My Shock of the Day.

So, I've kind of done nothing in the past month to raise awareness about a cause or problem that I've seen in the world, and I don't really know why. I've kind of been caught up in my own little world of little problems to really be able to focus on anything bigger than myself. I respect myself so much more when I can raise awareness about different issues, and this one that I heard about today (so is just barely on the cusp of January for my issue of the month) is something super important.

*I will warn you now, while I always try to censor my content as to not make it too sad or disturbing, you must know this is something quite sad, but something I need to bring up.*

I was on Twitter today, and a friend of mine posted a link to something terrible. I am actually horribly ashamed and disgusted by the Province I call home, and by the city just north of here that is such a tourist attraction to many people throughout the world.

Some of you may be familiar with Outdoor Adventures Whistler. They are pretty famous up in Whistler for being the company to go to for adventures in the community doing things like Snowshoeing, ATV, Horseback riding, Snow-mobiling and, probably most famously, Dog-sledding.

Now, Outdoor Adventures Whistler is a HUGE dogsled operation. They took over Howling Dogs, a different dogsled company just this past May. From what I read in several articles today, they say they have upwards of 300 dogs in their pack, claiming that with a pack that big, you get more time with the dogs, and thus you get more for your money. After the Olympics, when they had the biggest boom of visitors to Whistler wanting to do things like that, they realized that their 300 dog pack was draining more money than they were actually making. This winter has not been kind to the company as far as the dogsleds go, so their solution?

Kill the dogs.

No. I should rephrase this. Mass murder 100 of the dogs through brutal slaughter and then throw them into a mass grave. It was reported by the employee (who is now being compensated for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) that they were asked to shoot the dogs repeatedly, and if that didn't work, to cut their throats or bury them alive.

As a dog lover - this is traumatic. I feel like I should be compensated for post-traumatic stress disorder just having to read about it.

I understand that there are certain situations where euthanasia of dogs is sometimes the only way out. The SPCA doesn't have the space or money to keep thousands of unwanted dogs in their facilities and have it be safe and sanitary. It's sad, but it's true. The humane (if you can call it that) way out of this situation is not to take the dog out back and slaughter it though. They take it to the vet and have it put down through drug combination. Hundreds of dogs go through this every day when people decide they would rather buy dogs than adopt them - another thing I'd like to talk about.

There are people who breed dogs. I get this. People breed dogs for their own reasons, be it for show dogs, more breeding, or what ever. And there are people who spend THOUSANDS of dollars on these dogs, many of them just to sit at home as some kind of statement of wealth in society. 'I bought a dog worth $5000." Congratulations. You could have saved 500 dogs from impending doom. For those of you unaware, many puppies at pet stores are from puppy mills, something you SHOULD NOT support - but that's a different issue all together.

The reality of the situation is that there are THOUSANDS of dogs that need homes. Thousands of puppies, young dogs, adult dogs and senior dogs that need loving homes with loving people to take care of them and just love them.

When I live in a place that allows dogs, this is my first move. For me, it's about making myself feel good and about giving something a home that needs it badly. To take an animal in and love it whole heartedly and have it love you right back... it's something that feels amazing. Every animal, dog, cat, bird... they need to be given a home with someone who just wants to love it.

February is all about the heart, and about love. Valentine's day is such a commercial product of our society, and while I may participate, I think I might do things a little differently this year. I'm going to donate a little time and a little money to show that I love the animals I can't take home and call my own. I'm going to have a puppy for a Valentine this year, and I'd like it if you would do the same. Take an afternoon or evening and go spend some time with the dogs and cats at the shelter, or if you can't, donate a couple of dollars to show you care. Even better, go adopt or foster a puppy who needs a safe home if you can!

While the situation with Outdoor Adventures Whistler is terrible, I think it raises a serious issue in the world about the ability people have to just look at animals as items that can be thrown away when they aren't wanted. Please do something to make sure something like this doesn't happen again. Save an animal's life if you can, or at least help make sure their shelter life is as good as possible!

Some links for you:

BC SPCA - To learn about volunteering, donating or adopting through the SPCA
Pet Finder - A VERY cool website that shows you all the adoptable pets in your area!
Adopt-A-Pet - Another website that shows you adoptable pets!

Do what you can, and spread another kind of love to our furry, feathered and scaly friends this Valentine's day! =)

Blog, and be happy!

Kyleigh.

Baked Potato Soup - Kyleigh's Low-Fat version!

So I've had a burning desire for the last few days to make baked potato soup. Alex and I went out somewhere, and he saw it on the menu and was like "Oh! I want that!" and it got me thinking about how many calories are in that soup, and also the fact that I can't eat it most of the time because they cook it with bacon in it. I decided to do some searching for some low-fat recipes, and had a really hard time finding anything that was actually low-fat. some of them are like "use low-fat sour cream!" Well thanks, as if I didn't figure that out! All of the recipes were calling for 2% milk and cheese and bacon... it was getting ridiculous thinking about all the fat involved, so I took it upon myself to meld a few recipes together, and make a soup of my own.

Baked Potato Soup, Kyleigh's Low-Fat version!

1. 4 baking potatoes 
2. 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
3. 4 cups skim milk
4. 2 cups 1% milk *
5. 1 cup reduced-fat shredded cheese
6. 1 teaspoon salt
7. 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
8. 1 cup non-fat sour cream
9. 3/4 cup chopped green onions, divided**
10. 6 slices turkey bacon (or other soy substitute) ***

* I used 2 cups of 1% milk out of convenience, and because to make the soup thick a little bit of fat content is necessary to make it 'creamy'. I'm fairly certain you could do it with all skim, but in my first venture making it, I used 2 cups of 1% milk.

** I didn't use green onions in mine. I used chives, although all the recipes I read call for onions. I don't know about you, but I put chives on my baked potatoes!

*** You can use regular bacon. I do not eat regular bacon, and turkey bacon is SO much better for you! If you're a vegetarian, there are a few different soy based 'bacon' strips out there. I haven't tried all of them, but my main problem with them is they don't crisp up - and in order to get crumbly bacon bits, you kind of need it to do that. Feel free to play around with this option, you don't even have to add it if you ask me! It's just an added flavour!

1. Cook potatoes. I used my microwave out of convenience again, but you can absolutely bake them for real if you have the time. Try it on 400 degrees, and bake them for about an hour - otherwise, pierce the potatoes with a fork, and 2 at a time put them in the microwave for 8-10 minutes or until tender wrapped in paper towel. If you're going to peel them, do it before you put it in the microwave, otherwise you'll be scooping it out, and it's hard to do when the potatoes are hot!

2. Either way you cook them, get them out of the skins and coarsely mash them up. I left mine quite chunky, but you could mash them finer or even chunk them if you'd like.

3. Place flour in a large Dutch oven or large pot; gradually add milk, stirring with a whisk until blended. When I say large pot, I am not kidding. 6 cups of a milk and all that potato is a lot - this isn't a small recipe! Cook over medium heat until thick and bubbly (about 8 minutes). Mine took a little longer than 8 minutes, and if you find it's hard to get thick, add the potatoes after about 10 minutes. It helps to get more starch in the pot!

4. Add mashed potatoes,  cheese, salt, and pepper, stirring until cheese melts. Remove from heat.
Stir in sour cream and 1/2 cup onions (or chives!). Cook over low heat 10 minutes or until thoroughly heated (do not boil). Sprinkle each serving with cheese, onions, and bacon and sour cream.

I served mine with some flaky buns last night, and it was a delicious and different dinner. Sometimes we get stuck eating the same kind of things, especially since we're both on a health kick trying to eat better and lose some excess weight (hooray for losing 5 pounds!). It's hard not to find yourself eating chicken and rice, or a salad for dinner every night. I really enjoyed making it! It was easy, not super time consuming (I think it took about an hour to make... including cooking time!) and it was quite good! I saved myself some at home to eat for dinner tonight before I head off to choir, and I'm glad I did because Alex scarfed all the stuff I brought for him down last night! Haha!

Anyway, I just wanted to share my dinner with you - if you have the time, give it a try! =)

Blog, and be happy!

Kyleigh.

The Last 5 Days.

I haven't really had a lot of energy to post about anything lately. The last 5 days of my life have been pretty up and down for good and bad and somewhere in between. I suppose I have enough to post about now to leave me in a good mood by the end of it, so I decided that I would post about what's happened to me in the last 5 days.

Day 1. Thursday January 20, 2011.

So, Thursday was awesome. For Christmas, Alex bought me tickets to the Canucks game, and the game were going to go to was this past Thursday. It was SO much fun! I hadn't ever been, and it was SO enjoyable to sit in the arena and enjoy the game from a different perspective and in the arena setting. Canucks fans are the best, they really are... and despite our 2-1 loss in a shoot-out, I was still so excited to be there and have a great time with my boyfriend! =)

Our seats were pretty great - the Canucks shot our way twice, so we got to see them a lot!

So, Thursday was great, I had tonnes of fun, and I think Alex did too! Thursday was the start of what should have been a great weekend. Too bad that wasn't the case.

Day 2. Friday, January 21, 2011.

Friday actually wasn't that bad, it was a normal Friday. I spent it cleaning my room, doing laundry, all the not so fun things that sometime just must get done. My room is very clean though, so I can't complain too much about my friday. My mom and I also went to go see 'No Strings Attached' and I loved it. I thought it was hilarious, and I would even go so far as to say that I would see it again in the theatre, which is something that I don't often want to do!

Natalie Portman was cute as ever, and Ashton Kutcher was hilarious as always.  It's a really great pick me up movie with a lot of hilarious moments. Predictable, yes... but it was still amazing.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Saturday fucking sucked. Pardon my language, but it did. The day started off terrible because I slept in and was kind of late to work, but not really super late. I spent the whole day working my butt off helping inconsiderate customers and what reward do I get? I get laid off. Yeah. I lost my job on Saturday. They can say what they want, it's always the same "we're restructuring the company and there isn't a job for you anymore" but if they really felt that bad, they would have FOUND a job for me. Jerks. In any case, the day got even worse with a Canucks loss to Calgary in a shoot-out, which didn't make me feel good. I ate a McFlurry for dinner because it was the only things Alex could convince me to eat... and that was the worst day of the week.

Sunday, January 23, 2011.

Sunday also sucked because I was suppose to go to work, but being laid off the day before had nothing to do. So, I went to IHop and ate a ridiculous breakfast of eggs and chocolate chip pancakes (sadness defeats my desire to be skinny) and then went home and fell asleep for like 2.5 hours because I was bored and sad. What a fantastic weekend, right? Just amazing. Ugh.

Monday, January 24, 2011.

Yesterday was actually not a terrible day. I woke up, started looking on craigslist for jobs, applied to one or two, and tried to get myself back on pace. I wasn't doing much, I think I actually may have taken a nap by accident, when I got a text from Alex asking me if I wanted to go to the Canucks game last night! I, of course, said sure! His co-worker, and a former co-worker of mine, got a hold of 4 tickets to the game last night, and we were invited to go! It was amazing. I think the Canucks played so well just to make me happy, and I was HAPPY. Samuelsson (my favourite!) out of his goal dry spell, named 3rd star of the night, and a 7-1 win over Dallas. 7 amazing goals, and we got to see it all from here:

Row 19, lower bowl, club seats. This means, for those of you who aren't co-ordinated with hockey terms, we were REALLY close! And we were on the end where the Canucks scored like 5 of those 7 goals, which was AMAZING. The pictures really don't do it justice to how close we really were, and because it was a Ring of Honour night, we got pins and stuff on our seats! I had a lot of fun last night, and it really made up for my terrible, terrible weekend. 2 in-arena hockey games in 5 nights? Who can complain?

So here we are, Tuesday January 25th, 2011. My baby brother is turning 17 today, which makes me feel kind of old. Haha. I'm hoping to get back onto the horse and look for more jobs today, get back on track with my working out, starting eating something other than ice cream and chocolate, and try to enjoy the rest of my week as much as I can. The last 5 days have been a lot of up and down, but I'm picking myself up and getting going again. Trying really hard to just keep a positive outlook on things. I'm reading a great book (The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory) I'm not poor yet, and school is creeping up on me quite quickly, so perhaps things will be okay after all.

Enjoy your week! =)

Blog, and be happy (Oh, and Go Canucks, Go!)

Kyleigh.

The White Queen.

So, when I was at the grocery store... I guess it was last Thursday or Friday I found a book sitting in the lame book section that Safeway has, and I was intrigued. I don't often even stop to look at the book section of grocery stores because they generally aren't very good, but when I saw on the front of the book "By the Author of 'The Other Boleyn Girl'" I couldn't help but stop to take a look.

Philippa Gregory, the Author of 'The Other Boleyn Girl' which I'm sure many of you recognize as the title of the more well known movie, is a freaking genius. As many of you may already know, I am a closet historian. I love history... but more than history itself, I love war history. Why? I don't know. I also have an infatuation with the pre 1600's, so the time of the Tudors and the Plantagenets (for those of you who are unfamiliar with either of those names - it's royal British families between about 1400 and 1650- ish, give or take a few years!) It just so happens that 'The White Queen' by Phillipa Gregory falls into BOTH my historical infatuations - it is both about the Plantagenet family, more specifically Queen Elizabeth Woodville, the Queen Consort to King Edward IV, and it's about the War of the Roses - or the Cousin's War between the House of Lancaster (the red rose of England) and the House of York (the white rose of England).

I will start by saying one thing. I loved this book. I had the hardest time putting it down, and it should be shown by the fact that the book is just over 500 pages long (soft cover sized) and I finished it in about a week. It could have been much faster had I not had a life this past week! It's from the perspective of Elizabeth, Queen Consort, and it follows her life from being a 'commoner' to being the Queen of England, to the end of her reign. I don't want to ruin it for anyone who wants to read it, so I will stop there as far as plot goes! If you want to read a bit about Elizabeth Woodville before undertaking this book, the Elizabeth Woodville Wikipedia page is quite informative, but it does go into quite a bit of detail, so some might see it as ruining the book as the book is based so much on fact. Perhaps reading too much might ruin it for you!

If you're interested in historical fiction, I would definitely suggest this book. Today I went to Chapters and bought several more Philippa Gregory books! I will not be in the process over the next (hopefully) several weeks reading:
The Other Boleyn Girl (again...)
The Other Queen
The Boleyn Inheritance and
The Constant Princess
I think she may be my new favourite author - so if this is your kind of genre, I would DEFINITELY suggest you join me in these wonderful books! She has tonnes, and I'm sure I will get through them rather quickly. I try to pace myself, but you know how a great book just pulls you in...

If you ever decide to read them, let me know! I would love to discuss them. =)

Blog, and be happy!

Kyleigh.

Getting Healthy.

Recently, with the turn of the new year, I have found more and more people looking into eating healthier and exercising more - two things I strive for every year and somehow manage to fail at. My resolution always includes something like 'I will run 3 times a week' or 'I'm going to cut out soda' - and I never end up doing those things (although the running thing - it's real this year! I swear!) My goal is never just to lose weight though. While losing weight is always a benefit, I'm always mostly concerned with getting into shape. If getting into shape means not losing any weight, but gaining muscle and cardio-vascular strength, I'm game! I've always wanted to feel like I was accomplishing something to better my life style and make myself healthier. 

I am a pretty sedentary person, and I'm not afraid to admit it. I sleep in, I watch a lot of TV, I drive places instead of walking... these things are not uncommon or unusual in my life, but they aren't uncommon for a lot of people, which I why I don't mind saying so. I have a goal this year of slowly increasing my activity levels and going for walks and runs around my neighbourhood. I live in a city with LOTS of trails and parks to run in, in fact I live down the street from a big track that I've never used, and I think that I would like to start seeing those parts of my city a bit more.

The downer for me is that it rains a lot in Vancouver. I wake up in the morning with the intentions of putting on my work out clothes and my runners, and then looking outside to see the monsoon that is often falling from the sky, and instead of facing the storm, I sit on my couch instead. A lot of people say to me "Well, exercise inside then!" but I find that very difficult because for me to get motivated I need to leave my house and go somewhere, be it around the neighbourhood or to the gym. I also find it hard to get motivated because I'm alone when I want to go! Because not running isn't letting anyone else down, I don't feel so bad about not going out - but what I forget often times is that I'm letting myself down. This is something I really want to stop.

Today, I bought a new lightweight rain jacket, as seen above, so I can go running no matter the weather. It's super lightweight, reflective, water resistant, has earphone exit from the pockets, and it's warm! I've loaded up my iPod with some upbeat running music, pulled out my running shoes and have every intention to getting up tomorrow and going for a run, even if it's only 15 or 20 minutes, rain or shine. I think I might go for a run to the grocery store and pick up some M&M's. One step at a time here people, one step at a time! 

I will update on whether or not this happens. Would I love this to be the reality as of tomorrow? Yes, but it takes some time for me to motivate myself!

Blog, and be happy!

Kyleigh.

The Long and The Short of 2010.

I was in the process of writing a post of my 2010, a list if you may, of the great things that happened to me. I realized that it was extremely boring for me to WRITE never mind have someone else read, so I've decided to put my 2010 on fast track and give the fastest run down of my 2010 I possibly can!

Okay, GO.

January.

I spent my January of course, in school starting my second semester at SFU. I also spent it preparing for the ever looming Olympics. I got excited!!

February.

February was SUPER exciting - the Olympics were amazing. I don't think I'll forget the billion high fives, random O' Canada outbursts on public transit and in the middle of the streets, and I will never forget watching Sidney Crosby score that Gold Medal winner! I am so glad I was old enough to appreciate it!

March.

In March my family and I moved into a new aparetment. It's really nice here, and we were lucky to find such a great place to live! While I would like to move out eventually, it's certainly a great place, and my family was very lucky to find it! Moving is a big, long process, but to have all our stuff out of storage was great. I won't lie though, I may have a box or two still in my closet... Haha!

April.

April gave me something great - my boyfriend Alex. Depending on who you ask, we may or may not have been together much longer than this, but WE decided it was official in April, so that's what counts! April was the start of something that still remains great, and something I'm proud to be a part of!

May.

In May I gained my freedom and the government decided that I was fit to drive by myself. Getting my N definitely changed my year, and I'm so glad I finally sucked it up and got behind the wheel and learned how to drive!

June.

June was sweet, I turned 19 which makes me legal to drink in BC, and I got my first credit card which was maybe a bad idea, but oh well! June also was the start of the World Cup of Soccer which was a lot of fun! Picking teams and getting into a sport was great after the Olympics, and after Canucks fans didn't really get their playoff run that they were hoping for! Can't wait until 2014 - World Cup Brazil!

July.

In July, Alex and I took our first weekend trip together to Seattle, and it was great! We had a lot of fun (despite getting lost) and it was really cool to explore the city, go shopping down there, and spend some good quality time together. I'm hoping we make this kind of trip an annual thing, but we'll see what happens! It was a lot of fun though! =)

Isn't the giant table awesome? Seattle Science Center, it's a really cool place for photos!

August.

August was beautiful, except for the only day it rained - of course it was on the wonderful wedding day of our friends Taren and Leigh! It's only natural that it would happen, right? Despite that, they weathered the storm, and had a VERY beautiful wedding! Love always prevails - even on the cloudiest of days =)

P.S. Their photographer was brilliant!

September.

At the end of August, I quit my job of the last 4 years and started my new job in September. I quite like my new job, and it was a smart change for me! I also started at SFU Woodwards, and while that venture didn't last very long, the campus is beautiful and an amazing place to learn in. The facilities are amazing, and if you have the energy to go to university for fine arts, consider SFU and it's amazing new location. It's beautiful, full of talented people, and has tonnes of space filled with inspiration. But it wasn't for me.

October.

October was... I don't remember. It was good I think. I quit school, I decided I was going to be a hair dresser, and I applied to hair school! I got accepted to the Vancouver Hairdressing Academy, and I start this coming April. That may have been in November... but it doesn't really matter!

November.

November gave me this blog, and really started my chronicles again. I think blogging is important, at least it's important to me. It gives me a place to share with my friends and family my life, my loves and the things that are happening to me. It also gives me a place to riot against the things I hate about this world, and raise awareness to you about the things that drive me crazy in this world. This blog was a great idea for me, and I'm glad that I was able to start one up again!

December.

Obviously December just happened, and anything exciting would have been posted to my blog but a brief recap obviously includes Christmas! Christmas was great, and I posted a lot about it. December also brought New Years which was great! I love starting a new year, it's like starting fresh, but not really.. you know? New Years was great - and I'm so glad 2011 is here so I can enjoy it to it's fullest!

The cool people I got to spend the last hours of 2010 and the first hours of 2011 with! =)

And now here we are. January 4th, 2011. I hope you all are having a wonderful start to your new year, and that you had a great end to your 2010! =)

Blog, and be happy!

Kyleigh.

M.A.C. Recycle Program.

For those of you who are unaware, I am a HUGE M.A.C Cosmetics fan. Excluding lipgosses, because I buy those everywhere, I only use MAC products - and I'm pretty strict about this for some strange reason. One of my favourite things about MAC is their recycle program - I think it's amazing, and I think it's enough of a reason to not buy department store make-up.

MAC recycles their make-up containers and re-uses them as to not create excessive waste from their products. If you save up 6 empty containers, you take them back to MAC and get a free something, usually a lip stick, or in some of the bigger stores they offer free eye shadows and lip glosses. Does it take a while to build up that 6 empty containers? Yeah, sometimes, but the way that I see it, you're buying make-up anyway, so you throw the empty ones in your drawer as you use them instead of in the garbage and then see how many you have in 6 months, or a year, or 2 years!

Yesterday, my mom and I went to MAC to recycle our empty containers. Between the two of us, we had 18 containers, or 3 lipsticks worth. We've been saving up for a while though mind you - 18 empty containers even for two people is quite a bit! Lipsticks from MAC are around $18 each, so 18 times 3... $54 worth of lipstick fell into the hands of my mother and I just for not throwing out our used compacts, eye shadows, eye liners and empty lipstick and lipgloss containers! This is pretty awesome if you ask me. My mom didn't really want any new lipsticks, so she picked one and I got two, and I like them quite a lot. I'm not really a lipstick person, but I really liked these ones, so I got them.

This one is called High Tea - It's more of a neutral tone, which I like a lot!

This is called Sweetie, and it's more of a pink tone (obviously) Something I'll wear less I know, but still nice!

 

 

 

My mom got this one, it's called Party Line. It's quite dark in person, but she likes it, so that's what matters!.

I love MAC products, and if I was going to tell you to go out and buy make-up, this is the ONLY place I would send you. I have an unhealthy addiction to it, and I can't change that. I have friends who try to convince me to shop make-up at Sephora, but it's not the same, and I can't let go of what I'm used to. I'm a MAC user for life! (The irony of this statement is that I am also a Macintosh (Apple) user for life too! My iPods, iPhone, MacBook, and iMac desktop computer should speak for themselves!)

So, if you find yourself buying MAC products, don't throw away your empty containers - save them up, and even if it takes you a while, you'll get a free gift for not filling our landfills with perfectly re-useable containers!

Blog, and be happy!

Kyleigh.