January 26, 2012

Wallet hunting

By Nancy

I’m on the hunt for a new wallet.

I don’t carry much cash on me, but when I do there isn’t much room for it because the wallet I”m currently using isn’t really a wallet. I guess it’s like a coin purse. I purchased it online (I forget where) and it’s a Juicy Couture brand.

While I do still love the wallet, I just need a change right now. Plus, it’s looking a little rough around the edges. Literally. Zipper on the first pocket is ripped off and sitting inside the pocket.

Here are some of my recent favs, but not omg must-haves. Know what I mean? None of them really stick out to me. But I thought I’d show you what I’m looking at, ha! Until then, I will wait til one sticks out. Just like my blue one did two years ago.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

What kind of wallet do you carry around? Take a photo and show me! :)

What are everyone’s plans for this wonderful late January evening? I was thinking of going to CrossFit but I also have to help a friend look for Occupational Health & Safety Technician Jobs. I think I’ll end up doing both though.

Posted in Daily, Fashion, Photos | Leave a comment
January 25, 2012

Co-workers reading your blog?

By Nancy

Are you nervous about friends or co-workers reading your blog? May I ask why? I have to be honest. I’ve been there, and I know how awkward it can be. Now, I give my website out freely to people, when it comes up in conversation. Slowly but surely a lot of offline friends and family are finding out my blog. Which is great!

That doesn’t mean that I’m comfortable giving my blog out to every single one of my friends and co-workers. My website is not even listed on my Facebook page. Some people are just better off not knowing. It’s just now I’m less nervous giving it out. Make sense?

I started blogging for realz back in 2002-ish (archives only go back to 2004!), and I told a handful of friends. I wasn’t very smart when blogging back then, because I told personal stories, complained and I swore, which I think is so ugly on blogs. Basically, I used it as a public diary.

Slowly but surely I turned around my blog and I’m careful of what I put out there now.

Tips for blogging:

1. Don’t blog when you’re angry. You’ll regret it and probably hurt people’s feelings. I’d suggest writing it out, saving your draft and if you really want to publish it, wait a couple of weeks. Tweak the blog post and make sure there isn’t anything in there to harm someone. That doesn’t meant to say you shouldn’t vent on your blog. Because, we’ve all done it. So have I! Just do it tastefully.

2. I’d suggest not blogging about work too much. The photos I’ve published on my blog from work include the girls who already know and enjoy my blog. I love it when they get excited that they’ve been “featured”. haha! Makes me feel famous. The last time I blogged about work was showing how much fun we had with the Breast Cancer Awareness Day.

3. Don’t ever blog at work. It’ll just get you fired. At least, I would think so! If you must, do it during a lunch break. I usually blog in the evenings, and don’t publish the blog post until morning. My posts go live between 7-9am EST. My “fast” (it’s from ’05) desktop PC is currently on its way to the grave… but I’m slowly saving up money to get a ton of brand new parts to make it shiny and new again. For now, I’m blogging on my 2005 laptop, which likes to overheat. It can get pretty frustrating ;)

6 of the 35 people I work with, know about my blog. Most of them found out through me giving them the URL. However, some have found it on their own. It can be awkward for them to come up to you when you haven’t seen them in a while and already know a ton about your last week, or what you’ve been up to lately. But you know what? I don’t mind people reading my blog, and what I’ve been posting online at all, because that’s who I am. It also creates conversation when you haven’t seen that person in a while. I like it.

I’ve always been brought up to the phrase: If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Which applies to my blog. My parents reads my blog. It’s why I cleaned up my act with blogging the past 5 years. It’s not that I’m not ‘real’. I just don’t air my dirty laundry online or for anyone public to see.

My site is a place for people to come and see what I’ve been up to lately. Or find out about new products, or even just scroll through the photos if you’re not in the reading mood that day.Put on your hard hat (or your Scorpion EXO-1100, if you really want to get fancy) and blog away.

How many offline friends/family/co-workers know about your blog?

Posted in Daily | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments
January 25, 2012

Almost 7 years

By Nancy

The boyfriend and I have been going out for nearly seven years. Lucky number 7 perhaps?

I’d post a photo of us together. But he likes to remain internet-anonymous. He checks my website periodically to search for his photos and mention I should take them down. But I never do ;)

I have to admit, I had a dream the other night where I was walking down the aisle in my wedding dress. It was an outdoor wedding and I had a bouquet of red roses. Huh, who would’a thunk I’d pick out red roses for it? Whatever, we’ll just go with the flow. I was walking towards my Boyfriend. Usually in these times of wonderful wedding dreams, I’m never really the person walking down the aisle. It’s like I’m a ghost hovering over the entire thing watching it. But kinda being there at the same time. Make sense?

I wonder if this means I’ll be getting one of those fancy titanium rings sometime soon. :)

Posted in Daily | 4 Comments
January 24, 2012

Task #1: Decluttering my desk.

By Nancy

So the following photos you are about to see below may be a little embarassing. What a state I’ve been living in for a long time. It was time to clean up. I love having a clean slate to work with. It doesn’t always happen to stay clean for extended periods of time.

Case in point. Perfectly equipped with tampons and all.

Ideally I’d like to have an Ikea Malm dressing table for the desk, preferably in that “black-brown” color they have. Super modern and not 90′s looking like this pine colored one I grabbed from Canadian Tire back in2006 when I moved to Ontario. Hey, it was on a great discount. I think I paid $50 for the desk  which also came with a book shelf. lol.

For the longest time I avoided cleaning my desk off. I simply cannot just sit down and relax, and blog in comfort when my desk is overflowing with stuff that just simply needs to be put back in its place. How does it accumulate so quickly? It’s not like it’s a dropping grounds for my keys, and purse when I come in after the end of a day since the door is on the other side of the apartment. It just… happens. Most of it has a home too, there’s credit card gift cards, new clothes, calvin klein coupons, and even tampons.

So I got to work, putting one piece away at a time and not even 15 minutes later it was spic’n span clean again.

Whewf. I love. Ideally I’d like it much more cleaned off than it already is right now. But hey, it’s a work in progress. 

Posted in Photos | Tagged , , | 3 Comments
January 24, 2012

How I Style…

By Nancy

How I Style… my favorite color to wear, brown!

This one is huge. Brown cardigans are a clear go-to choice for me. Here are all the different ways I’ve worn all of my brown cardigans.

I have a few favorite ways but I also have a few that stick out to me. Top row, with the red shirt—love that. Also, pairing it with a striped shirt. Second row first picture is nice and classic looking too. I love wearing brown! Weee! 

Check out previous How I Style posts below:

Week 1 // Week 2 // Week 3 // Week 4 // Week 5 // Week 6 // Week 7 // Week 8 // Week 9 //

Check back later this afternoon to see a before/after as I de-clutter my workspace. Oooo, should be fun. The most random thing I found on the desk? welding supplies! That definitely went back onto Scott’s work bench area. Yes, a 800+sq/ft apartment and the Boyf has a work bench, lol.

Posted in Daily, How I Style, Photos | Leave a comment
January 23, 2012

Come help me find @EqualCanada at Walmart! #CBias

By Nancy

Good morning! I’ve decided to take you all on a journey of our weekly grocery shop, and how I make lists to keep sane.

My boyfriend and I normally grocery shop at the grocery store or Walmart once a week. This time we decided to go to Walmart because of all the deals we spotted on their online flyer. But before we head out, I make a list of what we’ll be eating for dinner that week, and what coupons we need to use up before they expire.

This list honestly saves so much time trying to come up with ideas when I’m tired from coming back from CrossFit, or just right after work, and especially when I’m not feeling up to coming up with creative ideas for supper. The meat is always thawed in the fridge the night before so it’s less work.

The menu plan comes from searching for bargains online and Walmart had a ton of sales this weekend, so that’s where I got all of our supper ideas from. Onto the grocery list. 

Mitt scrubber isn’t usually on my grocery list, but I wanted a mitt to exfoliate my skin when I do my self tans. Hee hee.

We then headed out to Walmart at about 9:30pm—we have our routine so down pat we always know what time to hit up the stores. We like going to Walmart later at night since it’s not busy with a ton of weekly shoppers.

First thing we do is look through the flyer. Even though we’ve already looked through it online before leaving. It’s just nice to take one to cart around with us, for when something pops up that we were needing.

Sneak peak of what we buy for the week.Can you spot the coupons? I ended up getting those Corn Pops cereal for $0.47 with the coupons we had, plus the Charmin I had two free coupons.

By the end of our shopping trip the cart got way fuller than we expected. But there was still one item missing. The Equal canister for baking with was nowhere to be found.

It wasn’t in the baking section of Walmart, nor was the specific kind I was looking for at the Pharmacy section either. See?

We ended up just checking our purchases out and heading to the next available Walmart which was probably about a 15 minute drive away.

Ta-da! At the second  Walmart location, we found the yellow canister of Equal! My boyfriend’s eagle eyes saves the day. It was labeled as $7.97 which was the rollback price. It used to be $9.97.

Score one for us!

Up close and personal with the Equal sweetener. Little #EqualCanada buddy, you were not an easy find! It was difficult to find since they changed the color of the packaging to yellow.The Equal was spotted again in the Pharmacy section next to the protein powders. My boyfriend drinks protein shakes a lot, so I knew this would be an ordeal for him, picking out a new brand to try next.

I bolted towards the patio chairs which are (already!!) out for purchase.

Spying on the Boyfriend. Can you spot him? I even had a great conversation with a woman picking out potted plants for someone’s house-warming present. I think we did a pretty good job picking out one of the plants for her ;)

After we finished our shopping trip we headed home to finally chill out for the night. Since I did a pretty good job using my coupons on Saturday, I had to take a photo of my great finds.

My best deals:
Charmin toilet paper = free with coupon
Carnation Instant Breakfast  $5.97. I had a $1 off coupon.
Rice Krispies squares on sale for $2.00  and I used $2.00 off coupon. All 3 free!
Corn Pops $2.97. I used three $2.50 off coupons = $0.47 each!
Royale Toilet paper was $4.47 and I had a $2 off coupon making it $2.27.
Equal was on rollback from $9.97 to $7.97, so I saved $2.00.

The other stuff shown is some produce, whey protein and two bags of milk and frozen fish which I put away immediately. We have enough meat from our last week’s shopping trip, which chicken and pork were on steep discount.

So, do I buy anything unusual that you wouldn’t normally buy on your grocery shop? What are your must-have’s for a grocery trip? I always love getting fresh bell peppers and bananas. This time I wanted to try out the new brand new Equal canister made for cooking and baking.

You can find out more information about Equal Canada on Twitter, or Equal Canada on Facebook.


This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. #CBias. All opinions are my own.

Posted in Coupons, Daily, dealz, Freebies, In the Kitchen, Photos | Tagged , , | 8 Comments
January 23, 2012

My CrossFit Journal (week 48)

By Nancy

After weeks of skipping out of CrossFit throughout my Christmas holidays and then just being lazy coming back into it going just once a week. I’m back at it! Here we go with the recap of week 48. Actually, I thought I’d go on Saturday but I most definitely slept in, which was much needed.

I’ve decided to post my CrossFit weekly re-caps on Monday instead of Saturday and just take a break from blogging on the weekends. Plus, I think blogs gets more exposure on week days than on the weekends anyway. Though I do post the weekly CrossFit journal for my own benefit to look back on and when a WOD comes up that I haven’t seen in a while I can always look back and see how much I lifted, or what my max was, and see if I can beat it. So here we go, onto the weekly workout.

______________________________________________

Week 48 Day 1.

Snatch Push-Press.
3-3-3-3-3-3

My limit is apparently 65lbs. I tried to go up to 70lbs and dropped the weight when I tried to do just one. I tried twice and just gave in to my limit at 65lbs. A snatch push press is basically a push press but you start with the weight on the back of your shoulders and push up from there. The pushing up is the ‘easiest’ part. Coming down is the roughest on all parts of your shoulders and upper arms. You need to baby it coming down on your traps otherwise your neck is going to get the brunt of the weight, which isn’t fun.

Here’s a little video of what it consists of.

The “cool down” which wasn’t on the website at all had a 12 minute time limit:
200 skips
50 kettle bell swings (I used 12kg)
40 box jumps (16″)
30 squats
20 pushups
10 pullups (I did kips instead)

Completed in 9:29! Nice little finisher to get that heart rate going.

______________________________________________

Week 48 Day 2.

The McGhee WOD

AMRAP 30
5 Dead Lift (275/225) I used 105lbs
13 Push Ups
9 Box Jumps (24/20) I used at 20″ box

I think I did 10 rounds in total. The reason why I felt I didn’t do more was that we were supposed to do the pushups inwards, where your elbows are tucked into the body instead of out in the photo shown above. I even had to do them off my knees. By the end of it I was only getting one out at a time and was getting so unbelievably frustrated lol.

______________________________________________

What did everyone do this weekend? I gutted our entire apartment. First it was the bathroom, then my computer desk and a dropping grounds for all of the Boyfriends paperwork, which was his work bench. Tons of stuff went to recycling and some even went into a trash pump. I’ll post photos soon of my computer desks before/after.

[older crossfit journal entries]

 

Posted in CrossFit, Workout Schedule | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment
January 20, 2012

OOTWW

By Nancy

It’s been a while since my friend Tanya did an OOTWW collaboration on my blog. Her and I have a very similar sense of style. I’m often more envious of the ways she puts together her outfits. My favorite is definitely Monday’s. I’m still trying to master the skirt/tights/boot look. Whenever I do it, it just looks out of place. I want that skirt. I also wanted to let you know since I was concerned the first three days. She does have multiple pairs of those artizia tights :) ha!

Here is my OOTWW:

(click image to enlarge)

Posted in Fashion, OOTD, Photos | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments
January 19, 2012

Twitter analysis

By Nancy

What is your tweeting style?

I’m glad to hear I’m upbeat. It’s an interesting program that goes through your tweets and compiles them altogether to put this analysis together of what kind of tweeter you are. It would be interesting to see the people who I’d like to delete (the complainers, the swearers, the people who type in CAPS LOCK), and see what theirs says. But maybe I already did. You’re angry angry angry!

Analyze yourself.

Follow me on twitter, because I will talk to you, I’m upbeat, positive and don’t hate on people! Yay!

Posted in Twitter | 1 Comment
January 19, 2012

Marcelle BB Cream

By Nancy

First of all, what is BB Cream?
It’s a moisturizer, primer and foundation all in one. BB Cream has been quite popular for a few years now in Asia. It was advertised that you can use just the BB cream on your bare face and skip any other steps in your routine. I received a Marcelle BB Cream lab sample from Marcelle to try out.

It comes in a pump/squeeze bottle format.The 45ml bottle retails for $22.95 and comes in two shades. It came out in a weird squirt the first time.But here it is rubbed into my skin a smidge. I took a photo with less product on my hand and rubbed it in. But since it blends well into my skin, you couldn’t tell I had any product on my hand when it was rubbed in. Which is ideally what you would like on your face. It had a bit of a dewy look to it as well.

Personally, I have dry skin and wouldn’t skip my moisturizer with sunscreen. The reason why I wanted to try out a BB cream was because it gives a dewy look to your face, and I’m one who likes that effect. A moisturized, healthy look to the skin like my Laura Mercier Moisturizing foundation does to my skin. I do not have oily, or acne prone skin so I’m not sure how well this will effect those skin types and how long it will last on the face.

I was first introduced to Marcelle products when my neighbor back home in Newfoundland mentioned that I should use it since it’s non irritating due to it being hypo-allergenic. It’s great to use on my skin since I’m prone to eczema in the winter time. My eczema moves around, and this year it’s in the most annoying place on earth my EYELIDS. I use Marcelle products on my face to cleanse off my makeup with either their cleansing milk, or the gel which I now have at home.

In a week or so I’ll do a followup post on how I liked the BB cream, how long it lasted, what the coverage was like and so forth. But for now if you’d like to read more about the BB Cream on Marcelle’s website, you can do so here.

Have any questions? Ask them in the comments section below.

Posted in Daily, Photos, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

  •     

    Hello, I'm Nancy or known as "Legs" due to my quick ability to run past you in soccer. I've discovered CrossFit in February 2011, and loving it! Working in Marketing and Graphic Design in Southern Ontario. Summers are filled by touring around with Boyfriend, being his cheerleader while he competes in Ironman Triathlons. Winters are usually spent more time blogging, climbing, indoor soccer, CrossFit. Want a full bio? Or just simply contact me via email!












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