Operation Healthy Balance

I had a revelation this morning when I awoke.  It was 6:00 am and I was stumbling to make myself a cup of coffee.  It was at this point I was talking myself into going for a run as soon as I could see the tiniest glimpse of daylight and then it happened.  I looked outside and the ground was covered in snow and an epiphany came to me.....I need a treadmill!!!!

Remember last week, when I said "for the upcoming week I have three tiny goals.  They are:   1) Run twice  2) Workout with Sarah twice  3) Do 3 days of pushup sets". Well 2 out of 3 ain't bad.  I did manage to workout twice with Sara and to do my 3 days of pushup sets.  My total pushups for the week was 327 which seems insane but spread out over 3 days not so much.  Didn't get any runs in....booooo! I had some weather excuses on Saturday and on Sunday I was "busy" computer tracking my friend's husband on the computer who was running his first ironman in Arizona.  Very cool to watch his interval times pop up and to see him cross the finish line (OMG 11 hours later).   I definitely have to reevaluate this running thing.  I hate cold (cold early morning runs) and I am scared of the dark (after work runs).  If I start running at 6:30 am it is almost daylight.  I could easily get 5 km in or so I think  So...tomorrow....if...

Since I haven't completed two runs in the same weeks since um....early July, this past Monday I set myself a small goal.  The goal this week was to run twice.  Didn't matter about distance or speed, just run twice.  Sometimes smaller goals work best for me because then I don't get overwhelmed and when I complete the goal it feels good.  Not great, like a bigger goal would feel like, but good nonetheless. So, my two runs consisted of a 3 km short run and a 8.5 km longer run.  Two outings complete.  Done.  The longer run was done with Alyson and as much as it was nice to have a little company, it reminded me that I really prefer to run solo (however, this may change as distances increase and I get sick of being alone).  Time will tell. In other updates, I haven't been keeping up with my "100 pushup challenge" routine but I retested myself yesterday (so I could restart) and I can now do 40 consecutive pushups.  Before, I could make it to 26....

Grandma Bryan has been gone for 6 years now and honestly I think about her everyday. All of her quilting stuff has sat untouched since her passing and after checking with the other members of the family, I've begun sorting through her glorious quilting stash. To my delight I found an entire quilt top, some completed blocks, and tons of fabric scraps. I felt like I struck it rich. I grabbed a couple of totes and headed home. My goal is to be able to make myself a quilt out of Grandma's stash. As I started to iron, fold and organize the pieces of cloth, I came up with my quilt idea. There was a quilt block that Grandma had made surrounded in light green fabric; this will be the centre of my quilt. I then found a tutorial for a starflower quilt block on Ellison Lane Quilt Blog , which I thought would be great at displaying the stash. I pieced together one of these blocks and I love the result; these star blocks will make up the rest of the quilt. I already love it!

The boys watched this truck being loaded for at least an hour. Very cute to see their excitement....almost excited as their father:)

This morning, while Larrin took the boys for some farming adventure I decided to take advantage of the alone time.  So I laced up the ol' running shoes and headed out. The last time I was running was October 10th and the last time I ran 10 km was July 28 so I wasn't expecting much.  I did however, want to run 10 km, for whatever reason I'm not sure.  Surprisingly I felt great while running and  I totally noticed that my legs and core are stronger from all of my workouts with Sarah; I was so impressed. The first couple kilometres went by so fast and easy, but then the hills of Devil's Door Road kind of kicked my butt but the burpies and mountain climbers that I have been doing at the gym helped me conquer them.  Once I got to the 7 km mark I knew that I could beat my personal best time for running 10 km.  The around the block run only resulted in 8 km so I had to run past my house to get my desired distance in; not going to lie, stopping at my house wher...

I have finally pieced all of my quilt blocks, sewed them into rows, completed the sashing and voila....here is what I have so far. Blocks from the top down: friendship star, flying geese, 4-patch, paper-pieced trees and a house, more 4-patch, more flying geese, pinwheels, and lastly a row of 9-patch and shoo fly.  I've decided to place appliqued hearts in each corner with a keyboard border connecting the hearts....sounds fancy doesn't it? I only have one more quilting class, in which I will make a "quilt sandwich" with my pieced top, batting, and the backing and then we will get to the quilting business.  It is going to be a little bittersweet to be done with my first quilting class; the instructor and all of the ladies in the class have been super nice and it feels like they are my comrades.  We all started with nothing but a bunch of fabric and big expectations and what we each ended up with is a beautiful unique creation and great new friends. I just might h...

We had another great Halloween. We did our traditional wagon ride which resulted in record numbers; I think my last tally was 29 kids, 18 adults and 25 neighbourhood stops. It was our best year yet. The day before Halloween, Lara and Erin, our neighbours and cousins, came and helped decorate the infamous wagon.  It was so neat to let them think of ways to decorate and all the kids helped with the decor.  We had goblins, spiders, bats, lots of caution tape, and even orange lights.  The kids were a huge help and let me tell you it sure beats decorating by myself:)  Here is a picture of them when they were done. As soon as the boys got off the bus from school on Halloween, they put on their costumes and waited outside for our wagon guests to arrive.  I didn't even force them to eat supper....they were too excited anyways. We ended up having lots of newcomers for the wagon ride.  It was great to have such an enthusiastic turnout.  One person br...