Life's Whirlwind Adventures

Welcome to another edition of Friday Five! This Friday Five is dedicated to making five goals for myself this summer! Five things I want to do and how I am going to incorporate them into my summer. 1. Reading, reading and reading. I put myself on a reading hiatus for June.  I did this because I was reading a lot and I didn't want to clean out my school library before the summer hit!  I also used July to focus more on my novel writing so there was that too.  For the Summer I am going to read 14 books, I have already started book number 5 so I think I am on pace to reach this goal! 2. Writing, writing and writing. I love writing, but I find I always make excuse why I can't write, or find other things to distract me with so that I don't actually write.  But I am putting aside an hour a day to do some writing.  This is turning into an hour in the morning before my kids are allowed to get up for he day.  Teddy doesn't listen to this but he is usually...

I have been doing yoga pretty consistently for the last few months.  I am a huge fan of Yoga with Adrienne , but I am determined to master a few yoga poses by the end of the summer. 1. Sitting Pigeon: I love the stretch I get with this pose, but the balance and core strength you need to ensure you are doing it properly, well I have a long way to go. 2. Downward Facing Dog: I am constantly in this pose in my practice but my heels do not touch the ground so that is what I want to get better at. 3.Tree Pose: This is an amazing balancing pose that I really want to get better at, usually I am just hovering my toes off the ground and on a good day I can get them to my shin so I'd love to get them to my thigh. 4. Warrior two: I love this pose but feel a bit week in the legs when I am trying to sustain this pose. 5. Warrior three: Yeah this isn't a pose I can do with any kind of success yet, so definitely have to work on this one!

Oh man holding to this commitment is going to harder than I thought, mostly because it is going to be tough breaking my unmotivating habits.  Television, I am talking to you!! But I'm doing it now, and yes Chicago Fire Is playing on the background, so this five minute post may take longer than the five minutes because the excitement of the show is drawing my attention. So this morning I woke up with only the thought that I had to go into work to get my lessons planned for the next week.  See I'm teaching again and teachers work on weekends.  I try to do it as little and I frequently as possible but it's something that has to happen.   My wonderful husband got up with the kids and had breakfast ready when I rolled out of bed. He can be such a sweetheart sometimes, most of the time.  So after a breakfast of elk sausage and farm eggs I packed up my bag and headed to school. I got right to work at school, Faith Hill Greatest Hits playing on my iPhone.  I worked...

Back in April I signed Lil Man up for Yoga. My boy is a very active little guy and sometimes I think he needs to learn tools to help centre himself.  Since Yoga has been so great to me ( I'll get back at it I promise once I get paid) I thought this might be something that Lil Man would enjoy. I was right!! He loves it, every Tuesday he is ready to go hauling my pink yoga matt out of the van, taking his friend Miss S's hand and off they go into 45 minutes of yoga bliss.  He loves it so much, he comes home and 'teaches' me yoga.  I am hoping he can find a few poses he feels comfortable doing when he is getting worked up at school.  He will sit in a meditative pose from time to time, so who knows. The Kid's Yoga is offered at Universoul .  It is such a great facility and it offers so many unique and fun classes. If you haven't checked out Red Deer's newest Yoga studio you should stop in!!  Starting June 2 they have another 4 week Kids Yoga class and Li...

Ok I know we missed a week here, but there was literally nothing to report.  I went through a lazy stage, and I just couldn't shake myself out of my funk.  I even binged on some terrible foods and then almost as soon as it started I was ready for it to be over and we are back in the saddle again. My neighbour may be a huge inspiration to this as well.  In December she got a treadmill (I hate those things, but...) and after her birthday she decided that was it she was going to use the treadmill every day and she has, even if its just for 30 minutes, she gets on that treadmill and gets to work. It's been 11 weeks and you can see a difference already and because she has done it every day it's become a habit for her!! I sat and talked with her this weekend and I was inspired, I need to kick my work outs up a notch and need to get them to become a habit, something I just do every day.  I can't not do them, I have to do a little something everyday, it's the only way thi...

I'm still euphoric from running my 10 km last Saturday!! I am so proud of myself and I love talking about it, thinking about, reliving it and planning my next 10km run!! So here's what happened this week! Monday: Headed out for a short run, only 3 km this time after the long run on Saturday I didn't want to stress my muscles or over do it!! It was a quick run and I was able to finish it in 23 minutes not quite a personal best but I had increased my running time to 8:1 to see how I did. It wasn't bad, but by the 7th minute I was dying and that eighth minute was pretty slow.  But I did finish so it was pretty good. Tuesday: This has been the year of sickness!! I don't know what happened but I woke up feeling great, the baby and I were going to go for a walk, but then, I drank some coffee, it was a dark roast which I don't usually drink, and I got sick!! It was not a good sick, not that any are, but this was quick and exhausting!! So my plans for anything wer...

So I've needed to take a little break from everything, I'm not injured or anything, and I'm still totally excited about completing this half marathon, but aside from the running, I'm not loving my workouts.  Fitting them in just wherever and doing them alone BLOWS. Blows like the snow is doing right now and I'm  in the mood to shake it up. I'd love to head out to Poplar Ridge to do their workout classes but they are at 7  and between 5-7 I'm running around my house with supper, baths, bedtime snack, and the rest of the bedtime routine so getting out of town 15 minutes before 7 is next to impossible.  So that means I need a class that's later in the day or before 5.  So I'm looking at Yoga Nation, and things at the Collicut or some of the other gyms in town.  It's much easier for me to commit to working out if I have a class to go to, it's so dumb but there you go that's me.  Live and Learn I guess....  I still enjoy working at home wi...

Well being sick slowed me down for two days last week, but I was determined to make this week amazing!! DETERMINED!!! Monday: I went for a walk in the evening and finished 5 kilometres walking.  I would have run, but the paths are so icy right now with all the warm weather we've been having so running is more like a dance with death then an actual run.  But still got the 5 km done in less than an hour. Tuesday: I decided I needed to get started working out in the morning, so I went for a long walk with the baby. It was 8 kilometres of speed walking, but there was also some wonderful ice dancing as well. I was doing some great stretches because I slipped and pulled some different muscles, but nothing is damaged just needed some extra yoga in today, so that was my cross training for today. Wednesday: Today I did a short run of 3 km and then a long walk of 5 km, we were walking at a pace of 9:30/ km.  So it was a speed walk, I also did a few weight exercises and som...

What a week, started off with the Family Day Holiday and that translated into a holiday from working out and it spilled over onto Tuesday as well.  But I got back at things on Wednesday. Monday: Happy Family day!! We all just hung out as a family,  I meant to do some walking and stuff, but I was feeling a bit of chest cold coming on. So I took it as a rest day! Tuesday: Still not feeling great today, I even went to the doctor because the cough was getting worse.  I think I needed these two days, sometimes I really push myself and I can get burned out and I just don't want that to happen. So sorry not sorry for these two rest days. Wednesday: No more excuses!! I went downstairs and did my weight workout, because no more excuses.  It was a good quick workout and just what I needed to get back into the groove of things. But that's not all I did today, I even got a 5 Km run in and some yoga!! For an active day this gets an A+++, now just to carry this momentum o...

You will have to excuse my iPhone photos in this post but it's what all I had available to me while I set up my home gym in my basement! I'm so excited to have something practical to use my basement for, it's such a wasted space area.  It used to be a finished area, but the hot water tank blew and flooded the house, so the flooring was ripped up and it was just a cement basement.  It's a huge area and it's great if it were finished but it's not so it has become a large dumping ground for our stuff.  It drives me crazy but we've been purging and now we have some open space to use. I am also not a fan of having gym equipment strewn in my living room for people to stare out while we are visiting. Not that I'm not proud of my workout equipment, but workout equipment does not make the most appealing decor pieces. So I bought the last pieces I needed for my home gym. Because I like Yoga I needed a foam block along with the Bolster I had bought as wel...

It's another Friday Five!! You can learn more about the Friday Five from our lovely hosts,  Mar ,  Cynthia  or  Courtney !! You can also read some other bloggers fun posts by reading the links at the end of our hosts post!! Today's topic is our favourite Five Indoor Workouts. I'm not even sure I can name five indoor workouts that I love, but I am so excited to read other people's ideas to see if I can bring them into my workouts!! 1. Yoga I am late to the game, but I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE yoga!! IT's so amazing, when I have a good yoga session I feel the same as I do after a run!! So Yes I love yoga, but I do not love Bikram Yoga.  I know lot's of people who love Bikram Yoga, but I am not one of those people. I like to feel like I've workout after doing any type of physical activity, I do not like to feel like I'm ready to heave my guts on the floor.  To those of you that love Bikram, congrats that's awesome, I'll follow a different yoga path fo...

I could sit here and say that I wish that I didn’t gain weight so fast, I wish that I wouldn’t find sitting around watching television so enjoyable, which are true statements, but that’s not going to get me anywhere.   I need to get myself back into shape, not to be skinny (because I don’t care, I love my curves) but to have energy to be able to run with my kids and to enjoy another 60 years with my family.   That’s what I want, I don’t care about the number on the scale anymore, but I do care how many hours a day I can spend chasing after my kids who are bundles of energies and I want to be that grandma that can play with my grandkids in the next 30 years.   So because I’m going to run the Seawheeze in August I have a short term goal (in the grand scheme of things) that   is just for me that will help me gain more energy.   But in order to do this, I have to lose the baby weight (and lazy weight) I’ve put on since I started trying to get pregnant with my P...

About a month ago my friend Marriann posted that she had just finished a 4 week session of private Yoga lessons with Nicole Schulz .  I really like yoga, but I'm not a yogi and I wasn't clear on my body positions so I didn't know if I was actually doing things correctly or just standing awkwardly in weird positions.  So I thought having some private lessons would be amazing. I emailed Nicole and we got started on our lessons in November. I loved the lessons!! They were amazing and I felt great after each lesson.  I now have a routine to do that helps strengthen and stretch my body so that I can enhance my training for the half marathon in August.  I'm so excited to have this routine and I love practicing it, I've just have to get more consistent in my practice. After the first lesson I felt taller, and I just felt more grounded in my life.  I felt a different relaxation take over me but it was very similar to how I feel after I go for a run, I think that's w...