Full Throttle, Wide Open

Ah, Friday, and a sunny one, no less! It is cold outside for we west-coasters. We’re used to living in a humid rainforest so when the temperature dips below 0 (32F), we all cry and shiver. The benefit of cold though? SUNSHINE! And thank heavens for it! I’m looking at crisp and rugged mountains covered in sparkly white snow outside of my office window. Don’t get me wrong though, those mountains are a long, LONG way off….but when I get to see something other than the backside of a trucking/warehouse outfit and a disgusting smoke-shack filled with dirty, stinky plant workers? Well, the mountains are a nice change!

Tomorrow morning is my jogging day and since I’ve already worked very hard at my workouts this week, I’m thinking it may be a bit of a struggle. In order to make it exciting, I had to set myself a goal to work towards. Last week I ran 4.86km at 0.5% incline in 30 minutes. This week the goal is EITHER another 30 minutes, same distance but incline 1.0% OR same incline, 5.5km in the same time. So either faster or harder incline. And since I am pressed for time tomorrow morning, when the 30 minutes is up, the treadmill stops and I have to get going. I think I’ll probably go for increasing the incline, seems easier to regulate than trying to just go “faster”. Plus, eventually I need to consistently achieve a 1.5%-2.0% incline to mimick running outside.

So, if you don’t actually care about my running speed or time, I’ll move onto something else. The most motivational lyrics I’ve come across in a long, long time. It’s the song The Only Way I Know by Jason Aldean. The lyrics in the chorus get me so jacked up and motivated and ready to crush a workout, I love it! I’ll be listening to it on the way to the gym tomorrow morning, for sure!

Don’t stop till everything’s gone
Straight ahead never turn round
Don’t back up, don’t back down
Full throttle, wide open
You get tired, you don’t show it
Dig a little deeper when you think you can’t dig no more

Tonight after work Ray is going to dinner with his mom (no thanks) and I’m going to go home and take Grace for a short training run (she’s practicing!) and then going to nest onto the couch and watch a PVR’d Grey’s Anatomy while eating Caesar salad & roasted chicken. (It always feels so good when I know I earned my couch-time!) Tomorrow morning we’re going to a pancake breakfast meeting (no food for me, as per normal) after my gym and then we’ll be working hard for the rest of the weekend on prepping the house and yard for Snoopy’s arrival.

I wish you a very happy weekend! If you don’t already, feel free to follow me on Twitter!

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Fat Ass?

Already sweaty and I had barely made it onto the trail!

Anyone who has ever struggled with their weight or fitness knows this feeling so try to cast your mind/self to the place where I was last night.  I got home and true to my word changed into proper exercise clothes and then dragged my fat ass (*) up the miniscule incline of my street towards the park, sweating and cursing under my breath and telling myself over and over and over and over, “Tomorrow won’t be different, tomorrow won’t be easier, tomorrow never comes.”.  This was interspersed with telling myself that the epic amount of chocolate that I have eaten over the last month caused this, my lack of self control caused this and any discomfort I felt with myself or my efforts was completely deserved and probably should have been amplified ten-fold just for being a big idiot.

I probably didn’t really do myself any favours when I got dressed for this either, I wore shorts that have never been comfortable and possibly the most unflattering exercise top I have.  My underwear was crawling up my ass the entire time, my Shuffle had died so I had to carry my iPhone in my hand the entire way and it was very humid and close in the park.  All that negativity aside though, I did the best I could and finished strong.  It was only 4 kilometers and I didn’t time myself (that wasn’t the point) and I had to walk a lot of it.  But when I got home after my “end of the run, down my own street sprint” I was very impressed with how quickly my heart rate and breathing came back to normal.  My back and legs were pretty sore last night but this morning I feel fine.  Today after work I’m doing a 5.5km walk/jog with the focus on walking, rain or shine.

(*) Note, my referral to my fat ass is subjective, of course.  Fat is a state of mind as much as a state of body as far as I’m concerned.  I am in my acceptable weight range, at the low end of it, even, and yet I feel/felt as uncomfortable within myself as I ever did when I was 100 pounds heavier. The toxicity and lack of self respect doesn’t discriminate over size or body fat percentage, it is as real for me now as it was back then and even though I don’t need to shed weight to build a healthier body anymore, the work and effort is as real and urgent to my mental health as it ever was to the physical. 

When I got home from my park mission yesterday I checked the mail and was very excited to find a little box stuffed in my mailbox.  It was “Leaf” that I ordered from Noelle Munoz Jewelry and it is beautiful!!  The craftsmanship is incredible, her attention to detail and excellence just blew my mind, even the wrapping that it came in is top end.  Really a nice experience from start to finish. 

 

My insane cravings for chocolate and sugar and sweets yesterday (and the pissy mood and snarky tongue that came with it) led me to believe that detoxing is exactly what I needed to start.  When I had to run to the grocery store before dinner for some veggies for lunches I was by myself in the house and a little concerned that I would cave and buy a chocolate bar or something equally as sugary.  I held strong though because tomorrow isn’t any easier than today.  If it’s difficult today, just do it and push through, it does not get easier tomorrow.  So, veggies and a couple apples and I was on my way out the door, successful and strong.  Win!

See?? No chocolate!

 Happy weekend, hopefully we hear something this weekend about Olive, we still don’t have her and now my emails to the rescue agency aren’t being returned so I’m leaning toward wondering if the current owner has changed their mind about giving her up.  Fingers crossed that we hear something so that we can either get her or move forward!

The Dirty Book

At 4:22am this morning I was awake.  At 4:23am this morning I was back to sleep.  Gah!  WHY is it so difficult for me to get to the gym right now?  I like the gym, it’s a happy place for me and yet I’m not going?  Is it a little unease regarding starting the new moves?  Is it that I am in self care mode and actually am doing exactly what my body and mind need?  Or am I just being lazy and a bit of a whiner about it?  I really don’t know and I think the only way to find out what’s going on is to get in there and see what happens after a workout.  If it’s unease, that will go away after the first round.  If it’s a self care issue, well, there’s no better way to care for yourself than to exercise your body.  And if it’s lazy and whiny then I need to just suck it up and get going!

As “punishment” this afternoon for missing, I’m mowing the front and back lawn when I get home.  That’s not really punishment though because I really like cutting the grass.  And when Ray gets home from work we’ll go for an evening walk for an hour or so.  Not quite the same thing but it’s what I’ve got.

Last night for dinner I made a beautiful pork tenderloin (if you want a fail proof recipe for insanely tender and flavourful tenderloin, comment me), green beans and mashed cauliflower.  If you’ve been around this blog or on the lower carb websites you’ll know that we love our mashed cauliflower.  And so I thought I’d be creative and mash up one of those alternative cauliflowers that are on the market.  I picked the purple one.  Unless you are a Sesame Street character or you enjoy the sense that you’re about to eat play-doh, don’t mash the purple one.  It tasted just like the white one but the colour was very off-putting!

Now, completely unrelated to health or fitness, my waxist came over yesterday and in the midst of our chatting she asked me if I’d read “the dirty book” yet.  She couldn’t remember what it was called but I think that she might be referring to 50 Shades of Grey?  Anyway, apparently she’s heard from three of her clients the following book reviews:

Older Retired Lady:  “That was disgusting.”

Woman My Age:  “I was reading it at home alone and I was blushing!”

Other Woman My Age (to her husband): “If I didn’t have my period right now I’d (dirty word) your brains out!”

So, blog land, is “the dirty book” 50 Shades of Grey?  And if so, have you read it?  What did you think?  Worth picking up?

Four Day Break!

Holy, four days off seems like an eternity!  Where do I even start?  The gym was a write-off for the entire week, I am not proud to say.  Not proud at all.  Alas, there is nothing I can do to change that, I can only affect circumstances going forward!

Instead of hitting the gym on Thursday morning (my first day off), I slept in and then wandered around, washed my car, drank coffee, fussed with my flowers and then got ready for my mom’s graduation.  She graduated after 20+ years of night school with a BA in Adult Education!  Not bad!

My mom and I after she graduated University!

Thursday I didn’t get home until after 9pm from the graduation thing which sort of felt shitty since that day was also the 10 year anniversary of the day Ray’s dad passed away.  He took it a bit harder than he thought he would, especially with Father’s Day being right around the corner. 

Friday morning we decided we were not going to go camping as we had planned because the weather for our destination was predicted to be quite crappy.  Instead I did some errands and when Ray got home we walked 4km up to a pub for dinner and then walked home.  The beer that I’ve been loving there has been an apricot Heffewiezen (wheat beer).  I’ve had it a few times and not had any reaction to it so I figured I was in the clear.  About 4 years ago we drank a wheat beer while on a motorcycle trip and the agony and illness was intense and immediate.  Unfortunately this past Friday that came back to haunt me and I spent about 4 hours writing around on the couch.  So that’s pretty much the end of the apricot beer.  L

During the day on Friday, my dear friend Tara tweeted that she was up on her wine tour and had stopped in to one of my favorites along the way and loved it. And it got me to thinking……there is no reason that we can’t go on a day trip up there (it’s four hours up and four back) and stop at that winery and see if we can get together for lunch with Tara and Steve.  So, 7am we were in the car, noon we were parked in town and 1pm we were toasting a lovely day in a mediocre pub (good food and drinks, dreadful service!).  After lunch Ray and I headed for the soft ice cream store (over 25 flavours of soft ice cream and innumerable flavor combinations!) to burn off a bit of our lunch buzz before getting in the car and heading home.

Mine was a flavor mix of Coconut and German Chocolate. SO GOOD!

We stopped at the winery on the way home and bought a few new bottles.  Ray also bought me a pretty silver (not real) bracelet from that winery which I love. 

We were home by 9pm and while very tired, had a really great day.  Spontaneous road trip was a complete success!

Yesterday we slept and lounged around in bed until 10:45 and then sat around and drank coffee until noon.  Since it wasn’t raining we decided to go for a walk and ended up near Friday’s pub location but at a coffee shop.  Scrambled eggs and bacon for me, corn & bacon chowder for Ray and then we strolled home. 

Ray’s (adult) kids asked if they could go for dinner on Sunday night with him for Father’s Day and while I was invited I opted out.  He didn’t need me there for that and sometimes I think it’s nice for him to spend time with them alone.  So he went for dinner and I stayed home and made myself dinner….single-girl style.  Salad right out of the container and a glass of wine.  Easy, tasty, quick!

That pretty much concluded my four days off, bed by 9pm and at work bright and early in the morning. 

Unfortunately we did not get delivery of Olive on the weekend like we’d hoped, apparently her current owner isn’t quite ready to give her up.  We’re hoping for next weekend, the waiting is brutal!  We want her to have time to settle in and relax with us before the long weekend because we are going camping and she is coming with us.  In a way it’s good that we didn’t get her this weekend though, apparently Ray’s son had plans to be at our house when they came with her as well (he’s a HUGE boxer fan) and I completely disagreed with that.  This has given us (Ray) time to gently explain that we will be the only people there when she comes and when WE are ready for her to meet people, we’ll let him know.  Ray is also going to tell him that for the first little while he cannot just come over and take her on walks while we’re at work like he did with Brandy.  Olive needs some training and tonnes of consistency in her first few weeks and Kyle coming randomly does not fit with that plan.  Ray and I are going to implement rules for her right off the get go (eg. sit calmly before being fed, sit/lie down calmly before getting a leash on, no charging the crate-door or front door the second it gets opened etc) and Kyle doesn’t like giving dogs any rules, he thinks it makes them sad.  Obviously I/we disagree and think it makes them disciplined, stops them knocking people over or dragging them down the road and reminds the dog who is in charge.  If he won’t “play” by Olive’s set of rules, that just makes it so much harder and more time consuming on everyone, Olive included.

Anyway, it’ll all work out eventually, she just has to come!  

Tonight I have an at home appt with my waxist and tomorrow I have a tattoo consult.  I’m really wanting to get to the gym tomorrow morning and start the second stage of NROL since I’m pretty much back to my pre-accident weights in the first stage and I’m getting BORED!  I also would like to get to the trail and do a jog/walk outside this week to try and assess that situation, I haven’t jogged outside since the accident and only for 12-15 minutes at a time on the treadmill.  Ideally Olive and I will do a walk/jog combo a few mornings a week after she gets settled, especially the days when Ray and I are at work on dayshift so she’s tuckered out and can nap easily while we’re gone.  I should probably make sure this is actually possible from my end first!  😉

That’s it. Wish me luck getting out of bed tomorrow, I love the gym, I’m just finding it hard right now.

Bad Math = Happy Friday!

At the gym this morning I did my warm up jog and then headed over to the squat rack for the start of Workout A.  I did the first set of 8 and while I was taking my 60 second rest I was sort of….well…..dejectedly hanging over the bar, feeling sorry for myself and wondering why, if I have gotten back to my previous weight (or damn close) on every other exercise, why the squats are alluding me???  And then a small little sticker caught my eye and I was reminded that the squat rack starts with 20 pounds before you put a single plate on.  And THAT means that when I left off before the accident I was at 95 pounds (barely, but there) and now I am actually at 80.  That is WAY better.  I had completely forgotten that and had I not been feeling sorry for myself, I never would have noticed it.  See?  It just goes to show you SHOULD waste time feeling sorry for yourself.  LOL, just kidding!

Yesterday for Ray’s birthday I ordered him 6 cupcakes from a company called Mancakes Bakery.  They’re a very small little startup company that make terrific looking and smelling treats (not sure how they taste yet, I won’t be able to eat them and Ray was too stuffed from dinner to taste test). 

The flavours were: Chocolate Red Wine, Rum & Coke, Buffalo Wing, Pineapple Tequila, Whiskey Lime & Breakfast. Pretty unique! The buffalo wing one has little bits of chicken skin “sprinkles” on it!

After work I went and ran an errand and then came home, changed clothes and headed out to the restaurant to meet him for dinner.  He had a delicious, saucy and cheesy baked ravioli and I had beef ribs.  Mine….was not great.  On the other hand, I had a delicious glass and a half of wine.  Which made me borderline tipsy.  The other half of that glass had to get abandoned when we left because I wouldn’t have been able to drive myself home!  It’s funny, sometimes you can drink an entire bottle and it’s a waste of time and calories and other times a glass gets you!

Anyway, big plans for this evening, we’re going to be washing, poking, wrapping and roasting 40 pounds of potatoes for a club barbeque we’re going to tomorrow.  It’s our motorcycle club 3 year anniversary so there’s a big pancake breakfast (I’ll be eating at home first) in the morning and then there’s supposed to be a ride but that is likely to get rained out.  BBQ in the evening and, again, I’ll be eating at home first since besides a steak they are doing potatoes, garlic toast, pasta salad and then cake for dessert.  Obviously that’s not going to work for me so I’ll supplement before I go and then have steak for dinner.  That works.

I’m hoping for a morning walk tomorrow before we go and another one on Sunday because I haven’t done any of the supplementary cardio that I scheduled myself for this week.  I was going to go right after work by myself but when my body was too exhausted to walk up the stairs and get my own hoodie this morning (I’m wearing Ray’s; it’s a tent, but cozy!) I figured that I would guard my recovery time a little more and take it easy.  This is the first full week of early gym and my body notices it at the moment.  There is zero value in ignoring the body’s request for rest.

Happy Weekend to you all!

Crazy-Train, Let Me Off!

Night and frigging day, I’m tellin’ ya!  The difference in how I feel from this time last week just blows my mind.  I’m not sure if it’s just that enough time has passed or that I am stretching twice a day, icing every night and moving more?  Who cares though, it makes me excited that if I can just keep on moving forward at this rate then I’ll come out of this stronger, fitter and more flexible than I was before. 

I missed my massage appointment last night, like a complete idiot, I assumed that I was correct when I thought that it was at 6pm.  Had I looked in my handy dandy date book that has every single fact, experience, time and cost of my whole life in it I would have realized that the appointment was actually at 5:15pm.  Alas, I didn’t and I missed it.  I’m not that sad about it though.  I do feel badly that I wasted their time but I wasn’t super jazzed to go anyway.  Maybe it was subconscious that I “missed” it

Since I was so busy racing around trying to cram everything in before my alleged appointment, I didn’t have dinner until 7pm.  And dinner…..well….it was a bit strange.  I had a Larabar, some leftover fajita beef, a glass of carrot juice, two pieces of salami, a mini Lindt bunny and a blueberry smoothie with chocolate protein powder.  Random bits and pieces but effective…and surprisingly balanced, actually.

Today is Ray’s birthday and I’m meeting him at a restaurant about halfway between work and home and we’re having dinner together, just the two of us. 

It’s been a bit of a crazy-train in my family over the last couple of days and I am more than ready to get off at the next stop.  The emails and phone calls between myself, my sister, my mom and my grandparents number in the dozens and the subject matter is ridiculous and infuriating.  I texted my sister this morning that I am on hiatus until tomorrow morning from emails and ridiculousness.  Unless it’s death or destruction, I don’t want to know about it.  The comments that were hurled my way yesterday were over the top and inconsiderate, not to mention ill thought out and so today I’m taking a break from it.  I need my brain for work and after work is the evening that Ray and I celebrate his birthday and he deserves all of my attention and positive energy. 

In case I’ve whetted your curiosity over what was said, here are a few excerpts:

Exerpt #1

• Gramma:  “I would be embarrassed to tell anyone that I couldn’t afford to do something that they’d asked me to do.”
• Shannon:  “Well I’m not, it’s pretty standard for our generation to be broke and “can you afford to…” is one of the first things we consider.”
• Gramma:  “Fine, then tell me how much money is in your bank account right now.”

Exerpt #2

• Shannon:  “I have trouble having any sympathy for anyone who refuses to help themselves first.  If someone likes being sick then let them but that doesn’t mean they get special consideration in life.”
• Gramma:  “Fine, then I have no sympathy for you.”
• Shannon:  “Why on earth would you feel sorry for me??”
• Gramma:  “Because you’re in pain so that’s your fault and I don’t have sympathy towards you.”
• Shannon:  “I am in pain because I got hit by a car, not my fault.  But I don’t want or need any sympathy nor have I ever asked for it.”
• Gramma:  “You’re in pain because you don’t eat grains and now I don’t feel sorry for you.”

Exerpt #3

• Gramma:  “You don’t eat any grains?”
• Shannon:  “Nope, and I feel fantastic, it can help with a lot of conditions and illnesses.”
• Gramma:  “What, did you read that somewhere?”  (said in a condescending tone)
• Shannon:  “Well, yes.  Research, books and articles.”
• Gramma:  “Just because it works for you doesn’t make it real.  We’re just waiting for what you do to not work and then you’ll put all your weight back on, you’ll see.”

So all in all, not a great and uplifting conversation, but extremely amusing.  However, I don’t want to be “amused” today and so I’m on family email and phone call hiatus today.  J

Tomorrow is gym morning and back to my current nemesis, squats.  Hoping I can put a couple more plates on tomorrow and push through to where I was a bit more.  Have a great day, tomorrow is Friday, thank God!

Levelling Out

There is little that makes me feel more level and more in control than having a plan on paper that I can follow along with.  After my post yesterday I made up my schedule and took it home and posted it on the fridge.  I’m a total dork but I like checking things off, seeing lots of marked off squares in a row!  It makes me feel accomplished and it fosters some dedication.  In truth it’s probably a little silly because that sheet of paper all marked off at the end of the month will just go in the recycle bin, but I’ll take whatever little motivators I can get!

The Schedule. The “V” is for vitamins and the little hearts at the very end are the three walks/jogs in addition to the gym dates.

I did hit the gym this morning as planned.  I expected mental resistance when the alarm went off at 4:30, but since it’s what the plan is, I got out of bed relatively easily.  I suspect that won’t happen every day.  I did a treadmill jog, 5.0 speed and 1.0% incline.  A little easier than road (treadmill road equivilant is 1.5% incline) but a bit harder than what I was doing earlier in the month.  Squats still suck a bit and when I left off at the beginning of May I was squatting 95 pounds, now 60 is a bit of a struggle.  I’m told that is because a squat isn’t only in your thighs, there’s also a lot of contribution from your lower back and hips (my problem area).  I’ll get there though, Friday when I rotate back to this work out I should be able to get 65-70 pounds on.  Everything else (seated rows, step ups, pushups) on that workout I’m back to my ending weight with so that makes me happy.  I have subbed in plank for the ab portion of the program though, plank is The Best Core Movement there is and so I’m going to stick with that for awhile.  I’d rather tighten up my core than worry about “shaping” my waistline.  😉

Tomorrow is a second gym day and I’m curious how this is going to work.   I’ve never done this program on back to back days and have definitely not worked out on back to back days since my hiatus.  I might have to switch to M,W,F instead of T,W,F.  Which sort of sucks because timewise I would be forced to get ready for work at the gym on Monday.  We’ll see, I’d really rather make T,W,F work.

Tonight after work I have to run to the drug store for a birthday card and then dart down to Running Room to get the balance of Ray’s b’day present and then zip home and make fajitas for dinner.  All before 6pm.  Riiiight.  Traffic will be totally fine, right?  LOL!  I’m told that we’re assembling the wagon tonight, too and I’m kind of excited!  It got its third coat of paint last night and once it’s put together we’ll bring it in the house and stick it in the furnace room for awhile so that the paint cures and then Ray will spray the whole thing with clear coat.  I was going to pinstripe the sides of it but I’ve had to rethink that since I have no artistic ability whatsoever.  Plus, I probably shouldn’t make the wagon so nice that it gets stolen out of our yard!  😉

Anyway, I realize it’s only been one day into my Adapt or Die Plan however I feel more like myself than I have in awhile and that is very valuable!

June Plan Of Attack

Welcome to June!  I realize that June is now 4 days old, but this is a special June this year.  This June the theme is Adapt Or Die.  I love that slogan and I’m putting it to use for the next 27 days in order to get back into my groove.  The groove that I love and am very happy in. 

You see, I’ve been coasting now since the third of May, trying a little and putting in a little effort but mostly struggling.  I’ve also been whining a lot and feeling sorry for myself and saying “I can’t” way too much for my own liking.  I’ve been complaining and making excuses.  Some of them are valid, no doubt, but excuse making doesn’t achieve anything.  I asked myself last night what my goals were for the next one month and the next three months and none of those goals that I came up with are served by whining or excuse making.  So then logically, that stuff would need to come to an end and be replaced with something else. 

So, for the next 27 days, my goal is to fake it until I make it.  Go through the motions and actions of the person that I want to get back to until I actually become it…and 27 days is plenty of time to make that happen!

I’m tired & drained feeling and I know that exercise will obliterate this odd feeling mental and physical slump….but you have to do it WHILE you’re tired in order to get untired. 

So, here’s the plan. 

EXERCISE:  Gym & weights Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday early morning (June 5,6,8 – June 12,13,15 – June 19,20,22 – June 26,27,29).  Either a trail walk/jog (more on the jogging in a second) or a long neighborhood walk with Ray 2 evenings during the week and one on weekends.

FOOD:  give head a good shake and stop with the nonsense.  Enough said on that one.

OTHER:  My lower back is incredibly tight and sore and it’s a big contributor to my whining and excuse making.  Happily though, I don’t have injury pain while I’m doing exercise and that means that I’m not further hurting myself.  I do have quite a lot of pain in the hours afterwards and the next days though.  I have to go on the assumption that that isn’t going to change in the short term so I have to work with it.  Now, this might seem stupid or as though I’m coming to this realization late, but I think stretching is going to be a big key here.  It’s all very nice to go to massage once a week and chiropractor every 10 days and I could even add physio (don’t want to!), but if I don’t do anything to help myself on the in between days I’m not really doing myself a service.  So, every single day between now and the end of June, I will do daily lower back stretching, wall walks for my shoulders and a couple minutes of plank for my core.  And every night when I go to bed I will ice my lower back. 

That’s it.  That’s my Adapt Or Die June plan of action.  If you want to kick your own ass over the next 27 days and you feel like making that commitment out loud, write your plan on your own blog and link here if you want some cheering.  Or just leave a comment with your intentions. Writing it down makes it much more likely to happen!

I’ll leave you with a clump of pictures from the weekend.

Kaos and Ray

A close up of part of my new garden ornament, a birdhouse that my grampa made out of old barnboard. Came from my mom’s and is now in my front garden.

Our front garden. The white sign on the post says “GARDEN”. It all looks so pretty!

Remember that wagon I was going to restore from a couple of months ago (or more)? It’s in process!

I’m so excited to get it back together, I think it’s going to look really cool!

Favour or Not?

My drive to work this morning was one of those that felt like I could have just kept driving all day.  My heated seat was on (aaaaalmost makes the car accident worth it!), my coffee was perfect and Adele was crooning to me on the stereo.  Unfortunately all of that bliss shatters when you remember the reason you’re in the car early in the morning is because you’re driving to work.  😉

 

I did not hit the gym this morning as planned (thanks Alien Baby!) and I don’t feel particularly badly about that.  I had a rough night and a crappy sleep and going out in the bucketing rain at 4:30am just was not high on my priority list.  Plus, I washed all my gym clothes in the laundry yesterday morning and forgot to hang them to dry so I wouldn’t have had anything to wear anyway even if I’d wanted to go.  Which I didn’t. 

 

Tonight after work I have a massage appointment which I’m not overly thrilled for.  I’m not a big fan of massage to begin with, less so when I’m sort of forced into it.  Because of my appointment at 5pm, Ray and I agreed that he would be completely responsible for dinner tonight, planning, making and cleaning up.  As it was, I planned it to make sure that it was on the “acceptable-list” and he was supposed to cook it to be ready when I got home (much the same as I do for him when he’s working late!).  When I got home yesterday the first thing he said was that he was going to beg off making dinner tonight because his son asked him to help out with something.  LOL….uh…..no, darling!  He is in charge of dinner ONE NIGHT, this is not my problem that he now double booked himself.  So, after my massage appt, if Ray is not home yet, I think I’m going to be hungry because I refuse to make dinner on the one night I asked him to help me out, which he agreed to do! 

 

If you were me, would you cave and make dinner tonight?  Or stand your ground?

Mmmmmango!

It’s a tea kind of day today, for sure!  Dreary and drizzly out and kind of chilly in.  Kind of grateful for my desk-drawer tea stash at the moment! 

  

On to other things.   Such as:  how have I lived this long without mangoes in my life?  Or prawns, for that matter!  What else have I been missing out on because I’ve been assuming I didn’t like it?  Papaya?  Olives?  Celery?  Well….no, celery is definitely still a big “No!”.  Scallops?  About two months ago I realized that I no longer hate ketchup.  I have hated ketchup for easily 20 years and now I don’t mind it at all and will even willingly squirt it on an omelette from time to time.

 

Makes me think that the next time my first response is “I don’t like _____.” or “I can’t do/don’t like to do ______.”, that I might want to take a moment and see if that is still true! 

 

For instance, hiking. Ray asked if I wanted to drive somewhere and go for a hike on Saturday and my first response was “no thanks, not interested.”.  But…..wait a second……I like the outdoors and I enjoy exercise.  Sooooo…..hiking then?  Sure, why not?  I’m sure I declared my non-interest way back in the day when I wasn’t interested in doing anything besides eating and smoking.  Things change, it’s probably a good idea to remember that our preferences probably should change with them!

 

We did the equivilant of nothing yesterday when I got home from work.  We walked one block up to our neighbor’s house to pick up my wagon frame that he’d sand blasted for me.  Tonight we’re going to go and get the paint for it and hopefully this week or next we can get it painted, cured and put back together!

 

I did make bacon and eggs and hashbrowns for dinner last night as planned and now our whole house smells like the backside of a pig.  Plus, we ate so much bacon I’m surprised we weren’t oinking in our sleep!  It was good though, and now the need for bacon is out of my system for awhile. 

 

Tonight we’re doing halibut, roast asparagus and a salad (with mango & goat cheese) for dinner…which is an improvement on the rather beige/brown dinner we had last night!  Tomorrow is gym morning, back to Workout A and hopefully a decent jog to start!