Healthy Je – Reward time! October 16, 2011

Several months back I wrote about how I changed my lifestyle to become a healthy and fit person.  Well, I’m happy to say that a while ago I reached a healthy weight for my height!  I’m down about 20lbs total and have maintained that for a few months now, and am super happy that I now have a healthy BMI.  Who knew I would enjoy getting fit and being more active?!?  I’ve been a regular at the gym on the treadmill and elliptical machines, have been doing lots of strength training, and until recently have been playing on a kickball team and going on a weekly “extreme” run.  It’s far too cold now for those runs…  We trudge through lakes, creeks, and mud, and I’m a bit of a wuss…

Anyhow, I finally got my butt in gear and rewarded myself for achieving my second main fitness goal (my first was the 5k I did back in August, though I actually achieved this around the same time) – I got a new haircut!  Nothing drastic, I’m trying to keep my hair long for once, but I had had a few subtle layers added in and had my awkward-growing-out-bangs turned into face framing layers.

Please excuse the boob shot that cuts off the top of my head…  I guess that’s what happens when you get your husband to take your picture!  Could be a good thing the top is cut off though – I had just awoken from a nap and had been outside in the rain earlier, so it was looking a little frizzy on top.  ;)

Kickball, yea! September 1, 2011

Did I mention I played kickball over the summer?  I can’t remember if I did, but I had a blast.  I’m pleasantly surprised to be playing again in the fall league.  I know, it’s a little weird that there is a whole kickball league here, but it’s a lot of fun.  A few weeks ago I mentioned to a friend on my team that if his other team needs any more ladies for the fall season, I’d be interested.  *FYI:  There’s a requirement for a certain number of women in the field and in the kicking order.  I didn’t hear, so I assumed they were a-ok on that front.  However, a few days ago he sent me the link to sign the waiver and said our first game was on Wednesday (last night).  Woo!  We have cool tie-dyed shirts (I’ll post a pic another time, mine’s too big and I’m getting a new one next week), and our name is “The F-Bombs.”  I’m not exactly sure how they came up with that name, but most of the team does work at a nuclear plant…  The only downside to kickball in the late summer/fall is the crazy number of blood-sucking mosquito’s.  The fields are damp, so I have about a million bites, including (but definitely not limited to) three on my face and this giant one that I noticed on my arm this morning:

I’m thinking of wearing a long-sleeved shirt under my team shirt…  Any suggestions for a natural mosquito repellent?  I really hate bug spray!

Goal #2 – Fail August 25, 2011

Wah Waaaah…

I had a “brilliant” idea a couple of weeks ago that had I had a month ago would have been awesome.  I’ve been thinking of ways to fill my time this year since the major house projects are complete, and I decided that I should try to audit some courses at Chris’s school.  I didn’t want to say anything until I found out if it was possible, and it turns out that it is possible…  if I applied by the deadline of August 1st.  I’m a little sad that my “brilliant” idea didn’t happen at the right time!  Sad, but I’m sure I will come up with other ways to productively fill my time.

I had actually planned on auditioning here when Chris did, but to be honest, I had a teacher at the time I should have been preparing for auditions who squashed that idea (which really didn’t help with the awuful, awful depression I was dealing with at the time).  She implied that:  a. I wasn’t good enough to get in;  b. I couldn’t afford the tuition; and c. even if I managed to get in and pay the tuition, I wouldn’t get a job from it afterwards.  Boo-urns.  I have learned a great deal from this, and hopefully I won’t make the same mistake again – even if I’m dealing with depression again.

Mistake = Not giving it a shot.  I know that when I work towards something, I can do it.  I realize that there are limitations (ie. I’m not going to be the next Heifetz or Milstein or Szeryng, etc), but after having the opportunity to play with other musicians here actually in the Masters and D.M.A. programs, I know I could have gotten in (unless my audition went horribly, horribly wrong ).  Plus, who knows – I may have even gotten a good scholarship package.  I wouldn’t have been quite as lucky as Chris and gotten a full scholarship (I believe only two programs at the school are fully funded, and violin performance isn’t one of them), but I may have gotten a good offer.  Plus, how could it have hurt my chances of getting a job afterwards more than not doing it???  In the haze of depression, her “advice” seemed sound…  In the clear of hindsight though, what was I thinking taking that kind of advice!?!

Solution = Take advice with a “grain of salt.”  Maybe she didn’t think I was good enough, but my next teacher did and I feel I learned a lot with him and was in a much healthier mindset.  Who knows what would have happened, and for only the $100 application fee, I could have found out for sure.  So in the future, I will keep my options open and go for it.  I’m not sure if I will apply for more studies in the future, but if I ever get the hankering, I’ll go for it!

Sigh.  Too bad for the Goal Fail, but I’ll come up with others.  Any suggestions for how to keep busy this year or what other goals to attempt?

Goal #1 – Accomplished. August 21, 2011

If you read my post about goals a couple of weeks ago, you’ll remember that my first one was to run a 5k.  As of this morning, I’ve done it.  I have officially run a 5k race.  My time wasn’t my absolute best, but much better than I expected to do!  I finished in 30 minutes and 30 seconds, which I’m quite pleased with.  I wasn’t sure how my first race would go, so even though my non-race times generally ranged from 29:20 – 32:20, my goal today was to finish in under 35 minutes.  Mission accomplished!

The race was a fundraiser for setting up a new dog park, so many people ran with their dogs.  I didn’t, because I’m pretty sure Buddy wouldn’t be able to make it 5k, and I’ve tripped over Abigail before when she stopped short to eat something on the ground…  Lets just say that ended badly for my knee.

I can see the finish line!!  Phew.  Slow & Steady… Finishes the race.  :)

Although I’ve been running a little longer than Chris, he already speeds past me on a regular basis.  He twisted his ankle about half way through the run and still managed to finish with a good time – 32:18.

We managed to convince only one brave friend to join us.  He kicked our butts with a time of 27:59.

And finally, a nice (and sweaty) pic of Chris and I after the race:

Chris already wants to run another one next weekend…  I’m hoping he decides against it and rests his ankle a bit instead!  There seems to be a couple every weekend in town or nearby, so I have a feeling there will be at least one more of these in my near future.

As for my next goal…  Stay tuned.  I have a couple of ideas in the works, but I’m not sure yet how realistic they are.  I’m looking into a few things though, so I may have my second goal posted by the end of the week!  And no, it’s not a 10k.

Who’s a doorknob? Not me! August 12, 2011

As you know, I’m fixing up our little house on a tiny budget hoping to at least break even (but maybe make a little profit) when we sell in this awful, awful housing market.  My latest project cost a total of $9 for a can of oil-rubbed bronze spray paint, and took only a couple of hours (plus dry-time) to complete.  Half of the doorknobs in our house are beautiful and original to the house, but the other half looked like this:

That’s some sweet brass complimented by even sweeter rust and paint splotches.  How the previous owners got paint all over all over the strike plates, I’ll never know.

Instead of spending lots of money buying new ones (or living with them, which was the original plan), I decided to have a go at spray painting them.  I actually came across this idea on pinterest here (the original post is from here though).  I figured oil-rubbed bronze would look better than black or a different metallic spray paint, so I went with that.  First, I took all the door hardware off, and then I cleaned and lightly sanded it all.  Then I laid it out on an old piece of plywood that I use for all my spray painting, and stuck all the knobs and screws into some old Styrofoam to make the job a little easier.

Here’s a “during” shot after the first coat.  I ended up doing 3 coats.

I’m quite pleased with how they turned out!  They look MUCH better than before.  I know the strike plates will get scratched a little as time goes on (a couple are already a tiny bit dinged up), but really, they were pretty dinged up anyways before the spray paint, and that’s the easiest part to touch up as needed.

Don’t they look a million times better?!?  And for any of you skeptics out there, here’s a close-up:

They might not be perfectly my style, but they are certainly much better than before!

Goal #1. August 9, 2011

I’m reaching the end of the first year of my “sabbatical,” which  means that as long as Chris’s course of study goes as planned, I’ve only got one year left.  I’ve been putting it off for a while, but I finally started to figure out what to do once I am allowed to work again.  Of course, the dream job would be to play with a great orchestra, but I’m not sure yet if I have what it takes to get to the point of winning an audition.  We all saw how *well* I coped with the stress of school, so I’m not sure yet that I can cope with the stress of the audition circuit.  Only time will tell on that one…  I know I can earn a living as a musician, and I’m pretty sure that even if I go back to the same balance of teaching and performing that I did before I went back for my M.Mus., with a few tweaks I would even enjoy it.  So, since I’ll be happy in work (whichever path I end up taking), I’ve realized that it isn’t a job I want to focus on.  I want to figure out how I’d like to spend my life.

Anyhow, I’ve decided that I should set a few goals for the course of this last year off to help me find a way to keep “happy.”  I had already given myself the goal of fixing up the house…  But that’s pretty much done.  Only two more windows to make roman shades for, and a few little projects here and there.  I have a few ideas swimming around in my head that I have to nail down, however, I’ve come up with my first goal:

1.  Run a 5K.

Although I can already run 5K, I would really like to “run a 5K.”  I started today by seeing where I’m at.  I usually train in intervals (ie. 1 or 2 minutes as fast as I can, then 1 minute at a slow pace to recover), so I wasn’t sure what a comfortable, steady pace would be.  I warmed up for 5 minutes, and then ran the 5K “loop” on the treadmill.  I completed the run in 33 minutes and 57 seconds (according to the treadmill I averaged an 11 minute, 6 second mile) which was a comfortable pace for me.  I know it will be different outside, but I much prefer running on the treadmill…  or on a woodsy trail.  First of all, it’s much easier on my knees.  Secondly, I find I can go A LOT further when I can’t actually SEE the distance I’m going.  :)  The next step is to try it outside…  Hopefully that will be as painless as the treadmill!

Oh, and I’ve registered for my first one.  It’s coming up in about a week and a half on August 21st.  Wish me luck!

*Update:  I tried again the next day, and my time was 32 minutes and 52 seconds.  Woot!

A Happy Anniversary :) August 8, 2011

Chris and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary the other day, and this is what I woke up to (well, almost.  I put them in the vase):

I have such a sweet hubby!  These are the same kind of calla lillies that were in my wedding bouquet.  In case you haven’t seen them already, this is what it looked like (you’ll have to imagine the colours from the above pic):

I’m sure he had all the ladies swooning in the flower shop over the fact that he remembered what kind & colour my bouquet flowers were.  ;)

This was actually the first anniversary since our 3rd that we’ve been able to celebrate together.  The last couple of years I’ve been in Banff for their summer masterclass and orchestra programs, and Chris has been away at conducting institutes.  Since this was kinda major that we were in the same city for our anniversary, we spent a lovely day together.  We slept in (ok, I slept in), and then went to our favourite little diner for brunch.  After that we went to an outdoor artsy-fartsy festival for a few hours and enjoyed the good weather, then to dinner and a movie.  Overall, a very happy anniversary.  :)

Buh-Bye Blinds; Hello Roman Shades! July 14, 2011

I’ve been sewing away lately making roman shades for my dining room, living room, and stairwell window.  They are time consuming to make, but much less expensive than buying new blinds or shades to fit and in the end look pretty good!  Here are a few before and afters:

Check out the dingy, once-was-white blinds in the dining room left behind by the previous owner:

And the much prettier (and cleaner) roman shades:

Here’s a before shot of the just-as-grungy living room blinds:

And the much nicer after shots:

I’m so glad I never have to touch those old blinds again!

Swamp Water July 12, 2011

I went on my second “hash” last Thursday and I dragged my hubby along with me.  In case you forgot – it’s extreme running with some beer stops along the way.  Probably not the best one to bring him to…  But he liked it and I think we’ll be going together from now on.  This one was BRUTAL.  and gross.  but still loads of fun.  We had to trudge through a swampy pond, and for much of it I was chest deep.  No exaggeration.  I was submerged just past my chest in swampy pond water.  Mmmmm….   My feet got stuck in the mud underwater at one point and I had to get someone ahead of me to pull me out.  Not fun.  Then the trail wasn’t marked clearly enough, and a group of 8 of us were lost for quite some time…  The rest of the gang took off after the swamp, but by the time the last of us got out we didn’t know which direction they went in and the flour markings were no longer clear.  It took us a while to find our way, and at this point I got about 20 mosquito bites.  No exaggeration.  I still have giant red welts all over my arms and back to prove it.

Because we got lost, we only had about a minute at the first beer stop (for me, it was a water stop – I don’t know how they do it) to catch our breath before taking off again.  We then got to go right into another swamp, but it was only ankle deep this time.  Phew.  Up next was a swim across a lake.  Really.  At one point, a couple in a canoe sailed on by while I was crossing.  My feet couldn’t reach the bottom, so picture me (an avid awful swimmer) holding a water bottle trying to swim across a lake in running shoes, fully clothed.  At least it got some of the swamp stench out…  Anyhow, things got better after that, and by the end of the 7-8 mile run I was feeling much better about the hash.  Well, maybe just less bad about the swamp.  I’m pretty sure if the same guy routes a hash again though, I’ll stay home for that one.

Baby Moustaches July 8, 2011

I just got back from a visit home (more on that later), and it was pretty exciting for me because I got to see my brother and pregnant sister-in-law.  They’re expecting their first baby (a boy!) in October.  It’s the first grandchild on both sides, so our whole family is freakin’  thrilled.  I brought a little something for their soon-to-be little man:

I re-packaged them (with a few modifications to allow room for the ‘staches) so they’d have all the relevant safety info:

They were SUPER easy to make.  Here’s the how-to:

1.  I cut off the clear part of the packaging with an exacto knife so I could re-package it as close to the original as possible.

2.  I printed out some moustache printables here and cut out my faves.

3.  I then traced them onto foam sheets that I got at the dollar store using a pencil.

4.  Then I cut out the moustaches using an exacto knife.

5.  After that I pulled out my trusty superglue, and with a few dabs, voila!

6.  I cut out holes on the side of the clear packaging to make room for the ‘staches, taped it back on, and it was ready to pass on to the parents-to-be!

I can hardly wait to see pictures of the little guy using these…