Between Course Update

One more course down….another dozen-ish to go!

This last course (Financial Management Accounting) was quite intense but also fun to do. For those who think math problems are fun, and I fully realize there aren’t that many of us out there. Ahem.

My next course, Marketing, starts on the 28th of May. Expect to spend 5 hours a week reading, the Study Guide says. Oh brother.

Er, I mean….oh goody!

Meanwhile, back at the Paleo Ranch….I am thrilled to report a loss of 10 pounds! I am aiming to lose another 10 by my birthday (end of July). This way of eating has been the easiest “diet” JD and I have ever tried. Our cravings have disappeared. We eat lots of satisfying, healthy food and don’t even miss the wheat.

And my acid reflux has disappeared, just as the blog-o-sphere said it would, immediately upon stopping wheat consumption. I was skeptical when I first read of people claiming that eliminating wheat would also take care of this problem. After all, (almost) all the medics, including my doc, say to stop the coffee, chocolate, orange juice, spicy foods, late night eating etc. etc. when having heartburn issues. Which I did, to no avail even while downing my nightly Nexium.

Now I have stopped the meds, drink as much coffee as I can st-st-st-st-stand, enjoy dark chocolate, hot sauce, oranges (never was a juice fan)….and can eat a big meal late at night if I choose to, and sleep like a non-colicky baby. No more heartburn.

Every weekend I make us a big batch of the coconut flour pancake recipe I perfected. Sometimes I use sweet potatoes, sometimes I use bananas, sometimes I use both in this recipe. Below is a picture of my Paleo Perfection Sweet Potato Pancakes.

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So good with back bacon, sausage or what ever breakfast meat floats your boat. I’ve also made some fabulous morning glory muffins with almond meal, and today I made almond butter cookies.

Even if I hadn’t lost a pound, I would still embrace this way of eating just for the freedom from acid reflux.

JD is back working in the golf industry again – a local public course this year. Looking to be his best year yet in terms of job satisfaction. It’s in a part of the rural area surrounding the Village that I just love. And here’s the best part, every day when I go to pick him up, I drive through the back country roads and pass by:    TURTLE TOWN!

Condo livin' in Turtle Town?
Condo livin’ in Turtle Town?
Turtles, turtles everywhere!
Turtles, turtles everywhere!

It’s looking to be a great, albeit busy spring and summer!

I’ll close with a recent picture of me, clearly showing the positive physical effects of  my recent weight loss and of becoming a modern day cave woman:

Hey, a girl can dream - can't she?
Hey, a girl can dream – can’t she?

 

Cottage Cheese is the new Oatmeal

Yes, it’s me.

I am still here.

Still workin’ hard, studyin’ hard, living completely out of balance….sigh.

I will be finished my second course of the MBA on Sunday night. Sunday night, while most of the world will be glued to the TV, watching the Oscars, I will be hammering out my last assignment for my Human Resources Management course. Someone tell me who wins in all the big categories, OK? Not that it will mean too much as I haven’t been to a movie since I started the MBA. But a gal can dream…

JD and I have been doing a bit of studying on nutrition lately, in our free moments. There is a lot of information out there on grains, whole and otherwise, and how they may not be doing a body good.

So, tying in nicely with the Lenten season, we are going to give up grains. Which will be difficult for a couple of carboholics such as we. Extremely. Like giving up smoking, or maybe crack, I think. (Sorry Whitney, rest in peace).

A experiment with 2 subjects. To see how we feel on a diet of vegetables, fruits, protein (including dairy) and fat only. You might call me Paleo Woman. I’ve been looking at the Paleo websites out there too. To see if it makes sense, and so far it mostly does. Except for the raw milk only thing, or the no dairy at all thing. And I really don’t want to be eating steak for breakfast. Not at this point in the journey, anyways.

So, for me, cottage cheese is the new morning oatmeal. And more vegetables are the new bread/potatoes. Looking forward to food cravings being reduced (that much I remember from trying Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet a number of years ago), and of course hoping to lose the extra…ahem…me, that is hanging on, especially at this…ahem…special time of my life.

I’ll keep you posted.

Meanwhile, here in Chez Dorm…

The appliances are doing the cooking while JD and I hit the books:

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Turkey sausage and escarole soup, chili, and brown rice cookin’ away! “Scuz my blurry photo please…

As you can see from the calendar, my daily step count is way down and there are GAPS, as in more than 1 gap in the calendar. It’s looking pretty sad as I try to fit MBA studies into my life, at the expense of movement. I don’t know how the gaps are happening. I could swear it’s only been a couple of days since I last logged my steps, then I go to my calendar and WHOOPS! It’s been way over a week. My step counter only keeps data for 7 days, hence GAPS are appearing.

Yet hope springs eternal here at Chez Dorm. Behold:

Manly-man push-up plan, courtesy of Oxygen Magazine
Manly-man push-up plan, courtesy of Oxygen Magazine

Remember way back when, when I made this a goal?

Well, I’m still going to do it – only this time with a highly detailed plan:

Six weeks is all it takes. I can do it!
Six weeks is all it takes. I can do it!

Still trying to take time to soak in the beauty of our planet, especially with regard to sunrises and sunsets:

Sunset at JD's golf course
Sunset at JD’s golf course

I sure am learning a lot about time management these days, and that I have to get a lot better at it. Lest I become a 200 lb bag of flab. Stay tuned!

p.s. I’ve made a few posts for the Financial Post executive blog now. Please scroll down and check them out when you have the time and inclination!

p.p.s. Happy birthday shout-out to my little sister Joyce!!!!! Have a good one dear sis! You are in my thoughts and prayers today, as always…

 

Today one of the things I am thankful for…

…is this beautiful Thanksgiving Day sunrise we witnessed on the way to the golf course to drop JD off at work. The weather for this weekend is outstanding for this time of year. Sunny and 26°C!

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On the way to work…how lucky are we?
Close Up of Farm
Close Up of Farm
This will become my newest desktop image on my computer, I think! Or maybe the first pic, I can't decide.
This will become my newest desktop image on my computer, I think! Or maybe the first pic, I can’t decide.
View from Golf Course. Windows "on fire" due to rising sun.
View from Golf Course. Windows “on fire” due to rising sun.
Another view from Golf Course, overlooking the City
Another view from Golf Course, overlooking the City

Among all other things I give gratitude to today, I am especially thankful for our wonderful neighbours. Good Neighbour John not only provided us with valuable assistance and tools to help us patch and repair our driveway yesterday (a work in progress; we’re on day 3 after work today), but invited us to share their Thanksgiving supper leftovers with them. Sure beat gobblin’ down a sandwich at the side of the driveway!

Harry Potter and the First Week of the MBA

No, this isn’t the title of a new Harry Potter book. Although it could be – this book would be filled with CHILLS! THRILLS! SUSPENSE! ANGUISH! DOUBT! FRUSTRATION!  And, ultimately: EXHILARATION! Imagine, a midlife Harry Potter decides to augment his magical education by going to business school, ultimately leading to his next career move: Hogwart’s newest Headmaster! Yes, Harry Potter revitalizes the school, putting his newly minted MBA to good use in this exciting new installment in the series!

Well, what the heck else is he gonna do now that the ultimate evil has been vanquished? You know…the V-man – he who must not be named.

I finished the Harry Potter book series last weekend. Can you tell?

Well, let me just say this – I am so glad I had the whole series of books to read at once, one after the other (thanks Caitlin, for the loan of them!). I just don’t know how I would have survived if I had been reading them as J.K. Rowling was writing them, and had to wait for their publication. I finished the last book on October 1st and then immediately  hopped onto the Pottermore website to purchase the digital set for my Kobo…only to find out the release has been delayed to early 2012. Bummer.

To anyone who hasn’t read these books yet (although I firmly believe I was the LAST PERSON ON THE PLANET who hadn’t), I urge you to read this series. These books are for all ages and are full of what makes us human – flaws and all. I will be proud to read these to and with my grandchildren, should I ever get any (no pressure kids!).

I’m pretty sure I am still the LAST PERSON ON THE PLANET to see the Harry Potter movies though…so there’s something else to add to the Bucket List. Cross one off, add one on.

The same day I finished HP, I received an email from my library stating that one of my holds was now available for download:

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Game of Thrones Book Series

How could I possibly read all 4 books in 21 days (before the digital download expires) even if I wasn’t in graduate school? And how will this compare to HP? I’ve heard this series is quite…ahem…graphic. So that will be one big difference. I’ll let you know how it goes.

New topic: Exploding Neural Pathways, Batman!

Orientation week of my MBA program was this week. Fireworks are going off in my brain. No, I mean it. I visualize my brain forming all these new neural pathways like exploding fireworks in a summer sky at night. Install and learn to use Lotus Notes software. BAM! Download and set up MBA course applications. KAPOW! Do all this while learning to use new laptop loaded with new-to-me Windows 7 and Office 2010. BANG! Relearn how to write academic papers and cite references in APA format. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! PFFFFT! POP!POP!POP!POP!POP!

Speaking of brains on fire and how to cool them down (how’s that for a segue?): Here’s something JD and I tried when at the golf tournament in Beaconsfield last week (this company was a sponsor):

The Anti-Red Bull. Love the crashing bovine.
The Anti-Red Bull. Love the crashing bovine.

Here's what's in it. A fellow golfer described it as "fizzy herbal tea" in taste. I concur.

Here’s what’s in it. A fellow golfer described it as “fizzy herbal tea” in taste. I concur.

Obligatory warning label. Should Sleepytime tea have a similar label? Discuss.
Obligatory warning label. Should Sleepytime tea have a similar label? Discuss.

My verdict: Meh. Too sweet for me. I prefer my drinks unsweetened. Too fizzy. Too many chemicals. Too expensive! At about $3 a pop (pun intended), who would buy this stuff? We only drank it because they had coolers of the stuff for the participants to grab. Did it work? Well, after walking 18 holes of golf each day and getting about 4 hours sleep each night, it was hard to say conclusively that the drink made us chill (no, duh!).

So that’s all my news for now. Now, back to being all Hermione-like and hitting my MBA texts! Have a great Thanksgiving, my Canadian friends. Everyone else, have a great weekend!

What the Dickens!

My life lately, Reader’s Digest Version:

1. Falling in love with the characters and writing of Charles Dickens

2. Mistakenly spending a night in the wrong part of town

3. Anticipating/dreading the start of graduate school

4. Putting off the move, yet again

5. Gearing up (mentally) to get back to my health and fitness goals

1. I started with downloading free e-book versions of Nicholas Nickleby (read!) and David Copperfield (almost finished). I can’t believe how engrossed I am with DC. I couldn’t believe it when he married Dora and overlooked Agnes, never mind was blind to Steerforth’s (lack of) character. I love his Aunt Betsey Trotwood, Pegotty, Mr. Dick, and the bombastic amusing spendthrift Micawber! I couldn’t wait to find out what happened to Little Emily. And the evil Uriah Heep (so that’s where the band got the name!), and the venomous Miss Rosa Dartle. My goddess, what a book. I have since downloaded more of his writings though I have been told on good authority to forget about reading any novels once graduate school starts. See item 3, below. 🙁

2. This is what happens when you pull into a strange town, late at night, exhausted, and are unwilling to spend any more than you absolutely have to, to get a night’s rest. There were clues, certainly. But we didn’t pick up on them until it was too late. It seemed to be a reputable chain hotel – let’s call it the HoHo, instead of it’s real name, to protect the guilty, shall we? We had stayed at another HoHo in the town of the golf tournament that JD was playing in, and we had such a nice experience there over the previous 2 nights, that we thought we were in for more of the same in this town.

So, we pulled into the HoHo, just on the other end of the lovely main street – so full of very hip dining spots and trendy watering holes – just one street away from the beautiful waterfront. JD negotiates an excellent rate for us and we head to the second floor to find our room, using the outside landing to get there. I happen to notice that some of the rooms appear to be let out on a long-term basis – people are actually living in them, with their own belongings in there, instead or beside the standard hotel-issue furniture. Hmmm.

We enter our room and it’s…on a slant?! The floor is so slanted that a golf ball rolls quickly and inevitably from the back of the room to the front. Walking to the bathroom feels like walking uphill. Also, there is no phone. But we don’t care – it’s cheap, clean and we’re too tired from 2 days of a golf tournament followed by a long drive to this town, halfway home. JD shoves the phone book (that we do have, for some odd reason) and some towels under the mattress so we don’t feel quite like we’ll roll off of it towards the front of the room during the night and we head outside for a walk and a bite to eat.  Right next door to the HoHo is a Chinese buffet restaurant, so after our walk to the beautiful downtown and waterfront only a block away, we go there for our late supper. The restaurant is almost empty (it’s late, after all)…just us, one other couple and, at the next table, an obviously homeless man. Hmmm.

Bellies full, we head back to our tilted room and crash. JD doesn’t make it through 5 minutes of TV and I close up my e-reader soon after. Then, around 1 am JD wakes up because he hears a couple of people talking outside our room. I sleep the sleep of the righteous (or dead) right through the kerfuffle. The woman is upset because the hotel manager apparently has locked her out of her room. JD thinks she is talking about the room next door to us. Eventually they go away and JD falls asleep again. Hmmm.

Shortly after 8 am the woman and her friend come back and this time I wake up as well. I can hear her bawling at the hotel manager across the parking lot that he is a “creeper” and she is calling the police and he better effing let her get her stuff etc. etc. We still think she is talking about the room next door to us. The mirror in the room is angled just right to see her reflected through a slight opening in the drapes – a young woman with a short-cropped, almost shaved head, what little hair left is died multiple colours in squarish-looking blotches. She is wearing a checked flannel jacket and cargo pants and has many ear piercings, fully occupied with hoops and studs. Then she starts telling her companion that she can see her stuff and I realize she is looking through the same crack in the drapery at my bags, parked under the mirror!

“See”, she says to him, “I always leave the bottom window open and now I’m gonna bust through the screen and open the door and get my stuff.” Which she does, but we have the security latch on (thank heavens!) and she gets nowhere. I leap out of bed and run downhill to the window and stick my head through the drapes. “HEY!” I yell at the shocked and surprised woman. “Sorry!” she says, “I thought this was my room.” “WELL, IT’S NOT,” I say and shut the drapes. I stomp back to bed, not sure what to do now. JD gets dressed to go see the manager and I can hear her talking about how she has this really great lighter and it’s a peace offering and then this green Bic lighter flies through the broken screen into the room, and of course rolls slightly back towards the window. She leaves. I throw the lighter back onto the outside landing. Hmmm.

Meanwhile, JD has gone down to see the hotel manager, using the room’s OTHER door that accesses an interior stairwell, to get there. He comes back up shortly. “The manager’s locked himself in his office,” he says,”Because of the woman. I can’t get in.” We decide to get showered up and try again later. While I am getting dressed, a maid tries to bust into the room, without knocking, via the OTHER door (also held back by the security latch) and I yell “EXCUSE ME!” as I grab the blankets to cover myself. Hmmm.

Thoroughly ticked, JD goes back down to find out what the hell is going on around here (because of course, we have no phone in the room) and this time the manager lets him in, because Mizz Checker Head is nowhere to be seen. More negotiating happens, and JD returns with half of what we spent on the room, in cash. We go down to breakfast, which the manager has graciously (?) kept for us beyond the regular breakfast hours, once JD reminded him we couldn’t go down for breakfast earlier due to the aforementioned locked office door.

After breakfast we pack up and I return the key to the manager. I caught him in the act of brushing his teeth so I couldn’t really hear him distinctly but I’m pretty sure he hoped we would be back soon and stay at his HoHo again. Yeah. Like that is going to happen. We drive 500 yards to the McDonald’s on the same street to wash the unclean feeling of that room off of our hands and to grab a couple of hot teas for our drive home. Signs on the locked bathroom doors proclaim that we must ask staff to buzz us in. Hmmm.

We just leave town, quickly as possible. JD and I have stayed in a lot of cheap (as well as some quite luxurious) hotels during the course of our travels, but my friends, this experience in the wrong part of town takes the gold in memorable.  And not memorable in a good way.

3. I’m getting nervous about school. I’ve been hearing things from well-meaning people like “forget about reading any novels till you graduate” and “make sure your family is prepared to make sacrifices” (more like BE SACRIFICED on the altar of the MBA gods, I think) and this is a tad upsetting. Then I remember I’ve been through this before, when I did my B. Ed. degree part-time and I calm down…a little bit. It can’t be that much worse than then, can it?

4. JD and I have come to our senses and realize now that there is no way we can move soon, what with graduate school starting in a little over a week. We continue to work on prepping the house – the outside is looking quite nice with the painting I have been doing – but the move will now happen during the month we have off of school in December.

5. I feel soft and puffy. I haven’t been eating right – too much restaurant food and not enough clean eating. Not enough movement. I am going to start back to my regular gym routine again – starting over on the Couch -to-5K running plan, start over on the weight training. I am going back to tracking my food and exercise on MyFitnessPal. Just watch me.

September Schedule Smackdown

Well, here it is – September 9 and I haven’t set any goals. And August was kinda abysmal with respect to reaching any of my goals, in case any of you had been following my calendar updates. And there are a few damn darn good reasons.

Reason #1 – not getting enough sleep. People, sleep is important. Like eating food-important. Like breathing oxygen-important. Like drinking water-important. Short yourself on sleep and soon you do nothing but live in a slow-motion world, your brain in a fog, your memory shot. Short yourself on sleep and it will sneak up on you when you least desire it. Like when you come into the office when it’s quiet so you can get stuff done, uninterrupted…only to find yourself nodding over your keyboard in very short order. Short yourself on sleep and you will develop an annoying and almost constant nervous twitch in your right eyelid. Short yourself on sleep and you will turn into an evil bitch not nice person. Short yourself on sleep and you will find vulgar words creeping into your vocabulary.

Not that any of these things have happened to me. Oh no. Just saying, is all. Stuff I’ve heard, you know…

Reason #2 – working like hell heck on the house exterior and yard, to try and give it curb-appeal, for eventual selling. For us, this means making up for X years of semi-neglect in a couple of weeks. Got the picture? Winter is coming (GAH!) and we are running out of time and good weather. Driveway repair and sealing, painting, and fixing the wreck of the backyard (AKA my failed experiment at a kitchen garden AKA the garden that only someone with a red blood cell count of 77 could create and maintain…in other words, Weed City). Note: My RBC has improved greatly since the great backyard experiment was attempted; alas, my garden has not.

So, I was thinking tracking and especially UPPING my sleep hours would be a great goal for this month. However, next week JD and I are flying to Vancouver for a work meeting for me, and due to his insane busy work schedule we are forced into taking late night flights so already it’s looking bad in the Catching Z’s department. And when we come back, we may be leaving again shortly for northern Ontario for yet another golf tournament, if JD gets the nod to play.

So, I think I will cut myself some slack this month. October may be the Sleep Goal Month. It’s also the Start of the MBA Month (my first Financial Post blog entry is supposed to be posted this weekend!).

And the saga of “Will We Ever Get Moved?” continues….

P.S. JD loved the 1st Anniversary Is Paper Themed Shadowbox. Score!!!

Blogging the MBA

This arrived in my InBox today:

Howdy,

You’ve been invited to Financial Post | Business at http://financialpostbusiness.wordpress.com as a contributor.

If you don’t care, just ignore this email.  🙂

Cheers,
WordPress.com

 

If I don’t care? Ignore this email?

Are. You.  Insane. WordPress?

I’ve been so excited to tell everyone about this opportunity but also so scared that something would go wrong and it wouldn’t happen. So I kept my yap shut. Till now.

What happened was this. The Director of Communications at Athabasca University, Chris McLeod, contacted me to see if I wanted to blog about my MBA experience for Financial Post, as they had contacted him for names. They want at least one student from each business school in Canada to blog their way through their MBAs, from start to finish.  Chris read my personal essay (submitted as part of admissions process) and liked my writing style. Said it “stood out”, to him. He also read a little introduction I wrote for my fellow classmates, in which I listed one of my hobbies as blogging.

So he called me. And I practically jumped through the phone to hug him, for considering me for this “gig”, so to speak (I won’t be paid – except in exposure, which is OK!).

I’m going to write my first post this weekend. And will let you know when it’s published and where to find it.  I believe the MBA student blogs will be found at  “Inside the MBA”.  Stay tuned!!!!!

In Which Our Heroine Wants to Crawl into Her Virtual Life and Stay There

Serenity Now...and Always, in Mizz D's Life

If only my life were really like this picture. Neat, tidy and serene. Always a steaming cup of tea at the ready,  in my grown-up version of a sippy cup (which is the most brilliant thing, really…hie thee to a store and get one, if you don’t have one already). Dollar Store Buddha nearby, for constant  inspiration and meditative focus. Healthy, happy greenery contributing to the ambiance.

While my actual  life can be chaotic, here on my blog – in my virtual life – I can create the kind of world of my dreams. By clearing off my meeting table in my office, washing and dusting the surface, and carefully staging the picture to give you the impression of calm and order. Peaceful, ain’t it?

If the tea bag could talk, this is what it would say about the above photo and caption:

Tazo Tag speaks the Truth of the Situation

(And by the by there, Tazo – what gives with the facsimile of an old-timey,  fountain pen-scratched name on the tag? Am I supposed to actually believe that Esq. Joh…something something…etten penned his signature in approval on this very batch of tea, of which I purchased a portion? For shame!)

August is almost over and I am pretty sure I will meet my purge/organize goal but my strength training goal will fall short of the 5+ hours I wanted to achieve. I am not too happy about this, but I must will learn from this and move on.

So, what happened that I couldn’t fit the workouts in? Well, for one thing, I started with a new DVD of 15 minute workouts and holey moley, they made me sore! More sore than I am used to, thanks to Ms. Jackie Warner and her Power Circuit Training.

And for another thing, I didn’t take good care of myself in the sleep department this month either. Early mornings after late nights equals one pretty hairy accumulation of sleep debt, and lack of energy for physical exertion as the body fights to conserve whatever is left, for daily living. Naps help, but in a “band-aid” fashion – nothing beats a good night’s sleep, as I found out on the odd occasion I got one.

Sore, tired, cranky, uninspired. Yep, that was me in August. Thank goddess the month is just about done. Time to focus on the next.

It’s almost September and soon I will be married for one year. Today I worked on this, as a surprise for JD:

First Anniversary: Paper

Shadowbox featuring our wedding invitation – with leftover papers from its creation, unused place cards, JD’s corsage, my throw-away bouquet (that I didn’t), hairpins from the day and sparkly gee-gaws from my actual bouquet (which is still hanging in my office and too big for the box). I sure hope he likes it!