a map to land softly ville...

My posts have been so scarce lately, I apologise. You see my life has taken a turn down Busy Street and its been hard to stop in at Blogspot. You all know I love hanging out at Blogspot but Busy Street is clear on the other side of town and traffic is a nightmare at the moment.

My life has also relocated me Down Under for the year. Fortunately there is a Blogspot here too, but just like in every town, Busy Street is the furthest possible distance from it.

It is super lovely to be in my home town again. I am actually living on the same street as The BFF. We like to call it BFF Street, but no-one else seems to think thats a cool name. We don't get to see each other much, she hangs out on Mum Street alot, which is practically the same as, but also across town from, Busy Street.

It is not so lovely to be so far away from Mr C. He remains in The Great NorthWest living on CoolestJobEver Street. Our story is truly an epic one, of love and woe and having jobs that are on opposite sides of the world, that rightfully deserves a nightly timeslot for the telling of.

Mr C and I will be united sporadically during the year. In the mean time, we have exclusive access to Love Street which connects our homes through cyberspace and heart strings ;)

do what makes you you

Fortunately, Busy Street does insect with Healthy Street. That intersection tends to get particularly congested but I make there pretty much every day. Sometimes I only get down the EatingWell Strip but I've making an effort to get the Exercise Mall too. My daily stop in at WeighIn has been going well too.

Hope you are all well out there xx

One Day...

So One day this One girl got on the scale and to her amazement the scale said "girl, you are Onederful".

from cuehappiness

taking a moment...

Life has been spectacularly busy these past few weeks. My glute challenge has continued and, indeed, has even finished but more on that later - this here is a christmas special post to get you all gooey inside.

Mr C and I have a much beloved family member in hospital at the moment. The hours spent searching our loved ones faces for comfort and attempting to offer some in return has had me placing my life priorities firmly in place. And has me realising how unbelievably blessed I am.

I have alot to reflect on and thank my lucky stars for but above and beyond it all is that I am here at all; that I am healthy, have love in my life in all its various shades and forms and walk through my days in the company of some of the greatest minds and hearts there are.

Can I take a moment to send out my love to my lovely friends who read this - The BFF, SuperJhy, BB (aka Mrs Canuck), Mr Canuck, EOL, KayTee and MammaT; my lovely friends who don't know this even exists including the DragonLady; my cyber crushes - DietGirl, SkinnyLatte, Mizfit, MerryLife; and my partner Mr C. You are some special people.

I'll also take this chance to share that I somehow reached my end of year goal early - I'm a whopping 36kilos down.

from here

I will write again soon, but until then, I'm wishing you and yours a happy, healthy and love-filled life.

xx

come fly with me: glute 25/30...

So glute number 25 is a total cop out - its the amalgamation of the workout one's butt gets packing, lifting, pulling and pushing 80kilos of luggage across the world.

Ok, so I just had to get it to the airport and the plane actually brought it down under. But the checking it in, taking it through customs, dragging it around an airport and finally, thankfully, loading it into a taxi only to drag it all up stairs at the ultimate destination is enough to cause anyone's glutes to exercise.

I am unable to distinguish between possible hardcore workout butt ache and butt ache due to the 20hours of flying time. The butt aches though.

Mr C and I have returned to our beloved homeland for a very beloved relative who is not well at the moment.  Despite the reason we are drinking in the sunshine in great big gulps and loving up our people in great big hugs.

xx

climb every mountain: glute 24/30...

Our prestigious 24th glute exercise is the mountain climber. These are done from a plank-like position and alternatively jumping each foot forward to land in the rough locality between your hands.  In my mind real athletes do this exercise so while my capabilities are lesser and my pace is quite a bit slower than desired, I feel pretty shmick while doing this.

I seem to be having a bit of a plateau at the moment. Naturally, I'm a whisker away from a weight mini-goal and its been static for three weeks. I'm doing my best not to let it bother me but, truth be told, its making me second guess my exercise and food routine a little. Should I really eat that? Should I exercise more?

But never fear, a logical girl lies underneath this skin and no drastic measures will be taken. I read over some of my favourite bloggers posts about similar stages in their journeys. Pretty much everyone seems to have had a similar stage and I'm confident that mine too shall pass. And regardless of how long I stop at this current weight I'm pretty darn chuffed that I'm here :)

from don't let me fall

xx

clam it: glute 23/30...

I've mentioned before that Mr C and I have a shared love of crosswords. We're aren't super excellent at them but we have alot of fun doing them. Yes, we do them together. And no, that isn't cheating. Its teamwork people!

I love to make silly suggestions at some of the more inane clues and Mr C always plays along and we have a right old giggle. Recently we had a clue along the lines of 'phrase that means "be quiet"'. I suggested 'clam it' as an answer because it totally fit and I would not hesitate to use this phrase to convey the sentiment. It was wrong. But we thought it was very funny and it has slowly crept into our every day language, followed by copious laughter.

During one of my pilates classes we do a series of floor exercises focussing on legs - this is one of them. And goes by the name clam exercise. Some may say this name has questionable taste but it reminded me of our new saying and is therefore deemed funny in an appropriately tangential way. It is also recommended by those fancy pants researchers I mentioned the other day. Being partial to a bit of geekiness that makes this exercise a shoe in for an awesome glute exercise.

an unapologetic self esteem booster, again from cuehapiness

i'm shiny happy, people...

another cute thing from cuehappiness

I haven't blogged much about some of the non-weight, non-exercise related things I've noticed with all this healthy guff I've added to my life. Its been thanksgiving here in the US and its had me feeling all kinds of gratitude for my lucky dip of a life. 

Indulge me a little and let me share some of the changes I've had going on.

• Sleep - I have never had problems sleeping but now I sleep really solidly and wake up so refreshed I yabber on to Mr C relentlessly. And, in the last month or so I have noticed a real drop in how much sleep I need to feel totally rested.
• Skin - I hope I am not jinxing myself here but my skin has improved so much, I recently looked through some photos from a few years ago and apart from the poundage differences I was surprised at my skin condition, I had forgotten that I would regularly have a chin break out situation.
• Mood/Energy - these two are so inter-related for me that I'll lump them together. I don't have a particularly stressful life but I would say in general I've become more of an even keel and handle the ups and downs a whole lot better.
• Openness about food - I didn't even know how secretive I could be about food. The other day, to some random stranger in the lift, I starting talking about hungry I was and that I couldn't wait to eat lunch. It struck me that I had never done that kind of thing before and I realised, with some sadness, that I used to be a bit ashamed of eating. 

So there you go folks, I have a bucket of sunshine about my healthy endeavor, I'm keen to keep it going and discover the new shiny things to decorate my life with.

xx