Be Proud!

I know it's been a while since I've blogged, but today I read a blog that is truly inspiring. Read it here . It's about how even though we are slow runners, it doesn't mean that we're not "real runners".

When I went home for vacation a few weeks ago, I was told that someone said that I didn't have a runner's body, therefore I couldn't possibly be a runner. I'm not going to lie, it really hurt. It's true, I'm 5'1 and I'm on the high end of the BMI scale for my height. Just because I don't have a "runner's body" doesn't mean I can't run. It just means that I have to work harder and I'm ok with that.

I run because I love it and I am so proud of my accomplishments. Last weekend I ran my second 10k race. I came in 88th place out of 94 people. I also shaved 2:30 minutes off my time! It took me 1:05:40 to finish this race. You know what? I'm damn proud of that! So what, I have to take a walking break every 2k and I sometimes feel like crying in the middle of my run, but no one can say that I'm not a runner.

To all of the other slow runners out there: keep going, keep on believing in yourself, surround yourself with people who love and support you and most of all, be proud of yourself and all of your accomplishments!

Five things Wednesdays

It's hard picking five things that are healthy that I love this week. I was working over nights on the weekend and I find it really hard to be healthy when my sleeping pattern has changed. So here it goes!

1. Sleep! It's no secret, sleeping has always been one of my favorite things to do. After having a broken up sleep on the weekend I can really appreciate getting 8 hours of straight sleep.
2. My water bottle belt. I love how convenient it is to carry my water around my waist on a long run. Plus it has a little zippered pocket that I can put my Ipod and lip gloss in!
3. Sweet potatoes. They're packed with fiber and a good source of vitamin A and C. I'd rather eat these instead of white potatoes any day.
4. Blueberries. I'm loving them in plain organic yogurt with a bit of honey and cinnamon. So yummy!
5. A good vet. After the fiasco yesterday, I am so thankful that we have such a good vet that can always squeeze us in whenever there's an emergency. They are so friendly and Maddie loves all the attention she gets when she goes there.

I'm taking the night off tonight. I'm going to relax and fold some laundry and wait for my organics to get here! Have a good one!

Crazy Day!

So today was a little crazy. I looked at Maddie and under her right eye was swollen. When I checked on her again in 5 minutes both side of her nose were swollen. I didn't know what to do! I was in tears when I phoned the vet. They told me to bring her in right away, it sounded like she was having an allergic reaction. Two shots and $100 later, Maddie's face is almost back to normal. My poor baby!

I went for my first run after working nights this weekend. I wasn't planning on going for a long run but I tried out a new route without mapping it first and ended up going 9.5k! After 5.5k my body rejected me and I thought I was going to die! It took another 1k to get over that feeling. I have a feeling I'm going to be sore tomorrow. I better get a quick shower and put my ice cold magic bag on my legs!

Five Things Wednesdays

OK, so I'm going to try to post 5 things every Wednesday that I like right now. The 5 things will have to do about living a healthy lifestyle and fitness.

This week's five things:

1. Water - I carry water all around the house with me when I'm home. You can never get too much water.
2. Jillian Michaels yoga meltdown dvd - I did this the other night and it was challenging, but it went by really fast!
3. Avocados - So yummy and good for you! I put it in salads, on sandwiches and I even made guacamole tonight and put it on my chicken breast burger instead of BBQ sauce.
4. Putting my magic bag in the freezer and putting it on my legs after a hard run. It feels so nice.
5. Taking Maddie out for a walk. Look at how happy she looks!

I hope you're having a great week so far! It's almost the weekend!

My 1st 10k!

Last Sunday I ran my first 10k! It didn't turn out how I expected, but I am still proud of my accomplishment. On the race day I decided that I would walk to where the race started, I misjudged how long it would take me to get there and I only made it 15 minutes before my race started! Once I got there, I couldn't find the bag check! I asked other runners and they couldn't find it either. They were putting their things in the bushes and hoping no one would take it. I found a tennis club next to the starting line, so I put my stuff in a locker without a lock and hoped for the best! Needless to say, I started the race stressed out.

My other complaint about the race is the water station. The info sheet about the race said that there would be 3 water stations on the 10k route. I thought that would be sufficient so I didn't wear my water bottle belt. There only ended up being one station! After the 2k mark!! I was DYING of thirst by the end of the race. I'm so lucky that it wasn't hot that day. The fact that I was so dehydrated, made the last 3k so hard to run. I had to stop and walk a lot more often then I was planning.

All in all I'm very happy that I was able to finish my first 10k race in 1:08:01. This poorly planned race definitely won't stop me from running in another 10k race. I just might have my eyes set on another 10k in september!

Revamping restaurant faves

Almost every weekend we go out for breakfast at our favorite local diner Belmont diner . The food is so yummy there, but oh so bad for you. My favorite dish is called the cody scramble, it's scrambled eggs with veggies and lots of cheese on top with hashbrowns and toast. Today I thought I'd save myself some calories and try to make a healthier version at home. I used one egg and one egg white, veggies: carrots, spinach, tomato and green onion, and just a little sprinkle of parmesan cheese on top and some orange slices on the side. It was very tasty, but I'm not gonna lie, not as good as the Belmont, but I didn't feel sick or like I needed a nap after I ate it.



Have you ever tried to recreate your favorite restaurant dish at home? How did it turn out?

Turn up the tunes!

During my 5k race I didn't listen to music. My motivation to continue running was that I wanted to finish the race in under 35 mins. I was also pretty excited about running with a crowd of people and having other people see me run. But usually there's no way I can run more than 5 mins without music. Today I was having a hard time getting through my sprints and then an awesome song came on and it made me want to continue running. I have a great playlist for running that's full of fast, motivational, happy music. I love how when a song that's just a little faster then the previous song comes on and makes me want to run faster.

Here are a few of my favorite songs for running:

• Sexy Bitch - David Guetta : I know that I'm going to look like a sexy bitch because of running fast to this song!


• You're a Superstar - Love inc : I certainly feel like a superstar when I run to this one


• Like a Prayer - Madonna : This one makes me think of my friends and it pus me into my happy place


• Lets get Retarded - Black Eyed Peas : I have 4 BEP songs on my play list, but this is my fave. The beat makes me want to run faster


• Stronger - Kanye West : This has one of my fave mottos in it "what don't kill me, only makes me stronger"

It's hard to cool down to fast music like that, so I also have a playlist with slower songs. It's mostly John Mayer and the Killers.

What kind of music do you like to work out to?

Setting goals

I think that setting goals for yourself is very important. Whether it's saying that you'll go to the gym 3 times a week, walk the dog everyday, eat healthy meals 5 days a week or running a 5k it's important to put it out there and just say that you're going to do it. My most recent goal was to run a 5k which meant that I would have to go to the gym at least 3 days a week so I could build up the length of time I could run for. I trained for my 5k for 6 weeks and on Sunday I finally did it! It felt so good to accomplish that goal and to jump start my love for running. Now I need a new goal. I think I'm going to sign up for a 10k race in 6 weeks. Right now I'm a little skeptical if I'll be able to do it, but I think that if I work hard and believe in myself I'll be able to do it. What are some of your goals?



I completed my first 5k race in 32:47 and ranked 22nd in my age group! I'm so proud of myself!

Going organic

I'm so excited! I signed up for a trial for a service that delivers organic fruit and veggies to your house every 2 weeks. This week i received my first box and I am so impressed! Here's a list of everything:

Fruit

4 bananas

3 apples

4 oranges

3 peaches

9 pears

1 mango

Veggies

green chard

green lettuce

grape tomatoes

green onions

baby carrots

broccoli

2 beets

5 sweet potatoes

cilantro

I wish I had of taken a picture of it! I will next time for sure!

I really love this service because I have fresh and healthy food delivered to my house and I will be able to try some different fruit and veggies that I wouldn't normally choose when I go to the grocery store.

Check out Organics delivered

Sad dog/Happy dog

What can you do to make a sad dog like this....

happy like this?
Take them for a walk! It's great exercise for you and for your furry little friend. I took Maddie out for a walk tonight, did you take your buddy out?

Change of heart

I've decided that the whole scrapbooking blog thing isn't working out for me. I'm not very good about keeping it up to date and it's sort of boring (to other people, not to me of course!). Something that I'm passionate about right now is living a healthy lifestyle. So I'm going to blog about my adventures in being healthy. I am no expert in the matter, but I love learning about ways to be healthy and I thought that I could pass some of my learnings on.

I've never been a runner. I was always jealous of everyone who joined track and field for fun in high school. I never understood how running could be fun. Maybe it was because I was overweight, but I could never get into it. Whenever I went to the gym, I stuck to the elliptical trainer or bike, or I just went for walks outside. Off and on for years I've tried to get into running but I often became unmotivated and quit when I wasn't able to run for more than 2 minutes at a time.

Four weeks ago I signed up for a 5km run. So I've seriously been training for this ever since. I started out with intervals, 3 mins jogging, 2 mins walking and up until now I've been increasing my running time. Today I ran for 8 mins and walked for 1 minute, 3 times. I know that I'm not close to running for 30 mins straight yet, but I am proud of what I've been able to accomplish in a month. I love how I feel when I run and I am so proud of myself after every run because I'm doing something that I never thought I'd be able to do.

What are some of your exercise goals and how do you plan on accomplishing them?

Today is my Friday!

I have a 3 day weekend this week and I am so excited! Maybe I'll get some scrapping done. I bought a crop-a-dile the other day and so far I think it's pretty cool. I haven't used it on a project yet, but maybe I will this weekend.

A couple of projects that I've been working on this week are for mother's day. Here's a sneak peek of a mini album I'm making for my mom. I still have a lot of work left to do on it.

I thought that I'd try to get into card making. I made my christmas cards this year, but I haven't made any since. So I tried to make my mother's day cards. I had some fun making these and I think that they turned out pretty good.

I better get back to my mini album. I hope I get lots of LO's done this weekend.

Proud of myself

My brother came out to visit me for 10 days. We were so busy! We went to 2 Flames games, the zoo, Banff, shopping and we went to see John Mayer. I'm not really a huge fan of his, I only went because Alex wanted to go. Now I have more respect for his music. He is very talented, he was very good live.

I am so proud of myself. I am so scared of driving in the city, so I usually don't drive anywhere. But last week, I drove out to Banff! and it wasn't hard at all! I don't know why I was so worried about it. It was a great day trip. We went up the gondola and bought lots of fudge and candy. Here's a pic of us on the top of the mountain:

This is the first layout I've done in a while. It's of a pic that we took of us at the John Mayer concert. I really like how the masking turned out. I love using glimmer mist, it never gets old.
It's Sunday, so I need to go to the gym, get some meal planning done and maybe get some more scrapping done. Have a good one!

12 Down!

Instead of talking about scrapbooking today (mainly because I haven't done anything lately!) I'm going to talk about my recent weight loss. I've always been unhappy about my weight. It has always fluctuated and I can never stick to diets. So in November, once again, I decided that I needed to lose some weight. But this time instead of making a goal to lose a certain amount of weight, I decided that I just wanted to eat better and feel better about myself. I started a journal to keep track of how many calories I eat during the week and on the weekends I can treat myself and eat what I want (within reason).

After Christmas I started going to the gym again. I usually make it there twice a week, which is better than nothing, but still not great. I usually just run on the treadmill but recently I started going to a yoga class too. I feel so good now! As of right now, I've lost 12lbs, I'm down a pants size, and I've lost 4 inches off my waist and hips. Here is a picture my dad took of me in November:

And here is me now!
One good thing about how I eat is that I'm always satisfied. Besides the first few weeks, I'm never starving between meals. Now when I eat food that's bad for me (fast food, pizza, even chocolate pudding!) I feel sick and regret even eating it in the first place! I usually eat mandarin oranges and mini rice cakes when I feel like snacking.

I know it took 4 months for me to lose the weight but I feel good because I did it the healthy way. If I can do it, anyone can!

Now that the Olympics are over I have time to blog again!

So I guess it's been a while. I pretty much watched tv for 2 weeks straight and did nothing else when the olympics were on! Since they've been over I've got some scrapping done. More LO's of miss Maddie. I like all the sequins all over this one. I put a nice dog quote on it - no matter how little money and how few possessions you own, having a dog makes you rich - Louis Sabin.

I used gesso around the edges to soften the paper a little on this one.
I had fun with this next one. I love using lots of pics on one page. I inked the arrow and crown and then put clear crackle paint on top.
This one is for a challenge at Magistical Memories. The challenge is to not use any patterned paper and to use ribbon. I did some masking with glimmer mist and I LOVE how it looks. I did another LO using these pics a while a go and I didn't like how it turned out, so I had to reuse them because Maddie was so cute when she was a puppy.
Finally the last LO is of me and Alex last year when he came to visit and we went to Banff for the day. I really love these papers and the colors. The doily is by Basic Grey. I cut out the leaves with my cricut. Sometimes I forget about using my cricut for shapes, I'll have to start using it more often.
Thanks for looking at some of my newest LO's. I'll try to be better about blogging for now on.

5 day weekend!

I haven't blogged in a few weeks because I've been working a 10 day stretch at work. YUCK! I'm so glad that's over with! Starting today I have 5 days off! I'm so excited! I don't really have any plans for my days off, just relaxing and scrapping! I had my first ever massage today. I was amazing! It felt so nice. but I got embarrassed because my stomach started growling in the middle of it!

I was able to get one LO done this week. It's for a challenge on Magistical Memories site. You're only supposed to use 3 colors - pink, red and white. I didn't have any white cardstock, so I had to use cream. I got my sewing machine out for this, I love the look of stitching on layouts.

I played around in my art journal again. Brad and I love going to hockey games but a lot of the time we leave the game feeling cranky because of the other fans. Last Monday night we went to a Flames game and left cranky and that's why I decided to do a LO about all the types of fans that make me mad!
The other night I tried a new technique. I splattered paint on my page and then I blew the paint across the page with a straw. My cheeks kind of hurt after doing this, but it's a fun technique. I'm not really sure what I'll use this background for but I think it looks pretty cool.
I have to figure out what to scrap or journal about next. Have a good weekend!

The art journal has begun!

I started my art journal! It's lots of fun to do and very messy too! But I'll start out with a LO that's taken me a few weeks to do, mainly because I didn't know what to do next on it. I guess I just wasn't feeling inspired on this one. I really like the purple on it. Once I got the pictures glued down and the little journal circle on, I just didn't know what to do next. Have you ever started a LO and haven't been able to finish it? Today I sat down and started with the title, I never know what to call my LOs. Usually I just use a song title or lyrics from a song. I was just being silly with the dog after a christmas party and I was all dressed up, so I called it "sitting pretty". It's kind of hard to see the title through the bubble wrap dots, not my best LO, but oh well!

This is a page from my art journal. The pic is kind of hard to read, but it says " don't worry you can't see it past all the dog hair". The story behind this is: last week at work, I spilt some food on my top and I said "Oh! I'm such a slob!" and my coworker said "don't worry you can't see it past all the dog hair". I was quite offended! I actually lint brushed myself that day and I didn't think that I had that much dog hair on me. So I told some other coworkers the story and they were also in shock that she would say that to me. But now it's the running joke at work, and I now think it's kind of funny. But I'm still a little hurt by it. I added water to a little bit of red paint for the background and then I painted red crackle paint on top. After I stamped the quote on it I drew little white lines around it to signify the dog hair... because putting really dog hair on my journal would be kind of weird!
I got inspiration for this page from a book I got from the library Artist Trading Card Workshop . The technique is to take a picture out of a magazine, paint over it lightly with gesso and then outline and paint features however you like. I think it looks pretty cool. I used a line from a song (because I'm so unoriginal) for journaling. Why would I ever be anybody else but me - a line from Operator by Shiloh. It must have been on the radio or something at work that day.
So far I'm liking the art journaling thing. It can be pretty quick if you want to be creative in a short period of time or if you don't know what to scrap about (which is my problem).

We're going to the Flames vs. Flyers game tomorrow night! I'm pretty excited, it's been a few weeks since we've been to a game. And I'm glad that they finally ended their 8 game losing streak last night! And I'm glad that they traded Dion Phaneuf today! It should be an interesting game tomorrow!

I LOVE everything about the 80's!

The music, the clothes, the tv shows....

I did a LO of my friend and I at an 80's party for a challenge on the Magistical Memories site. A LO with your fav color with a piece of chipboard and a circle of your fav color. Right now my fav color is pink (it always changes!) I'm loving the houndstooth paper and the skull chipboard from MM. I'm a big fan of doodling right now. I got a book on doodling from Amazon and it has lots of great tips in it. It's called The Doodle Formula . I also used stickles around the edge of the picture.

I had so much fun with this next LO. I did lots of doodling and I had fun stamping around the edge of the text I printed out. I love these pics of Maddie wearing the life-jacket. I forgot I even had these pics. She was so cute that day, but she really didn't like the jacket very much. It turned out that she doesn't like the water very much either!
I really want to start an art journal. I played around on the weekend and I liked how easy and fun it is to do. I've been looking around on the internet to find some inspiration and I even got a few books out from the library on art journals. I'm going to play around a bit tonight and see if I can do something I really like!

New Haircut!

I got my hair cut today for the first time in 6 months! This is the before pic...

And this is the after pic... I know, there's not much of a change, but it does look a lot better and healthier now.
Today is the beginning of my 4 day weekend! I'm so excited to laze around and not do anything! Today I scrapped one page of Alex and Maddie from back in the summer. It's not really an exciting LO or anything but I'm getting short on pics that inspire me. I used glimmer mist and I doodled a bit.
I'm not sure what to do tonight. The Flames game is on, but I don't know if it's worth watching since they've been sucking lately. Maybe I'll just scrap some more!

Olympic flame

Today I woke up early and went to see the Olympic flame. It's travelled across Canada the last few months and for the past few days it's been in Calgary and will soon be in Vancouver. I thought that it would be a once in a lifetime thing to see. This was the only pic I got to take, a policeman on a bike drove in front of me right as I was taking another picture! GRRR! I'm excited to watch the Olympics when they're on. I really like watching the snowboarding half-pipe, figure skating and hockey. What are you're favorite Olympic events?

I haven't got a lot of scrapbooking done lately. It's hard to find the time to do it when I work 3-11. I'm off the next 4 days starting tomorrow! So maybe I'll get some work done then. I did do one LO of me and Alex on his 19th B-day. I'm still not sure of the colors, I don't usually use orange so it's a little different for me.

I have to get ready for work now :(

Can't wait for a long weekend!

Embarrassed by dog

Have you ever been embarrassed by your pet in public? Sadly I've been many times! Yesterday was Maddie's yearly vet appointment, she knew something was up and she was extremely excited to leave the house because she knew she was going in the car. She dragged me out of the house directly to the car, no time to pee! We get to the vet and she's still excited, she doesn't stop to pee again. We get into the vet and someone pets her...she pees on the floor with excitement. She was so curious (like usual) and she wouldn't stay still on the scale so the vet tech touched her to keep her still...she peed on the scale! It's so embarrassing! I thought that the peeing when she meets someone new would stop when she got older, but at 16 months she's still doing it.

I feel like I'm getting judged when I go to the vet. I always worry; are her ears clean enough? is her hair brushed? is she overweight? I just want to know that I'm a good dog mother! Anyways the appointment went well and she weighs 45lbs (which is average). Maddie got lots of treats and she got to go in the car and meet new people, so all in all it was a good day!

I'm having problems uploading a picture right now, so cute Maddie pic to follow!

I HATE being sick!

So last night when I was getting ready for bed, I really started to feel sick. After laying there in pain for awhile, I finally fell asleep and then like an hour later, I threw up! EWWWW! I hate being sick so much! I still cry every time I throw up. Do grown ups do that? Yesterday was my "cheat day" on my diet and I must have gone a little overboard or something. I had bacon (only 3 slices!) for breakfast and then for supper I ate at McDonalds. I'm guessing it was the McD's that got me so sick. I don't know if it was eating good all week and then eating a greasy hamburger that made me sick or just a bad burger! But I HATE puking! I think I'll lay off the fast food for awhile.

Since I felt fine today, I took Maddie to the park and we played in the snow. And by play, I mean she sniffed everything and ate bunny poop while I threw her ball and went to get it myself. I took a couple of pictures and thought that they were kind of funny. Notice how short her legs are, the snow is up to her belly! The other pic I caught her licking her lips!

I decided to play along with a challenge blog and I created this LO based on my goals for 2010 and I also had to use a piece of chipboard, which is the pineapple (which is glimmer misted!). The challenge is on Magistical Memories . I also got the inspiration for the crinkled up background on the Scrap in Style Site that I was talking about yesterday. I really love this LO, it's definitely one of my faves right now!
I think I'm going to get a bath and read my new book "Push" by Sapphire.

Have a good week!

Sick week

I didn't do a whole lot this week because I've been sick with a cold. I even called in sick to work one day and I pretty much slept and lazed all day. I was in bed at 8 every night! I finished my book though - The Scarpetta Factor by Patricia Cornwell. I love her books so much! I love the characters and how they solve crimes. I definitely recommend her books. Last night I started reading "Blogging for Bliss - crafting your own online journal" by Tara Frey. So maybe I'll learn a little bit about blogging!

I only got one layout done this week. I thought it was pretty cool that Jan 2 was a palindromic date (the same forwards and backwards). There will be 12 palindromic days in the 21st century. I did this LO based on what we did that day, which was went to the Flames vs Maple Leafs hockey game. I glimmer misted the red flower because it was pink and I used black stickles for the circle outline. I like this LO but it's probably not one of my favs.

Today I came across this fabulous scrapbooking site http://www.scrapinstyletv.com/ - the LOs in the gallery are so amazing. They are so creative, I wish I could make LOs as beautiful as those. This site is definitely worth checking out if you are need of some new ideas or some inspiration. Well I have a bit of time to scrapbook before Brad starts dragging me all around the city, so I better get at it. Maybe I'll blog again tomorrow!

Happy New year!

So the holidays are over now. They were hard since I couldn't go home to be with my family. But I still had a great Christmas. I was spoiled like usual! Maddie also got spoiled! Everyone sent her out presents and she got so many treats that day, I'm sure she was confused as to what she did that was so good to eat treats all day! We went to see Sherlock Holmes and the theater was so crazy! We got into the theater 30 mins early and still had to sit in the 2nd row! It was a really good movie, but I probably would have enjoyed it more if I was further away from the screen!

One of my Christmas presents from Brad was some money to spend at the scrapbook store. Of course I was all over that! I managed to spend $140 at Scrapbooker's Paradise and I bought some scrapbook storage at Michaels. I bought so much stuff! Especially since I always cruise the sale aisle first and then pick out a few things at regular price. I got some stickles (which I now love!) lots of rub-ons and stickers some flowers and tons of paper! Yesterday I went to Winners and I found scrapbooking felt, so of course I bought 3 packs of it! I have so much stuff now, I just need more pics to scrap!

I've got a little bit of scrapping done over the holidays. I did this LO of my Grampy and Maddie last night with some of the felt I bought yesterday. My Grampy was so funny when he met Maddie, he brought her out treats a couple of times during the night and Maddie being the food motivated dog that she is, never left his side. So Grampy is the dog whisperer! I used some of the new paper I bought and I love them together! This is probably one of my favorite layouts now.
Because I spent so much money at Scrapbooker's Paradise, I got a free magazine - Srapbook & cards today. One of the LO inside inspired this one. This took me a long time to do. I cut out those pink cards by hand and then went around the edge with stickles. In real life this LO is sparkly and shiny. I find I always ruin my layouts when I do my journaling. I hate my hand writing, I think it never looks quite right on my pages. I used some of the new paper in the LO too!
I always have so many pictures from one occasion that I want to scrapbook, so I ordered a photo collage from walmart and it made a lot of my pics smaller so I could use more of them on one page. I used lots of glimmer mist on this. I never know what to call my pages so a lot of them time I use the name of a song or a line from a song. On LO of girls night out I usually try to think of a song that stood out that night (which depending on how much I drank, could be hard). These are pics from a night out in the summer with my high school friends back home. And once again, my ugly hand writing looks awful on the page.
We went to the Flames/Oilers game on New Years eve and had a blast, it was probably one of the best games we've been to all year. After the game we went over to brad's friend's house. We were going to just stop by for an hour or so, but we were having such a good time that we stayed until 2am! Needless to say, I was exhausted yesterday! But I got all my chores done so this weekend I can do whatever I want! Which will probably be more scrapbooking! Tonight we're going to the Flames/Maple Leafs game, so It should be another win for us!

Hopefully this year I will be able to stick with something and continue with this blog on a more regular basis.

Happy New Year!