Training to Live

i am recommitting to this blogging thing. again. promise.

here’s what happened in february:

-i went to an awesome book event for one of my newest favourite books, that i have talked about here already: the happiness project. a conversation with the author, the amazing gretchen rubin, and heather from indigo.

i had just gotten to almost the end of my library copy by the time the book event happened, and i knew i wanted to buy my own copy. luckily this was the perfect time because i could have a chat with gretchen and get my copy signed! excuse the terrible pictures! it wasn’t me.

i am taking part in the 2010 happiness challenge, which comes with a monthly theme and weekly things to do (described in 2 minute videos by gretchen, every monday). so far we’ve done things like tackle nagging tasks, fight right, stop expecting praise and appreciation (the hardest), hug more, kiss more, touch more (my favourite). i can feel myself becoming a more pleasant person.

-i started seriously training for around the bay (which is in 21 days!!!) 30k race i am doing at the end of this month.

i’ve gone on 2+ hour training runs, i have done strength training a couple times each week, i’ve started interval training (yasso 800s!) and i have gone swimming once a week, every week since i last posted that i was going to try and get back into swimming.

our winter has been mild – perfect for outdoor runs but not so perfect for snowshoeing. we only have gotten out once so far (i fear this will be our only snowshoe adventure of 2010), but it was epic. 2.5 hours on the mountain biking trails of waterloo. my muscles ached the following two days!

today i’m up to a 21-25k run. i’ve got one more distance week left, and then i cut back in preparation of my taper before the race. edited to add- i ended up being out for 3 hours this morning. brutal. my knees hurt. happily i probably won’t have to do any more ridiculously long runs this year because this 30k race is the longest i am signing up for. everything else is half marathon and below.

soon i will start spending a bit more time on my bike, as the following race is the cyclocross st george to ancaster, where i will ride 35k through mud, rail trails, roads, single track and farm land.

-i went to a wake for a 16 year old who lost a battle with cancer. it was decidedly one of the most sad things i have done. my heart broke for his parents; no one should ever have to go through that.

-i got to interview and help select our summer intern for work. this was particularly exciting, as we went back to my alma mater for the interviews AND i was that summer intern myself, not too many years ago. we didn’t get our first pick, but i am pretty happy with the person who will be showing up in may. it definitely was an experience that made me feel old though!

-i went to a custom bike shop with jon to get his new bike spec-ed out, measured and designed. it was sooo cool! i wanted to share some pictures, but when we arrived, i discovered that my battery was completely out of juice maybe i’ll go back when we pick up the finished product and get some good shots. custom bikes are sweet, but i am definitely not enough of a for real biker to justify getting one, nor would i fully appreciate all the features. i would love a custom paint job though!

-last night, for the first time ever, i drove jon’s standard car home (about 12km) all by myself with no supervision – my maiden voyage. it was a little harrowing at times, since i’m a pretty new driver to begin with, and i’m still learning how to operate the standard vehicle. i stalled only once, drove in the wrong gear once or twice, but, all in all, it wasn’t too bad and i did not crash or die! someday soon i will get more comfortable doing this.

-i proofread jon’s mechanical engineering master’s thesis on deep drawing of warm formed aluminum. “what?” you say. yeah, that’s what i said too. after going through the 100+ pages a few times, combing carefully for missing commas and misplaced subordinating conjunctions, i still don’t really know what deep drawing is all about. that’s ok with me.

-i’m working on my mighty life list, inspired by maggie and karen. i’ll post it when i’m done. so far everything on the list (i’m up to #28 so far) is kind of epic. i think i need a few things that i can get started on right now. ideas?

-i pulled the ice cream maker out of hibernation for a batch of homemade cookies and cream (david lebovitz’s philidelphia vanilla with crushed oreos swirled in at the end). let me tell you, i have missssed ice cream. since we stopped buying it at the store, when i removed the freezer bowl from our freezer, our connection to the creamy cold treat was severed. i’m happy to have it back in my life.

-tomorrow i’m going to my first ever blog meetup (aside from the healthy living summit, which i guess was sort of blog meetup like) that angela is organizing in kensington market, a super cute area of toronto. i’m excited to meet new people, make some new friends (hopefully) and spend some time exploring the city. the weather is supposed to be gorge!

whew. that was long.

soon after we got home from florida, jon took me out on a re-con mission. there is a park across the road, and it has a creek, and in one area, the creek kind of widens out into a pond. we had discussed the skate-ability of it but we weren’t sure, since i had never seen anyone on the ice.
the re-con was a success. jon deemed it safe enough and got right to shovelling. 2 hours later, he came home to get me and the skates (it’s a little easier to shovel when you can move around faster). 1 more hour of hard work and we were able to skate around. we’ve been back 3-4 more times since – have had to re-shovel a few times due to snowfall, though nothing major (since we have not had any real storms this january). el nino hit two weeks ago and kind of did a number on my recreational area. there were big patches of open water that jon would not let me go near. our temperatures are finally back down to normal winter numbers, and from street level, the rink looks like it might be solid again! i’m pretty sure the weekend will involve some serious time on the blades (if i can handle the -21 wind chills)! i am thrilled. winter is really messing with my ability to do winter sports this year, and i am a sad puppy. no snowshoeing whatsoever and for the past two weeks, skating has been very touch and go.
i took my camera with us a couple of times and shot some video which i have finally finished editing into something to watch. enjoy!

skating in the park from haya finan on Vimeo.

the lack of snow/ice has been very good for my running though. around the bay is quickly coming up and i need to work up to more miles and hours. optimally i’d like to have run for 3 hours or so at least once before march 28. i have been able to get out for runs lately, but the next few weeks might require indoor bike workout substitutions when it’s too windy. walking to the bus stop was extremely laborious because i was walking into the wind and just the act of moving forward required immense effort. i kind of wished i was heavier, and also pointier/more aerodynamic for cutting through the wind. alas, i am light and rounded on top.

i’m going to try going swimming tomorrow before work. we’ll see if i can make it a fun, spa-like outing, as tina once suggested. then it’s the WEEKEND!!! lots of fun planned, including dinner at a super fancy place downtown (too bad i have to get dressed up for -19° weather. yay!). more to come.

the road trip to florida was pretty fun. i got to drive through several states that i had never been in before (pennsylvania, ohio, west virginia, north carolina, south carolina, georgia). sadly we didn’t spend too much time looking around because we wanted to make it to our final destination before christmas eve. we ended up driving through some of the most beautiful areas (like the west virginia/virginia mountains) in the dark. i didn’t get my Trader Joe’s pitstop because the only day it would fit into our plans was New Year’s Day, and they were probably closed. i didn’t really take pictures of any of the places we stopped at/drove through before and after florida. i also didn’t get to meet up with anyone because as it was during the holidays, none of the people i knew/would want to see were where they were supposed to be!

i got to celebrate my birthday (27!!) at universal studios with jon. roller coasters are my favourite! the last time i went to a theme park was back in the summer of 2003. i was at canada’s wonderland on the day of the big east coast blackout, so our day was cut short. in 2009, i made up for that with 2 solid days of riding all the best rides at universal, many twice, three times, and one even a whopping four! i love the thrill of being upside down and accelerating down huge drops around corkscrew turns. universal has some really excellent rides, and i thoroughly enjoyed my two days there.

hollywood rockit, the mummy, the simpsons, ET, shrek 4D, duelling dragons, and the spiderman ride were the tops. i don’t enjoy waiting in line, and we were there at one of the busiest times of year. our first day had wait times of upwards of 90 minutes per ride! on the second day, we splurged for the express plus passes to terminate the lines: it was TOTALLY worth it. we waited for 15 minutes at the most for any ride and it meant that we could jam pack the day with adrenaline rushes instead of boring lines. i didn’t take many pictures because we quickly realized that having my camera was going to be a pain in the ass. so it went into the car.

other florida adventures: hiking in the ocala national forest. little did we know that in the US, hiking and hunting go hand in hand in national parks. we had to be careful, as we were NOT wearing neon orange vests. i didn’t see any gators, sadly. we learned about sinkholes and heard shots from across the lake.

walking around in my parents’ neighbourhood. everyone there has a golf cart and this is how they get around (not just the greens, but also to restaurants, the grocery store, and other shopping). although the area isn’t super pedestrian friendly (things are just too far apart to be able to feasibly get around on foot), because of the golf cart lanes, biking is a much better option. we had taken our bikes down with us, and we got in a few nice morning rides, which i likely won’t get to experience here again until april.

the orange grove. i wanted grapefruits, so we drove around until we saw some signs advertising fresh citrus. the farm we stopped at was a small organic farm + grove, also selling rabbits (we were unsure if they were alive, for being pets, or skinned, for eating. decided that you could likely have it either way). i told the guy i wanted some grapefruits. 70 cents each. he asked how many and i decided that 10 would be good. he grabbed a knife, some plastic bags and went off into the trees. citrus does not get any fresher than that!

st augustine and walking on the beach. i love the ocean, and someday, i will live near one. walking on the sand and picking up pretty shells was how i spent the last day of 2009, and it was a lovely end to a pretty good year. we had lunch at a little caribbean cafe in st augustine beach (that had some AMAZING salt scrub in the bathrooms) and it really felt like a tropical vacation.

st augustine the town was pretty cool too. there was this crazy angel guy wandering the streets ranting and raving. there was also a really cool lift bridge to get into town. in retrospect, this would have been a good place to spend new years but we drove on to savannah.

we planned to spend a whole day exploring savannah, but when we got there, the weather was grey and crappy looking, and i felt like i was coming down with a cold – popping tylenols and blowing my nose. luckily my body fought off the illness quickly. we decided to just plug on home. the I-77/I-90 were rife with snowstorms, and the drive back was interesting. our bikes were so caked in salt when we got home, that the only way to get rid of all of it was to totally disassemble, soak, wipe, re-lube, reassemble. my bike hasn’t run this smoothly since i got it! sadly now it is just hooked up to the trainer because taking it out in the salty snowy slushy mess here would be stupid.

  yay salt! well that’s it for today. tomorrow is a busy day! (i’ve got the morning off from work to take care of something and i’m working from home in the afternoon). more to come.

hopefully to regularly scheduled programming. the end of 2009 was a whirlwind, and sadly i guess that sharing some of it now seems pointless (like what i baked for christmas this year) but. maybe not! maybe a picture or two and a list will be helpful, even if just helpful for me for next year! plus christmas cookies are pretty.

baking this year went sort of out of control. i was a madwoman in december. usually when i get an idea into my head, i cannot be stopped. i see an interesting recipe or project on the internet and. i MUST MAKE IT. this is one of the major reasons that i bite off more than i can chew and have problems simplifying. the project did not go without a few lessons though. next year i will make a short list and stick to it as closely as possible. i will try to focus more on taste than on perfect appearance (because really, the gorgeous sugar cookies and gingerbread people that i spent hours decorating were hardly noticed as people were just popping the cookies into their mouths. it wasn’t until december 29 that my mother realized that all my gingerbread girls had a beachy theme!). this is part of my overall goal to reduce stress and become a more easy going, happier person. i also learned that dipping truffles in a chocolate shell, while really yummy, is not worth my time/frustration. next year i will make less fudge and more gingerbread, more shortbread jam cookies and more candied orange peel. i will make fewer sugar cookies and decorate them less crazily (because although the icing is gorgeous, it is a little hard and makes the cookie less enjoyable to eat). i will make molly’s peppermint bark again, because it was beautiful, a bit hit, and not very time consuming. remind me.

here is the final tally:

• fudge, peanut butter and dark chocolate
• sugar cookies – christmas trees, santa hats and stockings (which i also personalized with names for my work goodie bags) – martha stewart cookie book
• gingerbread boys and girls – martha stewart cookie book
• jam thumbprints (a last minute add on, but a HUGE hit. helped that i used homemade jam) this recipe is awesome
• peppermint bark (see above)
• candied orangettes (so good i plan to make more this month) these were a lot of work – many steps and much time but worth every minute
• mocha truffles (which were not terribly mocha though – my fault – they were delicious. next time i will try for a bigger buzz boost)
• chocolate sugar cookie stars – martha stewart cookie book

ok so that was more than just a picture or two! aren’t the gingerbread people cute?

next posts up will feature some travel stories and how i will be spending many sunny winter afternoons.

wow, december seems to have taken its toll on me as i have not blogged once this month! i’ve been busy. baking like a mad woman (my coworkers all enjoyed and were extremely impressed with their treats this year) and planning this 2 week road trip we are about to leave for. i’m not sure what our internet situation will be like on the way (or when we get to our destination: SUNSHINEY FLORIDA) but i’ll try and get some good posts up if i can.

the drive will be tough. we’re banging out the 21.5 hour drive to my parents’ place in 2 days, and we only have one driver! woooo fun. i’ve packed lots of healthy and delicious snacks and loaded up the ipod with road trippy tunes (we finally got a stereo that does not destroy cds! the bonus is that it is also ipod compatible!) i have no idea where we’re stopping tonight – depends how the traffic at the border is and what time we actually end up getting out of the city this morning (we have a couple errandy things that couldn’t be done until today)

if you don’t hear from me again until january, i wanted to wish every one of my (two? three?) readers an absolutely wonderfully merry christmas and the happiest of new years. take good care of yourselves, be safe and have fun!

november is finally over! do i feel fine? i don’t know. maybe. maybe not. i am not sure how i would classify my nablopomo participation. i posted every single day, except for two: one of which i had a pretty good excuse and the second of which was directly related to the first, but the rest of my posts were not 100% awesome. i did have a few sorry excuse for a post days. i did not finish writing about all the things on my list either.

i’d probably give myself a 7.5/10. the effort was mostly there, i showed some promise, but in the end, i don’t think i quite reached the bar. it was a good exercise though. the only way to write better is to write lots. i will probably do nablopomo again, though not in december. i need a break, and i also know that i will not have access to the internet every single day, which would make it stressful/hard. we’ll see about february! it is the shortest month i can handle 28 days! i did it this month.

i’m super excited that tomorrow is december. december is my favourite: christmas, my birthday, snow, presents, family, vacation, tasty food – everything i love. i forgot to add gingerbread to my list of things to make! can’t forget that. i also signed up to make a dessert for my branch christmas potluck next friday. i haven’t figured out what i’ll take yet, but i’m sure i’ll get to that on thursday night. my coworker asked if i’d be making packages again this year (last year select friends/coworkers each got a box with a jar of jam or preserve and a selection of holiday cookies and treats). apparently he quite enjoyed them! this december will be extra busy, as we have a move scheduled (jon is vacating his apartment and coming here!) and a road trip to plan and take. i am going to have to remember to breathe.

the resolution project went well. i did not reach my goal of 150 points, but i got 138, which is 92% of that and a decent first effort. i will restructure my december goals to further my happiness through the season of light and cocoa (and stress!).

i got two jars of free nuttzo in the mail today, courtesy of opensky. that is not too shabby! there are still a few other cool things i found in various stores, so i am holding out for more december sales!

can anyone identify this car?

augh. all my pictures from the dance party the other day are blurry and terrible. my camera does not do well with low light situations. i give up!

the conference last week was incredible. i am energized and excited to go back to work and forge ahead. i met some very unique people (one guy who sails from nova scotia to bermuda once a year, a few people who have worked on the coast guard ships, people who work in the arctic) and spent quality time bonding with my colleagues who are stationed in a few different cities around the province. we do so much work with each other, and yet i’ve only met some of them once or twice in much more formal settings. socializing with them, having drinks together in someone’s hotel room, etc makes me able to relate to them more. instead of being just someone on the other end of the phone or the email, they become real. human. i feel like i know them a little better and thus can work with them more effectively (i’m much more willing to be patient and forgiving to someone who is a friend than just some guy i don’t really know, you know?). so i’m pumped.

i had a great idea for christmas cards that might not materialize because i waited too long! this year, we might have to resort to regular store bought cards, and next year we will do something cool. that’ll teach me to not procrastinate!

i have to plan out all the baking i need to do before we leave on our holiday road trip. i am down to 19 days left – guess i better get moving. do you have any favorites? i think i will definitely maybe be doing the following:

• peanut butter fudge (for my sister)
• peppermint candy canes (martha stewart) ?
• some sort of sugar cookie
• truffles?
• a chocolate cookie (also from martha)  
• regular fudge

what are your favourites? i’m always looking for new ideas and recipes!

the royal york holiday tree, lit on friday afternoon by the cast of the sound of music! i’m sorry i had to miss it.

so. i fail. i spent all of thursday away from computers and the interwebs. i didn’t come home on thursday night (dance party! stayed at the fancy pants hotel downtown), so i couldn’t blog. then on friday morning, after only 4 hours of sleep and a shower, i went to work.

fun fun!

i came home in the evening and collapsed in bed. after a few eps of the new adventures of old christine, i fell asleep. jon woke me up when he arrived around 10 and then we turned the lights off shortly after. bad blogger!

i have fun pictures to share, hopefully tomorrow. today was pretty tiring. feels like i was standing in the kitchen all day long – wish i had a cork floor or something else nice and soft. my feet are protesting.

i made:

a big fruit salad with pineapple, clementine, honey crisp, banana and pomegrate and a dressing of agave, lemon and ginger. we had it with a dollop of greek yogurt + granola.

grilled cheese sandwiches

kath’s crantastic crockpot chicken (the breasts were wonderfully done after 4-5 hours on high. perfect texture)

roasted brussels sprouts with bacon, balsamic and cranberries

pureed squash (still unsure of what variety it was, as i bought it from the farmer’s market a month ago and i don’t remember what they told me. it looks kind of like a buttercup, but it was orange. i don’t love buttercup squash and i didn’t love this one, but the texture was lovely. the taste was odd. jon liked it)

a pumpkin pie (though i always make it with a crust, half of this recipe)

now i’m resting on the couch, playing some online games and waiting for my pie to be finished. i still have very little energy and my right calf is quite sore. 4 hours of crazy dancing will do this to me, apparently. my impromptu living room dance parties are insufficient training. i promise to try and be a better blogger tomorrow! we won’t talk about the lost 2 days, nablo. i’ll make it up somehow. promise.

this is where i am spending my days at the conference. the royal york lobby and facilities are pretty nice. i checked out my friend’s hotel room this afternoon to use her internet to send a quick email, and i saw that the rooms are just regular. nothing special. on the small side, even, and no flat screen tvs like many of the other (equivalently priced) hotels around here. but still. impressive lobby. i got to watch them assemble a giant christmas tree this morning (picture tomorrow?). i had only planned to go to the first two days of the conference, but i was so impressed and excited about more discussion and idea sharing that i am going back for day 3 tomorrow!

my operation beautiful note. i am not sure how long it was up for; when i returned in the afternoon, all the notes i put up (several) were gone. oh well.

this video will make you super happy, even if you haven’t been following along on the blog as long as i have!

although it’s not thanksgiving here, i’ve got the urge for pumpkin pie! i roasted my last pumpkin in the oven this evening. tomorrow i’ll get the crust ready. saturday will be faux-thanksgiving. there is always so much to be thankful for and an excuse for super seasonal fall foods is always welcome.

you know you’re a runner when you feel like some candy, but all you’ve got are sharkies!

off to watch a little tv!

i got home pretty late today, about an hour and a half after normal (since the conference i’m going to is all the way downtown and ends almost an hour after i normally leave work). i got home, microwaved my supper (chilli from the freezer, with some tortilla chips) and proceeded to spend the rest of the evening watching tv (lie to me) and playing shift. SOOOO unproductive. i did not do yoga. i did not cross anything off my to do list (not even any fun things!). i was basically just a useless bump on a log. the day was pretty tiring though – networking and talking to people and asking questions and listening to presentations is much more work than i thought.

the conference is going really well. i promise pictures for tomorrow! (and maybe an OB note or two?) it’s in a super swanky hotel. i’m kind of sad that i don’t get to stay there overnight, but it doesn’t make sense since i’m only an hour away by subway and bus. it did mean i had to skip out on dinner with the group though. i knew i had tasty supper at home, and i would have gotten home far too late and probably would have been grumpy tomorrow! did a bit of christmas shopping before i hopped on the subway home. now have 1.5 people crossed off my list (add to the previous 0.5 + 0.5 + 1) and the situation doesn’t seem so bad! i love how christmassy everything feels downtown now. maybe i will hit up the eaton centre tomorrow! (good thing tomorrow is a getting paid day. hahaha)

many of the people at the conference are francophones and so the organizers hired professional translators to translate on the fly. we have headsets and any time someone is speaking in a language you don’t know, you can just put the headset on and listen to the translation! i am pretty impressed. the translations are not perfect (there is a bit of a time lag, though just a few seconds) but it is really nice to have. ordinarily, the francos just kind of have to either get by with what little english they can understand and talk amongst each other for clarification or hope that the presenters are bilingual and can answer their questions in the language of their choice. thumbs up to professional translation! i’m sure it’s expensive though. today i listened to some translation just for fun – the best is when it’s Q+A and the audience asks questions to a panel and the panel responds. it sounds like the translator dude is having a conversation with himself. his voice inflections are also pretty amusing and don’t necessarily match the way you’d normally say something. (there are two people translating. one is significantly better than the other)

i’m going to continue my bump on a log evening up in bed with the latest little mosque on the prairie. sometimes there really is no better way to end the day than with some quality racial stereotyping breaking television. sounds like jon’s root canal went ok today: “toof doesn’t really hurt”. this is good news! dental trips rarely end well.