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.

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.

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

Sunday Breakfast and Weekend Cards

This weekend’s big breakfast was scrambled eggs, papaya, and a croissant. I ditched the home fries. My spouse and I were at the dentist last weekend and they checked his blood pressure, it was high (and I had a cavity). It was not good news. We’re making changes. I’m cutting way back on sugar and he’s cutting down on salt. This past week we’ve been eating a lot healthier. Way more vegetables, whole grains, and less junk. My sweet tooth is still raging, so when I want chocolate, I have dark chocolate. If it’s over 70% I can have it in the home without obsessing about it all day.

I’ve also worked out a few times this week, and not just walking (although I did that too, a 9km-10km walk through the woods). I went for a jog and lifted some weights as well. It’s been a long time since I’ve worked out. I’m really proud of myself.

I made cards this weekend. You might notice I ended up gluing the happy paper upside down on the card above. OOPS! I messed up that one, but the dog is cute.

The butterfly is a 3D one, that is propped off the card, but presses down to fit in the envelope. I wasn’t sure about that one at first, but now I really like it. I made the left one with an embossing folder. It’s pretty. I will make that one in pink too, with black ink.

The left card in this one is a gift card holder. I really like the paper on that one. The top slides off and reveals the gift card. The second one is an easel style card. There were no instructions or score lines to help. I had to guess and I have no idea if I made it right. I like the card but it was a pain to put together. You can use the dies to make a house in the Winter, or a Halloween house too. I really like how they all turned out, not so much the upside down gumball machine, but the rest were great. I’ll post a link to a video of the supplies I used below.

Lobster Shorts crafting, Food, sewing, vegetarian

Coffee and Cloaks

It’s a beautiful Sunday so far. The weather called for rain and clouds and it’s been warm and sunny – a beautiful day. I started my day with coffee and puttering around cleaning the kitchen.

My spouse woke up just as I finished cooking breakfast. It was the usual scrambles eggs, home fries in the air fryer, and today a side of sauerkraut. I bought the sauerkraut in this photo from the grocery store, but currently, I’m almost finished fermenting my own (I’ll post about that later this week).

As for the cloak, it’s cute and whimsical, but I felt silly wearing it out. In fact I carried it until I found a quiet spot by the river where my spouse could take some photos. He was weird about it too.

I’m more “free willed” than my spouse, he is my gage for what is socially acceptable. This cloak seems to have crossed the line. I know you’re not supposed to care, but I felt uncomfortable.

Being a warm day, I wasn’t able to judge how good this cloak would be at keeping me warm. It was getting hot wearing it to snap some photos.

It would definitely be more appropriate for cooler weather. I don’t think it would last in long in a Canadian winter against the temperatures. In the above photo I’m holding in closed, but it still stays open around the neck and chest. I used a tie closure made from the cloak fabric. I’m sure a different closure would help with that immensely.

I lined it with taupe coloured satin. I’ve been told satin is really hard to work with, and they are correct. The middle seam of the lining bunched during the sewing process and therefore ended up being short. I should have ripped the seams out and resewed it, but I didn’t, which in turn ended up messing up the drape at the bottom of the cloak.

If I want to fix the problem I would have to either rip out the entire lining and make it again, make the cloak shorter, or add some extra fabric to the lining which would make some strange lines on the inside. You wouldn’t see the inside lining, so that could be done. I’d still have to rip out a lot of the work I did. The cloak is pretty long, it wouldn’t probably be okay to make it a little shorter.

I’m going to leave it the way it is for now. I’m never going to wear the hood up. I like the way it looks down much more. It looked funny on, but the cloak would look incomplete without it. I do like the cloak, but not to wear it casually around. I will wear the crap out of it every Halloween season though.

I can’t wait!

Lobster Shorts Food, vegetarian, weight loss

Fake It Till You Make It And More Cart Smugness

This was the spoils of my grocery cart and I’m feeling proud of it (if that container of potato salad wasn’t in there, I’d be downright smug about it). I’m trying the “Fake it till you make it” approach to healthy habits. I’m pretending I’m a health nut, someone like Chris Traeger on Parks and Recreation (which I’m currently binging), so this came home with me. I bought more healthy Power Bowls for those times I don’t make lunch, and fruits and veggies.

I made a meal that I’m calling Weirdy Bowl. I cooked cauliflower, eggplants, kale, and mushrooms and them added them to tofu in a coconut milk broth that I seasoned with curry powder, garam masala, turmeric, and salt, and put it over steamed quinoa. I topped it with a dollop of hummus and potato salad (yes the potato salad is very weird, hence why I called it Weirdy Bowl). The hummus though… pretty good. I’m currently fermenting sauerkraut and growing sprouts, the potato salad will be replaced by these things in the future. It was easy to make and didn’t take too long. I’ll be making more things like this in the future. May my inner Chris Traeger cook all my future meals.

Lobster Shorts Food, The Great Outdoors

Easter Weekend, Nature, and Naughty Nummies

This Easter weekend brought the start of a month long, province wide, lockdown . On the nicest day of the weekend, we went for a walk in the woods to get some exercise and feed the chickadees. The day was warm and sunny and I saw many firsts of the season: butterflies, frogs, plants shoots, and a ground hog.

This pond was full of frisky frogs. They were super loud, and chirpy. I wish I had recorded it. I thought I did, but there was no video when I got home. We walked around 8km-9km, the weather was perfect and full of happy Spring vibes.

Sunday, I made amaranth pancakes and they were really good! I’m converted. From now on amaranth is my flour of choice for pancakes (I think it’s gluten free!). Whenever I make whole grain pancakes, they are usually super dry and sit like a brick in my stomach. These were nothing like that. The true test was my spouse, he likes his white wheat flour and is not a fan of the whole grains. He knew right away they weren’t made with typical white flour, but he liked them. I asked if they were good enough to switch over permanently, and he said yes. One step closer to eliminating white flour from our diets. Yay! For the toppings, I boiled berries and cherries with some maple syrup to taste, and then of course added more maple syrup… because maple syrup. They were great and I recommend trying the recipe out.

Saturday, I made my usual weekend breakfast of a huge pile of coffee, eggs, and home fries. Still not sick of it. YUM!

The naughty nummies were my beloved Cadbury Creme Eggs and a KitKat Popcorn bar. YUM! If I see a new variety of KitKat, I must have it. This one was awesome. I didn’t make any cards this week, instead I finished my cloak. I’m meh about it. I’ll post pics of it later this week.

Lobster Shorts card making, crafting, Food, The Great Outdoors

Walks, Cards, and Breakfasts

I’m relaxing on the couch on a rainy weekend. I’m still stiff from a 20km walk I did earlier in the week. Only a small portion of the walk was through this pretty treed trail, most of it was on the side of a road. I wasn’t sure if I’d be up for it since the longest walk I’ve done recently was 12km and I was super stiff afterwards. I stopped in a park about halfway through the walk to take a rest for about 15 minutes. It was so cold and windy I didn’t stop as long as I would have liked to. I’ve done this walk before and have been super thirsty and went through a couple bottles of water. Because it was so cold I wasn’t thirsty at all until the next day. Being cold helped. I made it to my goal and rewarded myself with a hot London Fog.

This weekend’s big breakfast was the usual eggs, home fries, and berries. I haven’t used self control at all this week. I ate drive through breakfasts at Tim Horton’s instead of intermittent fasting, ate lots of chocolate and snacks, and ordered take out a lot.

My inlaws gave us a giant bag of potatoes, so I made a big pot of soup. I didn’t follow a recipe. I used half an onion, a mixture of cashew milk and water seasoned with Better Than Boullion, and threw in a bunch of potatoes and boiled everything. Once the potatoes were cooked I tossed in a can of black beans, and leftover spinach. We had it with a whole grain small baguette and white wine. It’s been a carbarific weekend.

I made a bunch of cards this weekend. The rose card is my favourite.

I’ll post a video of the products I used to make them below.

Lobster Shorts Food, weight loss

Lunch Dilemmas and Sleepy Sundays

I’ve solved my lunch problems. I have a horrible habit of not pre-making a lunch, getting hungry, and then buying chips. I’m likely to continue with that pattern, so I bought some frozen dinners.

It turns out these bowls are really good AND healthy! Way better then most of the other frozen meals. Vegetarians usually end up with only the option of some crappy frozen pasta dish that leaves you starving a short time later.

These bowls actually have some sustenance to them and good ingredients. From now on I’ll take one of these with me for lunch. I really like them.

This weekend I went for a couple short walks and my spouse did all the cooking (and cleaning! I’m a lucky lady). Usually on Sundays I make us a large breakfast, but this time he made it. He made his usual egg and cheese sandwich (using the new cheese of the month!) and it was really good. He uses the Hamilton Beach egg sandwich maker and they are so great. It’s our favourite appliance and we got it from the classifieds. Score!

We went for a couple short walks, but most of the weekend I was sewing. I’m still working on the cloak and I have most of the outside put together, but now I’m second guessing whether I want to make the alternative version with the shoulder flaps. I’m sure I have enough fabric left to do it. I’m no longer in love with the fabric I bought. It sheds horribly and frays like crazy (even after washing the fabric), but I’m going to see it through. I’m hoping I can make a matching skirt with any leftover fabric. I may still fall in love with it.

Lobster Shorts lifestyle

Valentine’s, Long Weekend, and a Butt Load of Cards

This long weekend was a fairly quiet one. My sweet spouse picked us up a bottle of vintage wine and brought me beautiful white roses (one of my favourites). We made a charceuterie board and watched TV.

The charceuterie board was made with cheese from the Cheese Of The Month Club and they were all delicious. My favourite was the heart shaped cheese. We added fruit, veggies, crackers, pickles, dips, and chocolate almonds. It was delicious and low key.

My spouse had a sore back all this weekend, so we spent most of the time relaxing. We went for a walk through the woods for Family Day. It was cold and beautiful. I love the woods in Winter. There are a lot of hills. I want to hike through the woods and take a GT Snow Racer and sled down the hills through the trees (I feel that is breaking an age appropriate line, but sometimes you just have to try things).

I made a lot of cards this weekend. My favourite was the headphones girl and the slim line jar card.

This mason jar shaker was my least favourite. I love the lid, but I’m not very good at making shaker cards yet and I just didn’t like the look of it. I would have liked this better as a flat jar. I’ll post a video of the cutting dies I used below.

Lobster Shorts Food

OMAD, COVID Scares and Thanksgiving

Disclaimer. I am not a medical professional, nutritionist, or anyone with any business giving diet advice. This is my own personal journey. When it comes to yourself, seek the advice of a medical professional.

I spent a lot of my Thanksgiving waiting for a COVID swab to come back (it was negative). I didn’t get the results until late Saturday, when it was already most of the way through the family dinner I was supposed to be at. My spouse and I didn’t know how long we were going to have to be stuck inside, so we ordered groceries delivered to our home, with contact free delivery.

We weren’t feeling the “cooking” vibe and got all convenience food.

I got vegetarian stuffed turkey to try.

My spouse ordered the boxed stuffing and potatoes and I made fun of him for it, but they were better than my “turkey” thing. The turkey part was okay, but the stuffing it was stuffed with, wasn’t very good. I wanted to like it, but I didn’t. I do love other products from this brand though.

So this was dinner. It wasn’t quite homemade, but I was with my love, and that made it wonderful.

I did make a pie. I used a store bought vegetarian pie crust (I don’t remember the brand) and got the filling recipe here. I didn’t have enough strawberries, so I just made up for it in apples. I wanted a crumble topping and got the recipe for that, here.

It turned out really good. It was the best part of the dinner, and I’m embarrassed to say, we ate the entire pie in under 24 hours!

OMAD did not happen while I was isolating at home. I ate breakfast, lunch, dinner, and lots of snacks. I am much better when I’m not home. When I’m around the food, I seem to have trouble staying out of it.

Despite being a human vacuum for food these past few days, I only gained one pound for the weigh in. I was really surprised about that, I was expecting much more. I did do some hiking once my results came back. It must have helped a lot.

There was also Crispers and Drumstick caramel ice cream. No regrets!