Matcha and Christmas Tea

Hey all! I’m writing this to you while my eyes are beginning to feel heavier and heavier. I haven’t been sleeping well lately and I am totally feeling the effects today! But I definitely wanted to share some of the new tea I’ve gotten in the past couple of weeks 🙂

You should know that I love tea. Don’t get me wrong, coffee is very tasty. This summer when I was in Europe, I tried some of the best coffee of my life. But that was in Europe and I don’t have easy access to amazing coffee anymore. So that means my go-to-gal is tea!

I have a small cupboard filled with tea that I keep trying to minimize. I try not to buy more, but sometimes I just can’t resist! However, it’s my goal to have my tea cupboard cleared out by April! I’ll be moving then and I really don’t want to haul tea 3000 km (or, according to google, 3190 km) across the country.

Plus, then I can stock up on brand new tea 😀

Anyways, I’m not very strong willed when it comes to restriction.

First of all, I decided to take advantage of a daily deal for Got Matcha?

The deal included 80g of organic matcha, 40g of chai matcha, and 40g of pumpkin spice matcha.

Here’s a little bit about matcha:

• Matcha is the finest grade of green tea
• It has incredible anti-oxidant properties
• It contains certain amino acids which help relieve stress and anxiety
• Matcha has  been associated with health benefits such as lowering of blood pressure and improvement of memory
• Studies have also shown that matcha can help with the prevention of tooth decay, diabetes, and heart disease

To read more about matcha, check out this source. After reading about it, I can understand why matcha is considered a ‘superfood’.  When I first heard about its benefits, I knew I wanted to get some. But I was a little put off by its taste. Now I drink green tea everyday so I’m really use to the flavor.

Of the three packets, I’ve only tried the pumpkin matcha so far… and it was delish! Nice pumpkin taste that worked really well with the green tea flavour. I can’t wait to try the other ones!

The other 4 teas I got were actually a present from my super sweet husband! He went on a mountain trip this weekend, and picked me the tea as a surprise! The tea is from Banff Tea Co.

I’ve posted about this tea before in Tea, Tea, Tea! Part 2. If you haven’t read it, you should check it out 🙂

I really wanted to get some Christmas blends last time I was at the store, but seeing as it was October, they didn’t have any ready yet. But they were definitely ready when Bartek was there! Now I feel like the luckiest girl in the world for having a wonderful husband + 4 delicious Christmas blends of tea!

Here are the blends he bought (from left to right):

Candy Cane, New Years Tea, Mulled Wine, and Rocky Mountain Christmas

Rocky Mountain Christmas is the only one of the four available on the website. Here’s the description:

Mulled spices mixed with a light infusion of the taste of candied apples makes this rich, robust tea popular any time of year. Ingredients: Black tea, rooibos, apple pieces, caramel pieces, cinnamon, calendula, natural flavours.

Doesn’t that sound drool worthy? I’ve tried the Rocky Mountain Christmas and Mulled Wine so far, both were great 🙂

Needless to say, my cup will be filled with one of those seven for the next couple of months!

I’m off to bed now! Hopefully I’ll wake up well rested tomorrow. Now that I think of it, maybe I should help my goal out and brew a cup of Rooibos to help me sleep… that is, if I can stay awake long enough for the water to boil.

…pleasant dreams darlings,

xoxo Miranda

PS Bartek has a whole bunch of new photos from his trip. I thought I’d include one:

Have you ever tried Matcha before? Do you like it? What is your favorite Christmas beverage?

 

 

A Snowy Monday

Ok so I did something kinda not-so-good today.

I feel bad about it happening.

There’s no point denying it.

I went for a nap 😦 And now I can’t fall asleep! But at least I (finally!) have time for a blog post 😀

BTW I should add that it snowed a little this weekend, but a lot today 😦 Pictures to come on a later post… that is, once the tears of saddness stop making my vision blurry so I can actually use my camera… *sniff* (Snow=cold=dislike)

I woke up this morning with lots of energy! I’m not really sure why. I know it’s a terrible habit, but usually I lay in bed for 30 mins after my alarm goes by! It’s so sad when I think of all the good stuff I could be doing with that time! I totally gotta work on that 🙂

But that was clearly not the case for today. Instead, it was Bodyrock time!

PS I swear I’ve been doing other stuff than Bodyrock… ok well maybe not much else!

PPS My abs hurt from this bodyrock= good news!

Monday Morning Munchies: (I love all the ‘m’s… mmmmmmmmmmm)

When I wake up in the morning and I’m not very hungry, I always opt for cereal. It doesn’t fill me up enough on days when I’m really hungry, but it’s perfect for those so-so mornings. I have a cereal buying problem, and up until last week I had 5 boxes which I mixed together in my bowl. However, I’m trying to limit my compulsion! So right now I have gluten free Chex (honey nut flavoured!), Ezekial 4:9 sprouted whole grain (almond flavoured!), and Nature’s Path rice crisp cereal!

So I mix them all together, add a 1 1/2 tsp chia seeds, a sliced banana, LOTS of almond milk, and VOILA! Monday morning munchies 🙂

Snack: I went to my Dad’s house today and had to take advantage of his coffee options. Although I  have a Tassimo that I love, he has a Keurig and buys lots of cool coffees. This was Chocolate Raspberry Truffle coffee… it was so good! Of course I had to pair it with a few frozen chocolate covered almonds and an orange! (Notice Tinkerbell cup! I think I may need to claim it!)

Lunch: Unpictured! Today was my brother’s 30th birthday, and so I went over to celebrate with him and his family + our grandmother. I was a little late, so I didn’t get a chance to take a picture of the food. But we had pizza and my grandmother’s homemade poppy seed chiffon cake… so good!! It was a really fun time, but unfortunately I couldn’t stay long as I have an abundance of homework to do 😦

Afterwards in the evening I wasn’t really that hungry, so I just had a light snack.

I not one, but two more oranges (I’m addicted!), plus a peppermint stick Luna bar. This was my first time trying a Luna bar and it was AMAZING! I can’t believe it! I’m going to have to get some more at the store. I gave one to Bartek to take on his mountain climb this past weekend, but I never realized they’re designed for women! So I just have this image of the rugged mountain terrain + all these shaggy mountain climbers + Luna bar= hilarious! I’ll have to ask him if that’s how it went!

And that’s all I ate today… it doesn’t seem like much, but I really ate my fill of pizza, so it’s probably a good choice that my other food choices were pretty light!

Anyways, I should try to go to sleep now. Bartek’s been in bed for an hour… THIS NEVER HAPPENS! I usually go to bed way earlier than him!

tata luvs!

xoxo Miranda

Have you ever tried frozen chocolate almonds?

Have you ever tried a Luna bar? If so, what’s your favorite flavour?

Completely Unrelated

Hi Everybody,

I just wanted to drop a quick line… Here is a website I made for my Library Studies class on graphic novels and comics for library collections. The assignment was comics to film, so naturally I chose Batman. If you’re interested, give it a look!

Batman: From Comics to Film

And if Batman is not your thing, here’s Paradise by Coldplay!

I promise next post will be more related!

cheers,

xoxox Miranda

November Goals

Good Morning!

Last night was dedicated purely to letting of steam/stress. After my class ended at 3:00pm, I closed my books for the rest of the day and got to spend some great time with some special friends (in addition to my special husband!)

That being said, I was definitely in bed at 10:30pm. And now this morning I’m sluggish thanks to the deliciousness of last night’s ciders…

BUT I have a 4-day overdue post about my goals for the month! Borrowing a page from the book of Meg, I’ll be setting goals this month based on the following categories:

Fitness, Nutrition, Spiritual, Academic, Personal, and Blog goals.

1. Fitness: My goal for November will be to visit the gym once/week. I haven’t gone in a few months because I’ve been making use of outside/in home work outs, but I have been really feeling the lack of community. I intend to visit the gym either for cardio, weight training, or to take advantage of the the free classes being offered (yoga, pilates, zumba, etc).

2. Nutrition: I’m a sugar junkie, and I need to keep my habit in check. Last month I kinda went a little too crazy on the sugar front thanks to the copious amounts of Halloween candy available. This month, I’m going to try and limit my intake to one sweet/day!

3. Spiritual: Over one year ago a very kind priest lent me a book to read on spirituality. And me, being the worst type of person, has not read/returned it yet. I started reading in a few weeks ago, but my goal for November is to finally finish it and bring it back to Fr. Janko (and force him to talk to me about it!)

4. Academic: Woo hoo! Almost done school! November is my last full month of classes. My goal is to catch up on my readings. I’m pretty good at doing that (hard to participate in discussions without knowing the material), but my Music class has been neglected. I only have like 20 to catch up on… uh oh…

5. Personal: I’m not the best at taking criticism. I guess I feel that people won’t take me seriously unless I’m really perfect, and therefore I always try to defend myself against criticism even if it’s well-intentioned. This month I’m going to try my very best to listen to criticism seriously and to consider what’s being said without being defensive. I have already been practicing that for a few days, and it seems to be going well so far!

6. Blog: I’m going to post once/week about what I ate that day. I’m going to try to participate in WIAW (as organized by Jenn at Peas and Crayons), but if I miss that, I’ll just post about a different day!

Whew! I hope I can do all of this. I like the idea of reviewing goals at the end of the month (or the beginning of the next month) so I think I’m going to do that so I can let you guys know how I made out!

xoxo Miranda

Do you have any criticism for me? I promise to take it well 😉

Beginning of November…

Good Morning Everybody!

I hope you’re all do fantastic!! It’s very exciting that this is the beginning of another month. If you read my post from yesterday, you’ll know that I’ve been consumed with studying and schoolwork. However, I thought I’d take this opportunity to show you some other things that have been occupying my time…

1. Halloween! I know I’m a few days late, but I wanted to show you the pumpkin I carved incredibly quickly for the big night!

2. Reese’s Pieces. I’ve been eating way too many of these the last couple of days!

3. Bodyrock (of course): ’nuff said!

4. My MAC foundation is almost used up! Which means that I’ll get a new one. Which means I already bought the new one. Which means I have $40 less. Which means I have to scrape every.last.drop. out of the old one!

5. Crossword and Sudoku: I do these everyday! I’m getting so good at them!

6. I’ve had this plant for around 18 months, and it never did anything too special (aside from having really pretty pink leaves!) and then I saw that it had randomly bloomed one day! I was so excited!! Now I look at it ALL the time. Just in case…

So that’s what I’ve been up to! I’m going to try my best to write up my November goals and share them with all of you later!!

Have a fabulous day today and make sure you set some time aside to appreciate the small things (like little purple flowers)!

xoxo Miranda

What have you been consumed with lately?

Apologies…

Hello dears,

I’m sorry for being AWOL! I wish I could tell you that it’ll be better in the future… but unfortunately I’m having the busiest semester of my university life! This is my last semester (Thank GOD!), so I keep counting down until I’m done. But ultimately, the leisurely aspects of my life get put aside (I’m afraid google reader is going to hit 100 unread blog posts). But I know you’ll all still love me right? I promise to come back very soon… 5 more weeks until exams!

Until I post next, I hope you all have wonderful days filled with joy and pleasure ❤

I’ll leave you with this bit of wisdom:

xoxo Miranda

Inspiration In The Form of Lost Hair

As some of you may have read, I recently became addicted to Bodyrock.tv (and whoops I accidently typed boyrock, which I’m sure is a completely different site!). It started simply at first; I’d check out the site, find some workouts. And then I began to try one here, one there. And then I started forsaking my other workouts for bodyrock… and  now I have these cravings! I need to do them everyday!!

Ok, so maybe it’s not that bad. But seriously, they are really addicting! And Zuzana is a great motivator. She has the most amazing body. It would be a lifetime achievement if I could get abs like her.

[P.S.Here is the workout I did today. It’s called “Booty Fat Meltdown”. I promise I’ll do something different tomorrow!]

But here’s the shocking part: FREDDY AND ZUZANA BROKE UP. (for those just tuning in, F&Z started Bodyrock together)

I know, what can I say. Freddy clearly saw my moves and left Zuzana. That’s the only reasonable explanation right? (WRONG-My version of the Bodyrock definitely leaves something to be desired. Or a lot to be desired. AKA Sweaty, panting mess)

So now Zuzana won’t be doing the workouts anymore. But no worries! There are plenty of old ones for me to try (I think there’s 600!)

Alright. If you’re still with me, I wanted to write about an event I attended Sunday afternoon. My beautiful friend Meagan (and her friend Sarah) decided to chop off their hair for cancer.

Here’s the picture before:

[Sarah on left, Meagan on right]

And here’s after:

It takes a lot of courage to make such a drastic change (especially when it’s to do with looks), but I was so moved by these girls. I’ve noticed that a lot of people involved in the healthy living community often do fundraising in the form of runs, etc. for cancer charities (and others). It’s really inspirational to read about all of these stories and it really makes me feel like a run for cancer would be something I’d like to do in the future.

[Me and Meagan. ahhh… bad iphone pic!]

It’s pretty sad how cancer affects so many people in our lives. Everybody knows somebody who has had cancer (or in some cases, they themselves have had it). Unfortunately for us, there are so many cancer-causing agents in our world. Although studies are done, they’re rarely conclusive and that’s a pity. That’s why I feel it’s important to make choices to avoid bad things whenever possible.

Speaking of inspirational, my amazing friend Leah overcame breast cancer and now keeps a blog to capture her quirky self. It’s a great read! It’s called, Lopsided: Life, Love, and Everything in Between.

Ok, I’m off to relax! I’ve had a crazy productive day today, and now I need to enjoy the rewards (aka Netflix time!)

I hope you all have a wonderful night, filled with beautiful dreams. Tomorrow’s gonna be a good day! I can feel it 🙂

xoxo Miranda

What motivates you to be healthy? Aujourd’hui: Zuzana’s abs and avoiding cancer 🙂

Lentil Cracker Review

Hey peeps! How’s it going?

Bartek and I did another Bodyrock this afternoon… this one was called ‘For the Haters’. Instead of intervals, it was a routine you had to do as many times as you could in 10 mins. Zuzana gave a variation for beginners, which is the one I gladly embraced 🙂 The routine was: plank, left leg bend, right leg bend, push up, jump up, jump forward, two jumps up, and one jump back. I was crazy sweating when I was done. And it was only 10 mins.

…I think I’m hooked.

Afterwards, I needed some post-Bodyrock munchies! I cut up a bowl of veggies, found my hummus in the fridge, and grabbed a new box of crackers for my snack.

The crackers were a new-to-me food, and I was excited to try them. They are Mediterranean Baked Lentil Crackers in rosemary herb. The box describes them as “non-gmo ingredients, gluten free ingredients, good source of protein, and low fat”

They taste really good! They still have the gluten-free taste to them, but that’s not surprising because they are GF! I actually like the taste because it’s milder than wheat crackers. They also had a nice texture and tasted amazing with the hummus. I don’t think these are the type of crackers I could munch on alone, but that might almost be preferable 🙂

Next, I was curious about nutrition…

As you can see, they’re not that nutritionally dense. They have some protein (a little more than most crackers), but are pretty low on anything else (including fibre!). The ingredient list wasn’t too long but did include some things I try to avoid (but were, fortunately, lower down on the list). That being said, overall I’m pretty pleased with these!

[yummers!]

Oops I just ate too many while I was writing this!

xoxo Miranda

What’s your favorite use of crackers?

Saturday, Work Day!

Hello everyone! How are you enjoying your weekend? I’m having a nice day so far, but I have a lot of work to do so I’m not sure how much free time I’ll have to laze around 🙂

This morning I woke up and I was so hungry. I went to the kitchen and perused my options, but for the life of me I could not decide what to eat! As I’ve probably mentioned before, I’m a pretty indecisive person, so it takes me awhile to make up mind about things. When you’re hungry, that is sooooo frustrating! I kinda wanted some pumpkin french toast, but I didn’t want to spend the time making it. Anyways, as I wrestled with the decision, I knew I’d have to choose something quick and easy to make because my stomach was getting way too growly. But no worries, I eventually decided 🙂

[quick and easy! Bananas and almond butter on Silver Hills’ toast]

The other day I was in class and the girl sitting behind me was eating a banana. We got into this great conversation about how much we love bananas and how necessary they are for day-to-day life (I should note that I had run out of bananas a few days earlier and was thus suffering withdrawal). It’s great to know that I’m not the only banana lover out there (even though I think the people sitting next to us thought we were nerds)! I think that classes with 400 students in them are such a great way to meet new people!

Anyways, I’m off to work on some school stuff! Of course, after I eat some lunch!

cya ❤

xoxo Miranda

What is your favorite everyday fruit?

I Rocked My Body With BodyRock!

Ok…. so B and I haven’t exactly been that active lately. Yes, we’ve been doing an occasional workout. No, it doesn’t usually happen more than once or twice/week. This is usually the case in September, since going back to school makes us completely change our schedule (plus with all the stuff we gotta do) and fitness usually gets put on the back burner. Then we snap out of it around xmas on our break, but after that we still can only find minimal time for our workout. What suffers the most is our performance in the spring, because those minimally active months really make a difference (I notice a difference after a week of missed work outs). Because we have to get back into shape before summer, we ultimately miss out on spring activities.

Well this year it’s gonna be different 🙂

As part of my commitment plan (you can read about it here), I want to try and do a workout everyday! Well, almost everyday… I’m gonna take rest days 🙂 But I know for this to work, I’m going to have to ease into it. Bartek and I’ve decided to fit in 3 workouts this week, and then take it up a notch every week afterwards.

This week was considered our easy week… so here’s our plan:

Tuesday: 30 min jog with stairs

Thursday: Bodyrock workout

Friday: TBD

I know this may seem easy to a lot of you out there, but I want to be honest here and admit that I am not in any type of crazy good shape. When I was young, I didn’t have to work out much and I was able to stay slim. But now, as I get older, it’s become harder to eat whatever I want and still fit into my favorite jeans. That being said, I don’t want to be active to lose weight. I’m happy with the weight I am now (even if it is 20lbs of perogie weight!) What I really want to be is more fit. I want to be able to do a mountain climb with Bartek (I’ll deal with the heights issue later), I want to do a 10 hrs hike, and I want to be able to jog for an extended period of time without taking a break.

But I know this doesn’t all happen over night! But I’m excited to get started 🙂

I first heard about Bodyrock from Brittany at Itty Bits of Balance. Here’s the Bodyrock workout we did today:

It kinda killed us. And I’m gonna admit we didn’t do it 4 times! EEP!

small steps…

xoxo Miranda

Have you ever tried Bodyrock? If so, which is your favorite workout?