**This is a post written by my husband, Peter to give you a glimpse of life behind the blog from his perspective!  Enjoy!**

My wife Alison has been blogging for some time now.  It’s had different looks (some of which I have helped design or create); it’s gone through different phases and focused on different subjects over the years; but in one way or another she has been blogging since 2006.  In fact she has had a blog longer than we have been married – anyone remember the first few years of Blogspot? I remember the summer before we got married we were both tweaking our blogs over our lunch breaks from the Cable Company in Ontario where we both worked.

Over time she has shared about how she has grown and developed as a person, and occasionally how the process of blogging has been a part of that change.  With that in mind we thought it might be interesting to have me say a few words on how I have been changed or effected by the blogging process.  A peak at what its like being married to a blogger, if you will.  So this is the exclusive, once in a life-time, not-to-be-missed report from behind the scenes.  This is “The Husband Edition” of Alison’s blog.

Food:
I guess right off the bat I should say the biggest change for me has been meal times.  You see I grew up with, let’s say, a more “traditionally North American” menu.  Most meals consisted of the classic trio: meat, potatoes and veggies, with the occasional break where we ate pasta or a stir-fry.  That’s sort of how I imagined life as a married person going as well.  And truthfully, in our first year of marriage that was probably pretty close to how we ate (we even had a solid supply of Hamburger Helper on hand in the cupboard during the first year or so of marriage!).

But change was in the air.  

Over the past 6 years meal times have become even more a time of experimentation and creativity.  For the most part these creations have been amazing and left me thinking, why did it take me so long to taste this!  I have eaten things I never thought I’d ever eat, and occasionally eaten things that I had frankly never even heard of before.  Truthfully this has been a real treat.  Meals that I now see as normal go-to meals, are vastly different than what I would have considered a go-to meal years ago.

I now see eating a primarily vegetarian diet as being pretty normal and find myself being far more aware of what’s going on in the organic section of the grocery store than I ever had been in the past.  But as tasty and as wonderful as my role as primary taste tester has been, there are a few side-effects that we have experienced over the years that I think are worth sharing.

First, would be that in experimenting with food as often as we do, occasionally things… well… let’s just say they don’t turn out as planned.  There is also the amount of dishes that get left after a fancy or creative meal.  The tastier the meal, sometimes the larger the pile of dishes produced (and as the chief dish washer, that’s not always great).  And finally, for a time, there was a long pause between dinner being hot and us being able to eat it.  That was of course in order to get that perfect photograph to use for the blog or some other publication (this one seems to have worked itself out over time.).

But truthfully it’s been worth it.  The food experience and journey has been fantastic (including the occasional flop or cold meal).  And in part I have to see Alison’s blog as contributing to that in some way.  Both because it has connected to her to a community of food bloggers for inspiration and because the need to write that ‘next post’ or get that recipe in for a deadline has often motivated her to push to the next level of creative cuisine.  Alison, my stomach thanks you!

Experiments around the house:
Beyond the amazing food experiments it seems there is always a new idea or experiment for around the house as well.  From homemade cleaning supplies to homemade toiletry items and the occasional homeopathic remedy for sickness.  A couple of week ago, for example, when I was sick, I found myself being treated by Dr. Alison with all sorts of special homemade detox drinks and even found myself with my feet soaking in Apple Cider Vinegar while sitting in the shower… I blame the blog ;)

Although at times these experiments have been odd or peculiar, we have as a result had an increasingly healthy and affordable home.  Like the food experiments, any downsides (like awkwardly sitting my with feet in Vinegar having just chewed raw garlic) have been small in comparison to the relative benefits.  Needless to say, like the food experiments this is not exactly how I envisioned things turning out – but boy am I glad it did!

Life is well documented:
Far more than in years past I find a camera or camera phone accompanying us on outings so that we can get a nice shot for the blog.  I even find myself saying things like, “Oh you should totally blog about this…!”  The net result has been that we have an amazing amount of pictures and written stories about our life thus far.  While you might not access the archives around here all that often, doing so for us can be an amazing reminder of the things we have done over the years.  In the moment you might think, “Really, do we need to take a picture now, this is just everyday-life stuff?”  In the long run, looking back, it’s so worth it.  Thanks to the blog for keeping track of our life thus far for us!

The Experiment of Life:
In writing this short little post I noticed how often the word ‘experiment’ came up.  And I think that’s probably a great word to describe my experience as a blogger spouse.  By being connected to such a broad and diverse group of people through the blogosphere I find the limits on what we saw as possible when we got married continue to be shifted.  

Far from planning on settling down and paying a mortgage, I now find myself thinking, “Moving to Thailand and working on an online business might be nice for a year!” “Wouldn’t it be nice to open up a nice artsy music cafe some place?” “What if we quit working and backpacked for a year instead, we could blog about it as we go?” “I’d love to move to Europe and do my Phd.”…

True. Much of this is not directly related to being a blogger spouse, but the consistent reminder from blogging to record and remember the past, to experiment with the present and dream of the future has played an important role.

Thanks Alison for putting so much into your blog, as much as it has surely cost you time and energy and certainly at times feels taxing, the benefit to us as a couple in our adventures with life has been worth it!  I am thrilled to be on this adventure with you, and equally thrilled that you have been so willing to record it as we go.  

Over the weekend I got really domestic. I mean really domestic.

I baked brownies, muffins, and cookies and stuffed them in my freezer. The brownies weren’t my recipe, and they were a bit dry. The muffins were a recipe I’m tweaking (Lemon Earl Gray!), and while the flavour was yummy, they didn’t fluff up like I wanted… and the cookies were my usual coconut oatmeal raisin cookies. I added a pinch of cinnamon and used coconut oil this time. #winner

I’m still figuring out our oven and that could be part of the baking problem. It’s gas, and while that’s considered great by lots of people, for me, it’s kind of a pain. I can never tell when it’s ready, things don’t heat evenly… it’s just a pain in the butt. I mean, really, it’s probably that I’m not a stellar baker, but I like to blame it on the oven. It’s easier that way.

In any case, I didn’t stop at baking! No, I continued on my domestic endeavours and I also decided to fill up our freezer with stuff to make cooking on busy nights even easier. I soaked and cooked TONS of beans (chickpeas, lentils, black beans [brought from Canada]), and I also was smart and made some frozen burritos for those nights where things are especially cray cray. You know, when you have 6 commitments and you’re late for all of them and three of them overlap? Or when you’re just super lazy and don’t want to cook dinner? The latter happens to me more than the former. Nevertheless, frozen burritos to the rescue!

I bought extra ingredients of everything on our weekly Friday grocery trip. I cooked up giant batches of rice (some for the burritos, some for during the week), giant batches of beans (as mentioned above!), and I set to making a burrito buffet. I loaded them up, rolled them in tinfoil (we were out of saran wrap), and put them in my freezer! They’re super delicious. Here’s what I did for our burritos…

Ingredients:

• olive oil
• diced onions
• hot green chile
• minced garlic
• spices (salt, chili powder, cumin, cinnamon – to your liking, but roughly 1 tsp. of each)
• diced green peppers
• corn
• kidney beans
• Arabic flatbread (obviously tortillas are the regular option, but over here the flatbread is waaaaaay cheaper and works just as well, and is way easier to find!)
• plain rice
• diced fresh tomatoes
• plain yogurt (similar to Greek yogurt)
• salsa
• shredded mozzarella cheese
• tinfoil or saran wrap

How To:

• I heated up the olive oil and dropped in the onions.
• When they were all starting to caramelize a little I added in the green chile, garlic and spices.
• After a few minutes, I added in the green pepper until they softened and then added in the kidney beans, corn.
• Once everything had mixed together I set it aside.
• I set up my burrito station with all of the ingredients ready to be piled into the flatbread/tortillas. I had to do this on my table because we have little to no counter space in our kitchen. Just pick a space that’s big enough to do it all together. It’ll make your life easier!
• Lay out your tin foil/saran wrap first, and then put your flatbread on top. Load ‘em up and then roll up, and cover in the tin foil.

I’m not about to give you measurements for everything because a.) you’re smarter than that and b.) it doesn’t really matter. Just make as much as you think your family will need, and taste test to see what you like. Add more hot chiles if you like it spicy! Take it out if you don’t want any heat. If it’s too salty, add some honey. If you like more cumin, load it on! Just taste as you go to find your perfect mix. Want them to have meat?  Sub out the beans for ground beef or shredded chicken.  It’s totally customizable.

Honestly, these are a total life saver. Just remember though: if you wrap yours in tinfoil, and you plan on heating them up in the microwave, remove the tinfoil first!!! Safety first, guys, safety first.

I find that sometimes August can bring a few more showers than July.  It can be frustrating as you realize that the summer is slipping away, but you’d rather be outside than inside due to rain.  In any case, here are some fun rainy day activities for adults and kids alike!

1. Go outside and dance in the rain! Why stay indoors? Either suit up in all your rain gear, go out dressed as is, or put on your bathing suit, and just enjoy getting wet!

2. Grab a cup of tea and a good book, curl up in a chair with a cozy blanket and relax. Listen to the sound of the rain pelting on your window.

3. Do one cleaning task that you wouldn’t normally want to do on a sunny day when you’d rather be outside. You know, vacuum, clean your toilet, do a load of laundry. Get it done while you’re stuck indoors and then you can have fun outside when it’s sunny again!

4. Help your kids get a little crafty. Have them draw some new art for the fridge, or give them a dollar store canvas and some paints and let them create a masterpiece! If you are really into displaying art, give them specific colours that match your home decor, tell them to create, and then you can hang it up somewhere prominent! They’ll feel super special.

5. Go to a local pond and feed the ducks. They’re used to being wet, so a little rain won’t scare them away. It’ll be fun to watch them enjoy the rain!

6. Learn something new. Grab google, wikipedia or youtube and look up how to do something you’ve wondered about but never thought to try. It might be a cooking technique, how to play an instrument, or the history of a type of species. Whatever it is, expand your knowledge a bit!

7. Have a picnic indoors. We love doing this! Set up a space in your home with a table cloth or blanket on the floor. Serve up some fun picnic foods (like curried devilled eggs or Greek bean salad) and pretend like you’re outside! If you really want to make the experience exciting you can download some soundtracks of the ocean to play – it’ll sound like you’re right there!

8. Weed your garden. It might get messy, but it’ll be easier to pull some of those tough weeds when the soil is wet rather than when it’s hardened by the summer sun.

9. Make chocolate chip cookies. Is there anything better on a rainy day?

10. Make a pot of soup. Rain makes you feel like you want to be a bit cozy, so a pot of soup is perfect. It’s easy to simmer on the stove all day, and you can stay warm and dry.

Or, go for a drive.  Just not in traffic, or you’ll hate the rain even more.  :)

I have hair.  Presumably you have hair.  But you know what?  Hair frustrates me.  It’s supposed to be easy to do your hair, right?  Well, at least, I feel like it should be.  If it’s naturally growing on my head then why shouldn’t I have the natural ability to style my own hair?!

There are people who literally look like their hair is so fabulous and yet didn’t spend a moment on it.  And then there are people like me (and perhaps some of you) who spend a little bit of time, and it still looks yucky.

Okay, I’m being slightly over-the-top right now because I recognize my hair isn’t bad all the time.  But I’m still certainly not one of those “effortless” people who can style it in a jiffy.

Nevertheless, I will soon be starting a job where I start work at 7:00 a.m.  And it will be hot all year round.  Which means that me and my thin hair are going to need to find a way to get along a little quicker/better than we usually do.  So, in an effort to be proactive, I’ve been pinning some hairstyles which I intend to give a whirl in the hopes that I can actually accomplish some of them.

But here’s a question for you: do you have a go-to hair-do that you know works and you love and feel happy with?  I’ll take any tips/advice I can get!

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to figure out how to categorize this post since I never post about beauty or hair…

Do you remember ever having a polaroid camera?  I had one when I was a kid – maybe 8 or 9 years old – and I LOVED using it to take pictures of everything.  I took way too many photos of my dolls and toys.  But I felt so powerful!  Just a simple point, click, and then it printed automatically.  Ahhh, such simplicity.

I am by no means a great photographer, but I try to do my best.  We have a Nikon DSLR 5100 which I’m still learning to use a year later.  I have a feeling that it’ll take me years to figure out all the bells and whistles!

Sometimes I realize I’ve taken a decent shot, but it would be just that much better if I was able to properly edit it.  We have iPhoto and Photoshop, and sometimes I use those, but there’s also a neat little online trick that I like to use that’s super simple and quick…

Pixlr-o-Matic

You simply upload your photo, scroll through and try out the different effects, choose one and save to your desktop!  It’s super simple.  I use it a lot on my iPod photos because they can be such poor quality without it.  It just adds a little pizazz!

There are 3 ways you can edit your photo, and they’re shown by click on the little “meter” at the bottom of the page.  It’s red, blue and yellow.  The red is the regular effects, the blue is more like textures or lighting effects, and the yellow is borders.  You can use all three, just one, or any combo of the three.

Here are some quick before and afters of a regular photo I took recently to show you what it looks like in its original state, and with a few different effect options:

Before:

After (using “Sophia”):

After (using “Lucas”):

Then, if you want to click on the blue part of the meter, you can add some texture:

After (using the “local” texture):

And, last but not least, if you click on the yellow part of the meter you can choose a type of border:

After (using the border “sand”):

Also, if you’ve never been to The Edible Perspective, you should!  Not only are her recipes delicious, but she’s a great photographer with tons of tips on how to use your camera’s settings, editing, and even using an iPhone to its full potential!

Do you have any photo tips?

I’ve been scanning pinterest, and I’ve found a few fun homes decor ideas I thought I’d share with you!

How cute is this?!  All you have to do is grab a rubber door mat from the dollar store, spray paint it with white paint and then sand it down to give it a bit of a rustic feel. (Source: Kay Hagen)

This is just an old cheese grater with a candle inside!  Very creative.  (Source: Sue Polich)

I don’t have kids, but I still like this idea!  Fill frames with corkboard for putting up art, notes, etc.  Cute idea!  (Source: Sarah Torribio)

How genius is this??  Use towel rods inside your cupboard door to organize pot lids.  (Source: Karinna Kujawa)

Last, but not least, this is because I’m one of those people who has saved foreign coins from countries we’ve visited…haha. (Source: Courtney Weems)

Have you made/bought anything fun for your home lately?

I like to pin various recipes on pinterest, and then if they work out well I save them in my “Successful Pinned Recipes” category so I can easily find them.  I figured I’d hi-light a few of those that we enjoyed so that perhaps you could enjoy them too!*

1. Flax Hair Gel from Peas & Thank You

This one isn’t a food recipe, but it is an excellent, all-natural hair gel.  Both my husband and I have used it and it’s fantastic!  Store it in the fridge so that it doesn’t go bad.  It’ll last a long time!

2. 5-Minute Naan from (never home)maker

We LOVE this recipe.  It’s so quick and easy and fantastic with our regular curry dishes.

3. French Toast Casserole from All Recipes

Such an easy and fun breakfast that is perfect for company!  I’ve made this a few times for breakfast meetings.

4. Chocolate Chip Scones with Almond Flour from Food Stories

These were a fun find that I made for friends who came and helped us clean our house after our stuff left on the moving truck.  They were perfect because I happened to have all the items on hand and needed to use them up!

Have you tried any awesome recipes lately?

*All pictures are sourced directly from the original sites.  These are not my photos.