New Years Resolution 2010 - week 12

I tried to make this a "green" week and came so close but for 3 minor slip ups. I forgot to take my morning vitamin one day. And once I do that it's hard to make up for it once I'm at work so I had to accept a yellow there. I also missed one training session with Claire. I intended to do some work on her "stand on command" on Saturday night but I went out for dinner and by the time I came home I completely forgot. My third oops was with the goal to eat fruit. I had two servings but need three for a green square. I knew that one would be a challenge so I need to be more vigilant about planning for those fruit servings.

On the plus side, my weak point last week (getting 5 work out sessions in per week) was not only met but surpassed as I exercised all 7 days. They varied in activity and intensity so it wasn't too much... I just lived an active lifestyle this past week :)



This coming week is going to be tricky because I'm going to a dog show this weekend. Dog show weekends are challenging for anyone on any kind of diet as the food offerings are generally unhealthy and packing enough healthy food without a way to store or cook it is an extra challenge so I'm guaranteed to eat out a lot. And I'll be very busy at the show and tired at the end of the day but I wouldn't call it a workout so I'm sure that goal will fall short. So I'll do my best but I'm bracing myself for some yellow and possibly red squares this week.

The new goal for the week is to keep track of what I eat. I'll write down everything I eat in a spreadsheet. Have a great week!

New Years Resolution 2010 - week 11

This week I tried to be sooooooo good so that I would have a full green line on the chart but I fell short by just one little workout. Argh! I'll have to try again this week. The solid green line will become harder and harder as time goes on but I'm determined to do it :)

This week my goal is to put my jacket away whenever I come in the house. I've gotten in the bad habit lately of throwing my jacket on the living room floor when I come in. I used to throw it on the loveseat but since we rearranged the living room furniture I can't do that so now I just throw it on the floor..... not good! It'll make my living room a better place to be if there is less stuff on the floor.

New Years Resolution 2010 - week 10

This was a pretty good week. I only have 2 yellow squares. I missed one training session with Claire (pretty good considering how often I have trouble with this one) and I went to bed after 10 pm 2 nights. But those weren't due to just staying up late... I was at events (an archery shoot and the annual SABA banquet) and arrived home well after 10pm on both occasions.

Here is this week's chart......

Although I like to think I eat fairly healthy I do struggle in a couple of areas. I've addressed some of them already but this week's goal is not about foods I need to avoid but instead foods I need to eat. I enjoy and eat a lot of vegetables but I seldom eat fruit. I just don't like many fruits. Apples, oranges, bananas... not interested. I'm more interested in berries, melons, and tropical fruits such as pineapple, kiwi, and mangoes. Unfortunately these are some of the more expensive fruits out there, especially in the winter, but my taste buds just don't care about my wallet ;)

So my goal is to eat a serving of fruit at least 3 times a week (for me, that's a lot). For the purposes of this goal I do not count tomatoes as fruit as I eat a lot of tomatoes but I need to diversify. I can use juice only for one serving but would prefer not to use juice at all. I tend not to drink juice unless I'm sick so that shouldn't be a problem.

New Years Resolution 2010 - week 9

So this wasn't my all time best week but as each week passes they get more and more complicated so I think my "best weeks" are behind me.

I missed one workout this week (whoops!) and two training sessions with Claire (double whoops!). And one day I forgot to take my morning vitamin so that's 3 yellow squares. Oh yeah, and apparently I have no self control around sugary treats LOL! In spite of my efforts to be good, I had a cookie, candy, or donut 8 times in the course of the week. 5 is my maximum allowed and that really should be more than enough. I'm going to try much harder this week.

This week my new resolution is to put my laundry away within 24 hours of folding it. I wash, dry, and fold my laundry on a lovely schedule each week. And then my clean and folded laundry sits in a laundry basket in the bedroom and I choose my clothes out of the laundry basket when I SHOULD be choosing them out of my closet or dresser. I don't know why I can't seem to do that last step. I don't mind putting stuff in drawers so much, it's the hanging up of all my shirts and dress pants that I particularly hate. But if I don't hang them up then things get wrinkled again. So it's in my best interest to just put them away already! LOL. So that's my goal for this week :)

New Years Resolution 2010 - week 8

This week was a little more normal than the last few weeks have been (because of Claire being in season) but we had the Family Day holiday and it was reading week which threw a bit of a wrench into things. My fitness classes were cancelled but I subbed 2 classes. It was a short work week but a very busy and stressful one.

I fell slightly short in 2 areas. I missed one traning session with Claire and I missed one workout. If I could have counted archery more than once I would have been fine on the workouts as I went to a competitive shoot on Sunday which took all day but couldn't count it and didn't have time (or the energy) to do another workout on top of it.

My latest resolution went well though. I was allowed 5 candies/cakes/cookies and had 4. And no chocolate :) I'm going to try for even less this week. Baby steps for me.

In the past couple of years I have really slacked on wearing my retainer after having braces for a few years. So my goal starting this week is to wear my retainer one night a week. My teeth are starting to creep back to their old crooked positions so hopefully this will stop them and bring them back to where they are supposed to be.

New Years Resolution 2010 - week 7

I'm making a slight change to the format of my weekly new years resolution blog post. I hate to focus on the negatives but for practical reasons I'll only be highlighting where I went off the rails each week. As the goals add up I'll have lots to keep track of without rehashing the details and I don't really think anyone cares how much water I drank or what time I went to bed. The goals will still be there and I'll write up anything that was other than expected.


So this week I had only one real slip up and overall did okay. Claire was still in season (her last week so next week I have no excuse! LOL) so her training sessions went by the wayside. I did 2 sessions but that fell short of what I wanted to do so I got a red square.


As this week contained Valentine's Day, a day traditionally celebrated with chocolate, I saved my day where I'm "allowed" to have chocolate for that day. So my chocolate-free time came to an end after 4 weeks.




This coming week's goal was going to have sweets (cakes, cookies, or candies) no more than twice a week. However, I had 2 already in the first day LOL! So I changed it to 5 times a week thinking that would be a more reasonable goal that I can attain. It certainly gives me something to reach for but hopefully is more realistic for me. If I choose to have chocolate in the week, that will be separate from these 5 sweets.


Although chocolate wasn't too hard for me to give up, I think sweets, specifically candy, will be very hard to give up. My weakness is caramel candies and gummy candies. I must be strong and resist! :)

New Years Resolution 2010 - week 6

Well, this was rather an unusual week.

1. Water - no problem :)
2. 20 mins exercise X 5 - I did 4 formal exercise sessions plus 4 archery sessions. Given that archery is physical activity but not very strenuous I've decided that I can use only one archery session per week as an "exercise session" for this challenge. So for this week I met my 5 exercise sessions goal.
3. Claire training sessions X 5 - unfortunately Claire was in standing heat this week so no obedience or agility class for her. And as I spent so much time doing archery in the evenings I didn't make the time to train her at home. I did 2 training sessions but that's not enough for a yellow square so I have a red one this week.
4. Chocolate only once - I haven't had any chocolate again this week. It really wasn't that hard to give up chocolate I'm finding. I still have sugar and other desserts but none contain chocolate.
5. Take vitamins twice a day - I had one minor slip up. I missed one evening vitamin but didn't realize it until the next day when it was too late to make it up. So... yellow square.
6. No food after 8pm X 6 - Well, this happened to be one of those weeks where my schedule was not what I expected. With Claire being in season and me unable to take her to class I was free to go to archery shoots in small towns in Southern Alberta. Unfortunately this made for some very late nights and twice I ended up having supper after 8pm. I'm allowed one slip up but two = yellow square.

One side effect of all the late nights this week is I was absolutely shattered by Friday as I hadn't had enough sleep. Thus, the inspiration for this week's challenge. My goal is to be in bed by 10pm most nights. Some forgiveness is allowed on the weekend but I would like to be in bed by 10pm even then, if possible, so 6 nights a week is the goal.

New Years Resolution 2010 - week 5

All things considered, this was a pretty good week. I became sick on Tuesday and it never really let up until the weekend. This made a couple of resolutions quite a challenge.

1. Drink 8 cups of water - I bent the rules just a little on this one while I was sick. On the worst days I drank 4-6 cups of water but drank an additional 4-6 cups of orange juice with club soda (my drink of choice when sick). Normally only pure water is acceptable for my challenge but if I'm sick, I think this substitution is fine.


2. 20 minutes exercise X 5 - I only got in 2 workouts out of 5 (again, because I was sick) which is a 40% success rate.... lower than the 50% necessary for a yellow square so I have to be content with a red. The funny thing was, I tried to do yoga while I was sick so I could still get my resolution workouts in. This worked fine for about 2 minutes until they started asking for "deep yoga breathing" which my lungs and sinuses were not going to let me do LOL. I did my best for the session but never tried it again.


3. Claire training sessions X 5 - Claire and I had 5 sessions where we covered the obedience stand, conformation stacking, and free-stacking. It's surprising how good she has gotten in just 5 sessions of reinforcing the stand commands.


4. Have chocolate only once - I can't believe I've gone 2 whole weeks without chocolate. I know I'm "allowed" to have it but I'm afraid to waste my weekly indulgence on cheap chocolate or an early-in-the-week craving. So the situation just hasn't presented itself yet where partaking in chocolate seems worth it.


5. Take vitamins twice a day - Although my goal was to take them with breakfast and supper, I'm really glad I counted success for just taking them twice a day as the times I took them varied wildly.

This week my goal is to not eat anything after 8pm with one allowance made per week. The goal is because almost every time I eat later in the evening I reach for junk food.... either salty or sweet but rarely with any nutrients. These are needless calories that don't get burned off as I go to bed about 9:30pm. The reason for allowing myself one day off from this rule is because my schedule can often be so crazy that I simply can't eat anything until 8pm or close to it. So this is to allow me the flexibility to deal with weeks were I have crazy days like that.

New Years Resolution 2010 - week 4

Uh oh! My first yellow square happened this week.

1. Drink 8 cups of water - almost missed a day as I got busy running around town on Friday and didn't bring my water bottle with me. But I pulled it together in the evening and got my minimum water amount in :)


2. 20 minutes exercise X 5 - I've developed a habit now of exercising each morning before work. Whether it's teaching my class, doing some yoga, or walking the dogs (weather permitting), if I can get my exercise done in the morning then anything I do later in the day or on the weekends is a bonus.


3. Claire training sessions X 5 - Here's where I messed up and only got 4 sessions in. I had 5 sessions planned but life had other plans this week. 4 is still good and I'm giving myself a yellow square :)


4. Have chocolate only once - I actually didn't have any chocolate at all. So I get a big ol' green square for that :) Having a goal and some accountability (this blog) really helped. To be honest, I didn't even miss it. Last week it seemed like an overwhelming goal but it turned out to be one of the easiest so far... for one week at least LOL!

This week's goal is also aimed at improving my health. I take a multi-vitamin twice a day. Well, I'm SUPPOSED to take it twice a day LOL. But all too often I forget the evening one. I'm supposed to take it with food but that never happens... if I remember at all it's usually the last thing I do before bedtime. So the goal is to take the vitamin twice a day with food (breakfast and supper) but if I take it twice, even if it's not with food, then that will still count as success. It's just a matter of making it a habit.

Wish me luck :)

New Years Resolution 2010 - week 3

3 resolutions this week and doing fine. :D

1. Drinking water - never an issue. Getting in 10 cups or more most days. :)
   


2. 20 minutes exercise, 5 times - I started teaching my step classes again which took care of 2 sessions. Then one day I used an exercise DVD, one time I jumped on the treadmill, and one time I went with Vince to take the dogs for a walk. Last weekend I found a bunch of cheap exercise DVD's at Walmart (featuring people I recognized so I'm not worried about the quality of instruction). So I can't say I'm bored with my exercise routine now that I have 8 new 60 minute workouts to choose from :)
   


3. Training Claire 5 times - This was the most challenging resolution as it was a new activity in my routine but one I really needed to do. I worked with Claire in each of obedience, agility, and conformation for at least one session in the week. My lowest priority is agility as I imagine it'll be 6-12 months before she'll be ready to compete but Claire will be competing in conformation and obedience (rally, to be specific) in about 10 weeks so any extra training sessions have been and will continue to be devoted to those pursuits.

For my fourth resolution this year I've decided to correct a very bad habit I picked up before Christmas and have stuck to with great enthusiasm. I've been eating way way WAY too much chocolate. Really, it's all sweets but chocolate, something I didn't even like that much, is something I've gotten a taste for and have been eating far too much of.... sometimes daily and occasionally more than once a day. That's crazy when I used to rarely eat chocolate.

So, with that in mind, I've decided to limit my chocolate intake to one time a week. It can be a "chocolate trio" dessert at Moxie's, a bag of M&M's at the movie theater, or I could waste it on a chocolate chip cookie in the break room at work LOL. I expect this to be the first step for a later resolution that is more restrictive in my sugar consumption but I need baby steps :)

New Years Resolution 2010 - week 2

Week 2 had some challenges. The goal was to do 20 minutes of cardio activity 5 days of the week. I made a minor change from cardio to 20 minutes of any kind of exercise... cardio, weights, yoga, etc. Unfortunately I was sick for 2 of the days early in the week so those were automatically the 2 days off. I really didn't want to mess up the resolutions so early in the year so I had to be really vigilant in getting the required 20 minutes in all of the other days. But I did it :D

The week 1 challenge of drinking 8 cups or more of water wasn't a problem at all. So I get a green square for that too.

As you can see on the chart below, I'm keeping track of my weeks and resolutions. Each week, for every resolution, past and current, I will either get a green square (100% followed), yellow square (mostly followed), or red square (followed 50% or less of the time). Of course I would like to have a pure green chart at the end of the year but I'm sure as the resolutions pile up I will slip up here and there so in the end the chart will look less like a pure green triangle than a Christmas Tree LOL!!

Two resolutions down.... fifty to go. It sounds daunting but I'm looking forward to the next one.

The goal for Week 3 is to do some kind of training (obedience, agility, or conformation) with Claire at least 5 days a week. I'm hoping to enter her first obedience (rally novice) competition at the end of March and although I know she has the basic skills to qualify, she needs to work around more distractions to help with her confidence in the ring. She'll also be in her first conformation show that weekend so although she doesn't need a lot of conformation training, per se, she needs a bit of work with free stacking and practice moving out on the show lead.

Check back next week to see how I did with the new resolution plus the previous 2 weeks. :)

2010... A New Year's Resolution - week 1

My new year's resolutions in the past, like so many other people's, haven't had much staying power. So for 2010 I decided to do something a little bit different. I'm going to have a new resolution each week. They will be small things.... things that a perfect person would be doing anyways... but hopefully I'll be able to stick to them and by the end of the year I'll have 52 new good habits.

For this personal challenge I decided to make the week run from Monday - Sunday. I'll blog about each week's success or failure at the end of the week.

The first week of 2010 was an abbreviated week.... Friday January 1st - Sunday January 3rd. The goal was to drink at least 8 cups of water each day. Drinking enough water hasn't been much of an issue for me but over the Christmas break I noticed I wasn't drinking as much as usual so I used the first few days to get back on track.

I'm happy to report that week 1 was a success. I drank 8 or more cups of water each day and felt better for it :) I think part of the reason I felt better was because I was better hydrated but the other part is because I was getting control over an aspect of my health that I had let slide over the Christmas break. It felt good to have a goal/plan/schedule after some time without one.

The goal for week 2 is to do 20 minutes of cardio 5 times over the course of the week. It has to be done on 5 different days and has to be outside of my normal routine. I start teaching step classes again next week so this is partly to help me gear back up for them after taking a month off. Check back next week to see if I met that goal and was able to keep up with the week 1 goal.

Irony.... Louisa, don't read this one ;)

Take a look at this picture and take note of the gi-normous item in the middle of the living room:

Now take a look at the close up shot of the corner of the item in question:
Irony, anyone?

Well traveled eyewear

Today I wore sandals to work for the first time this year. At one point I slipped my feet out of my sandals at my desk and looked at the bottom of my foot. There was a strange light blue semi-circle on the bottom of my foot. I peeled it off and it took me a minute to realize what it was. Then I figured it out... it was a contact lens!

Last night I was in the shower and I decided that the next morning I would start a new pack of contact lenses. So I took my contacts out while I was in the shower to let them run down the drain. But it seems one got stuck to the bottom of my foot. It lasted through that shower, all night in bed, walking around the house and taking the dogs for a walk the next morning, a morning shower (where I obviously didn't wash the bottom of my foot LOL), and getting ready and driving to work. That is one sticky contact lens. :)

I'm all for appreciating other cultures but.....

This is going to sound racist but I think I have a valid point. Enough with the "Native Awareness Weeks" already!

In the last 2 months there have been:

• A Native Awareness Week put on by the University including pow-wows, speakers, etc.
• A Native Awareness Week put on by the city with more pow-wows, speakers, arts & crafts for the kiddies, etc.
• U of L convocation with native elements in the ceremonies (drumming and songs).
• A native symposium (lectures, dancing demonstrations, etc) held in the university atrium.

These are just off the top of my head... I'm sure there were more events. All this is just a 2 month period.

My question is, at what point is enough enough? I am "aware" of the natives. Having spent many of my school years in this area I've been to my share of drumming ceremonies, round dances, and the like. It gets to a point where it feels shoved down my throat.

When do I get to celebrate my own heritage? There are a lot of English immigrants in Canada.... when do we get to have "British Awareness Week"? Tea, scones, and yorkshire puddings all around. We can wear crowns like the royal family and play polo. Then we can go to a pub to drink Guiness and sing football anthems. I'd sign up for that!

Yoga Workshop

This past weekend I went to a yoga workshop. It was not the experience that I was expecting. I figured we'd do a total of 10 hours (in a 48 hour period) of yoga but instead it was broken down into some yoga, some meditation (also not at all as I pictured it), some chanting (ummmm, okay), and some qi-gong (kind of like tai-chi).

The yoga was challenging but at no point painful which was a surprise. My experiences in the past with yoga have often involved holding poses so long that I lose circulation and have excrutiating pain. But at the workshop I didn't have any pain like that so YAY! Poses weren't held very long and the instructor fostered a very permissive environment where any modifications needed (due to injuries or whatever) were encouraged.

The qi-gong I found to be very similar to yoga so they went well together. All movements were very slow and controlled and required a surprising amount of strength. I'd recommend it for some variety in a workout routine.

The chanting was a little bizarre. I tried to get into it but I never really was able to. I'd do it again and it was a nice break from the yoga but it's not something that came naturally to me.

The meditation was my favorite part. It was very relaxing. We would lie down or sit in a specific position with our eyes closed while the instructor read to us a story or asked us to picture something in our minds. After a few minutes we would finish and talk about what we saw or experienced. Some people got nothing and some had specific images come to their minds.

During one meditation I saw some salmon jumping/swimming upstream, then a shipwreck, then a fire. I was very calm and peaceful while seeing these images which, to me, was odd given that each image involved a lot of activity. So afterwards I mentioned what I saw to the instructor and she said I was probably seeing images from past lives. I had no idea what to say to that as I have never given much thought to reincarnation and it was a bit of a shock to have someone tell me that I had past lives when I hadn't decided if I even believed in them. It was a bizarre and unique experience for sure but one that I am happy to have had.

Dementia already?

This morning Vince turned to me and said "I heard on the radio the other day....." and proceeds to tell me a story. I stared at him in utter shock the whole time.

When he finished I said "yes, I know about that story because I'M the one that told it to YOU two days ago!!! Not the radio... ME!!!"

**Sigh**

May long weekend.... time for a movie review post

Hello my blogging friends. In the last week I have seen a few movies and I thought you might be interested to know what I thought of them. Maybe you are and maybe you aren't but either way I'm going to write about them :)

Last Chance Harvey - the trailer looked promising... a cute love story between Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. But the delivery was slow and, in places, almost irritating. Dustin Hoffman loses his job halfway through the movie (it's in the trailer so I'm not giving anything away) but they never really explained why. Just that he was "out of chances". I finished the movie feeling dissatisfied and somewhat bored. Sorry, this was just a 2 star movie for me.

Star Trek - I think I enjoyed this movie more than most. Based on the fact that sometimes I was the only one in the theater laughing, I got some of the inside jokes that others either missed or didn't find funny. I also love that they legitimately took the Star Trek story in a whole new direction. They can re-explore the relationships between crew members, re-introduce old villains as new again, and enjoy the story-telling devices of new technology while still giving a nod to the original franchise. This movie gets a solid 5 stars from me :)

Slumdog Millionaire - Maybe the fact that I saw this movie after the hype and awards put my expectations too high. It was a good movie but I didn't think it was outstanding. It left a couple of unanswered questions and, frankly, with the news stories about the "slumdog kids" having their homes demolished and so forth, it put a bit of a damper on the whole show. I'll give it 4 stars.

Hound Dog - the controversial movie where Dakota Fanning's character gets raped. It was an okay movie. Dakota Fanning was awesome but she always is. For movie going satisfaction I'd recommend The Secret Life of Bees instead. It's a surprisingly similar story but more entertaining and easier to watch. Hound Dog gets 3 stars from me.

Frost/Nixon - I'm surprised this movie was a nominee for best picture at the Oscars. Yes, the acting was excellent but the story didn't really grab me. Maybe because I'm not a fan of Richard Nixon I was tainted before seeing it. I was mildly entertained but I wouldn't recommend it to a friend. 2 1/2 stars.

Marley & Me - one of the few movies I've seen that does justice to the book. Don't get me wrong, the book is better (it always is) but I didn't feel like anything critical or exceptional had been left out in the movie. I'm not a big fan of Owen Wilson but he did a decent job of being the sympathetic main character. If you haven't seen it, I recommend having a full box of tissues nearby when you watch it. It's a tear jerker but it's worth it. 4 1/2 stars.

Tin Cup - to be fair, this is an older movie although I'd never seen it. To further be charitable, I was tired when I started watching it so falling asleep during the movie may not have been totally the movie's fault. But in all honesty, I can't imagine anything worse than watching an actress (Rene Russo), who seems to only be able to play the same one-dimensional character over and over, unconvincingly act smart and strong while simultaneously watching Kevin Costner attempt to play the wounded hero by either being an idiot or standing around and saying nothing. All this is set on the background of a rundown driving range while Cheech Marin drinks beer, smokes cigars, and tries to be the movie's comic relief. I tried to like it but really none of it was working for me. 1 1/2 stars.

... and I don't care

I'm wearing a sweatshirt to work today even though it's not really dress code appropriate.... and I don't care.

I should be working on finishing up some stuff for a project right now but instead I'm blogging.... and I don't care.

I'm not supposed to work with my office door closed but I am because of the noisy cubicle dwellers just outside.... and I don't care.

I haven't turned my page-a-day calendar to the right date in 10 days.... and I don't care.

All I can think about is food.... and I don't care.

I'm moderately crabby today.... and I don't care.

There are lots of things that I DO care about but I'm too tired to put them in writing right now..... and I don't care :)

Happy Anniversary :)

Vince & I are celebrating are 2 year wedding anniversary today. My mother-in-law said it wouldn't last a year. Vince & I knew better and we are well on our way to proving her very very wrong :)

The celebration will be small this year. We are having dinner at The Keg and I made this for dessert..... http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/05/strawberry-shortcakecake/