Diary of an ExSloth

Tales of Food, Fitness & Healthy Living

On redesigns, vegetarian eats, pumpkin and more

by 25 Comments

It’s been way too long since my last chatty type post and even longer since I linked up with Amanda for Thinking out Loud Thursday. So, today I thought I catch you up on a little of what’s new with me.

New Blog Design!

Obviously, first up is the blog redesign. If you’ve been around the blog before, you’d have noticed that it got a bit of a facelift earlier this week. This has been in the works for AGES. I wanted a cleaner design and more customization than my previous theme allowed, and the Foodie Pro Theme was perfect for what I had in mind.

Diary of an ExSloth Branding Board via @ExSloth | ExSloth.com

But, I have a habit of constantly changing my mind about the layout I want and I actually enjoy coding. So, except for the graphics in the logo, which Madeline of Grace and Vine Studios did for me, I decided to do the bulk of the work myself. It took really freaking long because I had to do it in bits and pieces whenever I had free time. But, I’m ridiculously happy with how everything turned out, so I can’t complain.

Now that I’ve got the non healthy living stuff out of the way, let’s talk food. 

New blog design, vegetarian eats and more #thinkingoutloud #healthyliving #blogging

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Breakfast Things

I’ve been sick on and off for the last couple of weeks and it’s thrown my eating patterns all out of whack. I was getting into a really nice smoothie groove right before I got ill, but I’m not a fan of super cold drinks when I have a sore throat, so I had to nip that one in the bud. Luckily, smoothies aren’t the only way I breakfast, so I’ve been enjoying all the oatmeal, along with the occasional weekday pancake breakfast, just because.

 

A photo posted by Giselle R (@exsloth) on

Snackers Anonymous

Despite having less of an appetite than usual, I still managed to snack quite a bit. My current faves include rice cakes with all the toppings, homemade granola and the slow-cooked coconut raisin rice pudding I shared on Monday (psst! Have you entered the giveaway yet?). I like to think that all those snacks were fuel for the seemingly endless hours of coding that went into the blog redesign. Jokes. I just really like snacks.

Vegan Slow-Cooked Coconut Raisin Rice Pudding via Ricardo Cuisine and @ExSloth | ExSloth.com

Plant Based Again?

Speaking of fuel, amidst the bazillion hours of coding and snacking like there was no tomorrow, I decided to give vegetarian eating a go again. I don’t have a deadline like I did when I went meatless for a week over summer, but I’m enjoying it so far. It’s amazing the flavour you can get out of plant based foods without meat there to overpower it.

Vegan Rice and Lentil buddha bowl via @ExSloth | ExSloth.com

Where’s the Pumpkin tho?

And, now that we’ve made our way to plant based foods, let’s talk about the elephant in the room, aka the lack of pumpkin on the blog so far. This year, I had the genius idea to hold off on buying pumpkin for a bit since I got fed up of it way too early last year. But, when I was finally ready to buy it, THERE WAS NONE TO BE FOUND!! The selves were bare. Like literally tumbleweed rolling past deserted. 

no pumpkin

#AvoToastForDays

Luckily I found some at a random grocery yesterday when I was out having lunch with a friend and promptly bought as many cans as my hands could carry. Also spotted at this grocery were 97 cent avocados. Since avos are usually $2.50 a piece I took this as restitution from the grocery gods for making me suffer without pumpkin, and bought way too many of those as well. Fingers crossed they don’t spoil before I can get to them all.

avocados on sale

What about you?

  • What are your thoughts on the website redesign? Anything you think I should change or add?
  • Have you had pumpkin yet this season? What’s your favourite pumpkin recipe?
  • Have you ever seen avocados for this cheap?!?! 

Share in the comments below!

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Linking up with: #RecipeOfTheWeek, Meatless Mondays, #MeatlessMonday, Lena’s Tasty Tuesdays, Tasty Tuesdays, Create & Share, Retro Repin, Gluten-Free Wednesdays, #RecipeFridays, #StrangeButGood, Real Food Friday, Gluten-Free Fridays, Healthy Vegan Fridays, Foodie Friday, Fitness Friday, Friday Favourites, Savoring Saturdays,

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Comments

    • Glad you like it Lizzie! And to put the social icons above the menu I just placed the simple social widget in the header right widget area. It usually floats a little higher, so I also had to play around with the css to get it in the right position. Not sure how much sense that makes, but I plan on doing a few posts to share some of the more technical stuff that went into the redesign and I’ll definitely cover this topic in one of them!

      Reply

  6. Love the site redesign, lady! I’ve been playing around with the idea of giving Spoons a facelift for some time now, I just don’t know if I want to go through all the details associated with it. Urgh. And I’ve been having trouble finding pumpkin in stores lately as well. If it gets real bad, I’m going to have to buy actual pumpkins, roast them, and puree them myself 😯
    Amanda @ .running with spoons. recently posted…. thinking out loud #149 .

    Reply

    • Thanks Amanda! It’s definitely time consuming, especially if you try to do it all yourself. I spent so much time coding instead of doing other blog things (like responding to comments, reading other blogs etc.) because there was always one more thing to do. So glad it’s over now haha
      Also, I hope it doesn’t have to come to making our own puree. Not sure I could handle it if it doesn’t turn out just right lol

      Reply

    • I find that when I have meat, I 1. don’t eat enough veggies, and 2. don’t get creative enough with my sides. It’s definitely an experience playing around with new to me fruits and veggies. And I definitely feel lighter in general and have way more energy after a meal than I usually do. No more post lunch naps for me haha

      Reply

  10. The blog looks so good!! I’m with you–I like to change my mind haha so with the Foodie Theme (and google fonts plugin), I can change stuff around whenever I want! It gets a little dangerous sometimes with new-to-me codes or just the fact that I could spend HOURS playing around with stuff, but it’s better for me than hiring someone at this point (which I have definitely done in the past).

    Love following your IG feed. So pretty!! Do you edit your photos in photoshop and then post them? I’m thinking I need to switch from just using pics I take from my phone and editing with the IG tools to editing them on my computer…
    Amanda @ Diary of a Semi-Health Nut recently posted…Smores Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bars

    Reply

    • It can get crazy testing out new design elements (and kind of scary if your site is live.) I don’t even want to think of how many times I’ve broken my site in the past my editing code on the live site. I actually set up a totally different testing environment this time which made testing out new code a lot more safe lol.

      And thanks! Sometimes I think I spend way too much time on my IG feed so I’m glad someone enjoys it haha. I actually just use my phone camera to take most of my IG pics (unless I’m posting a recipe pic from the blog). I use an app called Snapseed to edit before I get into instagram though. It provides a lot more control than the native IG tools.

      Reply

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