Salvaging my vacation

So after a horrific start to my vacation, the idiotic decision to drive out of town on highways during a snow warning, worse rain/snow and blowing winds plus being a relatively new driver (well a long time of no driving)  in an unfamiliar vehicle...dumb dumb dumb then getting myself to Cochrane so I could get off the road.

Then kind of enjoying the relaxing in a hotel not 5 or 4 star by any means but it was just nice to not have a to do list and just chill. I opted to stay until today also guaranteeing me dry roads home as it was two highways back (probably smart). Somewhat surreal as it was night and day from Sunday.

The trip back was uneventful and I was happy I could park in front of my house. I'm a decent parker too, I do remember acing that part on the test. My evil neighbours have 4 vehicles, a driveway they never use so they are always parked in front of my house. Well I foiled their plans :)

I know have 4 more days of vacation that I didn't plan for. Now the funny part is I have next Friday off and Monday is a holiday. One week of vacation followed by two 4 day weeks - I don't think I could have worked that out any better.

Today I went Halloween shopping as now I'm home. I love Halloween.  I hit the Dollar Store for some decorations and everything was 50% off. I'll have pictures on that tomorrow. Then I hit Walmart for a few more plus the candy.

Then I discovered my tv and wifi weren't working so that took 2hrs to fix.

Tomorrow is of course Halloween so I want to decorate outside and clean my house, do laundry that sort of stuff and get it out of the way.

My Dad's headstone was installed last Wednesday, they called and told me yesterday and sent me a picture. It looks good I'm really hoping Dad likes it now I set myself to adding some decorations as it's now a headstone surrounded by dirt. The reversible vase didn't work out as the way they put the stone or were told my the cemetery guardian to put the stone there wasn't enough space. The good news they're taking that off my bill. I'm going to go into there office on Friday to just buy the vase on it's own. As there must be flowers.

Now I recently became a VIB (Very Important Beauty Insider) at Sephora. Well it came with coupon for a free makeover and a 10% off coupon. I called to book the appointment. I was asked what I was looking for so I told them quite frankly I'm in a rut. After 10 years at the Body Shop I'm not an idiot when it comes to make up but I do find myself doing the same stuff over and over again. Now I'm back in the corporate world and I need to walk the walk. Well the person I was talking to suggest a Personal Beauty Consultation as opposed to the make over, it's 1.5 hr instead of 45 min. She said I could use my coupon but this gives me more time especially if I'm looking for a new look.

I ordered a few palettes to get me out of comfort zone too.

This is Sephora Makeup Academy palette, palette are always risky as not every colour but then you blend. I figured it gives me a whole lot of testers.

I also really liked the Urban Decay Vice 2

I know this brand of eyeshadow has good staying power.

I realize this seems like a lot but I used to change up my look everyday and have turned into the same thing every day.

Saturday is weigh in day as I start Saturday meetings and I need to return the rental car, I have it till Sunday but it's supposed to snow so I'll take it back a day early. I really don't plan on using it much as I want to save on the gas. I'm planing to return it first thing in the morning then go to weigh in.

On Sunday I'll go to church as I haven't been in weeks due to scheduling conflicts. I found out that on Sunday in the church gym there's a yoga workshop with my old yoga instructor. It's 3 hr class focused on dealing with your inner critic. That's what intrigued me. I am my own worst enemy and if this helps silence the inner critic awesome.

Then it will be back to work on Monday.

I did decide that during winter from now on when I head out to the country I'll rent an SUV and check weather forecasts and road reports first...that's for sure.

Hugs!!!

Respect Winter

I've been planning my week trip to my Dad's house for awhile. I wanted to do this towards the end of September but got assigned to a project so I had differ to this week.

My plan was leave today. Just in time for a snow warning.

Yesterday it was 16c and sunny.

I had to pick up the rental today. I woke up and it was raining. The forecast was the rain would turn into snow eventually. On my walk to the train the rain shifted to wet snow. I'm happy I had my umbrella as winter hat or toque wouldn't have helped you today. They gave me a Dodge Charger. I asked them if the cars had snow tires. Apparently none of them. Though they said the check the thread & pressure every time it's returned.

Well the trip home was fine. I foolishly thought this isn't bad. Not factoring in long stretches of open highway with blowing snow.

Well when I got to HWY 1, this pick up truck that was in the lane next to me was spreading water like crazy. It hit my windshield and dosed it completely. I then turn on to HWY 22 then I hit what I should have known would happen.

The snow was more slush and drifting snow was crazy. The speed limit is 100km. Everyone was going closer to 60-70km. Expect one idiot that passed a car when you couldn't see the road. You couldn't see the dividing lines. The Dodge had grip issues a few times. I was trying to stay in the tracks of the people in front of me. Well then I was in front and you could no longer see road. This time the slip was bad. I took my foot off the gas and tried to steer into the curve. There was so much slick slush that I almost wound up nose first in the ditch. I came to a stop and I was stuck blocking the lane. Lucky for me a lovely family of 3 was in a pick up behind me. They helped push me out. I get out then slid facing the other direction. At this point I figured a call to road side was going to happen. Yet again lovely family helped me out.

I knew I was not going to continue. So I stayed slow and steady & headed back to Cochrane where I checked into the Ramada. I had thought to head home but thought HWY 1 and the on ramp to HWY 1 was probably super slippery.

So here I sit at the Ramada. I booked a 2nd night too as I want to play it safe. More snow is coming & temperatures are dropping. The last thing I'll attempt is fresh snow on top of frozen slush. Plus temperatures return on Tuesday and I've seen a plow out.

I went to get something out of the charger and slush was starting to freeze on the trunk.

The more I think about it the moment I saw the warning I should have stayed at home. I know Dad would never had head out in this. Dad had an incredible driving record 60 years of driving accident - a car T-boned us at an intersection. Cars fault. I still remember it. I was 5 and remember waking up on the floor of the truck we were in. He once got a ticket for a u-turn that wasn't allowed. So what I should have done & will now do is ask myself would Dad drive in this.

So today I am incredibly grateful for good Samaritans and the good Lord keeping an eye on me.

Day 12 - Road Trip

Well Hello Everyone,

Let me begin with Thursday when I went to pick up my Halloween Howl race kit. Now the only reason I signed up for this race was because it was a timed 10km according to when I registered. I wanted a timed race to try to get a better corral for RunDisney and this was the last race to make the cut off for Tinker Bell.

Well at noon I went over to the Running Room Eau Claire to get the pack. At noon they were not set up, people were frantically hauling boxes of t-shirts to the front of the store. To the point they trapped a customer inside the store and he had to squeeze through a small opening between the wall and security scanner.

Then I hear them planning two lines, one for the bib and one for the t-shirt. There were 5 people waiting for a bib.

Well I get my bib and realize there's no timing chip so I asked if another chip is provided. I got a dumb look from the bib girl, meanwhile another girl says it's self timed.....what? It said timed at registration...oh Running Room made a mistake. I was so annoyed. Had I known that I would not have signed up.

Then what made me really annoyed was Running Room had my name, email and phone number why didn't they contact those that had registered for the timed 10K that a mistake had been made? They did remove it off the registration page, but they never sent any communication out to say they had made an error.

Well I'm heading to my Dad's house tomorrow to spend a week cleaning as I have garbage bin arriving on Monday. Snow is forecasted tomorrow.

Originally I had planned to get the car, come home load up and then head to Sundre for groceries. The forecast is different depending on where you look but it does look like rain that will turn into snow in the afternoon. So I decided to grocery shop at home and just throw that in the car with suitcase when I come to the house and then go straight to Dad's. That should mean I get there no later than 11am so hopefully I beat the blowing snow. I did not go to do the Halloween Howl, my registration fee is a donation to the Diabetes Association.

Came home and started packing. I'm pretty much organized so all I need to do is just toss in last minute stuff get the car and off I go.

I'm hoping to accomplish a lot, the neighbour who was supposed to help me is a little wishy washy so we'll see if they come through.

When I come home on Saturday I'll be heading to weigh in and make my transition to Saturdays.

I'm hoping the sense of accomplishment will overcome any sadness.

It has to be done and it's just stuff.

Hugs

Day 8 - Scale Games

I have tracked for 8 days in a row.

Today was my first Tuesday night weigh in, and I'm not sure how I feel about night weigh ins. I was very distracted today knowing WI was looming.

Keep in mind I used to go on Saturdays forever, but with Saturdays it was wake up and go.

This morning I was one pound lighter than when I weighed in at 5pm. I had all food and drink cut off by noon.

This week was a little wild. I earned a whopping amount of activity points 39 in all, I over ate by 13pts now that's over and above daily points and weekly points. I do consider it a victory that I tracked it, no lying to the tracker.

This week is all about doing better, stay within my points for one things, keep up the tracking and remember why I want this.

Now next week I'm away so my only option is to weigh in on Saturday when I come back in order to not miss a week.

Then it gets interesting do I go back to Tuesdays and weigh in again 3 days later or do I keep Saturdays?

Now the added pressure of next week is I'm going to my Dad's house to continue the clean up. I rented a garbage bin which will arrive on Monday and get picked up on Friday. My goal is go through the house, the garage and around the yard - the yard to get ready for winter.

I suspect I'll need to rent a bin in spring so the old chicken coop can be torn down. It hasn't been a chicken coup in years and at one point turned into a quasi cat shelter for the huge number of feral cats in that area.

So it will be an emotional week that I'm betting on. Now I drive out on Sunday and I need to stop in the closest town for groceries, I did bring my other WW scale up there awhile ago so I can keep an eye on things. My plan was to bring my yoga mat, the hauling of stuff out of the house into the bin will be my major exercise. The good thing about there is there's no corner store, the closest source of snacks is 30min away. As long as I don't bring any snacky stuff into the house.

One of my neighbours up there was supposed to help me, or at least offered to help me. I gave them my firewood in exchange for helping me. Well they messed up thought it was this week. I only told them 4 times. So now they say they could help me after work, after their kids are in bed. My only issue with that is it will then be dark and this is pure rural territory so there are no street lights. Add in I will have worked all day, they will have worked all day it's just a recipe for disaster in my head.

I know I'll be doing this on my own, which to be honest was how I thought it would be. Being an introvert and my Dad was an introvert so I actually prefer it that way.

In other news I pick up my race pack for the Halloween Howl 10K on Thursday. That race is on Saturday, it will be interesting. I'm really hoping the black sparkle skirt I ordered gets here in time. Tonight before weigh in I found orange fabric to make dots for the skirt.

So that in a nutshell is what's been rattling around in my brain.

Hugs!!

Day 3 - Happy Accidents

Well Hello,

Day 3 on my recommitted journey with Weight Watchers.

Let me start with introducing you to some friends and my race motivation.

Now if you've read me for awhile you already met Run Mickey, Tinkerbell is courtesy of my new friends in the Alberta Tinkerbell group as we're all running Tinkerbell in January. Tink started me on trend with these Pop Disney figurines.

Maleficent is my motivation for Tower of Terror 2014. My goal is to run all of the Disney races by 2015 finishing off with the Dopey in 2015. I've got Wine & Dine, Dumbo therefore the Disneyland Half and I did do the inaugural Tink so that's the only one I'm doing twice.

This guy arrive today, this is to remind me of the strength I pulled from somewhere to finish the Dumbo Double Dare, when I was in Disneyland I searched everywhere for something to mark the occasion and they had nothing little. This will join his friends at my desk. I think he's adorable.

Still to come is Cinderella to represent the Glass Slipper Challenge in February.

I stopped off at different Starbucks this morning to change up my routine and got to walk by this.

I just thought it was a pretty shot of the Calgary tower and a miracle of no traffic mind you it was before 6:30 am. I remember climbing all 802 stairs many years ago for the Alberta Wilderness Association and thought maybe I should do that again.

It was a weird food day, I started well, had a plan and then I went off plan. I tracked it and tomorrow is a new day. I will not lie to my tracker no point in putting my head in the sand. I was agitated today.

After work I had an appointment at Aveda for a haircut but there was a mix up. Apparently another Sylvia had an appointment at the same time and wound up with my stylist and I got a student. It all turned out and I called it a happy accident.

I also got the call from the optical place that my Ray Bans were in.

Love fresh hair and newly trimmed fringe and love the glasses.

Moving on to Day 4

Hugs!!

Back to Meetings - Operation Victory

3 months into WW Online and I know I do better at meetings. Quite frankly I need the accountability of someone else's scale and I miss the camaraderie of in person interaction.

I decided to start tonight. Yesterday I switched my online membership to the monthly pass and I headed to the 5:30pm meeting. Now for years I weighed in on Saturdays but in my last few months of meetings last round I was just a vicious circle. I don't know if it was boredom or the stress of the job change.

Then after my father passed away it just wasn't a priority so that's probably why online was doomed.

Walking into the meeting today I felt different, it also helped that the meeting room looked completely different. I guess Weightwatchers Canada has finally hit my meeting location. I do like the ability to pick out the product myself and not having to wait in line for the receptionist to pluck it off a shelf.

There were far less people tonight then the Saturday meeting but there were a lot of newbies tonight and I really liked that. We're starting together. There are some fun personalities in this meeting too. So I'll stick with Tuesdays for now. I'm also thinking that will help me keep it together on the weekends better too.

I reintroduced my tracking spreadsheet and bought a 3 month tracker, having that sit on my desk holds me way more accountable than tracking on my phone though my plan is track on both. It worked before, no reason it won't work now.

Back to basics again, but this time stick with basics until it sticks.

I will do this

Hugs!

Training - oh yeah

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!

I can't say I enjoy Thanksgiving the holiday itself, I'm a first generation Canadian and this holiday is pretty much North American so I didn't really grow up celebrating it and October 11th was my Mom's birthday.

This I was actually taken at the property I just left long before a house was there. I remember this day and it was only after the picture was developed that I knew we were both in it.

I drove home this morning and the first thing I saw when I was heading down to the car was big giant buck in the yard. At first I was just grateful it wasn't a bear as at first I just saw big animal of some sort.

Well that reminded me to keep an eye out for deer on the way back to Calgary.

Before I even left the region and on to the highway 22 I passed 8 deer and saw one baby deer road kill. One encounter had some sudden braking and my purse which was on the passenger seat landed on the floor.

I arrived in Calgary and returned the car in one piece, though I forgot my purse in the car...d'oh as I didn't see it next to me it went right out of my mind. Luckily the rental dude found it before I left, I wouldn't have gotten far. I also had a backpack and tote bag with me and normally I'm not carrying quite so many bags.

Headed home on the C-Train, made some breakfast and had a headache so I had some Advil and went down for a nap. When I woke up it was time to head out for today's training run.

Oh yeah...training, I can't say that's been going well and it's my own fault. I'm so sucked up with what's in my own head and wondering if I'm perimenopausal as by the time I get home from work I'm knackered. I bought a book a while back called Mind Over Mood, I haven't cracked the binding yet. I'm thinking I'll start that tomorrow.

The schedule said 5 miles today so I headed out, I kept it to a walk as it was supposed to be LSD. My walk is fast enough to finish the RunDisney pace requirements but it was mostly because the last time I headed out was Monday and it was ugly run that turned into a walk. It felt awesome this time.

As I did walk today I'll do the 30min run/walk tomorrow.

I bought a journal in Disneyland mainly because I forgot my journal but I decided to treat it like a training journal not just the stats of the runs but how I'm feeling, what the weather is like etc. Today was my first entry in a while.

I started a countdown on my whiteboard at work to remind me of the days to go to Tinkerbell and the Glass Slipper challenge. There are loads of countdowns on Facebook but their days don't line up to my days so maybe they're counting down to when they leave or when the expo starts. I'm counting down to the 10K of both races.

I read today that RunDisney changed up the corrals for the Tower of Terror, I'm curious if they're going to do that at the other runs especially after the disaster of Dumbo.

The Halloween Howl 10K is in 12 days and that's what I'm hoping gets me a better corral at Tink. It will be cooler weather which alone will help me out.

So the new glasses, forgive the sweaty fringe as I did these post run.

The green accents on the frame made my eyes pop in the store, not sure how it works in this photo.

These ones are RayBan, not something I'd normally go for but when the sales girl suggested them I liked them right away.

The shades are Ralph Lauren, I really wanted Oakley's but their elitest and don't make lenses for my prescription. Boo Oakley you'd think with today's technology and if every other vision company can make lenses they could. Yes I'm a little bitter. When I went to pick up these I ordered a pair of RayBan sunglasses - classic black. I'm thinking the RayBan style might work for running if Oakley elitist morons is not meant to be.

I hope all my fellow Canadians are enjoying their Thanksgiving and everyone enjoyed their weekend.

Hugs!!

Giving Thanks

I write this from my Dad's house looking out on a forest of fall colors. 

It was a strange week. 

Starting with a message from the headstone people saying they needed to talk to me about my order. 

Well that had my head spinning wondering what could be wrong. Add in that I've confirmed a buyer for Dad's Aveo which will be the first of his possessions that I'm selling hit me like a ton of bricks. 

Turns out the headstone issue was just that the block for the reversible base comes in grey & not black which was my original order. Whew that is not a big deal whatsoever. 

I picked up the rental on Friday, which I was a wee nervous about. I got my license at 24 and have driven a handful of times, of course since June far more often as I need a vehicle to get out here. Usually the trips are on a weekend. This was my first weekday pick up. As I was picking it up at 9am traffic wasn't an issue (that's what I was worried about). 

Friday was also my Mom's birthday she would have been 83 today. I promised her that I'd something for her on Sunday. 

I got a Ford Focus, yup I'm going to buy a Ford eventually. I just like it the best after my summer of renting or I call it the extended test drive. 

My first stop was the cemetery to see Dad. On Thursday I had to pick up my new glasses, pics to follow when I can upload them properly. I also picked up some artificial flowers for my Dad so I'm ready when the headstone & vase are installed. 

This is the finished product

I also made a sign for the headstone people. They were supposed to give me a flag but didn't so I made one with orange duck tape & a chopstick. When I got to the grave I saw that someone had planted flowers (now dead due to frost) and there were fluorescent markers plus a Canadian Flag. Now the weird part - my original plan was to use a Canadian Flag as a marker. 

I had thought I'd tackle Dad's room this weekend, yeah the surprise at the grave sight & Mom's birthday I realized I didn't have it in me. I will be coming back for a week at the end of the month. 

This trip I changed the furnace filter & cleaned fridges. I had unplugged the bar fridge but didn't leave the door open so I found a Petrie dish in there...ewwww. Well it's clean now and the big fridge is ready for me to fill it with a week worth of food in two weeks. 

It's still so weird being in this house alone. My mind flashes back to last Christmas the last time I was here with Dad. 

I am blessed to have the parents I had. Though they are both gone they are with me every day. 

Now I settle in for some Hockey Night in Canada which is exactly what I'd be doing if Dad were still here. 

To my fellow Canadians hug those you love this Thanksgiving, to everyone else do that too. 

Hugs!

What's your excuse?

Once again things have been quiet on the blogging front, I've just been plain old tired.

Let me start with something fun.

Today after church I popped into the Bay and found this:

I love the Winter Olympic mittens, they are by far the warmest mittens I've ever owned and I've had a pair of these since they came out in 2010 for the Vancouver Games.This is the first time I've seen the convertible version. Buried behind that is a hoody that says Canada 1867 and it was on sale. The big Canada is the scarf, hey winter is coming.

I had to go to Fort McMurray this week for a meeting. At the last minute I opted to fly out the night before to avoid the being up at 3:30am and not seeing home till 9pm. These offsites are always a foodapalooza as one is sitting in a ball room for 8 hours, then there's a social and the 2hr wait to board the plane home which is typically another venue for another drink and appetizers. On the company flight they now give out snack packs which is a cheese tray. There's two little pieces of cheese, grapes, cut up apples pieces and trail mix (almonds, dried cranberries and chocolate). I was impressed and way better than my normal go to which is chips and tomato juice. However by the time I landed I had breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, social drink & appies, then preflight drink and more appies. Yeah not a great day as the only activity was walking out to the cab and up the steps of the plane.

However I stepped on the scale when I got home and saw a weight staring back that scared me. It was .4 higher then when I rejoined meetings the last time around, now mind you it was a big food day but it also nailed home my complacency. Boy have I been complacent and it had me thinking about re-joining meetings. Then I remembered the whole reason I opted to try online was because I wasn't responding to meetings. My 6 month trial of online ends mid January, so the other part of me does not want to go out without a fight. I will continue with online.

I've dusted off Wayne Dyer's Excuses Begone, I'm reading it slowly and letting it sink in. I am my own worst enemy and the habits I've collected over a lifetime are not getting me to where I need to be. I need undo my programming. I know the thing that holds me back the worst is lack of faith in myself and not stopping to think about what I'm doing or tracking it beforehand to see what it will result in.

101 days to the Tinkerbell 10K and Half, it's not like I don't have inspiration.

Hugs!!!