A few weeks back (the week before the big Applebee’s trip) I got sick with a nasty cold.  As bad as a cold is at the best of times, having to teach fitness classes all week-long with a cold is even worse.  Thank goodness I don’t need to talk much while teaching Zumba because I had no voice for 2 or 3 days, and am still dealing with the cough that came as a bonus with the cold.

Then Sunday night J got really sick and we had to call the ambulance for him.  It’s been a rough week for him (and me) but I think he’s on the mend now, but there were a lot of nights with very little sleep for me so teaching classes has been extra rough.  By the time my last class was over today I was so tired I wasn’t sure I could drive myself home.  Thank goodness I don’t have anywhere I need to go this weekend!  As a bonus, due to all the craziness with people being sick, and me working and whatnot I shouldn’t need to buy groceries this week because neither of us has eaten a real meal since last weekend.

J lost 11 lbs from being sick, I on the other hand think I may have gained 3 lbs, mostly from replacing meals with cupcakes (cupcake of the month post coming at you soon!!).

I’ve been actively trying to use up all of the bottles of creams, lotions, etc. I’ve got hanging around here so one night I decided to use a serum sample I had.  I slathered it on and went to the computer for a few minutes before I noticed my face was burning.  I went and looked in the mirror and I was as red as a tomato.  Lovely.  I washed the serum off and spent the next hour putting coats of aloe vera all over my face in hopes that it would heal during the night.  Thankfully it did – here’s a shot of me after 4 coats of ale vera…

For some inexplicable reason I’ve been watching Being Erica on Netflix.  Yeah that’s right, I’ve been watching a crappy Canadian show – a crappy CBC show instead of any of the countless (much cooler) good TV series on Netflix.  Why?  Who knows.

On Tuesday I didn’t even realize it was Valentine’s Day until I read it on a sign on a bus I passed on my way to a class.

Our plans for the weekend are sleep, followed by lying around watching TV & movies, eat, nap, watch more tv then repeat x3.  It will be glorious.  I may wear my Red Sox jogging pants until Monday, I haven’t decided yet.

I hope you are all doing good and I’ll be back with a couple posts next week after I get myself all rested up.

Have a great weekend!!

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We started off by going to Lululemon (no shock there!), and then it was a trip to a shop I’ve been dying to go to ever since I discovered they existed

I’ll forgive them for spelling my name wrong

This place was like heaven.  So many cupcakes to choose from (not to mention cheesecake bites, cookies, ice cream treats, etc.) I really wanted one of each flavour but I held back and settled with two, a snowball and a turtle cupcake.

To say they were tasty in an understatement.  I think I would like to live in a bowl of that butter cream frosting, it was SOOOOO good.  Probably a good thing I live an hour away from the shop otherwise I’d be there every day, and I’m pretty sure I would soon be the size of a transport truck. :/

After we all had a chance to savour some Susie’s Shortbreads goodness, we headed to Halifax Shopping Centre for a bit more shopping.  I hit up The Body Shop and Sephora and got some goodies (face cleansing wipes, exfoliating face wash, satsuma fragrance oil, hand & nail cream, and blush), after a bit more shopping it was getting close to our Applebee’s reservation so we headed there.

And thank goodness, because we (or at least Cathy and I) were starving!

Our table was already set up and waiting for us when we arrived.  Arlene and I both got 7-Up to drink, while the other girls got water.  And I should have known better, I never order clear pop (7-Up or Sprite) when we go to restaurants in Greenwood because their water makes the fountain pop taste awful, and because we were in the city where that water isn’t so tasty (we get spoiled out here in the country ) so the pop tasted a bit off.  I was going to ask for a different type of pop when it was time for a refill but forgot and actually the second glass tasted fine (maybe I had just got used to it?).

For our meals we all ordered from the “Under 550″ menu as that is what we were there to review, I ordered the Steak and Garlic Herb Shrimp (which contained 541 calories)

It included a 7oz. steak with shrimp covered in a light cream sauce, herbed potatoes, broccoli & carrots.  The steak and shrimp also had brushetta and almond slices on top.  It was fabulous.  My steak was cooked perfectly, was really juicy and flavourful.  The broccoli actually out shined the potatoes, which is a phrase I never thought I’d say but the broccoli was amazing!

Arlene ordered the Roasted Garlic Steak (410 calories)

Hers came with 7 oz marinated steak, sautéed onions, herb potatoes and a Portobello mushroom filled with creamed spinach.  Her only complaint was that her steak was really peppery tasting, almost so much that she couldn’t really enjoy the steak itself because of the overwhelming pepper taste.  She did say the steak was cooked well and was juicy, it just tasted more like pepper than garlic.

Cathy ordered the Sizzling Chili Lime Chicken (410 calories)

It’s hard to tell from the picture, but hers was bigger in volume than the other meals – but that is to be expected with a meal full of veggies!  Hers was basically chicken and stir fry vegetables served over rice with a spicy chili sauce.  It looked really good, and Cathy said she would order it again.  She liked the level of spiciness and her only complaint was that she would have rather it be served on a plate instead of the skillet.

And lastly Lisa ordered the Teriyaki Chicken Pasta (the calorie count wasn’t listed for this one as it was a substitution option under the Teriyaki Chicken Pasta which clocked in at 364 calories.  Though I expect the chicken version may have a few more calories)

I don’t recall any complaints from her on her meal, so I’d say she liked it

After we had finished, our server asked if anyone wanted tea or coffee.  I’ve been fighting a miserable cold for the past week and had brought some peppermint tea bags with me so I asked for  some hot water to make tea.  I was so happy when they brought this over to me.

They totally made my day.  Some places act weird if you bring your own tea, but since many places still don’t serve herbal teas it’s not odd for me to have some in my bag just in case I can get my hands on some hot water

Sidenote – if you have a cold/sore throat, peppermint tea is your best friend.  And peppermint tea with honey is REALLY your best friend.  I’ve gone through nearly a whole box of tea bags, and half a jar of honey since Friday!

Then, our server asked the phrase that girls who have been shopping all day love to hear, “Does anyone want dessert?”  The next thing we know three of these

and one of these

were delivered to our table.  I was one of the three with the lava cake (called the Triple Chocolate Meltdown) and let me tell you, it was awesome.  The cake itself was really spongy and light feeling, though it was certainly rich with its molten centre.  Of course in my mind it would be pretty hard to go wrong with warm molten cake and iced cream

Lisa had the apple chimi cheesecake, and while hers looked really yummy I would have a hard time ordering anything else besides the “Meltdown,” it was spectacular!

Overall, our experience was great, the staff was helpful and we were treated very well.  I would most certainly plan to eat there again when I am in the city for the day.

I think we all fell into sugar comas not long after this as our drive back to the valley was pretty quiet there for a while

Disclaimer: While all the opinions and thoughts addressed in this post are those of myself and my friends, Applebee’s Canada did provide our meal free of charge in exchange for a review on my blog.

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What is Zumba Gold?

Right from the mouth of Zumba itself:

Zumba® Gold takes the Latin and International dance rhythms you know and love from regular Zumba® classes and brings them to the active older adult, beginner participant and other special populations that may require modifications.

So who is the Zumba Gold Participant?

As mentioned above, many Zumba Gold participants are active older adults, beginner participants and anyone else that for whatever reason doesn’t feel up to participating in a regular Zumba class but still loves to dance.  I have participants in Zumba Gold that also attend regular Zumba classes but  like to supplement regular Zumba with the low impact Zumba Gold once a week.  They find in Zumba Gold they have more time to work on perfecting their footwork, and more time to enjoy the music.

What makes Zumba Gold different? Isn’t it just a slowed down version of Zumba?

No.  And yes…

Many of the songs I use in regular Zumba classes I will also use in my Zumba Gold class, but the choreography is usually a little bit different.  I will swap out any high impact moves with low impact alternatives, I leave out a lot of the hip movements, swivelling and pivoting and any jerky or uncontrolled movements.

There are some moves that are always performed at half tempo in Zumba Gold, but many of the moves you know and love from regular Zumba classes are the same in Zumba Gold.  A salsa that I would teach in my regular class would be taught the same in Zumba Gold except I would “tame it down” so to speak no order to make it appropriate for the participants.  That’s not to say that I don’t break out into full on Zumba craziness now and again – because I do – but I do that to entertain the class (and only for a few seconds at a time), I don’t intend for them to follow my lead on those occasions {and they rarely do, generally they break out into fits of laughter and giggles}.

Keep in mind that there are varying degrees of Zumba Gold classes as well.  One of my friends has a class of Zumba Gold participants whose average age is 55-60, so her class is going to be considerably more high intensity and have perhaps more difficult choreography than mine as my average participant age is in the 70′s (with a number of participants well below the 70 mark – and a number well above the 80 mark!).  As with regular Zumba classes, you work at your own level so even though I have a vast range of ages and abilities everyone is getting a workout appropriate for them, and everybody is having fun, and that is the most important part!

I am new to exercise – do I HAVE to start out in a Zumba Gold class?

Absolutely not.  Those new to exercise are more than welcome in regular Zumba classes, please go where ever you feel most comfortable.  While it came be really helpful to start in Zumba Gold where the choreography is a bit easier, and the whole class is low impact it really is up to you where you want to go.

The same goes for pregnant women.  If you were active and participating in Zumba before becoming pregnant, chances are (with your doctor’s approval of course) you can continue participating in regular Zumba classes as long as you are comfortable doing so.  Or you may feel that you want to go to the low impact Zumba Gold for your pregnancy, and/or during the first few weeks returning to exercise after giving birth (you will need your doctors approval before returning to any exercise after giving birth).

How long are the classes?

The class I teach is normally 45-50 minutes in length, but this can vary from instructor to instructor and class to class.  Most Zumba Gold classes are 30, 45, or 60 minutes in length.

If its low impact will I get a good workout?

Yes!  I have a pretty high aerobic capacity so my heart rate doesn’t really get high during Zumba Gold, but I do sweat and I do need to drink lots of water.  I’ve worn my heart rate monitor a few times and in the 45 minute class I burned around 300 calories, which isn’t shabby!

What should I wear?  Do I need to bring anything with me?

Wear whatever you can move comfortably in – a T-shirt or sleeveless shirt, pants or shorts and a pair of sneakers.  Bring a bottle of water, and if you are someone who tends to sweat when you exercise, a small towel wouldn’t be a bad idea either!

How do I find out if there are any classes in my area?

Check out the “find a class” section on the Zumba website.  All you need to do is enter your address and it will bring up a listing of all of the classes in your area

I think that’s about it!  If you have any other questions regarding Zumba Gold or Zumba Gold classes please leave ‘em in the comments.  Have a good weekend

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I don’t like leaving the old blog sitting around for so long though so tonight I thought I’d share some random things that have happened recently, or things I’ve done that I didn’t feel were worth a dedicated post of their own but were still interesting.

Today I made tortillas.

I used this recipe that I found on pinterest.  They were pretty easy and turned out quite well.  The recipe was suppose to make 12 tortillas but I forgot what I was doing and ended up making 16 so they were a bit smaller than they would have been had I follow the recipe more closely.  It’s a little disturbing that tortillas in the store have so many ingridants in them when these only have four – flour, shortening, water and salt.  For my first try I think they were a success.

Over the weekend I noticed that my balance (which is normally quite good) was really off.  I couldn’t figure out what the problem was until I found this little charmer on my ankle

which came complete with some swelling.  Looks like I rolled my ankle and forgot about it (not a surprise).  It sure made the past couple days of teaching extra fun :/ thankfully it’s feeling better today.

For Christmas I got Zumba 2 for the Wii.  I wanted it because as a Zumba instructor I somehow felt I needed to beat the game in order to prove myself.  I’ve played it a few times with almost always the same result.  For most of the songs Gina or Tanya “instruct” I’ll get 4 or 5 stars right off the bat, and any song Beto instructs I’ll stink big-time.  There were a few times I only got 1 frigging star.  J would watch me and say he knew something was wrong because I was hitting all the moves but not getting any credit for them.  ”Suzi, I don’t know what you’re going to do about Ringo” he’d say (we’ve decided to call Beto “Ringo” instead.  We’re weird like that).  So this past Saturday I was playing it while he was on the treadmill.  As usual any song with “Ringo” in it I’d suck at.  Finally J asked me to give him the game box/book.  Turns out this whole time I’ve been wearing the controller on the wrong hip.  It’s suppose to be on your right hip and I’ve had it on my left.  I blame it on 1) being a lefty and 2) always reversing my moves when teaching a class.  It seriously never occurred to me that I might have it on backwards.  Which leads me to wonder – how did I ever manage to get 5 starts on all those other songs if I had the controller on the wrong way?

I can’t wait to see the new movie, “Haywire.”  Gina Carano has been my favourite athlete for a number of years (I stand by what I said in the blog post I wrote about her two years ago, I still want to be like her when I grow up!) and I’m super stoked to see her kicking butt on the big screen.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it’ll be at the theatre this weekend

Speaking of Gina and her kicking butt, man have I ever become some sorry little weakling.  I was doing another strength workout on the weekend and it was a sad state of affairs.  Even back in the summer I could bust out full push-ups pretty decently, now I can’t even go all the way to the floor on a knee push-up.  I’ve lost so much muscle in the past 6 months it’s horrible.  And to make matters worse, I’m still teaching so many classes I haven’t figured out how to get 3 or 4 strength workouts in/week like I need to.  Then I go and watch this video of Gina getting her a$$ kicked  and I think of what I baby I am.  My workout on Saturday was like: do 1 set of exercises, sit down and watch TV for 5 minutes, do 5 sad little knee push-ups, watch more TV.  It was really shameful.  I need to get my act together.

I’ve been watching The Tudors on Netflix for the past couple weeks.  I was down to the last 4 episodes of season 4 (which was the final season) when they took it off Netflix (it said that it would be taken down Jan 24th, but I was hoping that meant at the end of the day Jan 24th – it would seem that’s not what they meant).  I searched YouTube to see if someone had posted the episodes there but can’t find them.  As far as I can tell I’ll need to either pay $1.99/episode to watch them on Showtime, or $2.99/episode to buy them on iTunes.  Crap.

While Jen is in Mexico, I had planned to start watching “Dexter” as I know she just finished season 1 so we could watch it “together” when she got back, but last night I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be watching a show like that by myself at 11pm so instead I watched “Ramona and Beezus.”  It’s just about the same thing right?

Well, that’s it for now!

Have any of you seen “Haywire” yet?  

It looks like it’s got pretty good reviews so far.  Back in the early fall when I watched the trailer on YouTube, some goof had commented saying, “This girl sucks, they should have hired Uma Thurman, Kate Beckinsale or another actress that at least knows how to fight for the part.” To which someone replied, “She’s a professional MMZ fighter you idiot.”  Nuff said.

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I will say that while they have a lovely flavour, the cupcakes are a bit tougher than I’d like.  I’m not sure if it is because they were over beaten (I’m still getting used to using my stand mixer), or if it is the recipe itself.

If you give them a try let me know how it goes!

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… it’s 1am Sunday morning and you’re still up and attempting to make mini doughnuts for the first time ever

and subsequently realize the dough you made is too sticky, too tough, and does not want to fit into the pan properly – which is evident by the odd-looking doughnuts I ended up getting.

Which looked more like mini bundt cakes than doughnuts.  Oh well, once I tossed them in some cinnamon and sugar and they didn’t last long anyway!

This little guy almost even looked like a doughnut!  Almost…

…that your shirt may have very well done you in yet again…

…you have just finished putting a generous helping of peppermint extract into your coconut cupcake recipe.  I grabbed the bottle and didn’t even think to look at what is was, dumped some in and then put the bottle up to my nose to smell the lovely coconut-iness, only to be appalled at the smell of peppermint  So….needless to say the coconut cupcakes quickly turned into peppermint cupcakes.

Still tasty, but I’m really hankering those coconut ones now.  Recipe coming at ya tomorrow for these babies.

I’m off to enjoy what’s left of this Sunday evening with the kitties (J’s already in bed).  See ya on the flip side!

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This afternoon I made my weekly trip to the bank.  Normally, I do all my banking at the ATM but today I had to go into see one of the tellers.  I teach a few classes that run in sessions where all the participants pay for a certain number of classes up front.  I had four of these sessions start this past week and since they all pay me in cash I had an abnormally large amount of cash to deposit.  Because I knew they would put a hold on the deposit if I did it at the ATM I went inside to go to one of the tellers.

As soon as I walked through the door there was an employee standing there asking each person as they walked in what brought them in and was trying to re-direct everyone back out to the ATM unless they really needed to see a teller.  Then while in the line up (which only consisted of four people including myself), the central teller came out and once again went down the line asking everyone what brought them in and if their business was something that could be done at the ATM, or for those with business accounts if they knew how to use the drop box.  I know that they are trying to computerize most things as well as make it faster for clients to do their bank but my goodness, there were only four people waiting and two tellers open, how long of a wait was there really going to be?  And don’t they want at least a few people to continue using the tellers so that they will still have a job?

Anyway, moving on.  Once I made it to a free teller (which was after a five-minute wait – I’ve waited twice as long to use a free ATM lots of times), I told the teller I had cash to deposit onto my line of credit.  Remember, I bought a new(er) car just last month and purchased it with my line of credit so I’m trying to pay it back off.  When I took out the cash that was to be deposited she said, “Oh, good for you dear!” Obviously she meant it in a good way, but she kind of made me feel like I was this super poor person who has had a line of credit racked up for years, not 30 days.  Anyway she started to count it, and then she stopped and looked at me and said, “So, where did you get all this cash anyway?” “I robbed a bank on my way here.” I replied jokingly, but then went on to tell her that no I didn’t rob a bank, that I am a fitness instructor and had been paid up front for a number of set sessions, blah, blah, blah.  ”Oh,” she replied and said, “I just had to ask.”  But did she?  I’ve been banking there my whole life, and this is certainly not the first time I deposited a large amount of cash and nobody has ever asked me where I got it.  I came home and told J that I thought the woman at the bank thought I was selling drugs or turning tricks or something.

Then when she was finished with my transaction – and still had all of my accounts up on her screen – she asked, “You don’t do any online banking?”  I’m not sure what would have given her that idea, and if she even looked at my list of accounts she would see that I have a couple of high-interest savings accounts that are only available through online banking.  So I told her that yes, I do, do online banking and then she wanted to know if I get all of my bank statements electronically, which I do.

Don’t get me wrong, everyone I came in contact with at the bank was friendly and nice, but I have to say they didn’t really make me feel welcome.  Before I got to the teller two employees tried to send me back to the ATM and then once I get to a teller she questions where I got all this money.  Not that anyone should make assumptions based on looks but if I had gone in after a Zumba class sweaty and gross with my hair a mess and wearing one of my crazy outfits I could understand it, but I didn’t.  I was actually clean and wearing jeans and a lululemon sweater (which she commented on – perhaps she thought I stole it?), my hair was clean and in a ponytail, I was carrying Maggie, and looked like a normal person (not a crazy Zumba instructor).

I just found the whole thing to be very odd.  Not offensive in the least, but odd.  Maybe they do need to ask when people are depositing over $1000 in cash, but really if I had obtained it through an unsavoury process, don’t you thin I would have come up with a cover story before going to the bank?  Or better yet – not put it in the bank at all?  I think she was just nosey.

Have you ever had an odd experience at a bank or another place of business?

I remember when I was working in insurance I certainly had my fair share of odd experiences as the person behind the desk.  I remember one guy calling me and calling me a dictator when he received a registered letter informing him his car insurance had been cancelled because he hadn’t paid it in 2 months (even though he had received 3 past due notices prior to the registered letter being sent), and someone else actually reported me to the superintendant of insurance claiming I wanted to under insure her home.  The truth was she told me she lived in a 1-story house with a basement when she really lived in a bi-level which makes a huge difference when calculating replacement costs on a home.  So clearly I should be a mind reader to know what kind of house she had, at any rate I got the last laugh on that one because her files clearly showed that it was her that was in the wrong, not me.  God I love email, it’s so much better than phone calls since you have a record of exactly what the person said.

Well I’m out to go play some games – have a good night!

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This week is my first full week of classes since the holidays.  Last week I only taught 7 and this week I’m up to 14 and let me tell you – after a couple weeks of only teaching a few classes, my body is not happy with me.  Three classes Monday evening and four classes yesterday left me a sore, tired girl last night.  TGIW! {Thank Goodness for Wednesdays}  No classes this morning, none this afternoon and only one this evening – at it was over at 7:30.  Having only one evening class on Wednesdays was one of the best decisions ever.  I get to sleep off my exhaustion from the first part of the week, I can catch up on paperwork and I have the opportunity to be a slacker mid-week, which is pretty nice.

While I managed to rest up my poor body was still a hurtin’ unit when I got up, originally I had planned to do a weight workout today, but when I got up I quickly tossed that idea out the window and opted for some short yoga videos instead.  It’s so nice to be able to bring YouTube up on the TV downstairs through the Wii and do them that way.  Using my iPod or Touchpad works fine, but it’s certainly easier to take a look at a big TV screen vs. a small iPod or Tablet screen when I want to see what’s going on

Pekoe must have been feeling kinda tight too because he came down to stretch it out in a patch of sunshine

But I guess it was more than he could handle because the next thing I knew he was curled up asleep on the couch!

(and yes, for anyone with a keen eye, that’s a Fenway Park blanket he’s sleeping on)

What a different a little stretching makes, my calves and hamstrings were so tight I really just wanted to spend the rest of the day in a downward dog it felt so good.  Once I was done I had to wake up this bundle of fur

and we both headed back up stairs (we keep the door closed to keep the cats out when we’re not there.  Mr. Pekoe likes to sharpen his claws on furniture and we’re not interested in having him give that a try on our leather sectional).

The rest of the day was spent doing paperwork/office work and then I went and taught Zumba.  Now I’m home, bathed and hanging out for the rest of the evening.

Wednesdays are the eye of the storm essentially, tomorrow it’s back to the craziness for another 1 1/2 days until the weekend arrives.  Though I hear we’re suppose to get some icky weather tomorrow, hopefully it won’t mean I have to cancel some classes but I guess I’ll have to wait and find out!

Time to find a little snack then the kitties and I will be heading back downstairs to watch some TV – perhaps The Tudors?  I just started Season 2 last night!

Enjoy the rest of your week & I’ll check in with you on Friday

P.S. If you want to see what yoga videos I did from YouTube, just head over to my Workout Log page for the links!

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Friday night we went out for supper to Jungle Jim’s (we’re already diving into the gift cards we got for Christmas!), then came back home and watched Megamind on Netflix.  I have to say, now that we have our media/workout room mostly done in the basement (it still needs a few things to be finished like painting trim, touch-ups and the entertainment centre we’re going to hire my brother to build) I sorta want to live down there.  Our TV is sitting on a dresser (the one that I refinished last summer and up until last weekend was still sitting in the middle of my kitchen), and while there is no cable hooked up, we do have the Wii hooked up and have wi-fi so Netflix is working, plus there is a Blu-Ray player so I can watch TV shows and movies until my heart’s content .

The rest of the weekend was pretty standard hanging out with J and the kitties, watching some TV, cleaning, laundry, you get the idea.  Tonight though, before heading for a bath I snuck in a quick 30 minute workout.  I did an upper body workout (plus a quick 2 minute interval session on the treadmill) yesterday so tonight I opted for lower body.  Nothing too crazy but with 8 lb weights (remember I haven’t been properly weight training in a l-o-n-g time), by the end I was done like dinner.  In case you’re looking for some new ideas to through into your own workouts here is what I did:

Quick Lower Body Workout

A couple quick things I want to mention.  Yesterday I actually went through and reformatted all of my recipes so that you can easily print them off without getting pages of blog nonsense.  In the future any recipe I post will be formatted this way making it easier for readers to print off recipes to keep on hand.  Yay!

Secondly, I’ve added a new page to the blog, my workout log.  I don’t expect anyone to really be interested in this one, it’s more for me to keep track of my workouts and be able to monitor my progress but it is there for anyone who wants to see what I’m up too.  Since I just added it, there isn’t much there right now, but feel free to check it out if you like!

And while this isn’t related to my blog, I want to send out huge hugs and congratulations to Gina who had her first baby girl last night!  Baby Olivia is one very, very, lucky lady! <3

A final thought…

Between Gina having her baby, and watching 127 last night, I can’t help but think what amazing things we can do when we need to.  I personally can’t even begin to imagine what it feels like to give birth, but I’ve watched “A Baby Story” enough ties to know they call it labour for a reason.  And certainly the thought of cutting off my own arm to save myself seems like something I would absolutely never be able to do but, who knows?  When faced with what seems like impossible tasks (come on, even mothers out there have to agree that giving birth seems impossible – right?  How can you fit a whole baby through such a small space?  Crazy!), the Human body and mind can overcome so much.  Really it is truly amazing and something to absolutely be admired and celebrated.

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She was a gift to Pekoe and Ollie from Shawn & Joanne back when we got married nearly 7 years ago.  She used to have 8 legs, now she has two (and one of those is partly missing).  She used to have bells on the end of each leg, now she has none.  She used to be a soft rabbit fur, now she’s, well, not soft.  She’s been sewn back together countless times and has even spent a few nights at the vet.  Well, she was only accompanying her feline friends, she wasn’t actually there for any medical procedures but there was one time when Ruth one of the VA’s was nice enough to sew Gwyneth up a bit when her stuffing was coming out while she was there.

To put it mildly, Gwyneth has been around the block.  She’s been drowned in water dishes, walked on, shut in the front door and has really had a hard life.  But we just can’t throw her out.  You see, Gwyneth is Ollie’s baby.

Ollie takes Gwyneth with her everywhere.  Okay, that’s not totally true, but she does drag her along quite often.  Ollie is an odd little cat.  I’ve written about her co-dependence before but Gwyneth brings it to a whole other level.  You see, if she doesn’t know where we are she goes and gets Gwyneth, shoves her in her mouth and wanders around crying until someone either calls for her or goes to her.  Anytime we leave the house we can be sure to come home and find Gwyneth waiting on the doormat where Ollie has left her.  If we’re in the basement it will only be a few minutes before you hear Ollie crying and you open the door to find her and Gwyneth waiting to be consoled.

She also does this at night if we’ve gone to bed and she’s not herself ready to sleep.  So every night before going to bed, we have to find Gwyneth and take the gross old spider into our bedroom with us.  Ollie’s tricky though.  She knows we do this so she’ll sneak in and find Gwyneth, take her back out to the kitchen or somewhere and start crying.  So lately I’ve started putting Gwyneth at the end of our bed at night in the hopes that if Ollie comes looking for her she’ll just decide to go to sleep instead of taking her. 

Last night I did I normally do, got ready for bed, found Gwyneth and we went to bed.  Only a few minutes later I heard Ollie come into our room and get on the bed.  A minute or two later I heard her jump onto our laundry basket and then to the floor.  She had stolen Gwyneth.  She then proceeded to go into the kitchen and mew and mew like a broken hearted little creature.  I didn’t want her to wake J so I went out to get her.  I picked her and Gwyneth up, brought them back into the room, sat Ollie on the bed and put Gwyneth in a different spot on the floor.  I gave Ollie a couple pats and she happily curled up and went to sleep for the night.

Which begs the question….why didn’t she just go to sleep on the bed in the first place?  Why did she have to come get Gwyneth, get back off the bed, go into the kitchen and cry just to have me carry her back to bed?  I say again, Ollie is an odd little cat.

And BTW – for any of you thinking we should just hide Gwyneth better at night, Ollie has two back-ups that she will use if or when Gwyneth isn’t to be found.  Her first back up is an old fluffy blush brush that the cats like to play with, she’ll carry that around and drop it – which makes a fair bit of noise.  And her second back up is a plastic stick that used to be part of a cat toy (Pekoe liked the toy, Ollie preferred the stick) which also makes a lot of noise when she drops it.  At least Gwyneth is quiet (since she lost all her bells).

I actually had a hard time going to sleep last night after all of this occurred, I just kept giggling to myself over what a foolish little cat I have.  It’s a good thing she’s so mighty adorable

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Post tags: cats, gwyneth

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I thought I’d start this post with a quick look back at 2011…

Of course the big moment for me in the past year was going to the Zumba Convention in Orlando, Florida.  The planning started w-a-y back in February and before I knew it July was here and I was off on a super exciting adventure with my buddy Holly.  You can read my Florida recaps for day 1, day 2,day 3, day 4 & 5 & lastly Our Seaworld Adventure to get caught up if  you missed the fun.

Another milestone I guess, for the year happened in October when I laced up my running sneakers for the first time in a couple of years and ran a 5K race, out of the blue, and killed it.  Running was the activity that really set me into wanting to start a career in fitness but I gave it up because I got it in my head that I wanted to run longer races, but didn’t have the time to train.  Nor could I afford to get injured running which would cause me to take time off from teaching, so I just stopped.  I realize now, I didn’t need to stop completely, I just needed to stick to shorter distances.  The 5K I ran in October reminded me how much fun it is to race, regardless of the distance, and is something I hope to continue on a more consistent basis in 2012.

What would a look back at 2011 be if I didn’t mention my big milestone – turning 30.  Leading up to my turn into a new decade I decided to try to complete a 30 before 30 goals list.  And while in the end I didn’t get everything completed, I think we can all agree that getting Maggie was the most important thing on the list. Okay….I suppose raising $200 for Christmas Daddies was really more important, but that Maggie…she sure is a beaut!

While there were countless other important things that happened in 2011, I’m not going to swamp you with re-caps.  I will go all the way back to last January though and talk briefly about last year’s goal board (sidenote – it would seem last year’s new years eve festivities were much more exciting that this years.  At least last year I made dip and chocolate mousse, this year we ate a bag of party mix, watch Ratatouille and Myth Busters…).  Overall, I achieved many of the goals I had set for myself.  I mostly fell short on the blogging goals I had set, and my goal to practise yoga daily.  At least that gave me somewhere to start for this year’s board…

As with last year’s board I’ve divided this one into 3 sections, one that relates to the blog, one for personal goals, and one for business/financial goals.  Some of the goals are the exact same ones I had last year, and that’s okay.  If at first you don’t succeed…

The personal section has nothing too thrilling, yoga is there again, as is “run” (which goes along with what I wrote about earlier).  Learning to relax is a big one for me.  I have a hard time not doing something, and I need to learn to take more downtime (like naps – more specifically “Cat naps” as indicated on the board ).  I also haven’t gone for a massage in well, probably 4 years.  With all the beating I but on my body each week I really need to go at a minimum once/month to work out the kinks and “de-chunkify” my overused leg muscles.  And yes de-chunkify is a word – feel free to use it.  The other’s “date night” and “fun” are pretty self explanatory.  The thing I liked most about my 30 before 30 list is it forced me to go out on more adventures than I normally do.  This year I want to continue having adventures.  Going to new places, doing stuff.  There are so many cafe’s and little restaurants I’ve never been to – I think it’s time to start visiting a new one every other week or once a month at least!

Financially, I ended up purchasing a new (well 2005 so it’s not new, just new to me) car in December.  The car went on my line of credit which was pretty much at a zero balance.  The first goal it to pay that back off ASAP.

This year is also going to be the year that we go on a real trip.  Not a dorky little trip over night in the city (which was fun – but still…).  I don’t know where we’re going to go, or when exactly.  But we’re going somewhere.  I’m also committing to take a small vacation once every 4 months.  Last year I didn’t take any vacation until Christmas, and even then it was only a week.  In short – it made me cranky.  It is hard when you area one-person show to take a vacation since I have to cancel classes in order to take time off.  But I think if I arrange it so I take like a Thursday and Friday of one week, and Monday-Wednesday of the next week I’ll be able to get a week off without really take a full regular week off – ya know what I mean?  So I’m planning to take a week off around the end of April/Beginning of May (maybe I’ll take it early and we can go on a trip for our 7th wedding anniversary which is mid-April), one at the end of August, and then the last one next Christmas.  I think it will be good for J too as he never takes vacation time, I’m pretty sure he could use a few days off here and there.

The others aren’t very exciting – de-clutter/simplify (to help with that relaxing business…), put a serious dent in student loans, continue to implement the “to-do list”, and meal plan.  My friend Jenn is a meal planning ninja. I am the meal planning sloth.  We never have anything to eat even though we buy lots of groceries each week.  I seriously just come home from teaching classes and eat everything we have.  It’s awful.  So this year meal planning it is.  That way I’ll know not to eat something if it’s earmarked for a meal – plus it’ll meal we actually have meals to eat at meal time.  What a notion.

I’d also like to get a snazzy new DSLR Camera.  I like my little point and shoot but it would be nice to be able to take some good pictures…

The last ones are work goals – create two new routines/week, keep my total class count below 15/week, advertise and continue to see growth in my classes.  In the past I haven’t advertised much, and overall I still don’t feel I need to but I have a few classes that are on the smaller side of things so I really need to promote them better.

My last section was for blogging and sadly it seems my photo for it has disappeared :/  basically I’m hoping to blog 3 or 4 times/week this year with a Mon/Wed/Fri + 1 weekend post each week.  I want to post more recipes, workouts and adventures, plus grow readership considerably.  I’m really hoping this will be the year I make my little blog grow, and hopefully some of my other goals will assist me in that endeavor.

Of course since making my goals board I’ve come up with a few other goals I’d like to achieve.  The number one being to re-gain my physical strength.  While I’ve got a pretty fab aerobic capacity, teaching so much cardiovascular based classes has caused me to lose a significant amount of muscle mass.  Sure I teach Zumba Toning, but it really only tones what muscle you already have, it doesn’t provide enough resistance to build muscle mass.  So, it’s time for me to hit the heavy weights again!  I’m strangely looking forward to it…

So those are my goals for 2012.

Do you set yearly goals?  If you do what would you say your number one goal for the year is?

I’m not sure I could pick just one.  For me it’s combination of going on a trip with J& paying off my line of credit (my goal is to have that done by July 1st!).

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Post tags: 2012 resolutions, inspiration board

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This is the, “I was just under the Christmas Tree where I know I don’t belong” look.

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Post tags: birthday

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I am coming in just under the wire with one more project/item that I can cross off – the photo book of my trip to Florida.  When I realized just how long it was going to take me to upload all the photos and design a photo book I threw that idea out of the window and decided to make a photo album instead.  Same general result, just faster to put together.  So last weekend I ordered a bunch of prints and picked them up today along with a photo album.

And this evening after my class I organized the photos, popped them into the sleeves and wrote captions for those that were caption worthy.

I came close to meeting my goal of 15 blog posts, but this one included I think the total was 13, so I fell a bit short there, and most of the others I could have got done but other things – like compulsively watching 4 seasons of Alias got in the way…

BTW – I just watched the last episode of season 4 last night, and for anyone that watched the series let me tell you – when that car came out of nowhere and T-boned Sidney and Vaughn I was so startled I jumped and scared Pekoe who was asleep on my lap.  And now I’m really hoping I get Season 5 for my birthday tomorrow!  It would be cruel to make me wait until after Christmas to see what comes next!

Alright, now lets assume that tomorrow I start a Project 365, that means out of the 30 things on my list, I was able to complete 19 of the 30.  Not too shabby!

Now this girl needs to go get ready for bed, after I feed the cats twelevesies of course…

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Post tags: 30 before 30

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When I was in school/college that was always when school let out for the holidays, and when I worked in insurance it was around the second week of December (we always had a 10 Days of Christmas tradition where we gave each other small gifts from the dollar store in our stockings each work day for the 10 days leading up to Christmas). 

This year the end of my crazy schedule marks the real start of the holidays for me, and that day was today.

It started off with a lovely lunch with a bunch of the chicks in my seniors fitness class.  Yes, I can happily go from eating lunch out with a whole group of fabulous women in their 60’s, 70’s and 80;’s (and one in her 90’s), to a nearly two hour session of dancing and games with elementary school kids, to 2 Zumba and 1 Zumba Toning classes all in a 10 hour span.  I’m just. that. cool

So now starting tomorrow I’m on a reduced holiday schedule.  I taught 4 classes today, and now only have 7 classes left to teach the rest of the week.  And in the three following weeks I have a total of 13 classes which is less than I normally teach in one week.  So while I won’t be totally on vacation it is certainly pretty darn close, and believe me I’ve been looking forward to this for months!  Foolishly I didn’t take vacation all year so my last week off was last Christmas, and in this type of job that isn’t a good idea, it’s just too hard on your body.

But I digress, the time is here, the time is now – BRING ON THE HOLIDAYS!!!!

Does anyone else have a moment each year that truly makes you feel like the holidays are here?

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Post tags: christmas

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Tonight my parents had my birthday supper at their house with J & I my two brothers and niece and nephew (my sister-in-law was working) after supper one of my brothers helped us move our sectional from the middle of our kitchen down to the room in the basement where it belongs.

This move has been causing me stress every time I thought about it for well over a month.  You see, when we purchased the sectional, we didn’t realize that one piece was 95 inches in length, which was going to make it a pretty tight squeeze down the stairs and into the room.

But, after some pondering, thinking, strategizing and maybe a prayer or two we (I say we but I don’t think I really did much in the line of helping) got in it.  Phew!  There was a moment at the bottom of the stairs that I really didn’t think it was going to go in, but somehow we turned it a bit more and got it in.

Yes, it has already been Christened with a Red Sox throw.  That’s how we roll around here

Thank God.  Then they went next door and got the other half from my parents house and brought it down to the basement.  Clearly the second piece being much smaller proved to be no problem to get into the room.

THose with a keen eye will see more Red Sox stuff piled on this part of the sectional.  I’ll give you three guesses what inspired the room colour…

So after a month or more, you can actually open my front door all the way again and you don’t have to take a single lane route to get from the kitchen to the TV room.

You can still see the stuff directly in front of the stove hasn’t been moved – hopefully it’ll be outta there by next weekend!

Once all of that was done I couldn’t be stopped.  I had to put up the tree.  Because the room downstairs isn’t finished we can’t take everything that belongs in the new room down to the basement so we still had to do a little shifting around of stuff to have a place to put the tree (which means for the first time in 6 months I can actually see my book shelves and all of our movies) but we got it done and the tree is up!

I tend to be a bit of a Christmas Tree light & decoration whore.  I like lots of lights – and I like lots of decorations!  Even though we have a pre-lit tree I added another 3 or 4 strings of coloured lights.  And as for decorations, after adding the ribbon and bows I put on 70 gold toned bulbs BEFORE adding all of our sentimental ornaments.

That’s right people, our tree has well over 100 ornaments on it.  And that’s the way I like it!  It makes me sad to see sparse trees and trees with very few lights.  But then again I am kinda crazy

Am I the only crazy light and ornament girl out there?  Though I don’t stick with a full-on theme (though the backdrop of my tree theme is clearly gold with all those gold bulbs and the gold ribbon) I do appreciate a good theme tree for instance I love Ang’s pink tree and all of her ornaments.

Do you have a theme for your Christmas Tree?  Or is it a collection of ornaments you’ve gotten over the years?

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Post tags: christmas, renovation

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Tonight (though dusty) it has a snazzy new laminate floor

While the room isn’t finished (it still need the trim, some electrical and some other finish work done) it’s getting closer and it won’t be long now until our fitness & media room is complete!

And I am perhaps foolishly hoping that this means that our new sectional which has been sitting right in our main doorway for the past month

(the other half is in my parent’s living room as we had nowhere to put it)

will get moved to the basement along with that big box on the right of the sectional (the surround sound speakers) as well as a number of other items that have been stacked up in our kitchen/living room to be out-of-the-way during construction.

I’ve been pretty bummed the past week or two that my Christmas Tree isn’t up (I just had nowhere to put it) but now I’m optimistic that I’ll be able to put the tree up tomorrow which makes me pretty excited!  I had intended to put the tree in the new room in the basement, but I”m pretty sure the tree is too tall for that room so we’ll have to put it upstairs after all.  Of course…I do have our old cheap-o 6 foot Christmas Tree still kicking around so it might make an appearance in the basement.

Needless to say after all that hard work Ollie was tired completely out

Poor muffin

It took until around 6pm to get the floor in so it was a late supper of lasagna and garlic bread.  As per usual my eyes were bigger than my stomach

So I’ll be eating the rest of this deliciousness tomorrow for lunch.  Perhaps to fuel a tree decorating

I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend – anyone else hoping to get their tree up in the next day or two?  Normally mine is up on the 1st of December – I feel like I’m missing so much quality tree time!

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Post tags: cats, christmas, renovations

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I’ve been saving up for quite a while, and managed to get my hands on a 25% off your entire purchase coupon so off I went (along with my buddy Arlene) to purchase #7 from the list.

To say we were a tad nervous was an understatement

You see, the coupon I had procured had someone else’s name on it, and in the fine print it said, “this coupon cannot be shared,” and we weren’t terribly sure how picky they were about these things.  When we arrived at the Coach store we went in and started to take a look around.  I had been on the website and had a pretty good idea of which bag I wanted before heading into the city, but was waiting until I saw what they in stock at the store before making my final decision.

Turns out the bag I’d been eyeing online was definitely the one I wanted.  We found ourselves a sales associate and started the purchasing process.  She asked me my name, I told her, “Suzanne,” and then remembered that someone else’s name was on the coupon…so I strategically folded it in half so the bar code was on one side – and the name/email address of the actual coupon recipient was on the other side.  Once she had put in her little handheld computer thing what I was buying I went up to that cash to pay.  I gave the cashier my coupon and she didn’t even check the name on it(phew!), she took all my info and happily announced to me how much the coupon had saved me, gave me my receipt and moved on to the next person.

But I was still standing there – bagless.

Arlene says, “Where’s your bag?”

“I dunno.  I think they get them ready out back.  I couldn’t really ask her where it was since the coupon I used was for preferred customers, and as I preferred customer clearly I’m suppose to already know the procedure!”

So we waited…

And while we waited I posed with a few friends…

Then we saw the sales associate that had helped us and Arlene asked her if they brought the purchases out to the front once they were ready.  She said yes, and a moment or two later she brought me the bag.

And we got the hell outta there.

Once we were safely out, I said, “Do you feel like we just got away with a crime or something?”

I was overheating, it took me about 10 minutes to chill out.

Clearly I wouldn’t be good as a criminal if using a coupon with someone else’s name on it sends me into a tail spin.

But the mission was a success and I’ve got my new handbag

Ladies and gentlemen (who am I kidding?  No men are reading this!)…

I present to you…

Maggie!

The photo quality is poor because I took these in low lighting but she has a really pretty purple lining inside, like a grape-y colour purple.

Did anyone notice there were two boxes in the photo up there?

That’s because I also got a little friend for Maggie.

It would have been shameful to use my old ratty wallet in such a pretty bag.  A crime even!  Okay maybe not, but I’m sure you guys have my back – right?

I really wanted to get a more classic style handbag that will last me for years without going out of style, so I figured I’d go a more fun route with the wallet.  And anyone that knows me knows that being matchy-matchy isn’t my thing so buying a matching black wallet was out of the question.

And with only 1 week to go (as of tomorrow) I think the most important items on the list (for me) have been achieved.  I really wanted to raise money for Christmas Daddies (the final tally on that one was $300!) and get a snazzy bag.  Mission accomplished.

Speaking of the list…

There is no way that I will be able to accomplish the rest of items on the list before next Thursday, but that was never really my goal.  My goal was to get me doing things I never (or rarely) do and I’m pleased with the progress I’ve made so far.

I have recently managed to complete #18: Hold both Half Moon Pose {Ardha Chandrasna} & Warrior III {Virabhadrasana III} for 30 seconds or longer each – on both legs so I can cross that one off.  And a couple of weekends ago I took my niece and nephew to the movies to see Arthur Christmas so that too will be marked off.

In the next week I’m going to attempt to mark 7 more items off the list, and since one of those is to write 15 posts before my birthday (this is number 9) you can be sure I’ll keep you up to date on how I’m doing

Question:

While I don’t really consider Maggie (the bag is actually called “Madison Leather Maggie Shoulder Bag” which is why I call it Maggie – I’m not normally so crazy that I name all my accessories ) a birthday gift to myself, it’s kind of neat to have something like this to commemorate my 30th birthday. Have you ever made a big purchase on a milestone birthday?  If you have what did you buy?

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Post tags: 30 before 30, coach, fashion

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The first two items have been done for a while, I knitted two scarves using this cool “puffball” yarn I got at Michaels.  Because of the puffballs they took longer than normal to knit but I think they turned out pretty well

The first scarf is one I made for my niece so obviously it’s just a bit smaller than the second.  The second one I made for my mother-in-law, and I actually ended up giving it to her for her birthday as we got her something else for Christmas.

The third homemade item was also given to my mother-in-law for her birthday, and this is the one that took me a L-O-N-G time to make – a gratitude journal

I got the idea on pinterest where I came across this post .  Somehow when you see the finished product it looks easier and less time-consuming than it really is.  I didn’t think I was ever going to get it finished!  Essentially there is room for you to write something you are grateful for each day so at the end of the year you can look back and see all of the things you wrote.

The cover alone took me an hour or two – and I realized next year was going to be a leap year just in the nick of time – thank goodness a 9 makes a 6 in a pinch or else I wouldn’t have had enough matching numbers to write 366 :/

Here are a few shots of random pages in the book ready to be filled in:

I don’t think I would have been able to get the journal done last weekend if I hadn’t also been working on #19 from the list (taking the whole weekend off from facebook/twitter/email/phones calls/etc) so in addition to finishing the three homemade gifts, I also managed to complete #19.  Score! {{truth be told, I completed a couple other items on the list while “unplugged” but you’ll have to wait to hear about them}}

So that is the tale of the homemade gifts.  Now it’s time for me to go curl up and watch some TV – I had a long day of shopping today {which may or may not have involved completing item #7 on my list }

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Post tags: 30 before 30, homemade

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Things have been fairly quiet here on the blog lately, not because I’ve been super crazy busy teaching classes (I’ve actually already started cutting back some and had a mini break last week as I was nursing a hip flexor injury) but because I’ve been trying to blast through some more items!  Since my last update, I’ve managed to complete a number of item:

#1.  Watch ET

You know, obviously I knew the premise behind the movie to a certain extent, but I guess I never knew how ET got to Earth, I was so sad to find out he got left behind  I thought it was really cute – well, up until that whole nearly dying business…that was a little disturbing.  Anyway, over all I can  see why both Jenn and Allie said the movie scared then when they watched it as kids, I’m pretty sure I would have been scared too.  Actually, I was concerned it was going to scare me so I wouldn’t watch it by myself…

#4. Go to a movie all. by. myself {as discussed on my friend Emily’s blog – though I promised then to do it I still haven’t …..}

Tuesday night my regular evening Zumba class was cancelled so I took the opportunity to go see Breaking Dawn all by myself.  J hasn’t complained about going to see the other movies, but I thought I’d do him the favour of not asking him to go and using it as my reason to go alone.

The verdict?  It was weird.  I did enjoy people watching (one of my fav pass times) but it still seemed weird to sit there by myself, while I didn’t dislike I’m not totally sure I’m a fan.  Certainly I would do it again, but I really do prefer the company of another person,

#16 Watch “Gone With the Wind”

It seems like I’ve been on a movie kick this past week!  Actually yesterday I happened to notice it was on AMC so I watched it.  All 5 televised hours of it.  From 8pm-1am.  Good grief.  As a girl who enjoys and appreciates books, movies, shows set in the early 1900′s or earlier I did enjoy the movie.  But it is too bloody long.  I don’t know that I will ever feel the need to watch it again but certainly I can see why it is a classic.  I always love it when you discover that older movies like that have such witty dialogue, for some reason you (or at least I) expect them to be totally serious without any sense of humour.  For sure if you haven’t seen it you should – but I’d recommend watching it in pieces over a couple of days otherwise it feels like you’ve spent an entire day watching one movie!

#17.  Paint the basement door {my dad hung it about two years ago and it still has only the primer on it}

It’s a miracle!!  The door has been painted!

I actually think it needs one more coat of paint before it looks finished, but it is still technically done in my books!  Of course now it is terribly obvious how much the trim has yellowed so now I need to re paint all the trim.  Lovely.

P.S. This photo was taken from the porch side which isn’t completely finished – hence the missing trim.

P.P.S. That hole in the door is the kitty door so they can go down to their kitty litter box in the basement

#30.  Raise/donate $200 for Christmas Daddies

As of Monday I’ve actually surpassed the $200 mark  All the credit goes to my clients who have been generously donating change at my classes for the month of November.  I’m so very pleased, this will really make a big difference in at least one family’s Christmas

As usual there are a number of other items in progress, and I’m hoping to complete a few more this weekend.  There are a few that I’m fairly certain won’t get done and I’m perfectly fine with that.  This was meant to be a fun project, not a “you’re a failure if you don’t get everything done” project.  I don’t think I’ll get the 30km of running done (so far I have 0), and I don’t think our basement renovations will be done in time to have a Wii-mbledon & Wii Sports Resort Competition Night.  I can’t have the game night upstairs either because until the basement is finished we have our kitchen and living rooms crammed full of things belonging in the basement.  In a roughly 25×10 foot space we current have 2 full size couches and a 7 foot piece of our new sectional, plus our 3×3 foot coffee table and all of our other regular furniture.  It’s pretty crammed.

I’m thinking this weekend might be the weekend I totally unplug from technology (#19) but I’m waiting for an e-mail from my 8 year old nephew to set up our date (along with his sister) to do #5 (they want to see Arthur Christmas).  Yes he has his own email address, and his emails are totally priceless.

I hope all of my American friends had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I hope that any of you going Black Friday shopping stay safe and get some super deals!

© Suzi for Confessions of a Fitness Instructor, 2011. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 30 before 30, movies

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Late last week I received an email from a reader that I thought would make a good reader’s request:

I was just wondering if you had any pointers/tips? I just became Zumba (Basic 1) certified three weeks ago and I’m going to start subbing co-teaching my first Zumba classes next week. (eek!)

Teaching Zumba can be a daunting task.  Even for the seasoned fitness instructor is can be a bit over whelming.  I know a few really, really, awesome fitness instructors who took the training but decided they didn’t want to teach Zumba because they found it too stressful.  The nice thing about teaching a regular fitness class (kickboxing, step, aerobics, etc.) is you can totally make it up as you go along.  If something isn’t working you can easily change it on the fly, you can use any fitness music (assuming it is the proper tempo for the class you are teaching) and you don’t need to have strong musicality skills.  Zumba is a different type of beast, and hopefully these tips will be helpful when preparing to teach your first Zumba class!

#1) Know your music

I really can’t stress this enough.  Know that song inside and out.  Listen to it until you know every bit of it.  Are there any pauses, or “quirks” within the song where you need to do something different or special?  Does the song repeat predictably each time or does the sequence vary throughout the song?  Do you know exactly when the song is going to end?  Believe me, if you don’t know your music, your participants will know.  Live, breathe and sleep your music.  I listen to Zumba music constantly in the car, I’ll choose two or three songs I want to memorize and listen to them over and over until I know them.  Luckily I spend a lot of time driving so I get lots of chances to do this

#2) Keep it simple

When you first start out, try to choose as many easy songs as possible.  What do I mean by easy songs?  They are those songs that repeat predictably and don’t have many “quirks” or pauses.  Zumba Mami (Zumba Fitness), Don’t Let Me Down (Zumba Fitness), Zumba He Zumba Ha (by Dj Mam’s), Zumba Samba (by Karmin Shiff), Chori Chori (by Arash), Krazy (by Pitbull), Waka Waka (shakira), Shake it Up (by mara) and Let’s Get Loud (Jennifer Lopez) are all examples of easier songs you could use.  In comparison, songs like “Bring it On (Zumba Fitness), Lo Que Paso, Paso (Daddy Yankee) and Con El Pompi Pa’rriba (Mala Fe) all have more quirks, many different song parts and are more difficult to memorize.  Do yourself a favour and try to stick to the easier songs.  Your brain will thank me.

Part two of keeping it simple – your choreography.  Especially if you are starting your own class and will have many participants that are new to Zumba.  Keep your choreography simple to allow your participants a chance to learn the steps.  More importantly keep it simple to make it easier on yourself.  Even if you are team teaching and only teaching 4 songs your first class, that is still a lot to remember when you are starting out.  Keep it simple.  Keep it clean, don’t try to be fancy.  There is a time for fancy footwork and your first few months of teaching isn’t it.  If you have access to pre-choreographed routines (if you are a ZIN member) – use them.  I find the live version tends to be more simplistic than the one on one, but know that even still you can simplify the choreography further.  Find a song you like, watch both versions and decide which you like or which parts of each you like and develop a routine.  Creating routines on your own when starting out is another stressful and aggravating task you don’t need to deal with.

#3)  Find the beat

If you don’t think you have any musicality you need to study music.  Learn how to find the downbeat and phrases within music.  For many this comes naturally, but if it doesn’t come naturally for you it is something you need to learn.  Participants instinctively want to move on the downbeat, they may not know that’s what they are doing, but they will notice it feels wrong if you aren’t on the beat.  Instructors who follow phrasing and the downbeat are much easier to follow – and as a result tend to be more popular than those who don’t.

#4) Educate yourself

I’ve said it before, and I’ll continue saying it until something changes.  Obtaining a license to teach Zumba classes is so easy.  Basically you just have to live through the training and you will get your license regardless of how terrible (or awesome) you are.  Believe me, I have no ego when it comes to my abilities.  I am not even close to being the best instructor out there but trust me, I’ve seen some people who still couldn’t figure out how to do a basic cumbia leaving with their license.  It scares me.  If you are serious about making Zumba classes a part of your job or income you owe it to yourself and your participants to become a certified fitness instructor (if you aren’t already).  The Zumba licensing workshops don’t teach you how to properly warm up or cool down participants.  You are not taught how to monitor a room full of people and you are really not even taught how to teach.  You’re mostly just taught the basic moves, you do a master class, a few drills and have a lecture or two and that’s about it.  There is no testing at all.  The dangers of teaching without a working knowledge of the body are many.  If nothing else get yourself into as many other types of fitness classes as you can to learn from those instructors.  Watch their warm-ups and cool downs, watch how they teach and learn from them.

#5) Keep “Sorry!” to a Minimum

The truth of the matter is – you are going to screw up.  Chances are you’ll screw up the first time you teach and you’ll still screw up occasionally after 300 classes.  That’s just the way it is.  Try to keep the apologies to a minimum during classes, especially with new songs – the participants don’t know you’ve made a mistake, just keep going.  I admit I say sorry when I screw up a song that I’ve been doing for ages and my groups know the choreography and do the right thing even though I do the wrong thing, but that’s only because I know they know I’ve made a mistake so I might as well acknowledge it.  If you do say you’re sorry, don’t dwell on it, say it and move on.  They probably won’t even remember by the end of class.

#6) RELAX

The best way to forget your choreography and music is by stressing too much about it.  It’s okay (and good) to get a bit nervous before teaching, but don’t let that nervousness consume you.  If you get in front of everyone and forget everything the world won’t end.  It’s a fitness class not brain surgery.  10 years from now nobody in the class will remember you messed up, you probably won’t even remember.  Relax and try to have fun.

#7) Make your first class a small one

If you have the opportunity, try to make your first class a small class (even if it’s just a “class” of 6-10 of your friends).  Find a decent amount of space (maybe someone’s basement) ask some friends to come over and use them as guinea pigs.  You can learn a lot from that first class, you can see what works and doesn’t work in a more relaxed setting.  You’ll build confidence and as a result will feel more comfortable when you teach your first “real” class.

#8)  Be you.

All of us Zumba Instructors have our favourite Zumba instructors.  Whether you love Gina, Tanya or your local ZES you have a favourite.  Don’t try to be them.  Be you.  Anytime you try to be someone you aren’t you just come across as a watered down sad version of someone you aren’t.  Be you.  You are the only person you can be authentically.  Find your voice, find your style, find your groove and stick to it.  Those who like your style will love your classes, and those who don’t – it’s no biggie, they just prefer a different style.  We all have different tastes and likes and there is a group of people out there who are looking for YOU – your style, your personality, your energy level – give it to them!

#9) Give 300%.

They say in order for your participants to give 50%, you need to give 300%.  The amount of energy you expend as an instructor in unbelievable.  Expect to be totally exhausted after teaching your first class.  It’s a whole different experience than taking a Zumba class, so prepare yourself for that.  Drink lots of water.

#10) Have Fun.

If you try teaching and it sucks all the enjoyment out of Zumba for you – don’t teach.   Not everyone is meant to be an instructor.  You may find out that it isn’t for you, and that is okay.  Maybe you’ll find you love teaching more than participating and that’s good too!  There will always be a need for instructors and participants.  One can’t exist without the other.  Just because you’ve obtained your license don’t mean you have to teach.  Give yourself permission to quit teaching if you don’t like it because if you hate teaching your participants will know.

That’s it for my tips – any other instructors (or seasoned participants ) out there that have any tips to add??

© Suzi for Confessions of a Fitness Instructor, 2011. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: readers request, tips

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