Training my Butt Off!!

Hello homies..guess what??...It is two blogposts in 1 week!!

As mentioned before, I am a crazy cat and decided to run a triathlon at the end of the summer…

I am going to do a Sprint Triathlon, so that means 750 m swim, 20 km Bike, and 5 km run. After getting my bike in April and realizing how much I enjoyed it, and then doing a 20 km bike ride for fun, I realized that I could do the 20 km Bike + 5 km run with some training…and I always have loved swimming/the water, so why not!!

Since I had decided to do this right smack dab in the middle of tutoring time I didn’t have time to start training, but I had time to start researching, and I found a good plan online, it is a 11 Week Training plan, which worked perfectly with the timing. I also added some strength training and some hot yoga so my ideal schedule would be:

Monday: Rest Day
Tuesday AM: Swim
Tuesday PM: Run/Body Pump
Wednesday: Bike Ride
Thursday AM: Swim
Thursday PM: Run/ Body Pump
Friday: Hot Yoga
Saturday: Long Run
Sunday: Long Bike


I started on June 18th with a quick 15 min walk/run, then body pump, and after not doing anything except for biking and hot yoga for a long time I couldn’t walk for two days. It got better.

Swimming is my new favourite  I typically go for a swim in the morning (benefits of living in a Condo) and I find I don’t need any tea or coffee when I get to work, it really wakes me up. It is also super easy to roll out of bed, put on a bathing suit and walk down to the pool. Also, at 6:30 in the morning, the pool at the building is completely empty!

I could get used to this!

Swimming also is the most terrifying part of the training. I know that if I get tired with the running or the biking I can take a break, whereas if I take a break from swimming I drown. Which is why I want to really practice that part. I also have been doing lots of research about swimming learning about sighting (for open water swimming) and getting used to getting kicked in the face during the start (Mike is also practising swimming, so he swims in front of me for practice). So far 200 m/300 m is pretty good, but I still need breaks, still have a ways to go to build up my cardio for swimming!

Having this goal for the end of the summer is really motivating me to stick with it. I have shuffled around the schedule a bit, but overall in the past almost three weeks I have only missed 1 “long” run (20 minutes) and a few BodyPumps. In order to be prepared for the summer, I put all of the work outs from the training program on google calendar, and if needed I can move them around, but I can’t delete them. I also put them on that day, and then schedule the exact times week by week. What this means is sometimes I need to be a bit creative, yes I was at the gym a few Sundays back at 8:30 am because that was the most convenient time, and the past weekend I made myself go to bed at a decent hour on Saturday to go to Hot Yoga on Sunday AM. Who am I??

This morning I went for a 30 min walk/run, and THEN went to the gym for an hour (to make up from a missed BodyPump on Thursday). I made up my own total body workout based on BodyPump moves: 

Every exercise x 10...

Squats with Weights (10lbs), Normal, Bottom Half, Wide

Biceps: (7.5), Normal, Bottom Half, Bicep Row

Triceps: Tricep Extension (7.5) Dips(no weight)

Back: (20lb dumbbell) Dead lift, Wide Row, Clean and Press

Chest: (20 lb dumbbell) Bench Press, Lower Half Bench Press, (5 lb free weights) Flys

Lunges: (No weight) Normal, Bottom Halfs, Lunge with Knee Lift

Shoulders: (7.5lbs) Kneeling Upright row, Rotator Raise/Peck Deck

And Repeat! 

Then I ended with 6 core exercises (10 reps each), which I cannot remember :P.

Oh and stretching..that is important..

And then I biked home. Whew. No wonder I am tired haha!

Yes Mom I typically wear a helmet while biking!

I hope to do a recap every week in the week past in Triathlon Training updates..mostly to keep me accountable!

June Recap in Meme Form!

IT IS SUMMER TIME!!!
It has been 30+ degrees all week in TO, and I am loving it (a little rainy and thunderstromy, but that is ok!) (I started writing this post on the weekend..now it is about 18 degrees...cursed :P)

After finishing up with all of my tutoring students, and moving to a job with less crazy hours, my schedule has freed up just in time for the nice weather..lovely how that worked out!

In the past little bit my free time has been full of Potlucks, Biking, Adventures, and TRIATHLON TRAINING.

Also also...I took no pictures of any of these things...FAIL! So I will describe it in MEMEs!!

The last weekend of May I volunteered with the World Partnership Walk, and spent a warm Sunday morning telling people all about the event. This was after a late night out with my friends, but I managed to make it through the morning (Coffee, lots and lots of coffee!) Mike was awesome and volunteered too!

I may have been the ESPRESSO one!!

Another adventure was paintball…never again. It was a groupon, and I realized spending an afternoon shooting people in a dim lit arena thing, not my idea of a good time. It was also painfull..I got hit in the head and and had a headache for the week. Luckily we only spent about 15 bucks for the whole afternoon. I think laser tag sounds more fun.

This Paintball seems less painful

What was way more fun than paintball: A weekend escape at the Cottage. Some friends and I headed up to my families’ cottage in the Muskokas and spent the weekend relaxing, swimming (it was really cold), and playing hide in go seek, yes we are all in our twenties, yes it was awesome.

Some food highlights from this past month: 2 epic potlucks…

1. Slider themed potluck, everyone brought a different kind of slider..I made chickpea sweet potato burgers from Clean eating magazine, and they were delicious!!

2. Bacon potluck, everyone had to bring a dish that included bacon, we had ceaser salad, bacon weave quesadilla, bacon and cheese biscuits and pork back...and bacon ceasers!!! (Sodium overload!!)

Some exercise highlights:
I got two weeks out of the 11 week training program done pretty much exactly! Finally back on track with going to the gym/working out 5 days a week+!! I will go into more detail with the training program in the next little bit, because over the summer I want to blog at least three times a week, and actually take pictures just not leave memes :P.

Do it!! All the Comments!

What is your favorite meme?? What is your favorite BACON/Potluck idea!?

March April May Recap

Hey bloggy friends!

No I didn't forget about this blog, it just got put to the back burner for a while. But as the school year is wrapping up (tutoring will be ending soon) I will have more free time and do want to get back on the blogging train.

This summer I am going to run a Sprint Triathalon (Ahhhh!). This will be a good place to blog about my progress. I also am finally going to do some DIY/home decor projects, and learn how to photoshop. All of these things are blog worthy!

This past spring there were some blog worthy moments that I just didn't have time to share. There were also some sad/stressful moments that I didn't want to share/didn't want to come on here and be like "Happy Happy Joy Joy". Blogs (to me) are happy places, to share recipes/workouts/projects and adventures, and that is what I will continue to write about.

This blog is also a place where I recap my life so I can look back and see what was up..par example..last year I only posted a few times in the spring too (busy busy!).

So without further ado...MARCH APRIL AND MAY...

My parents came to visit to Easter, and for a surprise my brother flew in for part of it! I had no idea! We were out for supper and my mom wanted to go for a walk after dinner, so we walked down to the City Centre Airport (at 10 at night) and Mike and I thought my parents had gone crazy! They led us around the very quiet ferry terminal, and finally just as Mike and I were getting ready to head back home, we went around a corner and there was my brother!

It was my Birthday in April, I turned 25! In normal fashion it was spread out over about 3 weeks. First Birthday surprise was Mike bought me a bike...(oops no pictures!!). Also a group of us went out for dinner drinks and bowling at the Ballroom! My super awesome friends made me a cake and made me wear a crown and beads!

Chocolate Lasagna

Party!!

With my new snazzy Bike, I have been going on all kinds of adventures. Pre-bike was a 4 hr bike ride with Mike (using a bixi bike) around High Park/Roncesvalles. Biking is the perfect way to get around Toronto (and as a bonus it is exercise!). Since getting my new bike, I have done two 25+ km treks, and a few mini trips around the city.

Some other fun stuff:
Mike and I went to the Canadian Home and Auto Show featuring Cake Boss, Olympic Athletes and the Stanley cup. It was an event made for Mike. It also featured every single appliance and they were all giving out free samples!

Epic Photo Bomb!

Buddy!

This past weekend (long weekend!) a group of us went Hiking at Mono cliffs and then spent the rest of the day driving around Orangeville and Caledon. We found an amazing cidery, and the Badlands, and ended the day with an amazing potluck BBQ dinner.

In between I got to see some long distance friends with a quick visit from Trish, and then I went down to Houston/New Orleans to visit my friend Erin for the week. We were vegetables for a few days (much needed) and went to New Orleans for some site seeing and an Alligator Swamp tour (PS Bourbon street is fun jet terrifying!)

Bourbon St.

Baby Alligator!

When I came back from my trip I had some exciting work things to look forward to. I moved offices to the downtown office (same company slightly different position) which is down the street from my apartment!!! I can walk to work! No more commuting! This will stay exciting until it is pouring rain one day.

And that was my spring in a nutshell..whew. Time for summer to relax...or you know...train for a triathalon!

Anything exciting happen to you in the Spring? Any advice on Bike adventures??

February Is Over...

...and it is already the time change...whhhaaatt??

I hate the "spring ahead" time change. It messed me up today. I couldn't fall asleep last night at my normal bed time (which never happens for me, normally I am out like a light) and then this morning it was all dark when I woke up...BLLLAAHHH.

Ok enough complaining about the time change...

It is March Break this week in Ontario, which means NO TUTORING!!!
Don't get my wrong, I enjoy tutoring, and genuinely like the kids, but working 50-60 hrs a week was getting to me. Now I just go down to my normal job (which is still crazy busy).

To celebrate having some free time this week, I went to Zumba for the first time in forever, and came home and made fancy Tuna Melts! I also watched Glee from last week, and it wasn't that good. I am kind of over that show (except for Darren Criss...A Very Potter Musical holds a special place in my heart....I may or may not have just gotten completely distracted watching half of A Very Potter Musical..whatevs.)

Pesto, Sunflower Sprouts, Tuna and Cheese. Sunflower Sprouts = fancy

I am taking full advantage of my less crazy schedule to fit in more gym, more hot yoga, more eating healthy, and more blogging!

Here is a quick February Catch Up:

1. The weather was gross. I hate winter.

2. I did about 15 classes of Hot Yoga in the month of February. It was awesome. I did a little bit of hot yoga last year, but after 15+ classes and going 2-3 times a week, I am now obsessed. So much so that when my 20 class pass ran out, I bought a new 40 class pass!! I do Bikram Yoga and I think it deserves it's own post...I may get to writing it...in June or something.

3. Mike and I auditioned for Amazing Race Canada. I am pretty sure we would have heard by now if we made it to the next round, so maybe next year! We had to submit a video and the editing process almost killed my soul. It involved downloading 4 softwares and 2 converters and editing the whole thing 4 times. Bleh.

4. Because we are so busy (and since we spent a whole weekend doing Amazing Race video stuff) our apartment was kind of a disaster zone, so Mike and I decided to be grown ups and now we have "chores" to do before we go to bed. Last week we tired it out and amazingly got to the weekend with no dirty dishes, and most of the laundry was done! YAY!

And that is about it!

How was your February?? Anyone else happy it is almost spring?

Snow Day!

Happy Snow Day Everyone!

I woke up this morning to SNOWMAGGEDON!

There is normally a major road in the distance!

I quickly decided to take the day off. It was a pretty good call, since I am pretty sure most of my office took a vacation day today..benefit of being in a consulting business is that the vacation days are pretty flexible. My friend who is a nurse had to trudge to work this morning. She gets a prize!!

I took full advantage of my day off and spent most of it relaxing and watching the 5th season of True Blood (I am finally caught up!!!) and making delicious Banana Oatmeal Muffins. They turned out perfectly!

Recipe from here, with dark chocolate bits added: Source

This was a well needed vacation day, as this month has completely flown by. I have some new responsibilities at work and the days don't seem to be long enough to get everything done. But it is good though, I always work better when I am crazy busy. Add tutoring and other extra activities and I was feeling a little tired. I guess mother nature was on my side today!!

January was also the month of getting stuff done. I have a big running list of things I need to do, and I crossed off quite a few things from that list. I cleaned out my closest, and got rid of 2 large garbage bags of clothes, I made all my yearly appointments (Doctors, Dentist etc.), then finally dropped off a ton of stuff to be dry cleaned and hemmed. 

I still have a big list of things to do, but by going through the list 1 by 1 it certainly helps to stay focused. I also signed up for this 52 week clean home challenge with Home Storage Solutions 101. Every week they send you a challenge that shouldn't take more than 15 minutes a day. So far it has been very kitchen focused, and I haven't done most of the tasks, but I am hoping this weekend to get slightly more organized with the kitchen, and with some of my paperwork. I know I live a super exciting life. I wish I had more time to stay organized...I am way more organized in my head than in real life haha!

In other news this month Mike and I decided to get a NEW KITTEH to keep Moseby company:

Introducing TESLA! 

She is 7 months old, and was completely terrified when we got her from the SPCA.

Once we got her home she warmed up to Moseby pretty fast, but was still quite scared of Mike and I...but over the past couple of weeks she has really started to be friendly, and can sometimes be a little too comfortable.  She has a funny wacko personality, and is totally the bossy little sister to Moseby. It is a Charlie Brown and Sally type of relationship. But today I caught them snuggled up together...it was pretty cute.

Lurking lurker. 

That pretty much sums up my January! Perhaps I will blog more in February...maybe. 

Anyone else enjoying the snow day in ON/preparing for one in NS? Anyone else love Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins???

Mega Cooking

Hey all! Happy 2 year blog-o-versery!

I started this blog 2 years ago to document my free time in the strange between finishing university and work place of my life. I have since 1. found a job and 2. don't really have that much free time any more!

As I mentioned a billion times, Mike and I tutor every. single. night. So that means from Monday-Thursday we have no free evenings. I still love tutoring and it helps with some extra spending money, but this means we need to be prepared to take on the week on Sunday.

Over the holidays I was pinteresting a lot. Like every day countless hours a lot. But in doing this I did manage to find something that actually looked like it could help the Monday-Friday no time thing.

I pinned this link to Loving My Nest for Freezer Crock Pot Meals. What I liked about these meals is that they were full of veggies and weren't all chilli. After looking over the grocery lists and the recipes (which Jessica from the blog has all ready to go), I decided to take the plunge. I did one of each recipe on her list (except for the spaghetti sauce) and added the Goulash Recipe from Mama and Baby Love.

Now what hurts my soul a little is that Jessica from "Loving my Nest" was able to double or triple most of her recipes and only spend 150 for all her food. She found chicken breasts for 1.69/lb. That just doesn't happen here. I made 12 meals (all of which will have double leftovers), so food for 6 weeks, and it worked out to be around 250 bucks (I also did normal groceries for lunches, and a costco run, so my bill was a lot higher!) But still that works out to be just over 30 dollars a week for supper for two people. Not too bad! So money wise it isn't a huge saver, but time wise it should be very helpful.

All the food (except for the meat)

When I arrived home from shopping Mike and I quickly organized what was for the MEGA Cooking, and what was for normal groceries. Next we started washing and chopping all the vegetables. I following the instructions at Loving my nest, and figured out per ingredient what needed to be chopped/diced/sliced etc. I then would tell mike chop 9 carrots, dice 5 etc. We also figured out what an "average" serving of each vegetable was..so one carrot = 1 cup, which made it easier to put together the recipes.

Once we had all the vegetables chopped the kitchen/table wasn't looking too bad. It took us about 1.5 hours to chop all the veggies. I figured that was the hardest part...I was wrong.

Labelling the bags

Next came assembling the bags. I labelled all the bags with the title, the date, and the instructions (ex add chicken stock). Then I started with the bean soup (no meat) while Mike cut up all the chicken breasts. As we went through each recipe things got a little complicated. For instance I had only bought full tomatoes, not "tomatoes with chillis" or diced tomatoes. So when they showed up Mike had to dice the canned tomatoes, and add some jarred jalapeños. Also I made the taco spice from scratch, the enchilada sauce from scratch.

Meanwhile, we also had a chicken cooking all afternoon to get the shredded meat for the tortilla soup, so we had to deal with that, and we had to cook the sausages for the sausage and bean recipe. ALSO...we went to a potluck last night and had to pull something together for that.

At one point, the kitchen/table was a disaster. I think doing this kind of meal prep would be much better suited for a normal sized kitchen not a condo kitchen.

Sorry for the blurry Pic..This was the state of my mind haha

But in the end after a few hours of meal assembling, the bowls of veggies were disappearing, the bags were going into the freezer, and the ingredients were getting put away. The clean up at the end only really took maybe 45 minutes (a few dishes to wash today, but nothing too scary!).

6/12 done!

And typically I spend at least 3 hours every Sunday in the kitchen preparing the weeks food so instead of spending say 18 hours over the next 6 weeks, I only spent about 5. And now our groceries each week should be fairly simple. I have yet to try any of the recipes, but one is going into the slow cooker tomorrow, and hopefully it tastes good!!

Anyone else do MEGA Cooking?? Anyone else like living off their slow cooker in the winter?

Happy New Year 2013

Happy New Year everyone!!!
First off, belated Merry Christmas! I spent the holiday in Bathurst with my family. (Mike was in Halifax, Moseby was in Toronto).  Christmas was great, and nice and relaxing! 

I rang in the new year in Halifax at the free Concert and Firework show with Mike and my parents! It was a blast! Mike and I ended up at our friend's house afterwards for a few drinks to celebrate 2012.
There is something about New Years Eve that I love. I love Auld Lang Syne, I love the noise makers, I love fireworks! And I get to spend it with Mike!

And then there is the new year resolutions...lets recap to 2012. In January 2012 I was bright eyed and bushy tailed, without overtime at work and many hours of tutoring forecasted, and big plans to meet these goals. Since my life (and Mike's) kind of got taken over with extra work some of these goals were not met. But I am ok with most of them:

GOALS 2012!

Blog Goals:
-          Blog 5 times a week
Obviously didn't happen..sorry folks, tutoring was more profitable than blogging. I like the pace that I am blogging at, whenever I feel like it! I don't feel guilty about missing a week, or jumping back in later. I will keep blogging, and perhaps have more focus..we will see!
-          Take more pictures for blog
I tried! Having a smartphone and a nice camera helped. I would like to use photoshop and get into editing photos and learn more about my camera. This may be a project for the summer this year. 
-          Complete a craft/DIY project twice a month
Bahaha this totally didn't happen. I bought stuff to do a project, and pinned a lot of things on pinterest, but this was a the bottom of my to-do list. Maybe a summer thing???

Food/Fitness Goals:
-          January Diet
-          Lose 15 pounds by May 1^st-          Go to the gym 5 times a week
In general I did well with my gym/diet until March/April. I did ok in September, and not too bad in November.  I didn't do that well with going to the gym in the past couple of months, and want to improve. 

ME goals:
-          Actually have a bedtime routine (aka don’t read pinterest while lying in bed then fall asleep)
Umm...kind of forgot I made this goal. 
-          Keep my “clean” clothes off the floor in my room
I did slightly better maybe. I just asked Mike his opinion and he said "I can't remember if you improved"...probably not a good sign. 
-          Remember Birthdays
I still was mailing cards at the last minute and doing last minute gift shopping. Didn't do well with this one!
-          Stay on Budget
Did ok with this one because of tutoring. I still spent too much money on restaurants, but overall not to bad. 

So for this year:

GOALS 2013!

1. Get my E-life organized (photos/files etc.) Mike and I have been having computer/hard drive issues and this needs to happen so I don't lose everything!
2. Get my finances organized..actually go to a bank and talk to someone so I am getting the best account/TFSA etc. Actually be a grown up.
3. Go to the Gym and stay focused on the diet. Run a 10 km in the fall. Do the Mud Run in 50 mins.
4. Pick up my clothes off the floor/be more organized

5. Have more free time on the weekend!!!

What are your New Years Goals??  Can eating more cheese be a goal for me??