Will exercise for Christmas decor

 

 Happy Monday! With a busy week ahead, it's nice to take a few moments to stop and take everything in from the weekend. We had a semi-restful weekend, which was definitely needed.

Friday evening we went to a dinner party hosted by husband's VP and his wife. It's an annual event that is awarded to a select number of people who hit above their target numbers. We went last year and were so happy to be there again this year. One of the waiters (because yes, they totally hire waiters) told us that he was shocked to see us back again, because they never see the same faces year after year. It's such a great evening - lots of good conversations and amazing food. Plus hotel stays for the night are comped which is always a bonus :)
We stayed overnight downtown and went to breakfast at a nice little place in Toronto called Lola's - tons of gluten free, vegetarian and vegan options. It was a bit expensive, but nothing out of the ordinary. I loved being able to have gluten free toast with my breakfast because it's such a rarity unless I'm at home. We both got the "Lola's breakfast" and enjoyed it immensely. Their home fries were also out of this world! Then we headed home, did some cleaning and the photographer came and did the proper photos of our home. We saw the posting now that it's been updated and it looks 1000x better. Here's hoping our place sells soon!

Sunday was pretty much a day of relaxation  -- our power went out for about 2 hours in the afternoon from the crazy storm that blew through. All of a sudden it just got super windy and the rain was pouring down like mad in these huge sheets of rain, our power flickered on and off about ten times and then just shut off completely. Luckily it was still daylight so with the curtains open wide, we were able to avoid having to light candles just to see things. It really only infringed on my plan to wash our bedding after the clothing laundry was done, so I'll have to do that today instead. For dinner we had the autumn skillet hash that I posted a few weeks ago from Speedy Spatula's instagram -- I added some different veggies this time around and it was delicious as usual. Can't go wrong with that meal!

I finished my stepbet on Saturday. Those last two days were definitely down to the wire. I made $9.19, which is exciting (no one joins a stepbet to get rich, haha), so I reinvested my $40 into the next stepbet, Anything that keeps me motivated to move can't be a bad thing. I don't know why fitness motivation has been such a struggle lately, but what I do know is that I need to get into a routine again. Working these randomly late days isn't helping either. So with a new week and some new goals in mind, we reset. Husband has given me some motivation (a Christmas decoration that I've literally been eyeing for three years from Costco) -- so we'll see how things go. I've got a good man, I'll tell you that!  This week calls for 1xrun and 1xgym. Sounds easy, but easier said than done! For someone who used to organize their life around fitness, things sure have changed! I'd like to get into a happy medium and stay there.

This is what I'm working for!

Anyways, that's a quick rundown of the weekend -- always so fleeting. Another busy week ahead, and next week is Winnipeg.

Wishing you all the best Monday yet!

Short weeks are the best weeks!

 

 

Hoping all of my Canadian friends had a great Thanksgiving and long weekend. I know I definitely needed this long weekend and a break from the craziness that life has been! Saturday started out relaxing, but around 1pm we found out that we had a viewing of the condo at 5 and from that point it was madness. We were cleaning like mad (a lot of cat hair accumulates in a week) and on top of that, I had an on-call volunteer shift that started at 4. Of course I was called at 4:45, just as we were trying to get the cats out of the unit, so I was juggling my phone and a terrified cat who was yowling while making my way to the basement. We ended up just waiting in the car - didn't make sense to go anywhere for an hour. The cats were not happy at all. We don't remove them from the condo often. Twice when we travelled we brought them to my parents house, but now my sister just comes and stays at our place when we're away. So they were both meowing loudly and angrily all the way down to the car and then snicker stared at me with hatred while ginger hid under the seats. Poor kitties will have to get used to it till we sell though!
You can see their fear and anger below.




Sunday was another busy day because we went to my parents house for thanksgiving. Dinner was delicious - we wait all year for Christmas and Thanksgiving dinner! We had a great time and somehow, despite having a very sedentary morning, I was able to get my steps in.
Yesterday was looking to be a sleepy lazy day, but husband wanted kale pasta for dinner and I typically only buy kale the day I know we will eat it - I find it spoils quickly. So instead of driving, I walked to the mall (grocery stores were closed) and got the kale. Was able to hit my steps no problem! This is the last week of my step bet and I'm still trying to decide if I want to do another. You don't make much money - I think I've calculated about $6 US -- but it's more the motivation of the $40 you have to pay to be a part of it. I really don't want to lose that! So I've still got my rest day for this week and don't plan on using it until Friday. We have a work event for husband that evening, so I can't be sprinting around his boss's home in my heels trying to get my steps in. Plus, my heels are super painful (though beautiful!) so there won't be much walking at all.
One thing I am super happy we did, is we slept in every morning this long weekend. So all that sleep we were missing was recovered. I was super tired heading into Friday, so even with an earlier than usual wake up today, I still feel pretty awake.

My new fall jacket is coming today and I am so excited. It took me forever to pick one, so I'm really hoping it fits nicely. It's a pea coat, but it has this gorgeous hood and I am in love. It also came in the most lovely shade of blush pink, but I had some concerns about matching so I went with black. I had my last pea coat for ten years so it's looking pretty tatty and sad this year. I'm happy to be able to move on :) The new one can be found here





I tend to keep coats for a long time, so they're a pretty good investment for me. I typically buy fairly expensive coats but that way they last for the whole time I have them. I think my other pea coat was probably ready to go 2 years ago, but I was in a crap job where I didn't care how I looked/dressed so I carried on with it. Three cheers for job happiness now!
My doTERRA is also coming this week -- I only ordered one oil for myself - Marjoram. I am trying to collect all of the oils I need for a blood pressure oil. I want to make one for myself and for my mom. I don't have high blood pressure on a steady basis, but it does tend to creep up now and again (genetically I'm screwed). Fingers crossed that it works. I currently have 2/5 oils so still a ways to go. I also ordered for two other people who wanted to try out some doTERRA before joining, which is a great idea for anyone on the fence.
They've come out with some special Christmas oils and other goodies that I'm super excited about!
I don't know if posting this will work, but I hope it will. Feel free to visit my page or send me a message if you want to learn more. Using oils has made a huge difference in my sleeping habits, how long illnesses last, getting rid of rashes/skin irritations and even in my digestion. I use peppermint for headaches instead of advil and 90% of the time, that's sufficient. It also has oils that promote weight loss, help reduce/eliminate acne and dry skin and open your chest for physical exertion. The benefits and possibilities with the different oils and blends are innumerable. I'm all about seeing what other options there are to modern medicine because I react quite badly to a lot of medications, so this has been a real eye-opener for me!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5F8zgz360PNcjFLaTBZRXdjRmc/view

I can't manage to get an image up, so that link will have to do. It's worth a click, I promise you!

Anyways, went off on a bit of a tangent there!

I am volunteering tonight with my teen group and looking forward to seeing the other ladies. We have been off for the summer and I missed the first outing because of work, so tonight will be like the first day all over!

Enjoy your short week! I can't believe it's already Tuesday!

Back at it

 Finally back from the land of the sick. I pretty much slept for the entire weekend, and by Sunday afternoon felt well enough to go for a walk, do the laundry and do some little things around the condo.
Last week, by the time I left work on Friday I had a fever, my body felt bruised everywhere, I had the chills, pounding headache, congestion, even my teeth hurt from the sinus blockage ... I'm not actually sure how I managed to function. I took a nap in my car on my lunch break, and I'm the kind of person who cannot sleep anywhere but my own home. It was ridiculous. So once I got home I took a bath to try and regulate my body temp and get rid of the body aches. It worked temporarily, and then I slept oh how I slept. Hours upon hours and hours. They aren't kidding when they say sleeping cures all ailments. I dosed myself up with Nyquil, used my essential oils blend on my spine and feet both morning and night and must say that this is the fastest I have ever gotten over the flu. I've been unfortunate enough to get the flu three times in my adult life. The real flu -- not just a bad cold. Most times it takes over a week to get back to life and this time it was just a weekend. So I'm guessing it was a combination of sleeping and essential oils that did the trick. My new favourite blend - FLOOM - give it a shot! I used this alongside some infused Breathe.


Frankincense - 6 drops
Lemon - 12 drops
Oregano - 6 drops
On guard - 6 drops
Melaluca (or tea tree) - 6 drops


-Add this into a 10 ml rollerball bottle, top up with fractionated coconut oil and roll onto your spine and the bottoms of your feet twice a day. I smell like oregano right now, but aside from a cough and some lingering congestion, I feel pretty good! Thanks Beka for introducing me to doTERRA and for this blend! If you want to get in on this awesome-ness, feel free to connect  with me or visit this link

Picture from here

Now onto this week. Tonight I am making the "Autumn Harvest Skillet" from Speedy Spatula. It's easy, customizable and looks delicious! (The link is her summer version, but you can easily edit the veggies for fall).
I have to go grocery shopping after work, so figured I would do some meal planning this weekend before I went. We have decided that this will be our last week of the CSA produce. Now that the temps are getting cooler, a lot of what we get is going to be greenhouse grown anyways. We are still going to make an effort to eat organic and as local as possible (given our cold winter climate approaching), but we are ready to go back to choosing our veggies rather than being surprised each week. I didn't take a picture of last weeks (I was already feeling pretty sick by that point and didn't even have the energy to put it in the fridge. However, we got purple grapes, cucumber, tomato, watermelon, onion, garlic, green peppers, carrots, beets, green beans, blueberries, apples and pears. I think we have already eaten most of it. Except for the carrots. We have gotten 2lbs of carrots for the last four weeks. It is ridiculous! Thankfully carrots, even organic ones, have a long-ish shelf life, because we are still working our way through the second bag. Needless to say, there will be carrots in our skillet tonight.
Since this week will be our last CSA, we have added eggs and 2 lbs of potatoes to make it count. The potatoes have been our absolute favourite thing this summer - the flavour is unreal! Baking them with a bit of olive oil. salt and pepper has just been divine! I will miss those for sure! It will  be much easier to meal plan once I actually visit the grocery store (because I haven't really gone real grocery shopping in around 3 months - which I haven't missed AT ALL) so I'm hoping Fall can feel a little more organized!

Well, this has been a long rambly post. I am so sad that I missed out on Friday favourites, but there will be lots this week to make up for it!

Happy Monday!

Monday, we meet again

Well, what a whirlwind of a weekend. Saturday I had a planned open water swim and let me tell you -- if there wasn't any accountability, I would have stayed in bed. Mornings are always hard for me - 4 hours of sleep is even harder to get up from. However, I know myself, and so I had people that were waiting on me and that got my butt out the door. It was only 9.5 degrees when we arrived and we quickly put our wetsuits on just for the warmth. I don't think any of us were keen on actually getting into the water. Thankfully the water was significantly warmer than the air and it was just gorgeous to swim in. Mary and I did a 1km loop together, and our friend Krista did 2 loops in preparation for her half ironman coming up. Then we met up with our 3x Ironman Cathy and went for breakfast where we all talked about past races, upcoming races and what 2018 holds. Even though they ran out of gluten free pancakes, we still had a great time! There's not much time left for open water swims, so we will definitely be going this week and that might be it. Then it'll be back to the pool.

 

 

Would have missed this gorgeous view if I slept in

 

 

After I was home and changed I packed up a few more boxes and husband and I headed to my parents house where we had a wake for Molly. My dad spread her ashes around the backyard that morning. The backyard was her favourite place to chase rabbits and squirrels, bird watch and just be nutty, so it was the perfect place to let her go. We talked about some funny/happy memories and how sad we all were that she is gone. I brought over some pictures that I'd taken over the years and my dad took one to keep in his locker at work. We all miss her terribly. My dad has decided to wait until January to get another dog - in his words "2017 is Molly's year". Can't argue with that.

Sunday was a productive day. I volunteered in the morning while husband worked and then we got into full "gotta get out of this condo" mode. He finally finished putting the bed together (which is too big -- sigh) and I cleared out our bedroom, and vacuumed in places that I'm fairly certain have never seen the vacuum since we moved in. So much dust! Our room just needs the curtains to be changed (which means I need to iron the new ones) and for me to wash and put the new bedding on and it's ready to go. The second bedroom will be a little more work. With the bigger bed, we need to re-evaluate the furniture choices so it doesn't appear too cramped, and I need to iron those curtains as well. I wish they just came flat.

While I was clearing out our room, I used the doTERRA easy air in my diffuser and it was such a pleasant smell (and really kept it smelling fresh and clean. Obsessed friends -- Obsessed!! I'm putting in an order this month for a few more scents (that I've been dying to get) -- can't wait!

 

 

Today I'm going to go on a run after work (and after picking up some necessities) and see what my knee feels like doing. That 10k is looming closer and closer and I've heard it's a hilly one!

 

One day closer to the long weekend! It's going to be a busy one, but I'm ear-marking that Monday as a (hopefully) big ol' day of NOTHING. I can't even imagine the delicious-ness of a "nothing" day. Fingers crossed!

 

Irongirl 2017 and other weekend things

This weekend was a doozy! It was definitely not restful, but was full of fun and good times (I've already ear-marked this coming Saturday as the day to sleep in ... it's been so long!!)

Saturday was a flurry of renovations. We are starting to do the final touches on our condo, so it was just boring stuff like door knobs, baseboards, constant trips to home depot and hearing my bank account crying.

Sunday ... Sunday was a day of action. I woke up bright and early for my irongirl after pressing snooze 15 times. I was so nervous but focused on getting my gear together and getting on the road. It was about an hour drive, which always makes things a little more stressful. Luckily our drive was quick and we made it there in ample time. I left my husband with my piles of bags so that I could set up my transition area, signed in, grabbed my wetsuit and we headed down to the water. The swim was a straight line down the beach, so we actually had to walk to the start line since the transition area was at the finish line. I squeezed myself into my wetsuit which was still a little bit wet from Saturday's OWS (damp wetsuit = most uncomfortable thing ever) and proceeded to warily glare at the water as the announcer reminded us all that the swim would be starting in 11 minutes. At this point I was reunited with some of my swim friends/supporters and with their encouragement along with my husbands I went down to the water and did a few minutes of back and forth swimming to warm up. Best idea ever by the way!

About a minute before my start time I realized my age group was wayyyy up front, so I managed to get there in time and we were off! The nice thing about this swim course is that it is along the beach so if you really wanted to, you could stand. Heck you could walk the entire course if you wanted to (which some people did and it looked exhausting). Now 500 m may not seem like much of a swim to all those seasoned triathletes out there, but for me to actually swim the entire course and not freak out, well it was huge! The last time I did a triathlon I mainly doggy paddled/panicked and was the very last out of the water. This time I was about half through my age group. Unfortunately no one expected me to finish so quickly, so they all missed me at the swim exit. My husband kept saying "but you told me it would take you half an hour". Yes dear husband, but that was actually just dramatic over-estimating (I was thinking more like 20).



I clearly like my space.

 

I'm the one swimming

So I was off to the transition area where I struggled out of my wetsuit and upended my entire transition area because I needed my towel to dry my feet. My nice organized area was basically just a pile of tri stuff now, so I grabbed what I needed and was off. The bike portion was by far my favourite, and not just because for the first time I was the one passing people and shouting out "on your left", which by the way, very few people actually do. I coasted along at a steady 27/28kmph on the way out, and on the way back the headwind kept me around 25-27 depending on the gusts. I saw my husband as the bike exit (finally!) and headed off to change shoes. The running leg was by far the most painful and dreaded piece for me. As someone who used to love running with every fibre of my being, I've struggled with being injured making running a (sometimes) painful experience. I don't look forward to it anymore because who looks forward to pain? Thankfully my run was pain-free but omg was it ever challenging! My only real goal in the running piece was to keep moving. I knew that if I stopped, I wouldn't start again. I did a brisk walk through each aid station, sipped some water and poured a cupful over my head each time. It was incredibly hot and sunny, without a single cloud in the sky. Soaking myself helped immensely!


I'll tell you - the finish line has never looked so inviting as it did yesterday! I had my friends cheering and my husband taking thousands of pictures, while the announcer said my name wrong and I saw a glistening cold water bottle being handed to me. And the medal ... so lovely! I (naturally) immediately began to contemplate which race to do next. I swear triathlons have the same amnesia effect as birth. You forgot the pain, the ugliness, the trauma and just remember the happy parts; the medal, the finish line, the awesome splits.

I'll be the first to admit that I didn't train as hard for this tri as I did for others, but I focused instead on overcoming the barriers that were slowing me down. I cycled fairly regularly with my group and I think I missed two open water swims over the entire season. I also swam often at the gym. I had to work really hard to get past my issues with swimming. Forcing myself into the water every week was part of that, but I also can't forget the incredibly amazing and patient people I had on my side. My swim coach had no problem telling me I was being irrational and he learned very quickly the best way to push me. I went into his class not even being able to breathe properly and so tense in the water that I could barely move. He basically just constantly yelled breathe and relax at me (after teaching me the correct way to breathe that is) and it somehow worked its way into my brain. I'll never forget the day when I was bobbing around with the rest of the class in the middle of the quarry and realized that here I was, in the middle of a huge expanse of deep water with no rapid escape possible and I didn't care. At all. I wasn't even vaguely concerned. This is from the girl who used to swim 10 strokes and then flail her way back to solid ground. To say I've made progress is an understatement. This is my 3rd triathlon (would have been 4th, but one was changed to a du at the last minute), and it is the first one I have actually swam for. I class this as my first real triathlon, because I finally have the experience of what it is to swim, get out of the water, bike and then run. It's hard, it's ugly and it is so much fun!

\

 

And friends, look at this medal!!

Worth it! It sparkles!

I should add, that if you haven't heard of/done an Irongirl race, I would highly recommend it. It's a great sprint for people new to the sport. They are very determined to keep people safe and make sure they have a good time. There were tons of boats and rafts in the water for people who needed help, the swim was along the shore for those afraid of deep water, they had aid stations at every km during the run and the course was relatively flat for both the ride and run. The run had two semi-steep hills, but not terrible and the ride had a few rolling hills but was a nice road overall. This was the perfect race for me to get back into triathlon and be excited about it!
My only complaint was the lack of port-a-potties. We couldn't find them anywhere, and when my husband finally did find them, there were only 2. Regardless, this is a race that will likely become annual for me!

So you may think that after such a tiring morning, I would be heading home to a nice long nap. Well, not this time. I drove an hour home, showered and ate while I drove an hour in the other direction to my brother's girlfriend's baby shower. My nephew is due in December and I couldn't be more excited! Unfortunately I didn't take any photos, but I can assure you that it was a lovely afternoon filled with sweet little baby clothes, and lots of "oohs and awwwwws" over tiny baby boy outfits. Because seriously, baby clothes are just the cutest. This reason alone is why I can't stop buying things for him.

Well, this has been a super long post, but such an excellent race deserves it!
If you made it to the end, I commend you!
Today will be a well-deserved rest-day with pasta with homemade Bolognese sauce on the menu for tonight!

Happy Monday!