Thursday, January 1, 2015

Hello 2015!



Happy New Year, peeps!  So it's that time of year again where I post my goals for the year...not gonna lie...this year it was hard to pick five goals.  There's a lot of things I want to do or work on, but I wanted to choose ones that I could work on all year and ones that would "stick" or be meaningful.  Anyways, here goes!

1.  Read five books in 2015 that will blow my mind
OK, maybe not blow my mind...but expand my mind.  Ha!  I was thinking recently that I'm all about new experiences, but they're all physical...learning to swim, strength training, taking classes for Olympic weightlifting, blah blah, yadda yadda.   Well, that's going to change this year...to balance out all the physical growth, I was thinking that I wanted to read some books that might challenge my current ways of thinking...basically challenge me mentally.  It's all about balance, right?

2.  Plant a veggie garden
I've been meaning to do this forever.  FOREVER.  We have this patch off to the side of the house that is perfect for a small vegetable garden...it has a water source right there, it's fenced off to protect against the deer (which I love, don't get me wrong...but not when they eat all the veggies I've worked so hard to grow!), and it's a southern exposure so perfect for growing all sorts of veggies.  I started the process this year but alas...it wasn't meant to be.  But this year for sure, I'm going to landscape that patch and get that garden in it if it kills me.

3.  Do one random act of kindness per month
I was inspired to do this one by an article that I read in our local paper.  A mother-daughter team thought they would go out and do something nice, and bought a bunch of flowers and were handing out stems to people in the downtown area.  I guess people are suspicious of acts of kindness because they said that apparently a lot of people would run away from them and would actually refuse the flowers!  It made me sad to think that this is the kind of world that we've become.  But then I had my own run-in with a random act of kindness, which is kind of a funny story. I was parked downtown to take my dad to the doctor, and as we walked out I could see a piece of paper flapping on my dash.  I was immediately pissed off...how could I have gotten a ticket?!  WTF?  I wasn't even parked there that long!  As I walked up and took the paper off, someone had written me a very sweet note that they loved my car, and apologized if I had thought that their note was a parking ticket.  I laughed out loud and kept the note, and have it posted on my bulletin board at home as a reminder and inspiration for this goal.  And if I do more than one per month, well that's all good too.

4.  It's all about the bass
So we've allllllll have heard that song by Meagan Trainor, right?  If you've been living under a rock and for some reason have NO idea, here is the video for your viewing pleasure...



Apparently it's all about the booty now, which is very fitting for this goal.  No, I'm not trying to get a Kim Kardashian-like butt...which I gotta say, is quite the sight to behold.  What I mean is that I'm going to work on making sure that my glutes are strong.  ?  As a North American society, we all sit way too darn much which results in very weak glute muscles and shortened hip flexors...our glutes are supposed to be one of the most powerful muscles in the human body (read this for a great article)!  However, I remember when I was injured a few years ago, my physio pinned it on very weak glutes...she asked me to try to tense up one butt cheek at a time and I couldn't...I couldn't even activate the muscle and get the muscle to fire, no matter how hard I tried.  I've come to realize that weak glutes, tight muscles and poor posture have been the bane of my existence...almost every injury I have comes from something related to one of those three.  I'm working on the latter two, but this year is the going to be the Year of the Booty.  So how am I going to accomplish this, you ask? 

 - stand more at work (at least one hour of standing in the morning and afternoon)

 - glute exercises three times a week (clamshells, glute bridges, work with bands)

 - continue with posterior chain type stuff with personal trainer i.e. deadlifts, glute bridges

 - continue to work on mobility

 - regular check ins with physio re:  body positioning

5.  One creative project per quarter
Similar to the first goal, I realized all my new experiences were all about the physical.  When I was a little kid, I was actually quite artistic...I used to love to draw, and was one of the better artists in my class.  However, as I got older I moved towards focussing on academics and abandoned anything creative or artistic and it's an area that I'd love to work on building again.  I have a few projects in mind including a painting class and some other classes like knitting, jewellery or pottery, so am in the investigation phase right now!  But I'm excited about this one as it's a part of me that used to exist but feels like it needs to re-develop again.

6.  Bonus!  Complete an adventure race
Ha!  Usually I like to choose five goals, but similar to last year I've thrown in a bonus goal.  Yep...this year I'm going to do a mud run.

Say what?!

Yep, a mud run with obstacles that I'm going to have to traverse through.  I've been kind of intrigued with doing one for awhile, but didn't quite feel ready for Tough Mudder or anything that involved fire or electrified wires!  Then this year I was thinking about doing the Polar Bear swim to kick off the new year and...well, the weather has been unseasonably cold for Victoria and I jammed because I didn't really want to start the year off with hypothermia because that would just be my luck!  Feeling bad about being a jam tart, I was asked to join a team put together by the morning bootcamp gals so I did it!  Now I'm not gonna lie and say I'm not terrified...before I registered, I scoured the Facebook page for the Mud Mulisha run and looked at the photos...lots of mud, lots of scaling walls and other things that are completely out of my comfort zone.  But then again I remembered that saying...she believed she could, so she did...why was I already thinking I couldn't do it before I've even tried?  So I whipped out my credit card and signed up before I changed my mind.  Race is in August, so lots of time to work on my upper body strength.  Life begins at the end of your comfort zone, right?  Oh, and I'd better get that tat soon too.

love this!!