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* I promise to add pictures once I get home. This is a lunch time report!

Free food report:
Amount: $7.07 (organic apples and split peas. The lady today went and got the tags to change the prices which = booo! My work is cut out for me. Harder to have guaranteed free food that way).
April total: $19.57

The extra long weekend was lovely. We had beautiful sunny weather and took advantage of the rest. By Monday night we were both ready to go back to our regularly scheduled events at work/play since we didn’t plan a trip or anything and we were getting bored of hanging around.

Friday was regular; we did errands, hung out and checked out Shipyards Park, Rob’s new favourite RC flying zone plus the site of the summer farmer’s market. It’s big and right next to the Yukon River so we’ll be spending a lot of time out there. The farmer’s market starts in May with the tourist season and it happily operates from 3-8pm, meaning we can get there on weekdays. Bison burgers, here we come…

Saturday I pretty much forget at this point. I’m sure we cleaned and walked around town and ate very, very well. I made a peas soup with a ham bone from our previous ham roast and it was fricking delicious. The soup should have lasted three days but made it about 1.5. And, we got the split peas for free thanks to Loblaws’ policy (and also the organic apples! Yes!).

Sunday we got up and drove out to the local hot springs (20 minutes away) for the brunch special. All winter there are daily specials, and when summer hours start they all end. So we got brunch at the “from scratch” family owned restaurant and then went in for a loooong awesome soak. There are two pools, one cooler and one very warm. I was glad I brought a water bottle. They offered to bring us coffees out to the pool since it wasn’t busy. The owner was saying they are considering offering non-alcoholic margaritas during slow times. Hell yeah. We got pictures, they will be added. So now I’ve been to three hot springs, here in Whitehorse, in Banff (least favourite due to chlorination and feeling of being in a lukewarm bath with 40 strangers) and the Blue Lagoon in Iceland. It feels different when you know you’ll be back and could pop through for a soak after work. I mean, 20 minutes is still a drive, but it’s beautiful and Mondays are cheap ($5) so hey. I was tingling all day long. Also, I had the Belgian waffle with cherry preserves. So. Good.

Monday we went walking around our neighbourhood and checked out a small number of the local trail systems. We can see that we’ll need both snowshoes and skis and we’ll be covered for local trails to meander around, never too far from hot chocolate and bailey’s. I watched a lot of original Twilight Zone and made more soup. We love our soup.

We have managed to blow any semblance of a food budget again. I can’t resist a sale or weekly special, so we have everything we could possibly need for quite a while to come. I hope. I mean, when a ham goes on for like $1.80/lb, what are you gonna do. We bought a $15 ham and have sandwich meat for a month plus the soup we ate for days. And this is with Rob, who has very poor self control around ham. He could have a ham dinner, and still be stuffing his face while he makes ham sandwiches. While I was butchering the ham I made a little pile of julienned ham to keep him away from me until I could freeze portions. So anyway, we have milk in the freezer ($1 a gallon! Come ON!), meat in the freezer, bread in the freezer, veg in the freezer, cupboards “full”, bulk of granola and such and I’m hoping we can coast for a good long while. We shall see. Apparently chicken are on for 1/3 the price in a club pack (club pack of chickens? What does that even look like?) and it’s tempting. An organic chicken here (I’ve seen one in one store once) was around $20 for a little guy. I can’t quite do it yet. So we’ll see.

I started my “workout routine” which consists of doing an exercise tape a day. I got my kettle worx videos by UPS at 9 a.m. Monday. Wake up call! The reviews I read seem accurate. Fine for beginners of exercise videos but no good for experienced people. The edits are rough and the video is repetitive. I like it fine but would not necessarily recommend it. I do like it though and it’s my favourite kind of work out so far: no dance moves, no “samba” or whatever and a lot of hucking around a cannonball. I did the “resistance” week one routine and have 5 more weeks of that plus the “core” the “strength” and the two dvd’s of 10 minute in betweener routines. So a video a day plus rest days and we’ll see. The easter bunny came for me for the first time since living with Rob (so, rob got snubbed. Whoops…we had no precedent!). I’ve been binging on candy all weekend so I suppose that will counteract my exercise ;-) It feels nice to have sore muscles and it also felt great to soak them at the hot springs. I love the hot springs.

Oh! I also got going (late) on my seed starting with peppers and tomatoes and a token optimistic melon. They are in toilet paper rolls on a window sill since I don’t have a proper light set up. I’m hoping long days and tonnes of solar gain will help with that. Maybe I’ll make a little green house with saran wrap or something. Does that work? Community garden plot sign up is May 2 and planting in June. Yay food!

Mmm. food. Lunchtime.