the pomegranate tiger

So I finished Survivor Boot Camp last Friday. It's taken me a few days to mull it over and get my thoughts together about the whole experience. First of all, I didn't miss a single session. Twenty days. No mean feat for someone who likes to go to bed late and truly hates getting up early. At the beginning, I didn't know if I'd make it. The by-product is that I now consider getting up at 7 a.m. sleeping in. I'm stronger, leaner, and fitter than I've been in years. By the final Fit Test day, I improved in all areas and even managed to lose a few pounds and several inches from my jigglier parts. My snug pants aren't as snug and, by gum, I think I even look taller! I'm still not the svelte thing I was in my thirties, but that's okay. I'm impressed with the fact that I kept up to the thirty-somethings – well, all except for the running – and in the strength areas, surpassed some of them. At times, it was painful – especially those first two wee...

When I first ventured into the blogosphere, almost two years ago, one of the first blogs that really captured my attention was Ronni Bennett's, Time Goes By . I've been an avid reader ever since. Recently, she invited me (along with others) to write a guest blog while she was on vacation, I was thrilled and very flattered. My contribution is on her blog today and you can find it here . If you're not familiar with Ronni's site, please take a look around and have a good read. You'll be glad you did.

One of the benefits of maturing is learning how to handle disagreements without getting fuming mad. It's not that I don't get annoyed or angry; it's that I can let it go much easier. There were times, not so long ago, that if I disagreed with someone and knew in my heart of hearts that they were wrong, I was convinced it was my duty; nay, my moral obligation to show them the error of their ways. In retrospect, I don't think it had much to do with proving them wrong. It was more about proving that I was right. I still remember a discussion - slash – argument with a good friend in college. It was about – are you ready for this? – how winds are named (e.g. westerly, southerly, etc.). My friend said winds were named for the direction in which they blew. In other words, she said a wind blowing from the east towards the west would be called a Westerly. I knew she was wrong because I distinctly remembered my Geography 12 teacher drilling it into us that winds are na...

Every so often I like to play around with Blogthings . I came across this one about cooking. I love food and come from a family of very good cooks. I learned most of what I know through osmosis - hanging around watching and helping my grandmother and aunts cook. We (the womenfolk) had great cooking marathons for special occasions. My aunts and female cousins, led by my grandmother, would cram into the kitchen and cook from morning 'til night to make pastries, dumplings and other goodies for Christmas, New Years (twice, because we celebrated both western and Chinese), Easter, important birthdays - really any time the extended family expected to gather. It was for socializing as much as it was for cooking. I miss those days. Now, most of the aunts have died, grandma is gone, and the cousins are scattered all over. The closest thing to this type of gathering is when I do Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner and my family gathers around the kitchen while I cook. It's not the sa...

It's hard to believe there's only one week left. The past week has seen things ratcheted up another notch of intensity. Instead of doing two sets of twenty reps, we're doing two or three sets of thirty reps; instead of two minutes at each station for circuit training, we're doing three minutes at each station. It may not seem like much, but let me tell you, that extra minute of push-ups, squats, and lunges make your muscles scream, "Please, STOP!". I've found that I can handle most of the endurance and strength things pretty well. That's probably because I'm a stubborn ol' bird and refuse to give in. The jumping, running and impact activities are another matter. My knees really don't like all the jarring, so I've modified some of the exercises and have resigned myself to being slow and steady. I have no intention trying to keep up with the young'uns. They have resilient bodies that recover in half the time that mine does. W...

I'm resurrecting another Lydia story (with a few minor tweaks) that was originally posted on First Drafts in February 2006. That site is no longer active, so I decided it might be a good idea to keep my posted writing in one place. I've previously explained how bad I am at keeping my computer files in any semblance of order. I'm hoping Blogger, with its label system, will help. This piece is from the prompt, "Impervious" . Lydia was sitting at her computer. Nothing. She’d done a couple of writing exercises to warm up, but couldn’t produce anything else. At least nothing she wanted to keep. She kept gazing out the window. The clear blue sky was inviting. She checked the weather channel - minus two Celsius – not bad. Better to be outside getting some much-needed exercise than staring blankly at the computer monitor. It was still early, not yet noon. There was time to take a short drive up the mountain and hike one of the short trails off Mt Seymour Parkway...

Joared's blog, Violation, brought back vivid memories of our own house break-in. I recall almost every detail. Our sons were still in elementary school and the family had been away for a few days of skiing before Christmas. We came home in the evening and noticed the blinds in our bedroom were slightly pulled back. Hadn't we closed them? We entered the house and noticed the kitchen window was ajar. This should have sent us straight to the telephone to call the police. But for some reason -- perhaps denial -- we stupidly proceeded upstairs to the bedrooms. All the bedrooms had been ransacked, the drawers opened and the contents dumped onto the floor. All the boys' CDs and videos had been taken as well as their sports and movie collectibles. We eventually called the police and, as in Joared's case, they figured the culprits were probably pretty young and inexperienced (they had found my jewellery, but took the cheap costume pieces - presumably because they wer...

Today is B.C. Day, a statutory holiday in British Columbia , so it feels like a Sunday to me; the only difference being that I started the day with Boot Camp. Once I got that out of the way, I fell into my usual Sunday morning routine of surfing through old and new blogs. I found a goldmine of new and interesting blogs through Imagine What I'm Leaving Out and kenju's post about her Creative Bloggers Award. From that one post, I found: Kay's Thinking Cap which led me to: Joy of Six The View From Where I Sit and Along the Way which led me to Golden Lucy's Spiral Journal I've bookmarked them all and will be returning for more. Then it was back to my own blog to read a comment left by Junebugg of Wasted Days Wasted Nights whom I added to my blogroll a couple of weeks ago. And now, here I am to pass along my finds - though I suspect many of you have already discovered the above blogs because I see lots of familiar names amongst the various blogrolls. It rein...

I'm doing other things besides boot camp. Really, I am. Number One Son and his girlfriend are moving into a new apartment and they've co-opted me into helping them paint it this week. I'm the resident interior paint expert, having painted just about every room in every place (5) we've lived in over the past thirty-odd years. The apartment is quite spacious for an older one-bedroom – about 760 square feet - with lots of windows and hardwood floors. The previous tenant, however, was a bit of a slob and left things in a pretty grungy state. I told NOS I'd help paint, but THEY had to deal with the cleaning! And they did, too. The first job was the bedroom which had been painted a deep dark BLOOD RED (if I knew how to make "blood red" appear to be dripping, I would). I'm not sure what state of mind the previous renter was in when he painted it this colour, but I probably don't want to know. It was like entering a dark and dismal gothic cave. Aft...

Yee Ha! Another week down. It hasn't been exactly easier, but seems more doable. The warm-up runs are still a challenge (I hate running) and I still finish at the back of the pack. I try to counteract this by starting my run early, so there won't be such a huge gap between me and the others. I can do the three laps non-stop now and finally did a 25-minute run (basically twice the distance) non-stop. It's not that I didn't want to stop at least a dozen times. I just talked myself into continuing. I'd think, okay, you can start walking at the next driveway. The next driveway would come and I'd think; you can make it to the next tree; then the next corner, etc. until I finished. It's really a mind-game. And I've figured out why people like to run with earplugs and music -- So they don't have to listen to themselves huffing and puffing with each step! When you're running alone, you can hear every single wheezing inhale, exhale and poundin...