My Happiness File – Day 6

Posted on March 16, 2013 by Mama Cormier

….why does food play such an important role in making me happy?

I don’t think it’s the food itself but the social aspect that surrounds the food. Two of my happy moments today occurred at meals.

The first event that made me happy today was taking my youngest daughter out for lunch. We went to a nice little restaurant in uptown Toronto close to where she lives. It was easy to make healthy choices and the food was delicious but more importantly I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. We both write blogs and we discussed how her DIY wedding blog and business were coming along and she gave me some tips on how to resolve some issues I’ve been having with my blog.

Today the sun finally came out and it turned into a beautiful afternoon. When I took my daughter back to her apartment we decided to pick up her dog, Lucy and head over to the off leash area over at Sunnybrook. Watching her dog run along the path into the woods with such joy and freedom made me smile and getting some exercise and fresh air put me in my happy place.

When I got home tonight my husband wanted to go out for dinner. I wasn’t sure that going out for two meals in a row was such a good idea but he seemed really keen on going out so I agreed. It turned out to be a happy evening and again I was able to make healthy choices for my dinner. I ordered grilled fish and a side of perfectly cooked beans and broccoli and started with a grilled radicchio and arugula salad. The fish was grilled with bones in so it forced me to eat slowly and carefully to avoid choking on a fish bone. At the end of my meal my husband actually applauded me. He said it was like watching a perfectly executed symphony. His analogy put a big smile on my face.

Spirit Tree Estate Cidery

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Mama Cormier

…. a great little gem north of Toronto

Yesterday I told you about our road trip to the Caledon Hills north of Toronto. The highlight of our trip was our visit to Spirit Tree where we had a wonderful lunch. The first time we heard about this cidery, about three years ago, we were purchasing a bottle of their sparkling cider recommended to us by the proprietor of a local gourmet shop. The same week the Toronto Star did a feature article about Spirit Tree, highlighting all the wonderful features of the store/bakery/restaurant. The next day was Good Friday and it just so happened that they were open to the public. It’s rare for anything to be open on Good Friday in Ontario so we decided to check it out and so did hundreds of other people. It was crazy busy. It’s a weekend that the workers at Spirit Tree wouldn’t soon forget.

Anyway we have made trips since that day and the store hasn’t been nearly as crowded and yesterday was no exception. The restaurant was busy but the atmosphere was relaxed and the staff was extremely friendly and helpful.

One of the many features of the estate is how eco-friendly and green it is. The main building was constructed using straw bales. You can see from the photo with the window how thick the walls are. The breads and pizzas are all baked in the wood burning oven and the place is heated and cooled using geothermal energy. For more interesting information check the link:

Spirit Tree Cidery

If you’re ever in the Caledon Hills, check this place out. It’s well worth the trip.

Cheers!

My Happiness File – Day 5

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Mama Cormier

…..spending the entire day with my husband brought many happy moments today

Today was my first day off the detox cleanse and I was able to enjoy my first coffee in four days. Heavenly!

My husband took the day off work today so that we could spend the day together. After our walk this morning and enjoying the first solid food I had in over three days we got into the car and went for a day trip north of the city. We had a great time checking out the Apple Factory and buying a few vegetables and some specialty items for our Irish dinner on Sunday and then we made our way to Spirit Tree where we had a nice lunch. I’ll write more about our experience in my next post.

After lunch we started driving around looking for the Cheltenham Bad Lands. K set his GPS on his new phone and off we went. We got so lost. I’m sure we drove 20 k in the wrong direction before we turned around. We did eventually find it. For the rest of the afternoon we found our surroundings pretty uninspiring. The one thing that did amaze us was how much snow was still on the ground just 30 k north of Toronto.

On our way home we decided to stop at the movie theatre and take in a show. We ended up seeing Zero Dark 30. I really liked it and I didn’t think I would. Before the show started I made K set his phone so I could play the interactive pre show on-screen game. I came in second and won a slice of pizza that I will probably never redeem. Made me happy anyway.

All in all it was a great day.

Results of the Dr. Oz 3 Day Detox Cleanse

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Mama Cormier

…… and my first happy moment today

For the last three days I was following the Doctor Oz 3 day detox cleanse. I felt I needed to give my body a boost. I’d recently experienced a hormonal change in my body, my weight loss had come to a stop and I had just gotten over a cold.

Dr. Oz’s cleanse seemed very doable. All the ingredients were easily accessible and some of the ingredients I already had in my house. There was also variety. Each meal for the day was a different recipe. Finally the smoothies were about 350 calories each and because each of them had some kind of fat in them they were very filling and satisfying.

The Dr. Oz 3 Day Detox Cleanse

Here is how each meal looked for the last three days.

Breakfast

Lunch

On the first day we forgot to add the coconut oil. It makes a difference and shouldn’t be skipped.

Dinner

The surprise ingredient in this blueberry mango avocado smoothie is cayenne pepper.

This morning when I got on the scale I was down 6 pounds. Yippee! Now I know that a lot of this is water loss but it’s enough incentive to keep me on the right track with my eating and move forward with my weight loss journey. Plus I do feel better. My skin looks better and the aches I was feeling during the cleanse apparently were due to my body getting rid of the toxins. All good.

My Happiness File

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Mama Cormier

…. I’m going to try something new

I came across an interesting article about the benefits of gratitude. The author, Linzi Wilson talks about how every day she writes down three things that make her happy that day. It could be as simple as a smile from a stranger, a compliment from a friend or enjoying a favourite food. Perhaps you received an unexpected gift or achieved a goal that you’ve been working on. The idea is to write down what makes you happy.

Here is a list of Linzi’s benefits of recording your happy moments:http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-8048/want-a-5-minute-practice-that-will-change-your-life.html

Here are my top three reasons for starting your gratitude practice today:

When you get into the habit of appreciating things, you tend to see life with a fresher, more optimistic perspective. Who doesn’t want that?
You’ll start creating a blueprint of what makes you happy. Certain things will keep popping up again and again. They say success leaves clues… Well, happiness does too.
Your journal will serve as a beautiful reminder. Whenever I’m having a sucky moment, I can take some time out and read through random entries. It always brings a smile to my face.

I’ve decide to use this blog to record my “Happiness File”.

Here is one thing that made me happy so far today:

Recently the school was gifted a large number of cheap digital cameras to use with the students. I didn’t have very much success with the camera itself until today. I’m happy to say that I was able to get some pretty good pictures from this simple, shoot and point camera. Now I have to come up with a project that uses these cameras. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Here are a few pictures from the camera.

What makes you happy?

Dogs’ Nirvana

Posted on March 9, 2013 by Mama Cormier

…. took the dogs to High Park off leash area today

It was a beautiful day and our youngest daughter came over with her basset hound, Lucy. There was a bit of a nip in the air but the sun was shining and when you were in the sun it felt warm.

We decided to take the dogs to a great park we have in here in Toronto called High Park. The park sits on 161 hectares (400 acres) and was gifted to the city of Toronto in 1876 by John Howard. One third of the park is still in a natural state and there is a large fenced-in off leash area for dogs. I like this area because there are lots of options for dog owners. You can stay in a large area where dogs can socialize or you can opt to take some of the trails where dog owners can also get some exercise. We chose the latter option.

As you can see from the photos, winter is starting to leave us but sections of trail are still snow covered and pretty icy. Where the snow has melted it has been replaced with lots of mud and puddles. I’m glad I wore my rubber boots.

The dogs loved it for the most part. Lucy doesn’t like water but mud didn’t seem to bother her. Frances on the other hand loves the puddles. Doggy heaven!

Eating Out, Food Poisoning and March Break

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Mama Cormier

….. health wise it’s been a difficult weekI

It all started with a sore throat last weekend and then it became a full blown head cold by Monday. A friend of mine was supply teaching at my school and she suggested that I take off a morning so that I could sleep in and get the rest I needed to recover. She offered to come in and teach my library classes. I took her up on her offer Wednesday morning.

Getting that extra rest really did help and I started to feel better. My cold is pretty much done. On Thursday my husband took me out for dinner. We went to a new restaurant where the menu was completely unfamiliar to me. There was a lot of pork and sausages on the menu but there were some healthier options or so I thought. I ended up ordering an arugula salad with mushrooms and a small grilled steak. To drink I had a mineral water with a wedge of lime.

The food was delicious but soon after I finished my meal I started to feel sick again. At first I thought that my cold was coming back but it was worse than that. I started running a fever, I had a headache and I ached all over. Once I got home I knew that I probably had a case of food poisoning. After being home for about an hour and a half I was violently ill. I never throw up. In fact the last time I did vomit happened over 30 years ago when I was pregnant with the twins and suffered from a bout of food poisoning.

I felt immediately better after losing my dinner but I wasn’t 100% so I went to bed. Later in the evening I woke up and I realized that I was dehydrated. I took some water and went back to bed. In the morning I didn’t feel too bad so I decided to go to work.

I probably should have taken the day off but because it was the day before March Break I knew that the board could insist that I get a doctors note to say that I was ill. Without a note they could dock me a day’s pay. When I got to school I had a terrible headache. I found some Tylenol and it did help. I had no appetite. I had a coffee and 3 small cookies. I couldn’t even eat lunch.

By dinner tonight I was looking forward to comfort food and my husband made a mashed cauliflower, chicken marsala and a vegetable succotash. It was perfect. After dinner we did our 3.6k walk. I think I’m on the mend.

Tomorrow we’re planning on getting out the bikes and going for a nice long ride. Do you have a March Break or Spring Break? What kind of things are you planning to do?

Welll I thought I had sent this off yesterday but apparently it’s been sitting here in a draft. I thought I had solved this problem but I guess not.

Update: I didn’t get out for that bike ride but we did go to High Park with the dogs and I got some great shots that I will post later.

Cheers!

A Sneak Preview

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Mama Cormier

…. our pioneer quilt blocks are coming along

I look forward to the art classes where we are working on sewing our quilt blocks. The boys and girls in grade 3 are enjoying the project but everyone is at a different stage. A few students only have one square sewn in place and a few more are almost finished sewing all their fabric pieces together and are almost ready to start their fancy stitching and adding embellishments.

I decided to take a few pictures of the partially finished blocks so that you could see how well eight year olds can sew.

Letting Their Creative Juices Flow

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Mama Cormier

….or how grade 2s paint when left alone

Yesterday in my art class I worked closely with my grade 3s while I asked the grade 2s to work more independently. In the last class the grade 2s started a monochromatic multimedia painting. They were instructed to find black and white pictures, puzzles, headings and text from the newspaper that represented a theme (e.g., numbers, words, sports, puzzles, love, money) and glue them onto a piece of paper in an interesting pattern. Then they had to choose one colour and using water colour paint they created a wash over their pictures and words.

In yesterday’s class they continued adding more paint and detail to their art work. I allowed them to use acrylic paints, stamps and sharpies. The only instruction I gave them was to bring the paints to me so that I could squeeze a small amount onto their plates. They were very excited about using acrylics for the first time.

As I was helping the grade 3s with their quilting project the occasional grade 2 came to me to ask for advice. No one brought the paint to me. I should have been suspicious about their use of the acrylics but I was so caught up in the sewing project that I didn’t check how the acrylics were being used. I was totally oblivious until one of my students came to me to tell me that the brand new tube of white acrylic was empty. What????????? I couldn’t believe it.

I couldn’t really fault the grade 2s for using too much paint, except that the only instruction I gave they chose to ignore. In the end I love the finished projects. Some of them need a little more tweaking but they are 90% done. Only one student didn’t quite get the monochromatic theme but I liked how it turned out and it is mostly green.

Some of the students finished early so I gave them an old floppy disc that we had gessoed in an earlier class. I showed them some pictures of famous paintings for inspiration and then gave them free reign to create anything they wanted. They loved it. Here are some of their masterpieces.

Getting Ready to Run

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Mama Cormier

… I’ve signed up for Girls on the Run

Last year I started my weight loss journey in April. Earlier in the year I had agreed to be one of the coaches for a group of 8 to 11 year old girls who wanted to run a 5k race. Little did I know how much I was going to enjoy running. My original goal was to walk the 5k but as I trained with the girls I found I started to run. It started with running 50 metres and then walking but gradually the running distances became longer. The day of the race I ran about half the course.

Today I’m happy to say that we’re participating in Girls on the Run again. This is a big deal for us because we really believe in the program. Not only does it promote fitness in young girls but there’s a huge emphasis on building positive self esteem and treating others with respect and kindness.

For me personally I wanted to start running again and I needed a venue to get me going again. As some of you know I’ve plateaued with my weight loss. Even though I’ve been sick I started walking again and it feels great. I’m also back on track with my eating.

Today I started with a two egg omelet with lots of vegetables and a cup of coffee. Lunch consisted of left over chicken from last nights dinner and a Brussels sprouts and spinach salad and dinner was oven baked salmon and sweet potato and a large salad. For a snack I had raw carrots and humus and 1 oz. of cheese. I also drank a lot of tea today to keep my throat hydrated. Drinking a lot of water and tea also helps keep your appetite in check. I’ve always known this but I’m not very good at it. Maybe being sick was a blessing in disguise because it forced me to drink more than I would normally.

My next fitness goal is to run the entire 5k without stopping. Wish me luck!

Cheers!