Today's Haul, Y'All

Oh god, I've had a good day when I'm speaking like that ^ :)

Anyways, today has been a great day, and it's not over yet. I decided to do a little shopping today, for mostly items that I can get away with saying I need, and some were definitely just impulse buys... oh well! So here's what I got!

Matte finish sunglasses from Claire's

I had a pair almost exactly like these except not matte for orientation last year, but lost them last summer at a bar..! So I finally got out to replace them, needed for next orientation and I also couldn't stand my temporary crappy ones. This was basically the only purchase I really 'needed'.

Lush Cosmetic Warrior face mask & sample of Grease Lightning

Rocky Mountain Soap Breakout Buster

My skin hasn't been too great lately, and I want to get that solved as quick as possible. I'm not a fan of wearing makeup during the summer,  especially with my camp job now. To sweat all day and then end up in the pool, makeup is just not worth it, but I'd rather my face be as nice looking as possible. If not, I'll just suck it up, but may as well try something new!

On sale at Sears, $20 down from $30

Also on sale at Sears, $15 down from $20

These were definitely my impulse purchases, but they looked too cute and too cheap to pass up. Really, I do need shoes but I was actually more just looking for new flip flops. I couldn't find the ones I like so I settled for these. But I still want/need new flip flops..

I already wore the blue ones out and about today, I biked to Whyte Ave and then walked to Lush. I then headed for Tim Hortons but that's when the pain set in.. yep, blisters. I'm hoping it's a case of breaking them in/my skin needs to toughen up again rather than they are not good/I got the wrong size.. At any rate, there's no returning them, I was almost home when I realized I had started to bleed a bit too.. great.

Drawstring backpack from Bentley

I did but also didn't need this.. It was more so just a practical purchase. I was heading to Whyte on my bike and needed to bring my wallet, and I didn't want to have my purchases in a bag hanging off my handle bars so this was a relatively cheap solution, about 10 bucks! I also ended up putting my bike u lock in it; I don't have a screwdriver to mount the holder thing!

Fooling around at Sears. Had it been a different color
 I might have been tempted to buy it...

So quite a few purchases that maybe should have waited until my first paycheque, but oh well. I feel that they were reasonable enough to not make me feel too guilty..! Plus it gave me a reason to get out and enjoy the sunshine!

Next up is orientation volunteer BBQ in a few hours! Summer has finally begun!

Healthy Eating

All of a sudden I'm very into eating super well, finding new recipes to try. Five minutes on this wesbsite and I already found a handful of meals and treats I want to try. I found the site this morning when I was deciding what I wanted for breakfast. Normally my breakfast is two pieces of 12 grain toast with peanut butter and honey, but I'm slowly making the switch to almond butter (I like it even more than PB!). That routine is getting boring and old now though, so I was looking to incorporate the almond butter into pancakes, and so I found a recipe for almond butter pancakes from detoxinista. I couldn't try it out because I didn't have all the ingredients for it, but I'm thinking if the weather clears up here, I'll head out to the grocery store to pick up the needed items.

One reason for all of a sudden getting into creative recipes is the fact that I am not longer broke! So with money to spend (on food it is more than acceptable, since I should really be putting it all towards my credit card) and more than enough time find and recreate recipes, why not try new combinations of foods while being healthy in the process!

The one thing that I've noticed about these recipes though is that a lot call for some obscure ingredients that I'd never imagine I'd be willing to try. I'm almost wanting to go out and buy some zucchini, coconut oil, etc to try some new recipes. I'm really excited but also have to keep in mind that I don't have an unlimited supply of cash to spend on a bunch of ingredients.. So I'll have to stick to recipes that call for mostly the same things I guess, but nevertheless!

Any recipes that have become a staple for you, or think that are worth giving a go? Or even any favorite websites!

Ps. My favorite find so far that I've already devoured are chickpea almond butter chocolate chip cookies (you can see the trend of getting obsessed with AB), and next time I'm going to try and get dark chocolate to use to make them even healthier (versus all the sugar from milk chocolate chips).

Go Alberta Go!

This weekend was the Canadian Youth Championships in Calgary. This was the one tournament that I really wanted to go to and represent Alberta. Unfortunately for me, the provincial qualifier came at a time where I was struggling with health issues. Somehow though, until the second last game, I was winning. Then my friend shot a huge game to all but secure first place and from there I had all but given up, as well as I was drained of what little energy/drive/ambition I had for the day, and I slid to 3rd place.

So for awhile I was frustrated that it went down like that, because had I been totally healthy, I think I would have walked away quite easily with the title.

None the less, I accepted what happened (I still shake my head at the whole thing and have a pang of yearning, but there are no hard feelings), and congratulated the winner.

One of the reasons I had wanted to win so bad was because Nationals were being held in my home town, so I could have full home field advantage. But the next best thing to not competing was to cheer on team Alberta, half of them my friends.

In the end, my friend who had beat me ended up on top as singles and all events champion, so I'm very happy for her, and the province. Who knows, had I been there, would I have made such an impact? Realistically I'd like to think yes, and maybe I would have done better, since I had a great showing at CNCs two weeks ago. But I can hardly be sound in saying that because who knows how I would have reacted to the pressure and to the patterns they put down (though I feel the patterns would have been in my favor).

All in all, I still had a wonderful time this weekend, cheering on Alberta and other friends from other provinces. I got to hang out with all my bowling friends for an entire weekend and talk bowling. These people are honestly a great group of people are really fun to be around, which makes me sad that we don't have more out of town tournaments to bond like this.

This also makes me want to hit the lanes again. More so I almost want it to be league again, I want to prove my worth in the adult league, start doing tournaments and see how I really stack up. CNCs gave me a huge confidence boost, but I want to put it to the test and see if it wasn't just a fluke. I doubt it, because it was a great learning experience (like always) and feel like it all culminated in the last day when I tore it up. As long as I keep those things in mind, I think I'm set for the upcoming season.

This being said, I might even actually go practice with a friend on Tuesday since we have nothing better to do. June might be regular for me if I can get out there, since I'm not really working, but July/August I'm doing soccer camp and might be too pooped; hopefully I could get out there on a weekend, but risk getting annoyed by public bowlers..

#happy