Can we ever truly be joined as one?
(btw Marmite is dubbed Our Mate over here due to the NZ variety)
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Sunday, January 25, 2015
12wbt
2 February, I am starting Michelle Bridges' 12 week body transformation 'thing'. I don't like to call it a diet as it is more of a lifestyle change... I am hoping that this will be more than a flash in the pan. Another step towards trying to be fitter and to have a more healthy lifestyle. Much as I enjoy it, spending all day sitting on the couch eating chocolate won't make me fit. However, I am willing to give it a go...
On this 12 week challenge, you get given meal plans (which apparently you can choose from many different options, which is a good thing given how picky I am) and you exercise 6 times a week, a mixture of cardio, strength and resistance from what I can make out.
I did the pre-season fitness test today, which is supposed to categorise you, and that put me in the "intermediate" category, which is a bit disappointing, as I was hoping to be a "beginner"! You do this fitness test every 4 weeks during the program to see how you are progressing. You can also choose how many calories to consume during the challenge - whether it be 1200 for weight loss, or 1500 for tone & strengthen, etc. and you can change your plan around during the 12 weeks also.
I'm a little bit scared.
There's a section of the pre-course notes that talks about excuses. These being divided into three categories - internal, external, and external beyond your control, I think they were.
Internal being the little voices in my head that say there is NO way you can keep that up for 12 weeks. There is absolutely no way you will enjoy the food, want to cook it, want to eat it, or want to exercise. You'll be way too tired to get out of bed to exercise. You won't exercise on an overnight, you know that. And so on.
External being factors like going on overnights, where food options will be very limited and a lot of planning will have to go in to taking enough food for the duration. Other factors like outings, social gatherings, etc. Heat, for working out after an early duty - I don't think cold is going to be an issue over the next 12 weeks, as that only takes me to the end of April! These are things that I can plan for - for instance exercising indoors with the air-conditioning on if it is 35 degrees outside.
External factors outside my control would be things like sickness (of others around me, or myself), getting stuck at an outport for an unscheduled overnight with only enough food planned for one day, etc. Those aren't things that I can plan around, and would just have to wing on the day.
It's the little voices that scare me the most.
12 weeks is an incredibly long time - you struggle to do one week without a cheat meal!
So... I guess we'll just have to watch this space. Tomorrow I get the first week's shopping list (very useful, they tell you what you need to buy for a week!) and then on Thursday I take measurements of my body so that I can compare it to what it looks like along the way...
And I really don't like eggs. Or seafood, or weird things like tofu, and cottage cheese, and beetroot, and avocado, and oh the list goes on...
This is going to be very "interesting".
On this 12 week challenge, you get given meal plans (which apparently you can choose from many different options, which is a good thing given how picky I am) and you exercise 6 times a week, a mixture of cardio, strength and resistance from what I can make out.
I did the pre-season fitness test today, which is supposed to categorise you, and that put me in the "intermediate" category, which is a bit disappointing, as I was hoping to be a "beginner"! You do this fitness test every 4 weeks during the program to see how you are progressing. You can also choose how many calories to consume during the challenge - whether it be 1200 for weight loss, or 1500 for tone & strengthen, etc. and you can change your plan around during the 12 weeks also.
I'm a little bit scared.
There's a section of the pre-course notes that talks about excuses. These being divided into three categories - internal, external, and external beyond your control, I think they were.
Internal being the little voices in my head that say there is NO way you can keep that up for 12 weeks. There is absolutely no way you will enjoy the food, want to cook it, want to eat it, or want to exercise. You'll be way too tired to get out of bed to exercise. You won't exercise on an overnight, you know that. And so on.
External being factors like going on overnights, where food options will be very limited and a lot of planning will have to go in to taking enough food for the duration. Other factors like outings, social gatherings, etc. Heat, for working out after an early duty - I don't think cold is going to be an issue over the next 12 weeks, as that only takes me to the end of April! These are things that I can plan for - for instance exercising indoors with the air-conditioning on if it is 35 degrees outside.
External factors outside my control would be things like sickness (of others around me, or myself), getting stuck at an outport for an unscheduled overnight with only enough food planned for one day, etc. Those aren't things that I can plan around, and would just have to wing on the day.
It's the little voices that scare me the most.
12 weeks is an incredibly long time - you struggle to do one week without a cheat meal!
So... I guess we'll just have to watch this space. Tomorrow I get the first week's shopping list (very useful, they tell you what you need to buy for a week!) and then on Thursday I take measurements of my body so that I can compare it to what it looks like along the way...
And I really don't like eggs. Or seafood, or weird things like tofu, and cottage cheese, and beetroot, and avocado, and oh the list goes on...
This is going to be very "interesting".
The new shoots on the mango tree are coming along at an incredible rate. Two well defined baby branches, with a few little buds also that you can't really see in this picture.
All 3 mango trees in their new pots. It's going to be interesting when we eventually move out, trying to move those monsters downstairs!
All 3 mango trees in their new pots. It's going to be interesting when we eventually move out, trying to move those monsters downstairs!
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Not Running, and Mango Trees
I got up this morning at 0600 to go for a run. I'm trying to do this every other day, and it still takes a lot of effort to get out of bed knowing what I'm about to subject my body to...
I got dressed, fixed up my heart rate monitor and put on my GPS watch... grabbed my shoes from by the front door and... then I noticed.
The rain.
Well let's call it a waterfall.
And it's at this point that I mention that Kurt has suggested many many times that I check the weather before getting ready to do things - and I usually don't, because come on, it's Brisbane, so it's sunny, and hot, ALL the time.
It's not today.
In fact, it's very wet across most of Eastern Queensland, it's even on the news for the Wet in the likes of Rockhampton.
My mango trees still don't get any water unless I actually water them though, which is usually once very 1 - 2 weeks.
Here they are, in all their glory:
I got dressed, fixed up my heart rate monitor and put on my GPS watch... grabbed my shoes from by the front door and... then I noticed.
The rain.
Well let's call it a waterfall.
And it's at this point that I mention that Kurt has suggested many many times that I check the weather before getting ready to do things - and I usually don't, because come on, it's Brisbane, so it's sunny, and hot, ALL the time.
It's not today.
In fact, it's very wet across most of Eastern Queensland, it's even on the news for the Wet in the likes of Rockhampton.
My mango trees still don't get any water unless I actually water them though, which is usually once very 1 - 2 weeks.
Here they are, in all their glory:
The tallest (the one closest) reached it's two feet mark a couple of weeks ago and I duly lopped its head off. The purpose of this is to stop the mango tree from growing straight up and force it to grow side shoots. This is to make the tree bushier and the more limbs a tree has, the more fruit it has, and the easier it is to reach, etc. etc. This pruning has been very successful, there are about 5 or 6 shoots so far. Once these are established, they will be reduced to four, which is apparently a good number.
Here is its neighbouring tree's single main shoot. The other two trees have shot up amazingly in the last two weeks. When I pruned Tree Number 1, they were lagging behind by at least half a foot and now only by a couple of inches - it will be their turn for the scissors soon!
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
The New Bow
It happened. He got a new bow. He didn't have a compound bow yet, so fair enough. His is the Bear Agenda 7, and it is a 50-60lb bow, obviously wound up to 60lb, while mine is still sitting back at 37lb... it's not a competition!!!
And here is the bow itself, sitting on the Lakeside Bowmen Official Sighting-In Chair which is at the side of the sighting-in range, and which is quite useful for resting things on (such as my backside when my legs get tired). I'm not sure whether the chair is intentionally camouflaged or whether it's just very very old.
The view from the sighting range back in the direction of the clubhouse (you can see our car).
And in the other direction (at this point, I am sitting on the aforementioned chair).
The other side of Kurt and his bow...
The shadow black with orange trim is really nice, and goes with his arrow combination of orange & black feathers, although in this case they are plastic vanes as this type of bow apparently tends to damage real feathers faster than his other bow.
And here is the bow itself, sitting on the Lakeside Bowmen Official Sighting-In Chair which is at the side of the sighting-in range, and which is quite useful for resting things on (such as my backside when my legs get tired). I'm not sure whether the chair is intentionally camouflaged or whether it's just very very old.
The view from the sighting range back in the direction of the clubhouse (you can see our car).
And in the other direction (at this point, I am sitting on the aforementioned chair).
The other side of Kurt and his bow...
Catch Up Post 1
The weather's pretty ordinary at the moment. That's what they'd say, in Australia, and of course, I'm in Australia, so the weather's pretty ordinary at the moment.
(Google suggests that "ordinary", in Australia, means "actively terrible" or "really quite bad" etc. while of course, everywhere else in the Universe...)
I'll try to give you all a head's up when I'm going to use words that don't mean what you think they mean.
I've always liked the American definition for "momentarily". Especially when you're taxiing out for takeoff, and the pilot makes a PA declaring his intention to be "airborne momentarily".
It's a good thing I understood.
And for fear of being sexist, the pilot was indeed a male on this occasion.
Today is Kurt and my five monthiversary. Yes, it's really been that long! Although I like to tell him that really we've been married a year now as we got married in 2014 and it is now 2015... where's my anniversary present?
I went to the sim at the beginning of January, obviously preceded by 2 weeks of insane stressing about something that generally goes well (and did) but nevertheless remains stressful every single time. Kurt goes to the ATC sim in a couple of weeks to do his next rating (every piece of airspace holds its own rating) and he is neither stressed nor planning to study, so I envy him a bit.
Thankfully the more pilots Kurt talks to, and the more he realises that we all do this, the more understanding he becomes!
Running is continuing. I fell over a piece of pavement last week, ending up with a few scrapes and bruises, and after taking a few days off running due to general soreness, I am tending to avoid the pavement when I can. Yesterday I was running along the street next to the parked cars - this is in a quiet housing estate, mind, on a nice wide road - and this car comes up behind me and starts beeping his horn at me repeatedly. I am still not sure what he wanted, as he seemed quite angry that I was running on the street. He did not seem to be calling attention to the fact that I was a female, running, so who knows...
I have just finished reading the Harry Potter series, 10+ years after they were first published, and in general enjoyed them. Having watched the movies already, I didn't find that this detracted from the books in any way, and it was quite strange how I associated the actors in the movies with the characters in the books. (In general, what JK Rowling described was portrayed quite well). There were of course differences, but these were differences that I could deal with. (Unlike some movies/books which I am sure were meant to be either/or , never the twain shall meet).
I also watched the movie of the Giver, which was good but... missing something that the book has, although I cannot explain.
We bought a whole stack of movies after Christmas as JB Hifi had a really good sale on, so why not? This means that we are now trying to get through them all, and Kurt finds it hard to understand how I can spend hours on my computer, either chatting on Facebook or watching Youtube clip after Youtube clip (season 9 of Bondi Rescue in 2 days heh heh) and yet need a break inbetween two movies.
That's just the way it works, okay?
Going back to Kurt being in the sim soon, this means that he will now be what they call a "fully endorsed controller" or FEC. This means that he will hold all the ratings in his "group" - in this case, three - and be able to start doing shift work. This will put him on a rotating roster of three on, two off... which actually is going to be a pain in the proverbial, as having me on a random roster could make matching days off quite difficult! I get four roster bids in a four week period, which are not guaranteed (I'm unsure why they bother) so hopefully some of our days will line up.
(Google suggests that "ordinary", in Australia, means "actively terrible" or "really quite bad" etc. while of course, everywhere else in the Universe...)
I'll try to give you all a head's up when I'm going to use words that don't mean what you think they mean.
I've always liked the American definition for "momentarily". Especially when you're taxiing out for takeoff, and the pilot makes a PA declaring his intention to be "airborne momentarily".
It's a good thing I understood.
And for fear of being sexist, the pilot was indeed a male on this occasion.
Today is Kurt and my five monthiversary. Yes, it's really been that long! Although I like to tell him that really we've been married a year now as we got married in 2014 and it is now 2015... where's my anniversary present?
I went to the sim at the beginning of January, obviously preceded by 2 weeks of insane stressing about something that generally goes well (and did) but nevertheless remains stressful every single time. Kurt goes to the ATC sim in a couple of weeks to do his next rating (every piece of airspace holds its own rating) and he is neither stressed nor planning to study, so I envy him a bit.
Thankfully the more pilots Kurt talks to, and the more he realises that we all do this, the more understanding he becomes!
Running is continuing. I fell over a piece of pavement last week, ending up with a few scrapes and bruises, and after taking a few days off running due to general soreness, I am tending to avoid the pavement when I can. Yesterday I was running along the street next to the parked cars - this is in a quiet housing estate, mind, on a nice wide road - and this car comes up behind me and starts beeping his horn at me repeatedly. I am still not sure what he wanted, as he seemed quite angry that I was running on the street. He did not seem to be calling attention to the fact that I was a female, running, so who knows...
I have just finished reading the Harry Potter series, 10+ years after they were first published, and in general enjoyed them. Having watched the movies already, I didn't find that this detracted from the books in any way, and it was quite strange how I associated the actors in the movies with the characters in the books. (In general, what JK Rowling described was portrayed quite well). There were of course differences, but these were differences that I could deal with. (Unlike some movies/books which I am sure were meant to be either/or , never the twain shall meet).
I also watched the movie of the Giver, which was good but... missing something that the book has, although I cannot explain.
We bought a whole stack of movies after Christmas as JB Hifi had a really good sale on, so why not? This means that we are now trying to get through them all, and Kurt finds it hard to understand how I can spend hours on my computer, either chatting on Facebook or watching Youtube clip after Youtube clip (season 9 of Bondi Rescue in 2 days heh heh) and yet need a break inbetween two movies.
That's just the way it works, okay?
Going back to Kurt being in the sim soon, this means that he will now be what they call a "fully endorsed controller" or FEC. This means that he will hold all the ratings in his "group" - in this case, three - and be able to start doing shift work. This will put him on a rotating roster of three on, two off... which actually is going to be a pain in the proverbial, as having me on a random roster could make matching days off quite difficult! I get four roster bids in a four week period, which are not guaranteed (I'm unsure why they bother) so hopefully some of our days will line up.
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