Exercise!

So, this post is about getting jacked and everything that comes with it! I was training to run a half marathon& also test my skills at a triathlon and then I had to stop. First, I ripped a ligament in my foot and that took forever to heal. Shortly after being able to move my foot again, I tore my rotator cuff. That sucked and hurt WAY more than my foot ..and my foot hurt a lot :(

So, now I'm all healed up (thanks, chiropractor! You rock) and am back on the exercise train. I am restarting Insanity this evening and I took advantage of the nice-ish weather this afternoon and went for a 25km bike ride. I LOVE my bike. Seriously .. it is easily my favorite form of exercise. It doesn't even feel like I'm exercising.

I can't wait to get back to my former jacked self. I am going to lay off the crappy eating& start back up on yogurt& fruits. I genuinely feel so much better about myself when I am exercising& eating well. Some motivation to get back in shape? Me, semi-jacked after P90X. Hello, abdominals! I've missed you in my life. Time to see you again. I really wish I'd taken more photos along the way ..oh well!

So, now that the weather is getting nicer& there's bikinis / swim trunks in your future ... what are YOU doing to get in shape? Any favorite activities or healthy foods to eat? Feel free to post recipes in the comments .. I'm always up for new healthy meals :) Enjoy your Thursday!

PS my day 89& 90 of Project 365!

An ear& forelock from Dewey <3

Keeping it real with 2 different colored eyes! Penny hates me :(

Wednesday!

It's a Wednesday .. I'm not in classes. Life is good! If you're wondering where last night's blog post was, I didn't have an internet connection :( I sometimes hate our wireless. Oh well. My day wasn't super exciting, I did Insanity& went to work. At work, lots of things happened that made me an angry worker, but by selectively forgetting I have maintained both my sanity and free from jail. Mostly, one thing get spoken to me SO much that I wonder, do these people really think they're clever?!
1. "Oh, I didn't think anyone was working."
Yes, because we frequently leave the store wide open with absolutely not a soul in it. We turn off the cameras and do a count before we leave and after. This is a check to see how honest people are. Was anything stolen? Was enough cash left for the amount stolen? ..does this seem like reality? No. It's not. Of COURSE someone is here to take your cash and keep you honest. God.

So, now that I have vented about how much I adore my job and my internet connection, I will discuss yesterdays workout. Yesterday I repeated Plyometrics, it was still super exciting and I am consistently getting to do more and more of the program. It was awesome. I feel great after finishing a day, like I can still keep going. That is PERFECT when you consider that most days after a workout, I'm heading to the gym to rock the bosu ball and also run a few miles. Today, I'm headed to the gym with Marg but .. it's a day off from Insanity! I LOVE rest days :)

So, Meg and myself are going to run an 8k in Louisbourg on March 5th. It's called the Slush Run and I'm so excited to do it and keep moving away from 5k into my real preferred distance of a full marathon. I think having that date looming over me, I will manage to pound out a few 10k runs on the treadmill. I reallllly hate running on the treadmill and did manage to run outside for as long as possible. Now, though, the sidewalks are covered in ice and snow, so outdoor running is impossible. It makes me sad and also makes me anxious for spring to come. With spring, comes fresh new sidewalks and outdoor activities. Also, in the spring, I will be breaking out my bicycle and encouraging my boyfriend to come for long rides :D He loves his bike ALMOST as much as I love mine, so it won't be difficult. Speaking of the boyfriend, I am super proud of him starting P90X. You go, Garret! I will be kicking your ass in the spring on the bike though.

So, now the only thing left to discuss is my THREE DAYS worth of photos. I have 2 of them taken (obviously) and today's is still to be determined. So, I apologize in advance for another photo of my dog and here they are:

For 3 days ago, which is photo 18 (I think ..keeping track of these things via day is so hard!), I couldn't decide between just the dinosaur or Garret and the dinosaur. I opted to include Garret. I love this photo because it includes a bunch of my favorite things:
1. Snowy weather
2. Late night drives
3. My boyfriend
4. A dinosaur
5. Adventures due to late night drives
6. Anti-smoking campaign!

So, that's one day done. Now, onto the next. The next photo is one of my dog. Sorry, but let's be real. He is the sweetest little dog you've ever seen. Today, my camera is coming to the gym with me / random other places so hopefully we'll be back to getting some more variety! Like I've mentioned before, I really need more work on portraits so I need to get over my weird thing about asking people to be photographed. I'm not even talking strangers, I'm talking friends and family. So, if anyone is reading this and is interested in a photo of yourself .. please, drop a line. I need help ahaha

And now, today has been productive. I have blogged, eaten a healthy breakfast, reminded myself I need to go buy some yogurt and fruits and made plans to go to the gym with Margy :) I hope you have a fabulous hump day!

Oh, and before you leave my blog .. I will encourage you to check out this lady (Jenn Grant) and her fabulous new song (Getcha Good)!

The weekend has come to a close..

Usually, this is both joyous and sad. Joyous because I am done of work until the next weekend. Sad because I resume the grind of classes. The reverse is true this week! This week is break, so no classes. I am, however, stuck at work tonight and tomorrow night. Wah wah wah. Oh well.

Last night I went to dinner and the movies with Garret. Dinner was delicious, as was the blue drink I indulged in. Company was excellent, as per usual with the boyfriend. Next on the agenda was me annihilating him at air hockey 7 - 1 (of which there is a photo on my phone to prove it when he claims I'm lying ;)) and I spent way too many quarters on pinball. Then, it was time to go see Unknown. It was decent, not really a movie I'd ever want to see again but I've also seen much much worse. The most annoying thing was a group of 4 teenagers who were clearly massive losers (sorry, boys). They kept laughing and mouthing off loud enough that it was disruptive, so about 40 minutes in I had to turn around and tell them 'You are so annoying. Please, shut the hell up.'
Now, if you know me, you know this is out of character. I, oftentimes, think these things but generally do not say them out loud. I think I am overcoming that personality trait as I age. The older I get, the more I just say what I'm thinking out loud. I can't be bothered to care if other people think it's inappropriate.

Then, we went home and went to sleep. Was nice. Until I couldn't sleep. Story of my life with that. So now, flash forward until this morning. We did the tea / coffee tradition and discovered Roll Up the Rim is back! YAY. Except I never roll up my rims and just throw them away and Garret always gets mad. This morning, sadly, neither of our rims were winners. Like I said, no one wins on the first day.

Then it was time to come home and workout. I have a love / hate with Insanity. I love the workout, I hate the pain. I did Pure Cardio. It was so sick. In my five days of this program, I can already feel an increase in my ability to keep up. I can now (and don't laugh!) make it through the warm up without feeling winded. It's nice to watch the people on the video not being able to complete everything either, they STILL need breaks and I'm assuming they are in awesome cardiovascular shape or else why would they be on the video? Unless it is to give people like me hope ahaha.

I will say, the 45 minutes seem to FLY by when I'm doing them and overall, I really like the program. Tomorrow I repeat plyometrics, so that will be fun. The one downside is that Shaun T really isn't on the same level of awesome as Tony Horton. I can't decide if it's because P90X was slower moving, so there was more time for Tony to 'interact' with the participants, or if he just plain had more personality. Oh well, it's not like I choose my programs based on the TV trainer, just that he was a nice perk. I am sure it has something to do with Tony being my first love. I heard you never get over that one LOL! I love Shaun's program and it's more inline with what I want to do (run a marathon) than lifting.
The one thing that shocked me the most about P90X was that I actually REALLY enjoy doing weight work. I am sure as the cardio tapes get monotonous and repetitive, I will crave some weight work. Too bad I won't go near that part of the gym! I feel like I don't belong there, even though I can tell when guys there are lifting with poor form!! Perhaps I need to get over that, as well.

Now, this is where I (sometimes) include my daily photo. Well, today you're in for a shock. I don't have it yet! I'm going to take my camera to work with me and try for a different photo than one in my house .. I really need to get outside to take some, but I'm waiting patiently for better weather before that happens. So, until 11 tonight, I hope you enjoyed my long blog update! Check back for a photo before 12 :D

Windy Wednesdays

They suck. At least they both start with a 'W' though, so I sound clever for putting them together! Currently, I am laying on my boyfriends bed and that is my excuse for why my photo of the day will not be posted until tomorrow. I have it on my camera, but Garret doesn't have 2 things:
1. A camera cord for me to upload that isn't out in my cold car (aka it's here, but I'm lazy!)
2. Photoshop for that post-processing look that actually makes it seem like I know what I'm doing when I'm using my camera!

With both of those obstacles standing firmly in my way of uploading a decent photo (and let's be honest, I need one after yesterdays pathetic attempt), I have decided to just treat everyone to a double dose of photo of the day tomorrow! So, how did I spend my Wednesday?

I spent it surviving my foodborne midterm (thank you, test gods. Someday I will produce a statue in your honor!) and then surviving occupational hygiene and foodborne lab. Then it was time to leave, so I got Garret and we went to hang out with my puppy for a bit and then for a trip to Walmart because we are super classy! Today was a sad day, today I mourned the loss of P90X as he finally asked for it back. Thank you, Tony, for many good months spent together. Let us all have a moment of silence in remembrance of when I was in shape.

Okay, now that we have properly mourned my workout program, let me just say that I'm trying to move on. We went to Walmart for 2 reasons, one was more important than the other. The first reason was so that we could get windshield wash for my poor Civic (we did. YAY! No more driving really close behind cars as they go through puddles!) and the more important reason was to check out Insanity. I decided to wait on it and actually do some research before purchasing it (Mom, be proud), however, I will most likely own it before the week is out. When I want something, I just want it. Frig waiting. I've waiting 23 years, if you include the years I didn't know about / want it. I will be sad to see the days of P90X leaving me, but excited to move on to the world of a new personal trainer on my TV. Hopefully he will have even 1/3 the personality of Tony. I will also provide a full review upon purchasing and completing a workout or two.

So, after leaving Walmart, I tricked Garret into going to see some puppies at Brett's Pet Depot. There were not many puppies I wanted to take home, however there was another dachshund pup there. He was not nearly as cute as Walter (long story .. we didn't ever own him. Just loved him like he was ours ahaha), but he was soooo long. And the best part about these puppies? GARRET ACTUALLY LIKES THEM! There is hope someday I'll have a puppy with him ahahaha until then, I will placate myself with just going to puppy stores and pretending like I'm am actually there to purchase one. Secretly, I'm just there to soak up some puppy love and attention.

After puppies, we decided to get a movie. We got The American. George Clooney is in it. He is handsome, but not so much in this movie. This movie sucked. It was in another language a lot and the captions were REALLY tiny. I could barely read them, and I even have glasses now!! The important part about our trip to Blockbuster was that we spent $6 on those stupid voodoo dolls that are there when you're exiting the store. I put my toonie in and got a stupid red voodoo doll in a cape (wtf.). So then, after that we didn't have any more toonies and so he was like 'Throw in a loony.' Yeah. Like that will work. Guess what? It worked. We ripped that mother off and got THREE MORE voodoo dolls (it was a moment. Don't judge. Photos coming tomorrow.) for only $3!! I encourage everyone to go buy some. If you happen to get the black doll, I'll trade you for the shitty one with a cape. Let me know.

Until then, I'm sorry I'm leaving this (extremely long winded) post without a photo for your viewing pleasure. Instead, I will leave you with a photo of our new favorite passtime. In honor of actually finding this photo, starting tomorrow I will start updating our collection. I plan to have them ALL before long. Hell, they're half price from here on out!

Monday ..

Today is Monday! It's almost Tuesday though, and actually might be by the time I get this post written up and published.
This morning I went to class .. and it was awesome. We talked about welding and sandblasting. And then I went to the gym where I ran 6k and did a few things on the bosu ball. After that, I drove home and had some delicious supper, followed by driving back into Sydney to attend ashtanga (AKA power) yoga at Ascendo, the new gym by the movie theatres. It was originally going to be my very first awesome bikram yoga experience but you know what happened? They had to cancel it being hot :( So instead it was just very P90Xesque. It was a good workout nonetheless and the actual facility is gorgeoussssss .. I would recommend you check it out, even if you have no desire to ever exercise. It is massive.

OH AND! I stopped in to visit my boyfriend with a tea quickly after leaving CBU and guess what?! He had my light box stuff already to rock. Since leaving yoga, he has sent me two photos to show me what it looks like in it's finished state. Here they are. First up we have the actual box .. just a big box with lights and a white background ..makes me incredibly happy:


And the second photo is a shot of how it works closeup. It was taken by Garret and it is, of course, a photo of a garage tool. A tape measure to be exact!


So that is what Garret feels like he would take photos of if he was trying this experiment. Really, I should have just used that one because it may actually be better than the ones I took this evening. Time got away from me and I ended up being in a rush trying to find something to photograph and get uploaded in time. So it was between two options and the nutcracker won! So, without further ado, here is the worst installment thus far of my 365. Welcome to day 4.. only 361 left to go.



Hope you all enjoyed ..sorry for the incredibly blah update. I am exhausted. Oh one last funny story to leave you with:
My car has it's little gas light on. Which means I have to leave early for lab tomorrow because I couldn't get gas tonight because I had yoga pants and Uggs on. Then tomorrow I will probably forget to leave early enough to get gas, which will lead to me praying that my car makes it to the university before running out. Oh, the joys of this whole evening. Goodnight folks ..sleep has rarely looked more appealing!!

Titles for posts? Overrated.

I feel like this evenings blog installment should have an official celebration: I GOT SIX HOURS OF SLEEP LAST NIGHT! It was wonderful. So then I made some breakfast .. chilled with the family for a little bit and did core synergistics with Tony Horton and then headed to the grocery store and work. It was a good workout .. it was a long lineup in the grocery store .. and I will expand on my trip to work down below. The moral of the story is this: It was a long day. Also, I need suggestions for a blog theme. In case you hadn't noticed, mine is currently having an identity crisis. Leave suggestions if you have any! Green a good color? The banner sucks .. will fix it eventually, probably.

Another Saturday evening spent at Cogan's. It was a super quiet evening, which was nice because there was a large magazine order in just waiting for me to read them! Alister came and kept me entertained for about 45 minutes or so and then some customers showed up. Then Garret showed up for a surprise visit and we played some break opens and won nothing. He showed me a photo of Jon's 7-foot icicle hanging from his house, it's nuts! That is a lot of ice just waiting to impale someone unsuspecting. I'm not going to lie - that icicle makes me nervous!

So then at about 9.45PM .. all kinds of people show up to my store to buy stuff. Thanks, folks. Couldn't have come a little earlier could you? So there's a man who pulls up and comes in and buys some break opens. He breaks some open and is replacing the winners with new tickets when some guy comes in and says 'Do any of you own a white Ford?' and so we all look out the window ..where the Ford is rolling down Cogan's parking lot .. out into the street .. and then up into Dooly's parking lot before loosing momentum and starting back into the street. The poor man ahahahah although it did provide a lot of entertainment for me and both the truck and the traffic survived with no harm done. Chances are good that man will remember to put the emergency brake on next time! I had a laugh .. closed the store .. scrapped off my car .. headed home.

So then I had to try to take a photo before 11.59PM in order to keep up with this 365 challenge. All I can say is day 2 and I was out of ideas. Thank god I didn't start this on a leap year, one extra day might just put me over the edge. So first, I enlisted the help of Blaine. We decided on Smarties .. so we took a few shots of Smarties, but none of them came out artsy enough. Then, we tried using his watch. Was not working for me either. Fast forward to my brilliant stroke of genius: Empty cup. Took a few shots .. they were neat. Another stroke of genius? Smarties IN the cup! Hello masterpiece. Or, really .. hello exhaustion and mildly awful photo for Day 2 of this. Day 3 will hopefully involve some photos from work. Thinking of ideas and then trying to make the photos look even decently alright is really tough. I'm thinking it may even be tougher than trying to think of titles for posts (this current post? Still lacking a title.). Now, I think I may make my tired bones head back upstairs for a cup of tea before snuggling into my covers and some Billy the Exterminator ;)

So without further rambling, I will post Day 2:

Cogans.

Welcome to my world. I get up, make myself a days worth of food and head into the wild world known as Cogan's Convenience. It's not so bad to start .. I put away the magazine order that came last night. I keep a few magazines to read myself and curl up in the big leather chair with the space heater beside me to keep me company. So after catching up on some various celebrities that I don't care about, customers start to arrive. Can I just say, this place should be a reality TV show?!

Odd Customer #1:
He is a regular. For a long time, I let him purchase me a tea (but always paid him back of course) thinking that he was just a genuinely nice fella. So then after about a year, he comes in and he says 'What do you suppose your boyfriend would say if you came to my house to do a little song and dance and drink some beers with me?' ...hence my now awkward encounters with him. He called me THREE TIMES this morning before I finally answered. Upon answering he says "Hi Yvonne. It's me, *******. I'm just calling to ask for the lottery numbers." So I tell him. The reason today is a noteworthy day with him? Next words out of his mouth; "Oh, and Yvonne, just so you know you look pretty with your glasses on. Just in case you were unsure. You are a pretty girl anyway though `insert creepy chuckle here`. Okay, have a good day."
WHY WOULD YOU EVEN WASTE FIVE MINUTES OF MY TIME WITH THIS STUPID PHONE CALL? Seriously.

Odd Customer #2:
Odd Customer #2 is actually a group of 4. At my store, we have a washroom for employee use only. It's downstairs where there used to be movies for rent, but is now just storage. So it's dark, and obviously not where general public should be going. These 4 storm in .. go downstairs .. the girl pees first .. then the 3 men. Then they don't wash their hands (only place to wash your hands is up behind the counter ..hence why the washroom is for employees only) and they yell at me to get them a cab. I call 3 cab companies .. they were all busy and so they leave and go to the bar next door.

Odd Customer #3:
Man comes in. Man says nothing to me and proceeds to walk around the store. I assume he is looking for something. Man comes over to my counter and says "Are you the person working here?!" I reply that yes, indeed I am! "Well do you think you could make yourself helpful and actually ask a customer what they want when they come through those doors?" ...Chill out buddy. I don't generally ask people if they need chip flavor suggestions.

Odd Customer #4:
This guy is one of the craziest odd customers. He was in today but only bought 2 scratch tickets and left, so there is little odd to report. I will, for your entertainment, quote some things he has said to me.

"I thought about you a lot while I was in prison."
"Here's my house number and my cell number, just in case you ever need to talk since we're good friends." (keep in mind, I had only spoken to him for 10 minutes over a year at the store.)
"The government paid me off because they killed my father. They wanted him dead."

He also wrote me a note PROMISING that if he wins $10,000 he will split it with Evan [sic], who I am assuming is me? Although my name is Yvonne.


And that's it for my adventures at work this morning. Oh, although Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban had a kid via a surrogate which is weird to me. How I will spend the rest of this lovely Saturday? Lazing around for a little longer .. then a core workout compliments of P90X and an Anthony Hopkins horror movie. The Rite. I don't even care if rottentomatoes gives it a 15%, I am holding out that it will be amazing. Don't let me down Sir Hopkins!!

Enjoy your weekend folks :)