Thursday, June 26, 2014: Today Girl

Lose 25 pounds, run 10km, squat body weight, save money, take tropical vacation, change life, become new person.  All thoughts that I have regularly and which become hugely overwhelming and defeating.  Thoughts that also project me so far into the future that I miss out on the day that I am living right now.  Even from week to week; I plan for the next week and the next month and project ahead to see what things will look like and I lose what they look like right now.  Through various forms of self-reflection, I have come to the conclusion that I can’t continue on being Unrealistic Expectation Girl. I need to be Today Girl. I spend so much time picturing my life as a different person; me…..but better.  Me…..but fitter.  Me…..but happier.  Me…….all the good qualities and none of the bad.  Me……perfect.  And the thought of trying to get to “perfect me” is exhausting and basically impossible.

So…..what if I change my thought process and focus on simply being the Me that I am right now.  Today Girl.  Today Girl looks at herself the way that she is right now….and banishes the “if this would change and that would get smaller and those would get bigger then I would be happier” thoughts.  Today Girl makes a budget and then makes spending decisions per the budget…and banishes the “6, 8, 12 months from now I’ll have saved $$$ and then I’ll be happier” thoughts.  Today Girl does a reasonable workout for the body and fitness she has today…..and banishes the “this is useless, I’ll never get there” and “6 months from now I’ll be a fierce, totally fit force to be reckoned with and then I’ll be happier” thoughts.

Today Girl recognizes where she is mentally and physically and works with exactly what she has right now and does not worry one iota about what she may have mentally or physically by tomorrow or next month.  Today Girl recognizes that this will be a new way of thinking and that it may feel strange and uncomfortable and even a bit backwards but Unrealistic Expectation Girl’s way of thinking wasn’t working so I’ll try this.

Something I have been sorely missing in the last 8 months is time to myself.  Just to think.  To check in, to recalibrate, to blank my thoughts and rest my brain.  I’ve lamented this lack of alone time for a while now, knowing that it’s part of my dissatisfaction with my life as it is right now.  But oddly, I’ve been unwilling to do anything to really take back that time for myself. Maybe it’s because I’ve felt like “our” needs are greater than my needs and I’ve been loath to do anything that makes any other party uncomfortable or put upon.   Given that it has recently become crystal clear to me just how valuable “time” can be and how greatly it can help my mood, outlook and disposition, I’ve made just “one small change” that my sister advised me to make.

Wednesday and Friday night are Chef’s Night Off.  Basically The Chef is out of the building and both parties can make, buy, eat or not eat whatever they want for dinner and the next day’s lunch.  PB&J?  Go for it. Order pizza?  Here’s the phone.  A plate of watermelon?  Sure thing.  Protein shake and almonds?  Great. Nothing at all?  Consider yourself on a fast then.  I complain (yes, it IS complaining) all the time about how I have no time and cooking is a huge time suck and I just need some downtime….and yet nothing changes.  No miracle helper is sent to me, I still plan, shop for and make every meal that we eat, months go by and I’m in the same position I was in before but getting progressively more burnt out and, yes, resentful.  So I have made the change that I need in order to care for myself.  And yes, there will be an impact and yes, there will be an adjustment and there might even be some resentment from one or both of us………….but it’s non-negotiable.  I need time and I’m taking it back.  I’m taking it from “us” and giving it to “me”.

This may seem like a small and strange little step to take…but it’s the first step in reclaiming myself and figuring out who I am now that the dust has settled.  It’s the first in a series of small changes that will see me become more responsible for myself and less responsible for everything that is “us”.

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Easter Weekend, 2014!

If ever there was a classic example of ups and downs, this weekend was it!

Thursday morning I had my review at work where they raved about my efficiency, productivity and initiative and then gave me a 10% raise.  So I work somewhere with no stress, no commute, no dress code and I make more than I did at my previous job!  I’ll take that!

Thursday evening I was fortunate to get off work an hour early and went home to prepare the Easter Turkey.  Ray’s son picked me up a couple hours later and we met Ray and his mom at the restaurant for dinner.  Costco and then Thrifty’s and home to cook the turkey!  At that point the weekend was pretty much right on track.  Friday morning I slept in a little, made a nice breakfast (apple crisp, anyone?) and then decided to take Gracie on a long walk while Ray and his son worked on building a boat rack for their fishing trip coming up.  I wouldn’t normally drive somewhere to go for a walk since we have such nice walking right out of our front door….but I thought it would be nice to be truly “gone” for a couple of hours.  I drove us to Burnaby Lake and was anticipating doing about 7-8km.  At the head of the trail we parked near, there was a sign that the whole loop was 10.3km (6.5 miles) which was a bit further than I had planned….but we weren’t in a hurry so I thought, why not.  Burnaby Lake Loop is the most boring, anti-scenic, flat, dull, poorly marked walk I think I’ve ever been on…especially for over TEN KILOMETERS.  With no music, nothing to look at and no one to talk to, it seemed like the walk took us forever (1:49), it wouldn’t frigging end!  Plus, the back half of the loop backs onto Highway One so you end up hearing a lot of traffic noise for a good part of it.

Looks like you would be able to at least see the water….but you would be wrong!

This is as exciting as it got!

 

With around 4.5km left to go (and no shortcuts, it’s all or nothing), Gracie started to slow down a bit.  We stopped so she could get a drink and wade around in a creek and then pushed on.  I didn’t think anything of it except for the fact that she was probably as bored as I was.  When we finally got back to the car, I turned off MapMyRun and got Gracie a drink of water…..during which time my phone slid off the roof of my car and smashed onto the gravel.  The back of it is shattered, thankfully the front is unharmed, this phone needs to survive until October when the iPhone 6 is released!

Anyway, walk done, phone smashed, home for beer in driveway.  I knew Gracie was tired from our trek but I didn’t realize just how exhausted.  She crawled up onto my lap and fell asleep in my arms, snoring away.  And….that’s where she stayed for most of the rest of Friday.  By Friday evening she was so stiff and sore that she could barely walk, couldn’t do the stairs and was crying in her sleep.  I know that she has some stiffness issues from her previous life but this was to the extreme.  We doped her up with some doggie pain meds that we had left over from previous dogs/issues and put her to bed.  She cried a bit during the night but fortunately by Saturday morning she was mostly recovered….but she spent the entire day sleeping.  What I didn’t know when I took her on an 11km walk was that Ray had already taken her for 4km before I got up…..so she had a total of 15km under her belt.  Too far, poor baby.

Saturday morning we were up early and welcomed our new downstairs fridge!  I am so in love with it!  It’s an all-fridge and it’s HUGE!

Saturday afternoon my sister came over and we all went out to my mom’s for a family dinner.  Although we all live within 2 hours of each other (some closer, some further), we don’t get together very often as a group.  Given that my Grampa has been uwell lately, we thought it was high time to get some family pictures taken.

I have many more pictures posted over on Half a Pear if you’re interested.  There are a lot of nearly-duplicates so that the family can pick the ones they want…but there are some cute ones in there too.

Sunday Ray let me sleep in extra and then we did a walk with Gracie and then our regular mall routine.  It was starting to cloud over in the afternoon so we decided to lay low and watch a movie (Legally Blonde…so dumb but perfect Sunday movie!).  During our movie we got a phone call that I had won an Easter basket at a store a couple of towns over so after dinner we went to go and pick it up!  Unfortunately you win some and you lose some because 20 minutes after I picked up the basket I’d won, we had a blowout 5 blocks from home.

So….our little mishap is going to cost me around $400 to get fixed….plus since the dealership is the only place that will do those exact tires, I’m sure I’ll also have to do a full service since I’m running behind.  Stupid pothole, going to cost me a fortune!

And finally, to finish the weekend, I had absolutely gruesome nightmares last night….really quite gory and I don’t appreciate that…so I’m not overly well rested or well settled today.  I’m drinking oodles of Orange Blossom Rooibos tea and taking it easy today….it’s very quiet at work since most people are also off today.  I find it funny that for as many ups and downs as there were this weekend, I’m not particularly stressed about any of it.  I surmise that this ability to handle whatever life throws is a result of not having chronic work stress eating away at me day after day.  I would never have wished what happened with our previous jobs…..but I am at the stage where I am mostly pleased with how things have turned out.

Have a great Monday!

Update:  I just made some calls regarding the blow out yesterday…..my city is willing to reimburse me for the cost of the replacement tire.  Since I reported the pothole and the damage, I can make a claim against the city and they will cover the charges.  As far as the actual replacement, the dealership will let me drop my blowout off tonight after work, they’ll mount the new tire onto the rim and balance it and then tomorrow after work I pop by and they mount it onto the car.  No wait, no hassle!  And….it’s a LOT cheaper than I predicted!

Walkin’ my Path

Long live the Easter Bunny!  Mostly because he will not be appearing anywhere near our house!  Hop on by, you chocolaty devil, you.  Every Sunday when we go on our little mall date, Ray buys me one chocolate from Purdy’s.  I always get the dark chocolate Himalayan sea salt caramel.  Sometimes I think I would like something different but I feel like if what I get isn’t as good then I’m going to be disappointed and thinking about the stupid thing to distraction until the next Sunday!  I read somewhere today that going through a realistic imagining of eating a tempting item is enough for your brain to believe that you actually ate it and therefore you can stop jonesing for it.  Unfortunately in a different study, I read that if your imagination is vivid enough your body can have the same physiological reaction as if you actually consumed the item….right down to actually gaining weight.  So…..think about the item just vividly enough not to eat it but don’t think about it so vividly that you trick your body into reacting to it.  😉

 

I’ve been thinking about thinking quite a bit lately.  Mostly about how powerful the brain is and how, once you get a thought in there, it can be nearly impossible to rid yourself of it.  Self-fulfilling prophesy, anyone?  I’ve been trying to tell myself I’m happy here…where I’m expending as much time and effort as I have to expend while still balancing the rest of everything.  I think back on when I was the most successful and I came to that “most successful” place when I was single…when I lived alone during the week and I had nothing but time on my hands.  I continued along that path after I moved in with Ray because I was already on it.  I continued doing “things” whether it was walking, running, spinning or lifting.  I had enough foundation built that I could get away with not spending as much time on it as I did previously.  And….as time goes on and things happen, a little less time is spent on it.  And then…more time passes and more things happen and a little more time is chipped away.  And so it goes.  And as those bits of time are chipped away, my foundation was also being slowly chipped away.  And now I’m here…..and I think I’ll never get back there…..not because I’m negative or I don’t want to be there…but because I am not willing nor do I have the kind of time to expend on that goal.  Maybe if I wanted it badly enough I could do it again….it would certainly look different though.  It was 7 years ago.  And that was 7 years of life….ups, downs, coasting and working at it.  I don’t want to relive those 7 years.  I don’t want to try and force myself back into the life that got me to 165 pounds.  I’m sorry…I just don’t.  I want to live forward and new and fresh and if that means that all I can do is what I can do……then that brings me to wherever it brings me.  I welcome myself to that place….that place of balance and health and acceptance.

I’ve been having great enjoyment in logging walking kilometers this month.  The weather has been great for it and I love seeing my routes and totals start to line up.  I’m so fortunate that I have an endless variety of walkable routes and destinations right outside my door.  I can make innumerable combinations of hills, stairs, forests, urban trails or lovely manicured residential areas and quiet side streets.  I can’t say I’ve noticed any particular change in my body but I have noticed a huge improvement in my physical ability since April 1^st.  The walk I did yesterday after work with Gracie was one I’d always wanted to try but was scared of/intimidated by (what I thought was) the huge hill right in the middle of the route.  Turned out to be nothing but a blip on the radar, all the kilometers I’ve put in walking home uphill from work conditioned me for that hill, I guess!

When Gracie and I got home from our walk, I sat in the driveway in the setting sun, chatting with my hubby until it was time to go and make dinner.  I made the Tod Mun Chicken Cakes from Well Fed 2 (processed the “batter” on the weekend so I just had to cook them) with the cucumber relish, a side salad and a lovely quartered tomato.  It was very refreshing and flavourful, definitely a winner!  The cucumber relish makes the cakes, don’t skip it!

Today is a drive home day….I got quite the blister on my foot during our trek last night and thought I would give it a bit of a rest….and I’ve logged over 23 kilometers in the last 4 days so a rest seems like a nice thing to do.  I’ll still take my dog for a walk when I get home, just nothing epically long or hard.  That’s all for me…..to summarize: no chocolate, find happiness in where I am, loving walking, eating chicken cakes.  When I put it like that it seems really dull!

If you’re on MapMyRun and want to connect, my username is “ladyshanny”

A Gift

I was gifted 4 hours yesterday. Four hours where I would have normally been otherwise engaged until such time as it was time to start cooking dinner. From 1:30 – 5:30 last night, I was FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! At around noon, the power lines outside of our office building came down in a huge ball of white flames. Arcing and firing and killing the power to our complex (ironic since we are a high voltage electrical service firm, LOL!). We all hung around chatting and wondering what was going to happen until around 1pm when I finally took it upon myself to go and talk to the utility line crew and ask what the ETA on restoration would be. “Several hours” was the answer…..and with that? FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So what does a high functioning woman such as myself DO with 4 whole hours of unspoken for time? The following list tore through my head (and yes, I did think I could get it all done if I just worked quick enough):

 

• Mow the lawn
• Weed the garden
• Clean the house
• Wash my bike
• Vacuum my car
• Go to the bookstore

 

Fortunately I had a solid 6 minute commute to come to my senses. No one knew I would be home. Just me. And my dog. And I would be no further behind than I was right at that moment if I did none of those things. And no one would ever know! So NOW what’s a woman to do? Whatever in the whole world I wanted (that took no more than 4 hours and didn’t cost any money).

The one thing that I have been missing a whole bunch lately is the time and sunshine to take my dog for a long and unhurried walk. I have a long route that I do as a treat from time to time and I have been itching to do for a couple of weeks now. A gorgeous and sunny bonus afternoon of secret time seemed like the perfect opportunity!

Since the point of the walk wasn’t to set any sort of speed record and I had as much time as I wanted, we set off at a nice moderate pace. No music, just sunshine and a breeze and my dog.

Our “destination” was Como Lake Park…a teensy little lake in tucked in the middle of a residential neighborhood. The actual path around the lake is not long, just a kilometer but it’s really pretty and you are right along the edge of the water.

On the way there I’d spotted something out of the corner of my eye that I’d never seen before and wanted to take a look at it on the way back.

A beautiful (and VERY tall) totem pole on the grounds of a rec centre and at the entrance to a public rose garden. Of course none of the roses were up yet but the totem pole was really cool to see. At the base of the totem pole was a time capsule…..I should have taken a picture of that, woops. In all, a really neat little stop along our way back home.

Our 7.70km walk (4.8 miles) took us about an hour and a quarter…which included lots of sniff-stops for Gracie and the photos along the way. It was so enjoyable and it completely recharged my spirit. Once home and showered off, I still had over 2 hours to spend alone….so I listened to my heart and went and laid on the couch. Yes. My heart told me to go watch television. I haven’t watched TV in almost 3 weeks except for the news in the morning. But on this day, this bonus day of secret time……me, the PVR, a juicy gala apple and a handful of nuts. Oh yes! As much as my spirit needed the sunny walk with my dog, it also needed to sit undisturbed on the couch and do nothing.

Today, my secret time is but a memory; wiped away with the start of a new day. But while the time itself might be gone, the small spark that landed here within me stayed lit….and I feel good today. Great even. Energized and positive and free. I will take that!

Of Misunderstandings & Great Books

I slept like a rock last night. Solid sleep with minimal interruption. You know why? Because I am doing Tara’s ACC this month and because of that, I walked 10.1 kilometers yesterday (6.3 miles). Let me explain. I walked home….a little over 7 kilometers (and nearly got run over TWICE…..both of which involved screaming and swearing on my part….the adrenaline of which certainly fuelled my speedy ascent). Let me back up. On Monday night Ray asked me if I wanted to go on a date on Friday. He said “Drive home on Friday and then walk from home to the pub (3km) to meet me for dinner.”. I thought that was very sweet and fully agreed….and then decided I would walk Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Mid afternoon we talked on the phone and he asked if I would switch date-night to that night instead of Friday….mostly because we would never get into the pub at that time of day on a Friday. I agreed and said “But you know I’m walking home today, right?”. He acknowledged and I assumed that he would be at home waiting for me and we would pop over to the pub together. About 2 kilometers left in my walk I got this text from Ray: “Here.”  Do you see where this is going?? I got home after a 7km march uphill (and a solid jog at the end) to find that there was no one home, door was locked. A quick phone call revealed that Ray had mixed up our conversations about the date night and went from work right to the pub. And then asked if I could just walk over….you know….since he’d already ordered beer. My first reaction was “absolutely not” and then I realized that if I did walk over that I could add to my ACC tally. Once my irritation wore off I made pretty good time over to the pub. When I got there I was soaked with sweat and looked like the backside of ass…..but what do you expect when you walk over 10k in 90 minutes?

Dinner (and my gluten free Omission beer…which I used as an electrolyte replacement, LOL) was delicious after all that walking! So that was the extent of my Tuesday. By the time we got back from the pub and went and picked my car up it was 8pm, I had a hot bath and then crawled into bed! I have a pretty wicked headache (yesterday too) that I wish would just die…..so I’m trying to drown it in Coconut Oolong tea. It’s not working yet but I’ll keep at it! 😉

Last night I finished the book “Eat the Yolks” by Liz Wolfe. I’d ordered it from Chapters after seeing all the hype online about it (I’m not normally a hype-chaser….I think I was bored at work that day) and it came in early last week. I’d kept reading reviews about how it was funny and witty and I couldn’t imagine how a book about the science of food could be so….but it was! It was a very entertaining read, I found myself chuckling more than once. It’s very much like listening to a very smart girlfriend talk in a dry, witty way. The book completely changed my view of cholesterol, saturated fat (even though I already knew it wasn’t bad), heart disease and various other lies that the government has banded together with big industry to “educate” us on. The book is ultimately that, an explanation about why the things that we’re brought up to believe are untrue, where they came from and what the actual science says. I will fully admit that it is even more difficult for me now, to sit and listen to people I know make comments about avoiding saturated fats and animal products and subbing in “vegetable” oils (NOT made out of vegetables, btw) and how milk should be our source of calcium. I’ve learned over the years that most people aren’t interested in hearing different points of view and many people are seriously attached to what they think they know and often act like you are attacking them when you try to mention that things may not be as they think. Of course, there are studies that prove almost any point of view and people cling to these like a drowning man to a life raft…..but Eat The Yolks explains why those studies aren’t exactly honest and it’s actually a bit infuriating once you understand what BS you’ve been fed. She also discusses why supplements aren’t an awesome idea; mostly because they are often synthetic and because they are always singular…and real food does not have singular nutrients, it has co-nutrients that all help each other get absorbed, converted and utilized.

I do have to say that there was one main turn-off about this book and that was the fact that she talks on about properly raised animals and the products that come from them as well as healthy soil…and she talks about them A LOT. It isn’t until the very last page or two that she makes a concession to say that getting and eating only properly raised animals and produce raised in healthy soil is simply not feasible for everyone. It isn’t until the very last page that she says to make whatever small change you can and let it build on the next. To find eggs from a local chicken pasture or to use the farm markets when possible. At various points throughout the book I thought to myself “you can stop now, you’ll never be able to achieve this level of “goodness””. Of course, I didn’t stop reading and the book has so much useful information in it that I am very glad that I didn’t. But I had to remind myself more than once that I do the best I can with the resources that I have and that simply has to be good enough. Would I love to be able to meet my cattle farmer and watch the cows range and know that my pork came from happy pigs that wandered around eating grubs and small animals like they are meant to do? Of course I would…but I can’t. I found the book a bit aggressive in the repetition of “properly raised animals, raw dairy (which is illegal in Canada), healthy soil” and how produce and meat raised in any way other than completely naturally, is stripped of most nutrients. I get why she says it, I do, it’s the absolute dream to be able to turn our backs on factory farms with their inhumane treatment & feeding of animals and to snub our noses at any produce that comes from an industrial farm. But I felt that this was all said to the exclusion of simply doing the best you can with what you have available. Yes, meats and produce raised in industrial farms DO have less nutrients than their natural and organic counterparts, they just do. But you are STILL better off eating grocery store meat and produce than ANYTHING that comes in a box, bag or package…..and I felt that point was missed a bit along the way.

In all I would highly recommend this book to ANYONE who has an interest in their health or who cares to further educate themselves on the science of nutrition or who had a funny feeling that government recommendations have purposes and motivations that have nothing to do with our health. Read it! Then read it again and then pass it around!

Weekend Wrap-up!

Holy, rude start to Monday! Let me back up though, before I explain what happened, and tell you about the weekend. Friday afternoon I set off to walk home on a bit of a different route. Instead of winding around the streets and cutting through neighborhoods, I decided to go straight up the gut of the mountain via the hydro easement. It was a straight ascent of 190m (475 feet). It was nice to be so far away from traffic and walking on organic matter….unfortunately the “organic matter” was still really mucky in places so that route will have to wait until later in the spring when we’ve had a drying trend for longer than one day.

475 feet, straight up!

Saturday morning my sister came over so my hubby could work on her car and then I took off for my hot stone massage. The massage was……alright. I really should respect my own self more because I don’t overly enjoy massage, never have…and 90 minutes is a LONG time! I was certainly glad that I went and the heat was fabulous and my masseuse was wonderful and I might consider going again…but not for 90 minutes. That just seemed epically long. Anyway, Saturday afterwards we didn’t do too much, went and bought a new fridge for downstairs (SO excited about that, it comes in 2 weeks and it’s white and clean and new and energy efficient!) and then came home and made the WellFed2 Salmon Cakes…..but with wild caught Sockeye Salmon that my sister brought me rather than the canned. We also made the WF2 Tartar sauce and LOVED it. Ray was watching me make it and was getting all fussy about the pickles that get chopped into it and the pickle juice that gets stirred in. Turns out he has never known what tartar sauce was made of and prefers to maintain the mystery of certain things, LOL!

Sunday morning I went for breakfast with the lovely Tara where we had delicious omelets and a good catch up visit. When I got home, we took Gracie for a walk in a new park (new to her) near our house, mostly to scope out and see if I can use that park as a shortcut when walking home. It’s all unmarked mountain bike trails and the consensus is that I will probably not attempt to go it alone. It’s fairly dense forest, not really the place for someone who has a retarded sense of direction….and I don’t really want to be in there lost and alone, so…….no shortcut through those woods for me!

That was about it for our weekend.

Soooooo……last night. Well….more like this morning. 4am. I wake up to something tickling my in the neck/chest. Put my hand up to scratch and discover some kind of bug! Which then proceeded to attack me, bite/sting me in the neck 3 times before I could get it off of me, whereby it fell onto the bed and bit/stung me twice more in the back of the arm! At first I couldn’t really figure out what the hell was going on, my earplugs were still in, my eye mask was still on and I had searing pain in my neck and my arm. All I could think was, “SPIDER”. I (none so gently) woke Ray up and told him I’d been bit by something and he said “Are you sure?” and “Go back to sleep.”. HA, ya, buddy, I’m SURE! I flipped on the light and discovered a BEE crawling around on the floor. I went to get a cup to trap it with and came back to find it crawling up the side of our frigging bed again! (I have goosebumps even typing this again!).

Can you see my three sting marks??

 

I’m not so sure that this isn’t a bee….it had a fluffy, non aerodynamic body, pollen all over its legs. But it stung me five times…..and still had its stinger in…..which I didn’t think bees could do?!

We tried to go back to sleep after capturing the intruder but I had the heebie-jeebies too bad…..so I was wide awake….but also had taken a Benadryl for the stings. I’m a bit of a zombie this morning and wish desperately to go home and sleep off the Benadryl. I am walking home after work this afternoon, hopefully the fresh air and exercise help me feel a bit more normal.

That’s it for me today. Weigh in, have you ever been woken up from a dead sleep by something super strange and out of the ordinary?

Change of Plans

It’s the first of April and that should mean that the snowy days are behind us, right? It’s all daffodils and baby bunnies from here on in!

Before I forget, you can go and check out our Weekend Away complete with pictures on the blog that I share with my sister.

It is gorgeous sunny and warm weather here for the first part of this week and I’ll be walking home tonight. The last day I rode my bicycle, the day I fell into traffic and ended up bailing and having Ray’s son come and get me, made me nervous for riding. I really want to enjoy this gorgeous sunny weather and I want some quiet time on the commute home and unfortunately the bicycle isn’t providing that right now. It is SO hard…..45-53 minutes of only uphill pedaling and also traffic to contend with and to be a bit honest, I’m truly not in decent enough shape right now to do the ride home safely. With walking, I’ll leave my car down here, put all my stuff (lunch bag, tea cup, purse) in it so I don’t have to carry it home, put on some music, eat an apple and walk home. It’ll take about an hour, I think.

I feel kind of fail-y in admitting that the bicycling didn’t work out (right now) but on the other hand I don’t think there is anything wrong with shifting and shimmying and trying different things to get the result you want. If I drive to work and walk home I get the sunshine, the air, the exercise and the alone time but I don’t get the crashing, the traffic, the having to get ready at work, the missing breakfast/coffee with my hubby. So more of the “pros” that I was looking for when I undertook biking and less of the “cons” that I ended up with.  After work I’ll walk the 8 kilometers home. I did drove to work this morning so we’ll just run down and pick my car up after dinner…it’s a 6 minute drive so that shouldn’t be too cumbersome. I’ll let you know how it goes!

We made the decision last night that the garden on the side of the house that I was going to do this year is not going to get done fully this year. We’re going to take some measurements and possibly build the beds but we won’t be filling them with dirt this year….at least not all of them (dirt is expensive!!!!!!!). Instead, I’m taking the money that I had set aside for that and we’re going to properly finish the basement gym….proper flooring (not bare concrete), a mirrored wall, some paint, a rower and a dumbbell rack (we already have the equipment). We used to work out together down there many moons ago and really enjoyed it…..and even if we don’t do it together in the mornings (which is when I would use it), I still want the gym downstairs done properly. I want to stop paying over $60/month for gym fees and it would be great if Ray would lift again, he loves it and he wants to put muscle on (he’s an awesome gainer too, the bugger!).

So…..now I’m pricing rowers and mirrors and imagining paint colors (I’m thinking a soft buttery yellow?). We figure with the floor, the mirror, the rack, the rower and the paint etc….it will be about $1500 – $2000 to get it done. And if there’s leftover money I want a big punching dummy and a pair of gloves!

So that’s my update for today. Trip recap over on Half A Pear, bicycle is being benched in favor of walking shoes and we’ll be working on the downstairs gym. I’m trying not to feel too badly about how short lived my bike-commuting career was…..but I wildly over-estimated nearly everything about both it and me. As I’d mentioned, I want everything I do in April to be self-respecting and self-valuing and I think this change to walking shoes over cycling shoes is the best decision right now on several levels.

My Passion Experiment – Week Three Summary

Good Morning,

Today marks three weeks that I undertook to change my outlook and try to inject a spark back into my life. I had to read back on three weeks ago because I’m certainly feeling a lot better than I was then! Some of the main things that I’ve been trying to do are to be more present and to pay myself more respect. Those two things pretty much encompass all the other little things such as eating healthy foods, getting exercise, reducing social media/tech use, reducing spending, eating at the table, etc.

This past Friday I was boldly reminded that while I’m improving at both being present and being respectful, I still have a distance to go and a lot of “past habits” to unravel and remodel. I had initially decided to “scale in” my bike commuting, one day the first week, two days the next week and then either two again or maybe three the following week, depending on how I felt. Instead of respecting my plan and myself, I decided to jump right from one day per week (the first full commute) right into three times last week (and back to back no less). I did so while also battling a hefty dose of allergies and allergy medication. Monday was a good commute, Thursday was a reasonable commute and then on Friday morning before I’d even gotten dressed, I had a very loud voice in my head saying “You should not be riding today, your body is beat!”. And….of course…I ignored it. “Push through”, I told myself. “You’ll have the weekend to recover”, I said. So I hopped on my bike and made it to work where I sat all day knowing I was in for an ass kicking on the way home. But, once here via Pedals, the only way home is to…well….pedal. Long story short, I got halfway up the hill, stopped to take a break where the hill gets steeper and then crashed to the ground still clipped to the bike when I tried to get going again. My body was beat and my legs didn’t have enough left to give to get enough power to get my bicycle going on the steep incline. After (stupidly) declining help from a very kind man who offered to drive me and my bike to the top of the hill, I gave my head a shake and called the hubby’s son to come and get me. I baled halfway home. And instead of feeling bad about not finishing my commute, I felt sad and guilty that I didn’t listen that morning when my Self was hollering at me to leave the bike at home.

This weekend I made it up to my Self though, I went shopping with my mom and sister, made turkey soup with a bone broth base, closed my bedroom door and took a two hour nap (by mid-day on Saturday my body was begging to sleep…..that heavy sleep of recovery), got taken out for dinner by Ray, drank lots of water, took Gracie on a sunny 5km stroll, hit the mall for some tea, had a hot bath, did some foam rolling, ate veggies and eggs and homemade chicken chili. I’ve been craving carbs like absolute crazy since last Thursday and have been trying not to completely ignore it since it must be based in some sort of need, but have been trying to fulfill the urges with acceptable things like yams, mounds of veggies, apples & berries.

So that’s Week Three of My Passion Experiment. I got burned by not listening to a message that was coming through loud and clear. Duly noted and will continue to listen and work on being present and respecting myself.

So what’s up this week?

No biking for the week, my allergies are awful this morning, tomorrow is supposed to be rainy, Wednesday I have an appt after work, Thursday I’m busy after work and Friday we leave right after work on our road trip! I’m actually really alright with missing a week of bicycling, my legs are so stiff and sore! I think I pooched my scale in plan and need to take a breather. I’m going to hit the gym a couple days in the morning and work on rowing and some hill interval training and do some tanning. At the moment it’s not looking good for cycling next week either due to the weather, but I mustn’t forget, it’s still VERY early in the season!

In relating my Friday commute story to my co-workers this morning, my boss said to me “You should quit. You’ve fallen three times and that hill is not going away. Admit you’ve failed and forget about it.” I was stunned, jaw = dropped. I “failed”??? This is all a brand new endeavor for me, I expect some bumps and bruises and a learning curve. “Quit”?? Because it’s hard? Or because sometimes it hurts? Or because it’s not going perfectly? I told him that I would never “quit” something because it was too hard, but that I have revised my plan and will take the longer but slightly less steep route home for the next little while as I increase my biking muscles and my cardiac endurance. He said, “You just don’t know when to throw in the towel.” I have NEVER run across someone who would advise a person to quit when the going gets tough rather than dig deeper or revise the plan or find another way. I was completely shocked and neared tears this morning. Obviously we all have “failure voice” in our heads already that we have to quiet and convince not to sabotage us…..but to have someone actually say “Admit you’ve failed and quit”……completely out of my realm of experience! Especially since it’s only been two weeks!

Memories

I went tanning last night…..and burned my ass.  But that’s not really the point of this post.

I’m sure you’ve gotten “scent memories” whether it’s the smell of blooming lilacs that remind you of your gramma’s house or salty air that reminds you of summer vacations or the smell of cut trees that reminds you of Christmas?  Usually they’re “here and gone”, fleeting, those memories.  Last night though I had one go on for a couple of hours.  It was both wonderful and unnerving.  I bought new tanning lotion a couple of weeks ago and only got around to using it last night.  And, last night the standup tanners were occupied so I went into a lay-down bed.

The combination of that particular lotion and the laydown bed caused me to be instantly brought back to the first time I ever went tanning, 7 years ago, when I first started to uncover my true self from under the armour of fat and depression that I was living in.  I remembered being the person who making efforts that deserved celebrating with something blissful.  I remembered being the person who was falling in love (real, proper love) for the first time ever and I remember being scared & excited about it.  I remembered laying in that tanning bed 7 years ago wondering what my life would look like, wondering if I had the drive and determination to push on and see it through.  I remembered how, every day and especially when I was tanning, I was starting to really love my body for what it was right then and for what it was turning into.

I was reminded that evening when I was laying in my own bed afterwards, how for me, going tanning is one of those markers of being in a good place.  It’s a sign of having energy to spare and love for myself and that I’m doing the right things; the things that most respect me and where I am right then.  Maybe I’m not in the perfect body (the one I strive for, not the one I could never achieve) and maybe I’m carrying some extra weight right now….but for me tanning is a sign of ongoing success.  I don’t go tanning when I feel awful about myself, when I’m full of shame or depression.  I don’t go when I’ve been laying on the couch eating crap. It’s only something I do when all my ducks are in line….and the fact that I’m going now makes me really joyful.  It means that I’m starting to be successful in breaking new ground and in letting go of past hurts & resentments.  I’m forging brave new pathways and looking upon the future with a clear heart and mind.   It means that I am gaining back the passion for myself, the desire to care for myself because I am worth caring about.  I have some of that excitement again, the one I last felt 7 years ago; excitement in the everyday and curiosity surrounding the future.

I rode my bicycle to work this morning, here on the first day of spring.  It was 0C (32F) this morning and holy CRAP was it cold!  I had a frost beard when I got to work (all the teeny little peach fuzz hairs on my face had acquired tiny bits of condensation on the uphill and then it froze on the downhill!) and two hours later I still have a chill and am wrapped in three hoodies all zipped together to make a pseudo blanket, LOL!  Maybe a teeeeensy bit too cold for morning commuting….but should be SO nice on the way home tonight!

I have plans to bicycle commute tomorrow as well (that’ll make it three days this week!)…although I might consider wearing full length pants/leggings for the ride down in the AM….and then I think I’ll visit the gym on Saturday morning for some rowing and a steam, I never did get to steam last weekend.  I’m actually considering investing in a rowing machine for at home.  I would dearly LOVE to get 20 minutes of rowing in Every Day but I have a really hard time going to the gym just for 20 minutes….and I don’t really have time during the week while bicycle commuting/recovering, to get there for longer.  It’s around $1200 and is the same one they have at my gym (Concept 2, Model D).  I’m waffling about it and going to sit on the idea for a while and just wait…..the right answer will present itself, it always does.  If you have a rower at home, do you like it?  Do you think it’s worth the money and does it get used?  We also have a full weights set downstairs (plates, dumbells, lat machine, squat rack, ez bar & Olympic bar, yoga ball, balance plate, etc.) that is currently unused and I’m seriously debating adding the rower to the mix, cancelling my rather expensive gym membership and cleaning up and making proper use of the space and equipment.  Again though….I’ll just sit on that idea for now and see what happens.

Anyway, I’m off to try and find more hoodies to string together to add to my insulation since the air conditioner just kicked in and it’s only 19C (66F) in here.

Happy First Day of Spring!  (is it springy in your neck of the woods?  Or still cold and crappy?)

My Passion Experiment – Week Two Summary

Today marks two weeks into My Passion Experiment.  You can catch up with the project here, Day Two, Day Four and Day Seven if you like.  I’m feeling pretty good compared to a couple of weeks ago.  Here are the things I’ve noticed last week:

1. For me, becoming complacent or thinking I know what’s going to happen or how I’m going to feel robs me of the ability to actually experience each day.  This one is très difficile but incredibly important for me to prevent feeling like I’m trapped in my own routine! Getting up and going through the same motions day after day; shower, cook breakfast, make coffee, feed dog, eat/drink, wash up, watch news for 11 minutes, drive to work, make tea, find something to do until noon, eat lunch, find something to do until 430, drive home, walk dog, start dinner, eat, cleanup, bed between 8 & 8:30, read for 20 minutes, sleep.  Repeat.  Can you see how that would get depressing?  But what if each day could feel different?  I’m trying to do small things that change how each day feels in order to avoid monotony and cultivate some passion for The Everyday.  Playing tuggy with Gracie for 11 minutes in the morning instead of watching the news, turning Ray’s alarm off and waking him up with kisses and cuddles instead (I like that more than he does, LOL!).  Doing a lemon sugar facial/upper body scrub before getting in the shower once a week, taking Gracie on a longer walk after work instead of rushing home to start dinner, having an after work drink in the driveway on nicer days, of course, biking to work, turning on music in the morning instead of the television, having a water-only day, going tanning in the evening instead of couch-time, floor stretches during my lunch break when no one is around. Anything to make the day feel a bit different.

 

1. Passion grows on itself.  You put a little teensy seed down on a welcoming foundation, cover it up and then spend time cultivating it. You can’t see anything yet.  Nothing looks different….but you keep watering and you keep letting the sun’s warmth get to it.  You don’t lose faith.  And eventually a teensy little speck appears.  You rejoice that the little guy is alive and then you just keep doing what you were doing.  Watering, protecting, feeding and allowing it to grow. Some days it seems as if it’ll never get any bigger….and then poof, new leaves!  Everything that it is and everything that it will be comes from that first tiny seed and the faith that it would grow in time.

 

1. Letting the past go is still a work in process.  A couple of times this past week I’ve had to gently (and then not so gently) tell Ray that I don’t want to talk about the plant or what might be happening there and that I sure as hell (that was the not so gently part) do NOT want to go for a drive and see what’s going on over there.  Not.  I also bumped into a former customer last weekend whom I knew outside of work before I knew of them as the customer….so I completely forgot that we had both associations.  Until she started grilling me about what had happened and what was going on and how could she contact someone there now.  I was so blindsided and not expecting that discussion that I nearly fainted.  So this part is still a work in process.  Although it has been successful by some measure as well in that I have not used the past as an excuse to do or not do something.  It’s simply irrelevant now.  I’ve stopped using the word “anymore” (eg, I don’t get four weeks of vacation anymore) or the word “now” (eg. I work 8 – 4:30 now).  I did that because if I drop those two qualifiers, what’s left is just a true statement.  I don’t get 4 weeks of holidays and I do work 8-4:30.  “Anymore” and “now” are those little tentacles trying to hook onto the past and keep pieces of it in the present.  I also try to avoid starting sentences with “I used to” and instead I say “When I” because I feel like starting with “I used to” makes it too regretful sounding and saying “When I” is more positive and more of a statement of fact. (eg. “I used to have an amazing boss” vs “When I worked at ABC, my boss was amazing”).  Maybe this is all BS as far as “professionals” are concerned but I find it useful for myself in staying current and closing that door.

So that’s the summary of Week Two.  Week Three should be more of the same, and instead of dreading the next 5 days of life, I’m going to be excited about it and try to wake up every day looking forward to what may come.

In other news, I rode my bicycle to work today and have revised my “scaling in” plan.  Since today is only Monday and Thursday & Friday are supposed to be nice days this week, I don’t see any real reason why I can’t ride on both those days as well, especially since the weekend is right there for recovery afterwards.  I’ll judge how I feel after riding on Thursday but this morning felt great even though I did 30 minutes of hill training on the indoor trainer on Saturday.  Bicycling is such a low impact activity that I don’t feel I have to recover my joints, ligaments, tendons after every ride; so far I haven’t been in any pain or discomfort.  I feel fantastic when I’m done and I look forward to the next outing so I’m going to keep letting my body run the show.  Going out in the morning and smelling that damp air and breathing hard; I know it’s where I’m supposed to be right now and I love it.