Hi Blog!

It's been a long time.  But in my world it seems like it's been a couple days at most.

I ran the Calgary Marathon 10k (in 1:05...easy for me, should have pushed myself).  Then I started into the training for SeaWeeze.

Jet played ball May and June and then tried out (and was accepted) by the All Star team.  So we spent the ENTIRE end of June, July and first 2 weeks of August either at practice or in small town Alberta for tournaments.  6 night a week?  For 8 - 10 year olds?

He had a blast, made some good friends and got in front of the "right" people.  Sad, but true.  You gotta play the game.

Had a good friend pass away from a work accident at the end of June.  That rocked the worlds of a bunch of us, been friends since high school.  Everyone came away from that vowing to honour old connections and I think we'll succeed.  One of Adam's buddies flew half-way across the country on a couple of days notice just because he knew we needed him here.   Nice to have friends like that.

In the end, I don't think I ate a vegetable or worked out for 6...maybe 8 weeks. 

Oh...and SeaWeeze was the same weekend as Jet's All Star Prairie Tournament.  So I chatted with my sister and she agreed that I should watch him instead of going so still no half -marathon for me.   Next year.  Possibly the Wine and Dine Half to celebrate my 40th birthday.

So---

Started working out again this week.  Gone back to my old Gunnar Challenge workouts.  Feel so good!  I think they're starting a new challenge soon.  I should sign up for it.

Gotta get in shape for our Christmas trip to Florida!

Happy First Day of Spring!

As usual, Calgary weather is mocking us.  The past week has been -14 and snowy, the next few days will be just below freezing and snowing. 

But today?

Today is supposed to be 12 degrees above zero and sunny.

And people wonder why we tend to go crazy here?

More substantial update in a bit, but funny workout story from yesterday:

I was doing speed work, as prescribed by my Jeff Galloway running book.  Yesterday was 7 x 400m @ 6mph pace.  It shouldn't have been difficult, it's only 2.5 minutes - enough to get the heart up and to be sweaty at the end of the 7 rounds, but not huffing and puffing.

Well, after the first round my legs were a bit achy.  Halfway through the second round I thought that I wouldn't be able to do anymore.  During this I remembered that I had set the incline 1% lower for my 5k on Sunday, so I bumped it up to get back to my normal 2%.  Somehow, I got it up to at least a 4% incline and it was reporting 0%.  No wonder I was feeling it.

So...reset the whole thing, put it back to 2% and was flying the rest of the way.

Pancake Tuesday

According to Wikipedia today is commonly known as Pancake Tuesday or Pancake Day in the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland and Canada.  I've never heard it called that here and didn't know it was a thing until I started reading UK cooking magazines.

It will always be Fat Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday (if I'm talking to my mother).  But we will have pancakes, or possibly crepes for dinner.

(I also just found out that Fat Tuesday is literally Mardi gras in French.  Guess that one semester of high school French didn't stick, but now that I know it's So. Obvious.)

As is my custom I'm going to be giving up stuff for Lent.  Last year I gave up coffee and haven't looked back.  This year will be:

- Alcohol on weekdays (bye bye dinner glass of wine)
- Sugar in my tea
- Scones or other bakery products for breakfast

The sugar and scones are getting to be too much of a habit so I'd like to kick that one for good.  The booze....well, let's just say that I'm going to give it a try.

First day of winter

Hello first day of winter (and possibly last day ever...if you're into that kind of thing), here's why I dislike you so:

Sunrise:  8:37am

Sunset: 4:31pm

Length of day: 7h 54 min

Good news is it all gets better (albeit colder) from here on out.

Without stove for the week

Friday evening I got home from work, did a fantastic workout and, once done, turned on the oven to make our traditional Friday Frozen Pizza dinner.  Then, upstairs to shower (it was that good of a workout) and just as I was about to step under the water I heard a loud POP! (and I may have seen a flash of light...but that could also have been my imagination). 

So, half dressed, I go and check it out.  It didn't actually explode, but tripped the breaker.  Odd.  Flipped the breaker back to on and then the stove started beeping like when you turned the timer on. 

But I hadn't done that.

It was cycling through it's test program (I presume) and would. not. stop. beeping.

Off, goes the breaker to stop the noise and then I realize that we're without oven (and range...since OMG! the beeping!) until either a) hubby fixes the damn thing, or b) we buy a new one.

Saturday we do some research and fixable, but no guarantee it will work.  So I'm the proud owner of a new convection range.

However,

It won't be at my house until Thursday.  That's a lot of days without "proper" cooking.

So far we've:

 - Ordered pizza

 - Went to a friends house for dinner

 - Made Thai curry in the crock-pot (with microwaved rice)

 - BBQ'd in the snow.

Not sure what's on the menu today and tomorrow.

Weekend so far...

My weekend so far:

- Bought a few Christmas presents on Friday (Canada apparently does Black Friday sales, even though our Thanksgiving was over a month ago).

- Had a birthday party for the boy.  There's a ton of cake and candy left over.  Which is bad.

 - Watched the first 3 episodes of Murder, She Wrote on Netflix.  I think having only 6 episodes of Sherlock has forced us to find something that we can't finish watching in a single weekend.

 - Hung up one strand of Christmas lights.  It required a drill, hooks, tie wraps and an extra power bar.  There's 4 more windows to do, we might not be done until the new year.

 - Baseball practice (boring), grocery shopping (busy), dinner out (A&W, oops), cleaned a little bit in preparation for watching the Grey Cup tomorrow.

....and that's about it.  I worked out yesterday morning but didn't workout today.  I NEED TO BE BETTER! 

And it starts tomorrow.

Taking it Easy

I've been taking it easy yesterday and today.  Feel like I might be coming down with the cold that's going around, so might as well rest up while I'm mostly well in hopes that I only get a little under the weather.

My (not so) little guy turned 8 yesterday so we ordered dinner in, had some people over, had some drinks, had some (very sweet) cake and then watched Jumanji.  Such exciting lives we lead.  We also now have a million more Skylanders in the house than we did 24 hours ago.

Baked some yummy banana bread too this afternoon.  Can't wait for it to finish baking and cooling...yum, yum, yum.

Workouts resume tomorrow.

Bits and Bobs

No work out today.  After all my blathering yesterday too :)  We're in the middle of our first real snow storm of the season so we're having comfort food, looking through flyers for Christmas gifts and inviting people over to our place for x-mas eve.

I need to come up with a menu and take the 24th off.  Kind of looking forward to it.

Dinner was an eclectic combination of raw veggies, steamed broccoli, perogies (fried in bacon fat and DELICIOUS) and chicken breast topped with mozzarella cheese tomatoes and basil.  All very yummy :)

Very envious of everyone running the Wine and Dine Half Marathon at Epcot this weekend.  Perhaps next year...

Most Favourite Day of the Year

Daylight savings time ends!

I don't see the point of doing it at all, since we're so far north.  What do I care if the sun goes down at 10 vs 11 in the summer? Or, that it sets at 4 vs 5 in the winter? The only good part is today;  when the clocks go back, I get to sleep in and go to bed early.

I do feel bad for anyone working retail this morning, been there done that, it sucks because all these people are up early and are waiting for you to open.  And usually the people making the schedules don't take this into account.

Workout review later today...promise.

Day two of my promise to write everyday isn't going to well.  Last night I had a list of things to say. 

Today...not so much.

Actually, as I added the tag 'Rambling' it reminded me that I spent a great deal of time last summer reading about a fellow who walked from Land's End to John o'Groats.  I found it fascinating and something that I'd love to do when I can take extended periods of time off work.

If I didn't hate the term "bucket list" this would totally be on it.

I also loved his London Tube Walk series, mostly because I'm immediately smitten with anything to do with London and it's history.

And that reminds me that it's been far too long between trips to England. 

I need to go back.