All you’ll need is a regular blender to get your smoothie (and day) buzzing! While any blender will do, I do believe they are an item where investing in high quality makes a difference. My personal favorite is the President’s Choice Nurtri Bullet Blender for high power, easy clean-up, and even easier transportation for when you are on the go.
Check out to the video below for a step-by-step guide, follow me along on Twitter and Instagram for behind the scenes content, and share your smoothie tips in the comments!
Have you ever tried to find a way to de-stress, only to have it not work (or you just stopped trying)? That’s happened to me countless times.
The cycle is as follows:
Get stressed
Ignore the stress
Become burnt out
Find a destress technique
Stress about destressing
🙂
Thankfully, I have found a way for me to destress — gardening!
What makes gardening so different for me?
Well, I’ve always done some form of gardening since I was a little girl. My mother maintains a well manicured garden in both her front and back yard, but she has never been one to grow any kind of produce. Each summer, I help her plant her haul from a greenhouse, and her garden always looks so wonderful! Large trees, blooming flowers, decorative grasses, statues, bird baths and feeders. When I lived back home, I kept a few Valentine’s Day orchids from my Dad to my Mom alive and blooming inside, which was my first real taste of gardening for myself (my parents never really cared to have anything besides vases of flowers inside the house, which would inevitably die in a few weeks).
This is the first orchid that my Dad got for my mom — I didn’t want to see something so pretty die, so here is the first time it rebloomed for me!
When I moved out with my brother, one requirement was that we get a place with a nice balcony! Said balcony is quite long, so fortunately I have the space to have my garden outside. My brother and I have our own parts of the garden; he takes care of the decorative flowers and grasses, and I take care of the veggies, fruits, and herbs. So far, I have two Sungold tomato plants, green chili peppers, Habanero chili peppers, a whole planter of sweet potatoes, chives, green onions, sweet basil, as well as Thai basil.
Here are a few photos of my little balcony garden! I mostly have experience in my mom's decorative-style garden, but this is my first foray into veggies, fruits and herbs! #EXSM3989#gardeningpic.twitter.com/VxCa3EqHAk
It might seem a bit silly, since I feel like each time I would “destress” through yoga, journaling, etc, it felt like a strange race to stop being stressed (that is probably just me though). Gardening isn’t a “fast” hobby to take part in. There is a lot of waiting and watching involved.
I like the routine of having different watering and feeding schedules for more delicate, finicky plants indoors, and being able to watch as the vegetation on my balcony sprouted out from the soil, reaching towards the sun and really begin to develop!
It has taken a little while for my plants to reach the fruiting stage, but now I have a constant supply of these little Sungold cherry tomatoes!
Better yet, I could harvest from my own balcony the fruits of my labour. Cooking, marinading, garnishing with a few simple and fresh ingredients from my little garden! It has also been nice to be able to share with my friends and family, too.
I have found that the act of gardening is pretty relaxing. The ability to physically see the progress of individual plants as well as the garden as a whole is a kind of reward I wasn’t getting or seeing with other hobbies/relaxation techniques.
I really recommend trying out gardening if you have the patience for it! Especially if you are like me and prefer to see some sort of physical progress.
Every summer, I spend as much time as possible barefoot in the garden. Weeding the raised beds, deadheading the flowers in baskets and watering everything in sight! With the lack of rain this year I spent most of my time rehydrating the wilted and crispy flowers, and struggling to keep a few things alive- sorry, dahlias!
But it catches me by surprise every year, one day I turn around BAM something has thrived and grown out of control! This year, it was in the office where my partner works. When dropping off a morning smoothie, there it was, sitting quietly in the corner aerogarden…a basil jungle!
This seemed like the perfect opportunity to share the little journey my plant friends are going to make through live tweeting. So, I start snapping some photos and share a few of my crazy plant lady thoughts along the way…
While I am proud of these two for thriving, the other poor plants had barely set four spindly leaves so it was clear, the basil is out of this hydroponic paradise. I generally try and do this while the plants are MUCH younger so the roots can still be taken out with the plant above and they all get plopped nicely into a new pot to live outside until the first frost. But, time got away from me and these plants are huge!
So, I tugged and the plant didn’t give- so I pulled and rriiiiipppppp, the majority of the roots completely separated from the plant. Well, nothing I can really do now except try and set them up as best as possible. I realized that I certainly wasn’t the only one that accidentally subjected plants to cruel neglect and torture- hopefully there is someone else out there who will empathize with my situation.
After trimming off the plastic container and floofing up the roots a bit, into a container they go. Terra cotta with some fresh potting mix is what’s kicking around, so it will have to do.
I decided to take a quick break to get my dog involved. If there is something related to dirt and/or digging, he’s there! But, to his dismay, he was only involved to the extent that he got garnished. I couldn’t resist!
…back to the plants. After a good watering, they have settled into their dirt bound home just fine.
I’ll certainly be keeping an eye on the mint plant so it doesn’t overgrow and succumb to the same fate as the half-root basil plants (but, I’m hoping for the best, obviously).
I turned 35 last year – and I may or may not still have a teddy bear or two proudly displayed in my bedroom. There’s something about the stuffed creatures that brings out nostalgia and a sense of serene comfort. I remember reading an article in April of 2020, during the first Covid-19 lockdown in Ontario, Canada, that discussed the usage of weighted teddy bears during the Coronavirus to help ease anxiety, grief and loneliness. As I wallowed in the new strange world of not being able to see my friends, I wondered if things would be back to “normal” in time for my 35th August birthday so I could celebrate with my loved ones (little did I know that the virus would still be wreaking havoc as I approach my 36th birthday. Sigh).
Thinking about the article, I joked to my friend via text: “If we’re still in lockdown in August, I’m having a teddy bear party and naming all the bears after all of my friends so it’ll be like you’re all basically there.” When the lockdown ended at the end of June and small backyard gatherings were allowed, I decided to make good on my joke. While I did invite a couple of close friends to celebrate the day, teddy bears ran the show as I used Jimmy Kennedy’s famous book, The Teddy Bears’ Picnic and a curated collection of famous teddies from literature and pop culture to base my party theme on. Read on for all of the party deets!
Décor
To set the mood, I designated a corner of the backyard to two of my favourite teddy bears and their toy picnic basket. They dined on burgers and veggies, sipped some tea and were later joined by more fuzzy friends – I had asked each guest to bring along their cherished teddy bear. The rest of the backyard was decorated with paper lanters, streamers and flowers in shades of red and yellow. Red is a traditional picnic colour (hello, checkered table cloth) and yellow is my happy colour. Patterns of bees were also featured throughout because bees = honey = bears.
Party Favours
Because of Covid-19 concerns, I wanted to make sure my guests (and their varying degrees of pandemic anxiety) felt comfortable attending. I created picnic baskets for each person with the “bare (bear) necessities,” a play on famous bear Baloo’s song from Disney’s The Jungle Book. Each bag contained a mason jar for drinking with a name tag, mini plastic tongs so everyone had their own serving tool for the food table, and an on-theme face mask in a bee print (made by a local seamstress who had just started a very successful face mask business). And candy. Obviously there was candy.
Food and Beverages
The main course consisted of typical BBQ items but the snacks were a little jazzed up with quotes from popular fictional teddy bear stories.
I had chocolate covered pretzel sticks (colored in a bee pattern) and Tim Horton’s Honey Dip Timbits to represent Winnie-the-Pooh’s love of honey.
The story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears (and Goldilocks’ attempts at trying all of the porridge) was used for the Doritos chips selection – Cool Ranch (TOO COLD), Flamin’ Hot (TOO HOT), and Original flavour (JUST RIGHT). Paddington the Bear’s love, marmalade, was featured on a cheese plate.
I had also created boxes of trail mix with all things teddy and honey related, including Teddy Grahams, honeycomb-shaped chocolate, honey-flavoured nuts, Honeycomb cereal, and Bear Paws’ little bites.
The cooler of beer I set up for ease of drinking was an ode to Ted (the bear from the very popular movie of the same name) and his love of “Teddy Brewskis.”
Cake
I couldn’t have a teddy bear party without including the Berenstain Bears – I had most of their books as a child. One of my best friends is a pastry chef so I was lucky enough to have her make me my own individual teddy bear cake and delicious bee cupcakes for the guests (which made it easier to abide by Covid safety guidelines). I definitely had leftover cake for breakfast the next day!
Birthday Cocktail
Because I’m a bartender and the pandemic lockdowns have allowed me to have a lot of fun experimenting with cocktails, I knew the party needed a themed drink. I had been in a frozen cocktail phase (and still am!) so I ended up making a “Mango Peach BEARlini”, which was a huge hit. Check out my Instagram reel for a DIY video on how to make this frozen Mango Peach Bellini. Just be careful – they’re highly addictive and too easy to drink.
A Joyful Day
After worrying I would have to spend my birthday alone, I was extremely happy with how I got to celebrate my birthday. Got any tips for celebrating special occasions during the pandemic? Let me know in the comments! While the teddy bear theme was fun and allowed my creative juices to flow, I was most grateful that I got to spend time with my family and friends and didn’t have to resort to naming bears after them!
I have always been fat. Growing up in Hong Kong, I could never escape small comments from friends, family, passerbys about my weight, my height, or my general size. In elementary school, I was once told that I could be a supermodel (with my 5’11 frame) if only I stopped eating. All these comments were well-meaning; no one ever meant to tear me down. After 28 years of living in this body, I have finally shaken the need to prove to people that I’m beautiful/ worth loving/ non-threatening. But the one myth I can’t seem to shake is the myth surrounding my relative athleticism. I think I’m ready to talk about that now.
Seeing the 2020 Tokyo Olympics really proved to me something – that there is no singular Olympic body type. The rugby players and weight lifters don’t share the same body size as the gymnasts and athletes. No one body can do it all. Similarly, I can’t judge a body’s capacity based on its physical appearance. I spent my entire childhood trying to prove that to people by being on every sports team that took me. I was a goalie in soccer; I played defense in basketball; I was part of a competitive skipping rope team; I played volleyball; I was on the track team for discus; I was part of a dance troupe; I took home first place in 100m and 400m freestyle for years. Outside of school, my life continued to be filled with physical activity: weekend hikes, ice skating with my father, swimming on the evenings, long walks after school. Despite all that I was never any skinnier.
After I moved to Edmonton 10 years ago, I lost a lot of the structure that surrounded that active lifestyle and I became more sedentary. However, that didn’t mean I stopped trying. I went quadding during camping trips; joined the school water polo team; learned to run & ran a 5K race; went hiking in Banff & Jasper; took long walks through the river valley trails; rode my bicycle across town. I still loved being active.
So here’s the thing: this isn’t a story about how I used physical activity to get skinny. In fact I never plan to write that story. This is a story about how I have learned to appreciate and love my body in motion. I wrote this less as proof to someone else that I am powerful and capable of incredible movement, but as evidence to myself. So here you go Charlotte, here is evidence that your body is strong and that you love to be active. I want you to remember it when you’re in darker places.
One of the most important aspects of an RPG is to create a character with a compelling personality and backstory. If you can make a good backstory, you will become invested in the story and your character.
Yenzin Tealeaf
Yenzin Tealeaf’s Character Art
Yenzin is one of my favourite characters to play because I’ve developed her and her backstory with care. While her backstory is not long, it has all the details it needs, and her personality traits, ideals, bonds and flaws were carefully thought of.
Yenzin Tealeaf is a Lightfoot Halfling and a Cleric of the Knowledge Domain. How this came to be is as follows:
As the youngest of her family, Yenzin was always compared to her older brothers and sister. Everyone expected her to turn out the same way.
She did not.
This, it turns out, was a good thing. Her sister, being the oldest, was born to be the heir to her family’s business. However, her sister had no social skills whatsoever and was not the swiftest. She often embarrassed her family, when her mom, dad or nanny was not around to check her behaviour.
Her brothers, the twins, were very charismatic and made friends easily. Because of their (possible) potential, Yenzin’s parents spoiled them to no end. That was a mistake. As the twins grew, they became lazy, spoiled brats. They never did anything for themselves and if they made trouble, there would be no consequences… Ever.
By the time Yenzin was born, everyone thought she would need to be coddled, just like her sister, or she would be spoiled and bratty, like her brothers. No one thought she would be very successful or intelligent.
Yenzin proved everyone wrong. She was charismatic, intelligent and wise beyond her years. During lessons, she would actually pay attention while her brothers goofed off and her sister daydreamed. Yenzin loved to learn and absolutely adored books and reading. She soaked up knowledge like a sponge soaks up water.
One night she had a dream, in which she realized the purpose she had been born for. In the dream, she was sitting at a desk, with a thick tome in front of her. As she opened the book, it seemed to never reach an end. Anything she wished to know appeared in the book as if by magic, before fading after she read it.
When she woke, she remembered the dream with extreme clarity, and from her lessons, she recognized the book as the symbol of Illumater, the God of Knowledge.
She was alive so that she could spread knowledge across the world and unearth ancient secrets, buried long ago.
Yenzin knew that she would have to leave her family, at least for a little while if she was to fulfil her true purpose. When she broached the subject with her parents, they were surprisingly supportive. They could see that she was different from her siblings.
Although her parents, of course, wanted her to stay and take over the business, they agreed to let her go adventuring, stipulating that she must return every few years (at the least), so that she could eventually run the business after their deaths.
The Tome from Yenzin’s Dream
By creating this backstory, I can better connect with the character and I become more invested in the campaign.
To develop the character further, I specially created her Personality Traits, Ideals, Bonds and Flaws, which you can see in this Twitter thread.
Once her personality and history were all set, creating a character sheet and assigning stat and proficiencies became easy. For a quick tour of her character sheet, check out this Instagram post.
Once upon a time there was a young girl who was learning how to be a mother and with each new day she learned something new… I am a mother of one beautiful little girl and let me say that being a mother is not easy. Half of the time my hair is in a mom bun and the other half I’m scrambling around trying to wash clothes. Motherhood can be exhausting and at the same time very rewarding. I get cuddles all hours of the day even when I had enough of them. I put my needs second and make sure my child’s needs are first. I get the sweetest of kisses. I have sleepless nights and trips to the hospital in the middle of the night. I have sticky floors most of the time. I wake up to the cutest laugher and the warmest hugs. I have to make sure I know where the washrooms are at, at all times.
Middle
Motherhood is beautiful and also challenging thing. It is so worth it! My daughter is a social butterfly who loves meeting knew people. When I forget to play my daughter reminds me to. My daughter always gives me kisses everyday and tells me she loves me. My daughter reminds me to be grateful on days I forget. My daughter is the sweetest. She is caring, loving and accepting. She shows me how to be a better person each and everyday.
Motherhood is about ying and yang. Its about all the good with all the bad. Motherhood is forever. Motherhood is a lifelong commitment and I respect all mothers. Motherhood is about taking the bad days with the good days. Motherhood is about succeeding and failing. Motherhood is for the strong.
The End
Motherhood is what you make it. I wish the best for all mothers. I hope to share my stories with other mothers. Motherhood is for the strong. I share my thoughts on motherhood because being a mother is mostly who I am. On special occasions I get a nice little break. Welcome to motherhood & thank you for reading!
With so many party themes to choose from these days planning something tailored to your particular tastes has never been easier. This year COVID restrictions were starting to ease up around my birthday so I decided to throw myself a party to celebrate my birthday and reconnect with friends. I set out to plan the perfect get together. A Hawaiian Luau was at the top of mind until I stumbled upon ideas for a Caesar Bar. As a self proclaimed Caesar connoisseur this was right up my alley!
The best part of building a Caesar bar is that while there is a traditional Caesar recipe the possibilities are endless. I wanted to ensure I had all my guests covered by offering a variety of items from Olives to Candied Bacon….MMM….bacon! I tasked my daughter, Sophie with creating the menu board.
As my guests started to arrive I gave a brief tutorial on how they could mix and match ingredients from the Caesar bar….
…to make their perfect drink!
Watch the planning unfold here and remember, please drink responsibly! Cheers!
Winter in Edmonton is long and frigidly cold, while summers are warm and short. To make the most of a condensed growing season, the Edmonton gardener needs to start early (but not too early) and plant wisely. With some good advice (and good luck), you can have a bounty of fresh fruit and vegetables throughout the late summer and fall, even in our northern climate.
Grape tomatoes on the vine
Choose wisely.
First off, don’t try to grow something tropical, like pineapple, in Edmonton. It won’t work. You will be disappointed.
There are lots of plants that thrive in our climate. Some personal favourites are raspberries, carrots, rhubarb and tomatoes. Raspberries and rhubarb are perennials, meaning they will come back every year. Carrots, beets and other root vegetables grow well from seed, planted after the last frost. Most Edmonton-area gardeners will plant during, or just before, the May long-weekend. If you’re not sure whether something grows well in our climate, ask the experts at a local greenhouse (Salisbury and Kuhlmanns are both excellent).
Fresh raspberries
Grow things you like and use.
Lettuces grow easily in our climate, but that doesn’t change the fact that no one in our house eats it. Frankly, the effort to pick and clean lettuce that tastes exactly the same as the stuff you can buy at the grocery store just isn’t worth the effort. Same story with zucchini.
When you’re choosing fruits and vegetables to grow, consider what you like to eat or what just tastes better when it comes from your garden (ever compared a garden strawberry to a store-bought one? Night and day!)
Just because something can grow in your garden, doesn’t mean that it should.
Enjoy your harvest.
No matter how big or small your garden is, the reward comes when you harvest your crop and feast on the fruits (and veggies) of your labour.
With all the heat earlier this summer, our tomato plants have thrived and taken over the garden. Grape tomatoes are so sweet and they taste amazing right off the plant, but if you have some extras, this tomato jam is a delicious way to use them up.
Don’t have any garden tomatoes to use? No problem, this recipe works just fine with store-bought grape, cherry or roma tomatoes.
Tomato Jam Crostini
Ingredients:
2 cups grape tomatoes
2 tbsp. olive oil
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 tbsp. brown sugar
1 clove garlic, minced
drizzle of glazed balsamic vinegar
1 baguette
Goat cheese (or soft cheese of your choice)
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 325F.
Rinse tomatoes and cut into quarters. Tip! Cutting lots of little tomatoes (grape, cherry, etc.) can be time-consuming. Watch this video for an easier way.
Place tomatoes on a baking sheet, add olive oil, salt and pepper.
Mix together and move them to one side of the sheet. In a single layer but all touching.
Place in oven, set timer for 30 min.
Remove from oven. Most of the moisture should be gone and the tomatoes should be mushy and slightly caramelized. Give them a mix and put them back in the oven for 20 min.
Remove again and add brown sugar, garlic and drizzle of balsamic glaze. Mix to combine and put back in for 15 min.
Remove from oven and mix. They should be mostly mushy and resemble a chunky jam.
While tomatoes cool, cut the baguette into 1″ rounds and toast slightly.
Spread a thin layer of goat cheese (or ricotta or any soft cheese) onto the toasted baguette. Top with 1 tbsp. of tomato jam per crostini.
Plate and drizzle with more balsamic.
Share with people you really like (or save them all for yourself!)
I was raised in Port Llast, literally one of the most boring places in the whole world. Nothing ever happens there. You get up at the crack of dawn to try and make it out on the water before every other fisherman, come back to the docks to sell the stinky fish, go to the pub and then pass out early so you can wake up the next morning and do it all again.
My dad said I was the last unusual thing to happen to the town. He found me as a baby in his fishing boat one morning, and apparently I was so quiet he wouldn’t’ve even noticed it except that he almost sat on me. Everyone I grew up with was human. I… am clearly not. Although I can pass if I pull my hood up high and cover my pointed ears with my hair.
No one let me forget that I was weird, so I didn’t have that many friends as a kid. I mostly hung out with my dad, which was great, don’t get me wrong. But like I said: fish – docks – pub – sleep – repeat.
When I was old enough I headed out for Waterdeep. I knew my way around the docks, was a decent sailor, and getting pretty good at navigating, so I figured I’d be able to find a job that could at least give me a little more excitement.
That has definitely been true.
On my last job, we were on our way to Daggerford, across the Sea of Swords. I was standing on the crow’s nest keeping an eye out, when this massive raven landed in front of me with a letter and this big old ruby attached to it’s leg. Finally, I was getting some sort of adventure.
It’s kind of a long story from there, but after a dinner party with this old baron dude and a bunch of random strangers, he died mysteriously and we all ended up here in Barovia. “The Plane of Dread,” or whatever. It hasn’t been too bad – there’s lots of nice animals and so far I’ve adopted one stray dog, a crate of frogs, and a horse named Cinnamon. On the down side, everyone seems to be trying to kill us.
Good news though – I’ve finally made some friends! These guys are the best, even though they’re a little quirky. We’re on our way to a winery right now, so it’s almost like we’re on a cool road trip together.
I’ll post again when we get there with a brunch review.
EXSM 3989 - Digital Storytelling Class Blog 