house plant gadget? It checks both boxes.

I made a healthy dinner last night. On the bottom is a layer of steamed brown rice, then a layer of sprouts. I did the broccoli, , onion, mushrooms, and Gardein Beefless Tips in the air fryer. I flavoured it with a squeezed lemon, toasted sesame oil, and avocado oil. It was good, not delicious, just good. Like healthy food good. I made a lot so I am going to have the leftovers for dinner.

As per my usual, I had gained all the weight I had previously lost back, but this morning I was down three pounds. I’m 5’10 and now weighing 164lbs. It’s my goal to cross that barrier into the 150lbs range, in the past I gained the weight back before I could hit it. This time it’s going to happen for me. I did a 15 minute jog Monday night and hoping to do the same tonight, or hit the weights. I’ve been eating really healthy for the last two weeks (except Monday when I forgot my lunch and ended up having a snack bag of potato chips, and granola bites). Today I had the bean and feta Healthy Choice Power Bowl. I love them and eat them almost every lunch.

My spouse has been the one to motivate me to work out. If he says “Wanna work out with me?”, I go. It’s funny, but sometimes I just don’t think to go and do it. I expect that to change. Tonight, I’ll be the one to ask if he wants to work out with me.