so I was...

excited to find out that Jillian Michaels is podcasting.  I used to listen to her radio show every week and was bummed when it was cancelled.  You can find her on itunes or click here for a direct link to a website that has the 'listen now' button

actually bummed to miss my team workout last night.  Traffic was awful, we left late too so we turned back and went for a beer.  I've made better decisions in my life but hey, you only live once. 

loving my new iMac.  Need to pick up a new desk for my home office that will fit the monitor, found one cheap at Canadian Tire, yay

still in wordpress hell.  If only I could master the basics, but I WILL!

sorry for the short and sweet, back to WP

that's all I got...

What happened?

So I bought shesaidineedagoal.com via blogger (for now) and now all my blog links are gone so I can't find most of you via normal means and I can't see my followers and how annoying is this?! I am going to have to catch up via my google reader for now until I can get this wordpress stuff finished.  I'm not ignoring you!

Birthday dinner for Hunter was good, there were 23 of us, all was going good and then someone at another table was celebrating a birthday so round 1 of happy birthday.  Everyone just kinda stopped, forks midway to our mouths and I'm sure I wasn't the only one singing in my head 'dear Cheech!!' when they got to that part.. it was a bit of a punch in the stomach.  Then the second time it happened it was eyes darting around the tables, 'is everyone ok?'.. yup, moving on..  the third time I just ignored it and kept talking.

Early bike ride tomorrow.  Taking a girl that just started with the M-BIM to sideroad-1 for a bit of hill training.  7am wakeup call.  Someone remind me to pick up some coffee cream on the way home from work, it's going to be a very early morning. 

that's all I got...

(no pics again and I can't find Matty's blog so I can't even swipe one from there)

Happy Sweet 16 Hunter

Dear Hunter,

Today is your 16th birthday. 

Happy Sweet 16 baby!

I've been trying for a while to figure out what I could say today but I just end up deleting whatever I write.  Whatever I write just feels empty... meaningless...  irrelevant...  hollow...

I've been eyeing this day on the calendar since you left us, not knowing how we will get through the day and I'm still not sure but at least we will be together.  Me, your mom, Dayen, Jim, Chris, grandma A, uncle Mark and a bunch of others.  We will celebrate your life, and be incredibly grateful we had the honour of calling you a daughter, a sister, a niece, a granddaughter, a cousin, a friend, our Cheech.

You were loved so much by so many in your short time here with us. I don't know if we know yet how to live in a world where you don't exist but we are stepping through the days, together.  You are always on my mind.

It's hurts to laugh here without you
a piece inside of us is gone
so if you're looking down on me
I love you
and miss you
so much

Love Aunt Deenie
xooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

All for you

Everlasting love forever skies of blue

All in your heart

Never ending just a means for start

Comfort in your eyes

For the warmth inside your smile

Faith's done gone astray

It was you who made living all worth the while

Oh I thank you my child

It was you who made living all worth the while

Oh I thank you my child

With the touch of your hand

Amidst confusion I can see enough to understand

All my fears repressed

Oh lovin' you child it's the best

You're all & everything to me

Til the end of times you know you'll always be

Ain't no second guess

Oh you put my worried soul to rest

Question

Despite the 80 followers showing I know there aren't that many of you that read this consistently (but I appreciate every single one of you).  Your feedback and comments keep me motivated and never fail to make me laugh sooooo I have a question for you.

I am switching to WP and getting my own domain, yup I'm finally doing it, but the 'needagoal' url is already taken.  So what should I go with?

shesaidineedagoal
needagoalblog
somethingelse

Any ideas, opinions would be much appreciated.

In other news, sideroad#1 repeats tonight with the Mommies for training.  I'm a team leader, now THAT is funny.

Do I look different?

Maggie, Mia, Spencer and Marley

I finally did it, I bought an iMac on the weekend.  Aside from the whole music transfer (which was my old PC issue) the rest of it was unbelievably easy.  I got a desktop iMac, this allowed me to spend more money on fun stuff.  It took me the better part of a day to copy the music from my old PC to my external hard drive, then plug it into the iMac and that transfer took less than an hour.  Sadly I lost all my playlists, not sure why so I had to redo those and that took a while.  The cool part was while I was transfering music and downloading/updating my podcasts I could actually do other stuff on the computer.  SHOCKER!!  I still can't figure out to do the basic of things like save / retrieve a file but I even did a back up of all my devices and my entire computer. 

Do I look different? 

Saturday I went for a training session with the coach, we did SR1 and Walkers Line.  I was surprised, in the past my legs would be burning on even the smallest hills right away but I think all those spin classes, a new bike and knowing how to gear much better this year has made a huge difference.  We didn't go too far and my legs didn't feel the slightest bit sore or tired.  I can't wait to get out there again and I will, tomorrow night with the Mommies/Babes in Motion. 

Saturday night I visited on of my besties and she had 5 dogs at her house.  3 are hers and two were visitng.  I was in puppy heaven! Ok they aren't all puppies, but I call every dog a puppy.  They wore out the black lab puppy Spencer, he is new and was toast by the time we went in the house. I have other pics but for some reason even though I rotated them when I saved them they are coming into the blog sideways.  No clue why that's happening.

I also have (but can't post,argh) pictures of the race simulation my coach hosted this weekend prepping the IronCanucks and others for Guelph Lake olympic this weekend.  Even though I am not racing until later in the season I always like to hang around so I volunteered.  There were probably 40 or so people participating and I had a great time!!  I might have to go to Guelph Lake and cheer some people on this weekend.

Busy week ahead for me and I have some major catching up to do with your blogs.  What's up with you guys?

ps - loved this post by Rodney.  Go give it a read. 

so I was...

wondering what the heck happened to spring?

waiting for coach Nancy to tweak my program to remove swim training for a few weeks til the tattoo heals, also run and bike is iffy til probably Friday. No dust or dirt allowed

relieved that the swim is the sport I'm least worried about

asking why no one reminded me, tattoo's hurt! Even after they are done

sure that the pain directly relates to the size of these puppies

scared to go for one-on-one hill ride with coachy on Saturday, eeeeeeek

thinking about making the switch to wordpress, you may want to turn your phones, twitter, email off for the inevitable questions. Except you Jason!

also thinking that I'll be buying a MAC this weekend, may as well switch over before I start this process. My home computer is liable to die at any second

notified that my blog is being published at Before it's news. I have no idea what this means and I'm sure they'll be thrilled when I switch to wordpress within a week

going to make apple horseradish coleslaw recipe from Top Chef Canada on the weekend and have it with BBQ chicken. Foodies, can I substitute greek yogurt for mayonaisse?

also going to make sushi ala Jason!!  I suspect I'll suck at rolling so I'm betting it turns into sushi casserole.

missing my dogs this week in particular

annoyed that the pics I wanted to post are rotated the wrong way and won't unrotate.. stupid iPhone pictures

that's all I got...

Matty was upset, no pics so I stole one of his

Addicted? Naw, it's just a tattoo

Jsin at our first appointment last year

Off work today and decided it was time to go and get my next tattoo.  I wasn't planning on this one but after Hunter passed away my plans changed and I wanted a memorial piece for her.  I went to see Jsin at Nude Buddha again.  He did my last one and I love his work.  He is also really funny and puts up with my constant whining and jumping around.  If you ever need tattoo work done I'd say go check his studio out in Milton.  I hear he's booked through July and can't thank him enough for taking me last minute.

We talked about what I was looking for and where I wanted it, outside right calf.  We mocked it up together, obviously I mostly just said 'great, ok, awesome' and about 2 hours of pain later I was done.  They guys in the shop called it 'sick'.  I am pretty sure Hunter was there with me.  Totally weird, the girl at the desk, her daughter's name is Hunter Lynne, another guy, his sister's name is Hunter and finally one of the other guys had a picture of cheech tattooed on him. Hunter's nickname is Cheech.

Not much else to say so I'll post the rest in pics. 

Intial mockup, LOVE the font!!!

I asked if we were half done, nope 30%

I'm sure he was saying, stay still, stop tensing up!

The finished product

 that's all I got...

A note to (scared) newbies and the overweight

this book changed my life

On Tuesday night I attended the first session of our mommys/babes in motion team training and we had a lot of new people. I remember the newbie feeling last year, another way to put it would be SCARED TO DEATH. I heard afterwards that a few of the girls were thinking that they were out of their league but if I could get some time with them I would tell them a few things that I have learned along the way. (these are also good reminders to myself). 

The run tonight sucked but you DID IT! Who cares if you walked it all, you were out there. 

It does hurt but it gets better, ummmm probably not tomorrow. ;-) 

You will run a bit more the next time and a bit more the time after that.

If you think next week will be easier because you'll be more prepared, in a better frame of mind, **insert any old excuse here**, you won't.

A year from now you'll wish you started today. 

This is supposed to be fun, if you honestly don't like it, find something else, dance, weight lifting, walking, just swimming, just biking, anything. But I gotta say, triathlons are just plain cool. 

Find a coach, join a team, it's much easier to get out there if you have loads of people waiting for you and it's the most fun when you cross the finish line and they are all there screaming your name. 

Swimming, biking and running seem to hurt less when you know everyone around you is in pain too. 

The high afterwards last for hours. 

It will still be tough to get out the door the next day for another work out, do it anyway. 

If you start thinking about it, STOP THINKING. It's very easy to talk yourself out of a workout. 

Connect with like minded people. Why am I still doing this after all this time? I have connected to some amazing people that I really look up to.  They motivate me and understand my goals are not the same as theirs. If I bike or run what is for me, a long distance and am super freaking excited about it, they are even more excited than I am!!! And these people are hard core, my long distances are a drop in the bucket compared to what they do. 

DO NOT compare your training to anyone elses. What did YOU accomplish, how did YOU feel, what's on YOUR schedule this week. 

If you miss a workout don't sweat it (haha), can you make it up? If yes, go for it, if no let it go.. Don't go on and on about the miss, shit happens, LIFE happens. 

You won't find a better community than the running/biking/triathlon community for welcoming and supporting newcomers. 

Accept that you won't look like Chrissie Wellington in a month, most of will never get close, ever. 

Accept that your body, even unfit and/or overweight can accomplish amazing things. 

If you practice it gets better. 

If it's getting easy you're not working hard enough, increase your challenge. 

Pick a short term goal and work towards that. 

Screw the scale, how do you feel? 

If you eat Mickey Dees tonight, your run tomorrow will suck, just sayin'. This is not to say that Mickey Dees is always out of the question. 

Get involved. I have more fun volunteering than I do even racing.. ok it's equal fun really but volunteering is great and connects you with so many people you might not meet otherwise.

Get over yourself, I look absolutely terrible in a bathing suit/tri suit/cycling kit but I do it anyway. Once you do it the first time I can't say it gets easier BUT you care less. Now I spend my time thinking about how well I'm going to do or what I want to accomplish rather than 'oh my god look at my ass!!!!' Ok, I admit I still think 'oh my god look at the size of my ass' but my ass ain't gonna get any smaller sitting on the couch.

And when you see a newbie with that look in their eye, pass the message along, show them some support. 

with love, that's all I got...

so I was..

she will kick your ass

Impressed with myself cause I managed to talk my trainer (not my coach) into doing the sprint tri with me in September. It only took me 2 bottles of wine to convince her. She's not comfortable swimming so I'll help her with that

Confident that she will kick my ass at the race overall, perhaps I can swim in front of her and slow her down significantly to give me a head start 

Going to tell you she's a figure competitor, she's not competing at the moment so I told her she 'needs a goal'

Laughing when I said it cause this blog (she said I need a goal, get it? haha, no? nevermind) and triathlon was all her idea, it took her 3 bottles of wine to convince me

Wondering if anyone has a loaner bike she could use for training/racing? The Pinarello has already been re-loaned and she needs a bike.  Let me know if you have any ideas or contacts please

Happy to see the Mommys and Babes in Motion team last night at the track for a 'hi how are ya and let's run a bit' workout

Unhappy with my running results last night but I got out there in 40degree heat and rulked (matty)

Prepping to meet Nancy to go over my program on Saturday

Putting all my appointments and plans into google calendar. I can't find an app that I like and clearly after this past weekend's screw up I need to write things down.  Open to recommendations if you have any though

Not going to pay an upgrade fee so I can integrate Training Peaks with google.

Overwhelmed that I have plans every weekend from now til August, wtf?

Catching up on blogs but blogger still sucks and I still can't always comment, sometimes I end up in a freaking loop. Wordpress maybe??

Annoyed at blogger because I can't see my followers anymore either, random widget issues

Stoked that 'justjunk' is coming to take away all my junk on Saturday.  I love junk removal as much as I love garbage day

Still missing Hunter every single day which is weird because it's not like I saw her everyday.  I keep meaning to change my FB profile pic to something else but I can't seem to do it.  I like seeing her pretty face

Looking for ideas on how to raise funds for sick kids with my racing this year without being obnoxious about it.  Got any ideas for me?

Not sure how I felt about our summer dress code which lists "Speedos" in the "Unsuitable" category.  I shudder to think about the situation that caused them to have to officially publish this rule

Addicted to the chili lime chicken quesadillas I made and and now keep making every night for dinner, super YUM

still struggling with quitting smoking.. not sure what's going to get me in the right frame of mind

that's all I got..