So I bought a kayak...

An inflatable one, but a good inflatable one. Now I just need to buy a pump to pump it up with, a paddle to propel it with, and a lifejacket to save my ass with. Then I can get out there and do me some kayaking…

See more progress on: learn to kayak

Awesome

I had such a great time pulling up all the ivy in Stanley Park. I thought it would be a good thing to do but I never realised I would enjoy it quite so much. I felt really happy and energised afterwards (though I ached for the 2 days after – muscles not used to the exercise).

Can’t wait till next month!

See more progress on: Volunteer

I've found my willpower!

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been really focussed on helping myself lose weight.

1) I bought myself some scales last week and weighed about what I thought I did, hammering home the fact that yes, I do need to lose 40lbs. I weighed myself Saturday morning and have been disciplined enough not to weigh myself again all week, so Saturday will be weigh-day from now on

2) I’m doing really well at only eating when I am hungry and have started to retrain my brain into thinking of food more as fuel rather than pleasure. I’ve also been eating out a lot less because of this.

3) I am getting up early and going for a long walk before work – which makes my 10 minute walk to work an hour walk to work.

4) I am also walking a lot in the evenings after dinner, rather than staying in and watching TV (the Canucks bowing out of the playoffs early has been a bit of a blessing). This has the added bonus of stopping me from drinking alcohol so much during the week.

5) I continue to hike through my heel and joint pain. Last weekend we went for a hike and I had absolutely no energy and was very achey, but about 50 minutes into it I started feeling really good and so we carried on for another 3 hours.

See more progress on: Lose 40 lbs

Walking

Now that the weather has turned all nice and sunny I’m doing a great deal more walking. I started off by going for a long walk after dinner every other night, but now it has graduated to getting up early to go for an hour’s walk along the seawall before work, and about an hour’s walk each evening too.

I’m really enjoying exploring more of the city, plugged into my ipod and smelling the flowers of spring. I’ve been around various different parks, and walked around expensive neighbourhoods with wide tree-lined streets and huge mansions to look at. It sure beats staying in, watching hockey and drinking, or staying in bed an extra hour.

Still doing a longer hike at the weekend as well, and this Saturday I’ve got 3 hours of pulling up Ivy in the park so that should be good.

When I’m feeling fitter and less of an old arthritic woman, I’m going to think about incorporating different forms of exercise too. When we eventually move to our new apartment I’m going to replace seawall walking with swimming, but that won’t be for many months yet. Maybe it’s time to start seriously thinking about getting back into my badminton.

See more progress on: exercise regularly

Good

I’m still doing really well at this, to my surprise. I’ve been very disciplined and even when I am feeling jealous at all the nice things other people are eating, if I’m not hungry then it isn’t going in my mouth.

Yesterday, because I ate a donut (it was free!) about an hour before lunch I wasn’t hungry so I went out for a long walk instead of eating, then had a small snack in the afternoon.

I’ve stocked my locker at work up with things like baby carrots, small tins of tuna, rice crackers, dates, canned fruit and a snickers bar so that if I just want a snack/light lunch instead of a big hot lunch I’ve got stuff right there and I don’t have to think about what sort of level of hunger I am at and where I’m going to go. I’ve also got chewing gum for when I feel like chewing but am not hungry.

I’m starting to re-train my brain a little into thinking of food as fuel rather than food as pleasure. Well, rather that food can be pleasurable but that I don’t have to eat what I crave every time I crave it.

See more progress on: only eat when I'm hungry

This weekend

Well I’ve signed up to become an Ivy Buster in Stanley Park this weekend, and I managed to get Graham to agree to come as well. We are both passionate about Stanley Park so it seemed an ideal way of starting to get into the volunteering spirit.

If all goes well we should be doing something we care about whilst meeting new people who share a common interest and getting some good exercise to boot! Hopefully this will become a once a month thing.

I’m not taking this off my list just yet as I haven’t done it yet. And even when it’s done I don’t think I’ll take it off my list as I’d still like to find myself a volunteer position somewhere where I can make a more frequent contribution than once a month.

See more progress on: Volunteer

Excuses, excuses

I always said that as soon as I was settled in Canada with a job and everything that I would start volunteering regularly. I’m settled now and I know that if I don’t challenge myself to do this that I will always make some kind of excuse to put it off.

I’m going to start by looking at the local volunteering website to decide which area I’d like to volunteer in and whether there are currently any available opportunities.

See more progress on: Volunteer

Fandom

I've never been a true fan of a particular team in a particular sport before. The closest I ever got was supporting Jenson Button and the Honda team in Formula One but whilst it was nice if he did well, I was never that bothered if he didn't.

Since attending my first NHL hockey game in Vancouver in 2001 I was a supporter of the Vancouver Canucks. From England all I could do was follow whether they won or lost, whether they got into the playoffs and read a few stories on the Internet about who their main stars were, but I couldn't call myself a fan as such.

Supporting the Canucks this year has been a fine introduction to true fandom for me. I've watched every game (or listened to it on the radio if it was not on TV and I couldn't afford/didn't want to go to a bar to watch it on Pay-per-View) and gone through many emotions to get to the obsessive hockey fan who stands before you today.

First there was excitement and anticipation about being able to watch an entire season for the first time. Then there was nervousness because the shape of the whole team had changed and nobody knew whether or not they would be any good. Then came frustration that they were playing so well as a team but never winning. After Christmas frustration turned to elation as they seemed pretty much unbeatable and rolled towards the Division title and a place in the playoffs.

The playoffs have really done me in though. It seems that hockey is all I talk about and I keep finding a way to link whatever I am doing to it (an example: we were at a concert the other week and the soloist piano player was fantastic.. I turned to Graham and said "If only the Canucks would play with as much passion"). I read through the sports pages of the newspaper every day to get my fix. I wait until I have heard the sports section on Fox radio before I get up in the morning. I check the Canucks and NHL sites daily for any news on injuries, or gameplans. In short, I have turned into a hockey nut. And I don't really like it. Why should I care so much what a bunch of guys who I will never meet do on the ice, just because they happen to play in my home town?!

This feeling is especially acute at the moment as they are playing a frustrating game. They played worse against Dallas than they had all season, were outplayed in most of the 7 games but still managed to win the series. Against the Ducks you think they are going to get beaten up, humiliated and walked over and they play just enough to compete and give you hope that they might actually win. They play better than the other team for most of the game and somehow manage to lose. They play worse and either win, or give the notion that they might just pull it off, only they don't quite get there.

But now they can't lose anymore. One loss in the next 3 games and they're out and no more Vancouver Canucks until October. If they somehow manage to get through the next 3 games and win the series it will be a miracle, but they will have downed the best team out there so I am confident they would go all the way to the final. If they lose, I'll be diappointed, but truthfully I'll be relieved as well as I can forget about living my life by hockey for the next few months.

Rain

Yesterday I was admiring the blossom tree in the grounds of the church carpark that I walk across on the way to and from work. It was loaded with very beautiful pink blossom and really stood out from the grey of the carpark and buildings around it.

This morning when I passed it, the heavy rain of last night and this morning had washed most of the blossom off of the tree. It made me a little depressed to see it all on the ground, dead and dulled. I guess listening to my favourite depressing song by Portishead (Roads) didn't help my mood much either, but I got to work feeling a bit sad. I realise that this is a city well known for its rain, but I didn't realise how much the weather would effect my mood.

The rain is long lasting here, and it covers the mountains so that you wouldn't believe that they are there for long periods of time, but when the sun pokes out and the mountains appear the vibe of the entire city changes. It once again becomes a special, almost magical place and everyone seems to have an extra spring in their step. Not to mention it makes it a hell of a lot easier to go out and enjoy the type of outdoors lifestyle that most Vancouverites crave.

It's supposed to be nice and sunny in a couple of days after 24-48 hours of nasty weather so I'll be looking forward to that. It won't be as nice as the weather is in England at the moment, but any sun will do as far as I am concerned!

Wrong fit

I was looking forward to our placement student starting at work last week. Having somehow managed to completely ignore the last one (and her me) I thought I’d really make the effort to get friendly with this one. But as hard as I try to be sociable towards her I am getting no kind of reaction back.

She’s so quiet and serious and doesn’t seem to have any interest in anything – she said she was too busy to have any hobbies but when I asked her what she did to keep her so busy she just said “surfing the net”. I appreciate that shyness is a barrier for a lot of people but I don’t think that that is the problem here. I’ve tried to find out what makes her tick but there’s nothing, and she doesn’t ask anything back.

I give up, it’s obviously not to be. I need someone who is at least more open to conversation and ideas and fun. Back to plan A of joining some sort of club.

See more progress on: Make new friends

This is never going to happen

I’ll spend so long researching the 100 books I must read that I’ll have not time to do any actual reading. For now I’ll stick with the more attainable goal of READ MORE.

See more progress on: create a list of 100 must-read books and read them.

My feet, my feet, my horrid feet

I’ve taken great steps to try and sort my feet out. I bought orthopedic insoles to help my painful heels. I bought some moisturising pumice foot scrub to soothe my feet in the evening and get rid of the dry skin and I bought more Athletes Foot cream to put on the soles of my feet in case the itching there is Athelete’s Foot.

My soles seem to be getting worse so I think it’s not fungal but rather irritated skin, so I’ll stick to just moisturising them daily.

My heels are kind of feeling better, until I walk long distances like I did yesterday, then they hurt like a bitch first thing in the morning and then at periods throughout the day. What am I supposed to do? I can’t possibly rest them as summer is coming up and I want to go walking lots, and I can’t lose weight without exercising which means using my feet lots. And I don’t want to go to the doctor and be told that I have to have corrective surgery which will cost a bomb. I’ll just have to grin and bear the pain at the moment.

I got a new pair of hiking boots which are far more comfortable than my current ones, which were just too small so hopefully that will go some way to helping too

See more progress on: Sort my feet out

Oh dear

I failed miserably at this last week. Today I have had 1 cup of regular tea, 1 small juice, 1 glass of water, 1 cup of herbal tea and 1 glass of diet coke.

Must try harder from tomorrow

See more progress on: drink 8 glasses of water a day

Doing pretty well

This has been one of my top three successes since last week. It’s very hard for me to do but I have been really disciplined, especially on week days. Now I just have to keep it up and work on what I eat when I do eat.

I was feeling hungry Saturday and ate a burrito for lunch and lots of pasta and bread for dinner so yesterday I wasn’t hungry all day and only had a piece of toast. Then we went out in the evening and I ate a huge portion of cheesy, sour-creamy, quacamoley nachos which I only had because they were on offer. I paid for it this morning mind!

Anyway, I’ll forget that one little failure – onwards!

See more progress on: only eat when I'm hungry