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Just a bit of niceness

Most of the time I say I don’t like people. They are often thoughtless and wrapped up in their own world – all you have to do is go anywhere, I’d imagine, during rush hour. Drivers run yellows, pedestrians try to beat approaching emergency vehicles and cyclists go the wrong way up one way streets. People litter, or smoke outside restaurant entrances or don’t give up their seat for the elderly.

All that to say that when someone stops and does something nice it makes me just that little bit less annoyed with mankind.

One of those happened today.

construction crew
construction crew

This is the truck working on a street I walked down to get Q to day care today. There’s a guy on the ground watching a guy operate a huge jackhammer from about 5 feet above the ground. A big loud jackhammer. I’m trying to think of how to do this: ask Q to cover his ears and rush by? cross to the other side? while I hesitate I see the guy on the ground tap the legs of guy on the jackhammer. Jackhammer guy stops. Ground guy looks up and says “baby.” Jackhammer guy nods. I say thanks to ground guy. He smiles and nods. And they don’t start up again until I’m more than half way down the block.

Just a little bit of niceness.

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Get Crafty

Knitted Blanket – inukshuk

A few years ago now, Toby and I took a couple of intro to knitting classes at a shop in Kensington Market. Yep, Toby was the only guy but he enjoyed it and we made a scarf and then a baby hat. I kept it up a bit more than he did and one day I was flipping through a catalogue from a craft store when my dad says “hey that looks nice, make me that.” A blanket! WTF?

Well, why not? I thought.

I thought I had some more work in progress pictures but maybe they were from the old camera. I’ll have to check out the big Mac to see if they’re on there.

I got to do a couple of new things making the blanket: double stranded knitting – so knitting with two strands of yarn at the same time. And it was knit on one circular needle – which meant casting on a little bit shy of 200 stitches!

Anyway, here it is:

bottom - about half way done
bottom – about half way done

 

top half - almost done!
top half – almost done!

And the whole darn thing:

Voila!
Voila!

It’s really soft and comfy. And my dad completely forgot that he had asked for it! Sigh.

I really liked making it because it really doesn’t matter that I knit a little tight. I worry about making clothes and stuff for that reason. But it also means I have leftover yarn, and, well, I thought it would be fun to make a scarf with the circular needle so….

IMG_0223

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Health

Imaginary run to PEI – week 2

I had hoped to get four runs in this week but am pretty happy with the three I managed. Last Sunday’s run was so hot I developed a heat rash. Heat rashes suck. Try and avoid them.

So the week in running:
May 7: 7.8km – 6am run which was good 🙂 I need to do more of those. And yea, if I had realised how close I was to 8km I’d have kept going for a couple more minutes.
May 10: 5.25km – slept in a little but knew I should still get out and run so I ran 5 instead of 8.
May 12: 13.5km – ran in the afternoon but it was less than 5C anyway. Yikes. Quite a difference from last week. I ran out on Gerrard East so I got a nice bit of hill work in east of Coxwell. Came back along Danforth and remembered I still haven’t gone to the new Target yet.
Total: 26.5 km

The amusing part for me is that I am pretty much at the intersection of Highway 2 and Stevenson Road in Oshawa – the automotive capital of Canada, thanks to the presence of GM Canada. The guy who formed the original company that became GM Canada was Samuel McLaughlin. You can go visit his house. It looks pretty cool:

you can tell it’s been in a ton of movies and tv shows

The Mississauga tribe used the habour to trade beaver and other pelts. Go forward in time a little bit (about 200 years) and a lot of Cornish people (yes, separate from English, just ask Toby and his dad!) helped to settle the area following the United Empire Loyalists leaving the US.

Oh and the requisite hockey reference: Bobby Orr played for the Oshawa Generals. So did Alex Delvecchio and twice in Oshawa General history they lost their arena to fire.

Weird Toronto connection: Both Toronto and Oshawa have a Kingsway Village.

Categories
Health

Fitness Friday (May 10/13) – happy anniversary

Yea, I like alliteration. And today happens to be our 16th wedding anniversary. Think about that for a second. Wow. We’re going to go see The Book of Mormon tonight. I cannot wait!

So we introduced the keto way of eating on May 1, 2013. That’s it, cold turkey, no bread or beer since then. And, perhaps not surprisingly, I’ve been missing the beer more than the bread. mmmm beer.

IMG_0597
March 2011 but still a great picture

I am including the following information in no way to diminish the improvements I’ve had this week but to keep it all in a realistic manner. When I weighed myself Wednesday May 1 in the morning, I had: (a) run a half marathon 3 days before (Sunday morning) and there’s some effect there for retaining water in muscles or something like that. I don’t know how much that would impact my weight three days later but I mention it just in case;
(b) we had several fantastic meals in Montreal. Several. We went to Garde Manger and Le Comptoir. I had fabulous post-run margaritas at a nice little Mexican place. (careful it plays music loudly!)
(c) uhm, I had just started my period. Is there a nicer way to write that? Some euphemism I should use in future?

All that to say that I might have weighed a little high on that morning. So with all of that out of the way, from May 1 to May 10 I lost 10 pounds. Not too shabby eh?

Eating keto has been easier has been easier than expected. I track my food at http://www.myfitnesspal.com and there are days when I find it hard to eat the 1600 calories it has me pegged at. Toby’s made an awesome keto-friendly stew (beef and cabbage so it appeals to my Polish background) and lots of sauteed veggies too. And yes, I do miss not opening a bottle of wine mid-afternoon on Saturday and having it empty by bedtime, I figure the… uhm… the losses make up for the losses if you know what I mean. I’ll be honest and say I’m looking forward to being closer to my goal weight and seeing how adding back things like beer will turn out.

Categories
Health

Bloodletting

On April 15, 2013, I had the joy of refreshing my screen a hundred times watching for the finishing times of friends who were running in Boston. As soon as I saw the last of my friend’s pass with a time of 4:06:30, I smiled and went and ran my errands. So it wasn’t until a little while later that I heard about the bombs. And then spent the rest of the afternoon frantically searching online for our friends. Right before I left work for the day, we got word from the last person we hadn’t heard from. Sigh.

I cannot imagine what it was like for those who were there, who were injured (physically, mentally) or who lost someone.

My first response was to dig out my donor card and go online to Canadian Blood Services to get the number to call and make an appointment. Turns out they have a new online service now. You can register and then make your own appointments online! I find this very convenient; I can have my calendar open and chose any available time slot at my local permanent clinic. 

Some terminology: a permanent clinic is just a clinic that is in a fixed location. In Toronto there are a few: 163 King St West (at King and University; this is where I usually go); 67 College Street (at College and Bay I think) and 55 Bloor Street West (in the Manulife Centre). The 55 Bloor one is nice because it’s open on Saturdays.

A mobile clinic is when Canadian Blood Services sets up shop in an office tower, or a school or church hall. Usually it’s there for a day or two and people can often just walk in to donate (although appointments are preferred).

They usually take whole blood although they also have appointments for donating plasma and platelets. And if you’re worried about the whole idea of giving blood you can find a “what’s your type?” appointment – they prick you and tell you your blood type. I guess the idea being that you’ll see it’s not so bad after all. And there’s always juice and cookies afterwards.

Anyway, if you’ve never given blood, please give it a try; and if it’s been a while since you have, go check out the online appointment booking. I made three appointments, the first the week after the Toronto Women’s Half Marathon.

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