Day 1: Sugar = No. Sinus Cold = Yes.

So today is Ash Wednesday, for those who follow the Western Christian calendar. For those unfamiliar with the concept, Ash Wednesday is the kick off to Lent and it occurs 46 days before Easter. The story goes that Matthew, Mark, Luke and Jesus spent 40 days and 40 nights fasting in the desert while being tempted by Satan (I guess he had nothing better to do). The purpose of Lent has changed over the millennia and basically it boils down to giving up some sort of luxury or benefit in your life as a way of paying penitence for your sins. Now if you've been paying attention, you'll notice that we're missing 6 days in the math. The extra 6 days account for the Sundays between now and Easter and those are kind of like a day off. Fast for 6 days and feast on the 7th. Anyhow, back to my point. Since I am neither overly religious (much more spiritual really) nor do I believe that I commit many sins, I use Lent as a time of motivation. A period to make positive changes in my life and use it as a motivating factor. And with a little hope that God, the Goddess and the Universe all help me out a little and give me some extra strength and will power.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, I'm giving up sugar for Lent. To clarify, I'm giving up any foods with "added" sugar in them, as well as high fructose corn syrup and other bad sugars. Anything that has naturally occurring sugars like fruit and milk are ok.

It just so happens that the World Health Organization published an announcement today asking people to consume no more than 6 teaspoons of sugar a day. They go on to say that no more than 10% of your daily calories should come from sugar but would prefer it if people could make that 5% instead.

Sugar is everywhere. It's in things that you'd never think of it being in. One tablespoon of ketchup has almost 1 full teaspoon of sugar in it. Even one serving of the Sour Cream and Onion Crispy Minis that I have has 1 gram of sugar in it. A lot of processed foods have sugar in them. A lot of "diet" or "low fat" foods have added sugar to help with the taste. It's very overwhelming when you stop to think about it.

I'm kicking the habit so I'm going to do what I can to avoid sugar for the next 40 days. I dawned on my today that my dad's 60th birthday falls during this 40 day period so that's going to be a tough one. But my aim isn't to be perfect, just much more aware.

Day 1 went well. Mostly due to the fact that I'm rather sick with a nasty sinus cold right now. I remember to buy sugar free cough/throat drops and I used honey in my tea this morning. Once I'm feeling better, I'm going to have to hit up the grocery store for a new cereal as my favourite one here has added sugar in it. I'm also trying to find some recipes online for no-sugar granola and breakfast bars. I'm sure I'll be a little more motivated when I'm finally feeling better.

My night time cold medication is kicking in so I'd better log off before I fall asleep at my computer and get snot/drool all over the keyboard (that's a pretty image eh?).

Good Night!

Sarah

Guess What? It's Still Cold.

It's been 3 weeks since I last blogged. It's still cold. There's still lots of snow on the ground. The forecast for the week shows more cold and more snow. And the first day of Spring is 18 days away. Someone needs to wake Mother Nature up and remind her of that fact. I'm so done with this weather. I think most people are. According to the weather experts, this is the coldest winter we've had in the last 20 years. I believe it. I'm hanging in there though.

From a mood/mental standpoint, this winter has been pretty good (knock on wood since it isn't over yet). Other than a  couple of days in December and a week in January, I've been doing pretty good. The demons haven't been bugging me. Maybe it's even too cold out for them! The only thing I've done differently this winter than last is Curves. It's become pretty much routine for me now. I haven't missed a session since mid January. I did miss one day in February but that's because they were closed so that wasn't my fault. I think the exercise really has helped. I've been pushing myself to get out more too, be a little more social. That's probably helped too. I'm starting to see the results from Curves. Just small ones. But they make me smile. In numbers, I've lost 6lbs and 10.75 inches. That means I'm trading fat for muscle. I think it's a pretty good swap.

Despite being up late last night, I woke up early-ish this morning and couldn't fall back to sleep. So I hauled my butt out of bed and got moving. I made it to the grocery store and home again by 10:20am. I then had breakfast, watched Police Academy and cleaned my kitchen. Like really cleaned it. I still have the stove/oven and my kitchen table to tackle but the sink and counters are looking pretty good. Took out a whole mess of recycling too. I can't believe how quickly it adds up! I did empty and toss out some expired stuff so that contributed to the recycling mess.

I've decided that I'm going to attempt something this week. It's going to be hard and I'm most likely going to be very cranky but it's worth it. Lent is coming up. And while I'm not Catholic and thus don't normally observes lent, over the last few years I have. For the last 3 years, I've given up chocolate for lent. I've managed to stick to it and then I go hog wild at on Easter. LOL. This year, I'm stepping up my game. I'm going to give up ALL sugar for lent. You see, sugar is my drug. Some people go nuts for chips, for me, it's sugar. Cakes, cookies, squares, chocolate bars, gummies....sugar. And I need to kick that habit. My mid-section needs me to kick that habit. So this should be an adventure. I'm not going to beat myself up if I'm not perfect and I'm sure God won't be disappointed in me either but I'm going to hold myself accountable and give this a real try. I've been told that it take 6 weeks to make or break a habit. Lord knows that my "doing dishes every night" habit attempt failed miserably but my making the bed every morning one worked. I bought a bunch of unsweetened apple sauce fruit snack cups to help with the sugar cravings. I just hope I can do this without killing anyone :)

Bed time has arrived so it's time to sign off. I really hate that the Oscars save all the big, fun awards until the end of the show. I guess no one would watch it to the end otherwise. Oh well.

Good Night!

Sarah

Cold Power Walking and a New Lunch Date

Well I certainly got my cardio in this morning. Thanks to the design of the downtown corridor, an accident in one key spot caused major backups for all the buses.

I was first aware of a problem when it took us 5 minutes to get up a hill. And then when we reached the stop at the top of the hill, we sat there for 5 minutes, without moving away from the stop. Thankfully, I'm a well prepared Canadian girl and was dressed for the weather. I had my boots, two pairs of pants, a sweater, a hoodie, scarf, mittens and my heavy wool coat on so I was good to brave the elements.

Me and about 6 other people hopped off the bus and started the trek into downtown. Looking down the street, there was a long line of pretty red and white buses and a heavy stream of people heading into the core on foot. While making the trek, I passed my boss' boss en route to the office. We said a hurried hi as we each scurried in a different direction across the street.

Despite the fact that it was -28 with the windchill when I left the house, I was quite toasty by the time I got to the office. There was a quick stop at Starbucks involved, where they gave me the wrong drink but it was still good so I was ok. I wasn't the only one who opted to take the two feet and a heartbeat approach to getting to work today. At least it was sunny.

I must say, I'm really looking forward to the new transit tunnel under downtown being built. I think it will really improve traffic in the core.

I had a fun lunch today. Due to scheduling conflicts and over crowding, I opted to have lunch with a couple of our students rather than my usual group. I know one of the girls pretty well as she's been with us for a few years now. They were quite fun to hang with. It was neat talking about school stuff again and I assisted in the one girl trying to plan a romantic weekend away. LOL. They were a nice break in the day. They gave me advice on boys too :)

Kind of like the conversation I had with our boss' assistant over the difference between the photocopier and the printer and the fact that you cannot send a print job to our photocopier. I'm sure it was a fun conversation for anyone who happened to over hear. Our office isn't equipped with over high tech machines. We're kind of an old school place.

All in all, it was a pretty decent day. I think it's time to go and feed my Merlin addiction.

Good Night!

Sarah

Sick :(

Call my mom, I'm sick :( That doesn't usually work as she's usually the one who's sick, I look after her, go home and then come down with whatever she had. At Christmas, we both got sick at the same time and then we had to look after my dad when he got sick. Amy Farrah Fowler even had Sheldon to look after her and rub vapo rub on her chest. It's not fair I tell ya.

This really sucks as it's the 2nd time I've been since in the last 6 weeks. Same issue too: Sinus cold. Or at least a cold that starts in my sinuses. I went for well over a year without getting sick and now it's happened twice in 6 weeks. That's not good.

I did manage to make it out shopping with Steph today. I was ok in the morning but by early afternoon, I was a zombie. On several occasions Steph has to ask if I was still with her. After she dropped me off, I promptly put all my grocery type items in the fridge/freezer, changed into some jammies and crawled into bed where I had a lovely 3 hour nap. Napping is a tell tale sign that I'm not feeling well. I do not nap. I'm not capable of napping. If I lay down and fall asleep, I'm out for hours. None of this 20-30 minute nonsense.

I used my nasal rinse, I've had a nice hot soak in the tub with some lavender epsom salts and I'm about to make myself a cup of Sleepy Time tea with some honey in it. Then I'll pop a couple of the night-time cold meds and head to bed. Hopefully that will knock me out for a full 8 hours or more. I really don't foresee myself doing much of anything tomorrow, which sucks. I have a large pile of laundry and a nice collection of dishes that require my attention. I supposed getting better is more important than house work.

Here's hoping that this is short lived and doesn't move to my chest and I'm all better soon. Next week at work is going to be a busy one, so I have 1 week to be back to 100%.

Time to sleep!

Good Night!

Sarah

Stupid Sinuses

Some days I feel like I'm living a real life game of Tetris. All these pieces come at me and I need to figure out where to fit them all in. Today was one of those days. Except I was literally trying to fit pieces in, actually it was people. Musical chairs...without the music :) It's an interesting predicament went you have more people than chairs. And it's a good thing that I like puzzles.

My day went well until around 2pm when my left sinus got all plugged up. I've felt like crap since. I really hope that I'm not coming down with another sinus cold. I just got over one in late December. With how wacky the weather's been, I wouldn't be surprised if I am getting sick.

Not much on my mind tonight as I'm very sleepy. I'm still trying to recover from my late night on Wednesday. The older you get, the harder it is to recover. I think I'll head to bed early tonight and hope that I feel better tomorrow.

Good Night!

Sarah

I can't wait for winter to be over!

Cookies And A Deep Freeze

I had a pretty good day at work. I was in a training session today (and it continues tomorrow) and the session is going really well. The guys running it are great and really laid back and the stuff we're learning is pretty interesting so it's keeping my attention. Hopefully I remember everything and can apply my knowledge soon.

As a result of training, I actually got to leave work at a normal time.I did a quick tour through Walmart ( I forgot half the stuff I wanted to buy, so it must not have been important ) and found a very nice top on the clearance rack for $7. So that was a nice discovery. After that, I headed home and made dinner.

For the last couple of weeks, I've been craving chocolate chip cookies. I don't really know why. Since there wasn't anything good on tv tonight, I decided to bake. My apartment smells wonderful and I have a nice pile of home made cookies in my kitchen. I think I'll take some to my training session tomorrow and share with my fellow classmates. And the instructors of course.

It's been a long time since I've felt like baking. I love doing it just haven't had the desire. I'm taking this as a positive sign. Engaging in activities that I enjoy is the sign of a happy person. The next step on the improvement list is getting out more. Interacting with other human beings more. That one is going to be a bit of a dozy, seeing as I do love my alone time. I suppose that's why the experts say that we need to step outside of our comfort zone. I've been very chatty with the others in my training session, so that's good too :)

Little positive steps every day. Oh! And I managed not to freeze today, despite the temp being -39C when I left this morning and then being -35C when I came home. Stupid weather. Ottawa was the coldest Capital City in the world today. Novosibirsk, the capital of  Siberia, was warmer than us!! Heck, even Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut in Canada's North was warmer than Ottawa. If you threw a pitcher of boiling water into the air, snow would form. The tried it on the local news at 6pm and it worked. LOL. Insane. Tomorrow should be slightly warmer at -27. Lucky us.

I'm going to go and crawl into my warm bed and dream of spring now.

Good Night!

Sarah

I was more bundled up today than I was in this photo!

Christmas Lights Shenanigans

The work day flew by and it's about to get very busy 'round the office as the re-newals and re-hires for January begin. Which is good. Being busy makes the day go by faster.

I'm very happy because I got to pick up my new glasses tonight. YAY! Both pairs are great but the one pair is just awesome. They look great on me and I'm thrilled. The fact that I can see better is awesome too. Like right now. This means my eyes won't be so tired which hopefully will mean that I won't be as tired either.

So I had a fun evening tonight. It started with Stephanee asking me yesterday "Do you want to drive around and see some Christmas lights". I decided that sounded good so off we went this evening. Before she left to pick me up, Steph said "I'm just printing off the maps". Awesome. She gets here and as we're heading out to grab my glasses, she says "I printed off the maps, highlighted the maps...and then forgot the maps at home". LOL.

You know what that means. That's right. It's the "Steph and Sarah drive quasi aimlessly through suburbia" show!!!!!

First stop: Taffy Lane in Orleans. Since this street is almost bright enough to see from space, it shouldn't have been too hard to find. Not quite. There is quite the lack of street signs in Orleans. We ended up pulling into a parking lot and reading the map. Turns out, we were about 8 blocks from our destination. Awesome. Away we went. The street was awesome! Steph got the bright idea to get out and walk along the street, which made taking photos better but it's also -11 out, without the windchill. We did half the street before giving up and returning to the warmth of the car. Ahhhh. We drove the rest of the street and one of the other little side streets and then it was off to our next destination.

Here's some of the lights from Taffy Lane:

Barrhaven, in the opposite end of the city from Orleans. Our landmarks this time? One location is "Off Woodroff, then off Tierry". Found this one by accident. After driving around and aimlessly for a bit, we're driving a long a crescent and Steph asks "turn left or keep going". I voted for "keep going" which worked out well as street #2 was on the right around the bend. It was a cute little street. Not as well lit up as Taffy Lane, but still nice.

Ok, onto stop #3 with the directions of "There's a Tim Horton's on the corner". Seriously!??!? After going the wrong way at the Tim's and driving past the same park 3 times, Steph decides to try the other side of the Tim's and we hit gold. We found the house. It's one where the lights are set to music and the home owner broadcasts the music on a low frequency so that you can hear the music through your car radio. It was pretty darn cool and well worth the risk of getting lost in Suburbian hell. LOL.

I'm pretty sure we're the only ones who can turn looking at Christmas lights into an adventure. But it sure was fun :)

Good Night!

Sarah

Christmas Lights and Beavertails

I feel like a bit of a rebel. I stayed out quite late this evening, especially since I have to work tomorrow. LOL. It's funny. I'm a grown woman and can come and go as I please yet I still think it's naughty or whatever to stay out late on a "work night". I know, crazy. As I was coming in my neighbour down the hall was heading out to hockey so I guess I'm not all that late.

It was a very fun evening. Myself, Xtina and 3 co-workers all headed up to Parliament Hill to see the kick off celebrations for "Christmas Lights Across Canada". They were very nice.

It started with someone doing a mini-concert on the Peace Tower Bells and then a youth choir sang (they were really good) and there were a few speeches, more singing, and then they lit the lights and some fireworks went off and the capital was all lit up.

We all managed to get candles too, so that we could be part of the "lights" on the hill. I'm pretty sure everyone of us got wax on ourselves and/or out mitts/gloves.

 

 

 

 

After the show, we did a quick tour of the back of Parliament Hill and then went to the Chateau Laurier to warm up and see the Trees of Hope. One of us attempted to turn the hotel into a wax museum but dropping not one, but two candles on the floor, each of which left a nice pile of hard wax behind. And it wasn't me. I swear.

 

Once warm, we opted to hit up the Beavertail stand since the line up on the Hill had been way too long.

So off we went. Despite it being friggin' cold, we all took off out mitts to each the wonderful creation that is the Beavertail. I had apples and cinnamon on mine and it was amazing. I haven't had a Beavertail in about 2 years so it was a real treat. Factor in that I was really hungry and cold and that made the Beavertail seem like the most delicious thing ever.

We then decided that we needed real food so we wandered over to the mall and ate at the restaurant there. It was very nice. They stuck us downstairs next to a group having an office Christmas party so we had a little bit of entertainment along the way. Atleast I think it was a Christmas party. Who knows.

All in all, it was a great evening/night spent with some very cool people. We got to participate in a some very Canadian activities, kept re-lighting each other when the damn wind kept blowing our candles out, player tourist, got a little sticky, had some good food and had quite a few laughs. That's definitely my kind of fun. Except for the cold. That wasn't very nice. LOL.

Good Night!

Sarah