The last super good thing I ate

The last super good thing I ate

I eat lots of good things. Olibollen, chocolate, healthy meals, Christmas treats etc. But the last blow-me-away great thing that I had was a sandwich.

In early December Williams Lake celebrates "Craft Weekend." This is not a real event or thing, I made it up, but I think the city should adopt it. Basically the first weekend in December every single church and every single school in the entire town has a craft sale. It's pretty awesome. The one high school does a medieval market where all the vendors and volunteers have to dress up like it is medieval times and everything that is sold has to be something that would have been sold at a market in medieval times. Jewelry, candles, bread, wooden crafts, vegetables, essential oils, clothing etc etc. At any given moment there are approximately 8 million people attending this particular craft show. It's pretty awesome, but too busy to be enjoyable.

Anyways, on "Craft Weekend" my friend Heather and I headed to every single church and every single school in the city and looked at all sorts of fun and neat craft ideas. My favourite phrase of the weekend was "I can make that. For like $1." So I had a hard time buying things. I should rephrase my catchphrase to, "I can make that, for a dollar, but I won't, so I should buy yours for $5."

At lunch I brought Heather and her co-worker to a little café downtown called "New World Coffee & Tea." Arron and I had stumbled upon it one afternoon in the summer and I had really enjoyed it so I wanted to go back.

It was a ZOO in there. Their servers had called in sick, it was a busy weekend, the kitchen boys were helping out in the front, the owner was frazzled but we were calm and relaxed and not in a hurry. Our 'server' (who was actually a prep-cook) brought our drinks over and then promptly spilled the entire tray in my lap. Three full waters. All over my lap. Like didn't miss at all. He actually was quite skilled.  We laughed, it was fine, I felt bad for the guy because he was mortified, we ordered our lunch, and it arrived surprisingly quickly compared to other tables.

I died.

Chicken Pesto Panini.

The best thing I have ever ate in my life.

I do not have words to describe this sandwich. It made me forget my sopping wet pants though and all I could think about was the deliciousness that was in my mouth.

I took my friend Hayley back to this same café last week and we both ordered the Chicken Pesto Panini and she agrees that it is one of the most tasty sandwiches she has ever had.  Love it.

My last major accomplishment.

Uhhh.... Arron want's me to say making olibollen is my last major accomplishment. He does love olibollen. I'd like to say that it was convincing him that hanging up new curtains in the living room was a good idea. (He still had the original ones hanging from when our home was built... like 15 years ago)

HAHAHAHAH I wish I could real-time me writing this blog. Arron just interjected from across the room and said, "Yeah... probably convincing me to hang up new curtains in the living room was a big accomplishment as well"

But in all seriousness, not that I have completely accomplished what I'm working on, but Arron and I both agree that my biggest *in-progress* accomplishment is the fitness journey I've been on for  few months. My body has changed quite a bit and it is a lot of hard, frustrating, discouraging work. But I have been faithful to my Beachbody coach and my scheduled work-outs and even have not fallen off the wagon since September. I behaved myself food-wise over Thanksgiving and Christmas, and minus a few too many olibollen on New Years Eve I was not my usual glutton. I'm still working on it.

I'm hoping for a few more accomplishments in 2015. Paying off some debt, planting a garden, seeing the Grand Canyon, and convincing Arron that new paint would go well with our new curtains.

The Best Memory of 2014

Walking down the aisle at my wedding. There were so many great and wonderful things that happened in 2014, and especially on my wedding day. But as I walked down the aisle with my dad, that was the best moment yet! And you know what made that moment so special? Not the fact that the day was gorgeous and perfect, not the fact that it had finally arrived, not even that I was no longer doomed to be a crazy spinster cat lady. It was all the peoples faces that I saw as I walked down the aisle. It was seeing my cousins and aunts and uncles and granny who had come all the way from Ontario. It was seeing my teaching friends happily sharing my day with me. It was seeing my girlfriends from Ontario cheering and smiling their support. It was seeing Arron's grandfather at the front proud and excited to officiate our wedding. It was seeing Arron smile at me as I walked down the aisle and knowing that he was as thankful as I was that we had finally found someone to share our life with. That was the moment - seeing all the people that I loved and that loved me.

Arron's best memory of 2014 was when he proposed to me. He said the look of shock on my face made everything worth it. You can read that story here.

January 1-3

I'm not a huge lover or enforcer of New Years Resolutions. I like resolutions at various times of the year and don't always necessarily wait until January 1 to begin enforcing a change in my life. I enjoy re-grouping once in a while and siting down with a paper and pen and thinking through my life and things that I can improve on. Tonight (a few days late), I decided that for the month of January I am going to blog every single day. I realize that in the past year or so (mostly since I moved to the Cariboo), my quality and quantity of blogging has been lacking. I enjoy writing. I enjoy telling stories and blogging is one way in which I can tell stories as well as keep my friends and family around the world in touch with my life and what is happening in it. 

So for January, I will blog daily. They might not always be awesome blogs, but they will be something you can read and hopefully something entertaining.

Because I am four days behind, I bring you three mini-blogs.

January 1
Number 1 goal for 2015

Well I've got a secret plan for that - with a big reveal when I accomplish it. So I'll keep you posted. My number 2 goal is  trying to get fit. And I seriously am trying to get fit. Since September I have been diligently working to eat less, eat healthy, and work out every single day. I hate it. Like always. Lettuce is boring and leg day hurts. But I do it. Because it is important to both me and Arron to be healthy and strong.



January 2
I'm most grateful for

My husband.
I know that is cheesy. But he brings me joy. And he cuddles me. Whenever. I. Want. (Which is All. The. Time.) He works hard, loves me, does things he doesn't want to do, but knows will make me happy. He buys me awesome presents when I'm not expecting them, brings me home flowers at least once a month and regularly tells me I am pretty both with his words and a loving butt-slap. Arron laughs at my jokes, teaches me how to be a better person, rubs my back, eats and loves my food, and encourages me when I'm down. I am so thankful to have a best friend and husband like him.

January 3
Am I content with life?

Yes. In this exact moment right now, I am content. I'm not always content and if I were to stop and think hard about this question I could come up with a list of things I am not content with. But sitting here on my couch, thinking about my husband, my job, my family, Christmas, my health, and my awesome hair, I'm pretty content.

Year End Reflection

10 Highlights

1. The entire week of July 4, 2014
2. July 4, 2014 - Marrying Arron
3. Christy & Karmyn and all my Ontario family coming for a visit
4. Sinterklaas day with Arron. He is so awesome.
5. My bachelorette party
6. Honeymoon to the Dominican Republic
7. Working in Barkerville sporatically over the summer
8. My new job at Maranatha Christian School and the pay raise that came with it
9. Christmas with my family
10. My students Christmas performance.

10 Disappointments
1. Working hard to get fit and it is such a slow, slow, slow disappointing process
2. Not being able to completely re-decorate our home
3. Not going to Barkerville with my Ontario family when they came for my wedding this summer.
4. Not seeing my sisters enough.
5. I should have volunteered for a  few things at church and I didn't even though I wanted to
6. When parents of my students don't see all that I do and come up with reasons to dislike me
7. I didn't pay off enough debt
8. Giving up playing the violin
9. I wish I had read more books instead of watching so much tv
10. The series finale of "How I Met Your Mother"

3 Game Changers
1. Marriage and having a husband (not unexpected, but changed my focus)
2. Taking a full time teaching job when I thought I was done with my teaching career
3.

3 Things I Focused on
1. Wedding/Marriage
2. My new job
3. Eating well & working out

 

3 Things I forgot

1. The awesome kid-kits that I made for all the kids at the wedding reception
2. To call my granny on her birthday
3. Planting a garden

 

Reflection

Well 2014 was pretty much focused on my engagement and wedding. It was a wonderful time and I loved (almost) all of it. 2015 will obviously be focussed on something else. I'm not sure what yet, but I have high hopes that it will be just as good of a year. I hope that I will continue to focus on my marriage, my job, and my health and that the things that disappointed me this year will become accomplishments next year.

 

 

Sugar, Glitter, Santa, and Bringing People to Tears

The week leading up to Christmas break is always the busiest week for a teacher. And the longest. And the best as well as the worst. It's the worst because it is virtually impossible to make children behave when they are hopped up on sugar, glitter, santa, and the thought of two weeks without school. But also the best because of special Christmas crafts, happy, smiling children, Christmas parties, and the inevitable haul of Christmas presents elementary teachers score on the last day of school.

I had a very good week with my class. I do like them a lot this year and am very happy with my new teaching job in Williams Lake. I'm thankful for the break I am on now and spent my first day off reading, working out, reading some more, starting a mountain of wedding thank-you cards, reading a bit more, going out on a fantabulous date with my husband and totally killing him at bowling. It's quite rare that I beat him at anything because he is good at e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g so I was pretty stoked to be better (cough, cough, *much* better), than him at one thing. 

This week was also our annual Christmas Concert and my class was awesome. I knew they would be, but they really, really, really blew the audience out of the water. I choreographed a "hand-mime". Something I had never seen before until randomly lost on YouTube one day. It was so cool and the song that we used is so powerful and true that it brought many audience members to tears both that night and the following day when we performed it in chapel. The song talks about the various parts of Christmas; the manger, the shepherds, the wise men etc and then reminds us through the chorus that that is not really what Christmas is all about. It's about:

It's about the cross,
It's about our sin,
It's about how Jesus came to be born once
So that we could be born again
It's about the stone,
That was rolled away
So that you and I can have real life today.
It's about the cross.

Here's the actual video of my students from our performance on Tuesday night.

Merry Christmas everyone!

The best-worst Sinterklaas day ever.

Thursday night while I was casually chatting with Arron, I mentioned that December 5, in the Dutch tradition, is Sinterklaas Day. I told him that basically means he has to buy me a chocolate letter and a present and put it in my shoe. He laughed and told me that it sounded like I was making a tradition up to get him to buy me a present, especially since I was telling him this on December 4.  I laughed too, because when it comes to things like eating my delicious olibollen he likes dutch things, but when it came to buying me a present on a random day in December, he didn't want to participate.


December 5 was a pretty normal day. I worked, I had fun working, it was a good day. Until about 6pm. Then life went downhill quickly.

I am currently on a 'lifestyle change' (aka sucky diet that makes me sad because everyone knows chocolate and salt are more fun than veggies.) I'm doing well with it but after an 11 hour day at work, and a long week, I was ready to cave. My desire to remain strong in my healthy eating habits was not helped when my co-worker brought a pizza into the room we were working in. Then by six pm, and smelling pizza for two hours my resolve was weakened even more. All I wanted from life, was a super greasy teen burger and onion rings. I left work determined that would be my dinner. But as I was driving to the A&W down the road I said to myself, "Nikki, no. You will regret it tonight, you'll get a stomach ache and tomorrow you will feel so bad, and when you go to your fat-meeting on Tuesday you won't have lost any weight and you will be even more sad and mad and angry. Go home and make yourself a salad and some chicken."

So I did.

And I still wanted a Teen Burger and was sad.

If you have ever struggled with weight and healthy eating, you know how incredibly hard it is to say no and turn from unhealthy foods. It is an addiction that is sastifying in the moment and fixes all your life problems as you mow down on grease and salt and deliciousness. I was miserable. Even more miserable thinking about how it was 7pm and I still *should* work out, but really, really, really didn't want to.

Enter my wonderful, wonderful, wonderful husband.

WITH A PIZZA

Talk about ruining my evening even further. I had to say no to the delicious greasy cheesy temptation a THIRD TIME in just over an hour. Talk about being tempted to throw it all to the wind and just get fat.

My husband though, who is wonderful, knows that I struggle with this, and to be nice to me, took his pizza and a well deserved Friday beer into our bedroom so I could work out and not be tempted by his delicious smelling pizza.

I did my work out (angry), had a shower (angry), cried a bit about how it is easier to be fat and unhealthy than to be strong and healthy and it's not fair, and then curled in a sad, angry, mopey ball on the bed beside my husband's pizza...and my husband as he happily sipped beer and munched on delicious pizza. We chatted a bit about our long hard weeks and Arron asked me if I had stopped and grabbed the mail. (I hadn't). He told me his night would just be oh so much better if he had the newspaper - specifically the Canadian Tire flyer that he looks forward to every Friday. He went on and on and on about how much he wanted that paper and I had more clothes on than he did so I should be the one to go down the street to get it for him despite the fact that I was in my pajamas. He was being pretty irritating about it actually.

So I (grudgingly and angrily) decided I would go get him his (damn) newspaper. I would be a good wife. Go out in the cold. In my pajamas, in the dark of winter, to get my husband his newspaper. He had worked 60 hours that week, and was on call all weekend and through the nights, and bought me flowers for no reason earlier in the week, and I didn't make him supper, and was kinda a miserable person to be around, so I would get him his newspaper and make him happy.

But I was not happy.
He was eating pizza and beer in bed. How was this fair?

So I grumpily put on my boots - and found a metal N inside of it attached to a string. I followed the string through the living room, around the lamp, down the hallway, to the bedroom door where it led to the bed where Arron was. I said, "if this string is attached to your _____, I'm not going to be impressed." He laughed and told me to keep following it. It went under the bed and was attached to a present and a picture of Sinterklass and Zwarte Piete.

Then I started crying.

Because he is so nice and I was so miserable.  He just gave me a hug and said, "you haven't even opened your present yet!"

I opened it and was SO incredibly happy to find an IPad Mini - the thing I have been dreaming about owning for months!!!! He is so generous and wonderful and clever! What a guy! He turned my horrible evening into a wonderful evening.

Yay.