Sunday Brunch

Now that I am starting to gain a little blogging momentum and getting more comfortable with talking about my life I thought I would introduce a new weekly series I guess you could call it. I got the idea from one of the blogs I stalk frequently, Pretty Neat Living. Every Sunday I am going to talk about what happened in the previous week; highs, lows and anything else new or exciting that happened. We'll call it Sunday Brunch and I will try to always have some little treat or snack to go with the post (you know - 'cause it's brunch). They won't always be long but I thought it would be a good way to show what our weeks look like between work, the farm and having some semblance of a personal life. It's also a way to help me continue to get more at ease with sharing my life in internet land! So here goes nothing...

This turned out to be a really busy week for Scott and I. Since last Sunday I worked everyday but Wednesday and Saturday. That is the thing I find hardest about shift work - it's not switching back and forth between day and night shifts or even the sporadic schedules - it's never having a couple days off in a row. It makes the days that you do have off seem so busy because you're trying to get a million things done before you go back to work the next day. However, considering how busy it was, it was still a really great week.

The weather this week was spot on! Almost everyday was hot and sunny and the mornings were especially nice. It made getting up for work a little bit easier!

A beautiful morning in the Vale

One evening after work Scott and Roscoe met me in town and we went on a little adventure to find a swimming hole not far out of town. We found it and it was so neat! Not only did it have a little pool to swim in, there was also a small waterfall. You could tell that not many people go there either so we aren't spreading the word about our find - we are keeping it to ourselves for now!

Our attempts to get a selfie with Roscoe weren't exactly successful!

I finally bit the bullet and bought a French Press so that I can brew my own coffee at home! This probably isn't very exciting to anyone else but to me it was one of the highlights of the week. I have recently joined the coffee addicts club and cannot start my day without one. It was getting expensive buying one (or more) everyday but I also don't have room in my kitchen right now for a coffee maker. I was walking through Superstore the other day and they had French Press's on sale so I got one! So far, I'm liking it a lot, although now I need to find the right coffee for me!

Lastly, this week ended with both Scott and I being away for a bachelor and bachelorette party! Scott's crew rented a bus and went to Montreal for 3 days - you could say they like to go big or go home! The girls and I stayed in New Brunswick but we hired a party boat and spent the day on the Saint John River! Then we went out for supper and drinks in Fredericton. We all had such a blast but I can honestly say I am feeling it today! I had to work Sunday at 4pm and I feel like a zombie (how did we do this so often in college?!). All-in-all it was a great weekend for all and now the countdown is on for the wedding!!

Oh, I almost forgot - todays brunch was 4 ingredient sweet potato brownies! I got the recipe from another blogger that I follow, The Big Man's World. They are flourless, vegan, paleo and gluten free and oh-so delicious! I added a big scoop of Hoof Prints frozen yogurt, taking away all the healthiness of the brownies themselves, but making them even more tasty! I highly recommend you try these!

I hope you enjoyed this new series and I'll see you next week!

What's Growin' in my Garden

When Scott and I first bought our farm there was a huge garden in front of the barn. Like I'm talking the size of some houses (okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration)! I wish that I had a picture to show how massive it was but it was probably around 50 feet long by 10 feet wide. Maybe that's not big to some people, but at the time I was a gardening virgin so it was overwhelming.

Our first spring/summer at the farm I was so excited and motivated to plant this huge garden and have fresh veggies all summer. I planted everything; corn, beans, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, swiss chard, and the list goes on. I remember going into the Co-op and going crazy in the seed section. I got the garden tilled up and everything planted early in the spring and boy, was I excited to watch it grow. Unfortunately, the only thing I watched grow was weeds. In hindsight it probably would have been smart to spray some Round Up (herbicide) on the whole thing before I tilled and planted it. You see, the garden hadn't actually been used as a garden for a couple of years so it had grown up in weeds. I tried to keep up with weeding it but the thing was so big I just couldn't get ahead of it. It was embarrassing, really, how bad it was. On the plus side of things, we did manage to get a fair amount of veggies out of it - it was just like a scavenger hunt every time you went to pick something!

After this experience, I quickly learned that I could not manage a garden that size. Rather than just reducing the size of the garden Scott and I decided to make raised beds! We had a bunch of old railway ties laying around that we had kept from an old structure on the farm so we made six raised beds!

They are each 3 feet by 6 feet and are so much easier to manage. I am able to keep the weeds in check while still growing a lot of veggies.

Our first year with the raised beds we planted a couple of things in each. This worked out ok but for the last two years we have been designating one crop to each bed and we like it much better. Here's what we have growing this year:

Tomatoes

Carrots

Swiss Chard

Potatoes

Beans (Green and Yellow) & Sugar Snap Peas

The fence was there from before, these are not climbing beans or peas

Beans

Peas

Cucumbers

I haven't had much luck with the cukes this year

And there you have it! We have already harvested quite a bit of the swiss chard. It's one of those crops that the more you cut off it, the more that grows back (which is awesome because we love swiss chard). My tomatoes and cucumbers were both started from seed in the house and they had a bit of a later start than the rest of the garden. The tomatoes are doing great now but the cukes are not. I originally planted 10 plants but only 3 have survived. In previous years we have planted them under plastic with the squash and they did great. This is my first year doing them this way so it's a bit of a learning process.

I can't wait until the rest of the garden is ready to pick. I get so much satisfaction from eating something that I've grown! It is definitely one of the best parts of life on the farm.

Roscoe, standing guard while I work in the garden



There's Always Something

This morning when Scott got up for work (I worked an evening shift so I got to sleep in) he had a very unwelcome surprise - we had NO water! He immediately checked the usual culprits as this happens to us far too often. The clocks were still set to the correct time, so the power didn't go out, the breaker hadn't got flipped somehow and the cows water tub was not tipped over.

Now that he had ruled all out, he started to panic. He had to be to work at 8 and it was 7:10 when he found there was no water, so he didn't have much/any time for this. He woke me up to help (because I'm a lot of help, right?) so obviously I was in a great mood getting woke up at 7am on my one day to sleep in. Of course, neither of us could figure out what was wrong and the clock was ticking. We ended up bickering with one another because Scott doesn't deal well with issues like this (when he doesn't have time) and I don't do well when my sleep is cut short. Scott left for work and I was left to deal with the no water issue.

In a normal household, having no water sucks but it's not the end of the world for a short period of time. On a farm however, it is a major problem. We currently have 20 cows, 2 horses, 10 turkeys and 40 chickens on the farm and it was forecasted to be a 30+ degree day. Therefore, no water equals HUGE ISSUE!

Luckily we are extremely fortunate and have wonderful neighbors. One of these wonderful neighbors happens to be quite a handyman and was able to come and have a look at the water pump. Within an hour of him showing up, he had the issue solved and fixed! It turned out to be an electrical issue that was a fairly cheap and easy fix - crisis averted. The animals only ended up going about 2 or 3 hours without water.

In farming there is ALWAYS SOMETHING going wrong; whether it's a cow getting sick, a tractor breaking down or waking up to no water (all of which have ACTUALLY happened to us within the last month).Something that Scott and I are always amazed by is that the farming community looks after their own. It is tight knit and whenever you need a hand there is someone there to give it. We often get caught up in the moment; panicking and trying to fix the problem that seems like the end of the world at the time. When everything has calmed down, we always make a point to reflect and take some positive away from the situation. In this case, we are so lucky to live in the community we do and have such caring neighbors. This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that we have had to rely on their kindness and we will never take that for granted!

Erin Condren Planner!

Hello Folks!

Its been almost a week since my last post but it turned out to be a crazy week! Lots of things going on around the farm, yard work to get caught up on and a few family events thrown into the mix. Today I thought I would touch on something that I haven't mentioned yet; my organization addiction!

Yes, I am a self-proclaimed organizing junkie. I try my best to keep the house in order and I am a major purger (I throw/give EVERYTHING away - I am not sentimental when it comes to "stuff"). However, my love of being organized really goes crazy when it comes to my planner and keeping track of my life. It started out of necessity. I have always had multiple things on the go at any given time and I am terribly forgetful. I need to have things wrote down in order to remember to do them. Most people, given todays technology, use their phone or other device to keep track of schedules. That does NOT work for me! Call me old school but I need to have it wrote down on a calendar in order to keep track of things. Now that I work in three different hospitals, help out with the farm, go to the gym and have other personal appointments to remember, my planner is quite literally my life.

Until now, I have always bought cheap planners from Walmart or Staples, and they worked fine. However, I am going back to school to do my masters in the fall so I thought I needed an upgrade (although after seeing the visa bill Scott thought otherwise!). I bought an Erin Condren Life Planner and I am in LOVE!

I should probably be embarrassed by the fact that I took a selfie with my new planner but I'm not! I thought I would take you through the unboxing of the life planner in case any of you are interested in getting one.

First of all, it was delivered right to my door (which is a big deal considering I live in the middle-of-nowhere ) within 8 days of ordering it. It comes from the United States so I expected it to be a lot longer coming - needless to say it was a very welcomed surprise! The box was very sturdy so even though it was beat up from the trip here, the contents were still in good condition when I got it!

*Sidenote: I apologize for the crappy pictures - it was dark out when I got the package and I couldn't wait until daylight to open it and take pictures!*

I was also really impressed with how it was packaged inside - nice tissue paper and thick bubble wrap!

"Enjoy!" - Oh I will!

When I first saw the planner I was so pumped! It was super pretty and felt like the great quality I was hoping for! The specific planner I got was the vertical 12 month LifePlanner with Watercolor Drops cover and gold coil in the neutral color palate. I also personalized it to have my name on the front.

The neutral color palate means that the "guts" of the planner are in mostly black, white and grey. I also chose the vertical layout because I think that it will work best for me.


The back side of the front and back covers have an area you can write on with a dry erase marker

The first page of the planner

Tabs on the side separating the months



2016/2017 at a glance



2018 at a glance

A space where you can list important events for each month



Each month starts with the full month view

Followed by the weekly layout (vertical)



At the end of each month there is a notes section followed by a quote page

At the back there is a sturdy folder to store things



Flip side of the folder

So there you have it! That is an overview of the Erin Condren LifePlanner. I will probably do some posts showing you how I use it on a monthly and weekly basis at some point. Also, I thought I would leave you with a few pictures of the accessories I got with it. If you want anymore details on the LifePlanner just leave a comment below.

Until next time - happy planning! 

A zippered pocket you can attach to your planner to keep things

Ruler that doubles as a bookmark

Clips that you can stick to things and attach to the coil of your planner

A dashboard you can attach to the coil of your planner. You can use dry erase markers on this

Stickers that I customized to label my calandar 

Just a few of my favorite things - #erincondrenlifeplanner, coffee and the CrossFit Games!

My Journey to Health & Fitness

Today I thought I would move away from the farming aspect of my life and talk about something that is just as important to me; living a healthy lifestyle.


My whole life I have been very active and involved with sports. In high school I played on every sports team we had; this definitely does not mean I am a super talented athlete, I just grew up in a VERY small community so team try-outs were basically non-existent. You showed up, you made the team! However, I would say I was moderately athletic but more importantly just loved sports. Volleyball and basketball were my favorite teams but the sport that truly held my heart for most of my life was horseback riding, more specifically, JUMPING!!

Riley and I at a show

I have rode horses for the last 15 years of my life and competed for about 10 of those years. Since graduating from college and moving to New Brunswick I really haven't rode much at all. Between work and life there isn't much time for riding. I do still have the same 2 horses that I have had since I was 15 and I could not imagine my life without them. They are literally a part of me and the thought that someday I will have to live without them, scares me.

This is an oldie - probably 10 or 11 years ago!

NEIL!!!!!

Anyway, I love my horses, but this post was not intended to go in this direction haha. Back on topic NOW.

When I moved to New Brunswick my life changed so much that making time for sports and fitness was put on the back burner. For the first 2 years of living in NB this mindset continued. I ate what I wanted and only exercised when I started to feel bad about how I looked. One day I was on Facebook and a friend had posted some pictures of her doing CrossFit. I had no idea what it was but it looked kind of interesting so I Google'd it. I think I spent a solid 2 or 3 hours watching videos of people doing CrossFit workouts and after that I new I HAD to try it. I messaged my friend and she gave me the contacts of a local box (what CrossFitters call their gyms). I started about 2 weeks later and I have been hooked ever since. I literally haven't gone more that a week without making it to the gym every other day. I am a super competitive person and I forgot how much I LOVE to push myself to become better. Joining this gym also helped me to adjust to living in a new province even more. I made my own friends and my own life, separate to what Scott and I have together. I think it's healthy to have things that you enjoy to do alone.

Not a great picture but this is my first ever CorssFit competition in 2014

This was really the catapult to me living a healthy and active lifestyle. Once I started to see changes in my body, both getting stronger and leaner, I wanted MORE. I tried a paleo challenge, and although I didn't stick to it after the month was up, I did continue to be more conscious of what I was putting in my body. I also joined another gym so that I could do more bodybuilding-style workouts and continued to see positive changes in my body. About a year and a half ago I started the IIFYM (if it fits your macros) style of eating and tracking your food. Some people probably think it's excessive to count every carb, fat and protein that you eat but I really like it because it allows me to be flexible with my diet while still reaching my health and fitness goals. *I will do a separate blog post on IIFYM and macro counting.*

Gym selfies required!

 

I did my first 10k race in 2015 - very proud moment!

In the last 3 years I have gained so much confidence and it all stems from my decision to live a healthier lifestyle. I love the way I look (most days - I am still human!) but more importantly I love the way I feel and the things my body can do now! Health and fitness are truly a passion of mine. I want to share with you my ongoing journey - from the foods that I eat, to the workouts that I do, to the recipes I love. I hope that someone will learn a little bit from the things that I post but it's not the purpose of me posting about it. As I've said previously, I am not a nutritionist or a personal trainer so I am not here to teach. I only want to share with you all the aspects of my life, and this is one of them!

See you next time!