Apartment Decorating

It's 11pm and after a bath and some tea, I should be drifting off...
But I'm too excited! (and too nervous about the Rise & Shine circuit tomorrow at 0645!)
I keep thinking about my new apartment, how I'll get the new keys this week and how it's going to look, feel and become as we move into it.
I think I've found a pretty neat room-mate, second to only my sister. I hope it will be a tidy, quiet, love-filled apartment.

As I couldn't sleep, I decided to look through some decoration, home & living blogs... you know, fuel for my dreams? Anyway, I wanted to share a few more thoughts I wanted for my new places, as well as some cool pictures I came across. I'll put the URL of the place I found the pictures as the caption.

• Candles EVERYWHERE!
• Fairy lights.... in the doorways? (I currently have two sets merged together, in my bedroom.)
• Bright colours... nice furniture? False! We'll probably just have whatever things people decide to donate to us. I'm currently hoping we have a full set of everything we need, but secretly dreaming of matching furniture and curtains :)
• A clean closet. I try and make it a habit to recycle my clothes (and I always buy second-hand) every now and then, mostly when the seasons change. I've been lazy lately and kept all the stuff for donation out in bags/suitcases in the hallway. They're supposed to be in my way to remind me, but I just remember how I'll need a car, helping hands, multiple trips, a desire to do it...  However, in a real attempt to get it all sorted, my boyfriend let me know that they'll be used to sound-proof my current roomie's place, as he'll be a metal drummer in a house of girls, so I already know how annoying that can be.
• Organised bookshelves! Yes, plural! I had an old balance-challenged bookshelf that I shared with a previous room-mate. Its days were spent holding up lots and lots of hard-back, extremely huge business and psychology textbooks, so it has lower-, higher-, and general back pain ;) Calvin brought me a brand new, magestic-looking one, so I hope to keep both of them in full use, side-by-side.
• Excellent food, everywhere! My grocery bill is currently just for me - I buy my own soy/almond/coconut milk, I rarely buy eggs, and most of my weekly budget goes to fruits & veggies. I borrow some staples (bananas, ketchup, onions, garlic, spices) but buy my own pasta and rice whenever I decide I want it. It'll be nice to split up the weekly grocery bill and tweak both our diets a little bit. With a shift for more home-cooked common foods, and less candy, sweets, chips, packaged foods, and processed cheese.
• I need to find a new place for my composting worms... they are currently happy and relaxed in a cupboard in the living room, in a quiet, dark, cool place. Having them a couple years, I have been able to keep them alive! expand them to three plastic containers vs. the yogurt cup they first came in. I need to find a place that won't be disturbed often, but isn't so hidden that I'll forget about them.
• A wall of plants. Not really - but Calvin has been really excited to mush together a bunch of flower containers into a compressed, space-saving way. I'll try figure out how it's going to work once we move everything in and see how much space we have. Maybe the bookshelf might have space for some pots?

1. Hanging plant 'pots'.
2. Candles made from wine bottles!
3. Storage within a lamp stem. 
4. Storage for the bathroom.

http://www.herdofblack.com/

http://itsy-bits-and-pieces.blogspot.ca/2011/10/bachmans-fall-ideas-house-2011-part-2.html

http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.ca/2012/07/a-lamp-full-of-memories.html

http://itsy-bits-and-pieces.blogspot.ca/2011/10/bachmans-fall-ideas-house-2011-part-2.html

Monday

Heading to the gym in two minutes... hoping to get a good sweat going. I'm also avoiding strangers coming in to see our house, ha!

Excited for the rowing machine, some miles on the treadmill and a neat bike ride under clouds. Not necessarily in that order.

How's your Monday going?

Anybody else have a sweat-proof sports bra? :)

Edit: ran 2.85 miles before my right ankle felt a bit weird (I was aiming for 4mi). I bought a new pair of rollerblades a couple of days ago. It's been loads of fun to glide down the riverside trail! It's definitely been a huge adjustment, however, as my 22 year-old self isn't as balanced, fast-moving or confident one on blade as my 10 year-old self was.

I then did 2km on the rowing machine, in 9.20mins. It's loads of fun, but I'm worried my technique isn't perfect - something I've read about that can injure one in time. I might ask a personal trainer to watch me and offer tips? I still have a free hour session that's due to expire August 31st!

And the highlight of my Monday? 15 minutes in the sauna - it was lovely :) I can't wait for cooler, fall weather when the sauna will be what I look forward to while on the treadmill :D

New Gym

Two weeks of August have almost flown by! I've been a member at my new gym for 11 days now, and I haven't been able to honour my challenge and go everyday.
I had planned to go spinning yesterday morning. I had planned to attend yoga this morning. I missed out yesterday because it was waaaay too early (6:30) and I went to bed late, and I didn't go this morning... well because I decided to shuffle my schedule around and go before work.

I woke up at around 8:30 this morning, cleaned some dishes, make some soup, emailed some people and read some things. I also watched some TV.

I decided I had a neat little window between 2pm and work at 4 to hit the gym for a treadmill run. I miscalculated and ended up having time for 2miles and a .5mile cool-down.

9:27, 8:48, 6:07

I was a puddle of sweat by the time I finished, but I'm pleased to say that I didn't stop until mile 2 :) I took my first shower at the gym and noticed a few things:

• the showers are super tall. I haven't seen showers THIS TALL/high in Canada since I arrived. I usually have to squat a little to wash my hair, and I'm short! It wasn't a very pleasant surprise as I hadn't taken out my contacts and they got a bit splashed.
• the gym has soap! Really nice smelling soap. So I don't ever have to bring mine, which is awesome, because I hate having to put a slippery soap bar in a baggy and take it home... such a mess.
• the water fountain is a bit silly. There isn't a very high stream, so it doesn't allow me to fill up my whole bottle in one go, but that's pretty much the standard, I think.

Once I had toweled and changed, I grabbed my deodorant from my bag and started spraying myself... only to find out that it was sun-block! At least I smell like a tanned person vs. a  sweaty smelly person, so it's okay, but I have many things to learn until I achieve the perfect gym-shower-work experience.

I did, however, manage to grab a decent picture of my soaked shirt, so I'll post that once I get home and can upload the photo. It's such a silly tradition, isn't it? :)

Belle River Bike

My last big cycling post had my longest bike being 36 miles (58km) in almost 3 hours.
I'd like to update that number to 38miles (61km)  in 3h15.
I had a few free hours yesterday and the weather was cloudy, cool, and perfect for a long ride. I gathered up some snacks, packed spare clothes and headed out, telling my room-mates I'd be back in 4 hours.
While it did take 4 hours total, I only rode for 3 of those hours. I meant to bike from Windsor - Belle River (19mi/30km according to Google) but made it to about 6km away before I decided I couldn't make it. I was stuck at a left-hand turn for about 10 minutes, waiting for a break in traffic. I never found one, and looking at the highway, I couldn't even see a safe space to cycle on. So I turned back to a restaurant I'd seen on my way there, and had a huge lovely salad for dinner.
The ride was great, and I managed to pick up some cherries and blueberries at a place off the side of the road to enjoy as a reward for making it back. It did rain the whole first half of the ride, and changing into dry clothes at the restaurant felt great. Everyone there was suitably impressed that I'd biked all the way from Windsor, which was obviously awesome :)

My bum hurts a bit today, but my legs feel great! This is the previous list I had made up of my cycling goals:

• Bike from Windsor-Point Pelee-Windsor, ~150km roundtrip, but I'd like to camp for a night there.
• (Metric) Century Ride, September 29th, 2012.
• Bike from Windsor-London (suburbs), 198km (~10hours)

It looks like I'll be on track to do the Pelee ride soon. I bought a 'back roads' map of Ontario and I'm hoping to have the time and energy! to map out a longer ride soon. The very best thing is that 38ish miles burns close to 2000 calories (according to dailymile), and I can't stop thinking of the awesome snacks I could bring on a ride! And all the awesome things I'll see! I'll leave you with a couple of pictures from my ride yesterday - I managed to find two really gorgeous places.

This is where I had my granola-bar lunch

Those houses must have THE BEST views ever

My bike's view while riding :)

Apartment

I gave in my deposit on the new apartment and had a chance to check it out a bit today.
I'm super excited because I'll get to have a quiet, clean place to set my own schedule in, find running routes from, and learn new things in.

As we've been approaching move-in day, we've been talking about things we're going to do once we move in. I've been keeping a mental list, but I thought it might be time to write it down.
Some of the things might be weird, so bear with me.

• bake bread
• make jam
• pancakes every weekend? (a tradition my mother started!)
• start a piggy bank for our (3 year-dating) anniversary
• start a separate piggy bank to save up for things
• have a weekend guest over, most likely MF.
• home-made pizza
• purchase a lovely rug.

3ish miles

3 miles this morning, on the treadmill at my university gym.

Who knew it could ever be this empty?!

 10:26 (1min warm-up included), 9:36, 13:20 (jog .5 & .5mile cool-down). [33:23]

Ahahha I don't know how people take pictures in the changing room... I was too nervous that someone would walk in and think I was weird.

Planning on cycling to my new gym tonight, and doing another 5k, maybe.

Thursday

Today was a great day. I am trained in Standard CPR, level C!
I was able to hit the gym up after my 9-5 training and run 2.8 miles at 6.0mph and walk another mile at 5.0 incline, 3.5mph. Bringing my daily total to:

• 12.4km biked
• 4miles jogged/walked

(I don't know why it's appropriate to do cycling in km and running in miles. My brain is just dexterous in both measuring systems?)

Friday, the plan:

• wake up late (after 8am!!)
• bike to the gym
• run 5k on the treadmill for the virtual race
• bike back (there's only two fitness classes tomorrow - 'hip & fit' and morning spinning)
• hand out resumes
• evening running with my new running buddy
• celebrating my new work permit (and the weekend) with friends at the house

I think it sounds like a lovely Friday!

No gym Day

Last night, going to bed around 11pm, I was worried that I wouldn't have a great night's rest. I had too much energy all day, I had an annoying, needy, vocal cat staying at my place, as well as room-mates that stay up later than me playing video games.
But it was a restful night, made successful by a pair of beautiful green ear-plugs :)
Once 7:30 rolled around, I was awoken early by the cat and got ready to make breakfast.

Oatmeal with shredded coconut and cinnamon, yum.

I had looked over the schedule at the gym for Wednesdays and determined that I only had time to catch one class around my 9am-5pm First Aid & CPR training. It was from 06:30-7:30, and I might have time to bike home, shower and be ready in time to be picked up to make the training. But after yesterday's two work-outs I decided to make today a rest day and try again tomorrow.

I'm pleased with my decision, as I was wiped once I got home and needed a nap. Two glorious hours - now I'm studying, making dinner and drinking tea. I still have time to go to the gym NOW, but it's already 9, dark outside, and the gym closes at 11. I'd have just enough time to squeeze in some treadmill time and bike home in the dark. BUT:

• I'm not that motivated
• I'm kinda scared of biking at night (I need to buy a reflective vest)
• I don't care enough to go everyday

I plan on making an attempt to go to a yoga class tomorrow evening after training, but it depends on what time we finish. If I don't make it in time for the class, I'd like to hit up the treadmill (maybe) and catch some TV time. We'll see!