Ho Ho Ho....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

My abs hurt still from the 2 hour practice on monday. It hurts to laugh...so naturally J is trying to crack me up as often as possible :)

I've used the power of sleep deprivation to finish up my Christmas gift sewing and jsut a bit is left to do today to finish up my last few homemade gifts (and, um...make more cookies to give to people as I ate most of them...) and then...ze holiday is here.



Merry Christmas to all :)

Can't sleep...too much to do...

I have been bellydancing up a storm lately (2 hours yesterday), but no official workouts this week...I was up til nearly 2 last night sewing, so I slept as much as possible.
Nothing like trying to fix procrastination :)
I *will* get all my gifts made...Oh yes...I will...

Neato

My Bellydance group has their website up and running.
Lahdedah.

It is my goal to be one of the TwoLeftHips dancers...I'm just an alcoyte at the moment...but I have a dance name - Zahira. :)

Say it with me:
Oooooooh....

Cardio ahoy

natalie dee
nataliedee.com

OK, so it's not that bad...this cartoon just made me laugh out loud so I thought I'd include it.
I did get up this morning and do 30 minutes of cardio on the elliptical. My lungs are much better and it went off without a hitch. And I'll be walking about all bundled up to do things today...it feels good to move around. The bitter cold has made me rather sedentary as of late.
Last night was my second last bellydance hour of the year. Tomorrow night is final practice before holidays...we're doing better and better. There is hope we will not make fools of ourselves at the performance in February :)
Must dash. Lots to do. The parental units come tomorrow morning fro a few days...there is much to do to the house...
Have a good day all!

Eggnog Cookies

Upon request - the eggnog cookie recipe.
You'll thank me. Your ass may not, however...

Hopping on and off the wagon

Heh...when it's cold I hibernate. While I enjoy this, it generally means I bake a lot, drink tea and do very little other than snuggle under blankets to read or watch films.
This weekend it was ~-29°C plus severe wind, so we did not go outside for anything. We got everything we needed friday on the way home to last the whole weekend. We just stayed indoors.
I confess I didn't work out at all...I did some sewing prep for gifts, baked eggnog cookies (they rock) and pumpkin pie. Which I then had for breakfast. Oh and there were also grandma's homemade farmer sausage perogies in there too.
You can see where this all went can't you?
Yes, despite how gloriously slacking this weekend I must get back on with it. I didn't workout this morning as I was tired from staying up late to finish watching a movie, but my lungs seem to finally be on the mend, so I'm going to do my ball DVD when I get home from work...think I'll make a bake in the oven for an hour supper and have a good workout before I eat...Lazy is fun, but I feel like a blurb today, so I will hop back into it and have a good day. I've got healthy meals all day so I'm back on the wagon. Tomorrow, it's the elliptical. I do believe my lungs can finally handle it again.

Have a good day all!
:)

Skinny jiggles

I had bellydance rehearsal again last night...I have to practice more...OK I have to practice.
I know the moves, jut not the order of them all, and this will not do.

The instructor did correct my form last night, and that should make my knees happier...less twinges, as it turns out my legs were too far apart, making too much twisting on the knees...good news. The other thing that made me grin was the instructor told me to eggagerate my hip swings, as I was "too skinny" and had to make the motions larger for them to show up more.
Too skinny.
Hee hee.
I know. I know. But bellydancing is one thing where having some jiggle isn't so bad...
It's nice to hear tho :)
I *do* however have to relearn a lot of movements in a new way tho. I am developing a lot of abdominal strength from all this...it's cool :)

More paint, less squeak

A bit less squeak today, but a bit more couchy gurgle and *lots* more tired, so I slept in a bit. Today is a go all day til 10 PM day and I was up last night late finishing painting...then I made some muffins...and shovelled the snow while they cooled. Itwas midnight before bed came. So yeah...the extra 30 minutes of sleep hit the spot.

BUT, with any luck the painting is done (I nearly ran out of green paint on the last wall and had to get a bit skimpy by the end so I hope it looks OK in daylight-there's no light fixture at the mo in there so I'm painting by shoplight...seemed OK, but hard to tell). I was thinking this morning that perhaps without a constant daily dose of paint fumes (it's been a coat of paint a day for almost 2 weeks) my lungs will be more happy. You never know...

Off to the world.

Bye :)

squeak squeak

This morning my lungs were still in craptastic shape, so I didn't exercise. I could have gone slow on the elliptical I suppose...it just didn't seem like a good idea, so I drank some milk and pet the cat instead. If the old lungbags don't start getting better with the help of my old steroid inhaler I'll be seeing someone thursday...it's frustrating, as I'm not sick...I just squeak like an old lady with emphysema at times.
Unsettling.
I'm going to push myself to get the room I'm renovating painted tonight and then move into the fun of christmas stuff - I'm making lots of gifts this year and I need to get started.

So true...

natalie dee
nataliedee.com

Mmmm...soup

It was a busy but fun weekend...and this morning I did tap snooze, but I still got up to do my ball DVD. My lungs have been wierd the past few days - raspy, gurgly and the like. Not promising. I've broken out the steroid inhalers and hope it's just asthma and the cold weather and not a cold coming on. We'll see. Thing seem the same today...we'll take it day by day.
I found a delicious, healthy recipe for squash soup on the weekend. I made some up last night to try and use up the giant 6 Lb Kabocha squash given to me by a friend in the fall. I still ahve half of it in the freezer, but I now have 4 litres of yummy soup.
Must run - lots to do today. Have a good day :)

Just popped in

this morning I got up and after a bunch or errands and stuff, I managed to do 28 minutes of cardio on the elliptical, resistance 2.
Wish I'd had more time, but I hit snooze without realising it, so I only burned 352 calories instead of 400. But I had breakfast...mmmm...muesli...
I figure 28 isn't 35 minutes, but it's much better than 0 :)
Just wanted to log this. Gotta run.

Have a great day :)

Dec 4

This morning it was hard to get up. It's been a busy week or so, and last night, like all nights this week, I didn't get to be until nearly 12. I did get up this morning to get a few chores done and I did my ball DVD. I think my arms and shoulders look a bit more toned...but it may have been the lack of caffeine talking.
We'll see.
I did shovel snow last night, but there was frightfully little of it, so I can't really count that as exercise...and I suppose walking around in a mall doing some christmas shopping can't be counted either. Ah well...busy day, but lots done.
:)

Good morning

Despite the beautiful snow and snuggly cats I did manage to crawl out of bed in time to do 30 minutes of cardio on the eliptical. I stayed at 20% incline with a resistance of 2 and kept a steady pace up the whole time. The last few minutes were hard, but I did it. The machine says I burned 395 calories. I always wonder how accurate that is...
Bwaha!
I've been having a bizarre calf cramp thing all morning...I have to factor in more time for stretching I think. I may have overdid it at bellydance practice last night. Not sure. It's a wierd feeling to have just 1 muscle spasm...
I tried out some new blueberry muesli for breakfast too. It has raisins in it (bah) which I didn't notice until after I bought it (thought they were blueberries...), but turns out it tastes pretty good anyways...so I'll keep it as my healthy breakfast. I poured WAY too much of it in a bowl this morning and couldn't eat it all...forgot how filling muesli is. Oops. Less is more...

So far so good...:)

Music to sweat to: Brothers Gonna Work it Out - A Chemical Brothers DJ Mix

On the ball again

I did get up this morning and do my ball DVD.
Well hey...turns out that the new clock (when used right *snicker*) works fine.
So hopefully this is the start of many more days of working out.
I need to prep my body for holiday snackery...:)

Have a good day all.

Dangfound these new discombobulators...

Went for a long hike in the woods on sunday - it was nice. And I did lots of bellydancing, so that counts too...it was enough to make my bum and legs rather stiff...I must find more bummy stretches.
This morning, we had a new dual alarm clock to wake us up...well J up.
I'm beginning to think I have some sort of curse. First I set both alarms, then set our old as back up...and then when the alarm went off for J this morning I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't turn off...well I was trying to turn off the wrong clock...the backup clock rang for a few minutes after I turned off the new one, until I woke up long enough to figure out what the deal was and turned it off too. And the thing is...I turned off the other alarms for me then. Luckily my cat walked over me for food, so I was up and off to work on time, no prob, but no time for a full 40 minute workout like I'd planned. Tonight I plan lots of bellydancing and painting, and (knock on wood) now that I have our new clockamajig figured out, tomorrow AM is for cardio.
Ya think?
Wish me luck...