As July winds down...

Just a quick update to let y'all know I'm still alive and still chugging along.

It's taken me a while to get used to getting up at 430 again and having such long days but it's becoming habit again now and it's not as hard as it was the first week.  Having said that, this past week I was particularly tired and not sleeping well so Friday night I gave in and took pain medication and slept like a log until almost noon yesterday. I woke up feeling refreshed and pain free so it was worth it.

I've been making an effort to wear my fit bit every day and rack up my steps. It's a mental game I play with myself to beat my previous steps week over week. I tend to forget to wear it on the weekend (and I forgot yesterday) but I am trying to figure out a way to make it part of my weekend routine as well.

Tonight I went for a walk along the path near where I live that skirts the top of the mountain brow and I found a new path going down the escarpment I'd never seen before. I went down it a a few metres but it was very gravelly, dirt path-y and steep and I was wearing flip flops so I'll have to go back with proper footwear and see where it goes. If it meets the escarpment trail I used to run on, that would be wonderful because it would be a better way down for me than the stairs I normally use. I'll keep you posted!

I saw lots of broken trees and fallen branches from the storm we had last week and just as I was about 5 min from home, storm clouds rolled in and the rain came down hard. I got soaked the last few minutes coming home, but I love walking in the rain! Today was the perfect day for walking, blue skies, cool breeze and wispy clouds.

Weight wise, I am only weighing every two weeks but jeans that I wore two weeks ago that were snug are very loose today and I can see definition in my waist again. Woohooo!

Just some random pics I took with my iPhone while out walking today.

Eaton Downtown Dash Recap

Read the recap here: http://downwardtrenzevents.blogspot.ca/2013/07/eaton-downtown-dash-5k-walk-july-18-2013.html

Week In Review

This week, Tuesday, I went back to work after being off almost 6 months. It felt like a long week, believe me!

I only worked half days this past week but will return to full time hours starting tomorrow. The commute (2+ hours each way) is really hard physically, but I hope it will get easier as time goes by.  Work itself was fine. To be honest, I don't have a very challenging job right now and the people I work with are very nice, if it weren't for the commute, it would be a perfect situation.

I walk 20 minutes twice a day to and from the bus terminal to my office, so I get some exercise in twice a day. Not running, but its at a brisk pace as I have connections to make and not a lot of time to get from A to B if I don't want to be late for work or miss my bus/train.  I realised by the second day that I would need to walk to work in workout clothes and then dress "business casual" when I get to work. I was getting to work as a hot sweaty mess and no one wants that!  Coming home, I don't care as I just shower as soon as I get in, but in the morning I don't want to start my day off feeling icky!

My eating has been at about 80%. This week I want to focus on getting back to 100% and getting some more walking in after work in the evenings when I can walk longer stretches than my two twenty minute jaunts.

The fibromyalgia symptoms have lessened with the help of medication and cutting out wheat and sugar (most of the time) and I am hopeful that I have found the magic ticket to feeling better again.

It was also a busy week socially. I go weeks without doing a SINGLE thing then it all hits at once.

This past Saturday I met up with a my best friend from childhood. David and I were in school together from Grade 1 to Grade 6, the same class and were best friends. When I moved away in Grade 6 we lost touch and then he found me on FaceBook a few years ago and although we talked about getting together and going around our old neighbourhood we never did until yesterday. It was so much fun. Seeing him and also all our old haunts was so nostalgic and I remembered things I hadn't thought about in years. We walked about 7km and had lunch in Brazilian restaurant in our, formerly, Italian neighbourhood. There also happened to be a Brazilian Street Festival going on at the same time so there was music, live bands, great Brazilian and Italian street food, dancing and lots of other entertainment.

In the collage below, from the chain link fence going to the right:

Our old elementary school in the distance. Home for grade 1 to 6 for both of us.

Me, being silly and cooling off in the wading pool in our neighbourhood park. The same wading pool we spent many many summer days splashing about in.

Me and David.

My childhood home, a Victorian semi-detached house on a tree lined side street. I remember the day I helped my dad dig the hole to plant the maple tree in the front yard, I remember the weekend my dad and uncle put up the aluminum siding and the chain link fence, I remember helping my dad mix the concrete for the front walk and steps.....things I hadn't remembered for a long time.

Me, outside the library that fostered my life long love of reading.

Me, in the laneway beside our elementary school. The photo below it, is me in the same place in 1974 aged 7 and is also the same two pictures in the side by side collage below.  As a child and teen, my family moved alot. We didn't just move house, we moved countries and cities and during one of those moves, the box with all our childhood photos was lost. Until yesterday, I did not have one single childhood photo. I was so thrilled that David had kept this one and had a copy made me for me.

On Sunday (today) I met up with another friend and we went and saw "The Heat" with Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy. It was a very funny movie and I laughed all the way through it. Afterwards we went for a 5.6km walk along Hamilton's Waterfront Trail. It was the perfect afternoon, light breezes coming off the lake and although it was overcast, it was a very warm afternoon.

Now...I'm ready for bed to face the week ahead.

Hope your week was good!