On the road again - metaphorically speaking

Well folks... you finally get some of what this blog's about again - ramblings on traveling instead of my ramblings on skiing or riding my bike on the indoor trainer watching Tom. This picture has nothing to do with the main content of the post - it's purely gratuitous on my part! lol!! Although I realize now that my post title could have easily referred to getting back outside on the bike. Alas, not yet. So, travel...

This has been the longest stretch in quite a few years that I've gone without traveling - 3 whole months! And you know what? It's been a nice reprieve. I've been focusing on my health and fitness, and working on ramping up to this period at my job that commences this weekend with a conference in the Windy City.

So my travel season begins and you get to visit some interesting places with me over the next few months. I decided to look up some info on Chicago's epithet (a word I learned in my search) to give you an idea on its origin since I'd heard that, in fact, the city was not given that name because it's windy. So here you go... the windiest US city seems to be (according to this weather expert) Dodge City, Kansas at 22.5 km/h (yearly average). Chicago is around middle of the pack, coming in at 16.7 km/h - not overly windy. So in fact, the name "Windy City" does not refer to how windy the city is. That sounded utterly redundant. Keep reading that weather site, or this one to find out more about the possible origin of the nickname - which is actually somewhat controversial. If I get a chance I'll post more when I'm there. And I'll let you know how windy it is too. ;)

The Easter Bunny

Good long weekend. Too bad it's over. :( Training, babysitting my sister's pooch, training some more. Sigh.

Anyway, tonight I remembered a funny story from when we were kids. It goes something like this...

My sister and I entered an Easter colouring contest at the neighbourhood pharmacy in Edmonton. I helped her colour it. She's 3.5 years younger than me. We entered in her name. We won. I don't know if that qualifies as cheating, but if it does I guess we're guilty and it's one of the handful of times I could think that I've cheated at something. I take solace in the fact that I had an accomplice. It's also one of the handful of times I've actually won something! We won an enormous stuffed bunny. We had that thing for years and years. It just sat in the basement - even when we were teenagers. I don't know what you're supposed to do with a giant stuffed bunny, but the dog seemed to like dominating it. And I won't go into any more details. I don't know what my folks did with that thing when they moved. ??

I'm quickly going to mention chocolate so that I can tag it as a post label since it's Easter and all. Yum. Chocolate. I ate a bunch of it this weekend.

It's the weekend already!

For those of you not connected with me on facebook, check this out. It's fun.
Oh, and happy long weekend - YES! :)

Just Checkin' In

Life is pretty busy these days. Work, for one, is really ramping up. I can feel the momentum of the next month starting now. It's kinda fun, but at the same time I am a little apprehensive about work eating into personal time too much. So I'll have to stay cognisant of that to try not to let it happen.

I've been training lots on the bike and off the bike. I hope to take my cycling up a notch this year. The new bike will help. I rode it on the trainer tonight. Wow. It's so nice. :)

I'm learning a lot lately too. I'm reading some good books. I'm expanding my ideas on spirituality and how the mind works.

I'm also in the midst of trying to make life plans. Future plans, travel plans... all very exciting and interesting things.

Like I said, life is pretty darn busy. And that's a nice thing.

Wired

Today my calf muscles are quite sore. Sore enough, in fact, that I decided it would be better not to ski. So I did an hour recovery ride on the trainer - even though it was sunny outside. Kinda sucked not being able to exercise outdoors when it was sunny today, but I did go walking around in the market area with my sister later, and that made up for it. The reason why I'm sore is that I've done quite the training the past few days... interval ride Tuesday, skate skiing Wednesday, strength with Jess on Thursday (where I could feel all of the leg work from skiing kicking in as she kicked my butt with a hard leg workout), and a 90 minute trainer ride on Friday. Then the kicker - Saturday morning I got up and did this class at the gym called skip circuit. I was really excited to do it because it's a circuit training class where you do 1.5 mins of skipping, then head to a station for 1.5 mins to do things like: squats, push-ups, crunches, tricep dips, etc. Then back to 1.5 mins of skipping, over and over for an hour. I used to do this workout every week about 2 years ago when I was still just on the cusp of getting seriously into cycling. I wasn't training on the bike the way I do today, and I used to vary my workouts a lot more. While my body wasn't maybe as fit as it is today, it was used to doing a wider range of activities. This time, 2 years later, with a body that is quite well-adapted to its sport of choice, that skip circuit class kicked my butt, and kicked it hard! I LOVED IT! Yes, slightly masochistic I guess - but I'm learning that taking pleasure in such pain is part of sport. This is something that I need to learn when I'm actually on the road in the summer if I want to be faster and stronger. And it's particularly true when climbing hills because that's usually when you really feel pain. I guess that's why the vast majority of road races are won in the mountains - not only do you have to push through the pain physically, but I think mentally pushing through it is the hardest part. I have a long way to go when it comes to developing my 'mental fitness' on the bike, so that I don't give in when I feel that way. I went to see an Imax movie last night called Wired to Win, which addressed just that topic. The crew followed a team during a recent Tour de France and they showed how your brain learns new skills, overcomes pain, and how (or rather where) to find the motivation to keep going. This was doubly cool for me as I love cycling so much, and I just recently finished studying the brain and the nervous system for an exam so it was all fresh in my mind.

Inspire

Came across this on one of the blogs I read - one of the blogs that inspires me. Sharing something like this is one of the reasons why it does so.

Just click on the music playlist there on the right and then pause it so you can turn the music off to watch the video. :)

Old Man Winter

Last week we had 2 major snow storms within about 48-36 hours of each other. In total we received a dumping of 80 cm! They still haven't been by to plow the sidewalks on my street - and I live on a bit of a busy one in a nice downtown neighbourhood. It's gonna take a while I think. Hmm. Funny. As I sit here and write this I hear a horn honking over and over outside - it's a city bus. It can't get down the street right now because somebody parked on the street. There is seriously no room to be doing that right now. Anyway... the reason I bring this up is that I think a good majority of the people who live in our fair city are a little tired of all the snow. We are a mere 40 cm away from breaking the all time record snow fall (which occurred in 1970/71). As a result of said attitudes prevailing, I noticed some people quite vehemently protesting winter today as I drove the rural highways for my job.

I had to do a double take when I passed a small country gas station and saw a guy filling up his motorcycle. I kid you not. And not ten minutes later did I pass someone with their sunroof open. OK. It was sunny and maybe minus one Celsius or something - but not sunroof and motorcycle weather. Certainly not with 2-3 meter snowbanks all around the roads. So, these people gave me a little amusement and a smile today. Good for them for sticking it to old man winter. I, on the other hand, am still wearing my warm scarf, mittens, and toque. I'll be ready for spring when she's ready to arrive. Until then, I guess I'll have to go skiing and train on the trainer. It's not all bad.

Welcoming a new addition...

Well, here we are on Friday, March 7, 2008. The eve before the second major snowstorm of the week. And I came home tonight with my new bike! Not that I'll be able to ride it any time soon - lol! We're going to get another 30 cm. Wow. It's quite the bike though. I feel a little nervous about having to live up to its reputation. And I was able to get it in blue! It's so, so, so nice!!!! So this summer I guess I'm going to be stepping up my riding a bit - try out some new things, learn some new skills, put my training to good use.

I hadn't posted all week due to a situation of having to cram like mad for the Neurology exam I wrote today - went well (phew!), as well as being really busy at work. Next month we will essentially re-launch my core product and I'll be up to my eyeballs. Hopefully after that though, things will just roll along smoothly. There has been a lot of prep to get to this point, so it should pay off (fingers crossed). I could also have an interesting trip come up for work in the next few months too.

So, happy Friday! And happy skiing! Looks like I'll be x-training this weekend. :)

Mmmm Pasta

Whenever I think of pasta - just think of it - I think of MizB. When the girls go out for dinner we most frequently go for pasta because it's her fave. I've been craving it for the last 3 days. On my way home from training with Jess tonight I decided to stop at the grocery store near my house and pick up the fixins. When I picked up a jar of organic 'garlic and herbs' pasta sauce and read the nutritional facts (something that's second nature to me at this point) I was completely horrified at the amount of salt in a serving: 530 mg!!!! WTF?? I checked some of the other 'varieties' (plainer ones) - same thing. I checked the non-organic ones... again, same, same. Hmm. I just got back from working out. The last thing I want to do is bloat up with salt. And I've been trying to watch how much salt is in my food these days, because it just seems to sneak right in there. Pasta also isn't the ideal post-workout meal anyway, so I couldn't compromise on making it as healthy as possible. So I went over to the canned veggie aisle and checked the nutritional facts on the cans of tomatoes. They have this 'blue menu' line and I found diced tomatoes with only 5 mg of salt in a large can. Score. OK. So, this means I'm making my own pasta sauce. I don't think I've ever done that before. Not that I can't, I'm just lazy. I make all kinds of things from scratch without looking at a recipe, and with throwing things together just because. This will work. But with lower salt I need more herbs and onions and garlic and stuff. So I picked up all of that, including fresh basil (unfortunately not organic, but I think the fresh stuff was important for this venture). So I made it, and ate far later than I should as a result. It was fantastic! And now I have tons of it to freeze too. Score. And a total of 10 mg of salt. Double score. So of course, I ate two helpings. Doh!

The Single Life

This weekend was epic (not a new word, but a bit of a joke - although the person for whom the joke would ring true does not read this blog, funny for me alone I guess). I spent my time skate skiing both days. The weather was the best of the whole season, with the snow conditions being really great - perhaps not the best snow conditions, but combine them with the amazing sunny days and the total package was, well - EPIC. :) Beyond that I did very little else. I did some laundry. I made chili and took it over to my sister's and bother-in-law's for dinner tonight. I did no studying for the exam that's coming up (Neurology), I did not clean the bathrooms, I did not vacuum (something I've been meaning to do for at least 2 weeks now - yeah, I know - gross). I completely flaked out on the couch last night and it took most of today for me to remember what it was on the TV that I was barely half paying attention to for hours (it was Forrest Gump). I did finally do the dishes this afternoon. I waxed my skis twice because I had to change the wax for the different conditions. On Friday I ate peanut butter and jam on toast - 2 pieces - for dinner. Oh. I've even started getting creative with putting together weird combinations of food I want to eat when I'm too lazy to make a real meal. This afternoon, after skiing, it consisted of 2 potato pancake things (these frozen kosher things from the health food store that I wanted to get out of my freezer once and for all) with hummus and salsa on them. Actually, I seem to be putting hummus and salsa combo on lots of things these days. Hmm. Maybe it's not so creative afterall. Oh well. It tastes good. Yes, this is what you call the single life people. The best part about it is that I'm still reveling in it after a few years. I love eating weird stuff and doing whatever I want whenever I want to and not vacuuming and leaving my unfolded laundry all over the couch. It's fun. It's totally liberating. One of the best stages in my life. I'm happy that for once I'm aware - conscious - of what I have today so that I can appreciate it now and not look back later when things have all changed and wish I'd known how great it was at the time. I guess I'm learning that lesson and practicing living in the moment more and more now. So here's to today - and being single and messy and silly. :)

Friendship Amitié Amicizia Amistad Vänskap

Tonight I talked on the phone with my oldest friend for about 112 minutes. At least that's what it was when I checked the phone and told her that we'd been talking that long. Give or take a few to say goodbye afterward. It kind of amazes me that after nearly 20 years of knowing each other that we still have that much to talk about. But we do! Isn't that great? Tonight we were gabbing as if we were in high school. I don't think I've run out of things I can talk to Mir about. And we've come to a point in our relationship that it seems there is no taboo subject. I feel a bit bad for any guys I date - because she gets the full scoop: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Oh well. They don't have to know.

I've made some really amazing friends over the years, and there is a core group of them who are truly sisters to me. If you include the great friendship I have with my sister of actual blood-relation, I currently have 5 amazing women in my life whom I feel I have developed that close a relationship with. I'm a pretty lucky chick. Thanks girls! Mwah!!!

Procrastination

Who would have thought that a little procrastination tonight would keep me up this late, fooling around with the music you are probably listening to now, and looking up quotes on gratitude? Hmm. Interesting. Well, I will have to stop putting off the studying I have to do for that Neurology exam tomorrow, that's for sure. Before I head off to sleep though, I'll leave you with the chosen quote from my little search tonight.

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude. ~Denis Waitley

Red Dot Campaign

As usual, I was hooked on CBC radio today while driving around town and caught an interview with one of the conspirators behind this campaign. When the host of the radio show, Rita Celli, said to her guest, "Why did I not know about this before?" I almost said out loud, "YEAH! Me too - why didn't I know about this????"

All of the flyers and pamphlets and crap that we get in our mailbox EVERY SINGLE DAY go straight into the recycling bin (beside the mailbox on our verranda). Such a waste. I'd love to put an end to it. So, as the logo up there says: Spread the Word. If you don't read your flyers and junk mail - ask them not to send it to you anymore.

Here are some links to help you out:

http://www.reddotcampaign.ca/

http://blog.reddotcampaign.ca/

CSI Potato

It kept bothering me - when did Mr. Potato sprout to life? He's always been around during my lifetime. We used to go to the vegetable stand every single time we visited my grandparents in Fredericton, and last October I stopped in and snapped the photo of him that I posted below. Actually, I have many photos of him from various visits. Maybe I have a problem.

Mystery Solved...
Mr. Potato was born in 1969. Quite an auspicious year.
He's 19 feet tall. I like tall men - likely part of my attraction to him.
And he's got a nice smile. He's very photogenic.
So, next time you're in Fredericton, take a short jaunt down old highway 105 and say hi to my man.

Skin Care & Water Bottles

A while ago I added the Labour Environmental Alliance to my list of sites on the right there. I read a copy of their Cancer Smart Guide a couple of years ago and subsequently bought several copies and gave them out to my family. Actually, I put them in their stockings. I think they thought I was on crack that Christmas. All joking aside, it's very useful and I've changed a lot of my consumer habits when it comes to beauty/skincare products and household cleaning products as a result. I thought I'd share something I just saw on the news regarding baby care products tonight. I'm a moisturizing addict, so I am really careful about what I put on my body now that I'm better informed. I read all the labels and I generally buy most of my products at the health food store now. Some of the brands I use I've listed there under my health section too. There are some great small businesses from around our local/rural area and in Canada that you can support and be smarter about beautifying yourself at the same time.

And then another topic that came up with a friend of mine recently regarding the plastic water bottles. It says a lot when a large Canadian company pulls them off the shelf.

Forced Rest Days

The snow in the Gats was bountiful
And the weather could not be more fanciful
But the boots didn’t fit
Becks soon lost all wit
Now her ankles are raw and painful

OK, pretend the last word has 3 syllables.

A valiant effort for a Science-geek, wouldn't you say?

Mr Potato

Mr Potato, originally uploaded by Becks' Albums.

Another childhood memory. He's still there. I wonder when he first planted his little feet in the ground?

Lilacs

On the ripple blog they have a question of the week and it got me thinking to blog on it tonight...
"What is your favourite childhood memory?"

Off the top of my head/my first thought:

For the two summers that we lived in Manitoba, my sister and I used to ride our bikes every single day to this wading pool run by the city. I think I was around 8 years old at the time. We spent the better part of the day there in the pool, playing games with the other kids, and doing crafts - there was a girl from the university who ran the activities there all summer and I guess was kind of a lifeguard for the pool - although it was a wading pool, so I'm not sure an official lifeguard was necessary. It was the 80's though, I think there was more money for stuff like that back then. And I don't think you had to pay for any of these things either - you were a kid in the neighbourhood and you just showed up. It was so fun. We would bike there through a bunch of different streets, passing some of our friends' houses, sometimes stopping at their houses on the way home, or going to their houses for lunch and back to the pool again. Sometimes we'd ride all around for hours just riding - to the train tracks, to the park, etc. Back then (OMG I'm about to sound old) we were allowed to hop on our bikes and not return home til dinner. Our parents didn't worry at all about where we were. When we lived there I got my first ten-speed. That was a big deal. I never really knew how to work the gears very well. The most vivid part of this memory is the pathway that took us from a residential street into the park where the wading pool resided - it was lined with lilacs. Whenever I pass lilacs/smell lilacs today it brings me back to age 8-9 and biking in Manitoba to the pool with my sister and our friends.

Change Management

Interesting how lessons seem to come around in life like a theme. At least sometimes they do. And if you are open to seeing it, you notice, and you think - how funny (not funny - haha) how that works... Or maybe it's just the universe hitting you over the head with the message to be sure you don't miss it. Of course, some people miss it anyway. I'm glad that sometimes I catch on...

So, I found out that I'm likely going to make a big change in my life in the next few months: I will have to move. Like where I live, is what I mean. It's not ideal timing as I have other ideas for my 'short-term life plans'. I had no short term life plans a while ago, but now I see some forming and I'm excited about that. As a result I thought those plans would come about in the next year or so and then I would start to look at moving. But life doesn't always work on my schedule and according to my detailed plan of attack. My landlord wants to take over living in my apartment himself and it's about a year earlier than I'd hoped we'd have to think about stuff like this. So, this is one big change that I'm sorting out on every level.

Then today I had my performance appraisal at work. It went really well. :) And in the process we talked about me being a leader in change orientation for the other people on my team. Which is cool, because for the most part I welcome change, and even when I'm not welcoming it with open arms, my usual approach to it is: OK, I may not like this, but let's figure out how to make the best of it (kinda like the situation I just described in the previous paragraph). So I'm going to look for a course to take on how to be a change agent - or whatever the catch-phrase/buzz word of the times is for that.

It's nice how you can work on personal and work stuff at the same time. Figuring it all out. Growing and maturing in both areas at the same time and using the same tools and skills for work and life outside of work. Hmmm. OK. Way too cerebral. What happened to posting on bikes and bike gear and cycling and trips and, and... ;)

Some quotes on change for inspiration:

If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it. ~Mary Engelbreit

If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies. ~Author Unknown

Change always comes bearing gifts. ~Price Pritchett

Hungry

I'm hungry. All the time these days. I know I've been working out a LOT, but it's more than that. Maybe it's the weather or something. It's cold. So I feel like I need to eat all the time. And nothing satisfies me. And the only reason why I'm not actually giving in to the hunger and eating more than normal is because I'm lazy. I've got celery in the fridge waiting to be washed and cut so I can eat it with my hummus for snacks and I'm too lazy to wash and cut the freakin' stuff! So then I just don't bother eating. When that happens I just sleep instead. Cuz I'm also tired. I defrosted some of that tuna casserole that I made last week and ate it for dinner because I'm even too tired and lazy to make anything. Or do the dishes. You should see the kitchen. Ugh. :(

I hope I ate enough. Seriously. I'm heading out shortly to my rescheduled xc-ski lessons. And since they are later than my originally scheduled lessons, and it's colder when it's later, and it's the first lesson... I'm not sure how much skiing we're actually going to do. On the first lesson they like to teach you how to wax and talk and stuff - and they do more talking if it's cold so you don't have to be outside in the cold too long. Because you're not going to move a lot on the first lesson - they will start easy drills and make you learn your balance and weight transfer. And I just finished waxing my skis. I already know how to do that too. So why the hell am I in beginner skate lessons again? I already know what we're going to do. If I were the instructor I could write the lesson plan. But the thing is - I need to start from the beginning. So anyway, I hope I ate enough - in case I get to be more active than I think. And I hope I didn't eat too much in case we aren't too active. It's torture, I tell you!

K, I think it's time for some chocolate.