Oct 31, 2011

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3rd Time’s a Charm?

Well. I did it.

Not 5 minutes ago I signed up for the 30-day hot yoga challenge being put on by my yoga studio.

Bonus? I can expense my monthly membership through work! (Note: this does not give me an excuse to not go…)

I had attempted this twice before – once last December (I made it 11 classes before I missed a few) and last February (I think I made it to 17 or so). Obviously, I have an issue with finishing things.

Example: I started my cleanse on Saturday and I’m already cranky and want to quit. Like, seriously, want to quit (Bread! It sound so yummy!). It’s doing nothing but making me tired and thirsty. The fact that I’m craving sugar (not wine, beer or cheese) today has made me bound and determined to stick with it – if I’m craving sugar it must mean I’m detoxing, right?!

So, as part of my lose the 15 pounds I need to and get healthy before Christmas, I’ve decided to attempt to do hot yoga every day for 30 days. I get a free coupon for a facial (yay!) and cupcakes on November 30 (you better believe I’ll be eating those suckers) and then I have to try to fit yoga into my day. Every day.

The most challenging day is tomorrow. The Cowboy and I are driving to Edmonton immediately after work to see Cirque du Soleil and likely won’t be home until 1am. Ick. This means I have to wake up at 5:40 to do yoga at 6:30 and still make it to work for 8:15. Double ick.

But dangit. I’m GOING to do it. Even if I want to curse my alarm clock and throw it across the room when it goes off tomorrow. I’m not so good at waking up the mornings – I tend to set my alarm for 6am and then hit snooze until 7am. That certainly needs to change.

So, in an effort to start November 1 off right, I’ll be crawling into bed around 9pm tonight.

That 5:40am alarm sure does come early!

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Oct 29, 2011

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Healthy November

With all the traveling I’ve been doing over the past 3 months (see: lack of blogging in September and October and August travels) I’ve been eating like crap AND not working out.

My last run was my 8k on October 10. Actually, that’s the last time I did any kind of physical activity; unless you count walking around Disneyland – I don’t (even though my shins hurt afterwards. Shins: see not working out since October 10).

The Cowboy and I had a registered nurse come to our condo on Thursday night to do a health check for our life insurance and while I’m within the “healthy” range for my height (5’5″ up from the 5’4″ I thought I was) I was not impressed with my 146lb weight (up from the 140 I was 2 weeks ago).

I had already decided that I would be starting November with a cleanse (disclaimer: please consult your doctor before taking pills/supplements/restricting your diet, etc) I’m also toying with the idea of doing a yoga challenge. I don’t feel like my shins are quite up to running yet (walking around Disneyland hurt) but I need to do something to get my body back into a less squishy and round shape. I think yoga may be it.

I’m heading to yoga today for the first time in months to see how I feel. If I do okay, I’ll register for the challenge starting on November 1. The first week will probably be extremely rough as I’m doing a cleanse at the same time, but I’m going to purposefully pick the easier classes until I feel like I’m up to it. I have a habit of pushing too hard too soon (see: considering a 30-day yoga challenge) and I’m going to try to resist the urge to be at 100% right away.

I’ll let y’all know how this whole cleanse-yoga thing goes. I’m not sure The Cowboy is going to be thrilled with the weird and wacky food I’ll be eating (no sugar, dairy, gluten, fermented foods [that means booze], peanut butter, etc…) but I’m looking forward to trying new recipes. If I manage to make something yummy I’ll be sure to post it. So far The Cowboy is not a fan of spaghetti squash…

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Oct 28, 2011

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The sale that wasn’t. Then was. Or something.

The Cowboy have never had good luck with real estate.

Sure, when we sold our first house in 4 days at a gain of, oh, roughly, $160,000 we were pretty stoked. Then came the living in a 600 sq ft basement suite for 9+ monthly while we anxiously and not-so-patiently waited for our condo to be ready. Once we had the possession date of our condo we started a ridiculous fight with a mortgage insurance company that lasted far, far too long (which was also aided by the crap crap crappiest mortgage broker out there who basically stopped returning our calls and left the freaking country right at the point where we needed to know exactly how much above and beyond the 5% we needed to put down so we could finally be approved for our mortgage – and I guess – and was wrong – and we needed more money and we signed the possession papers the same day we were supposed to move in) and then we moved into our condo.

Hurrah.

Or so we thought until last November when we thought it might be fun to buy an acreage and build a house on it.

So then we listed our condo on January 15 thinking we’d be moving into our dream house right about now.

You know what they say about the best laid plans, right?

Well, 10 months later we had an offer (not counting the offer the realtor royally screwed up in August). It was actually an offer and Disneyland in the same day. Totally awesomesauce, right?!

Yeah.

Not so much.

2.5 years after dealing with the mortgage insurance company, they decided not to lend to these people. For a number of reasons, but mainly because the insurance company is dumb.

But -

Do you remember how I mentioned that we had a backup offer that we were kind of crossing our fingers for, hoping it would go through?

We signed it today!

It’s conditional on them reviewing our condo docs and a building inspection and then, if all goes well, it’ll be final November 3, with closing to occur on November 15.

Ummm, quick much?!

Thank goodness The Cowboy and I are free to live in our condo since they’re going to be renting it back to it. It’s nearly the same as what we paid in our mortgage, but we’ll be able to realize other savings out of it.

The bonus?

We don’t have to sign a lease with them. So if we happen to find an awesome-cheap-still-downtown-condo that we want to move in to – all we have to go is give them the appropriate notice and away we go!

I think the only thing I’ve learned through all of this is that God sure does work in mysterious ways. Oh, and I hate having open houses every weekend. That too.

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Oct 28, 2011

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Casual Friday

There’s something about wearing jeans on Friday that just makes the day so much better.

Luckily, I had a bit more time this morning and managed to shower and even pretended to “do” my hair. (Throwing in a mini-braid and putting in a bun = done in my world!)

I actually had planned this outfit for a few days. One because I love my William Rast skinny jeans and two because I love my knee-high black boots (which, unfortunately are really, really difficult to see in these pictures because the lighting sucked and I was trying to not get caught by the cleaning lady/co-workers).

First picture is especially for Gina (and, no, I don’t make a habit of taking pictures like this)

Note that my scarf is actually teal – not blue.

See?

Proof!

I’m very much loving the lace trend.

The cleaning cart in the background? Notsomuch.

Didn’t believe me before about the boots?

Here’s some more proof:

And, just because it’s Friday (and we had some house-sale drama last night – more later – promise) I decided to wear a red bra (of which you will not be seeing a picture of) and a bright pink watch.

Really, what good is Friday if a girl can’t wear a pink watch!

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Oct 27, 2011

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The return of the blanket sweater

And hopefully in focus this time!

This morning proved why it is oh-so-important that I actually plan what I’m going to wear the night before.

In the middle of a great sleep, I was woken up to The Cowboy saying, “Cowgirl! Cowgirl” to find out that it’s 7:50 and my alarm didn’t go off. Whoops! I’m not a fan of starting my mornings like that.

I managed to pick up a pair of (clean) pants off the floor and the blanket sweater was the first item I pulled out of my closet.

I even managed to make it to work by 8:30 – it’s a good thing I remembered to make my breakfast the night before!

Hmmm.

I did just realize that I probably have no brushed my hair today…

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