Training to Live

i had an extra long labour day weekend because of my work schedule and since we’d planned to have a bunch of friends up to the cottage that weekend anyway (the cottage is about a 3 hour drive away from here), we figured we’d make an entire week of it. as luck would have it, the weather didn’t really cooperate. it was cold and rainy all weekend long. after our friends left and we enjoyed the one sunny/warm day there was going to be, jon and i hightailed it to his parents’ farm, about 30 minutes away from their cottage, for the rest of the week. although the farm isn’t home for me, it sure feels like it.

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we didn’t have the relaxing week we originally planned (thanks, weather), it was wonderful to be at the farm anyway, as always. we ate loads of good super fresh, local food, worked hard at putting veggies away in the freezer for the winter [a great big pot of ultra veggified pasta sauce (which i'm calling my 500 metre sauce, since everything we put in it came from within 500 metres of the kitchen we cooked it in!, 2 gallons of crushed/stewed tomatoes for making chili with this week (and oh what chili we made this week!!! at least 17 quarts put away in the freezer), and a bushel of red peppers chopped up and frozen]. we went to a small town country fair, played with kittens, watched movies (and napped) and it was good.

i think this photo (taken on my iphone with the super fun ShakeIt app) really captures the beauty of the country (big open blue sky), fall, and the colourful energy of the fair. shortly after i took this, i proceeded to eat a big bag of cotton candy. ohhhhh was my tummy ever not happy about that! (it was certainly enjoyable to eat, however). i’d never been happier to see vegetables again.

we came back to regular-old-at-home life for a week, but come monday, the craziness begins again. i am flying off to the great city of winnipeg for a work conference and then immediately after i come back, i have a half marathon to run! my training over the last few weeks has been pretty abysmal (i blame the weather again.) i’m sure i’ll make it through, even if not super quickly! i’ve been to winnipeg once before, but only very briefly (i flew into their airport and had lunch at a quizno’s before driving out northwest to a wedding. not so exciting) so i’m hoping to have a bit of exploration time.

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in other, more creative news, i have been working on a lot of projects, art and otherwise. sadly nothing concrete to share yet though! in august i got an email about a super fun sounding workshop that one of my favourite bloggers (elise) was running on how to make minibooks (like a scrapbook but on a smaller physical scale {hence the “mini”} and with a much more casual concentrated or super stretched out approach). my dining table is covered in all kinds of fun new supplies so i can start making and doing. the workshop was 2 weeks long and i learned tons of neat tricks and ideas.

also, another favourite blogger (kal) is running a different kind of workshop right now, which i am also signed up for. it is called “nurture your creativity and be bulletproof”. i’ve been through a bunch of stuff at work over the past year and a half that i really could have been a bit more bulletproof for (who couldn’t!) so i figured the class would be more than useful just for that. the nurturing my creativity bit is a bonus and pairs perfectly with elise’s class that just wrapped up. i am really looking forward to the next 4 weeks!

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last month i finally joined the twenty-first century and ditched my ultra crappy super old pay as you go plan cellphone, which had a battery that only lasted a day (without use) and no other redeeming features (which meant that it was usually left at home, battery uncharged, with no paid time on it! not so useful). i bit the bullet and got an iphone4 (expensive but SO LOVELY), which i guess i was lucky enough to score right when they were released to canada – everyone is out of stock now. having the internet in my pocket has made things so fun and easy! i plan to do a lot more on the fly adventure blogging, once i find a good app for this. any recommendations? i’m signed up for posterous, so i might go that route, but it would have to be separate from Training to Live here. the wordpress app has left me unimpressed (photos only at the end of the text? no thanks!).

other favourite apps so far:

teuxdeux (amazing amazing. i went through a whole bunch of to do type apps before i settled on this one. i love that you can have multiple accounts. and that it automatically pushes everything you didn’t do today onto tomorrow. i also love that you can go back and see what you did on any given day. and that you can assign tasks into any day in the future). also it automatically syncs with the web version, so you can enter everything on your computer at home and have it with you on the go.

doodle jump – super fun and a great game to play when you’re staying put for a bit. i just downloaded tetris for an alternative for my upcoming trips.

shakeIt – just like your old favourite polaroids

mobile banking

mindbody (so i know what yoga classes are being offered where, RIGHT NOW). i’ve been missing from yoga since june and i’ve made a pledge to myself to try and get to class at least once or twice a week.

starbucks (mostly to seek out free wifi. when i was in chicago last month and didn’t have roaming data, i discovered that just being in the vicinity of a starbucks would give me the internet. it was awesome. plus, you never know when you’ll need a pumpkin spice fix! this is good for being in new cities). also, for newbs to the ‘bucks, you can create your own drinks!

alarm clock pro – my alarm clock that i’ve used for the last 5 years recently stopped working (sort of) and i have since been trying to find a good replacement that wouldn’t set me back a ton of money. i came up short. until the day i decided to try out alarm clock pro, for the low low price of 0.99$, it is everything i’ve ever wanted in an alarm clock without a) having to spend a ton of money and b) adding more crap to my night stand. perfect.

and of course, tweetdeck. i still heart twitter!

what apps do you go to?

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.

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!

(this post is meant to be funny. please do not be offended)

since the title of my blog is “training to live”, i have decided that i need to do more of the training and experiencing, primarily of lifestyles other than my own. first up is my migrant labour fantasy camp experience. to be clear, i did not have *the whole* experience, i just went for the starter camp. the full package includes waiting to get picked up in a home depot parking lot, then get taken somewhere where you proceeded to pick fruit and veggies/do construction to later. the final step is being raided by immigration. i did not experience that part, nor do i hope i ever do.

apparently, people pay good money for these experiences. case in point.

anyway, last year, i went on a super hippie trip with the toronto locavores to a winery in eastern ontario to help with their harvest. they fed us lunch (a slow food lunch, all locally sourced), let us drink lots of wine, and we picked buckets and buckets of grapes. i pretended i was an illegal. (sorry about the quality of the pictures. this is when my old camera started taking pictures in funky colours. ie: blue and green)

well, i enjoyed that experience so much that i decided to go for round #2. the boy’s parents have a farm (also in eastern ontario) and sometimes in the summer, we try and go visit and help out because there is always so much to be done on the farm. our efforts are rewarded with delicious food and all the veggies we can pack into the car. plus in between work, there are kittens to play with and horses to feed. idyllic, almost. most migrant labourers do not have it this good.

this time, in addition to our usual picking help, we also got to spend a day at market, helping to sell the fruits of a season’s worth of labour. i jumped at this opportunity, because as a farmer’s market-a-holic, (i seriously do have a problem. see thursday updates on twitter on how much i have to lug home) i always dig being on the other side of the table. i love talking to the farmers and oohing and ahhing over the beautiful peaches. i try and scope out other farmer’s markets when i travel (i found two in boston!) which is always fun.

of course, real migrant labourers do not take cameras out into the fields with them, so i don’t have any actual picking action shots to show. i did manage to get away from the stall at the farmer’s market, to photograph it and add to my collection of market pictures from all around. the day was fantastic. we had lovely (unseasonably dry and sunny!) weather. i loved seeing and talking to all the customers. there were only a few grumps that complained about prices being too high. i wanted to tell them to try picking beans on your hands and knees for an afternoon and charging less than $4/quart, and see how that feels, but i kept my mouth shut and just shrugged a “sorry”. if you want dirt cheap produce, you’ll have to go elsewhere. it was crazy busy at times but i loved it.

we got to snack on butter tarts, made by the lady a few stalls down (she makes killer pies!) and juice that jon’s grandma brought us. i’m sure most labourers do not get treated so well. we were lucky.

half of our double set of stalls. lettuce, potatoes, beans (yellow and green), snow and snap peas, and more potatoes

the other half: grandpa (and the van i sometimes get to drive) with the cauliflower, carrots, beets, onions, and various cukes (english and field and slicers).

an organic farmer (sadly my market does not carry anything officially organic) plus meat! also not available at my market.

live entertainment

i liked the berry stand the best.

jams! and salsas! and other canned things. looks like my cold store my labels are prettier. and my stuff is all local. this guy had some pineapple jam. what?

i signed up for erin’s keep it local challenge for september. this ties in perfectly with my addiction + my commitment to supporting local farmers (especially since i have seen first hand how hard it can be). i have decided that i am happy to up my grocery spending dollars if they will go towards the above and to organic dairy. i am working on other areas of improvement. i am always open to suggestions.

so there you have, episode 1 in my experience series. episode 2 should be especially entertaining. i am taking requests for future experience weekends. is there anything that i really must do? tell me!!

blogging has been pretty poor lately (no post in over two weeks? WEAK! i should have my license taken away) but i’ve been busy. quick photo recap, more stories to come.

a week and a half ago, i ran the first half marathon of the season, in ottawa. it was ok. the first 2/3 were awesome and i was fast! and then the sun started to make me wilt and i couldn’t drink enough fluids. the last 5km were brutal and i didn’t make my goal or even beat my last year’s time. i am fine with that – this wasn’t an important race for me, it was more of just a “get things started” kind of day and a test to see where i’m at and what i need to work on more. that would be: running in heat, drinking and eating more while i run (somehow when i get to the last few miles, the thought of anything other than cold water is repulsive to me. this is not healthy) and hills. i was a lot better prepared for the hills after last year’s battle on this course. the race is marketed as “flat and fast” but since the majority of the run is along a canal with a big set of locks, there is quite a bit of steady incline as well as a few steeper hills sprinkled around. i ran through everything, which i am happy about, and i beat my last year first split time by over 3 minutes. my whole race was 3-4 minutes slower, which gives you an idea of how much slower my second half was! 14 weeks till my next race. you can bet there will be a lot of speedwork and a lot of hills between now and then!

after a quick week of work, jon and i got on a plane to colorado. the mountains are breath-taking. so far we have hiked, gone white water rafting (!), and explored golden. i have also gotten to visit several nearby former mining towns, gone on 3 glorious runs, had a fabulous lunch at a super upscale hotel in denver and played tourist.

at the top of our hike on table mountain. behind us is the town of golden, home to Coors.

the raging creek we rafted in. class V rapids = scary and fun! i didn’t get thrown off the raft, luckily. i did have to pull a big guy that did go overboard back in.

some of the beautiful colorado flowers. i have seed packets to take home, hopefully i am not hassled at the airport

off to shop for a few souvenirs before our big day in denver!