A week in the life....

So, I haven’t been blogging much, and there is a reason for that! I am super insanely busy. I am studying (again, but for real this time) for the CFA exam in June. I am in such a better place than 2 years ago when I tried to tackle this beast exam. I have my securities liscence, and I am working in the industry. I haven't mentioned it on here but 10 months ago I left Scotiabank got a job at an investment firm as a Client Servies Associate where I work with a Portfolio Manager. Now I can relate the information I am learning to what I do every day,and I have way more of a foundation to work off of. Also, I am surrounded by people who are supportive and encouraging and many have written the exams themselves. What is the CFA? It stands for Chartered Financial Analyst. It is a series of 3 exams that you take over 3 years (hopefully, if you pass each one on the first try). Each exam is 6 hours in length with a pass rate of 34% and covers about 6 text books of 500 pages each. It is painful, but will be worth it if once I pass all of them. It will just be a rough January-June for the next 3 years, but then I'll have it. However, unlike this year, I have promised myself definitely no more Ironmans until I’m done these exams. Next year I’ll probably just do a half ironman (my favorite distance), and an Olympic for fun. It would cut the training down SIGNIFICANTLY and give me a little more time to I dunno… see my wonderful husband!.

So what is the Typical week of a CFA studying working Ironman Training Person?
Monday : Leave the house for work at 6:30, arrive home at 5pm. Cook and eat, study 6-9. Bed/Read.
Tuesday: Leave the house for work at 6:30, after work 30 minute run followed by Hot Yoga, get home 7:15. Eat dinner, study 8-9. Bed/Read.
Wednesday: Leave the house for work at 6:30, arrive home at 5pm.Train 5-6:30. Cook and eat, Study 7-9. Bed/Read.
Thursday: Leave the house for work at 6:30, arrive home at 5pm.Train 5-6:30. Cook and eat, Study 7-9. Watch Greys anatomy and the Big Bang Theory. Bed.
Friday: Leave the house for work at 6:30, hit the pool 5-6. Drink some wine, have a nice dinner… relaaaaaax. Unless I haven’t gotten what I needed to get done, then guess what… I get to STUDY. Ugh.
Saturday: Wake up, relax until 8 or 9. Bike for 2-6 hours. Then every second week I work for a few hours, or else I have the afternoon free… which we usually get to do chores.. and maybe some relaxing.. ahhh relaxing.
Sunday: Wake up, relax until 8 or 9, study 10-12, lunch, study 1-3, train 3-5. Cook and Eat, study 6-9. Bed.
Repeat.

Basically I study roughly 16 hours a week, train 11 hours a week, work full time, and work very part time 2-4 hours every other week. The longest Saturday bike yet has only been 4 hours.. but it will get up to over 6 at the peak. Yep. It’s busy. You can see my “bedtime” is around 9. Well, that is about right. I stop studying at 9, but by the time I let the dog out and get ready for bet it’s 9:30. And If you know me… I need my sleep. If I get less than my 8 hours look out, especially with this schedule.Luckily I have the most supportive husband in the world that lets me just put my head down and go. We did take a week away in March which was amazing. We went to Puerto Vallarta Dreams and it was just what the doctor ordered. A week without any training or studying and just being together in 35 degrees was perfect. We had an amazing time. We absolutely loved that part of mexico.




Then it was back to reality. So here we are, 2 months until the exam, and 2.5 half months until Ironman… Its time for the final push... but then we’ve got the ENTIRE summer. We can get back to the basics of hiking and camping… and beer.. stuff that we haven't been able to do for the last few years because our races have always been in August, so we were training all summer. Alas, we are looking forward to re-enacting our first summer together full of mountains and camping and just simply being together.

Dear 13 Year Old Me

Dear 13 Year Old Me,

I know things are tough right now, but I am writing to you and you are now 25. I am sitting beside your amazing husband, in the house you own, with your puppy cuddeling next to you. Life is good. I know that there are days when things seem impossible. You get picked on at school for looking like a boy, you wear baggy sweaters because you think you are fat, and there are days you feel like no one will ever like you. Well, I just wanted to let you know that things will get better. Teenagers can be mean. Remember last year when you recieved a love letter in your locker and you were SO excited that a boy might like you, only to find out it was only a mean prank played on you by those who you called your friends and then those same friends laughed at you when you showed them the letter. You were humiliated. Well remember how your teacher pulled you aside and told your tear staind face that one day you'll open your locked and tons of real love letters will fall out. Well it's true. I don't want to give away too much right now, because I want to leave some of the big surprises for you to experience yourself, but here are a few things that I want to remind you.

Your first kiss. It was nothing memorable nor remarkable. It was the summer before grade 10 and you will not have been kissed. You will feel as though you can't go into high school without ever being kissed, so that summer while in Goodsoil you met some guy. A random guy who was kind of a loser and whom you will not even remember his name. But, you so desperately want to have your first kiss and you were so thrilled that someone is interested in you that you wasted your first kiss on him. My advice, pass by that guy in Goodsoil and wait because you want to remember every detail and at the very least the name of the boy whom you kissed for the first time. Trust me, there will be more boys who are interested in you. Infact you meet your first boy friend in that first week of high school, he should be your first kiss.

You will have your heart broken more than once. Looking back you will have only have fallen in love twice, but you will only have one soul mate. Your Champ. You`ll know him when you meet him I promise, and trust me he is worth all the heart break that gets you to that exact moment that you meet him.

You will dream big, and you will be able to do anything you set your mind to, despite alot of sceptics in your life who try to convince you otherwise. So don't listen to what anyone else says, because one thing I've learned is nothing is impossible. Work hard and step by step you will get there. But I just want to remind you that sometimes our dreams don't always turn out to be as amazing as you thought. Instead of dwelling on that, dream new dreams, but no matter what never stop dreaming.

Your family is your biggest ally. I know it may not seem like that right now, and trust me you will fight bitterly with them all for the next couple of years. But they will become your best friends. I could not imagine my life without talking to my mom every night, and having nights out with my dad and my siblings. They will always have your back, and they are your biggest fans. Also, although the dynamic of your family will change, I promise it will eventually open the door to more love. More people that you will have the honour to know and call part of your family.

Finally learn to love yourself. You are exactly as God made you. You will become the person that you were meant to be. Don`t try to change for anyone.

Well, I will be seeing you in the next 12 years. Remember that every up and down that you go through makes you the person that you are today. Learn from your mistakes and the struggles, and enjoy every victory and dream that comes true.

Sincerely,
your 25 year old self.

next up.. Ironman Coeur D'alene

So Ben and I decided to sign up for Ironman Couer d’alene about 2 months ago. We decided that an Ironman every other year is reasonable since it is such a sacrifice in every aspect of your life: Physically, emotionally, and financially. After taking the last year to get my body in working order again, I was eager to start training. We each took our experience from the last time round, and we each made our own training programs to suit ourselves. The funny thing is our training programs are COMPLETELY different. Not even a little bit the same. Which goes to show how those generic training programs on the internet are probably not the best approach. One major difference between out programs is that I have chosen to maintain going to Hot Vinyasa Flow yoga once a week. I went to my first hot yoga class when my chiropractor suggested it back in May, and I find myself seriously looking forwards to the class each week. If I miss a week my body feels it: my body feels tight, achy, and my asthma worsens. Hot Yoga is very addicting, and feels so good. Personally I think it has helped with my running a lot. Along with Yoga, I found my chiropractor this past year. I go once a month to get myself all aligned again, and seriously that is another aspect of my training that I think will become pivotal to my success. It’s been 2 months of base training where I’ve been working primarily on my running, with some biking and strength thrown into the mix, and I have NEVER felt so strong and so good. It is pretty exciting, and I attribute this to both Yoga and my Chiropractor.

I find that compared to the last time I started training, I have much more of a mental focus. I know how hard ironman is, I know my goals, and I know what it is going to take to achieve them. Also, Ben and I have both ditched the twice a day workout which I think definitely helps. Last time we trained for Ironman I think we just got way too burnt out in the first month and never really recovered. We learned there is a fine line between training and over-training and it is a tight rope that must be walked every day by every athlete, since normally we all just want to go out at the same intensity as the race every workout. But realistically that isn’t possible. I’ve learned rest days are important, and every training day cannot 5 km race pace. I find I have been relying on my heart rate monitor to hold me back, and I have really focused on warming up and cooling down.

I am really quite excited about this race. More excited than last Ironman where I was just SUPER nervous. I know I can do the darn thing, now I just want to do it better, and with less of a roller coaster.

Dear Pinterest

I haven't been inspired to write a blog lately, but I finally feel like I have something to say. Just like every other female, I have spent countless hours on Pinterest, mindlessly scrolling through "pins". My favorite thing to do on it is just click on "everything" and flip through all the stuff that other people have pinned.

Then today it dawned on me, Pinterest just illustrates everything that is wrong with the society we live in. It is a collection of people posting about the perfect home, the perfect wedding, the perfect love story, the perfect parent, the perfect body all while eating delicious food. I mean, really, is it ever possible to have all that? And what is perfection? does that make you happy? Because I don't know about you but I kind of like my not so perfect, but amazingly wonderful life.


So here is my letter to pinterest:


Dear Pinterest,

I have to admit, I have re-pinned countless recipes, home decorating ideas, and crafts from you. But here's the thing, you kind of make me feel bad about myself. The other night as I was scrolling through all the wonderful pictures, I was mesmerized by everything christmas (even though christmas is nearly 2 months away, I found myself getting lost in the christmas pins.) I was Imagining myself surrounded by christmas decorations that I will have created perfectly, while entertaining a small christmas party with wonderfully delicious appetizers on perfectly matching place settings, and I realized that right beside that recipe for delicious chocolate pound cake(that I was clearly going to make for my perfect christmas party)was a pin about how to loose 40 pounds in 40 days and it dawned on me: Pinterest, you promote the impossible image that the media imposes on society. This perfect life that everyone should strive towards. You're not entirely to blame, however, because the worst part is we all embrace it and seem to find it so important that we pin these images to an online board to come back to time and time again, and to share with others. Mostly things that we will never attempt to do or make. We create this board of pins which illustrate the perfect life, with hours wasted in our real life. The funniest thing is people post an exercise board right next to a recipe board. Now here is the thing, I am an athlete. I have had a hockey scholarship in the US, and I have completed Ironman Canada. I can swim 4 kilometers, bike 180 kilometers, and run a marathon.. all in the same day, but I will never look like this:

My husband and I eat healthy, and I workout 6 days a week, however, if I do happen to make have desert that others make I often feel guilty about it. Why? because like most females in society I want to be thiner, like those pictures on pinterest. Typically this is how it goes, wow I wish I could have a body like that oh but look at that delicious carmel popcorn recipe mmmm... foood. By no means am I over weight, infact typically I am quite happy with the way I look. But I can do lunges around a track and yet I will never have legs that look like this :

Life is short, and I shouldn't feel guilty about eating all some of this:

So pinterest I am breaking up with you. I am tired of seeing half naked girls, with shredded abbs beside the "tastes just like olive garden fetecinnie alfredo" 120000 calorie meal. I'm not entirely sure what I will do with those hours in the day I waste spend scrolling through all your glorious pins, but i'm sure it will be alot better spending time in my real life than pinning pictures about a perfect life.

Sincerely,
a recovering pinterest addict

"And in the end it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years"

Well 2012 has been no less insane than 2011. Lets see where to begin:

Oh right... we moved into our new house! I totally and completely love it. My favorite room? Our bedroom. We got all new beautiful furniture, and we finally have a big enough closet to hide keep all our clothes. It has become a total room of relaxation and sleep. The rest of our house is pretty awesome too. We finally have enough room for entertaining which is exciting.

Then, after being in our new house for 3 weeks, we decided to take the plunge and get a dog! We've wanted one for the last 4 1/2 years but just never had the space and plus we were renting. We started at the humane society and were thinking about adopting a huge dog named wally. he was adorable, a great puranese mixed with a poodle. The problem was that he had some issues; he was really nervous around new people and situations. And although has never biten before, when dogs are nervous you never really know what they'll do and he's so big he could really do some damage. After thinking about it for some time and feeling really guilty we decided wally probably wasn't the best fit for us since we like to have people over and go on random adventures. Then we found Rudy. A 4 month old labradoodle. We found him online and by friday we were driving 3 hours to lethbridge to pick him up. We lucked out he is a really good puppy. Really smart, adorable, and loves to cuddle. Since we work all day in Calgary, Rudy has to go in his kennel but we have someone come every day to let him out for a play and potty mid day. It has definitely been an adjustment having a dog, I mean we're pretty spotaneous and get up and go so we've had to adjust a little but we love him to pieces.

Then I got a promotion at work. There was a position that opened up and I didn't even think about applying for it since there was alot more senior people above me for the job. The job posting dropped off the system, and I knew some people at my work had applied for the job. Then a week later i was called into my boss' office and they offered me the job. I was in shock, but definitely flattered that they thought that much of me. I wasn't supposed to start the new job until March 5th and I was supposed to partner with the person who was already in the job. But, he up and quit last thursday. So i've been thrown into this job without any training and just winging it. Needless to say it's been pretty stressful. On the plus side I now have an office with a window! moving up in the world.
I am also going to be working part time for Murray's new business. He's just started up a spraying business and I will be doing all his paperwork for him. I'm excited for that too. Bring in a little extra cash, and help me diversify my resume from just banking.

On the training front, Ben is planning on doing the Sinister 7 (a 150 km run through the mountains) cause he is crazy, I on the other hand was planning on doing maybe a half ironman or marathon. But, I have decided that I need a break. My body really took a beating last year training for the Ironman, and I think I am just burnt out. I also need to get my hips/knees/feet/back in order. So I signed up for the 5 peaks race series which is 5 trail races throughout the summer from 10 k to the last one being a half marathon. I thought it would just be a fun way to stay active but not go to crazy. It has been kind of nice not training. Running without my watch to seeing if i'm on pace, relaxing if I just don't feel like going to the gym, ahhhh :). I'm also excited to do alot more camping/backpacking this year. We love it, but with training last year we didn't have any time. So Ben's race is the first weekend in July and then we'll be free to do what ever after.

We're also headed back to Ontario may! I have never met ben's father or his grandma (his only remaining grandparent) so I'm pretty excited to meet them. We're also excited to meet out little nephews Owen and Elliot. It will be a quick trip and we have alot of family to cram into the 5 days that we're there but it will be fun. I have made ben promise to take me to niagra falls since I have never seen it.

We're also planning a 10 day road trip for our aniversary in September. We have always wanted to drive down the oregon coast. And since a beach vacation isn't really in the budget this year, we're going to go exploring. We're hoping we make it all the way to California (and maybe I can convince ben to go to disney land :)). It's just going to be us, our car, and our tent for 10 days. It'll be fun. If you have any must see places along the way definitely let us know!

Ben and I keep laughing about how 1 year ago we never would have thought we would be at this moment. I mean we weren't even engaged yet! Like the quote above we like to cram a whole lot of living into our years.

Well that's all for now. I promise I will try and write at least once a week.

2011... the year of progress

I think it will be hard to top our 2011. Seriously, it has been a year of big changes. If someone were to tell me last new years eve how awesome this coming year would be I probably would have put in the effort and stayed up until midnight to ring it in; instead of passing out with Ben at 10:30 pm.

In fact, we have done 9 life changing things this year starting with getting engaged in March, then moving back to Calgary in June and Ben starting a new career, then competing in and finishing the Ironman in August, followed by our amazing wedding and honeymoon in September, the day after getting back from our honeymoon I started a new career… and just because we didn’t think that was enough for the year we bought a house, and I got my mutual fund license. WOW. It has been a good one. I have no idea how 2012 plans on topping this past year, but it is starting big with us moving on January 12th! woot!

Alright, I know I have no been the best blogger as of late, however I do have an excuse: Life has been busy! I promise I will get back to talk about my wedding, which was amazingly perfect by the way, but I just wanted to take a minute and update my life.

The big news.. We bought a house! Yep. We sure did! It happened pretty quickly. We had been planning on purchasing a house in June 2012 some time. However, we just got really excited and started looking at houses online. We knew we wanted to live in Cochrane (10 minutes outside Calgary) where we can get the small town living as well as the big city jobs. It’s also a perk that my mom lives there. So on our way out to my mom’s cabin for thanks giving we decided to stop and look at some listings. At this point we were thinking a townhouse or something of the sort. Well, we didn’t really like what we saw and headed back on to the highway. Only to find ourselves veering off the highway into a new development with brand new houses. We wandered into a show home, where this totally awesome sales guy got talking to us. We found out we could in fact buy a house sooner than June! Every excuse we came up with he could fix. "Oure lease isn't up until June".... "we'll pay for the lease break penalty;" "We don't have the whole down payment until December".... "you can pay half now, and we can push the move in date until January and pay the other half then." Plus they were in the last stage of this development and wanted to get rid of these houses so they were taking money off the purchase price, and throwing all sorts of perks our way. So we looked at a few places, and found the PERFECT place. Like seriously perfect. We didn’t want to jump into anything, so on our way back from my moms cabin we spent the day looking at more places but our minds kept going back to one in particular. And BAM not even a week later we were in the process of being approved for a mortgage and buying a house! We move January 12th! I can hardly believe it. So after christmas and new years we'll be packing up and moving.. again! for the 3rd time in 2 years! But this time.. for good!

So now we’ve been excitedly furniture shopping for our new place and needless to say Ben is very excited for our new 51 inch plasma TV that we got for half price; and my mother in law should be very excited for the new bed that we bought for the spare room; so that when they come to visit they don’t have to sleep on an inflatable in the living room. The universe just seems to be liking us these days.

Actually, my brother was so excited about the idea of buying a new house, he and his girlfriend just bought a new house for their little family. It’s being built and they’ll be moving in the summer! All these exciting changes on the horizon for our family.