Tuesday as I was driving home from my morning class (starving) I found myself in that same stupid situation.  What to have for lunch.  Then I drove by a pizza place and was inspired!  Back in my days as an office worker I had the same lunch 5 days a week for years.  I never got tired of it.  But then I stopped working a 9-5 gig and seemingly got quite off track in the lunch dept.

As soon as I thought of it I wondered why it had taken my all this time to think of going back to my old standard lunch.  I stopped at the store and picked up the one item I needed to pick up to make my lunches for the rest of the week and I was off.

I bring to you, the re-introduction of the Pita Pizza!

I expect there will be a lot of pita pizza consumption going on here, I’m already obsessed with them all over again.  And FYI – for this hungry girl one doesn’t cut it.  I make two and sometimes still wish I had another!

Anybody else stuck in a lunch rut?  Or have you recently stumbled onto a new (or old) favourite?  Let me know in the comments!

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You may reminder that I wasn’t terribly thrilled with last month’s box, the products were good, but they didn’t wow me.  This was to be the month I decided to keep or cancel my subscription, and folks, it’s a keeper!

The first thing I noticed when I got the box this month was how light it felt.  Immediately I thought, “Great, did they forget to send me my products?”  Alas no, I got my answer when I opened the box and found this note

You probably can’t read the whole note so in the smaller text it says “We love packaging but hate waste, so say hello to your new eco-friendly Glymm bag”

Okay…now I’m intrigued!

OMG (yes, I just said OMG) a bright flipping pink Glymm bag!  I heart it!  My only question is, will they be pink every month?  Did everyone get a pink one this month?  I think it would be awesome if there were different colours so you could get a collection of different bags!  But who am I kidding, I’d be tickled pink (get it?  PINK?  I know, it’s a terrible pun) if I got a pink one each month so it doesn’t really matter.  So before even opening the box bag I was already lovin’ this month’s box.  See how easy it is to please me?  Give me a pretty bag and I’m happy!

Now lets take a look at what was inside

Clockwise starting in the upper left-hand corner

Caudalie Vinosource SOS Thirst Quenching Serum and Vinosource Moisturizing Sorbet.  Sample sizes of 1ml.  The full size products are 30ml/$48 and 40ml/$38 respectively

Caudalie Vinexpet Anti-ageing Serum Eyes and Lips.  The sample size I received is 7ml, the full-sized product is 15ml/$33

CK One Shock for Her and CK One Shock for Him.  Each sample came in a cute little spray bottle (vs. the usual pull the stopper out and get perfume all over yourself bottle.)  and is 1.2ml while the full-size bottles are both 50ml and sell for $45.  I love this scent and since I rarely get to wear perfume sample sizes like this are perfect for me!

Next up is the only full-sized product in this month’s box bag, a CARGO Eye Shadow Duo in Vienna (retails for $25).

NUME HydroPunch Hydrating Conditioner, sample size of 20ml.  The full size product is 250ml and sells for $24.99

And lastly one of the products I was most excited about getting this month COOLA Mineral Matte Cucumber Face Sunscreen.  My sample size is 5ml, and the full size is 50ml and sells for $36.  I’ve been hearing a lot about COOLA sunscreen lately as it is an organic sunscreen and had been wanting to try it and now I can.  The bonus for me is that Glymm is now selling COOLA products in their store so I can cash in some of my Glymm Points to get a discount on the purchase of the items if I decide to purchase them.  Can I get a, “woot”?

Another change this month that I really like is they have changed the info sheet that explains each product to include info on how many uses you should be able to get out of each sample, or the shelf life for each make-up product.

I wasn’t the only one loving this month’s box.  A certain orange cat was quite in love with the CK One for Men,

as well as the packing box.

Silly cat!

If you would like to subscribe to Glymm, you can do so here using my referral link.

Past Glymm boxes:

• March 2012
• April 2012

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I’m a FitFluential Ambassador!

What the heck is a FitFluential Ambassador you ask? Well, FitFluential is network of fitness enthusiasts who share their stories via social media (Twitter, Facebook, blogging, YouTube, etc.) and was founded in April 2011.

I am beyond thrilled about being chosen to join such a wonderful group of bloggers many of which I’ve followed and looked up to for years, and am very excited about working to make myself and this blog worthy of such a title.  {Sidenote – if you follow the link above and go through the list of ambassadors, don’t expect to find me there yet, I need to send them my bio/photos and once I do it will still take a little while before I will appear in the list.}

Prior to receiving the news I had already been spending a lot of time “behind the scenes” doing work on the blog, updating and adding pages, making some small changes to the widgets and plug-ins on the site and working on material to start bringing you more content more often.  Finding out I’m going to be a FitFluential Ambassador has only added to that fire, and I will certainly be working hard to make sure I live up to the name!

So what does this mean for you the reader?  It means both more content – and better content (we’re talking more workouts, more recipes, videos, you get the idea!), as well as the potential for exciting opportunities in the future.  Really peeps, it’s time to get pumped!

You too can join FitFluential!

If you are a healthy living or fitness blogger you can join FitFluential as a blogger member (and seriously you should do it, it’s free! ) and if you aren’t a blogger but is someone who is passionate about fitness but only has a Facebook or Twitter account and/or follow your favourite blogs online you can still join as a FitFluential Enthusiast.

Like I mentioned above, FitFluential is only a year old and they are already doing amazing things, I am really, really excited to see what the next year brings for both FitFluential and for myself and this blog.

Now in celebration I will go eat some Jelly Belly’s!  Does that not seem appropriate?  Humph, well I’m doing it anyway!

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After posting yesterday, I cooked up some supper on the b-b-q.  Isn’t one of the best things about summer cooking on the b-b-q?  I know you can (and we do) use it year round, but there is something special about doing it in the summer (or spring in this case).

For me, steak and b-b-q’d veggies

And for J steak smothered in ketchup and some over cooked veggies (due to his ulcerative colitis all veggies have to be cooked beyond death).

complete with ketchup splatters

Afterwards we hung out in the basement.  J went for a run on the treadmill and afterwards we watched Rango on Netflix

It was a cute movie – I liked it!

Today things are pretty relaxed, it’s a rest day for me so I’m mostly sitting back and relaxing.

Like I mentioned yesterday I picked up a little something else at Peke’s that I was saving to share with you today – my very Kombucha!  I tried to make a video of my actual first taste but I had difficulties when I opened the bottle and it started fizzing up everywhere :/ so I made this video for ya after I cleaned up my mess

Watch this video on YouTube.

Here’s the Wikipedia article on Kombucha for those of you who want to know more about it.

Tonight we’re going out for supper and then to hang out with another couple and watch the hockey game.

Enjoy the rest of your day!

Have you ever tried Kombucha?  If you did what did you think of it?  If you like it what’s your favourite flavour?  

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After a double dose of Zumba this morning I decided to let Wendy cook up my lunch

Half Baja Salad & a small frosty

Here’s a little tip for you if you like the Baja salad from Wendy’s.  When ordering take-out, they put your chili in a container so you can add it yourself when you are ready to eat.  They sell two sizes of salad, the half and the full size.  The full size salad is something like $2.50 or $3 more than the half.  The trick is – they give you the same amount of chili for the half as they do the full side salad (but only when you get the take out.  When you eat in they put the chili on the salad when you order).  So really you are paying an extra couple bucks for lettuce and that’s it.  Sometimes (like today) they don’t fill the chili cup to the very top when you get the half-size, but I still don’t think it’s worth $3 to get 1/4 cup more chili and some lettuce leaves.  I’d rather save my money and get a frosty on the side.

This afternoon I got an e-mail letting me know that my card pass at the Athletics Complex on campus had been dis-activated (again) because last week was the end of the school term.  They always dis-activate our cards at the end of the school year and again at the start of the new year.  This is always such an annoyance.  Why?  Because to get it fixed it means a trip to my least favourite place on campus

It seems like every year it become as bigger and bigger ordeal.  I get there, nobody is there, or they can’t find me in the system, or the person that updates the cards isn’t there, or whatever.  Last year it took a full 2 months to get my card sorted out.  No exaggeration.  Thankfully today it was pretty painless. I was in and out in a matter of minutes.  Now the true test will be on Monday when I go to teach class, hopefully they did everything correctly and my card actually opens the door!

Since I was dreading going to get my card updated I promised myself if I went and got it done I could go check out the new Pete’s Frootique that opened this week in Wolfville.

My Nova Scotian readers will know that Pete’s Frootique is a local market with all sorts of fabulous goodies.  Since I live in the straight up country, I was excited to see what new stuff they brought to town for me to try

Well I certainly wasn’t disappointed

Sorry for the blurry pic, that dude was watching me as I tried to be a sneaky blogger taking photos with my phone :/

They have all the produce a girl could dream of finding!  Including what might just be the biggest sweet potatoes I’ve ever seen:

This photo doesn’t accurately convey their largeness

I found all sorts of goodies I wanted to take home with me, but I controlled myself and left with only a few items including a pineapple, raspberries, dates, a mystery item (more on it tomorrow!) and these lookers

FYI – they are not something one should  attempt to open while driving…

What the photo doesn’t show is the cocoa all over the ledge by the speedometer where a couple of the almonds flew, nor does it show the cocoa dust all over the front of my pants in the crotch area.  Lovely.  When I got to the grocery store I had to use on of the wipe things they have to disinfect your grocery cart on my pants.

I’m a classy girl.

Grocery shopping was a bit of a “throw whatever looks good” in the cart situation.  It’s never good to go without a list.  Now that I’m home I realize I forgot to buy yeast.  Crap.

A few of the other items you see are for this month’s foodie pen pal, and some of the others are exclusively for J (the bread, mini pizzas, and bagels to name a few) and of course the pop chips are for me

After all that shopping I decided to rehydrate with my favourite limeade

It’s everything a limeade should be and more, I heart it!

Well, it’s our first evening together since last Saturday (I’m not counting last Sunday since I was a big sickie) so I’m off to hang out in the basement with that guy I married while he goes for a run on the treadmill.

Have a good night!

To my local readers: have you checked out Pete’s yet?  What was your favourite find??

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Post tags: @PetesTweetsNS, nova scotia, wolfville

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Then I became self-employed.

I teach classes every evening Monday-Thursday, as well as classes during the days.  I am my own accountant, marketing dept, and well – everything else.  On top of all of this one doesn’t just show up and teach Zumba, you must KNOW your songs and routines.  So I listen to Zumba music all. of. the. time.  Even on my weekends and days “off” I’m actually working, just not teaching.  Most self-employed people will tell you when you work from home it’s hard to take the work hat off in order to maintain a balanced personal life.

And then there is my little blog.  The blog that means so much to me but time and time again gets neglected.  I have wonderful ideas for posts and videos to share with you – but they never seems to get done.

The girl who used to fly through paperwork like it was on fire now sits aimlessly at her desk looking at piles of papers, DVD’s and CD’s wondering what she should do first.

Enter the sign-in sheets/accounts from last week?

Work on songs for the masterclass next week?

Work on choreography for classes in the coming weeks?

Shred that huge pile of paper sitting next to the desk?

Finish getting plans ready for the trips coming up in the next three months?

Do one of the other three million things that need to get done?

Or forget it all and go have some tea?

Today, I choose the tea.

Well at least for the next 20 minutes, after that I have to throw supper together and hit the road for an afternoon class….

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I hope everyone had a good weekend and a good Monday too

I had planned to post on the weekend but it sort of got away from me and that didn’t happen.  Friday night we headed out to the movies to see The Avengers in 3D

Verdict?  It was super awesome.  If you’re planning to go see it stick around for the credits – there is an extra scene after the initial credits are shown.

Saturday was spent doing all sorts of boring things like laundry, grocery shopping and cleaning.  I wanted to rent The Muppets (clearly I’m really an 8-year-old at heart) but the store didn’t have it so we ended up watching a few feel good movies like “Snakes on a Plane” and some random shark attack movie that were on the movie network.

Then Sunday I was off to the city for shopping with my friends.  We went to East Side Mario’s for lunch and then started shopping our hearts out until I got sick :/  It would seem there was MSG (which I have a severe intolerance for) in my lunch and I got crazy sick.  It’s weird that it took so long to hit me, normally it’s within 30 minutes but I was glad it took a while since it meant we had managed to do a fair amount of shopping before I thought I went down the tubes.

I was so sick I wasn’t even interested in going to Lululemon.  Now THAT is serious.

Anyway, I spent the rest of the evening Sunday drugged up and feeling totally rotten so I wasn’t much in a blogging mood.  I’m still not feeling wonderful today but certainly am a million times better that Sunday.  I knew I was on the mend yesterday afternoon when I forced myself to go to the bank and on the way there saw the sign for fresh mini donuts and immediately perked up

Not sure that they were the best choice for my first solid food in over 24 hours but they certainly hit the spot and was even so kind as to save half of them for J.

Well, it’s time to get some lunch and figure out what to put in the slow cooker for supper.  I’ve got an appointment at the bank this afternoon and then have three classes back-to-back so I will certainly be looking for that food when I get home around 8:30!

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Let’s dive right in and see what I got

Clockwise starting in the upper left-hand corner:

• AVEENO Positively Radiant Daily Moisturizer (full size) $22.99
• Elizabeth Grant Skin Care Shower Gel in Exotic Apricot (full size) $20.00
• WELLA Brillance Conditioner Fine to Normal (30 ml) full size product is 250 ml and sells for $13.99
• WELLA Brillance Treatment Fine to Normal (25 ml) full size product is 150 ml and sells for $13.99
• MARCELLE BB Cream Beauty Balm sample the full size product is 45 ml and sells for $22.95
• MARCELLE Xtension Plus Mascara (full size) $12.50 {{I included a photo of the wand for those interested in that sort of thing }}

I was nearly out of moisturizer so I was hoping there would be one in this month’s box so I would have to buy one so yay!  The shower gel smells really good, as do the hair products.  My mascara box was a bit beaten around but the product itself is fine.  So for a $15 investment, I got 3 full-sized products totalling $55.49 plus 3 other samples.  Pretty good.

If you would like to sign up for Glossy Box you can do so using my referal link here and if you use the coupon code GLOSSY27 you’ll get 10% off your first order!

Did anyone else get a Glossy Box this month?  Do you get all the same items or did you get something different?

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My pen pal Jasmine had it packed full of goodies and notes!

I suddenly started to feel bad about the box of stuff I had sent to my pen pal (who is in the process of making her blog) because Jasmine has filled mine with stuff that showed she had really taken the time to go through my blog and find out lots of things about me and my family to send me stuff she thought I’d love.  It was only when I realized she had a few years worth of blog posts to use at her disposal that I decided I wasn’t a terrible pen pal – she was just a super awesome one.

Who knew maple syrup came in a can?  Not I!  I haven’t had a chance to test it yet since I’ve already got a bottle on the go in the fridge, but I have yet to meet a maple syrup I didn’t like so I’m sure it’ll be good.

So that is it!  All my goodies from Jasmine  it was a great experience for y first Foodie Pen Pal and I’m excited to see what’s in store for May!

If you are leave me a link to your unveiling so I can go check out your haul!  And if you’re not you should totally pop over to the Lean Green Bean and sign up.  Remember, you don’t have to be a blogger to participate

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This weekend was one of those times!  Friday night we headed out to our favourite local restaurant Jungle Jim’s

Where I feasted on this platter of nachos which was the size (and probably the same weight) of my entire torso

Complete nacho domination ensued.

Jungle Jim’s recently went through a small renovation, a few small changes to the layout and they updated the decor a bit too.  We were really liking the addition of the comic book prints on the wall above our booth.

After that mountainous pile of nachos there was no dessert happening so when J was finished his fish’n'chips we paid our bill and headed back home.  While paying our bill one of the waitresses (who often serves us, but didn’t this time) came over to ask me if I got a new sweater because she hadn’t seen that one before – you know you go to a restaurant too often when…. lol

Saturday night wasn’t much better.  After being out all afternoon buying groceries and other essentials we got home late and I wasn’t sure what to make for supper, until deep dish pizzas came to mind.  Behold my beauty of a pizza

Homemade pesto, mozzarella, bacon and sautéed red onion & mushrooms.

Tasty beyond words.

And as if that wasn’t enough I followed it up with a homemade molten chocolate cake topped with vanilla iced cream.

So darn good.

Today has been pretty much a write-off.  I haven’t been feeling well so spent most of the day on the couch watching movies.  Now it’s time to get things ready for the week and head to bed.

I hope you all had a good weekend, eat anything delicious?

P.S. In case you missed it, if your Canadian make sure you enter my McCafe Real Fruit Smoothies Giveaway! 

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Hi everyone!  It’s Friday!!

I’m super excited today to be able to offer a giveaway to all of my adorable Canadian readers (all my readers are adorable, but unfortunately this one is only open to the Canadians – sorry!).  You might have guessed from the title of this post what the giveaway is for – some Real Fruit Smoothies from McCafe!

Over the past couple weeks I’ve been trying out the new smoothies and being a smoothie-a-holic this has been like being in smoothie heaven

mango pineapple smoothie, I adore thee.

One thing I didn’t know is that Nova Scotia was part of a test market for the smoothies over this past year before they launches nationally in March.  I know I’ve had them numerous times in the past year but had no idea we were part of a test market.  Here’s a classy photo of me and my wild berry smoothie last June after a crazy hot mid afternoon (outdoor!) Zumba session at Kentville’s Relay for Life event.

If I remember correctly back then you could either get the wild berry smoothie (which I adored) or the strawberry banana smoothie (sidenote: every time I write the word banana, I always catch myself typing bandana instead.  What’s with that?).  Unlike the rest of the free world, I’m not a fan of the banana (I swear, I just nearly did it again!) so I have never tried that flavour but I expect if you are a fan of the naner then it would be right up your alley.

The new snack sized smoothie and the blueberry-pomegranate flavoured smoothie both came into being after result of the testing in Nova Scotia and comments from the consumers.  I think it’s pretty cool that Nova Scotia was part of the test market, even if we (or at least I) didn’t know it at the time!

A little more about the smoothies:

• Each smoothie is a blend of real fruit puree, ice and creamy low-fat yogurt
• They come in three flavours: strawberry banana, pineapple mango and blueberry pomegranate (which I believe replaced the wild berry smoothie?  I’m not sure on that one)
• They are 210 calories each (with the snack size being under 150!)
• Each smoothie is made to order and is ultra delicious.

Okay, that last part might have been less fact and more opinion based – so sue me!

Right now over on McDonald’s Canada’s Facebook page you can play Fruit Ninja Frenzy which is a version of the popular (and addictive) Fruit Ninja game.  I’m not very good at the game on my computer, though personally I think I rule the Fruit Ninja app on my iPod.  If you’ve never played Fruit Ninja you should really pop over there and give a try!

And once you work up a sweat virtually slicing fruit, what better way to cool off than with a smoothie?  Well you’re in luck!  The lovely folks at McCafe have sent me some coupons for free fruit smoothies to share with you!

The Giveaway

Two winners will each receive 4 coupons for free small McCafe Real Fruit Smoothie!

To Enter (mandatory entry):

Comment below letting me know what is your favourite smoothie flavour or combination.

Bonus Entires (you must first complete the mandatory entry above.  Please leave a separate comment for EACH bonus entry you have completed):

• “like” Confessions of a Fitness Instructor on Facebook (if you already do just say so )
• “like” McDonald’s Canada on Facebook
• follow me on Twitter (please leave your twitter handle in the comments)
• follow McDonald’s Canada on Twitter
• follow me on Pinterest 

Giveaway open to residents of Canada only and will end at 11:59pm (EST) on Friday, May 4th, 2012.  Winners will be chosen via random.org and contacted.  If a winner has not responded within 48 hours of initial contact, a new winner will be chosen.

Disclosure:  I was sent free product coupons for McCafe Real Fruit Smoothies in order to try the new smoothies.  All reviews and opinions reflected in the post are my own.

WINNERS:

Congratulations Pam & Cathy, I’ll be contacting you shortly.  You’ll have 24 hours to respond before a new winner will be chosen

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Lucky for me aside from office work at home I don’t have to get into real work mode for another couple of hours yet

This past weekend wasn’t super action packed but enough so to keep me busy.  Friday night I taught a Zumba Master class to help raise money for a Relay for Life team which was sweaty and fun.

Emphasis on the sweaty part – - -

Keep in mind that the sweat you see is what made it through both my sports bra and tank top.  Needless to say it was a good one

Saturday night we hit up Glow Bowling with a bunch of J’s co-workers.  I was on team, “critic everyone who is actually bowling while we sit here and do nothing,” it was a good time

Bowling was over early so we came home and J watch some hockey and I worked on an inspiration board for the spring/summer.  Making inspiration boards has become super easy with Pinterest (p.s. if you’re not following me what’s stopping you??? p.p.s. if you’re still not on Pinterest crawl out of your cave and get on it already!  I’ll send you an invite if you need one).  But because I like to see my inspiration right smack dab in front of me I took it one step further.  I downloaded a bunch of the images on my fitness/health board and created this collage so I could use it as my desktop wallpaper

It’s not that I want to lose a bunch of weight or anything, but over the past couple years since I’ve become a Zumba machine, I’ve lost a lot of my muscle mass and strength and need to get that back.  Convincing myself to do another workout on top of my crazy class schedule (see my schedule on the right hand side bar) is hard to do, but I’m going to try to do it!

While it’s impossible for me to follow the plan 100%, I’m planning to at least do all of the strength workouts assigned in the Tone it Up Spring into Bikini Season challenge, plus I’m working on my PiYo Strength license (check out this post on Gina’s blog if you don’t know what PiYo is all about) so my goal is to do that workout 2x/week as well.

In other exciting news I made reservations for J and I to go on vacation this summer!  A number of our friends know where we are going but for now I’m keeping the details under wraps until everything is booked, paid and ready to go.  All I can say is we are pretty excited!

Well I’m off to enjoy my last hour and a half before I’m forced into work mode

Something to think about

I saw someone post this late last night on facebook and being an animal lover it made me tear up a little bit

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Post tags: spring into bikini season, toneitup, zumba

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Well this certainly isn’t what I had in mind…

Sometime Wednesday afternoon some jackass a hacker hacked into my blog and filled it with over 1000 malware links.  Essentially they didn’t change my content but added links that would re-dirct you to a malicious site if you went to any of the pages or posts on my blog.  I found out from Google who emailed me to inform me they had blocked my site and blacklisted it until the problem was corrected.  I couldn’t even log into the wordpress admin as it too was blocked.  Good times.

Thankfully I could get into my web space through my web provider, and got site lock to search my website to see just how bad it was, and it was pretty bad.  Anyway, after about 10 phone calls, a pile of emails, 8 hours and a big chunk of changes later the engineers at site lock had removed all the malware, and by yesterday morning Google had removed it from its blacklist and I was back online.

All in all, the cleaning and repairing of the site went pretty quickly, but created a big bill I wasn’t really looking to have right now.

So, lesson learned.  I’ve spent the morning changing passwords, installing new security plug-ins and making a number of changes to the site.  If you come across anything that no longer works please let me know (when you add all these security measures it can sometimes mess with your settings/plug-ins.

In order to help prevent this happening to any of you, if you are running a WordPress blog please consider adding the following plug-ins to help secure your site from hackers:

1. WordPress File Monitor – Monitor files under your WordPress installation for changes. When a change occurs, you will be notified via email.
2. WP-MalWatch – Performs a nightly scan of WordPress looking for evidence of malware.
3. TAC (Theme Authenticity Checker) – Scan theme files for potentially malicious or unwanted code.
4. Audit Trail – Keeps track of what is going on in your site by monitoring and logging administration functions.
5. Better WP Security – If you only install one of these plug-ins make it this one.  It really helps go over the insecurities on your site to help you make it more difficult to hack

Obviously it is also important to always make sure you are running the latest version of WordPress, and that your plug-ins are up to date to make sure you have the newest security fixes.  I was running a previous version of WordPress (though I try to keep things updated so maybe it was released fairly recently?) and while that may not have been my downfall, it could have been – no point in taking chances!

There are a number of other things you can do, but even if you just enforce the items listed above I think you’ll greatly reduce your chances of being broken into like I was.  Honestly, it feels like someone broke into your house and didn’t steal anything but ransacked the whole place.  It’s a bit un-nerving.

If you’re a blogger please take a few minutes this weekend to try to increase the security on your site.  It’s one of those things that you plan to get around to doing but never actually do it.

Do it.

Seriously.

Stop reading and take 20 minutes to go secure your site.

Right now.

You’re welcome.

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Post tags: hacked, savvy blogging, site lock

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Before I tell you what I thought of this month’s box let’s take a look at what I got

I know the card can be hard to read so I’ll quickly break it down.  This month I received 3 luxury samples and one full-sized product.  In the upper right-hand corner is the full-size product which is a Mai Couture Social Gloss in the colour “Sake Sunrise.”  It looked like a sample size to me (5ml) but they say it’s full-sized and retails for $28.  I’ll reserve final judgement until I’ve tried it but it really doesn’t look like a good colour for me so I might end up giving this one away…

On the lower left-hand side is Atelier Cologne in Orange Sanguine Fragrance.  I’m not sure what size this mini vial is, but the 30mL bottle sells for $60.  I don’t have much opportunity for wearing fragrance, and don’t like anytime too perfume-y but this I like.  It’s a very fresh citrus scent.  I haven’t tried it but so far I love sniffing it

In the middle is a Free Your Mane Sulfate Free Hydrating Shampoo & Conditioner.  I’ll give these samples a whirl to see if I like them, the full-sized bottles sell for $16 so it’s a reasonably priced product but I’m pretty happy with my current shampoo/conditioner so I doubt I’ll be making a switch.

And the last item (on the lower right-hand side) is Lucia Soap No. 6.  According to the literature these are packed with pure botanical extracts and enriched with 100% certified organic Shea Butter.  I’m not a big fan of bar soap, but I’ll open it up and try it out in the bathroom.  These sell in a package of 8 soaps for $17.50.

In the box I also received a coupon code (they are calling it a gift certificate) for $100 at NuMe.  I took a look at their website and it looks like I could get a snazzy new hair straightened for a pretty decent price with this discount, or a curling wand.  I’m certainly going to hold onto this for a bit (the discount is good until Aug 31/12) and decide if I want to order something.

Overall I’m not super excited about this box.  I like the perfume (though I don’t know when/where I’ll wear it), and I’ll use the shampoo, conditioner and soap but it’s not that exciting.  As for the full-sized lip gloss, I’m not sure if it’s a good colour for me.

We’ll see what is in this month’s Glossy Box, but unless Glymm has an awesome May box I think I’ll be cancelling my subscription.  So far I’ve loved all of my Glossy Boxes, in June I’ll be getting Top Box and three samples boxes/month is just way too much.

Reviews from past months:

• February Glossy Box
• March Glossy Box
• March Glymm Box

Does anyone have and NuMe tools or have you used them in the past?  Are they good?

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Post tags: glymm

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Like I mentioned on Friday, this past weekend we headed into the city to see Jerry Seinfeld!  Since we don’t get into the city too often we journeyed in a bit early to do a little shopping and looking around.  We also wanted to beat the parking craziness that we knew would happen near showtime and made sure we got parked near the metro centre early.

We were a tad too early.  We were there around 3:45pm.  The show didn’t start until 7:30pm.  So we hiked it down the hill to the water front.

Luckily it was a beautiful day! {warning: sub-par iPod photos ahead!}

Who knew they closed ships up like this during the winter?  Well, likely most people who live around here.  I guess I never really thought about it before but they would obviously have to protect all the decking and stuff from the winter elements.

Once we finished touring the waterfront (which was full of bikers and other wanderers) I needed a break.  Turns out while my boots were super cute

wearing them with thin cotton socks and then tramping all over downtown Halifax wasn’t a great combo.  Hello blisters.  Thankfully I carry band-aids with me so I threw some on the blisters to protect them but it didn’t really help the pain any.  Luckily for me it was now 5:00pm and not only were most of the stores now closed we still had 2 1/2 hours to go before the show!

The worst part about my blisters was knowing that earlier in the day I bought 2 6-packs of athletic socks at Lady Foot Locker.  They were in our car.  Had I put a pair of them on before heading down to the waterfront I probably wouldn’t have had any problems at all.  Oh irony, you are a funny beast.

So we hiked back up the hill which proved to be quite a task.  By now I was shoving my feet as far forward in my boots as possible to give my heels a rest (where the blisters were) which made my start to get some on my toes too!  When a girl is in this much pain there is clearly only one thing to be done

Just look how the idea of a cupcake lifted my spirits!  I was sure they’d be closed but thankfully they stay open on Saturday’s until 6pm – YAHOO!

My treat:

a red velvet cupcake, while J thought it only fitting her get a Susie’s Classic

Yum-o-rama.  We each had 2/3 of our own cupcake and then switched.  My red velvet was yummy, but that Susie’s Classic was off the hook delish.  I’m for sure going to have to get one of those next time I go!  There is something to be said for a cupcake with so much icing that you have to take a few bites of all icing in order to eat the cupcake.

After our cupcakes we went to sport check where I saw some awesome sneakers.  I want these so badly – they look like spiderman shoes!

After making a quick (who am I kidding, by now I was walking more like Quasimodo than a fitness instructor) stop at Shoppers Drug Mart for some proper blister bandages we walked back to the Metro Centre and waited to get in.

Once we got in we had to make our way to our seats (meaning I had to hobble down the stadium steps to get to the floor section where we were seated)

I was so dang happy to sit down I can’t even tell you.  Our seats were pretty decent (though J knew someone in the front row – I would have killed even with blistered feet to have those seats!)

Our view:

I find it interesting that my phone actually takes a better photo than my iPod.  Next time I’ll stick with just the phone camera!

Jerry was straight up awesome.  Worth every penny.  I am the dork who cried a little when he came out, and I’m not even ashamed of it.  We had a wonderful time (despite the dude behind us with the terrible laugh).  I tried to take a couple of shots during the show but we were too far back and the lighting too low to get anything viewable.  I can’t say enough about how much I loved the show.  If you are a Seinfeld fan and he comes to a town near you – go.  The tickets might be expensive but you won’t be disappointed!

© Suzi for Confessions of a Fitness Instructor, 2012. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: halifax, seinfeld, susie's shortbreads

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The exciting news over here is that I am on vacation!!  I’m taking next Monday-Wednesday off so I’ve got five glorious days ahead of me.  I absolutely love my job but it’s easy to get burnt out so I’m taking a few days to rest and recharge before heading back into the full swing of things.

I’m not going anywhere (J’s not on vacation, plus we have something planned for later this year!) but I’ve got some fun stuff planned.

Tomorrow night we’re heading to the city to go see Jerry Seinfeld live!

We are both be Seinfeld fans so when I found out he was coming to Nova Scotia I knew we had to go.  The tickets were a little crazy-insane expensive, but since we haven’t really done anything exciting in well, forever, I decided it was worth it.

Sidenote:  Seinfeld totally reminds me of my brother, or I guess my brother reminds me of Seinfeld.

Then starting on Monday I’ve got an appointment for a relaxation massage, body polish and facial!

Source

I’m not going to lie, the muscles in my upper back and legs are so tight and sore at this point I’d almost pay a strange to massage them.  Almost.

Then on Tuesday I’m going for a pedicure, and Wednesday I’m getting this wild mane of mine cut.  I know I’ve got a lot of split ends that need to be cut off, I’m just hoping that I don’t lose all of my length.  In the end, as long as I can still pull it back into a ponytail of some sort to teach, I’ll be happy.

So come Wednesday afternoon I should be all spruced up!  In the meantime, I’m working on sprucing up the old blog.

Looking ahead towards later this spring and into the summer when I’m not working quite such kooky hours, I like to spend more time on the blog and am hoping to finally get some stuff happening over here that I’ve been thinking about for a long time.

I’m thinking videos (like how-to videos for basic zumba moves, workout videos, etc.), I really love Bex’s videos, and if I could conjure something up that is even 50% as fab as her videos I’ll be happy.  I might even get into a 2 or 3/week video routine like she does.  I guess first I’ll have to figure out how to not feel like a total goober on camera.  That might be a problem.

Maybe I’ll also hop on the cool kid’s bus (what’s with all this bus talk today?) and make some unveiling videos for my Glossy Box and Glymm Box arrivals.  I always love watching them and seeing the reactions when people see what they’ve got, and that way you could watch it if you wanted and skip it if you don’t give a hoot.  Yup, I just broke out “hoot.”  I really am this cool.

Who knows, I’ll probably chicken out on this video business altogether…

You might notice that for the time being I’ve removed the workouts page, it was pretty dull so I figured I might as well ditch it until I had some newer workouts to post.

I also removed my workout log and replaced it with a list in my sidebar of my weekly class schedule.  I try to throw in some extra workouts during the week for cross training and strength building, but I was terrible at logging what I did so I figure I’ll just tell you in my posts what extra stuff I did, and you can easily see on the side bar what I do on a regular basis anyway.

Have a  good night!

© Suzi for Confessions of a Fitness Instructor, 2012. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blog, seinfeld, vacation

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Thanks for the suggestion, don’t mind if I do!

Today’s prompt in the WEGO Health Activist Writer’s Challenge was to visit this website and create our own “Keep Calm” poster.  I bet you can guess what kind of poster I made

They asked us to try to make our poster about our condition (mine being fibromyalgia), and while I didn’t directly do that it does still relate.  Regardless of how I feel or what type of pain or ache I’m dealing with I essentially, “keep clam and Zumba on.”  I’ve never cancelled a class due to my illness, and certainly there have been a number of classes that I thought I might die while teaching, lol, but I didn’t.  I carried on and I’m none the worst for it (though at the time I’m sure I was).

So there you have it: Keep Calm and Zumba on.  And once again, don’t mind if I do

P.S. If you want to make your own poster just pop over to www.staycalm-o-matic.co.uk and you can whip up your own!

I’m participating in the Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge. Please visit WEGO Health’s blog and Facebook page to see what the other bloggers/writers had to say about today’s topic, or sign up for the challenge yourself!

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Post tags: HAWMC

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Easter lilies

Easter goodies

Easter weather

Easter bunny?

Easter cookies

And little girls with pretty new Easter dresses, and

little boys experimenting with fans and tissue paper (while his sister rolls around on the floor in that pretty new Easter dress).

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Post tags: easter

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I love you so very much.  Remember that and keep it in your pocket.  But empty your pockets when you do the laundry.

Sweet but silly.  And that is us in a nutshell.

Whether you celebrate Easter, Passover, or are just having another regular Sunday afternoon, take a moment to tell someone that you love them.  And as always, when you do your laundry, remember to empty your pockets

I’m participating in the Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge. Please visit WEGO Health’s blog and Facebook page to see what the other bloggers/writers had to say about today’s topic, or sign up for the challenge yourself!

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I keep writing because I want to.  Certainly it’s nice to know that people are reading what you write from time to time, and hopefully finding at least part of what you write interesting or informative but it’s not my driving factor.

I’ve always believed you can tell a lot about who a person will be by how they were and what they were interested in as children.  As a child I was a dancer (fast forward to today where I make my income teaching Zumba – a dance based fitness class), I asked for a calculator for christmas when I was 5 (so it shouldn’t be shocking that I went to college taking business & accounting) and I loved to read and write.  Anytime we were assigned to write a story in school I was pumped.  I loved writing stories and books, any excuse to use a fancy word or weird name and I was in.

Three years ago when I first started thinking about creating this blog the driving force was the need to write.  I couldn’t go to sleep at night because I wanted to write, it was all I could think about.  While I adore my job as a fitness instructor, and am insanely grateful that I get to spend my days dancing, that is only part of what I want from life.  It fills that need I’ve had since childhood to dance, and since I run my own business I also am able to fulfill my weird desire to do math and accounting – but neither tackle that need to write.  This blog does that, or at least helps to fill that need.

Interestingly, my favourite posts to write are often the least viewed posts (for example my post on why I don’t have kids), while my most viewed posts are informative ones but, ones that I really didn’t enjoy writing at all (the most common zumba injury, an intro to zumba toning, etc.).  I write those posts mainly to get the info out there, and to get more page views.  Part of being a blogger is writing about what you want to write about, another part is writing posts about things you know about that other people are looking for information regarding in order to improve your page rank, page views, etc.

Sadly, it’s easy to get caught up in writing those types of posts to get more page views, and it’s also easy to get sucked into writing about what every other blogger in your genre writes about (what you ate, what you wore, lather, rinse, repeat).  It’s not easy coming up with things to write about, which is partly why I joined this challenge for the month of April.  It’s kind of nice to have someone give you a list of writing prompts to help get you started and for me is helping to rekindle that need to write from within me.

There are also lots of things us bloggers are hesitant to write about or share.  Things we are concerned about putting out there for literally anyone in the world to read about.  But the interesting thing is, many times it’s those posts that you are the most leery of writing that you will get the most positive responses from publishing.  I can’t tell you how nervous I was about posting this post earlier this week.  Not that I thought people would think differently or negatively about me, I just didn’t really want to put it out there, but I did.  And it was okay.  So many people have come up to me and told me how it inspired them, and if my struggles can help inspire even once person – then it was worth sharing.

So here we go again.  I keep writing because I want the practise.  I want to continue to hone my writing skills.  I want to write this blog, because I want to write other things.  I want to write fiction.  I love getting lost in stories.  I love the world that I find myself in when I read a good book.  I get lost in that world and have a hard time finding my way back.  I actually morn when I finish a series.  It always ignites s a dull ache in my stomach, it rekindles this insane need I have to write, not articles or posts – but stories.

I doubt I will ever write anything worthy of becoming published or a book, but that’s not the driving force for me.  I simply want to write for me.  Certainly it would be awesome if other people enjoyed what I wrote, but I don’t for a second expect that to happen.

I keep writing because regardless of whether or not I write well, I’m a writer.  As long as someone writes they are a writer.  You don’t have to be a published award-winning author to be a writer, just as you don’t have to be an olympic marathon runner to be a runner.

I am a writer, a story-teller.  That is why I write.  I’m certainly not the best, possibly I may be even the worst, but no matter where I fall (or fall short) in the talent category it’s my need to write that keeps me going.

© Suzi for Confessions of a Fitness Instructor, 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: HAWMC, writing

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