MiMM #3 - It's Beautiful In The Morning

Good morning Loveys,

So I have no idea why I'm awake right now. It's 5:45am and I'm normally sleeping until at least 6:45. This is a bit concerning because... well... I'm not a morning person and I really, REALLY enjoy sleeping. I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep and realized that it was pointless, and all I was doing was literally nothing so I got up, made myself a coffee and sat down to write this blog (and watch Breakfast Television). I also realized I hadn't written my MiMM post yet, so I decided to do that instead!

Big thanks for the pretty Katie over at Healthy Diva Eats for hosting the link up each week (as usual!).. She's super pregnant right now, so if you get a chance pop on over and say hello!

I realized something right now... looking out the window. It's flipping beautiful outside this early in the morning. The skies are blue, the highway isn't jam packed with cars yet... it's somewhat peaceful. Carlton is awake already too. I didn't realize he normally wakes up around this time. Turns out I'm usually sleeping when he wakes up so I would never notice. He said I'm going to have a productive day today because I got an early start to the day... which I guess is true because I wouldn't normally have time to write in the morning! :)

The hosts on Breakfast Television look really flipping fantastic for being up at 5:45. It's enough of an accomplishment to make my brain function let alone look like a bajillion dollars!

I'm going to take a new spin on MiMM today and think of things I could do throughout my week to help my life be more Marvellous. I have a pretty scheduled life. I like schedules... I like knowing what's happening or what's going to be happening. I'm not good with "spur of the moment" events for the most part (it depends on the event I suppose)...

Wake up at 6:45
Get to work around 8:30
Eat/drink breakfast at 9
Workout at 1 or 2
Eat lunch after that
Leave work at 5
Write/Study when I'm home at 6ish
Cook dinner between 7 and 8
Bed at 10
Watch TV until 10:30

Haha. Yes. I'm one of those people who normally go to bed at 10 but I always have to watch tv before I sleep. I don't know why.. it's habit now I suppose. But anyways, I've been wondering how it would change my day if I continued waking up early. Or waking up early and getting my short runs of the week in BEFORE I go to work. That would give me time to do other things on my lunch, like if I wanted to lift weights or go to the grocery store or simply work through my lunch if I need to catch up on anything.

Not only would getting my runs in early help knock it off my list for the day, but it wouldn't be as hot out early in the morning as it usually is around 2pm. I wouldn't come back to work in a sweat-fest and feel gross for the rest of the day. I wouldn't have to lug all of my running gear to work (unless I was working out... I'd have to take more clothes if I wanted to lift). Hmm... this is starting to sound like a good idea. I'll rethink about this over the weekend because half-marathon training restarts again next week so it may be a good time to start! Weather permitting of course :).

Another thing that's SUPER marvellous about this coming week is that on Sunday I'm doing my first colour run!! I'm going to try and list all of the wonderful ladies that are participating in my group... I apologize if I miss someone!

Me
Michelle from Push.Pump.Progress
Krysten from The Misadventures of a Darwinian Fail
Robyn from RobynBaldwin.com
Davida from The Healthy Maven
Katy from Fit In Heels
Emily from The Change In Your Back Pocket
Elyse (a friend of mine)

We're doing the Colour Me Rad race on Sunday at 10:30am and I couldn't be MORE excited.. not only to run the race but to meet some of these gals that I haven't before (Robyn & Davida!). I hope we all end up looking like this:

Davida and I both agree that we're going to take our sweeeeet time finishing this race. Mostly because she's injured, and I want to take a bajillion photos. C will be there as well with our Cannon camera and hopefully will get some seriously awesome photos with it of everyone running and colour bombing! I can't wait to see how they turn out!

Random thought. The race is no where near my house and we have to drive. I should probably make a mental note to back some extra clothes or something. I'm sure CB would freak out if I accidentally tie-died the black leather in the car lol! Or I should bring like 3 towels. Maybe towels. That might be easier.

This race is easily the highlight of this week... Oooo I'm just so excited for it!!

Q: Have you ever done a colour run before?
Q: If so - please leave some words of advice. I already know to bring my phone in a Ziplock bag (I did that when I was racing in the rain too and it worked well) and just made a mental note to bring towels - anything else?

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words...

Hey loveys!

Um... so first up, I'm sorry I've been missing all week. Seriously. I had no idea I hadn't posted since Tuesday until yesterday at some point. I have been kind of lazy in all aspects of life lately and I guess I assumed that no one wanted to hear about it. I broke the cardinal rule of blogging, consistency. However I also believe that you shouldn't post and write just to blab on about nothing. So... I guess you could say I didn't post so I wouldn't waste your time. There! See.. all better :).

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I can't believe it's already Sunday. It's been a fairly action packed weekend up until this moment... and I have a lot of photo's to share with you to help explain. On Friday night I got home from work and in regular Friday ritual, watched Dr. Phil in bed. It was too nice of a day out to not make my way outside, so that's what I did. C was out with his friend on a patio so I got my butt up, walked downtown and just explored which is something I enjoy doing immensely... walking aimlessly. C isn't the biggest fan HOWEVER it's not for everyone. And you must always wear good shoes. ANYWAYS... my main objective was to find a black dress that works for both a Pride party I'm attending in a couple of weeks and my girlfriends birthday party next month. I didn't find one, but I did get a couple good items and saw a few cool things.

I walked up and down Queen St which has amazing shopping here in Toronto. First I went east and went into a store that I know an old friend of mine works at. I've dropped by a few times and she's never around when I go, so I was really hoping that she was working on Friday... guess what?! She was!! I haven't seen this girl in probably 3ish years, and I was so happy to catch up with her and see her. Isn't she great?

Parveen works at F As In Frank on Queen St. West. If you enjoy vintage shops and vintage shopping, I'd highly recommend you check out this store. It's so unique and so much fun!

As I kept on my in my adventure, I happen to come across one of my favourite stores where I got a really cute black Maxi Dress for summertime :). As I made my way MORE east, I came across the rehearsals for the Much Music Video Awards that are happening tonight. So fun to get a couple of little surprise concerts!

I'm a bit far back, but this is Classified rehearsing Inner Ninja with a children's choir.. it was so cool!!

I learned to zoom in for this one. Armen Van Buren ft. Trevor Guthrie singing This Is What It Feels Like. Also tres fantastic :)

I would have stayed here and listened to the performers longer but the store I was wanting to get to was closing in 1 hour. So I made my way west on Queen and got to a little gem of a building, it has a Loblaws, Winners and Joe Fresh inside. I wanted to go to the Winners because I always hear such amazing things about people finding great deals... and whenever I go I can never find anything. I think it's because it's one of those stores where you have to go alone so you can dig and dig and dig and so that's exactly what I did. I ended up finding a really cute dress (just to have, it doesn't work for what I need a black dress for) and a couple of really cute tops.

Then I made my way home and met up with C and his friend. We planned on heading out to Williams Landing but due to the Taylor Swift concert happening at the Air Canada Center that night, the taxi services were a bit of a cluster and we were getting tired (and we had to get up at a decent time Saturday morning) by that point so we grabbed some eats and headed off to bed.

The next day we had to head off to Wingham for the annual Ohm Family Reunion! Haha. We seriously do have one every year, it's always fun to see family I don't see very often. As soon as I got there, my little cousin (who we went to the baseball game with last weekend) came over, grabbed me and dragged me away from everyone lol. She's adorable.

I ate a serious amount of food because there's always an excess amount... but it was delish! After we wrapped things up, my immediate family, C and I went to visit my Grandma who just turned 88 a few weeks ago.. she's so funny. She was visiting with her neighbour and having wine haha. Check out these photos:

Grandma looooves Carlton. It's cute.

Grandma, Mom and I. Three generations!

Me and Grandma!

That was all the visiting we did. And in between all that, C actually let my little sister drive his car. Haha.. he went in a different car because he didn't want to get stressed out. I drove with her and she did well!

And then for lunch, a friend of my dad's dropped by the house and his car blocked everyone else's car... so he let me take it downtown Wingham to grab some food for us to eat. I got really excited to drive it. This is why...

It was so fun! We took the long way home so we could drive around some more. And me and Brooke stopped for a selfie hehe.

During my trip to Wingham, I also got to catch up with my fur babies, Louie and Jake.

Jake. 

Louie.

I love them. Enough said about that. :)

And all of that brings us right back to now... where I'm blogging, sipping on coffee and watching Zero Dark Thirty. I'm going to get my hair done today, possibly my nails and I'm either heading to Starbucks to do some studying or I'm going to go hit up the MMVAs tonight if the rain clears (which I'm hoping it does!).

Q: Did you do anything special this weekend?

PS - Happy Father's Day to the bestest dad EVER. He gets his gift in a month when he comes to Toronto to visit with the rest of my family :). Loveeeee youuuuuu Pappy!

That Time I Ate Popeyes Chicken & Was Up All Night

Hey Loveys,

I hope you're weekend is off to a fantastic start! I can't believe tomorrow is already Wednesday... wow! Have you been smiling a lot this week? I hope so :).

I have a couple of things to touch on today - and first off I want to give a big THANK YOU to a friend of mine, Dr. Lista, who is a plastic surgeon in the Toronto area who actually has his own skin care line called Miracle 10. Today he sent me a starter pack for Miracle 10 so I can test it out after hearing/seeing me complain about my break outs. I'm SO EXCITED to try it!! He claims that it will make my skin sooo much better than what I use now (Proactiv) and I can't even wait to start using this product. My skin has always been a sore spot for me because I'm really prone to acne and my skin is normally really oily and shiny, so I'm excited to see if something like this helps me out and evens out my skin! Check it - I even snapped a selfie in the car when I got it!

Obviously I haven't started using it yet, and I will write more about it once I get into it (so stay tuned!) but if you want to check out the whole line for yourself (it's customizable to your own skin type) click here and it will take you to their "online boutique"! Whoop!! This totally made my whole week. I'm so excited.. if you can't tell. :)

Ok - so now I have some not so fun confessing to do.

Last night I was a lazy bum. I was pooped when C picked me up from work... and we had to stop on the way home so C could get the oil changed in the car. He was planning on working out last night and I was going to rest and cook up a healthy salmon dinner. The place we got our oil changed (I will refrain from naming names) took FOREVER and I was so cranky by the time we got out of there, and so was C, that we decided to basically say "eff it" and we picked up Popeye's Chicken for dinner.

I got a meal of chicken tenders (their version of chicken fingers) as well as a biscuit (drool) and their french fries. I totally devoured the whole meal and you know... it wasn't that good by the time we got everything home. It was cold(er), the fries weren't crispy and the chicken was kind of chewy.. but alas, I still ate the whole thing. Oh.. and I had a spicy ranch dipping sauce for my chicken.

Oy.. ok... I know what you're thinking. REALLY SARAH!?!?! WHAT ARE YOU THIIIIIIIINKING!?!?! and you're totally right? What the eff was I thinking? I could have easily came home and just fried up a couple of salmon fillets and baked some kale... but no. And I paid the price. I was unbelievably gassy the whole night.. my stomach bloated... and I woke up at 2am with some serious stomach cramps and all day today my tummy has been upset.

It's no secret that what I ate is literally everything I always avoid eating. I am totally to blame for feeling like a bag of ass after eating such food... but it goes to show how your body will tell you when you put something into it that is obviously not supposed to be there.... basically it gets rid of it as quickly as it can. Le sigh. I found that out first hand in the middle of the night (if you know what I mean). I tried to Google what it is in Popeyes Chicken to see if I could find an ingredient list but obviously that stuff is kept under pretty tight wraps and there's a lot of people trying to duplicate it (it is reeeeally delicious when it's fresh, damnit!). Whatever it is, ugh... it's so not meant to be digested. It's probably why I feel lethargic today.

With that being said - tonight I'm not being lazy and I will be making the salmon and kale that I should have made last night. It's going to be delicious.

Goodness.

Badness. Sorry Popeyes.

I don't know how people eat such things all the time. I think I'm now just ranting about it but whatever. It's my blog and I'll do what I want lol.

Q: What's 1 food that you SOOO love but know it makes you feel like ass?
Q: When's the last time you actually ate said food?

MiMM #3! What Is Marvellous?

Hey loveys,

Happy Monday!

AND because it's Monday - you know what that means! Happy MiMM (Marvellous In My Monday!). Thank you to Katie at Healthy Diva Eats for hosting this super fun link up every Monday!

Instead of rambling on about things that happened this past week (which I will IN ADDITION to this), I decided to tell you WHAT I think are the reasons I classify some things I do as "marvellous". Why not, right?

1. Happiness. Anything that makes me happy deserves to be marvellous. Marvellous is such a happy word in itself, anything that you describe as marvellous has to be something that puts a smile on your pretty face!

2. Neat. Anything that you think is neat. It might be a material item, it might be something you saw, or it might be something you've experienced recently that you would say is "neat".

3. Laugh. If something makes you laugh, it is marvellous. Nuff said :).

4. Productivity. I believe being productive is never a negative experience, so since it's then by default a positive experience, it must be marvellous :).

And with that... Here are some things that fall into one of the 3 categories mentioned above from this past week.

* On Friday I had an awesome phone call with a lady I work with (sort of, hard to explain). She makes me laugh and always brightens up my day when she calls. I've only met her in person once, but I feel like we've been friends FOREVER. Haha. She just makes me giggle so much and she has such  positive energy that you can't help but cheer up as soon as you start talking to her. Laugh.. Happiness..

* On Monday I was doing a bit of catch up with work and decided to work from home all night. It was hard and I was tired by the end of the night, but because of it the rest of my week went a lot more smoothly and I felt good getting a lot of stuff done and caught up. Productivity... 

* This weekend I was glad I got some studying in. I always feel good when I get some studying in. I've come to terms with the fact that I'm definitely behind where I should be in terms of my course because I've been a lazy bum, so any studying I do is a good thing. Which reminds me that this week I'm going to get super strict with blogging 1 day, studying the next.. like I used to do. I don't know what happened there? Productivity...

* At Starbucks this weekend, I witnessed one of the staff there going out of their way to help an elderly man who couldn't stand up straight and used a walker to help him walk. I felt so badly because it was a busy rush time (noon) and he just wanted a sandwich. I heard him as for egg salad, and obviously us young folk know that Starbucks isn't really a sandwich place, but the staff member helped him one on one to get something he actually wanted to eat for dinner. I almost cried watching this employee be so nice to this elderly man. Seriously. I think it's so important to respect our elders, and help them when they need it.... and I feel like a lot of young people are either too shy to help or are too ignorant to help.. so seeing this really made my heart happy and inspired me to be a better person as well. Happiness... Smile...

* On Sunday, C told me he bought me a surprise gift on eBay. I have no idea what it is or what it could be... but I'm excited!! Smile... Happiness...

* Last night after I vlogged, a friend told me I cheered them up when they were having a "funk"! Obviously I didn't vlog specifically for my friend and didn't intend for it to get them out of a funk, so it's so nice to hear that it helped! I like making people happy.. I'm a people pleaser, it's what I do! :) Smile.. Happiness..

That's all I have for you on this Marvellous Monday! It's short, it's sweet.. and hopefully someone smiles because of it! I'm officially on a kick of making people smile. It's fun!

What is the one thing that stands out in your mind from this past week that stands out as "Marvellous"?