Juicy, Exciting, Positive Intentions for 2011

This post has been a few weeks in the making, mostly because I’ve been busy with my latest show,  doing lots of PR for Weight Watchers (appearing in the Globe and Mail, Metro and on Rogers daytime tv making baked falafels) and generally finding some calm in my chaos.

I’ve done some reflecting on my 2010 goals and despite it being a challenging year in many ways, I am really proud of all that I accomplished. Here is a recap of my goals and my current thoughts on how I fared.

• Taking care of myself by eating well, tracking, drinking tea, sleeping, practicing yoga, spending time with friends, singing, writing, dancing and working out

I would be lying if I said I found this easy to do this year. While I feel really healthy and my Crohn’s is still in check, I struggled to find balance and a happy place for myself amid everything that I do. I did spend time eating well, tracking, drinking tea, sleeping, practicing yoga, seeing friends, singing, writing, dancing and working out, but probably could have focused more on eating well, sleeping and finding balance.

• Taking advantage of my education and being an active participant in my classes

School was incredible, but after I started to become apathetic about it, decided to take some time away. I was so enthusiastic in the beginning, but realized that performing was where my heart was and decided to take some time off. This has been an amazing decision and I look forward to going back at some point to obtain my designation as a holistic nutritionist.

• Helping even more members reach their goals with Weight Watchers, including getting to Lifetime

Leading up to 10 meetings each week has been absolutely amazing and in the past 8 weeks I’ve been able to be a part of the media buzz surrounding PointsPlus. I absolutely love our new program and am so happy to have helped even more people reach their weight loss goals in 2010.

• Journaling regularly, writing a book, blogging regularly and exploring other writing opportunities

Um… didn’t really do very well on this front. I’m so happy to have had my blog as an outlet, but it took a bit of a backseat in my life. Did some journaling but like my blog posts, they were sporadic epic updates!!

• Raising a minimum $2,500 for the Toronto Heel n Wheel a Thon and continuing to raise awareness of IBD through my role as Honorary Chair and fun initiatives on the blog

I raised $3,000 for the Heel n Wheel a thon and was able to raise more awareness of IBD as Honorary Chair and through my blog.

• Giving my all in my performing career through my upcoming role in REX, getting new headshots and actively auditioning for awesome roles

I’m really happy with all the shows I did in 2010, and the realization that performing is what I want to be doing with my life right now. I had so much fun with REX, got new headshots and through some great auditions, landed some pretty awesome roles. I was inspired by many things and some delightful people and couldn’t be happier to head into 2011 with my career as a performer at the top of my priority list.

With all of that in mind, I’m sticking with my go big or go home motto for 2011:

• Perform more than ever, get an agent and get paid to do what I love
• Produce the second instalment of the Ashleyx2 cabaret
• Find peace in my body image while eating well, exercising, sleeping and taking care of me
• Travel

2010 was a year of transition and change in so many ways and I believe that everything I did set me up for success this year. I’m so excited for what is to come!! I’m kicking off the year with a great show, some delightful reading material to keep me inspired (Getting Kris Carr’s Crazy Sexy Diet later this week and have already started Alicia Silverstone’s Kind Diet, Meghan’s 21 Days to Health) and getting on those goals of mine. I’m also loving this quote I found the other day:

"The hardest thing in the world is convincing other people to love the same thing you do. But the fact that it's hard does not diminish your love – it must not. You go on loving that thing because, even if it's naïve, even if it's foolish, even if it's wrong, you believe in the very marrow of your bones that you will be able to convince them, eventually, some time. That certainty, that passion is too valuable to surrender in the face of resistance. You may not have convinced them yet; you will."  

~Jason Robert Brown

2011 is going to be a fantastic year. I can feel it.

Looking back on 2010, what are you proud of?
What are your goals in 2011 and how are they coming along so far?

Much Fun With Holidays & Vegetables in a Fuchsia Dress

Happy New Year!

The last couple weeks of December flew by in such a whirlwind, I can hardly believe that it’s already January 4th!

I didn’t have the crunch of Christmas parties like many people, but did have fun attending the Biz Media holiday party with the lovely Jessie.
It was a really fun night. I especially liked meeting a variety of Twitter friends and posing with the doughnut tree. And having way too much fun taking picturesOne year to the day of last year’s event, Nicole, Meghan and I had our annual holiday dinner. Despite living with Nicole and interacting with Meghan quite regularly, it is nearly impossible for the 3 of us to coordinate our schedules. I didn’t get a picture of the three of us, but I did manage to snap some of the food!

Nicole and I were a bit disorganized in planning the menu, but managed to whip something up. We started off with a delicious butternut squash soup that Nicole made. Roast a butternut squash with 2 heads of garlic. Chop and sauté one onion. Add some ginger. Once the squash is roasted, puree with the garlic, onion, ginger and however much water you need in a Vitamix. Add water to achieve your desired consistency and voila! Nicole said that sometimes she adds roasted red pepper and it is also delicious. We topped the soup with some baked squash seeds.

For our mains, we asked Meghan to bring a salad and we decided to test out a lentil dish that we found online. After adding some more garam masala and tomato paste to the dish we ending up liking it more, but I’m not sure that it was something that we would make again. Meghan brought a raw pad thai inspired salad with zucchini noodles and a creamy sauce. It was a yummy combination of flavours with lots of variety! I think dessert was everyone’s favourite. I made Michelle & Lori’s apple pie parfaits. Holy amazing!! To save on some time I used plain Coconut Bliss along with the delicious apple filling, but overall the flavour was incredible. It was so easy to make (less than 5 minutes) and easy to prep parfait style to serve to the ladies. Just awesome. I don’t think the Pure2Raw girls can go wrong!! Meghan brought Nicole and I glass straws (so perfect for those green smoothie days) and Nicole made us body butter and lip balm from Meghan’s Natural Body Care tutorial. I love my girls, so happy to have met them in Meghan’s cooking classes!

I went to Belleville for Christmas to visit my grandmother (and if you follow me on Twitter you probably caught a few tweets about my bus debacle) I brought some food with me and asked my grandmother to stock the fridge up with fruits and veggies. I ate leftover butternut squash soup, made hot cereal in the mornings, ate giant salads and snacked on fruit between meals. For Christmas dinner I made Meghan’s orange maple tempeh and used some apricot jam in place of some of the orange juice. My uncle made sure I had lots of veggies and made me a special stir fry too. So yummy!I came back to Toronto feeling rested and rejuvenated after getting lots of sleep and relaxing. Caught up with lots of friends over the holidays and rang in the New Year with Melly. Speaking of the New Year… post on goals still to come!! 

How were your holidays? Are you feeling recharged for January?

Goodbye 2010, Hello 2011!

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. " ~ T. S. Eliot.

I want to adopt this as part of my mantra for the new year. Wishing you lots of love on this New Year’s Eve. This week got away from me, so video and proper post to come on Monday!

Happy Holidays–Part One

Happy Christmas Eve! Here’s my second annual holiday video (here is last year’s video!)

Part two will be next week where I will discuss the year that has passed, goals and looking ahead to 2011!! Next week I’ll also be blogging about my delicious dinner with Nicole and Meghan – along with an awesome recipe for Nicole’s butternut squash soup.

For my WW members, here’s where I will be/won’t be next week:

Saturday Dec 25 – Carrot Common is closed

Wednesday Dec 29 – Church of the Holy Trinity is closed
Thursday Dec 30 – Forest Hill Loblaws, meeting at 9:30
Friday Dec 31 – Church of the Redeemer, meeting at 9:00
Saturday Jan 1 – Carrot Common is closed

If you can’t make it to one of my meetings, check out the Weight Watchers site for other meetings that are open over the holidays.

I’m so excited to get away from the city and my busy busy schedule for a bit of a break. I’m also excited for all that is to come in 2011. Happy Christmas to those of you who are celebrating!! I hope you have a wonderful holiday and look forward to seeing you soon!

Remember That Time I used to Blog? Well, Here’s an Update…

Long time, no see.

Last week I started to repost some of my posts from Crohn’s Week last year. In the 2 years since my diagnosis, so much has changed and it was great to recount the story of my diagnosis. I started to prepare the latter half of the Crohn’s weeks posts for you, but realized that many of them were less accurate and relevant than they were this time last year so I decided against it.

I’ve been supremely busy this month and a lot of it has had to do with being in transition and making lots of changes in my life. I really thought that when I quit my job last year, I had figured out what I wanted to be doing in my life and had developed a formula for my perfect pie of life. I’ve come to realize over the course of the last year that this year was much more of a transition year than a destination than I had previously thought.

This year, I’ve had some amazing opportunities in the performing world. Through REX, my first Fringe show, the Ashley cabaret, other performances and auditions I’ve really realized that performing is what I wish I could do all the time. I feel alive onstage and nothing else fills me with the same energy, passion and love. Don’t get me wrong… Weight Watchers is still amazing and I’m having a blast leading 9 meetings a week, but it’s just not what I want to be doing forever.

This realization meant that some things in my life needed to change, so I decided to take some time off school. In my last class, I really wasn’t giving it my all and that really isn’t like me. I knew that I was going to have November off based on class availability, but after some soul searching and a lot of tears I decided that my heart really wasn’t there and the best decision would be to take some time off.

Leaving school was incredibly hard and I felt like a really big failure. I felt like I had made all of these life changes in order for me to go to school and then was going to cop out by leaving my program. I went back and forth for awhile, but knew what I needed to do after I started bawling when my grandmother asked me the question “Are you happy?” in a conversation over the phone.

Leaving school has allowed me to place greater emphasis on my performing career which has been really great. I’ve been doing lots of singing (including a performance at a celebration of Danielle’s life), enjoyed a great run of RENTand after a few auditions and callbacks, I scored the lead in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (so excited!!). I have some other auditions coming up in the next couple of weeks and am looking to sign with an agent as well. Things are really coming into place and I couldn’t be happier.

With all that has been going on, I’ve really been struggling with my eating and my weight. I’m still happily gluten free and vegan (with my Crohn’s still lying low!!), but just haven’t had the time to eat at home, prepare meals, exercise or go grocery shopping. Since getting to goal in 2007, I have comfortably maintained my weight with some ups and downs along the way. I’ve talked about maintenance as well my own struggles, feelings and emotions more than ever this year and I’ve really felt it in the last couple of months. After 2 huge breakdowns with my Weight Watchers manager and personal trainer, I finally feel like I’m in control of the situation again. The reality is that I’ve gained a few pounds and do not feel good about it. I’m eating well and exercising and feel confident that I can regain that good feeling I once had. I know that my hard work is going to pay off and I’m really excited.

I feel like blogging and blog-reading has really taken a back seat in my life and am working on making it come back! I would love to post some meals, some reviews and my thoughts on the new Weight Watchers plan (which launches in Canada next week!!) The holidays are just around the corner and I would love to do some blogging on preparing for the holidays as well. Despite not being in school, I feel like time to myself is less than ever, but am working on achieving a balance of everything.

I look back at where I was this time last year and am so amazed at all the changes that my life has undergone. I’m not exactly where I thought I would be, but I’m a much happier person, which is all that I can ask for. I’m so excited for 2011 and all of its potential!!