A Recommit and FMM

Now that I'm pretty sure the reading list of this blog has been reduced to no one, it seems like a great time to start blogging again. That's how this whole thing works, right? Blog. Stop blogging. Start again when no one cares? No? Well, I've been going about this all wrong then.

I haven't been blogging because there's been nothing to tell. After injuring myself in November, I fell off the wagon (and the bump from the fall really didn't help with the whole back injury thing - *snort* I love bad puns) and while I kept telling myself to get back on it, it was so hard. The wagon was so tall. I had to, like, climb up on to it and shit. (If you read that in a really whiny voice... yeah, that's what I sound like about this whole thing.)

Then I returned to full time work. And then I had a couple of other time commitments. And then my dance class moved to a location I couldn't get to. And. And. And. And I rock at coming up with excuses. Seriously, school kids should hire me to create their "I wasn't in class today because..." notes. Instead of excuses, I needed a goal. Something simple. Something I know I can do. Something fun.

Like a 10K.

I missed the TC 10K in Victoria because [insert any previous excuse here]. Also, I don't really like doing the 10K: it's insanely crowded and I find myself wanting to punch people in the back of the head because slow moving people crowd into corrals well above their projected finish time. I needed a new 10K to do.

I have tentative plans to visit my family in Alberta this summer so I searched my preferred travel dates and found a 10K in Taber, AB. It's apparently part of the Taber Cornfest. While the Taber Cornfest website still shows 2011 information, a 2012 race is posted on a couple of Canadian running websites. so hopefully it's a go for this year.

If it's not a go, I'll plan my own 10K route through the cornfields of Southern Alberta and make my family stand on the side of the road and cheer me in at the end. Preferably while they wave homemade signs of encouragement. Right now they're reading this and thinking "Andrea's such a clown". We'll see who's laughing when I hand you my home made ticker tape I want to run through!

Training officially begins next Monday.

EEK!

What better way to jump back into blogging than with a Friend Makin' Monday?

Simplified guidelines: Answer questions, post and link up here, sit back and watch the accolades pour in. Or something like that.

FMM: Three Things

1. Three of your favorite movies:
-Casablanca
-Beauty and the Beast
-Monty Python's Life of Brian (super excited because the Victoria Film Festival is having a MPLOB Quote-Along in two weeks *squee*)

2. Three of your favorite things to drink:
-Tea
-Coffee
-Beer (really can't get much more specific than that, I just like beer)
(I know, I know, water should be on this list and I do actually enjoy drinking straight water but it's not a 'favourite')

3. Three of your favorite songs:
Just three? Ugh, this pains me.
-Who Knows How to Make Love Stay - Doug and the Slugs (oh, 80's Canadian pop, how I love you!)
-Rolling in the Deep - Adele (I will listen to anything this girl puts out)
-Maple Leaf Rag  - Scott Joplin
A friend once described my taste in music as 'a menagerie of sounds'. Yup, that pretty much sums it up.

4. Three people who have recently been a positive influence on your life (outside of your family):
-K from work: really pushed me to go after a new job opportunity and then helped guide me through the process. It worked. I've got a new (and awesome) job.
-T and 106 (friends): convinced me that regular board game nights are cool (and they totally are!)
-Walter Lewin: read For the Love of Physics and it really opened my eyes to the beauty of physics of the every day world. I find myself trying to recall the equation for wind velocity when I see breeze through the trees nowadays. My goodness, I sound like a giant nerd.

5. Three things you to do keep yourself entertained:
-Read
-Sing and dance in the privacy of my apartment/listen to music in general
-Watch TV/movies

6. Three things you’re attracted to in the opposite sex:
-Eyes and smile (I'm lumping these together because one of my favourite things about eyes are laugh lines and you only get those if you smile a lot. The frequency of the smiling is more important than the actual smile.)
-Someone who is kind
-Nice ass (Hey, I'm just being honest)

7. Three things you love about yourself:
-My sense of humour
-My smile
-My nerdy personality (it took me a while to own up to my true level of nerd and now that I have, I like who I am better as a person)

8. The last three people who text messaged you:
-106
-THR
-Trish

9. Three things you’re looking forward to this week:
-Baby shower for THR
-Drinks with the alumni band crew
-Talk on human rights I've helped organise

10. Three wishes specifically for yourself…What are they? (Be selfish, and be honest.)
-I wish I could snap my fingers and be the active, fit person I once was
-I wish I was independently wealthy so I could set off on a round-the-world trip tomorrow (in the active, fit body I used to have)
-I wish I had a maid

11. Three of your favorite quotes:
"Humuor is not a mood but a way of looking at the world." ~Ludwig Wittgenstein
"Who, being loved, is poor?" ~Oscar Wilde
"Oh, don't pay life the compliment to take it seriously." ~Robert Service (from his poem, Laughter)

12. Three of your biggest fears:
-Falling and breaking a bone (I've never done it and the thought of it terrifies me)
-Sharp items like axes, chainsaws or swords make me nervous. Surprising for most people as I own two swords and have used axes and chainsaws many times in my life.
-Moving scarecrows on TV
 
13. Three of your favorite TV shows:
At this moment:
-The Wire
-Game of Thrones
-New Tricks

14. Three of your favorite things to purchase when you’re shopping.
-Books.
-Books.
-Books (I don't actually like shopping. It's simply a necessary activity so the only time I really enjoy it is when I'm turned loose in a bookstore.)

15. Three things that you enjoyed last week:
-Board game and Pub night with T and 106
-Tea and a game of rummy with C
-It becoming official that I got the new job

16. Three things that you always have in your bag or close to you if you’re not a purse kind of person.
-Lipgloss
-Wallet
-Pen and notebook

17. Three types of food that you wouldn’t want to give up.
-Pretty much anything my mom cooks (save her occasional decision to cook liver and onions when I was growing up. She can keep that to herself)
-Pad Thai
-Cheese Fondue

18. Three things you do to enjoy burning calories:
-Walking/Hiking
-Running (when I was doing it regularly)
-West African Dance

19. Three things you dislike about blogging:
-I love my family but sometimes I wish I hadn't told them I blog because I censor myself more knowing that my mom will read any curse words I put on here.
-Glaring grammatical errors or spelling mistakes that I notice after I hit publish.
-It's not blogging specific, but my current laptop is a pain in the ass. It's old and slowing down which means that a simple post takes way too long to write. Trying to include photos is almost painful. I've found myself saying "fuck it" and just tossing half-finished posts because my laptop is making me want to punch it.

20. Three ways blogging has changed your life:
-I've met some really awesome people
-I always wanted to keep a diary but was kind of crap at it unless I was travelling (I am the travel diary queen!) but blogging fills that need
-I plan more because I need to for the blog

Cheese with a side of crazy

So I do my big bit about needing to watch what I eat a little bit closer and not giving into cravings every time one occurs and then I get an email from MySwitzerland today (another country for which I often feel great nostalgia) and the subject says "Grüezi, Do You Love Cheese?". What sort of question is that? Of course I love cheese. I lived in Switzerland, I believe it's therefore illegal for me to regard cheese with anything less than love. Asking me if I love cheese is like asking the PussyCat Dolls if they love skanky clothing. Duh! I open this email, knowing that it will taunt me with a picture and I find this:

It's my favourite type of cheese: melted! It also has my favourite cheese side dish: crusty French bread! Oh cruel fates, how dare you taunt me so. This was all made slightly worse by the fact that I decided I would not hold my annual winter fondue this year. Partially because I'm trying to be good about my food and there is no way to make a cheese fondue healthy, and partially because Spring has arrived and a fondue is very much a winter dish. Alas, My Switzerland, you do taunt me and now I kind of hate you. To take my mind off of cheese (specifically, cheese melted in wine) I threw on k.d. lang's rendition of Hallelujah and listened to it five times. I am a huge fan of Mr. Cohen, but her rendition wins me every time; I can't tell you how happy I was to hear that she sang it at the Winter Olympic Opening Ceremony. It did get my mind off the cheese, but it also made me very melancholy. Note to emo bands every where: listen to that song to really learn how to emote while singing. Better yet, just stop singing; you all really annoy me.

I think I might have some issues. The more I start doing active things, the more harebrained schemes (or "goals" as I like to call them, seems less... crazy) I come up with. I haven't even finished part one of my three year plan (do the Juan de Fuca) and I'm already thinking of things to do after I do the Chilkoot... three years from now. Or maybe I will fit these ideas in before then, I don't know, but I think someone needs to stop me from thinking up new ones. Or maybe I just need to write down a list of things to do in the next 10 years and then transpose it onto a stone tablet cut-to-size so I can't keep adding things to it. I could refer to them as my 10 commandments... assuming there's only 10.

Today's plan grew out of the fact that I have never really seen Wales. I have been to Ireland more times than I can count (well, that's not true, I've been there seven times averaging about 2 months a visit... I'm due for another one) and have travelled around England and Scotland, but other than the Holyhead to Manchester train I've never actually seen Wales. I looked out the train window and thought the countryside beautiful, I read the signs with the village names and wondered what the Welsh obsession with with 18 g's, w's and l's but only two vowels in a name is about, but I can't even point on a map where my B&B in Holyhead was. "Why not make it a point to climb Mt. Snowdon (pictured right)?" was the refrain that kept playing in my head as I walked to work.

The crazy just snowballed from there when I learned about the National Three Peaks Challenge in which people compete to complete the three highest mountains* in the UK in under 24 hours. Of course, people partaking in this challenge drive between the mountains, but what if you hiked it? Sure, it would take some time but wouldn't that be a fun trip? The I scrolled down and saw the Four, Five and Six Peak Challenge (although these are not official). "I've never been to the Isle of Mann," I thought to myself. "Wouldn't that be a fun adventure?" I then spent the better part of my work day flitting between work and trying to figure out if a) this idea's even feasible and b) am I really daft enough to do it? The short answers I came up with are yes and yes but perhaps I should look up other possibilites like public transit only or bike the parts 'in between' or some otherway to make it a bit less rushed than the 24 hours idea but not as insanely long as the 'walk the whole thing' idea. I can see I'm going to have to contemplate this a little bit more before I commit it to my 10 Commandments, but it's definitely being add to that list now!

*as a West Coast girl, I giggle calling these large hills 'mountains'. The highest peak is Ben Nevis at 1,344 metres. The 50th highest peak on Vancouver Island (nevermind in BC, on the Island) is still 500 metres higher than that. It's not that I assume they'd be easy because of their height (I know many smaller mountains that are much more physically or technically demanding than higher ones. Mt. Meru vs. Kili being a great example of that), but if that's the tallest peak in the mountain range, isn't it really just a bunch of foothills leading up to one smallish mountain?