On To The Next One

Ah Jay-Z, how I love you...

I think I've finally come down from the high that was Bluenose Weekend 2010. As I'm sure most of you know, I ran my maiden 10K race this past Sunday. I wore bib #3943, and crossed the finish line with a chip time of 1:06:03, a few minutes under my goal of 1:10:00. That puts me at 305 out of the 469 females between the ages of 30 and 39, and 926 out of the 1460 females who ran the race. I'm pleased.

It was a great weekend too. I got to meet a lot of fantastic ladies - Niffer (my newest partner in crime who also took on the 10K), Jaime, Angie, Lynn, Tash, Jen, Cat, Les, and Lex. I also got to spend some time with my favourite Mouse, who was brave enough to tackle the half-marathon and Serpentine Hill.



Now I'm wondering what to do next. Foolishly, I've reached out for my next training program, a half-marathon. Am I insane? We'll see in the fall.

A Post Long-Overdue: Winnipeg

It's been hard for me to gather my thoughts into a post about my trip to Winnipeg. I get a little emotional about it.

I visited Winnipeg last month to visit some close friends. I'm happy I can call them close friends since I've been there.

I haven't been the same since that trip.

I knew Jan and Lisa are two very special ladies, but I had no idea how great they really are until they shared their lives with me for those few days - honestly, some of the happiest days I had had in a quite a while. They opened up their hearts and their homes to a few of us that weekend.

I had the pleasure of staying with Jan during my visit, in her home. There's something to be said about staying at someone's home. It's something that makes you somehow closer to them, it's a glimpse into their life that you can't get otherwise. It's something that lets you know how they live their private life.

Staying with Jan only reinforced what I already knew about her - that she's warm, funny, generous to a fault, comforting, playful, and supportive. Those gorgeous blue eyes of hers are windows to a beautiful, beautiful soul. I felt so at home that I could have been sitting in my own living room and wouldn't have known the difference. We were able to share many comfortable silences, rare moments between friends. Since I've left, I've longed to share a morning coffee with her, out of a Tinkerbell mug in our pyjamas on her couch. It is the best coffee I've ever had. I know I can never find beans to make that kind of coffee.

Jan's family was nothing but wonderful, and I felt completely welcome while I stayed with them. I am very thankful to them for being so kind and giving.

While Jan was kind enough to host me, Ms. Lisa was hosting the lovely JMegs.

Lisa is a lady that can only be described as elegant, fiery, talented, and vivacious. For those of you who may not know her or know her well, you may not immediately realize the size of this woman's heart. She has enough heart for a hundred people - it's overwhelming. She organized us, drove us around, and cooked for all of us at her home - all the while looking after everyone else in her life. And damn that woman can light a fire!

Lisa's that person who is there for you before you know you need her. She's beautiful and I'm extremely lucky to have her in my life.

The weekend was a whirlwind of laughter, fun, exploring, kinship, and surprises.

We ate well, we drank well, and we shared ourselves. And cake, we shared a LOT of cake. ;-)

Thanks to Jan, Ken, The Kiddo, Lisa, Megan, Jocelyn, Adrian, Vanessa, Joni, Tamara, Jodie at Rock Road Tattoo (who is fabulous), Shelley, and all others that I had the opportunity to spend time with during my stay.

I hope to have the chance to repay all of you for your kindnesses. You will always have a tiny Easterner in your back pocket when you need her.

My trip to Winnipeg may have lasted only a few days, but the memories are on my heart forever. Cake, rye bread, scarves, Chucks, wine, chocolate for breakfast, Jan's award for "Best Actress in a Spider Roll", and lip gloss...

It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesteday

Earworm, sorry.

I'm not sure if anyone can tell this, but it's just after 6am in New Brunswick and I'm wide awake, blogging. That alone should give you some indication of where I am mentally. I've already been awake for an hour.

This has been a very strange week for me. It's like I've gone back in time eight years.

First a chat and email from a very old friend, and then last night.

I got a surprising email yesterday from an old friend of mine with whom I went to university. He and his wife were coming into town for the evening and were getting together with a group of friends of ours whom I hadn't seen in years. I hadn't even seen him since we graduated from school. Ryan, I know you'll never read this, but I really hope it doesn't take six years next time.

Seeing old friends is always good, and always a bit sad. Ryan didn't actually expect me to show up, and when I did he was so pleasantly surprised, it just warmed my heart. Around the tables, I saw so many familiar yet unfamiliar faces. It makes me sad that I live in the same city as many of these people and didn't even know it.

People are never quite the way you remember them if you don't see them often enough. On the rare occasions when I do run into an old friend, am I the only one who just wants to grab them and hug them close, in the hopes that it will light a tiny flame under all of our old memories and somehow take us back to a forgotten moment, if even for a minute?

I dreamed of one of these old friends last night, one I haven't seen in years. We had a falling out and we stopped speaking. We didn't make amends before he rode off into the sunset to continue living his life. Now we'll never make amends and my heart aches for that to happen. He is someone who was so close to me, then suddenly gone. It truly makes my heart hurt.

There are so many other friends who weren't there last night, at least not physically, but talking about them really stirred up a lot of emotion for me. They might as well have been there, as far as my heart is concerned.

Take some time today to contact an old friend, or a friend you don't get to see as often as you'd like to, or someone you don't think you still have a relationship with. Give them that feeling of a reminiscent hug; try to rebuild a bridge that burned a long time ago.

We might not always have these chances.

If You Don't Like Sappy...

don't lick spruce trees.

This is my post-TOI sentimental moment. A little different than my Saturday evening attempt at a sentimental moment. :-) And I don't consider myself an emotional person, but I can't hold this in.

I think this weekend really changed me. Really.

I went to Toronto thinking the weekend would be fun, but I was surprised at what it turned out to be. I spent the weekend with amazing, warm, accepting, vibrant females - something I don't have the chance to do often on such a grand scale. Any future opportunities to do so will not soon be passing me by.

Over the years my friends have thinned out as we've gone about living our lives, and I'm lonely sometimes thinking about it, and I'm sure a lot of us can relate. I can't feel the same kind of lonely today. I have a lot of new friends who feel my oldest friends. I cry thinking about it - I've teared up so many times today. Before this weekend, I didn't feel like I had a lot of close friends, but now I feel like I have a lot of great friends just within reach. I'm really sad that we can't be geographically close everyday, but that will make the times we'll see each other that much more special.

Knowing each of you online has been a real pleasure, if not a daily adventure, but meeting each of you in person has changed everything. The virtual personalities I interact with everyday have turned into vibrant women that I can now picture in my mind, and your typed words can now be matched with your expressions and mannerisms.

This weekend has renewed my faith in myself a bit too I think. I conquered a physical and psychological challenges in my two day trip. There were people climbing those stairs, young and old, all individuals from any kind of background, all striving to achieve the same goal. That's what life is about.

Now I'm ready to move on to the next challenge. I'm going to try to challenge myself more often, daily even, and I'm not going to settle for laziness or apathy quite so easily.

To the women of Toronto: I have no way to express my gratitude and appreciation to all of you, but I'll keep trying to for a long time. You made an insecure small-town girl feel at home in one of the largest cities in the world. You opened your arms to a complete stranger and gave me a warm hug that I still feel as I sit here typing this.

I left little pieces of my heart in Toronto. I brought pieces of you home with me to replace what I left.

Saturday's Dinner Party

We hosted a dinner party on Saturday night. And it was great!

I prepared a lot of things ahead of time:

I toasted my litte crostinis for the bruschetta:


Stephen made our other little appies, the tomato basil mozza poppers. I made my pesto potato salad, marinated the chicken, and mixed the berries with all of the extras for dessert.

Here was our menu:
Bruschetta, Tomato Basil Mozza Poppers - Appetizers
Balsamic Rosemary Grilled Chicken
Pesto Potato Salad
Zucchini Cheese Roll Ups
Puff Pastry w Limoncello Berries and Vanilla Bean Honey Cream - Dessert

The dessert was so simple, and so amazing! I will definitely make this again. First time I had used a real vanilla bean, and I don't know if I can ever go back. So delicious!

How We All Touch Each Others' Lives

There has been a lot of commotion since yesterday on the Weight Watchers' discussion boards in regards to Shaunna not qualifying to be a Weight Watchers success story due to the rate at which she lost her weight. This has really opened my eyes to how we all touch each others' lives, even if we haven't actually "met" in person.

To be continued...

OK, continuing... It's hard when something like this happens to one of us. I mean, most of us don't really know each other in the sense that we see each other, talk in person, etc. But we're all a part of each others' lives, and we're all linked by the same issue. I often find myself thinking of some of you. I sometimes even talk about you to DBF, my mom, sister, etc.

When we found out Shaunna's story wouldn't be published by WW as a success story, I think it really brought us all together somehow. I can't get it off of my mind. I really feel for you Shaunna, I feel your frustration and your hurt too. It really amazes me to think of how other women I've never even met in person can affect my life the way all of you often do.

We all need to keep supporting each other, and keep on working towards our individual goals. We all have our own ways to contribute to each others' successes, and we need to keep doing so!

Getting Back on Track

Not sure how I did it, but somehow I managed to survive this past week and still lose 0.2 lbs. That's not a lot I know, but wow I sure don't deserve a loss.

I had my 10-year high school reunion on Saturday and it was pretty much 'no holds barred' for me. Tried to stay a bit on track, but let's just say that it didn't work much. Had a couple too many drinks and a couple too many snacks to soak up that extra fluid - LOL. It turned out to be a great time though. Problem was that I kind of let myself go for the last couple of days of the week too - nothing too disastrous, but I did indulge in some ice cream last night to finish off my week - roasted marshmallow ice cream - yummy!

So today was weigh in, and now I'm back on track again. I'm doing the Wendie plan this week, and I'm gonna stick to it! So far so good. Having a great low-point day, and have a nice healthy taco salad planned for dinner - one of my favourites.

I haven't been feeling so hot lately, I think I have some sort of weird digestive bug thing goin' on. I get really hungry, eat, then my tummy just feels weird for a couple of hours. Strange. Hopefully I'll be feeling better over the next couple of days.