This weekend ended up being quite beautiful. The weather was sunny and delightful and while still a wee bit chilly, it was really nice if you were on the move. I had done some High Intensity Interval Training workouts in the late morning and was full of energy so when my sister came over to visit we decided to take the kids for a walk out in the fresh air.
Although we’ve lived here since July, we haven’t really explored that much of our neighborhood on foot so it was nice to get out there and move around.
We were pretty cold by the time we got home so Amanda and I had a cup of tea while we warmed up and hung out a bit longer, then they went home for supper. It was a nice, active way to spend a Saturday.
After we had our own supper (pizza in the oven), I filmed Hayley demonstrating her violin skills. She’s been playing since late November and is doing such a great job. Here she is playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
I also have a fitness video to share (speaking of being active and all that) but I’ll save that for another day.
Today ended up being a relatively pleasant day considering the fact that we had no great plans in store and that Sundays are often low-key anyway what with easing back into school and work. Moments that contributed to my Sunday:
I did my third day in a row of the current BexLife challenge, doing ten burpees followed by a two-minute plank. Day one was easy. Day two and three were a bit harder now that soreness has helped me identify the exact location of every single abdominal muscle in my body. Ow.
I went to my favourite thrift shop and bought myself a tank top (to wear under low-cut shirts), five shirts, a pair of name-brand jeans, and two My Little Ponies for the kids. Grand total? Just over $28. Yes, I do love thrifting, thank you very much.
I finally found kale at a semi-decent price. I don’t know if there’s a better season for kale but every time I wanted to get some it was a tiny little wad of green leaves, often somewhat limp, and cost close to four bucks. Today it was still a bit on the pricey side at $3.49 but at least it was a HUGE bunch and it looked perfect.
Related to the above, I therefore was able to FINALLY try kale after hearing its benefits sung from the rooftops from most of the health blogging population. I sauteed half of my bunch with some onion and garlic, and it was quite tasty. I need to find more recipes to try out, so please feel free to share. I’m planning to use the other half tomorrow after work to try out kale chips.
Along with the kale – which was a HUGE hit with Hayley, by the way, and she even had two servings and asked for some with her lunch tomorrow – I made chili that I served on brown rice, and I cooked up a small pot of quinoa to take with the leftover chili for my supper tomorrow.
I saw a robin today. A robin! In February! That’s insane and practically unheard of. I wonder if that means an early spring after all or if a flock of robins are going to get screwed over.
After putting the kids to bed I enjoyed a fairly terrifying episode of The Walking Dead. While I always love this show, it’s been awhile since I’ve had to fight off the urge to climb up onto the back of my couch and hide my eyes. Good stuff!
After having taken Friday off, I’ve enjoyed a nice long three-day weekend. Much needed, oh yes.
How was your weekend?
My attempt at the 7-day BexLife Burpee & Plank challenge:
And apropos of nothing in particular, last week I took my favourite of George’s cover songs, Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry” and I put it up on YouTube. It’s been years since he recorded it and I still love it.
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend, let me know what you did!
Back in 1989 on this day, Marc Lepine gunned down and killed nine women in what became known as the Polytechnique Massacre in Montreal. He also injured dozens more in the attack before killing himself. His motives were that he was “fighting feminism”; it was an engineering department and it enraged him that women were learning “his” trade and taking jobs.
I was 15 years old at the time and it was the first time that I ever realized that someone might ever hate me just because I’m female. It was a sobering realization and more than just a little scary too. Every year I like to remember the names of those who died for no other reason than they had a uterus.
In memory of Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Maryse Laganière, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Annie St-Arneault, Annie Turcotte, Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz, may you never be forgotten.
What became the anthem of the Polytechnique Massacre:
This weekend one of our Advent activities was to put up the tree. I hate to admit it but nothing ruins my holiday spirit quite like setting up the tree with the lights – even with a pre-lit tree! One section of our tree’s lights ended up being burnt out so George had to buy a small string for me to weave around that one area, and that worked fine.
Luckily then we were able to move on to the part I truly do love which is decorating the tree. We put on some Christmas music on the television, I made myself a cup of Chai tea, and we went at the tree with every ornament, string of beads, and bit of tinsel that we have.
In the end it looked great and I was very happy to hang out by the tree for the rest of the evening. We also had a string of lights that wasn’t really going to work in the window so I wrapped it around one of our lamps instead and it makes the living room look so cheerful.
That was yesterday and then today I decided that after almost two years of practicing near-daily yoga, it was time to confront my fear of headstands, well, head-on. I blame Bex who was working on the same thing today.
It worked. I still have to get more comfortable with it and learn to get my legs up higher in a full headstand, but baby steps work for me for now. I did a headstand once (halfway like I did today) back in April of 2010 and then I suddenly became terrified and wasn’t able to bring myself to do it again. Part of my problem was I had needed to hop up and I know you aren’t supposed to hop into a headstand (or any inversion really other than maybe a handstand), and I couldn’t figure out how to just bring my legs up without it.
I’ll keep working on it but for today, well, my clap at the end of the video pretty much says it all.
Today Halifax was whomped by the tail end of Tropical Storm Sean which brought sheets of monsoon-like rain and gust of wind up to 90 km/hr. Seeing as how it was also Remembrance Day it was a bit disappointing since I’m sure a lot of people missed out on the various ceremonies around the city. On the other hand, it was especially heavy rain right at the time I would have been leaving for work on a normal day so I must say I was relieved that I didn’t have to go out in it.
Except that I did go out in it! Willingly! I’m somewhat of a competitive person (and by somewhat I mean borderline maniacal) and so when I saw that one of my favorite fitness people was doing a special giveaway I had to take part. The challenge was to film a video doing plank, and after the contest is over she’ll pick her four favourites and give them each a prize. I want that prize, let me tell you, so I was in. And I figured if I had to make my plank video stand out from the other contenders then I needed to step up my game just a bit.
Which is how I ended up filming three segments of plank pose variations out on my back deck in a heavy downpour.
As a bonus, enough water blew in thanks to the wind that my kitchen floor got a good mopping!
I needed a hot shower and some dry clothes afterwards but it was so silly that I couldn’t stop laughing afterwards. Fitness routines can help boost your energy and mood but when they’re as goofy as this they will DEFINITELY improve your mood!
Much to my shock, what with being a Canadian who is very used to Canadian-esque weather, Thanksgiving weekend was ridiculously beautiful and warm. Despite the fact that it’s fall and we’ve had some pretty chilly days and cold nights, the entire weekend was above 20C which is all but unheard of.
Taking full advantage, on Saturday we went to check out an old fort called York Redoubt. It was really nice and I’d like to go back when we have more time to do the hike down through the woods to the water. On Sunday it was so hot we ended up at the beach. Because it was Thanksgiving weekend it wasn’t too packed either. We were silly enough to tell the kids they weren’t going swimming so naturally they waded in right in their clothes and soaked themselves up to their waist. Naturally! Then on Sunday we went to have a delicious Thanksgiving dinner with friends and family and all the kids played outside most of the day.
I haven’t had a chance to dump any pictures off my camera yet but I did shoot some video of some beach yoga and was able to edit one. It was the first time that I did a voice-over narration and I still strongly dislike listening to my own voice on a recording, but overall I’m pleased with it.
I had originally wanted the ocean in the background but there were too many people in the shot and the camera would have been aimed at the sun which doesn’t create very good lighting. In the end I really like the beach grass behind me and the lighting was much better.
Hopefully I can post an update with some of the pictures from the weekend soon!
This weekend we went to celebrate a friend’s birthday with our usual circle of awesome people. It started after supper and involved a lot of delicious sweet treats which is always a huge hit.
The birthday boy got a new guitar as his main gift so that went really well with the live jam that went on down in the basement a little later in the evening. The last time George played anywhere I really wanted to go but didn’t have a babysitter so I missed it. This made up for it.
(That would be me in the corner filming some of the music action.)
Quite some time ago George started practicing “Purple Rain” at home. I have always loved Prince and naturally that’s one of my favorite songs that he did (#1 favorite being “Darling Nikki” which is less appropriate for gatherings that include young children). Since I hadn’t been able to hear him do it in a public setting I requested (demanded) that they play it at the party. As a result I got video of an excellent acoustic version of the song and naturally I wanted to share it.
It was a great night. A late night, but great nonetheless. Hayley had too many cupcakes and Breanna barely made it up the stairs before passing out from exhaustion but that aside we all had a great time. Everyone’s birthday should involve a bit of live music.
It took me years to like the way I looked. Growing up I was a teenager with thick glasses, out-of-control hair (thick hair is wonderful but only if you know what to do with it; as a teen I most certainly had no clue how to manage it), zero fashion sense, and worst of all absolutely no self-confidence in the way I looked. Any time I imagined myself in some situation, the first thing I would think is to pretend I was pretty. I pretended to be pretty, I never felt pretty.
My parents told me I was but parents are supposed to do that. Parents aren’t supposed to say, “yes dear, you’re ugly but you have many other charming qualities” so I didn’t buy it when they said that.
Sad as it is to admit, it took something physical to change my perceptions of myself. I wish I could say that I transcended the need to be pretty, a need that is ingrained into not only our society but society around the world; what is deemed attractive depends on culture and history but whether you’re talking about the 18th century or today you’ll always find a woman who wanted to look good. But it was indeed something physical that finally made me like what looked back out of the mirror. It was my first pair of contact lenses at the age of 17.
Over the years I guess that I’ve found a combination of acceptance and approval within myself. I don’t stare in the mirror all day long sighing with joy but I don’t avert my eyes either. It’s a balance. But even at the age of 36, even with a year’s worth of yoga under my belt – where acceptance of who and what and where you are is a strong theme – the word “pretty” still echoes over and over from time to time. It’s amazing how deep a neurosis over physical appearance can run.
I hadn’t planned on writing all of that, I guess it’s like the typing version of vomiting all over the internet (which is a pretty good description of blogging in general). All I really meant to do was share this amazing video that Caitlin from Operation Beautiful posted on Twitter this morning. I don’t put my feminist hat on too often but this video speaks volumes and it brought me to tears. Not only is it important to watch for yourself, if you have daughters or ever might have them then I think you need to see this.
(There is one moment of swearing so you might want to view it first before watching it WITH your daughters.)
Every once in awhile I post something deeply personal and I get ready to cringe in hindsight so I reserve the right to edit this post later if I suddenly get all embarrassed. Meanwhile, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the clip.
For about the past year George has been working on songwriting with another very talented man named James who lives in Florida. They met online through a mutual friend and they both work very well together. They’ve created dozens of incredible songs and they chat on Skype regularly to talk music and shoot the shit too. He’s a great guy.
As always with music, while I like all their songs there are some that I like more than others. I have a handful of favorites but their recent collaboration, called “A Hard Place” just hit me like a ton of bricks. It’s told from the point of view of a Marine who realizes that the only way he’s coming home is in a flag-draped coffin. The song is a letter home to his wife, apologizing for her that he can’t keep his promise of coming back safe and sound and telling her all the things she’ll need to do. It’s a tear jerker and very moving.
George did the music and James wrote the lyrics and did the vocals. He was a Marine himself so he knows of what he speaks in this song. After listening to it a few times I asked if I could make a photo montage video of it. Using attribution licensed photos from Flickr’s Creative Commons section I put this together and wanted to share it with you.
(If you’re one of the many people with someone fighting out there somewhere, please know this song is extremely emotional; I won’t be offended if you choose not to listen or watch the video.)
It’s a beautiful tribute and it pains me to think of how many loved ones have gotten letters much like that one. I hope you enjoy it.
Sometimes George and I watch a TV show together, other times we might put on a movie. Other nights he’ll work on his music down the hall while I watch all the shows that I love and he hates (things like Dancing With the Stars and Grey’s Anatomy; the only thing he likes about the latter is making fun of me for crying just about every episode).
On Saturday there was nothing that we wanted to watch. Instead he brought one of his guitars out to the living room and played random songs while I enjoyed a few chapters in my book. While he occasionally made me raise my eyebrows – this would be when he started playing “Horse With No Name” which I absolutely despise with a visceral hatred – it was a nice way to spend a leisurely weekend evening.
One song that he played was John Mayer’s “Daughters” and I had an urge to record it so here you go, you can pretend you were here on Saturday in our living room too.
