Just Your Average Saturday

Saturday was a crazy day a normal day in my life:

7-12:30 Weight Watchers

We had 3 awesome meetings and talked about Thanksgiving victories and learnings, setting your kitchen up for success and my awesome new (totally vegan) shoes. I think my meetings have a fashion show component to them sometimes…

12:45 – 2 Brunch with two awesome gals at Fresh

Was so happy to meet up with Lisa and Carol for brunch at Fresh. Carol got there early and managed to score us a table, which was amazing because brunch there is INSANE! The two of us started off with almond java smoothies

It was oh-so-delicious and a perfect start to the meal!! I knew it was going to be a crazy day and I was kind of starving, so I opted for the pancake platter

Blueberry almond pancake, scrambled tofu and tempeh bacon made for a whole lot of deliciousness!! The scrambled tofu isn’t my favourite at Fresh, but the tempeh bacon and pancakes are pretty incredible. The gals and I had a great catch up, and Lisa and I expressed our excitement for Belmonte Raw’s restaurant/takeaway opening in Leslieville very very soon! It was the perfect brunch with amazing company and wonderful food.

2:30 – 5:30 Ashleyx2 rehearsal

Our show is just around the corner and we couldn’t be happier! We have a great set list and can’t wait to share our songs with an audience. Be sure to check out our latest promo video. We also just solidified that we’ll be having our after party at The Central which will be a lot of fun! Join us on Saturday!

6:30 onward Party errands, preparation and party…

We had a little party at our house in honour of Thanksgiving and Halloween. I wore this:

And talked in a Minnesota accent all night, proclaiming my desire for world peace. It was all very Drop Dead Gorgeous and very very fun.

How was your weekend?

If 2 women named Ashley tell you something, believe it, no matter how far fetched it may seem

Trust us on this one

I had so much fun with my Ashley on Sunday shooting new promo photos for our upcoming cabaret on October 22 (mark your calendars!)

There were balloons

And smilesAnd little black dresses

And lots more goodness that you’ll just have to wait for… Kudos to Rich Burdett and Claire McClelland for being a stellar team to work with. we ended the day with a great meal at Fresh

We got there just as brunch was ending, so I asked them to squeeze in my pancake order at 2:55. Did you know that their new pancakes are gluten free? Not to mention delicious. The perfect high note to end off on following the amazing shoot. I can’t wait to see the photos.

Other fun stuff coming up: more NYC goodness and Vegan Mofo! And of course more details on the next instalment of the Ashleyx2 cabaret series

It’s Too Hot For Anything But Love

Found written in my kitchen and I can’t help but agree…

With that in mind – things I’m loving from the long weekend:

My new crush, Zyz

We totally fell in love over the weekend while I was housesitting for my lovely friends Stefne & John. He is just the cutest thing on the planet.

Multiple meals at Fresh

including their new gluten free vegan banana nut pancakes with tempeh bacon for brunchy on Sunday

I don’t eat pancakes often enough. These were stellar.

Round two involved a delicious cherry blossom smoothie, a baby beach bowl and many giggles with Dani. That girl is all kinds of awesome. Love some things on the new menu. Don’t love the new prices.

Other yummy eats…
including delectable Ontario strawberries

sweet treats from even sweeter neighbours

salads with sweet potato hummus on the run

and dins with a lychee martini at Insomnia.

Also had a ball dancing with my besties at Chronologic, calling out obscenities at Rocky Horror, getting my butt kicked with the new RPM release at Goodlife and loving my hair as Rapunzel in Into the Woods

Okay so maybe Rapunzel’s love of her hair is a little more manic… but you get the idea.

Annnnnd only 22 more sleeps til NYC #squeal

How was your long weekend? What are you loving?

Expressing My Gratitude

Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canadians! I hope you had a great weekend with your family and friends and were able to find time to enjoy the gorgeous weather and beautiful colours of the leaves that have been changing rapidly over the last few weeks. I had a wonderful weekend and was reminded of all the fantastic things in my life that I have to be thankful for. While different than last year’s list in some ways, many of the elements remain constant.

I am thankful for my beautiful friends and family with whom I had the pleasure of spending a lot of quality time with this weekend. I neglected to take a ton of pictures of my beautiful walk through our neighbourhood with Nicole (my new roommate!), but managed to snap a photo of our delicious almond chai lattes from Broadview Espresso. On Friday I enjoyed a delicious lunch at Fresh with a delightful friend and then spent the afternoon basking in the sunshine on the U of T campus. [insert giddy Ashley here]Friday night also marked the first of two shows I saw this weekend, fuelling another one of the things that I’m thankful for this year: performing and being inspired. I’ve been so lucky this year to be a part of some amazing shows and it’s absolutely wonderful to go see other talented folks onstage and feel inspired. Ashley and I had the pleasure of seeing [title of show] at the Toronto Centre for the Arts. I’m so sad that it has since closed, because I would tell all of you to go see it. It was smart, hilarious and brilliantly performed and both Ashley and I left the theatre feeling inspired. I laughed my face off, left humming the songs and plan to adopt the song Die Vampire, Die! as my new theme song when I’m feeling insecure. I loved the show and was so thrilled that I had the chance to see it.

The Ashleyx2 adventures continued with a matinee of Banana Shpeel on Saturday.

We had a lot of fun at the show. The sets, costumes and lighting were breathtaking, the featured performers were ridiculously talented and the ensemble were awesome too. We had fabulous seats and truly enjoyed ourselves. Cirque du Soleil is pretty amazing…

Both shows left me wanting more and feeling inspired to come home and work on my own art. I want to be performing more and more these days and I feel so blessed to be surrounded by so many talented people to influence my art.

It goes without saying that I’m thankful for my health, and one of the reasons for the way that I feel is how I eat! Gluten-free vegan living is so normal to me now and I was thankful to enjoy some delightful fall/Thanksgiving inspired treats this weekend including Fitnessista pumpkin chocolate chip muffins Snobby joe lentils stuffed into acorn squashand my weekend pride and joy – a gluten free vegan apple pie!I’ve never made a pie crust before, so it was pretty exciting that my first one was actually gluten free and vegan! As usual, Meghan’s recipe rocked and the crust was super easy to make. I made the apple filling from 2 lbs of peeled & diced apples (Granny smith/Pink lady combo), cinnamon and agave. It was delicious!! I had so much fun baking, eating and sharing it – I felt so domestic and the house smelled amazing.

It was such a great weekend and demonstrated that I have a lot to be thankful for on top of a pretty amazing year… what are you thankful for?

Catching Up on Summer Foodie Goodness

I’ve realized I’ve been hoarding a lot of food photos from the summer…Lots of fruit and veggie goodness… many salads and stir fries and simple things. It’s been too hot to cook anything elaborate so I’ve kept things pretty simple. The summer has also made me pretty social, so there have been meals out at lovely places like Fresh, Live and various sushi restaurants.

This weekend I also made a couple of raw soups as a part of Meghan’s green smoothie weekend. I had a lot of fun with an abundance of green smoothie goodness, but wanted to change things up a little bit. Both recipes were from Natalie Rose’s Raw Food Life Force Energy. The first was pumpkin pie in a bowl I opted for steamed sweet potato since I don’t have a high powered blender and it turned out beautifully. It truly was like pumpkin pie in a bowl and it made me really happy.

The second was the pineapple’s just peachy soup with pineapple, berries, spinach, mint and some sweet Ontario peaches. I fed some of this to one of my roommate’s and he inquired what made it a soup and not a smoothie? I said it was because I opted to eat it out of a bowl with a spoon rather than from a glass. I guess it could be a smoothie too, although I might add some additional liquid. I loved the fresh flavour and really enjoyed the pineapple and peach combo.

I’m hoping to get back to the farmer’s market today to pick up some more delicious summer-y goodies while they’re still fresh and delicious!

What are your summer staple foods? Are you looking forward to any particular fall foods?

What Do You Mean I Don’t Have To Be At The Theatre?

It’s been strange (and also lovely) getting back to “normal” post-show and having some time to just be. My life is usually pretty hectic, but it’s nice to be able to go and come as I please and spend time with the people who are important in my life.

On Friday I grabbed some yummy lunch at Camros Organic Eatery before heading to the Total Health Show to volunteer at the IHN booth. It seems like only yesterday that I was at that show a year ago, dreaming of attending the school. It’s amazing how much difference a year can make as I spent a few hours singing the praises of the school to prospective attendees as a student! It was great to chat with other students as well as Jennifer, who is an IHN graduate, has her own practice and is also the school’s Trade Show Manager. Very inspiring!

I bounced around the show checking out the other vendors and picked up a few goodies including some Taste of Nature samples raw chocolate sweetened with alternative sweeteners (like dates and agave) and some goodies from Living LibationsI opted for the Lavish Abundance spray and Healthy Gum Drops. So far I am in love with both of these products. It was especially interested to talk with the sales gal as I had just taken a workshop in essential oils, so I had a new appreciate for their super high quality products. So happy to add to my collection!!

I then headed up to Fresh to grab some dinner with my sweet friend AshleI love this girl! We became friends during musical theatre school, but our friendship really blossomed once we had both graduated. We’ve both been incredibly busy as of late, so it was wonderful to close down the restaurant chatting about everything under the sun whilst munching of delicious food! I opted for the macro greens bowl over brown rice with some vegan caesar dressing, which I really enjoyed.

On Saturday I had planned to go to a cottage with my roommates, but thanks to the rain we opted to stay home. I ran some errands with Matthew and returned to find Drew cooking and an impromptu feast was born! On the menu: 2 curries (1 Ashley friendly), spinach salad with lots of veggies and some tempeh, roasted red peppers with JD’s secret 7 herb blend, roasted purple yams with mango chutney and rice. Not bad for something that was totally unplanned and thrown together. It was delightful! So much delicious food with really great company and conversation. I have to say that I’m loving my apartment and my roommates. I feel really comfortable and living with 3 guys is a lot of fun (especially good considering it’s been more than 12 years since I’ve lived with girls!) The resident kitties Judas and Jesus are pretty hilarious as well. I can’t wait to bring Iris home early this week so I will feel completely settled and ready to move forward. Much discussion was had about feasts to come in the future, which will definitely be posted on the blog. Stay tuned!

How was your weekend? Did the rain put a damper on your plans?

Chaos is the Story of My Life

Dear bloggies,

Oh how I’ve missed you! Thank you for your amazing comments and emails of the post about my mum last week. I love that I am able to honour her memory here on the blog. I am forever indebted to you for your love and support. I am so blessed to have this medium to connect with each and every one of you.

The show is going so well. I couldn’t be happier and I can’t believe that we’re in the final week. We received a great review and audiences have been loving the show. I’ve been so excited to have some sweet guests in the audience! 2 weeks ago, Laura and Kristy made the trip down from Ottawa and Hamilton to have lunch and see the show. We headed to Fresh where I feasted on a singer’s saving grace, delightful soup and sweet potato fries – yum! I couldn’t help but snap a photo of Laura’s adorable cupcake Like Hostess, only vegan and a million times better I’m sure! After an afternoon stroll in Kensingston, I headed up to the theatre where the lovely ladies graced me with their patronage the following dayThey loved it! Laura and I have been friends since the sixth grade and it was absolutely wonderful that she was able to make the trip down and see me perform for the first time in this role. I’ve happily adopted Kristy as well and I only wish that the two of them lived closer so that I could spend more time with both of them.

Some of my gorgeous bellydancing ladies made it out last Friday as well! So amazing to have dancers and friends that I admire so much come see me on stage in another capacity!

My eats have been fairly simple of late due to my hectic show/school/work schedule so there have been a lot of bowls with quinoa or rice with veggies like this green goddess inspired bowl from the Fresh at Home cookbook or this quinoa-broccoli-tempeh-hummus mix My fridge has also been fairly bare because I moved this past Sunday! Remind me next time that moving at 6pm, after doing a show while Canada is winning gold in hockey is probably not the best idea on Earth… It was challenging to consolidate a whole house of stuff into one room but everything went fairly smoothly. It was a pretty emotional day, but I’m loving my new space and starting to settle in now that most of the boxes are unpacked.

My roommates are lovely (3 guys + 2 cats) and I am happily in the heart of my favourite neighbourhood. Proper pictures of my new girly room to follow once EVERYTHING is unpacked, but here is a sneak peek… My amazing bedding from Liloo. I fell in love a few weeks ago and I knew I had to have it! The picture doesn’t really do it justice… I will have to try and snap one in the daytime. Makes me feel like a queen!Poäng chairs from our dear friends at Ikea. Special thanks to Lori for making the trek out to Etobicoke to get the cushions I wanted! The closet of Ashley… it has a light! See the Weight Watchers program materials peeking out? And the fun Expedit bookshelf courtesy of Ikea. A good mix of nutrition, acting, cookbooks, great novels and mindless fluff.

Iris will be joining us once the dust has settled a bit next week and I hope she’s as happy here as I am. I am looking forward to settling in during March and enjoying the end of my run, getting back to activity (fun stuff coming in March, stay tuned!) and yummy cooking. The boys are impressed with my canisters in the kitchen so I think I have some impressing to do.

Hope to see some of you at the theatre this weekend!! I have lots of visitors coming, so expect some more pictures. I do have pictures of the production as well, but I’m having issues with my Dell, so those will be coming down the road.

How is March shaping up for all of you??