I did it! I finally got rid of my last plastic food containers. Yay! Now all our lunches are packed in glass. My boyfriend winced when he saw me chuck them but after I showed him the insides and the melted plastic film, he understood it was time for them to go.

These glass containers make for heavier lunch bags, yes, but boy do I feel better knowing I won’t “potentially” be contaminating myself with Bisphenol A (BPA), Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), Brominated flame retardants (PBDE) and other garbage chemicals leaching into my food.

I found these containers at Canadian Tire by Anchor. They are made in the USA (I believe by the same company that manufactures for Pyrex, as I’ve seen the exact same containers but with different coloured lids sold under the Pyrex brand). A set costs about $20 but they are often on sale. Well worth the cost in my opinion.

Glass containers by Anchor

Yep, seems official now: Clipping coupons is on the rise again. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

It is said that you can cut your grocery bill by over half, just by redeeming discount coupons. That reason alone should be enough to get anyone to open-up that weekly specials bag that’s delivered to our doors, no? Well, I believe in this figure. I haven’t hit that percentage yet, but I do love the feeling of presenting my coupons at the checkout. I feel zero embarrassment, or shame in doing so. Nope. I actually feel really smart and savvy. Although the flyers in the bags don’t contain nearly as many coupons as the weekend newspapers do, I also scour them to find the best deals for the stuff I need. There are a few supermarkets in my area and so going to 2 or 3 to get the best deals is sometimes simply a matter of walking across a parking lot.

Image source: Flickr mandaroo63

The bag contains flyers for more than just supermarket specials, obviously. These come in handy when shopping for the home, or for gifts. I’d normally add “for myself” too, but I haven’t gone for some good ol’ retail therapy in a long, long time. To be perfectly honest, I only started doing some hardcore bargain hunting since the recession started. I had to. Every penny mattered. They mattered before too, but I guess I just wasn’t as conscientious about where my money went as I am today (the upside to this recession). It was kind of weird at first but now, it’s a full-blown habit. And because it is so worth doing, it’s become something fun to do while sipping a coffee. The idea is not to make you spend more money, but to stretch every dollar. And for me, it all starts with my weekly specials bag.

Image source: Flickr Creative Commons NatalieMaynor

Another reason why I look forward to getting my weekly bag of goodies is because of the bags themselves. When they first began distribution over a decade ago, they came in the bad kind of plastic. The non-biodegradable-forever-in-a-landfill kind of plastic. Just out of principle, I had a “no junk mail” sticker on my mailbox for years and years because I hated the whole concept of these PubliSacs. They were such a huge waste of environmental resources, regardless of the savings found on the pages within the bags. But fast forward to today, these bags are now biodegradable and most of the flyers are recyclable and made from recycled paper. Considering that most supermarkets still don’t offer biodegradable plastic bags and these guys do, was kind of cool, I thought. Why? Because I keep them to pick up after my dog Maya. They are the perfect size for this. I normally purchase bio-bags to pick up after her but now I can reuse these before reaching into my stash of store-bought PoopEase bags.

When I’m done writing out the specials of the week that interest me and when I’m done clipping whatever coupons I need, the flyers go to the recycling bin and the bag goes to my bag of bio-bags. I just wish that everyone would systematically recycle and that the Printers would use recycled paper or make sure that their end-products were recyclable. There is still far too much waste in direct mailing.

What about you? Do you find yourself spending more time looking over your weekly flyer-bag? Do you still have a “no junk mail” sticker on your mailbox?

Don’t forget your reusable shopping bags when you go out!

I don’t get it.

You leave the city, for vaster and greener spaces and a greater quality of life. Whether you accept it or not, when you live in the burbs, you live near malls, plazas and shopping centres. When you lived in the city, large surface stores were a rarity. Even a novelty as you’d have to make a “special trip” out to them, sometimes borrowing a friend’s car or going with a friend who had one.  When you lived in the city, you lived near commercial streets, lined with all the businesses you could possibly need and more. You knew exactly which business you had to hit to get everything you needed. You’d sometimes walk 15 blocks, carrying groceries and shopping bags, and you’d even haul them on the bus to keep going, or to go home. Man you we a trooper, eh? But now you drive everywhere, even to the corner shops… And BTW, by you, I also mean ME.

Source: Flickr Creative Commons - Caribb

Why are the suburbs so axed on driving when everything is also close-by? Shops, schools, sports and recreation areas, even the dog park.

For a while there I’d become exactly what I deplored the most about suburban dwellers. I could not believe that people were that lazy and dependant on their cars. I told myself that I would be different, that I’d keep walking everywhere like I used to when I lived in the city. Well that didn’t last long.

It finally occurred to me that the main reason why I don’t, despite the fact that I’m hyper sensitive about the environment and normally deplore laziness, is because I don’t feel safe. And two pet peeves of mine are bad urban planning and bad driving. I bet you anything, if you live in the suburbs, where you shop the most, there’s no cohesive sidewalk system, right? Or worse still, there are no sidewalks at all, even in front of your home?

Source: Flickr Creative Commons - Steve Brandon

At the end of my block, that’s where the sidewalk ends and the shops begin. I live near the middle of a shopping mecca it would seem (I don’t think so but whatever. The locals do). To the North, I have Pharmaprix (that’s Shoppers Drug Mart for you non-Quebecois), Blockbusters, Walmart, Zellers, Super C, Winners and HomeSense, and a bunch of factory outlet stores that sell brands I wouldn’t buy anyway and to the South I have a so-called “Smart Centre” that includes a Dollarama, Future Shop, Bureau en Gros (a Staples, again for you non-Quebecois), Reno-Depot, Canadian Tire, a bunch of other shops and restaurants and a supermarket. All separated by their own parking lots. Not connected in any way. Tell me this, what is so “Smart” about that?

Source: Smart Centres

When my boyfriend and I do walk to the shops (and we have been doing much more of that lately) we end up walking behind the buildings where the loading docks are, as long as we can, before popping up in the front again. People are so absentminded when driving into parking areas: They look for a spot to park first, the pedestrians second. Here, where we live, it’s just safer to walk behind the shop than in front. But I would never do that alone, much less after dark. Nope, not for me.

While doing research for this post I came across so many articles about this issue (Google “no sidewalks in suburbs” and see for yourself ). This one from the Globe and Mail, titled Are the suburbs a health hazard?, is reporting on newfound correlations between living in the suburbs and obesity of all things! Well, I’m not gonna throw in the towel and move because of the sidewalk issue, but my boyfriend and I do want to move to a neighbourhood that has less traffic and that is further from the highway as soon as we can.

I just wish I knew what the rationale was in building neighbourhoods and forgetting about sidewalks, especially when these neighbourhoods are so close to shopping centres, schools and parks.

When I do walk at night around here, and I have to walk in the street:

• I  make sure not to wear all black
• I make sure there’s something reflective on me
• I never ever listen to my iPod

And during the day:

• I walk on the opposite side of the street, in on-coming traffic
• Make eye contact with drivers, to make sure they see me
• Never listen to my iPod

Turns out, my city-street-smarts serve me well here in the suburbs, but instead of walking smartly to not attract weirdos, I’m walking smartly to not get hit by cars… What about you? What do you think about this issue? I want to know.

Walk safe!

So, since I can’t afford to restock on my usual (and expensive) skin care products, and also because I’m trying to get back to the basics in regards to what I eat and put on my body, I decided to take a stab at making my own. I’ve hesitated for so long because I could never see myself putting non organic products on my already sensitive skin, so I waited. Organic products are now readily available everywhere so the timing was perfect.

Adzuki Bean Scrub

When I was a teen, I was hooked on The Body Shop’s Japanese Washing Grains. Remember those? They came in a really neat cardboard package, kinda like a salt shaker. You’d pour some into the palm of your hand, add a bit of water and mix it with your finger until it created the desired consistency. You would then apply the paste to your face, and using your finger tips you’d gently scrub your face, and then rinse it all off. The distinct smell is what comes to me now. It was such a natural and organic scent… Well, I remembered that the only ingredient was adzuki beans (also spelled azuki). That’s it.

So, yesterday I picked up a bag of organic adzuki beans at my local health food store (Tau – Marchés d’alimentation naturelle). I also stopped at the dollar store and got a really great glass canister with an air-tight stainless steel lid. Total spent? 4$ (Don’t you love that?)

At home, using my coffee grinder, I ground about a 1/4 cup of beans finely and transfered it to the washed canister.

I used it for the first time this morning and I swear to god it worked exactly like I remembered. Such a great smell. My skin felt smoothe and clean. Adzuki beans have been widely used in Japanese skin care for centuries. They clean, exfoliate and clarify the skin, leaving a natural glow. This is a definite hit for me!

I have been working on getting healthier and losing weight for so long. I’m talking years. And as of today, I have 20 more pounds to lose than I did back then, when I was struggling to lose 10 lbs. Inconsistency has been the order of the day…er… years. I’d get the nutrition right but then wouldn’t have time to go the gym. Or I’d get to the gym but was really busy socially and missed the nutrition component. It’s been a vicious cycle and every time I think “ok, this is it”… But it isn’t. Sound familiar?

I went through this before. I lost 35 lbs about 6-7 years ago. I was doing so well too. I had such discipline. I’ve been racking my brain trying to recollect the frame of mind I was in and why it was so natural and easy to be so disciplined. I’ve been trying to remember the details of my life back then. What was the same or different, to try and duplicate that this time around or at least learn from it and adapt it for today. What occurred to me was that:

• I was working long hours back then
• I didn’t workout at the gym at all
• I was very, very careful about what I ate and how much alcohol I consumed
• I didn’t eat red meat or pork
• I ran almost everyday on hilly, mountainous terrain for an hour minimum, rain or shine, in daylight or darkness
• In the winter, I snowboarded, snowshoed and cross-country skied regularly, almost every weekend
• I saw results immediately and that kept me motivated
• A chick’s metabolisms at 29-30 yrs old is different than at 35 yrs old

So now, fast forward to today, and after having analyzed my findings, I came up with this list that I keep close by (it’s on my laptop and on my Blackberry)

1. Stop hitting the snooze button: Just friggen GET UP and do it! Write it everywhere if you have to! Once I’m up and out of bed, I’m always happy I did. I have to keep reminding myself that.
2. Always measure portions, get a scale (got mine for $12, works perfectly well) and measuring cups.
3. Be aware how much sugar you consume and cut waaaaaay back. It’s in everything, it drives me nuts.
4. Educate yourself on metabolism and how your body works. Understanding how the body processes and metabolizes food and nutrients is essential when you are on this path. How the body loses weight then makes more sense. I picked up Jillian Michael’s Master Your Metabolism. I’m learning so much about how the crap we eat messes with our systems and why. A great source of information and advise on how to turn things around.
   

   Jillian Michaels: Master Your Metabolism

5. Write everything in a food journal. Choose a journal you actually like. My faves have always been Pocket Moleskines. They’re the perfect size and even have an inside pocket.
   

   Moleskine Notebooks

6. Cut out or print pictures that inspire you and use them wherever you think you might need some inspiration (I have a few in my iPod and food journal. I created a screensaver for my laptop that loops my inspiration pictures. This picture is the home screen on my Blackberry:

   

7. Create a check list of what you want to keep track of, print it and put it on the fridge, as a visual reminder, for motivation and for consistency. Mine follows P90X’s 13 week program, 6 workouts per week. The Extra means any additional physical activity accomplished beyond P90X and taking my dog Maya out for extended walks. I check the Food box if I feel I had a good day food-wise. I weigh myself every Sunday morning and indicate by how much my weight went up or down. At first I didn’t think this would help but it has. Even Peter takes a peak at it and comments on my progress. It looks like this:

Source: MelissaCT's nutrition and activity tracking sheet

So those are my tips. Are they helpful? I’m still in the process of absorbing a lot of information from research and trying different things. It’s a daily challenge. Especially since I live with someone who lives to eat and is so passionate about cooking and grilling… Sooo hard to resist sometimes.

Are you having difficulties too? How do you stay motivated? How do you stay disciplined? I’d love to know.

It’s amazing how the more you have, the more you want and the less you have, the more you realize you don’t need that much. I know everyone says it in some form or another but for me it took something like this recession to make me see that I have more than enough to be happy. I always did.

Growing up, my mom bestowed on my sister and me amazingly useful skills. She taught us to sew clothes following patterns, to knit and crochet. She taught us to cook, to make preserves and she taught us about what could be frozen and how. She taught us about the hundred-and-one uses for vinegar. She taught us to fix our hems, take-in clothes and shorten jeans. She taught us to quilt and make decorative items for the home like pillows and curtains. She taught us to grow small gardens, collect seeds and care for house plants. She taught us why it’s ok and smart to clip coupons… Notice a trend here?

The keys were to be:

1. Self-sufficient
2. To stretch every dollar
3. To get the most use from everything we spent money on

We weren’t struggling financially, there was no recession at that time either. It was just common sense. It was common sense when I was a teenager and it’s common sense today… I just forgot. It’s been a costly mistake (boy has it ever been!) but the best part is that I remembered and it’s all coming back to me.

Flickr Creative Commons: Rodrigo Campos

So back to the basics I go. My sewing machine came out. Crafting supplies came out of storage. Found some great recipes online. Invested in durable freezer bags. Purged a lot of stuff I don’t use anymore, or ever did… And that’s just the beginning.

It’s ridiculous to think that people who live in rich countries like Canada and the USA spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year on something that runs freely and safely in our homes, our places of work, our public areas and our schools. Meanwhile, in other parts of the world they have no choice but to import water because their own sources have run dry, or they are now too contaminated for consumption or their sources cannot provide enough for its population (like most of Africa and parts of Australia).

The kicker is that some of these waters come from islands and countries thousands of miles away, and shipping these bottles creates nearly 109 million kilograms of greenhouse gases… and this is excludes the impact the chemicals that spill into oceans before they ever reach their destination have and also excludes the millions of bottles that never get recycled and wind up incinerated or in landfills.

Do you really think that bottled water is that much better than tap water? Here are just two cases that you may or may not be aware of: Aquafina has flat out said it uses filtered tap water. Read about it here. Dasani tried to hide that they did this too back in 2004, but that simply created one the biggest scandals in CocaCola’s history: It was bad enough they were so deceitful about hiding it, but it got worse: Dasani was forced to recall half a million bottles of water off store shelves because tests revealed they contained an unsafe amount of a chemical used in their processing that is known to increase the risks of getting cancer (note: it wasn’t the tap water that was contaminated). Read more about it here.

There are so many reasons to drink tap water and so few to drink it bottled. I found this amazing article from Readers Digest. It’s full of facts and useful tips.

It’s so unfortunate that water is being treated like a commodity when it is more of a luxury. Not something that should be profited from like the bottled water industry is doing. We pay more for WATER than we do for gas… or bread. Think about that. That’s crazy!

I stopped buying bottled water just before the Holidays. I carry some with me in a reusable container and refill wherever. At home, I keep a pitcher of water in my fridge at all times.

If your reason to not drink tap water is because you don’t think it’s safe… That’s another story. I suggest you do your civic duty and contact your city officials and voice your concerns. But if you just have to drink bottled water, the very least you could do is make sure you recycle the empties… Promise?

What do you think? I would love to hear from you. Leave a comment here or write me at melissacthibodeau [at] gmail [dot] com!

Sometimes life throws you curve-balls. Some you strike-out with, others you get to first or second base with and then sometimes you hit home runs with them.

Looking back at the past few months of my life – professional and personal – I would say that in spite of my missing-in-action status on this blog, I did hit a few home runs and got batted-in from third base by some pretty fantastic people. I’m even woman enough to concede that I struck-out on a few things too. I know I once wrote that I didn’t want to mix my personal life with this blog but considering it’s all related, I will make an exception ;)

Using the same baseball analogy, here’s an update on my 2008 goals:

The home runs

• Making the best career move anyone could ever hope for!
• Recruiting some really special employees
• BuyCanadianFirst.ca going live a month ago (August 4th) and doing extremely well
• Falling in love (this one is a major grand slam!) Thanks Pam, I owe you big time

The runs batted-in

• Being surrounded by the bestest of friends who celebrate the hits with me and who support me when things get tough
• Having a wonderful and symbiotic relationship with my amazing business partner Isabelle
• Resuming my work with the Prometheus program, mentoring an at-risk child during the school year
• Speaking publicly at a networking event where I was put on the spot and gave an impromptu situation analysis and pitch… was awesome! (one to go!)

First or second base hits

• Reading a book every month (it’s actually one book per month and a half or two, which is still better than previous years)
• Becoming fluent in Spanish (getting better but by no means am I fluent yet)
• Educating myself on causes I believe in (this is an ongoing goal)
• Losing 7 lbs – Woohoo!

Strike-outs

• Training for and running the Montreal half-marathon in September (pushed back to the Montreal 21k in Spring 2009)
• Hosting monthly fundraiser dinners (no excuse for this other than lack of time!)
• Volunteering on a trip to South America (pushed back to 2009… Have not taken a vacation yet this year)

Outlook for the next 4 months & (way) beyond

• Continue to fall deeper and deeper in love with an amazing man :)
• Elevate Buy Canadian First to the next level and start working on the other country sites
• Resume training and kick things up to a whole new level
• Continue to educate myself on my causes
• Resume writing regularly again on both blogs (on this one and on The Good Shopper Blog)

How do you deal with obstacles and curve balls? How does it make you feel when things don’t go according to plan? Let me know, would love to hear about it!

Woh… What a whirlwind!

The past two months have been far from predictable. In true spirit of the dictum, everything really does happen for a reason. The events of the last 8 weeks were a mix of good and bad, but I will just focus on the good and share that part of the story.

As you all know, I have asked myself many times if I was doing what I was truly meant to be doing. These reflexions have led me to set some pretty challenging goals for myself for the year and to subsequently create this blog but more importantly, I guess it also left me more open to possibility… I have worked in digital marketing for close to 10 years and I love it more today than I did back then but it finally occurred to me that I wasn’t channeling it properly. I was doing my work, in the wrong context. My good friend Dave Forde has been telling me for years that I needed to be doing my own thing, ie: mix together the things that I am most passionate about, namely digital marketing, giving back to people and community, the environment and volunteering. He could not have been more right!

At work, I’d been working on this account that was really close to my heart. My client was this amazing kindred spirit who shared many of the same views as me. We saw eye to eye on pretty much everything and I felt compelled to help her off hours too, in that if I found information that was relevant to her and her venture I would pass it along. From related articles to sources of funding or inspiration, I was constantly on the lookout for her. Within our professional relationship, the mandate she had given us was to create the branding and the interim microsite for her venture until the actual website was built, as well as to conduct a technical analysis that would detail how the site should be built. The first half of the mandate went off without a hitch but the second half, not so much…

This is where the story starts to twist. Most of my colleagues assumed that she now hated us and wanted nothing more to do with us, but what I tried to make everyone understand was that it simply wasn’t the case. She was very disappointed by the outcome of the analysis but she was overjoyed at the quality of the branding and microsite that we did deliver. It didn’t necessarily have to spell the end of the business relationship, but that was how it was interpreted internally. At this point my morale was pretty low and I felt disenchanted by the whole experience. The thought of leaving the agency did cross my mind but because I loved it there so much, I didn’t want to bail just because I was going through a rough patch… That’s not my style. But then again, I wasn’t sure if it was just a rough patch either… I had to decide between “fight or flight”. I hadn’t slept well since the problems we had on the second half of the mandate and I was walking on eggshells at work. I desperately needed to decompress and regroup. Thankfully, just when I thought I could not feel worse, my best friend and I split for South Beach, FL for a long weekend at this awesome boutique hotel 2 blocks from the beach. While there, my client sent me an email with a question about something work-related. She figured I’d be checking my emails (turned out, she knew me as well as I knew her). I answered her and we had a couple of back and forths until she added that even though she knew I was happy where I was, if ever I decide to go elsewhere, she hoped I would consider joining her. Little did she realize the headspace I was in… I wrote back and suggested we speak when I returned. Strangely, after that moment, I already felt lighter and was able to relax and thoroughly enjoy my time in SoBe.

To say that the next 3 weeks went by fast is an understatement. She and I met for lunch that week. We talked about everything that happened – good and bad and in spite of the bad she told me that in the grand scheme of things it didn’t matter. She never personally blamed me anyway. She and I both believe that everything happens for a reason and so we were quickly able to put the bad behind us and focus on the now and the future. The offer she made me was more than I could have hoped for. I felt like Diane Keaton in Baby Boom where when she was made an offer that blew her mind, her nerves would get the best of her and she would start to bang her knee against the underside of the tabletop… I still took the weekend to think about it but my mind was already made up.

I resigned that Wednesday and gave a 2 1/2 week notice. In between places, I took a week off.

As of May 20th, I officially started my role as Partner, responsible for Marketing and Business Development at BuyCanadianFirst.ca. I’ll write about it in a future post but if you are curious, the microsite explain very well who we are and what we are about. SOOO much more to come…

I can’t even begin to express how excited I am about this!

I’m 3 weeks into my level 2 Spanish classes at the YMCA Language School. Last week, my Spanish teacher Tomas told us that in most Latin American countries, a lot of time is spent talking about family. He explained how Family is a big thing for his people. Not that family isn’t important in here, I proposed that perhaps talk of family in Latin America is what talk of the weather is to Canadians… It is my contention that no other topic stirs as many opinions and emotions in Canada as the weather. Sure we talk about family, but I have a sneaky suspicion that weather trumps family gossip all the time.

As some of you saw this week, I Twittered about the weather… It actually snowed all day Friday APRIL 4th, yet on Wednesday it was 8 degrees outside. The trees on my street are starting to bud, but the snow banks are still a quarter of the height of their trunks. The contrast is no longer beautiful… it’s depressing (yes, I’m complaining). This is why my best friend and I are escaping to South Beach next weekend. Although it’s just a couple of days of sun and warmth, I’m really hoping that spring will officially kick start soon after our return… I’ve never complained more about this wacky weather we’ve continued to have (i.e.: +4 to -8 to +8 degrees in 2.5 days). This winter has completely kicked my Canadian butt.