and we keep marching

Well yesterday was not a complete success but given the situation I think that it was relatively positive.

I had breakfast! Fruit smoothie and cereal. Yes, that is correct world I am now eating cereal and for those who don't know I do NOT eat cereal. I have never been a big fan but I have found one that I acutally like.

Breakfast:
Fruit smoothie - 140 g frozen blueberries, 140 g peach/mango frozen, 120 g strawberries, 1 banana and water.

I buy the large bags of frozen fruit and then on the weekend I combined them into "breakfast packs" that contained my mix. I did this with all the berries and then put back in the freezer so that I don't have to measure in the morning. The day before I pull a bag out and put it in the fridge. In the morning I then just put the defrosted fruit in to my magic bullet, add a banana and water half way up and blend. Voila - my breakfast smoothie

Blueberries - 71 cal, 17.1 g carbs, 3.8 g of fiber
Strawberries - 49 cal, 12.7 g carbs, 2.9 g of fiber
Mangos/Peach - 70 cal -(not sure of the rest)
Banana - 105 cal, 26.9g carbs, 3.1 g fiber

approx 220 cal for the smoothie and then 180 Calories for the cereal.

I had lunch too all packed at home!

Then we had stew for supper with biscuits - made by myself and T :) (ok the biscuits can in a mix but I still baked them)

we have left overs for tonight. The only unfortunate thing is that I can barely feel anything from the waist down - I am just numb in my legs and my back, neck and whole body just hurts. SO instead of running I went to sleep. Which worked well until I got up to harvest my raspberries at 12:00 a.m. and stayed up for two hours. Yes, I think we have a new addiction - Farmville.

But I am positive we are moving forward and having success - just one step at a time!

To new beginnings

Well from looking at the success over the last year it is clear that there are only two ways to approach my current situation (1) be disappointed in my complete and utter failure or (2) it is a new year and a time for new beginnings.



Well let's start by facings the fact that the last year was a complete and utter failure in my goals. I set the goals specifically because they were obtainable and because I didn't want to have "resolutions" to be let down. However, I did exactly what I didn't want to do <- bad english :)



But I am choosing to take this as a new year and a new opportunity to start again. I can achieve what I want to accomplish and there is nothing to stop me except me. Take it from me if you don't already know that the hardest thing to know, acknowledge, accept and remember is that your biggest emeny in life and the one that is going to stop you from achieving your dreams is you.



I can remember as a child being told by my grade 3 elementary teacher that I was a horrible failure and would never achieve anything. I do not remember the teachers name, but I remember his face, I remember the class room and I remember his exact words to me. I can tell you that since then one of the most important things is saying "fuck you" and showing him that I can do it!



I went to a private high school and managed to get on the honor roll for at least one of the years (and that was while taking an extra class by correspondence - physics - because I couldn't fit it into my schdeule) I was told that I would not be able to accomplish it but I did. I also graduate from high school and went on to univesity and acheived an Honours Degree in Psychology with a GPA of 4.25 (so take that!) I also wrote the LSAT without studying on a whim (whole other story) and successfully made it through law school. Also, despite being told in first year that I would probably not do well in my dream job I am now working in my dream job (and hoping to be kept on). I also had a child during my law school and people said it shouldn't be done. I can go on and on about those things that I accomplished. Yet it seems that these fade away and my failures come to the foreground when I am the most in need of the support that I can achieve anything.



You see and hear so many people say that you can achieve anything that you put your mind to and when you hear that you believe it and know it is true - but then when you are tested it seems like it was all a big lie.



I need to look at this as a new beginning to my journey - but more important I cannot ignore my ultimately and horrible failure. There are reasons why I failed and did not accomplish what I had set out to achieve. Those reasons include - focusing on everything else except for my family or myself first; becoming lazy; sacrificing a lot for my dream job - and so many more reasons that I know and accept.



For so long it has felt like my life is a big box moving along on a converor belt - all I want to do is slow the belt down and throw as much I can in. I have to realize that the more I try to slow it down the faster it will move. Seems contradictory right? Especially when I am trying to live my life by the phrase "live everyday to its fullest"



How do I grab onto everything that passes by when I feel like I need to slow down to do it and then I just end up speeding up the ride?



Le Sigh> my point - I need to look forward, knowing that I am backed by failures from which I must learn lessons to not repeat those mistakes and I am back by wonderful accomplishments. I guess what I need to know and remember is that it is not about the pluses and minuses and my ultimate score - rather it is about the experiences -> good or bad it doesn't matter if I don't learn anything from them.



With that said I am planning on moving forward and learning from my mistakes and successes.



- I will be meal planning again

- Going grocery shopping regularly and a fixed number of times

- Eating breakfast, lunch and supper every day

** This means being organzied


- I must organzie my home - and this does not mean "clean" as my house is really not dirty - I must put my home together - get ride of the past that I don't need to hang onto anymore and find what is really important.


- I must find more time for exercise (swimming and running - perhaps aquasize again) and not only because I want to loose weight but because I actually like it and because my daughter needs to learn that this is a part of life.

- I must find more time for my familly and for my daughter that is time for her doing the things that she truly enjoys



- I must do the things I love: reading and cooking.

It's been a year

Well it is has been a year since the blog started and it's been 9 months since I last posted. Just terrible. Worse yet is how I feel about my goals.

So the Health related goals:

1. Run at minimum every other day for a total of 30 minutes (increasing speed, intensity, and duration over the year to hopefully be able to run a half marathon by June, and the distance equivalent of a full marathon by next New Years);

Well the running was not going well when I last posted and not much improved in my significant absence - I still want to keep this resolution so it will not be going anywhere!

2. Cut the junk food out of my diet and life (this means purging the house of all bad foods after today);

Well - junk food - if you have been in my office you'll know what this has meant. I will not be keeping this resolution I will be modifying my health resolutions.

3. No more trips to fast food restaurants for anyone in the family;

Yeah well I can dream!

4. A maximum of eating out once every six weeks with health choices;
This has definitely not happened - but this in part to bad planning and lack of organization at home even just in terms of a general schedule.

Home Related Resolutions:

1. Get the house organized and keep it that way. This means keeping the bills and mail organized, keeping the information that comes in recorded;

So keeping the house organized has been a chore and not happened so well (ask anyone who has been over to the house - no comments Nikki ;) ). I have been keeping on track of the mail and everything else.

I think the bigger problem is getting the house organized in the first place. This is what needs to happen first not just clean the house because our house is clean it is just cluttered.

2. Get up and go to sleep at regular and consistent times

This has been a big challenge and it is going to be very important for the year to reach the rest of the goals so this will also not be going away

3. Participate in the 50 book challenge (although I may modify that because some of my books are extremely long e.g., Roots) so I am aiming at reading 15,000 pages based on 50 books with an average length of 300 pages);

I did really well for the first while! I actually think I finished about 30 books within the year (not all of them were posted). Seeing how busy I am with work so far I think a more realistic challenge is one book a month for the next year!

4. Finish my assignments before Friday of each week so that the weekend can be family time;

This became a moot point in June :)

5. Set up a meal plan for the week and follow it;

This also went all to heck one I stopped posting but this will be coming back.

6. Cook one new meal each week;

I don't think that this was a good goal to start - too much required. I will be changing to two new meals or recipes a month. That way I can be flexible on how often and what weeks this has to be done.

7. Track and organize all the food in the house (deep freeze, cupboards, etc.) so that we can help with the meal planning;

Yeah - bad goal it's GONE!

8. Take and post a picture a day!

I think a picture a day is a LOT - which if you know me sounds very strange considering I took well in excess of 10,000 pictures this year!

- I want a new picture a week and I want to start taking some dedicated pictures which I will elaborate more on later.

9. Keep track of all money spent (including cash);

yeah long story

10. Finally, the most important, post to the blog in a regular fashion to keep myself accountable for my goals!

Do I really have to update on this one?

50 book report

#01 Confessions of a Shopaholic (Kinsella, Sophie)11 Can you Keep a Secret? (2004) (Kinsella, Sophie)

#02 - The Darwin Awards: Detailing the Idiotic Lengths to Which Men will go for Sex (Northcutt, Wendy) (Northcutt, Wendy)

#03 -The Darwin Awards III (Northcutt, Wendy)

#04 Shopaholic takes Manhattan (2002) (Kinsella, Sophie)

#05 Shopaholic ties the Knot (2003) (Kinsella, Sophie)

#06 Shopaholic & Sister (2004) (Kinsella, Sophie)

#07 Shopaholic & Baby (2007) (Kinsella, Sophie)

#08 Darwin Awards: Evolution in Action (Northcutt, Wendy) (in progress)

#09 Organize your life - free yourself from clutter & find more personal time (2007) (Eisenberg & Kelly) (in progress)

#10 Roots (Alex Hailey) (in progress)

#12 Remember Me? (2008) (Kinsella, Sophie)

#13 The Undomestic Goddess (2005) (Kinsella, Sophie)

BOOKS ON MY READING LIST FOR THE NEXT YEAR

Darwin Awards II: Unnatural Selection (Northcutt, Wendy)

Darwin Awards 4: Intelligent Design (Northcutt, Wendy)

The Darwin Awards the Next Evolution (Northcutt, Wendy)

A Child Called It: One Childs Courage to Survive

Bitter Fruit (Dangor, Achmat)

By The Time You Read This (Blunt, Glies)

Conflict Across Cultures (Lebaron * Pillay)

Fall on your Knees (MacDonald, Ann-Marie)

Getting to Yes (Fisher & Ury)

Long Walk to Freedom (Mandela, Nelson)

Narrative Mediation (Winslade & Monk)

No Time for Goodbye (Barclay, Linwood)

The Dwelling (Moloney, Susie)

The Measure of a Man a Spiritual Autobiography (Poitier, Syndney)

The Moral Imagination (Lederach, John)

The Pact: A Love Story (Picoult, Jodi)

The Stone Angel (Laurence, Margaret)

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Yes Man!

Meal Plan - March 22 - 28

Sunday
- Safeway meal night
- Chicken breast, Potato wedge, greek salad, Fruit Salad

Monday, March 23:
- Chicken Curry (with chicken, peppers, onions, tomatoes, mini corn on the cob, and pineapple)
served with Brown Rice

Tuesday, March 24:
- Planned: chicken, pasta, and veggies
- actual: cashew butter and jam sandwhich, apple with cheese slices, fruit salad (grapes, strawberries, pineapple, orange and grapefruit)

Wednesday, March 25:
- Planned: Meatballs, pasta, broccoli and beans
- Actual: lasagna, corn, fruit salad

Thursday, March 26:
- Planned: Cod, potatoes, beans and corn
- actual: tortellini, meatballs, corn and broccoli

Friday, March 27:
- Planned: Pork stir fry (with chow mein, bean sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, snow peas, carrots) served with Brown Rice

Saturday, March 28:
- Planned: chicken dumpling soup or chili depending on the activities of the day

food log - March 25

Breakfast
- 1 necterine
- 1 container sliced strawberries
- 1 hard boiled egg

Snack
- 1 plum
- 1 pear

Lunch
- cob salad (lettuce, green pepper, cucumber, sliced ham, cheese, egg)
- 1 peach

Snack
- 200 g NSA strawberry and vanilla yogurt (70 cal)

Supper
-

One Week (Long Post)

So as mentioned I went to see the movie "One Week" staring Joshua Jackson (no I am not a huge fan of his from Dawson Days for reference that is as much as I know). I wanted to see the movie because I extremely intrigued by the concept of the movie. For a long time I have questioned mortality and our place on the planet and movies like this one and "The Bucket List" speak to me on a deep level.

I mean I have spent a vast majority of my life trying to get somewhere in my life where I could truly "live" my life instead of being a passenger along for a ride on the train. Now saying that you would think that I have not done much in my life but that isn't really true either. My first large adventure that I remember was when I was 8. My parents took my brother and I to the mountains. We camped and stayed in Banff and Japser. We walked up trails, when horse back riding. Truly the only thing I remember about this trip is a picture of me sitting on top of a large rock pretending it was a horse. I think the picture was taken when we were at Lake Louise.

At the age of 12 I was extremely privileged to spend 6 weeks in Europe meeting my extended family and seeing many things. Much of this trip influenced who I am today. For example, I go to visit the city of Ypres where there is huge monument to the soldiers that died there including many many Canadians. I go to see the trenches that are still left that the soldiers lived in for many weeks. I got to stand in the middle of a cemetery where the military were dead. I remember asking my family about the cemetery and why it was placed in a valley. They told me that it was not a valley is was a partially filled crater from a bomb that had been dropped. I heard stories of the actions that my grandfather and his brothers took against the invading Germans. I saw the fields where the soldiers walked into their town and saw the house in which they hid my great-grand father from the army. The stories and experiences shaped my and changed me in ways I cannot begin to describe. This experience really opened me up to the idea that the only way I can truly change myself and understand the world around me was by visiting places, listening and learning through interactions versus reading about the experiences in books. Even seeing the Mona Lisa and Nepolian's tomb was largely significant for me.

From my early teenage years until I was 18 my parents would take us west every winter, if not more often, to Ski in the Rockies. It was during this time that I started turning away and not recongizing the experiences and opportunities that I was being presented with. I spent much of one trip studying my Physics correspondence course becuase it was SO important for me to take physics along with all of my normal courses at school. I even had the opporutnity to travel to Comox BC to attend Cadet Camp for two summers and spent much of mine focusing on the details rather than the experience.

once I started university it was about finishing my under graduate degree and then my professional degree. I almost stopped traveling exclusively at this point, got married and made the decision to have a my daugther. then something sparked in me and I convinced my husband to take a trip to the Dominican. Again, on this trip I found myself focusing on the uterly unimportant things. However, I did manage to have some of the most amazing adventures on the trip. Snorkeling, taking public transportation (the gua-gua's) with the locals. Since this trip in 2006/2007 I have an unstopable urge to travel.

Since that time I have been to Cayo Coco, Cuba; Varadero, Cuba; Puerto Plata, Dominican, Victoria, BC; San Francisco, CA; New York, NY; Washington, DC. and we will be traveling to the Mayan Riviera in Mexico shortly.

Each of these trips has had different significance.

Our trips to Cuba have been about the culture, the experience and traveling with family. Our trip back to the Dominican was to visit sites that we did not visit the first time. Victoria was to pursue a schooling course that I was immensly interested in. To say that the two courses I took changed my life is an understatement. These courses hit at a deep level and influence who I am and who I practice in my career. While in Victoria the opportunity presented itself to travel to San Francisco presented itself and I ceased it. I was a wonderful opportunity. We did many things, like ride one of the only boardwalks open all year in Santa Clara, showed my daughter the ocean for the first time. It all made me think about how small and insignificant I am in this world and that humbled me. At the end of the trip I go to take the train back to Seattle and then to Vancouver. Again something I have never done and always wanted to do.

Then the movie "Bucket List" came out and it made me think of all of the ideas and places that I had swirling around my head. One of the things I have ALWAYS wanted to do was to visit New York city and to be in Times Square on New Years Eve.


** unfinished**