Category Archives: 365 Project

What I Love #1

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I think I can include this next post under the LOVE heading.  It is, after all, something I love…..It could have fitted in nicely with last month’s theme too though, of motivation.  But I wasn’t actually doing it then so it will be fine here…..

What am I on about?

EXERCISE

Those people who know me well may have had to read that a couple of times to make sure they hadn’t misread it.   You didn’t. I said EXERCISE.  I love EXERCISE.

For years, I have found it hard to keep myself motivated to do anything physically taxing.  I have been known to park as near as possible to anywhere, to avoid walking and I positively hated the gym.

But, something happened last month. I saw the light.  And now, I am a keep fit convert.  

A Born Again Exerciser.

I’ve had phases of doing different types of exercise, it’s true.  I enjoy badminton and I don’t mind swimming (apart from the getting changed and the getting in and out of the pool. Oh, and the swimming). But recently, something has changed.

I took up a new hobby, burlesque dancing.  I’ve only been twice but I’ve found my ‘thing’.  I love it because, not only do you prance around in a provocative way, looking alluring and sexy (in my head, in my head, ok??) but you also get to wear frou frou outfits, with feathers and lace and SPARKLY bits.  What could be more fun??  I don’t really care about the dancing bit, I just LOVE the attire!  But the dancing is the exercise.  So I’ve cracked it.

However, the more surprising thing, for me, is that I LOVE the gym now.  Well, maybe not the gym exactly, but my personal training sessions.  This love of training was sparked by a television series that is on currently, Fat Fighters (not Fat Losers as I previously wrote. Oops!).  Prior to this, I paid to have a trainer but I dreaded going.  Watching the programme, I was suddenly inspired.  And I texted my trainer to sign up again.  I now go religiously every Saturday morning, a time that suits me.  I realised that planning to go after work was the reason I hated it.  It’s too late for me and the traffic meant I was always stressing about making it in time.  I now get to have a little lie in on a Saturday before going to the gym and waking myself up properly.  It’s great!

But the main point of this post really is that I have a totally different attitude towards exercise.  Instead of being something I HAVE to do to be healthy or lose weight, it is something I do because I WANT to….

I love that

(That’s not actually me in the cocktail glass.  But it could be, one day!)

I love….

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I had thought I might write a post about all the things I love for my LOVE month.  But then I realised that would probably be a BOOK and I haven’t really got time to write a book right now (apart from which, do you really want to know about everything I love?   No.  Exactly).  To be honest, I think I’m going to struggle with this topic.  I can’t think of anything that inspires me.

So, instead, for now, I thought I’d just show you my lovely flowers, bought for me by KD earlier this week when I wasn’t feeling so hot. 

Now THAT’S what I love

Be my valentine?

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I went shopping for a Valentine’s card the other day.  Well, I was actually on my way to pay for my parking ticket after a gruelling session at the gym but I had to walk past Clintons and I decided to pop in.  I have a bit of a card fetish, I think it is fair to say.  I never buy ONE card.  I tend to buy about twenty quid’s worth…..I just love cards!  Funny cards, selected with someone in mind, for an occasion when I need to send that someone a card.  I keep them for ages until the right time to send them comes.  I often forget I bought them though and go and buy another card for said person. Therefore, I have a lot of cards stashed away….

So, anyway, on Saturday I went into Clintons.  Obviously, they were well into the swing of the Valentine promotion, with fluffy wuffy teddy bears clutching hearts, heart emblazoned mugs, heart-shaped key rings, heart-shaped boxes, heart-shaped balloons, heart-shaped EVERYTHINGS!!!

And lots and lots of cards…

Maybe I have never looked this closely before but, this year, alongside the usual Valentine cards to wives, husbands, girlfriends and boyfriends, were cards to partners (good idea I thought), cards to soul mates (hmmm, that’s not bad either), cards from the dog or cat (um, now you’re losing me), cards TO the dog, the cat, the grandparents, the grandchildren, and your teacher…..

HUH??

What’s going on?  Since when did Valentines Day expand to include anyone AND their dog??

It’s all got totally ridiculous.  I remember when I was young, it was all about the anonymous card from the secret admirer.

Now, it’s just become yet another way for the card industry to make more money…..

For the record, I will NOT be buying the dog a Valentine card.

(I hope he doesn’t get me one now, I shall feel really embarrassed)

Love is………

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Today is the 1st February, which I have decided is LOVE month on my blog, in keeping with my pledge to have a theme per month throughout the year.

I have no idea what I will blog about yet.  I’m sure I’ll think of something though, since the word love can mean so many different things to different people.

So, while I’m thinking about what to write about, here are some words I found that might inspire me……

I Love my Motivation!

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Well, we are almost at the end of January.  My initial resolve was to take part in the 365 Project and post on the same theme for a whole year.  I chose motivation but quickly realised that I’d bore myself, let alone my readers, if I posted up about that for a WHOLE YEAR!!  So, I decided to adapt the idea and post on the same topic for a month.  I also allowed myself not to post every day.  I pretty much abandoned the 365 Project in fact!

Anyway, I have, more or less, posted motivationally themed stuff throughout January, I think, and I intend to end with a summary of how my own motivation has helped me to keep up my fitness training and started all the other things I said I would do.

Or rather, that WAS the intent

Unfortunately, I’ve just returned from a slap up meal of Tapas with copious amounts of wine and I really feel a bit of a fraud talking about how determined I am to eat healthily and keep fit.

Although I did go to a personal training session at the gym this morning. AND I have been walking regularly. AND…and this is the bestest AND….I have joined a burlesque dancing class.  So far, I’ve only been to the taster session but I’ve signed up for the full six weeks.  It’s so much fun!   The challenge for me is how to look alluring whilst trying to follow the steps.  Not quite there yet but I’m hopeful!  Anyway, I highly recommend it as a fun way to exercise.

And, joking apart, I am really enjoying my exercise, whatever form it takes.

The Italian classes are great fun too, not too hard but I’m learning new stuff.  It’s fun doing the class with KD who has a fantastic accent and we practise our new words during the week so I fully expect to be fluent by the end of the course (well, I hope to be able to order wine and food at least. Or just the wine even….).

As for the other projects I had intended to pick up on, well, the photography is slow. The weather has been poor and I have yet to find the subject that inspires me….but I will. I am a frustrated photographer.

I have not done any more drawing and I have totally forgotten about the needlecraft apart from a brief spell (one evening) where I got out the knitting needles for half hour.

Still, it’s only January.  Eleven more months to achieve my goals!

I have decided to make my theme for February ‘Love’.

Amore.

Not sure what I’ll post yet but isn’t that the beauty of it all?

Ciao Belle.

 

I am the milk monitor

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This month it is my turn to buy the milk and biscuits at work.  Everyone takes a turn and, for that month, whoever is charged with the task doesn’t have to pay their subs.

It’s actually a bit of a faff.  People are very picky.  They demand certain biscuits and they have milk preferences too.  Keeping the biscuit tin and the fridge stocked up with the right kind of milk can be very stressful.  There is also the nuisance of having to remember to go to the shops before it runs out (particularly if, like me, shopping is not normally in your daily routine).  I shall be glad when my month is over…

Anyway, whilst standing in the queue at Sainsbury’s, waiting to pay for three packs of choc chip cookies, three packs of Hob Nobs, six litres of semi-skimmed and six litres of skimmed milk,  I was put in mind of the old days at primary school, where we used to have milk monitors.

I doubt that these exist now – do they even hand out milk anymore?  I don’t expect so….

Years ago, we got free milk every day.   Little glass bottles, miniatures of the pint bottles left on our doorsteps.   This was in the sixties, when I was very young.  In those days you could get different coloured foil tops on milk – silver, red and gold.  Gold top was full cream, I know that and we didn’t get that in school.  I think we just got the silver top which I think was full fat and then the red top came in later, as semi-skimmed.  I’ve looked this up and there are a lot of different answers so I can’t be sure now!!!  There was also the special christmas foil top with little holly leaves on it I recall.

Anyway, the milk used to sit there by the door until break time and whoever was milk monitor handed it out.  In the summer, therefore,it was disgusting, warm and sickly.  I hated it.  In fact I’m surprised I can even drink milk now, along with millions of other children who grew up experiencing the trauma of having to drink slightly-off milk!!  I only drink skimmed milk now and I’m sure this is why!

So here I am again, the milk monitor for January.   I miss those  dinky little glass bottles.  Even though they made me feel sick….

Geography – boring with a capital B!

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Last week, whilst watching University Challenge – a regular event in our house – I was once again frustrated by the geography questions.  I have never heard of most of the obscure places that crop up in this quiz and it made me think about how on earth anyone would know the answers to these questions…..

When I did geography at school, it was incredibly boring.  Nothing to do with different countries, just boring, boring lessons on crop rotation.  Admittedly I stopped doing geography in the third year, when we got to choose our options, so I didn’t do it for that long. Actually, thinking back, I didn’t get an option, I was thrown out of the class for being disruptive (difficult to believe, I know).  Maybe if I had seen it through to the end I would have learned more about different places instead of how to irrigate a field (a piece of information I have never found I needed).

Anyway, I still don’t know how people come to know all this.   Those students on Uni Challenge can’t all have taken geography at A level – I mean, who would want to take geography at any level anyway, it’s so boring? – but, somehow, they know these random things about random places.   KD didn’t do geography A level and HE knows.  So why don’t I?

I am considering investing in a globe of the world that I can have by me at all times so that, in a moment of boredom, I can discover some new place I have never heard of.

Then again I could just accept that geography is not my strong point and take up something far more useful, like knitting.

2012 so far….

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Buona Sera (practising my Italian)

Well, it’s the end of a very interesting and pleasant week.  I have taken up a new challenge , the Italian class, which has given me something to focus on and it reminded me how much I love languages and learning new things, which made me feel good.

I have had a very rewarding week at work with some lovely, positive outcomes for the young people I work with.  Which makes me very happy.

This morning, I saw the most wonderful sight on my way to an appointment.  I drove past a field of horses, probably about a dozen and possibly a mixture of ponies and horses (I’m not really a horsey person so I can’t tell the difference – ponies seem a bit fluffier to me and smaller but that’s all I know).  Anyway, I had to pull over and watch them as they were so entertaining.  They were chasing each other, frolicking, playing and just generally having fun.  I wished I had my camera with me and I will definitely go back there to take some photos or film them at play.  That made me happy too.

I have also decided to give up on going grey.  I have been growing out HALF my hair for a while now, to see what it looks like ‘au naturale’ (blimey, she speaks French too!).  When I say half, I don’t actually mean left vs right.  I have a (dyed) pink/purple fringe and I used to have dark brown for the rest of it.  This bit, I have left to grow naturally.  After several trims, it is pretty much its natural colour now.  Which is a rather unattractive mish mash of brown, grey and silver, in no particular pattern.  There are just ‘clumps’ of different colours.  It isn’t a good look.  The grey isn’t healthily glowing either.  It’s matte.  So, today I have decided to end the experiment and revert to dying the lot again.  It may not look natural but it certainly looks better than the current faded effort…..

Tomorrow I start back at the gym and get myself back on track there.  I’ve just made enquiries about a Burlesque dance class too so that may well be another on my list of projects this year.

And I get my new car radio fitted.  It has been awful with nothing to listen to other than the sound of the engine this week.

So far, I’m liking 2012 🙂

I expect I shall look something like this when I am doing the burlesque dancing…..

Mi Chiamo Flossie…

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Tonight, KD and I attended our first ‘Italian for Holidays’ evening class – the first of twelve (dodici) lessons.

I have been in and out of study for years as an adult, always to do with my career, but this was my first time back in a classroom learning something totally new to me since, well, I can’t remember when….I used to like languages at school but I haven’t done anything like this for years and years.

It was fun actually and we now know how to say our names, ask someone else what theirs is (formally and informally!) as well as a range of greetings – oh, and how to count to twenty (venti)!

I was reminded of the ‘language lab’ we had when I was at school in the early seventies – very high tech at the time – where we sat ourselves down with headphones in our little individual booths and learned French or German.  It was so boring, and I used to use the time to have a nap usually, but I can still remember French so it must have sunk in!  (I’ve forgotten all my German though but I don’t remember learning that in the language booths, I just remember a formidable woman with wonky eyes teaching us the old fashioned way).

Anyway, being back in the classroom learning something other than the academic stuff I’ve had to concentrate on the past few years was fun, not least because there isn’t an exam at the end of it, we are doing it purely for pleasure.

Next week we will be learning how to book a hotel room in Italian.  Which is a bit silly because we’ve already booked ours….

Ciao!!

Cheese-aholics Anonymous

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Having said I would NEVER go to the gym again once my personal training sessions were finished, I have just booked myself in for 14 more, starting on Saturday.

Now, how’s THAT for motivation?!?!

The fact that I look like a big fat cheese due to the ridiculous amount of the stuff I have eaten over Christmas and New Year, is neither here nor there…..