peaceful mondays are what everyone needs..

Mondays are always associated to bad and miserable days.. but it doesn't always have to be like that! the outcome of your day is based on your outlook on the day. positivity is key to happiness!! but everyone does need a peaceful Monday once in there life, eh? (my Canadian side is coming out) ;).

my Monday I have to say was spectacular!! not to brag or anything ... :P but anyways I have become quit the yogi these past couple of weeks with doing yoga almost everyday now, my body simply craves it and I love it! it brings such peace to my mind along with meditation. you could say I have become quite the crunchy granola with being vegan and practising yoga and meditation every day. so my Monday morning started off with a nice long yoga session with my mom, we tried out this new guy which turned out to be a hit! he is awesome and we already love after only doing 2 of his classes! his name his Chaz and you should check him out at yogamazing.com. :)) we had the intense insense burning to really get the mood going and make it last throughout the day. I just loooove insence!! UGH cant get enough of it.

after the yoga I followed it with an easy run in the hot sunny weather, it was hard though since I am more of a cold runner who thrives in cold windy and rainy conditions. after taking a shower post run, I decided to do some vegan baking! I haven't done any of my vegan recipes in a while and I was feeling an itch for it and since it is summer now I had the time to do it! I started off by making sunflower seed butter out of sunflower seeds, which is essentially the same concept of peanut butter but with sunflower seeds. it didn't turn out tooo creamy but it was still awesome!! then I made a gluten free vegan bread which had to bake for an hour. while that was cooking I made snickers ice cream bars all vegan, sugar, oil and gluten free!! there turned out oh so delightful and good and tasted just like the real thing!! you know vegan cooking doesn't have to be disgusting ;)  I had some blueberries in the fridge that I didn't know what to do with so I made some muffins and since I didn't have any dates left I just used figs, and I didn't have cashews so I used pecans! so it became a fig, pecan and bluberry muffin! my whole family loved them!

after all this baking I helped my dad clean his car and then since my dog hadn't gone out for a walk yet my mom, dad and I went to explore the farm fields and make the long walk up to this viewpoint not to far from our house that my brother and I discovered not to long ago. when we started the walk my mother was convinced that it would take hours but I proved her wrong when it only took 30 min. when I kept on saying 5 more min she said I sounded like my Norwegian father :P we had to walk through a field filled with cows, sheep and goats to get there and these two cows were following us determined to get us out of the field. we concluded that it was nickie that made them want to check us out and see what we were doing. when we came back they were mooing at us aggressively and cornered us on the side of the field so we decided to make a run for the gate when we saw it appear along the side of the fence. there were some cows alright! the field next to the field with the moody cows was filled with knee high grass which my dog had so much fun jumping through since he was too short to see over the grass tops :P he would try to jump like bambi or prance just to try to see where he was going. it was a funny scene to watch ;P he got quite tired of this jumping so I decided to carry him the rest of the way through the thick grass. I got some cute pictures of him though ;)

when I got home I made some zucchini pasta with this awesome mango, orange, parsley and tomato sauce it marinated in for awhile. the flavour was quite strong of orange since I added orange peel to it aswell, which could have been disregarded. but or else it was a good dish!

quote of the day: Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

see you later and remember stay golden ;)

 

Heres to New Beginnings

guess what?? it is finally summer!! the first couple of days after school ended it didn't feel like summer and the summer feeling hadn't really kicked in yet but I think it is started to slowly sink in now. so I started off my summer right with heading over to this cute café to have the annual end of school year lunch with my brother and mom. my mom suggested this place called "sting" which I had never heard of but was willing to try. I was open to the idea of eating out even though me being a vegan sometimes choices can be limited.. but I was open and didn't want to ruin our lunch. being that the place was called "sting" It sounded crunchy granola enough that I was sure there had to be at least one vegetarian dish on the menu.. one of my moms student works there and she herself is a vegetarian and has lots of tattoos and such so I was pretty convinced there had to be something on the menu for me. to my surprise when I looked at the menu the second dish on the menu was a "vegan falafel sandwich". AHHHH I was so thrilled and overly excited that I slapped my brothers arm so he could see what I was seeing, he made a sarcastic "OMG that is so great and totally awesome" sort of face which made me realize that I may have been over reacting a bit but nothing was going to steer me away from the sheer joy I was experiencing after seeing this dish on the menu. remember you have to enjoy the little things in life ;)

 

so that day was pretty golden and on Friday I went to the middle eastern market with my mom to get my celebratory jack fruit which wasn't there ;( so I got dragon fruit instead! I then headed down to the stables to ride punky and let my friend ride him. he was being particulary stubborn that day and it was confusing as to why that I might have been. I asked a lady who I ride with sometimes and has her own horse, Noah in the summer paddock aswell as to why she thinks he might be acting up. she said it was because of this new horse that joined the herd in the summer paddock just for the summer and she is a female in heat. so punky has a girlfriend!! he was very protective over her and claimed her as his own so when my friend and I rode him he was grumpy because he wanted to be with his girlfriend which he loves ;) and he didn't want the other male horses to get a chance with her. so after knowing this I couldn't help but stop being mad at him, instead I thought it was cute that he has a girlfriend now. when I went to go turn him out punky's girlfriend ran to the gate to great him with a kiss on the nose, she greeted me aswell as to ask for my approval :P I took pictures of them both and then punky gave me a look like "mom.. go away your embarrassing me". so I got the clue and said my goodbyes and headed home so I could get ready for a party. I went to an end of the year party at my friends house which was fun and filled with a lot of laughs ;) followed by a sleepover which consisted mostly of cleaning the house and getting a good hard and solid 8 and 1/2 hour sleep. on Saturday when we all woke up we decided to go swimming in the fjord, I know crazy right? but it was so refreshing that I felt more awake then I ever have been after  a sleepover. my mind was crystal clear and my energy was so high when my parents picked me up they were surprised themselves. when my parents picked me up with my brother we headed straight for Åmøy to spend the night there. we brought some freshly picked local strawberries which we bought the day before since it is a must in the summer when going to Åmøy. they were definitely strawberries with gold in them though, they were so expensive! 320 kr for 2 lbs (55 US dollars!!), but it is still quite early for the season so hopefully the price will go down over time..

 

when we got there we went on a walk down to the coast and across some leafy green farmer fields which were glowing by the gleaming sun. all the colours of nature have never been so clear as they were that day. I was really soaking in the rays of joy that summer gives that day. the walk was filled with some memorable laughs that my mom always achieves to bring whenever we are on a family outing. that afternoon after watching the movie "the odyssey' which I enjoyed watching since I had read the book earlier this year at school in English class, my dad and I wanted to pursue the moment so we decided to head out and take nickie out for a walk to watch the sunset at 10 pm. it turned out to be an eventful outing that I we were not expecting.. as I rounded the corner of the house whith my dog (nickie) I saw some sort of figure running down the road at full pace. at first glance I thought it was a dog but as it approached closer I realized it was a mini horse! (shetland pony) I didn't see a rider on it and after noticing the other horse galloping after it with a rider on top followed by a person running on the ground a few hundred meters back I realized it was a runaway horse! the person yelled to stop the horse. so me being the horse person put my hands out to slow down and stop the horse. I calmed him down so when the rider caught up she could take him. it was such a coincidence that me being a horse person who happens to know how to stop a running and panicked horse safely was there at that exact moment when a galloping horse was running down the road at 10 pm. the girl on the horse was overly appreciative and thankful. after my dad explained to them that I had a horse myself, they understood more fully as to how I was able to stop the horse. since they were surprised that just some random person could stop this galloping horse :P the morning after my brother and I had an epic badminton rally (30 hits back and forth!) , since it has been a tradition where we always play badminton at our cabin since we were little. after that I enjoyed some expensive Norwegian strawberries in the sun while reading my good book.

 

the next day on sunday I went to a BBQ with my friends at a beach to celebrate my friends Birhtday. it was fun and chill, we just sun tanned, ate some food, took pictures and swam in the water. when I got home I had another BBQ since my brother had a sleepover where they were grilling some food, so I decided to grill my water melon and mango which turned out simply decadent! I know it sounds weird to grill fruit on the barbeque but you should really try it and give it a go! 

 

quote of the day: “And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

 

bye bye for now and remember stay golden ;)

 

 

 

Challenges in Life

Hey guys.... srry i havent posted in a while but since i sprained my ankle i havnt been able to go out and take pics! You might be wondering how i sprained my ankle if you  didnt already know that... well at my jumping class, the horse i was riding kind of over jumped the jump, which i wasnt expecting so i was at my normal stanse, but then when he leaped to much forward i lost my balanse and fell forward over his shoulder, and landed on my ankel. :3 now i have to wear crutches -.- But orelse my week has been the same and today i went to the hairdresser and got my hair re dyed, but or else nothing to exciting. :/ but the pics i am using today are some cool rose photos i took in the town of Bodø, on our roadtrip up to Værøy this summer.

Bye Bye and remember Stay Golden ;)