i'll love you forever
i'll like you always
as long as i'm living
my baby you'll be
19.2.15
baby isla | sugar and spice and everything niece
this adorable little ball of baby blob is my precious sweet and beautiful niece, isla doreen beatrice barks. i'm so in love with this little bean, it's amazing the immediate connection you have when it's your siblings baby, the guy who's had your back since you yourself were in diapers. i couldn't be more happy and excited for my brother and sister inlaw.
now if only they didn't live in australia... sad face
we'll see you next winter little one!
xoxo
- a
it's flu season up north
had to buy giant sunglasses at winners because i almost crashed and died driving towards the sun on a wet road.
i don't know if it's the same everywhere, but some strange and disgusting things happen up north when the weather goes all out of balance with the season.
the season actually changes... winter... to flu season.
you can see how much the snow had melted, strange for january
a couple of weeks ago sawyer and i went to GP to visit my bestie Juice for the weekend. the night prior to us leaving in the morning, khloe (her 2 year old) ended up being up all night puking. other than the puking though, she was fine, totally normal self, no sign of other symptoms. so they were chocking it up to something she ate and we decided to come to the city as planned.
toddler selfies
the afternoon we arrive in GP i suddenly have a stuffy nose, the next day sawyer has one. by the time we get home on sunday, we both have full on head colds and juice is throwing up back in GP. next her husband gets it and its been made perfectly clear that it's a flu bug and not a food thing.
a twilight marathon on our sickest day, don't judge
a few days pass and sawyer and i are just starting to feel back to our old selves when BAM, i wake up friday at 3:00am and puke my guts out until danny goes to work at 7:30am leaving me with a crying toddler, who we came to realize had an upset tummy. thank god he was able to leave work by 11 and come home to take care of us, we were pretty pathetic.
poor little bean, it's so sad when they're sick
i end up having to reschedule my stylized antique boudoir session which was happening that saturday, and i spent the entire rest of the day laying in bed dying. then thankfully by sunday i was feeling quite a bit better in comparison, but unfortunately sunday was also the night the sickness finally struck dan. and by this time it had also struck not only juice's inlaws, but ours as well!
while sawyer got better, danny got worse
and what's more interesting yet, is that even after danny's flu passed, he ended up coming down with my original head cold. like how crazy is that? these little bastard germ bugs are seriously relentless. i ended up having a cancellation in my boudoir project in the end due to a sickness. and this seriously always happens up here when our chilly ass frozen winter weather dies off and suddenly it's a beautiful spring day mid january and it's lovely, and warm, and you can hear Olaf singing in the streets, but you always get sick.
i used to gag at the sight of a kids snotty crusty nose. but now, it's as commonplace as the nose itself.
and even when you finally start to feel back to normal and healthy again, you're all out of your routine and you've been eating like shit and not been exercising, or blogging, or editing, or really anything other than mouth breathing on the couch and staring at the TV watching Mr. Selfridge for three days straight... so the consequences of being sick drags on for about another two weeks until finally you find the motivation to get back on the band wagon and get your life together.
this was the sickest i've ever seen sawyer, and it was super sad. it was so great to see him smiling again.
but eventually of course you find your routine again, and you finally get caught up on laundry and stocked back up on food in the house, and man does it feel good when that happens. there's nothing better than finding your motivation again, finding your drive and getting back to focusing on your goals, back to cooking and eating healthy and getting back on the mat.
back to normal.
finally!
xoxo
- a
finally!
xoxo
- a
22.1.15
what's hiding in your Spice Cupboard?
Around four years ago I started studying Holistic Nutrition through the Canadian School for Natural Nutrition. Life happened, I quit my day job and started my photography business, started teaching yoga full time and had a baby. My studies were pushed aside and I never completed the course. I was kind of torn up about it at first, but eventually accepted that I couldn't do everything at once and I would come back to it when the time was right.
But even though I didn't complete the course, I still learned a ton about my own diet and nutrition and what I wanted in my grocery list and what I didn't. That was the start of completely turning around the way we ate and grocery shopped.
Today when you look inside our fridge you'll find organic fruit and veggies (locally grown whenever possible), organic and high quality cheese and other dairy products, almond milk without the harmful additives and preservatives, all locally sourced meats and eggs, and blahbity blah, you get the point.
After I'd learned all about the garbage that is added into our "food" and how harmful it is, I just couldn't turn a blind eye anymore and I had no choice but to change. But one area of my kitchen I failed to improve upon was my spice cupboard. It's the one that always smells like oregano and other mystery odours. I actually hadn't thrown any old spices out... ever... like not since moving out of my parents. Gross right? As I got older and I became a better cook, spices (and good quality spices) became a big part of my cooking essentials. Thus needing more space in my narrow little cabinet.
I have to say I wasn't surprised to find plenty of unhealthy ingredients in that rarely re-organized cupboard. Not only unhealthy, but way too old to be considered good quality anymore. When was the last time you gave your spice cupboard a good ol' fashion clean sweep?
Here are some helpful tips for improving the health and quality of your spice cupboard.
1. START FRESH
Take everything out and give your cupboard a good wipe down.
2. READ THE LABELS
Go through everything you took out. I went through and read every label and every time I found a suspicious ingredient I wrote it down and googled it. Anything that contained harmful additives went into the garbage.
Here's a short list of commonly found food additives you might find in your spice cupboard.
- (Aluminum) Calcium Silicate
- Magnesium Silicate
- Prussiate of soda, yellow
- Silicon Dioxide
- Sodium Aluminosilicate
- Acesulfame Pottassium
- Monosodium Glutamate or MSG (more names: glutamic acid, glutamate, monopotassium glutamate, calcium glutamate, monoammonium glutamate, magnesium glutamate, natrium glutamate, yeast extract, anything hydrolyzed, any hydrolyzed protein, calcium caseinate, sodium caseinate, yeast food, yeast nutrient, autolyzed yest, gelatin, textured protein, soy protein, soy protein (concentrate), soy protein isolate, whey protein (concentrate), vetsin, ajinomto)
For a more in depth look at MSG check out this article by John Douilliard
http://lifespa.com/sneaky-names-for-msg-check-your-labels/
&
Here's a great article on food additives if you're interested in learning more
3. READ THE EXPIRY DATES
Not everything in your cupboard will have a date on it but you can make some rough estimates following this best before guideline from womansday.com:
- ground spices (turmeric, cinnamon, nutmeg) 2 - 3 years
- dried herbs (oregano, parsley, basil) 1 - 3 years
- seasoning blends 1 - 2 years
- whole spices (cloves, cinnamon sticks, peppercorns) 4 years
- seeds 4 years (except poppyseed and sesame which should be discarded after 2 years)
- extracts 4 years (except vanilla which should last forever apparently)
I did read a couple different articles that recommended some tighter guidelines and shorter dates than this, but personally I'm happy with these numbers.
4. MAKE A LIST
Write down everything you throw out and make a point of replacing it. I was stuck needing chilli powder on several occasions, so annoying.
...
It's absolutely disgusting the amount of poison that gets put into our food, deliberately. If you've never read about food additives then I would highly recommend doing some research on it. You would be shocked to see the shit that ends up in our "food." Do yourself a favor and get familiar with some of the most common and most harmful food additives so you can spot them on the ingredients label when grocery shopping.
xoxo
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