The Friday Five

Happy Friday!  Let’s get right to it!

1.  I have been a very bad blogger lately.  By the time I get home from work, eat dinner, do a few things around the house, go to CrossFit, come home and shower, I have zero energy or motivation to write a blog post.  Plus, I really haven’t had that much to say lately.  My life is rather dull, I’m afraid!

2.  I have also fallen so far behind in the Photo101 course.  I was doing alright the first week, and then the wheels fell off.  Ideally, you are to take a new photo each day that relates to the prompts.  Well, by the time I get home from work, it’s dark…which makes it difficult to take decent pictures.  I think I am going to cheat and this weekend look back through all the pics I’ve taken and see if I can find some that relate to the prompts we’ve been given that I have missed:  connect, landmark, natural world, warmth, mystery, pop of colour, architecture, moment, swarm and landscape.

3.  My hands are so sore!  I wasn’t feeling the greatest on Monday (had a headache all day), so I cancelled my CrossFit class and switched to Tuesday night instead.  Well, Tuesday’s workout was a tough one!  Strength wasn’t too bad – ring rows (since I still can’t do an unassisted strict pull-up :()  and GHD sit-ups.  The MetCon is where things got fun:
I did the beginner lever, since it was going to add up to 60 pull-ups, which is more than I have ever done RX in a WOD (I did 45 once!).  I also used a band on a rack for the push-ups, since 60 RX push-ups was unlikely.  Things were going along well – if you define well as exhausting – until the last set of pull-ups when my hands ripped on rep 54.  I ended up doing the last 6 reps as ring rows because my hands hurt so much.  I can’t remember what my time was – I really need to get better and putting my workouts into my MyWOD app!  I went home, took the loose skin off my tears and coated them with polysporin.

Wednesday night’s WOD had toes to bar in both the strength and metcon.  We also did deadlifts in the strength work, and just holding the bar hurt my hands – not just the torn spots, but my calluses at the base of my fingers as well.  In the end I asked for a substitute for the T2B in the metcon (which was 20-15-10-5 DB squat cleans, T2B, box jumps).  I just couldn’t take the pain.  Instead my coach game me candlesticks.  I only learned after the WOD what they were…lying on my back on the floor, holding the rig, pike up legs and then reach them up the rig as high as you can get them…basically like this:
My hands are still sore and there are more pull-ups in today’s WOD…I think I will do the beginner ring rows again and try to let my hands heal.

To help prevent this from happening again, I ordered a pair of Natural Grip wraps.  I have had my eye on them for a while, but finally broke down and ordered a pair.  It will be the best $17 I ever spent if they work like they say they do.  Natural Grips were recently featured on Shark Tank and they got a deal!!!

4.  I got some new CrossFit kicks!  Reebok has a Friend’s and Family 40% off sale last weekend and I picked up some new Nano 4s.  Aren’t they pretty!
I also got some lifters…but they haven’t been shipped yet.  Can’t wait for those to arrive!

5.  It’s only 2 weeks until I go to Arizona for the EWGA Cup.  I really should get out to a golf dome or simulator some time in the next little while.  I will have been 3 months since I’ve played golf when the competition starts and that can’t lead to good things.  Hopefully it will work out I can get out once here before I go and we have a practice round scheduled the Friday before the competition starts, so hopefully I will remember how to swing a club!

 

Happy weekend!

Got any big plans?  

A Thing From the Web

 

This morning as I ate my breakfast at my desk and scrolled through my Facebook feed I saw a video that made me smile.

Hope you get a kick out of it too.

 

In other news, I am very behind in my Photo101 assignments.  Ideally, I will catch up a bit when I go out for lunch today (since my family had seconds at dinner last night and I have no leftovers for lunch 😦 ), but more realistically I will play catch up on the weekend.  I owe images for Connect, Landmark, The Natural World and Warmth.  Hopefully I can get out at lunch and maybe find a few things that will fit.

Happy Thursday!

I can smell the weekend coming!  

Reverse Menu Planning

It’s Sunday night and that means the weekend is almost over 😦

Normally Sunday means menu planning, grocery shopping and usually some food prep. Today, that wasn’t the case.

Last night hubs and I went to the movies to see St Vincent, and on the way home we were going to make a quick stop at the grocery store to get some bacon for breakfast this morning. When we got to the grocery store parking lot, there were only 3 cars in the whole lot. I made a random comment that it was too bad we didn’t have a list so we could do all of our shopping in the empty store. We ended up deciding to wing it and just bought a bunch of stuff and would figure out the menu plan after.

I made sure we got what was needed for some cauliflower fried rice and Pizza Spaghetti Pie. We also picked up some steaks, chicken breasts, pork chops, a pork tenderloin, eggs, fruit, veggies and stuff for the kids lunches this week. It was our quickest grocery trip in a while. In and out in about 20 minutes. It was awesome!

Tonight for dinner we had steak, roasted sweet potato rounds, and some balsamic asparagus.

I reverse engineered our menu for the week based on the groceries we bought and we will be eating very well!
Monday: Pizza Spaghetti Pie
Tuesday: Chicken Caesar Salad
Wednesday: BBQ Pork Cauliflower Fried Rice
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday: Pork Tenderloin – I will have to figure out what to serve as a side dish for this, but I’ve got a few days to do that!

The Photo101 course didn’t have any new assignments over the weekend, but a new prompt has been released for tomorrow – “Connect”. I will have to figure out how I will capture that concept in an image. Hopefully I can get out at lunch and find a good shot.

Now, I should sign off and go to bed. I need to leave for work earlier than usual tomorrow. I’ve got a conference call with clients in Sweden tomorrow, so we are starting a bit earlier than usual to account for the time differences.

How was your weekend?
Do anything exciting?

Let’s hope the week flies by!

Photo 101 – Day 4: “Bliss”

Still playing catch up. Shot this just a few minutes ago. Tonight, this is my bliss:

A roaring fire, a glass of wine, and some Walking Dead.

Life is good!

What’s your bliss?

Shot with iPhone5 camera. Unedited.

Photo 101 Day 1: “Home”

Slowly getting caught up on things.  I’m not exactly 100% satisfied with the images I captured today, but I will live with it.

One of our favourite spots at our house is our front patio.  We had it built the first spring we were in the house.  We spend lots of time out there when the weather is nice.  When the kids were little, we were able to keep an eye on them while they played.  Now we enjoy reading and just watching the world go by as we enjoy some time in the sun.

This spot looks much better in the summer when the bushes are in bloom and isn’t not so dull.

If you are ever in my neighborhood and you see us sitting out, stop in for a visit and a beer.  A nice cold Corona tastes just great in these Muskoka chairs!

Photo taken with Nikon D50 on automatic (i’m too afraid to take it off auto!)

Photo 101-Day 5: “Solitude”

I still need to do Day 1: Home and Day 4: Bliss, but here is today’s image for Solitude.

It’s not the sharpest picture since it was taken with my iPhone pretty much shooting directly into the sun and I’ve cropped it to try to make use of the rule of thirds.  Still, I really like this picture.  Jacko is a fun loving kid who loves to be the centre of attention, but he’s also happy just hanging by himself.

This picture of him fishing off the end of the dock at the cottage summer 2013 just makes me smile.

Photo 101-Day 3 “Water”

Still playing catch up.  Yesterday’s prompt was water. 

I headed out for a walk at lunch, armed with my iPhone5 camera and took a few pics of the Don River that runs through the valley behind my office.

It was a dull, grey day so the colours weren’t quite what I was hoping for.  I took a bunch of different shots along the river, using both vertical and horizontal orientations and for almost every set, i preferred the horizontal view. 

None of the images were stellar, but I’m willing to share, regardless!  Again, no idea if this is a good shot or not, since I have zero photo technical knowledge.  I have downloaded the Photo101 e-book and will try to read a bit each day and hopefully improve my photo taking skills.

Here’s my pic:

I like how the water seems to be moseying around the corner at the top right of the photo and then as it hits the rocks, the mini rapids form, and it seems to pick up speed. 

Even though I wasn’t completely satisfied with my pictures, it was nice to get away from my desk at lunch and go for a walk.  I should really remember this and try to get out for a walk at lunch more often.  A mid-day change of scenery made the afternoon seem not quite so long!

Photo 101–Day 2 “Street”

So, I’ve signed up for WordPress’s Photo 101 class.  Each day, they will post a theme and participants are to interpret anyway they like, take a photo and then post it.

I’m a bit behind (today is day 3), since it is dark now when I go to and come home from work.  Day 1 was “Home”  I will try to catch up on this one tomorrow when I”m working from home.  I know what I want to take a picture of for this one, so hopefully there will be some sunshine and I can get out and do it over my lunch break.

Day 2 was “Street”.  I know we are supposed to take new pictures for this class, but I have 2 favourite pictures that just fit this topic so  I’m cheating and digging into my photo archive for this one.

We spend a lot of time at the cottage between the spring and fall each year.  Our cottage is 3 cottages away from our cousin’s and we spend much time travelling down the road between the two places as our kids love to hang out with each other and are constantly travelling between the two cottages.

These shots are from the fall of 2005 and the spring of 2006 along the same patch of road.  I had no idea about photo composition, and really still don’t, so not sure if these are “technically” good pics, but regardless, they are two of my favourites.

Fall 2005, shot with our first digital camera, a Nikon PowerShot A70:  Jacko (2 weeks before his 4th birthday) making the walk home for lunch after a morning spent playing with his cousins.  I love how it’s just him and the road.  For me, it captures his independence and determination as he trots down the road.

Spring 2006, shot with our DLSR Nikon D50.  Same road.  Nick enjoying a little bike ride.  I love the look of sheer joy on his face.

That was a fun trip down memory lane.

Can’t wait to get back to the cottage in spring 2015!