Monthly Archives: January 2009

Over and done

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Today was back to work and school for most people, but with the ped day it was one extra day for Hayley to stay home. I got her up at 8 am this morning, letting her sleep a half hour longer than I had meant to just because she was up until about 11:30 last night, refusing to fall asleep. I was tempted to get her up at 7:30 anyway but an overtired kid is a cranky kid, so I passed.

I also wore her out a bit by taking them outside to play in the snow. We didn’t have the best weather for being outside this holiday. At the beginning we had a lot of freezing rain so everything was icy and dangerous and no place for a kid to play. Then we got some snow which was good, but it turned so cold with ridiculous wind chill factors that I could barely walk the dog for 15-20 minutes, let alone have the kids play outside in that weather.

It sucked because obviously kids need an energy release and if they can’t get it outside it means they release it by jumping on the couch, racing up and down the hall, and generally acting like crazy people.

Day 5: Playing in the snow

Today was not what one would call WARM but the wind wasn’t cutting straight through layers of clothing and it was bearable so we went out for an hour. Breanna usually turns her nose up at snow and winter play, asking to come back in after ten minutes (woo!) but even she had a blast out there today. She was even harder to herd back inside than Hayley was.

Tomorrow is a 6:30 morning and Hayley still couldn’t fall asleep until almost 10 pm so it should be interesting to drag her body out of bed. I should write a note that says, “GOOD LUCK!” and send it in to her teacher. We’ll see how it goes.

In fitness news, I did the second day of the SparkPeople boot camp, except what I really did was just repeat the first day’s video. Today’s required a stability ball and I don’t have one or anything that could really stand in. Oh well, the kickboxing was just as fun today as yesterday, and I got to add walking the dog and playing with the kids in the snow as well. That’s two days down. Nineteen more until it allegedly becomes a habit!

The resolution I didn't make but sort of just did

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I’ve never really made any fitness related resolutions. Oh, I’ve made the half-hearted “I should move more” goals, but never those really big ones that gym owners love, the ones that get people flocking on January 2nd to the nearest gym to sign up for a year-long membership. It wouldn’t do me any good anyway, I know from past experience that I really hate gyms in a major way.

The thing is, though, while I’m not looking to lose weight, I do miss the feeling of being fit. When I did kung fu so many years ago (I can’t believe it’s been ten years!), I had muscles, flexibility, balance (something I’d never had before, not even when I did ballet!), and stamina. Now I get tired so easily, I have less energy than I ever remember, and while I may be small I have no tone. None. I am a noodle.

I still had no real concrete plans to, you know, do anything about it. And I’m not completely sedentary. I do a fair amount of walking thanks to the kids and the dog, and when you have 35 steps to climb up and down each time, that helps too. But I know I need more.

So enter Laura. I went to her blog solely because I know she’s been doing Holidailies as well and thought she might have a new entry. She did indeed, and in it, she mentioned that she had signed up for the SparkPeople Boot Camp. To put it simply, the Boot Camp offers up a workout video each day for a month, starting today. They mix it up so that you aren’t always doing the same thing over and over again (which is why I have several workout tapes that are covered in dust). Today’s video incorporated a bit of kickboxing, something that I obviously can enjoy what with the roundhouse kicks and sidekicks that I used to love.

The videos are only ten minutes long and that includes the warm up and cool down time. It’s not hard to fit into my schedule no matter how busy I think I am. Aside from that, they encourage 30 minutes of any type of cardio five days per week. Since I walk the dog for 20-30 minutes once or twice a day, that’s not a problem.

So I signed up. I did it for a lot of reasons. The main ones are that I want to be fit again. I want to FEEL like I’m in shape and not be so tired all the time. I’m sick of the panic attacks but I’m still scared of medication so I’m going to try exercise as a non-medicinal approach. Also, if you’ve ever been pregnant, you know that frustrating ache in your calves that come from nerves being pushed around by a baby, especially the sciatic nerve. Well, with Breanna I waited and waited to give birth so that ache would go away. Three years later, I’m still waiting for it to go away. Hopefully some regular exercise will do something to help.

If you want to join me or if you’re already a SparkPeople member, you can see my page here. Let me know if you’re doing the boot camp challenge too, even if you join up later than the 4th of the month.

Here’s hoping I can do this – they say it’s 21 days to build a habit right? Let’s see.

Time for normal again

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Day 3: Sundown

I can’t decide how I feel about the holidays coming to an end. On the one hand, I am really looking forward to getting back to a routine of some sort. I’ll be taking down the decorations soon, up earlier in the morning, and it will be so nice to have the kids falling asleep earlier (Breanna was awake until 9 pm and Hayley didn’t crash until almost 11!).

On the other hand, I don’t look forward to getting up at 6:20 every weekday morning again to take the dog out before dragging a surly six-year-old from her blankets to get her ready for school. Although the sleeping in has been the primary cause of the later bedtimes, it has been very nice to not be woken up until 9 am or later these past two weeks (with the exception of Christmas day of course). Even Pearl has gotten used to the later mornings since she’s been taken out later at night herself.

At least I don’t have to worry until Tuesday. The teachers took one of the floating ped days on Monday so that they can have a day to come in without the kids and get organized for the new year. Still, I’ll have to get Hayley up no later than 8 am, possibly even 7:30 am, just to make sure that she’ll fall asleep at a reasonable-ish hour on Monday night.

It’s going to hurt.

But I think Breanna will be happy with the return to routines as well. Because of the later bedtimes, she’s been sleeping in. Because of the sleeping in, she hasn’t needed her usual noon-time hour-long nap. She’s been occasionally cranky without the naps but not too often. However, on Friday it finally got the best of her. On Thursday night, George camped out in the living room with the two girls. It was Breanna’s first time doing it and we didn’t think it would really work. She finally fell asleep at about 11:05 pm, right at the end of Horton Hears a Who so I whispered good night and went to bed.

Day 1: Camping in

At 4 am George brought her in because she wanted to make sure I was still here. She then informed me “I want to go camp again” and left. She didn’t fall back to sleep but laid out there very quietly until 6 am. Again, she came to find me, stayed with me for about five minutes, then ran back to the living room and fell asleep for another two or three hours. We were pretty proud of her.

But the late night, plus the two hours of being awake in the middle of the night AND the lack of nap? Too much. At about 5 pm the kids were watching a movie (I think it was Horton again, he’s pretty popular around here) and she got cranky, laid on the couch, asked for her favorite blanket, and next thing I knew she was asleep.

Day 2: When the holidays get to be too much

Alas, I had to wake her after 20 minutes or she would have been up until all hours.

Yes, it’s definitely time to get back to normal. Whatever that is!

Friday Flashback # 18 – Lily Was Here

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I have always loved the saxophone. I may live with a guitarist and I love what he can play with it, but there’s something about the sax that just blows me away. It’s my favorite instrument.

When I was in grade seven, we had one elective that changed every six or eight weeks throughout the year so that we would have an idea as to what we wanted to choose to take the following year. This included Technical Drawing (I was pretty good at that, much to my shock), woodworking (I was even better at that, and that’s what I ended up choosing), Art (nothing killed my creativity quite like a barking Art teacher), and Music. I already knew how to play the recorder, so I probably would have been best suited to the oboe, especially with only having a handful of weeks to play it.

I did not choose the sensible oboe. I chose the sax. The tenor sax. I was so proud to have a shiny albeit banged up saxophone in my grasp with a little package of brand new paper-thin reeds, and wow was I going to have fun practicing.

Have you ever heard an elephant die painfully on the plains of the Savannah? Me neither, but if I did come across such an experience I am willing to bet good money that it would sound exactly like me, playing the sax.

Luckily for me, my own horrid attempts did not destroy my love of the saxophone. Prince put out a song called “Partyman” and Candy Dulfer was featured in it. That sparked my attention, and then I discovered the collaboration between Candy Dulfer and The Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart, “Lily Was Here”.

I loved the song, and I still do.

I thought of her the other day and went YouTube-ing and found a great deal of excellent music that she’s put out since those old days. She is absolutely amazing and no matter how much I loved the sax I never had a chance of sounding like Candy. But that’s okay. Now that I have her most recent album, I’d rather just listen than try to play!

(Duh. Some “Friday” flashback. I wrote it up in advance and saved it as a draft. And then I forgot to publish it. OOPS!)

A look back on 2008

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I usually try to avoid memes on my blog but this one is too tempting to ignore. You go back into your archives and write the first sentence from the first post of each month.

January 5th 2008 – I have totally lost my blogging mojo.

February 2nd 2008 – I’ve never needed February’s groundhog to tell me whether we’ll get six more weeks of Winter.

March 1st 2008 – I say “Oh my God” a lot, and so does George.

April 5th 2008 – When George isn’t busy writing and recording his own songs or collaborations with his friend, he often works on music for other people.

May 5th 2008 – Tonight, after George finished supper, he had to run out quickly to do a few things.

June 2nd 2008 – Isn’t this an innocent little face?

July 5th 2008 – Over at Sweetney, she was asking for some recommendations, media-wise.

August 2nd 2008 – So, as any long-term readers know, we live in an apartment.

September 1st 2008 – After a really wet but more or less decent summer, all of a sudden I found myself sharpening 24 pencils, packing up a lunch in a new little pink lunch bag, and laying out a navy blue skirt with white socks and a white t-shirt.

October 1st 2008 – Last Saturday we had Hayley’s birthday party since too many people were busy the weekend of her actual birthday.

November 1st 2008 – So I signed up for NaBloPoMo again this year, which means you can expect an entry a day throughout November.

December 1st 2008 – I owe a lot to this Beagle, Pearl.

Wow, that was distracting because I end up reading through too much of my archives!
I’m not going to tag anyone else to do it, but if you do this on your blog let me know so I can come check it out!

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