Garden is growing!!

Well! Not posting about the garden for a month really gives it time to grow!!!!

Sunflower is really getting up there :D

I went to go wrap the beans around a stick to grow up and look what I found!! BEANS!!!

Grapevine goes up!

So happy to see green on the Christmas tree

I left the lettuce for a white and it really grew! The spinach is still a write off :(

The broccoli appears!! Still little but I love that things are happening!

First little tomato!! We have a cherry tomato plant and the big tomatoes. Very excited!

Nothing much happening with the strawberries....just more leaves.

I thought I took a photo of the the lone surviving cherry tomato plant and the basil...but I guess not. They are both doing well :) 

It's been quite a learning curve for the garden. It needs a good weeding this weekend.

On another note, we're back using SPUD! Last time I ordered from it I just kind of went pellmell and ordered random things which ended up being few items and a lot of money. But SPUD is a sponsor for the Low Car Diet and they sent us a free box of fresh produce. I then discovered I can order just a box of produce, which is exactly what I want to do! Our lives have also changed and we have become those people who don't have time to run up to the store and get fresh stuff! So now, we'll get it delivered each week and just use the rest of the bulk things we get a Costco each month.  I'm really excited!!! I've been missing my vitamins and minerals 

End of July!?

That's just not fair. Summer started in Vancouver YESTERDAY and the season is half over?! Not cool Zeus....Not cool.

Hopefully August isn't such a jerk...

The Low Car Diet starts today! I think I get my starter kit today so I can commence with recording my adventures to shape into awesome vlogs...or so I envision. Either way, very excited to get this thing going. Make sure you're keeping up with Team Vancouver. You're definitely going to want to vote for us at the end :)

I find myself dragging my feet this morning. I hate garbage day. You put out the recycling and at 2 am, can people think that is the best time to rummage through everyone's bin and take what they please. I don't really care if you are taking my bottles and cans. Fine....TWO AM!? When everyone is sleeping and the only sound that jars us all out of our happy state is you and your bottles rattling through our bins!? It's infuriating and compounded by the fact that I can't do anything about it. Just come back tomorrow BEFORE the truck....don't YOU sleep? What are these people doing up at 2 am...

Anyway...mild rant because I'm so tired because of Bottle Billy making noise last night. Annoyed.


Let's turn this around shall we!

Monday FAAAAAVVVVEEESSSS

Margaritas in a bucket • A full nights sleep • The sun • picnics • Lazy Sundays • Timbits • Cracked.com • Sunscreen • swimming in the lake • Letter mail • sports • X-men • Farmer's markets • being warm (which I am NOT right now) • Peanut butter • Keen's • Street festivals • Giant Goldfish crackers (why bother with the little ones!?)

I'm freezing cold right now...the AC is always cranked to full in my edit suite...I hate that I want a snuggie so I can work and be warm...:/

I'll have my Harry Potter post in the coming weeks...when it's all good and outdated. I've picked up the book again so I can further detail the many reasons why I didn't like it...but don't worry, Prisoner of Azkaban the movie will always be the worst :)

Low Car diet!

So perhaps you remember my post from March about Zipcar, the awesome car sharing company we use. Well I've been selected for a very exciting event with The Low Car Diet!

Basically, it's a challenge in the big Zipcar cities. There are teams of 3 or so and the challenge is go to use alternate methods of transportation for a month! There will be lots of vlogs and tweets and updates on how it goes! It's really exciting. There are a lot of sponsors to help us too! Launch Cams is providing us with little helmet cams so we can document our adventures. New Balance gave us some shoes, YYoga, Steve Nash Fitness World, Travelsmart,  Logmein and SO much more (I get the rest of the start up kit Monday so I'll find out what other goodies there are then)

I'm really excited to get started! I don't think it's going to be a radical change from the life I'm currently leading. We got rid of the car last fall and so have been Zipping, bussing and biking since. But I'm excited to share with people just how EASY it is to live without a car. We really have never looked back about getting rid of the Enterprise, and have no plans in the near future to get a new car. Although, it's thanks to Zipcar that when it IS time for a car (a couple kids might make that a must) we know we want to get a Prius, which is our favourite Zipcar to drive!

Also, at the end of the month, the public gets to vote on what team they want to win the grand prize (and it's a really awesome prize....so please vote for Vancouver!!!)

So make sure you stay tuned to that website for all the updates, follow my Twitter for all the recent news, and watch for the hashtag #lowcardiet to see how everyone else is doing!

Also, if you are interested in joining Zipcar, scroll down until you see the little badge and you can get $25 in free driving for joining through me!

Manic monday!

I know! It's been a while since a Monday post!!! Yay! I also went ahead with a new template. What do you think? Pretty simple, but I feel like being simple right now!

I'm sure you're all wondering how my triathlon went!! Yes you are. David took some photos via Instagram. I'm hoping we can get a really GOOD camera soon...then he won't be taking photos with his iPhone all the time.

The SWIM!

The swim portion was easy for me. I swam for more than half my life competitively. I was the 4th fastest time and it gave me a massive lead over the others.

Getting ready to cycle

I lost a lot of time here. People who finished the swim after me caught up and passed me here. I learned that if I want to keep doing these...I need a tri-suit. The cycle was meh. I'm not super great and it was tough after swimming. There was a good incline which sucked. But I didn't get passed by too many people so yay!

The finish!

The run was TOUGH. I am not a very good runner to begin with (why I keep doing it I'm not sure...) but having swam and then biked before this made it hard. AND I wasn't allowed my iPod...which is what gets me through runs! So I sang to myself the whole time! Strangely enough I came in at my usual 5k time...which is BAFFLING to me....I feel like I went so slow! But go me!

We earned these bottles!

This was probably the biggest challenge I've ever done, and the greatest thing I've accomplished. I'm really glad I had a friend doing the race too. I signed up before her, but when she heard I was doing it she was in too...which is awesome! It was fun to have someone to train with. Actually she came first in our age group and second overall in the women!!! She's GOOD. I hope she keeps doing them! I might keep doing the short ones...but I think I would make a great part of a team in a triathlon. My swim is awesome! It was also amazing having David right on the sidelines cheering me on. Literally right there. He actually ran with me from the swim to cycle transition. All day long he kept going on about how proud he was of me and smiling. I could tell he really meant it and that made me so happy :D!

Since it's Monday I will give you some faves! I had some great posts planned before my hard drive bit it so I'll try to get back on track with those soon :)

Monday faves!

Being a triathlete • my sweet new water bottle and shirt from the tri • post race day eats • Coke Zero • frozen yogurt • bike sleeves! • my new bike • where I live • music • eBay • thrifty shopping • supportive in-laws! (it's fun sharing interests with them!) • the library • my hair

I saw the last Harry Potter movie yesterday. I was SO disappointed...what a let down...that is a WHOLE blog post of it's own though!

Did you see HP7 pt2? What did you think?

Delays

Yes it has indeed been quite sometime since a post. I'm sorry. I have a multitude of excuses, but I won't bore you with them! As a consolation prize, I've uploaded new photos to our Shutterfly Share site :) I also think it's about time for a layout change...don't you?


I don't have garden photos for today. Not toooo much is going on. The tomato plant finally has some flowers on it though! Soon they should be tomatoes! Very excited.

I have my triathlon on Sunday. Very nervous...hoping it will be easy (yea right). After that we are going to go see Harry Potter!! I don't think I've ever waited so long to see on..usually I go opening night or something. It's like torture!! But our schedule just didn't allow for us to go until Sunday! It should be a good reward for the triathlon.

On the somewhat subject of biking. I got a new bike!!! Yes finally! I'm very excited. It's quite different from the Fuji (AKA Daria) that's for sure.

Original ad? Fuji Finest Mark 2, circa 1980

As you can see, Daria is a racing bike. And until two years ago sat unused in my dad's garage. When he shipped it out to me, it even came with the bottle and pump featured in this photo (the bottle was pretty rank and the pump broke shortly after that) However, it was pretty much mint condition. It's slightly too big for me and somehow too small at the same time. It's really strange. Regardless, I was putting a lot of pressure forward when I was leaning on the drop bars and it was causing a lot of pain in my shoulder and back. Also, treating a racing bike like a commuter bike isn't very good for the bike at all. I recently had the entire gear system replaced so I wouldn't be killed in the middle of traffic (which was going to happen) I've added some accessories to the bike so it's not exactly as pictured here but close enough :)

Taaadaaaaa!

This bike is as of yet unnamed, considering I only got it yesterday. It's the Garneau Urbania 1.0 and  is obviously very different. Sitting upright on a bike makes me feel 12 all over again. This bike is the right size for me and as a result I can pedal standing up again! Also it has many more gears than Daria so hills are SO much easier. It still has thin tires which is great. I spent most of last night pimping out my ride. I also finally have a pannier rack! I'm very excited about this! Now I can carry things around! It's all shiny and new and yay! I'll try to get a photo of my exact bike in the future. 

The only problem now is space. David has his commuter bike AND his road bike (he wants to start getting into loooooong bike trips) and now I have my commuter and my racing bike (for all my triathlons.....*cricket*) and we don't exactly have a garage for 4 bikes. I'm sure we'll work it out...it's just annoying that there are three bikes being stored in our storage room that NO ONE is riding. Seriously. The layer of dust on these bikes should be criminal.

One thing I'll add before this post gets terribly long is that I have a new life mantra! (I'm actually not sure mantra is the right word....it's...just a new thing that I do...lol) I'm not paying full price for anything anymore! (Ok, by anything I mean most things)

Since moving to BC, I've gotten way more into the reusing portion of the 3R's. In the past, we've made a lot of our furniture purchases on Craigslist but it was limited to just that. It only recently occurred to me that you can find ANYTHING on there. There is just so much STUFF in the world that it's very easy to not buy new. Combined with thrift ships, consignment stores and general sales, it is SO EASY to not pay full price! Since the beginning of July alone I've saved nearly $500 buying used. I actually only yesterday discovered the wonder of consignment shops. I'm going to live in those from now on.

There are exceptions to this lifestyle. Food for one. I could do couponing and just shop the sales, but I don't have the patience for that. I need food to live. I don't need most of the things I'm buying used to live, hence why saving on those is good. Also exempt are things I can't find used!! I'll generally look for a while, give it a good time to have new items pop up online or scour in case I missed something. Otherwise, it's off to the shop! But so far so good! It's pretty exciting actually. Who doesn't love a deal!

Do you like to shop used?