November Non-Accomplishments

I had  goals. I had good intentions. You know: do healthy stuff, work out, get my house organized now that the bathroom renovations were finally done. Oh well.

Here is my workout list from November:

01: Crunch Fat Burning Pilates
02: LM Pump & Shred
03: Crunch Fat Burning Pilates
04: 25 min Mall Walk
05: 25 min Walk + LM Pump Challenge
16: LM Pump Challenge
17: Crunch Fat Burning Pilates
18: LM Pump & Shred
19: Crunch Burn & Firm Pilates
20: LM Pump & Burn
24: LM Pump Revolution
26: LM Pump & Burn
28: Rockin' Body: Mark, Move & Groove + Party Express

You may notice some gaps in there...Things started off okay, then I came down with a cold...Finally felt better and had an excellent run of workouts. I was feeling really good! Energetic! Until I started feeling crappy again...It felt like the worse case of allergies ever, but allergy meds didn't seem to help much. I have been exhausted and just dragging myself around...And oh look, it's December.

We did make some progress on getting the house back to normal...The living room is almost cleared of stuff that does not belong...A lot has been cleared from the kitchen...The spare room is still uninhabitable, but I'll get to it. By spring for sure, since my parents will probably plan a visit, which will force me to clean!

I finally feel better today. Which means I spent the day running around the house trying to catch up on at least a few of the things that I haven't been doing. I am now tired, but at least it is the kind of tired that comes from having been busy getting things done, which is completely different from the misery-induced tired I had been feeling. 

At this point, I am just hoping that it lasts longer than a week. Or a day.

I have no pretty pictures to share, unless you want to see more pictures of my new bathroom? I did not pick up my camera at all this month. Granted, November is not the most scenic time of year in these parts, but seems to me I usually see something interesting.

But my bathroom is still making me happy so here:

Seriously; this accent tile! I am so glad we stuck to our guns on this when they said they weren't sure whether we could get it or not. I feel like it makes the whole thing.

The tub and surround that we waited 5 weeks for, with the new shower and faucet, etc. We had a plain, basic shower head before so this feels really fancy! It's a spa, every morning.

Love our new light fixtures!

Especially the vanity light.

I'm sure you are as sick of hearing about my bathroom renovations now as I was of living it for two months. I will try to at least have some cute cat pictures next month!

October: Looks Like We Made It

October sort of felt like everything and nothing.

After 5 weeks of waiting, our renovations got back underway. That took most of our attention. Work was really busy for both of us too. Then we both got sick.

But we made it out alive. Renovations are done, except for one niggling detail - the thermostat for the radiant heat floor is not working. We are really hoping it is to do with the thermostat, and not a problem with the actual floor because I don't want to start over again.

October Workouts
01: 25 min Walk
05: LM Pump & Shred
06: 25 min Walk + Renovation room clearing
10: LM Pump & Shred
12: LM Pump & Shred
13: 35 min Mall Walk
15: LM Pump & Shred
24: LM Pump Revolution + Post Reno cleaning
26: LM Pump Challenge
31: LM Pump & Burn

I really think pictures are the way to go this month.

The contents of our bathroom have been taking up space all over our house. As far as the cats are concerned, that means new and interesting places to sleep.

Work from home days, when someone needs to be around for construction, can lead to entertaining sights.

Lightning, a crash of thunder that sent the cats running, and a freak hailstorm are a different kind of entertainment.

Husband's den got a new hardwood floor, a pretty blue paint job, and then got filled with everything else from our bathroom...

While the new bathroom floor went in.

This is exhausting.

But worth it?

We replaced everything except the vanity - floor, tub/shower, toilet, sink, lights, mirror - and painted. It came out really well. Now I just have to put my house back together. Hopefully by then end of November, I'll have it all sorted out. :)

September: Progress and Lack Thereof

So...Remember how at the end of August we started renovating our bathroom? And then there was the unexpected replacement of toilet and sink, which then did not match tub? So we decided to go ahead and replace that too. We had to order the tub, wait for them to actually make it an ship it, which was supposed to take 3 weeks...And then they lost it! How do you lose a tub? They are not small.

So we are still waiting.

Our house is still a disaster because everything that was in our bathroom is now strewn all over the house (amazing how much stuff we had stored in that one little room), plus we were going to have the flooring replaced in Husband's den when we did the bathroom floor, so that stuff is all over the place.

And...the weather turned suddenly cold. It is is cold in our bathroom, because the radiator was ripped out in anticipation of being replaced by radiant heat tile, and the switch for the fan is gone, so we've been opening the window when we shower. And then the weather got colder and we realized the breakers were turned off for all the rest of the heat sources in the house as well. We did get the heat for the kitchen floor turned back, which made a big difference.

All in all, I've been a bit frustrated and stressed.

There has been some stress eating. And stress shopping. Neither one of those things is really all that helpful. Not going to beat myself up over it, just going to carry on. Hopefully a tub will show up soon and we can get this show back on the road.

Exercise-wise:

• Still enjoying Les Mills Pump. I actually had thoughts about that that I had planned to write here, but I feel like I've used up most of my text for this post already, complaining about my bathroom.
• Did not get very far with CIZE. Unfortunately, I just find it kind of tedious. I end up wishing I was doing Zumba. Though I did like the 8 Count Abs workout the one time I tried it. I should do that one again.
• Overall, I was happy with what I did. Even bumped up my weights for a couple of tracks in my last Pump & Shred session. Hoping October workouts go as well.

This past week kind of went off track - just too many other things going on, but I plan to get going again, starting tomorrow.

September Workouts
02: LM Pump & Burn
03: CIZE Crazy 8s + 8 Count Abs
04: LM Pump & Shred + 5 Zumba Songs
05: PiYo Buns + 25 min Treadmill Walk
07: LM Pump & Burn
08: 25 min Mall Walk + 25 min Treadmill Walk
09: LM Pump & Shred
10: 25 min Walk
12: 25 min Mall Walk + YDL Gentle Hatha #1 60 min
15: 45 min Treadmill Walk
17: 25 min Walk + LM Pump & Shred
19: LM Pump & Shred
21: LM Pump & Shred
23: 20 min Mall Walk + PYL Pilates
24: 25 min Walk + LM Pump & Shred
26: LM Pump & Shred
28: 20 min Mall Walk + Moon Salutation Flow

September Photos
I can't believe September is over already! 

Had to get creative with some containers and old bits of fencing after some of my pots and plants got knocked over. Notice those plants growing in the gravel? They came up from seed and actually produced tomatoes this year. I've had little seedlings start before, but they don't usually produce anything.

Peppers grew really well this year lots of jalapenos!

Random chickadee, just because. :)

This would be one of the tomato plants that came up from seed.

Things were really starting to ripen. It turned cold so suddenly though; still a lot of green tomatoes out there that will probably not ripen now.

At least I managed to get something though - wondered if I would with the deer and raccoons making themselves at home in my yard.

Bundled up and watched the lunar eclipse from our deck (the first phase anyway, then it was late and I had to go to bed; I'm a wimp). The moon looked amazing that night, so large and clear.

September 27, 9:07 pm

September 27, 10:11 pm

September 27,  10:50 pm

 September 27, 11:10 pm

July & August

Where did the time go? I feel like I can barely remember July now.

Summing it up as best I can....

• Workouts were good!
• The weather was mostly excellent and despite the late start, my garden was doing really well.
• Had a few volunteer sessions sorting books for a charity book sale. I like sorting books; I was usually by myself, it was quiet, sorting through books is rather soothing to me.
• Food Truck Tuesdays! We don't have food trucks in Saint John; for some reason a by-law was passed a while back preventing or restricting or something...But basically we don't have any. There is an Air Canada call center not far from our house and there are not a lot of options for eating out in our neighborhood, so someone started arranging for food trucks to come on Tuesdays. It's right on our way home from work, so we've been having Food Truck Tuesday dinners, which adds a little fun to our week.

July Workouts
01: Garden
04: Garden
06: 25 min Mall Walk + LM Pump & Burn
07: 25 min Mall Walk + Garden
08: 25 min Mall Walk + LM Pump Challenge
09: 25 min Mall Walk
10: PiYo Sweat
12: PiYo Define: Upper Body
13: 20 min Mall Walk + Garden
14: 30 min Mall Walk (Harbour Passage)
15: LM Pump & Burn + 3/4 CIZE Preview
16: Book Sorting (Volunteering - 2 hrs) + 25 min Walk
17: LM Pump & Burn
20: Book Sorting (Volunteering - 3  hrs)
22: Garden
23: 20 min Walk
24: LM Pump & Burn
27: LM Pump & Burn
28: Book Sorting (Volunteering - 3 hrs)
29: LM Pump & Burn

 August, well, it's been a little challenging I guess?

• WEEK 1: Vacation! Home to Nova Scotia to hang out with my sister and her family who were visiting from BC.
• WEEK 2: Back to work after vacation. Vacation was too short. Enough said. Also, the deer decided to start eating my garden. Not impressed. Sunflowers, strawberry plants, blueberry bushes, hostas, beans, cucumbers, tomato & pepper plants...So not impressed.
• WEEK 3: Husband starts going to physio therapy because he did something to his knee a couple of months ago and it's still bothering him. Appointments are after work Mon & Wed, and we leave straight from the office, which means we get home a bit late and we're hungry. I was pretty tired that week for some reason too. I think it was a rainy week.
• WEEK 4: Renovating our bathroom. Somehow going into this I was totally in denial about how it would go. The weekend before we were running around, getting ready, packing up the bathroom. Mon & Wed Husband had his physio again. Tuesday we also had our air exchanger replaced. So the downstairs was a mess. The upstairs was a mess. We had to run out on Monday and buy a new toilet, which we had not planned on. Our sink got damaged, so the contractors had to replace that. Our sink, toilet, shower were all bone. Most places don't keep that in stock. So we got biscuit. Which is not the same. Does not match. So we decided to replace the tub/shower...Well,  you see how it goes. Exhausted. Sneezing and sniffling and scratchy throat, I'm guessing from the dry wall dust. Yeah, it was an interesting week.

August Workouts
10: Garden
12: LM Pump & Burn 
13: 25 min Walk
14: LM Pump & Burn (Guess - I know there was another one in here somewhere)
17: 20 min Mall Walk
18: 20 min Mall Walk
19: 20 min Mall Walk
29: LM Pump & Shred
30: CIZE: Crazy 8s 
31: LM Pump & Burn

Workouts Overall:

• I have been enjoying Les Mills Pump, though I have not been following the schedule. I'd like to try being a bit more regular about it though. 
• Also trying CIZE, a new Beach Body program; not blown away so far, but that's maybe not fair since I've only tried two of the workouts. My first take is that I find it a bit tedious, having done (and loved!) Zumba. I'll give it a chance though. 
• Need to start getting my day time walks in again. Things have just gotten busy, but I should make time for it.

How about some vacation photos?

Amazing moon on July 31st, our first night home.

Took a trip to Ross Farm Museum which was a lot of fun. Have not been there since I was a youngster. :)

Always happy to hang out at my Nova Scotia home, but summer is my favourite time to be there.

And a trip to the shore completed our Nova Scotia experience. Okay, there is lots more stuff we could have done, but we only had so much time. :)

And lets add a couple of photos of my poor garden before it completely disappears. :(

This and That

Half way through July already! I actually did start posts a couple of times in June, but never got around to finishing. Seems to be the way it goes these days.

Hmm....June...

We had Rib Fest in Saint John. I'm not really a fan of ribs myself, but Husband was very happy with the whole thing, and I can manage to enjoy some pulled pork once in a while.

This sign at Rib Fest made me think of a certain blogger...

We had a raccoon visiting and helping itself to peanuts in the middle of the night, so we are back to closing the window with the cat door again (so much for my sleeping through the night), and we have bought a fancy new one that can be activated my microchips; the cats are slow to get on board with that though.

I happened to look out the window at work one afternoon and see this rainbow stripe across the sky. It was really pretty, and I wished I was outside somewhere with a real camera, but I snapped this through the window with my iPhone.

Apparently, it is a rare phenomenon, which I did not realize until I saw the news story later.

We've been having some really nice weather lately, and I finally have all of my tomatoes and peppers transplanted into containers (as of Sunday!), and I have my little veggie bed planted. I still have some ornamental plants sitting around waiting to get in the ground, but I'll get there.

The peas might do better if Frank would refrain from sitting on them.

I love this time of year, I love going outside and being surrounded by so many green things. The slope above us is covered in daisies right now. It's pretty amazing.

Last Saturday I impulse-bought a flat of strawberries, so spent a good part of the weekend making freezer jam and strawberry shortcake and generally stuffing my face with strawberries. I'd been thinking I wanted to make jam, then I saw some beautiful looking strawberries, and so...

No regrets.

So when I started to write a post around the end of June, I transcribed my workout log from the notebook I write it all down in, going back to the beginning of March. A lot of yoga, mostly.

I started adding in short walks during the day, usually around lunch time. I work in an office that is part of a larger complex, via pedways, so even in the winter I can easily get in a short stroll, and break up my eight hours of desk job every day. I'm not sure how much of a difference it makes, but it can't hurt. And I've been seeing articles around to web to reinforce that view:

http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/finns-urged-to-eat-on-their-feet-to-stay-healthy-1.2428467?hootPostID=8095be9548395d74ec348b5bcce8cd72

http://blog.participaction.com/en/walking-more-likely-the-single-best-thing-canadians-can-do-to-improve-their-health/


I don't know why, but last week my exercise motivation suddenly kicked in and I am giving Les Mills Pump another try, alternating with PiYo. Who knows how long the motivation will last, but right now I'm feeling pretty good about it.

June
01: 25 min Mall Walk + YDL Gentle Hatha Flow #1
02: 25 min Mall Walk + PiYo Define: Lower + Upper
03: 25 min Mall Walk
04: 25 min Walk + PiYo Sweat
05: YDL Sun Salutations Flow #1 (noon)
08: 25 min Mall Walk
10: 25 min Mall Walk
12: YDL Moon Salutations Flow #1
13: PiYo: Define: Lower Body
15: 25 min Mall Walk
17: PiYo Sweat
19: PiYo Define: Lower Body
20: Garden
22: PiYo Define: Lower Body
23: 20 min Mall Walk + PiYo Define: Upper Body
24: YDL Moon Salutations Flow #1
???

May
05: YDL Gentle Hatha Flow #1
06: YDL Sun Salutations Flow #1
07: 25 min Walk
12: PYL Pilates
16: Spring Garden Cleanup
18: Spring Garden Cleanup
19: 25 min Mall Walk
20: 25 min Mall Walk
21: 25 min Walk
22: YDL Moon Salutations Flow #1
24: Spring Garden Cleanup
25: 25 min Mall Walk + YDL Sun Salutations Flow #1
29: Spring Garden Cleanup

April
07: YDL Sun Salutations #1[AM] + YDL Moon Salutations #1[PM]
08: 25 min Mall Walk
09: 25 min Walk+ PYL Pilates
11: YDL Moon Salutations #1
13: 25 min Mall Walk + YDL Solar Flow #1
14: 25 min Mall Walk + PYL Pilates
15: 25 min Mall Walk
16: 25 min Walk + YDL Solar Flow #1
17: YDL Sun Salutations Flow #2
18: YDL Sun Salutations Flow #1 + Moon Salutations #1
21: 30 min Mall Walk
22: 30 min Mall Walk + PYL Pilates

March
09: YDL Sun Salutations Flow #1
10: YDL Lunar Flow #1
12: 25 min Walk
13: YDL Gentle Hatha Flow #1
??: YDL Gentle Hatha Flow #1
??: YDL Gentle Hatha Flow #2
24: YDL Sun Salutations Flow #1
25: YDL Gentle Hatha #1
26: Jackie Warner Power Circuit Lower Body
28: Jackie Warner Power Circuit Upper Body
30: YDL Gentle Hatha #1

Ups and downs. Sun and cloud.

Three times now I have started to write a post only to abandon it unfinished. Here I go again. This time I mean it.

We're having an on-again-off-again spring. It gets warm and sunny, then turns cold and dreary.

We had a lovely warm, sunny stretch for a bit in April and I had energy. I was doing yoga. I was feeling great. I was thinking: "I've got this! I'm back!"

Then it turned cold and dreary, and my energy disappeared, and I was back in my comfy chair with my e-reader.

Spring is just so slow in coming this year.

 (April 22)

Heading towards the end of April, Husband came down with a chest cold and cough. He was trying to blame me, he says I started coughing first, but he was definitely sick 3 or 4 days before I was.

April 25 I volunteered at a fund raising walk for the community Autism center here. I manned a photo booth for the kids, which was fun. It was freezing cold. There were still patches of snow around and ice in the lakes at the park. I shivered the whole time.

By the following Monday, I definitely had the chest cold. I spent the week working from home, to spare my co-workers from having to listen to me cough all day.

I found crocuses in my garden though.

See how they are inside the fence?

Lasted about a week and then something (deer-can-jump-really-high-when-they-want-to) ate them.

The cough actually took a couple of weeks to go away. My energy to do things was still missing.

Two weeks ago on Monday (May 11), I was at work. It was late morning, getting towards noon, and Husband calls me to tell me he needs me to take him to the hospital because he thinks he broke or dislocated his finger. So we spent about 3 hours at the hospital, and since then he's been wearing a splint and waiting for a call from a plastic surgeon because they think the has damaged the tendons and/or ligaments.

Slowly coming to life.

This past Monday was Victoria Day Holiday. I took the Friday off, so I had a 4 day weekend. Sunday was rainy, so we went for brunch and did shopping, but Friday, Saturday and Monday were warm and sunny. Hello energy! Nice to see you again! I had a very happy weekend doing things around the house and yard. Cleaned and refilled bird feeders. Put out the hummingbird feeders. Spent lots of time digging in the garden. It was pretty fabulous.

And now we are back to dreary. Or sunny. Then dreary. And rainy. But maybe the sun might peek through for a while. Mother Nature can't make up her mind.

The birds are back, and I am once again obsessed with my camera and trying to get the perfect shot of whoever happens to be hanging around a feeder.

Tree Sparrow

(May 10)

White Crowned Sparrow

(May 14)

First hummingbird sighting of the year - Frank and I were sitting right there on the deck.

(May 18)

 Ever wonder what it looks like when a hummingbird is flying straight at you?

(May 22)

So. Slow.

(May 22)

 Irate Chickadee as I use the table which formerly held a bird feeder to pot seedlings.

(May 22)

Hummingbird just went for the far feeder.

All is forgiven when I place the feeder at the corner of the deck railing.