The Uniqueness of Small Spaces

I have been blogging about small space living for a few years and trying to give you guys tips about living large while living small. Though, through the years of trying to plan and design my own space, I have learned that it is almost impossible to find small spaces that look alike!

If you have a bedroom, you can research bedroom designs because 95% of the time the room is a basic square. But if you live in a studio apartment, there is only one room and there is so little out there because our homes are often strange shapes and full of unique challenges! I find I can get inspiration on colours and textures, but nothing really else!

Apartment Therapy is running their Small Coolest Homes Contest right now and I LOVE looking at the entries, but it really shows me how different the teeny-tiny condos are. I mean, check out these floor plans for homes around the same size as mine:

Nicole's Back Bay Studio

Ben's Philadelphia Pad

Amy's Light an Airy Apartment

Brittany's NYC Sanctuary

Anna's Serene Studio

See what I mean? 400 square feet is not a very good description of how much space a unit really has! Some of these people have actual bedrooms. Despite my lack of bedrooms though, I do like how I can have a couch across from a TV. That seems rare :)

I only have a rough floor plan of my condo (it is hard to properly measure and all my walls are crazy), but it seems a lot of studios are more square than mine- even the long ones are wider than my narrow little home!

I was asked this week if I was going to enter the Apartment Therapy contest (in case you were wondering), and the answer is probably not. One reason being simply that I would be in the international category, which doesn't divide by home size. But the bigger reason is that people on that site can be harsh on entries and while I love my condo, I don't think it would win. Some of those homes are super cool!!

Small Updates in the Condo

You know what is fun? When it is a nice day out and you are too lazy to take photos of stuff, and then the next day rains and you need to take outdoor photos so the balcony looks like cray. Because that was me this week :).

I moved all my plants (and a table I forgot about) out to the balcony this week, just in time to enjoy the summer weather that has been rolling in!

You can't really see it, but it is filthy out there. There is mud all over, which makes very little sense to me. Because I am many floors up.

My polka dot plant is still living indoors. Every time I take it outside it pretends to die, because apparently it is a sissy plant and can't take the heat (even though all internets says it likes humidity). Perhaps I accidentally bought a pansy? HA! Burn! So it is sitting on my ottoman and is looking totally happy in the comfortable temperatures. The only issue being indoors is that apparently the leaves will turn green.

In other change up news, I took down the canvas by my TV.

I keep feeling like that wall was too busy and didn't really fit with the black and white vibe of these walls. Plus it is good to have some empty walls to help a room breathe (I think). I am still getting used to it! What do you think? I still like the painting (or fake painting? What do you call these things?), but I think it will go down in storage with it's twin until I have walls that they suit better.

Casey Gets Fit: Week 13

Current Weight: 154.4 (down 10.6 lbs overall)
BMI: 24.1

Woohoo!! Under 155!! Though, I am not 100% sure it is accurate because I was a little hungover and probably dehydrated. But I will take it! I had a lot of food and beer this weekend too- alas patio season has arrived and I think it will work against my weight loss plans :). I have been taking the slow and steady technique through this whole thing and so perhaps it will just start getting a bit slower, but hopefully I can stay on the downward trend!

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My only ability to counteract the delicious beer is going to be exercise. I have barely worked out since my 10K run, due to my shin splints. But it has been a couple weeks now so I think I am going to get back into running consistently. And my friend and I signed up for a twice-weekly bootcamp class, which I expect will kick my butt and help me tone up my flatter tummy.

In other running news- the Blogger Joggers are going to be meeting up on Thursday at 7pm to go for a run in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, followed by some delicious doughnut eating. Please shoot me an email at caseyinTO@gmail.com if you wanna come join us!

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The Mysteries of Life

It is Friday and I know none of you are working, so I thought I would have a little fun today and talk about mysteries! I love a good mystery. I mean, there are the regular kind like why all my plants die, why the lightbulb in my hallway always dies, or where in the world that runaway froot loop got to...but I am talking big mysteries!!

I think I have read through every Wikipedia page about mysterious places, ghosts, missing people, and other strange unsolved things.

Here are some of my favourites!!

The Oak Island Money Pit
This is a Canadian one! Basically back in the late 1700s a teenager saw a ruckus going on on nearby Oak Island. He thought maybe it was pirates and when he went over the next day he saw signs that something had been buried. Thinking it was treasure, they started digging....and people have been digging there for over 200 years. They keep finding layers of barricades and boobytraps, going down hundreds of feet. There are signs of treasure, like an odd coin, but no one has found the bottom, or the treasure, yet!

The Voynich Manuscript
This is an interesting one. It is an ancient book of unknown origins, written in a language that historians have never seen and have no idea how to translate. What makes it even weirder is that a lot of the plants and events drawn in the book do not match anything known to man. Carbon dating showed the book was made in the 1400s.

The Beale Ciphers
Another treasure hunting mystery! This one is very "National Treasure". A man named Thomas Beale reportedly created 3 cryptographs that will lead the solver to a lot of hidden treasure. However, only one of the cryptographs has been cracked and there isn't even any proof that this Thomas Beale even existed! The cracked clue says the treasure is buried in Bedford County, Virginia, but nothing else is known about it. What makes this so much like National Treasure? The cracked clue was solves using the Declaration of Independence.

Do you enjoy a good mystery? What is one that you would love to get to the bottom of?

Outdoor Cushions

A friend asked me the other day if I bring in my cushions when I am not on the balcony due to rain/Toronto grime. A just question! And the answer is no!

I have seen a lot of blogs where people put tons of cushions outside and I wondered that myself. My mother usually puts her chair cushions in the shed when not in use. But I have found that because my balcony is covered, the rain is not usually a huge issue. Here are a few tips for keeping cushions and furniture clean on a balcony.

1. Buy Outdoor Pillows
My red and white pillow is actually designed for being outdoors and the fabric is water resistant so a little bit of rain doesn't hurt it. I use a damp cloth to wipe it down when it gets dirty, but I will be honest and say that it has faded a lot in the last few years and definitely seems a lot dingier. This particular pillow is from West Elm and besides those issues I have had no issues with the quality of the pillow! It is still big and comfy.

2. Make Your Own Pillows Using Water Resistant Fabric
The green and blue pillow is actually covered in a fabric napkin, which is designed to clean up easily! You can also buy fabrics designed for the outdoors, like my West Elm pillow (I always found Fabricland actually had cuter outdoor fabrics than indoor! My ottoman is covered in outdoor fabric and it is great for repelling spilled water!)

3. Make or Buy Pillows with Removable Covers
My flamingo pillow is just a cover I quickly sewed up from a couple tea towels last summer. This pillow doesn't usually get wet, being on the inside of the balcony, but it does get dirty. Mostly because it randomly falls on the ground a lot. But the cover is removable so I just pop it in the wash and it is good as new again! The blue/green pillow also has a removable cover. I don't worry too much about the pillow inside, but they are actually washable and if I really thought it was funky, they are also very inexpensive to replace.

As for the dirt and grim that comes with a balcony, there is no cure for preventing that (if you have one, please let me know!). I have to go out there before guests come over and wipe everything down with warm soapy water and flip the striped chair cushions over. The chair cushions actually don't get that wet either and flipping them over tends to take care of any dirt.

Sometimes I use a scrub brush to really clean the furniture. It was inexpensive and does a quick job of it. I also keep a mat by the back door for people to wipe their feet off on when coming back in from the balcony, though I am not a stickler for keeping shoes off my floors or anything like that.

So there you go, that is how I manage to keep my balcony as clean as possible!

Casey Gets Fit: Week 12!

Current Weight: 155.2 (down 9.8 lbs overall)
BMI: 24.3

Week 12! That marks 3 months of solid diet and exercise and 10lbs missing off my butt to show for it. It sure isn't a lot of weight, but I can definitely feel the difference. Plus, when I started this journey in Feburary my waist measured 39". I just measured it out (after breakfast and before my workout) and it is 35"! You can't deny that kind of aweseomeness. I felt so thin looking at my 10K race pictures from last weekend.

I definitely had a pig-out on yesterday after my weigh-in though. I think I have learned that eating out is just always going to be a set back for my daily calories because I don't care for salads and some places just sell award-winning pies. Though I did turn down the milkshakes that the rest of the group got, didn't eat even half my fries, and nixed the whipped creme or ice cream on my pie- three things that old Casey would never have done! But the junk I DID say yes to I am okay with, because I don't eat out often, which is good for my wallet and my butt :)

I think today I would share my Top 5 Tips for Losing Weight

1. It Is Not a Race
You didn't put on the weight in a week and you aren't going to lose it in a week. It is slow. Some weeks the scale won't move. Sometimes it will actually go up! Mine was yo-yoing like crazy the last couple weeks and I saw everything from 155 to 158 (!!!) and it was depressing until I found the link with my drinking diet pop and my bloating. Here is a chart of my weight loss over the past 3 months. You can't really see the crazy weight fluctuations in the past couple weeks because this is only my Sunday morning weigh-ins.

It looks like a happy little slope- but this was THREE months of work! If you calculate how much weight you want to lose and try for 1-2lbs per week (which is what is recommended if you intend to stick with your diet), you will see that it takes a loooong time to shift that weight. You've got to mentally prepare for that!

2. Get Measuring Cups and a Kitchen Scale
Portion control is key to accurately tracking your caloric intake. And I am sorry, but you are going to need to work harder in the kitchen than the gym to shift the weight. Working out will make you hungry, so you need to make sure you are properly fueling to stay full and give you energy. You would also be surprised how little calories you burn in a workout. My 10Km run burnt about 750 cals, according to my RunKeeper app. That is about equivalent to a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese- without even fries or coke!

I love love love my kitchen scale. I got it for Christmas and I've already had to change the batteries in it. I used it a lot, along with my measuring cups, in the early days to accurately see what the recommended portion is and track how much I was really eating. Even now I use it to see what a real portion of new foods is.

3. Lay Off the "Diet Food"
You need nutrients and quality meals to feel full. If you are just eating egg whites you will miss out all of the good stuff in eggs and you will find yourself HUNGRY shortly after eating. And hunger is dangerous because you are way more likely to pig out, or make a bad choice for a snack, when you are hungry. Once and awhile I still buy the "light" version of something, but I try hard to makes sure my meals have lots of protein and fibre and are actually going to keep me full. I also find a lot of low-cal meals include a lot of salt and you need to watch out for that because it will make you retain water and mess with your weight!

My usual day is yogurt & granola with berries for breakfast, an apple for morning snack, a cheese and turkey sausage omelette for lunch, veggie and/or granola bar in the afternoon, crackers and hummus as an after-work snack, pita pizza for dinner (I love those darn things), fudgsicle for dessert, and maybe some PB on a spoon if I have worked out. 

4. Get Moving
I sit next to my fridge at home (yay tiny condo), and sometimes I feel like I am constantly getting up and looking for snacks. The best cure for the "boredom snackies" is to get moving. I seriously get up and either go to the gym, go for a walk, or just start cleaning my condo or something. I find it breaks the cycle right away to just start moving and distract my mind. I am working hard to eat when I am hungry and not because I need something to occupy my hands while I watch TV. I also knit sometimes because I can't eat when I am doing that!

Also for getting moving, you have to wake up your muscles and start working out. Muscle uses a lot of our daily caloric intake and if you build your muscles you will raise your metabolism and begin dropping fat! I haven't run much since my 10K due to shin splits, but I am trying to pump some iron in the gym lately (my gym doesn't have the best selection of machines for this so I would love some tips). 

5. Have Fun!
Some people view diets as an end to anything fun. I disagree- everything in moderation! You can set yourself a cheat day on your diet, especially if you know you are in this for the long haul. I find depriving myself doesn't work so I have a little chocolate or something every day. 

It can also be fun in that you can try out some new recipes and some new workouts. Maybe you will fall in love with dance classes or yoga. Or maybe you will learn you make a mean lentil soup casserole (ahem). Or you can just use this an an excuse to try out a new vegetable every week and expand your usual palate!

Weight loss is certainly not easy, but I found that the first couple weeks were actually the hardest. I have gotten so used to tracking calories and working out now that it all comes second nature and there are only a few times a week where I need to actively think about making a better choice. It just comes naturally now to stick to my daily calories!