What I would like to know (and I can't find a straight answer on the internet) is if an infection can be treated with antibiotics, does that mean that that's the only way to get rid of it?

I'm pretty sure I'm suffering through a second sinus infection! The first one was about 2 months ago. I went to the doctor who prescribed antibiotics and the infection gone in 3 days. But now it seems it's back. I can't explain exactly how I know it's a sinus infection and not a regular cold; I can just feel it. But I don't want to go back on antibiotics, so I've started doing sinus rinses! And I've got Mark (who suffers from seasonal allergies) hooked on them too! 

But I just need to know: can you get rid of a bacterial sinus infection without antibiotics? Can other infections that are usually treated with antibiotics be gotten rid of without drugs?

Too cute! After Willow eats her breakfast, she likes to jump on my lap and fall asleep (sometimes I rub her big belly). Here she is chilling out, half on my lap, half on the table and looking up at me, waiting for me to flip her onto her back for a belly scratch!

Speaking of Willow...Mark and I have mentioned her so many times in emails to each other that Little Willow appeared in Mark's Google ads!

I thought I'd search my Gmail and find instances of Willow:

Can you believe you left the balcony door open?!?! Willow must have been so happy!

last night Willow spent every minute staring at the radiator in the living room.

willow says 'hi!'

googled "lump after spay" and it's normal, willow's ok

Well! The week of Kath is over! I'm pretty late in updating, but here goes...

Let's see...oh yes, I posted about my Korean lunch. Well that night I had dinner at my brother's house with my parents and we had fish (I can't remember what kind), roasted potatoes, roasted red peppers, wine and for desert coffee and a rhubarb crisp. I didn't have any of the last two, I was too full! I got home around 10pm and ended up having a few cookies though!

So that's the end of that! What did I learn during my week of Kath week?

1. The importance of presentation - even arranging food on the plate in a cute way made it more fun to eat and I'm pretty sure I'm going to buy some cute bowls to eat my oatmeal out of. It made eating it much more fun.

2. I have a new appreciation for variety. While I'm adventurous when eating out, I definitely am not when it comes to cooking at home. I think I'll try harder to cook more interesting things.

Did YOU learn anything new from Kath?

My mom and I hit up Man-na on Bishop downtown, my favourite Korean restaurant. They always give you little dishes of kimchi, Korean radish, potato and miso soup to start. 

Then I had the seafood bibimbap, my favourite! Unfortunately, I only remembered to take a picture after I mixed the egg in.

And my mom had the lunch box special, so beautiful!

Yesterday, I got home, did a 30 minute meditation, then had a snack of yogurt, honey, poppy seeds and a few almonds. Here's Willow checking it out...

Then I went downtown for an appointment but was hungry for dinner so I stopped by Sac-Wich. I'd never been there before. I always thought it was such a weird place when I'd see it on Beaver Hall but a new one just opened at Alexis Nihon so I stopped in to check it out and get a quick bite. I got the Mediterranean Veggie sandwich and it was delicious! Wow! Inside the place looks like a Quiznos, but the sandwiches are fantastic! And they have lots of great little cakes and cookies, biscotti and tiramisu, it all looked really yummy!

Then I headed over to my brother's house and had a beer, but I don't remember what kind, though it was delicious. I had one of my mother's cookies and then a few wasabi beans. My mom sent me home with more cookies and I had two more at home and that was it for the night!

This morning I had oatmeal.

The mix:

1/3 cup water

1/3 cup milk (2% this time)

1/3 cup oats

1 tbsp ground flax

1/2 banana

1/3 mixed frozen blueberries and raspberries on the bottom

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 dash cinnamon on top

1 tbsp peanut butter

6 sour cherries on top

1 triangle of dark chocolate

Plus a cup of french press coffee and a glass of water. I'm currently enjoying my second cup of coffee. I always go for extra coffee on the weekend, though on week days I limit myself to 1 small stove top espresso in the morning and that's it.

Today, to honour the last day of my Kath week, I will bring my camera with me and take more pictures!

Greetings from work! I just had a lunch of a Tim Horton's sandwich called a "Club a la Tim" and a small "ice capuccino" - no pictures!!

I did bring some sliced grapefruit for a snack and just had a piece. Kath seems to do this all the time and I noticed Dana did it too, but I have to say, it's not for me. I'm not a big grapefruit fan to begin with, though I'll eat it once in awhile, but no...much too sour.

I was still feeling full from the pizza last night, so instead of a bowl of oatmeal with all the fixins, I was in the mood for egg and toast. Mark always gets mad that I immediately put the bread in the freezer, and this time he insisted we keep it out and when I went to get a slice this morning, it was moldy! So I went for two mini pitas and a boiled egg, black coffee, water.

Today is:

- work

- home to clean a bit more

- meditation

- quick errand at the mall (because it didn't work out yesterday)

- welcome my parents to Montreal!

I decided tonight to have some sympathy pizza for Dana, seeing as...well, seeing as her pizza looked so good, I thought I'd have some too. On my way home from work I stopped at the mall for something and couldn't resist this terribly trashy novel I'm reading and a couple slices with a Diet Coke. I guess I'm alone in this, but for some reason I like reading trashy novels in food courts with diet soda. No pictures! I haven't been carrying the camera around with me.

I came home to a sparkling clean bathroom! Thank you Mark! Tonight's plan:

- 30 minute meditation

- clean the litter box

- clean the kitchen

- The Office!

- that's all folks!

Good morning! I'm always happy when Wednesdays are over! I forgot to mention that I got in about 40 minutes of walking yesterday.

On to today's breakfast!

The mix:

1/3 cup oats

1/3 cup water

1/3 cup of milk

1 tbsp ground flax

1 tbsp peanut butter

1/2 banana

1/4 cup frozen blueberries on the bottom

1 small triangle of chocolate

I discovered that when you put the blueberries on the bottom, if you wait a few minutes, the bottom part turns into a kind of upside-down cake which is delicious.

Today's lunch is tortellini with garlic, olive oil, broccoli, a bit of cheese, salt and pepper. Some cut up veggies and ranch dressing.

Today's plan is to go to work, a quick errand (if possible afterwards), then home to clean clean clean! My parents are visiting this weekend and despite my efforts this week in keeping things tidy around here, it's really not up to par. I'm dying for a bike ride to the Lachine Rapids, but it looks like it's going to rain all day and night! Booo!

Have I ever got a lot of catching up to do! I left off last night without posting my dinner so here it is. Arugula, a chicken thigh baked with bbq sauce, a mini pita, some chick peas and a chopped up slice of salami all drizzled with balsamic and olive oil.

Breakfast this morning was more oatmeal, water and black coffee. The mix:

1/3 cup oats

1/3 cup milk

1/3 cup water

1 tbsp ground flax

1/2 cup frozen blueberries (buried under the oatmeal so they'd melt)

1 tbsp peanut butter

a bit of dark chocolate!

Today for lunch I had another chicken thigh, a pear, a couple slices of cheese, some celery and peanut butter and a few almonds and another piece of that dark chocolate.

Because I went to a meditation workshop tonight almost right after work, I had a quick egg salad sandwich (whole wheat bun, couple of big leaves of romaine and egg salad) in between, sorry no picture! I just prepared lunch for tomorrow, but I'll wait until tomorrow to post it. However, here's the leftover that I decided to have right now.

And finally a little treat that I had in Turkey last year: yogurt, honey and poppy seeds.

Guf! I finally made it home! Tuesdays are an easy day for me, except the first Tuesday of every month when there is a meeting at 4pm that is supposed to finish at 5:30pm but usually runs until 6:05pm. Should I get on the horn with my union?

I didn't get any exercise today, except a 10 minute walk home from the metro. Perhaps there's still time, but I'm baking some chicken for dinner right now, so maybe not.

Breakfast was oatmeal, here's the mix:

1/3 cup oats

1/3 cup water

1/3 cup milk

about 8 sour cherries

1 tbsp ground flax

cinnamon

some peanut butter

1 cup black coffee

1 pint icy water

I blogged about lunch yesterday so let's not relive that. I did eat all of it throughout the day, though I didn't quite finish the celery, which I might do while I wait for dinner. Along with this little bowl of olives of course...

Well, the good news today is that I received some free samples! Though not food related, it was still nice to come to this little package of P&G goodness: Herbal Essences Shampoo and Conditioner and Olay Definity Re-Energizing Serum and Restorative Sleep Cream.

Now I'm going to sit back, relax and wait for dinner, see you lates!

I sure have been posting a lot, how does Kath do it? Here is my falafel dinner next to Willow on her chair. As you can see, I stuffed half a falafel into four mini pitas and inside each pita is a about a tsp of my homemade tzatziki. I don't mind telling you that the egg cup is holding ranch dressing (PC brand!). I just bought it today because in the last month I've bought a few pre-chopped carrot and celery cups that came with ranch dressing for dipping and I got a little addicted! It was the first bottle of salad dressing I've ever bought! The falafel were delicious! But can anyone tell me how to dispose of all that oil I used to deep fry them?

Here's a picture of the lunch I already put together for tomorrow. It's one thing to take all these pictures at home, but I don't feel like pulling out my camera in the staff room at work. A pear, four mini falafel pockets (2 falafel cut in half), celery, carrots, some almonds and my tzatziki.

Yes, I took that picture on top of the washing machine which is in the kitchen. I need to pay more attention to presentation!! I promise, every picture from now on will be on a pretty place mat!

What a productive day! You'll be happy to know I made it up the Atwater hill without having to stop and walk my bike! It's about an 18km trip return to Akhavan from my house so I think,  taking into consideration any coasting I did, I got at least 30 minutes of exercise in today. 

I stopped to nibble on some olives and almonds in Westmount park on my way home. At home, put together some arugula, chick peas and broccoli with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. It was only "ok" - olive oil and vinegar isn't cutting it for me these days, I might start experimenting with making more interesting dressings. For desert I had some of that beautiful yogurt (so thick you can stand a spoon in it) with some sour cherries and of course, cool lemony water. I ate outside on the front balcony.

Twice since lunch I've had more olives and almonds (and a few crackers), they are just tooooooo good:

I just finished deep-frying (!!) falafel that I made from a mix I got at Akhavan. It was the first deep-frying I've ever done and the falafel look tasty! I mixed together a quick tzatziki to eat them with but after hovering over all that hot oil, I don't feel that hungry anymore. Don't worry, I'll take pictures when I eat later on!

I didn't take a picture, but last night I had some "cracker snacks". This is an invention by the brother-in-law. It's crackers each with a tiny slice of cheese, tiny slice of some kind of meat (preferably cured), maybe some onion and then a yum yum sliced pickle. Delish! Cracker snacks are the only reason I ever buy yum yums and then I have them once and forget they exist. But I remembered last night!

This is what Mark and I say every weekend morning*: I woke up at 6am and felt great! Then I fell asleep again and now I feel not so great.  :(

We seem to oversleep every weekend, get up at 9am or so and feel like we wasted a couple of hours. Oh well. Mark had to leave early for work (leaving for work at 9am is early for him), so we jumped out of bed for oatmeal at about 8am.

The mix:

- 1/3 cup of Old Mill Large Flake Oats

- 1/3 cup of parmalat 3% milk (I don't usually use 3%, but that's what we have)

- 1/3 cup of water

- 1/2 banana

- 1/2 cup Europe's Best raspberries

- 3 Amira almonds (which expired in January now that I happen to look at the package!)

- 1 tbsp Webber Naturals cold milled certified organic ground flax seed

- 1/2 tsp of chocolate sprinkles (at which Mark said, "I see you're playing Kath at her own game!")

Plus a coffee and some cool lemony water. I ate about 3/4 of the oatmeal - got too full!

Man, it's already a lot of work to blog so much, let alone come into the kitchen to find out what brands I'm using!

I actually did the breakfast dishes after watching last night's Family Guy (one of the funniest yet!). Now I'm off on my bike to buy some treats at Akhavan! I love their olives with chopped up garlic and those almonds that I think are mixed in some kind of tamarind flavouring. Plus that incredibly impossibly thick yogurt.

This bike ride will mark the first of the year going up "the hill" - that's what I call it anytime I go up towards downtown. I HATE the first few times going up "the hill" - it's murder, but it has to be done if it's going to get any easier, right?

*I consider Mondays to be the weekend still as I don't work on Mondays.

After rearranging a bunch of furniture, and getting rid of a REALLY ugly dresser that we were using as linen storage, I was feeling peckish and decided on peanut butter and banana on a few crackers.

What a relaxing day today is! It's sunny and windy, but a little chilly. I sat outside for a bit, but it was just too cold to really enjoy it.

For dinner I had pasta with tomato sauce, cheese on top and a slice of toast with butter. Does anyone else love the taste of buttered toast with pasta?

I'm feeling inspired to make my oatmeal more interesting so tomorrow I might ride my bike over to Akhavan for some yummy snacks and sour cherries.

We headed to Ikea to pick up a dresser for the living room to put our *new* tv on. I just spent 2 hours putting it together and already scratched it. Let this be the record: I am never shopping at Ikea again.

Lunch was leftover grilled vegetable salad from yesterday, bbq chicken and another glass of icy lemony water and then an iced coffee (not pictured).

I woke up at about 7:30 this morning and stayed in bed for about 20 minutes before I decided I'd better get started on Day 1 of becoming Kath. I did the first 30 minutes of the Basic Flow on my Yoga Shakti DVD then checked my blog feed. Dana's already posted, and what a post! She's really captured Kath. I felt inspired to get going even more so I swept and mopped the living room, hall, bathroom and dining room. Hearing all the noise, Mark asked what was going on and then wanted to know why I didn't turn this into Michelle Eats and do it all the time. Which is when I told him to go back to sleep or I'd punch him in the face; I think I was channeling Sylvana there more than Kath. 

Feeling incredulous that I was so productive without even my first cup of coffee, I got started on breakfast.

I'd put a banana in the freezer last night, intending to make smoothies this morning.

The mix for two servings:

- 1 banana

- 1/2 cup raspberries

- 2 tbsp hemp protein

- 1 1/2 cups of soy milk

Plus a coffee (no half decaf here my friend), whole-wheat toast with peanut butter and jam and a glass of cool lemony water. Now, Mark and I will actually clean the kitchen before we head out for the day instead of leaving it until....ooooh, sometime next week. Ciao!

Imitation is the highest form of flattery I guess

Due to our current, unhealthy one might say, obsession with a certain blog, Dana and I have decided to live for a week as said blog's writer. Her constant optimism, immaculate home, cute bowls and tiny bites of baked goods are starting to wear us down so instead of turning bitter, we'll walk a few miles in her shoes and see if our homes too can be without clutter, if our oatmeal can be as filling, if it's really possible to do an easy 20 minutes on the elliptical at 5am.

The guidelines are as follows:

1. no junk food for a week (or just little bites)

2. lots of good food, especially raw food

3. clean our houses and keep them clean

4. 1/2 hour min of exercise every day

5. blog about the food we eat every day

6. use place mats and buy fresh flowers

While that may seem like a mish-mash of rules, we think we've captured the true Kath-ness of Kath. We think living as Kath for a week will make us as upbeat as she is. 

In this spirit, I have downloaded a trial version of Post-it Digital to keep track of my to-do lists and have I ever got lots to do!

Tonight:

- relax

Tomorrow:

- wake up at 6am to do yoga

- sweep and mop the whole apartment

- quick trip to Ikea to buy a dresser

- 30 minutes on the elliptical

- throw away all the clutter