Excellent workout this morning

Well, I met up with my weekly workout partner down the beach this morning, and, as planned, took the kickshield, focus mitts & gloves (and a towel). Neither of us are feeling particularly fit c/v wise at the moment due to several factors....and there was no hard sand to speak of, so our workout this morning consisted of:
Warmup walk in soft sand
Jog in soft sand
Punch/focus mitt work
Punch & kick work
Soft sand jog
Ab crunch with two punches, then return
Soft sand jog
Punch & kick work
Soft sand jog
more ab work
more soft sand
then just kickwork with the shield,
finishing off with a soft sand jog.
*yawn*
this was all after I'd taken Ms Rosa for her quick round the blocker
Was a great workout though.

you have to laugh.. or am I just evil?

Now, I have to preface this with... I do not buy New Idea... it just appears free each week on my desk, courtesy of our media agency.
Anyhow... even though I have complete disdain for it, I can't help but look at it... after all, it's good to check out what Guy Leech is rabbiting on about each week to see if there are any pearls of wisdom..
But I digress.
It's pretty funny when you see photos of people that are in the news today, back when they were a lot younger. Then you start to compare the facial changes [doesn't everyone, or am I just a freak?] - and I don't mean the normal ageing facial changes, I mean the under the scalpel facial changes.
Erica Baxter - well, Erica Packer - believe it or not, she once had a nose - I'm not sure you could call what she has now a nose, it's more like a michael jackson pretend stick on thing that really is just nostrils.
Kylie.... whoa...did you know Kylie's eyebrows once used to sit just above her eyes... now she's permanently surprised. I read on the back of the SMH on the weekend that people are likening her to Joan Rivers...

saw this link

on Skwigg's blog...and if you've never read skwigg's blog go and do it right now.. no. NOW.
anyhow, it was a link from her blog which is SO worth borrowing
http://againfaster.squarespace.com/articles/you-are-beautiful.html

Two workouts in a row! Could it be?

Is it that my life is resembling a little more normality? well, I won't get too excited, but it's starting to resume normality... apart from having to go to dog training tonight instead of Kickboxing...but I am going to take my gloves, focus mitts, kick shield down to the beach tomorrow for my beach workout with my friend. That should get us exhausted..!
So I actually managed another Afterburn workout this morning - again 2 sets only, not 3 - if I had gotten up at 5.15am instead I may have been able to fit the extra set in after the dog walk.

It's so nice and warm outside today, it seems such a waste of a day to be stuck in the office today, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do... hopefully the warmth might hang around for the weekend since it's a nice long weekend ahead. Then the following two weekends are long for me as well - since we are picking up baby Keith next weekend, I have taken the week off to help settle them both together, and the following Monday is our work's 'picnic' day - so three long weekends in a row for me... Yay :-)

Reasons why not to go surfing in the middle of the day...

Well, only one reason... husband emailed me yesterday after 'sneaking' out for a morning surf.
Unfortunately he took his old old ancient old mal which weighs about 40kg due to being so old and waterlogged... did I say it was old?
Anyhow... he misjudged a wave and ended up with a broken nose.
Was a little worried about being way out in the middle of a reef with blood pouring out of his nose..
Crazy kid!

Onwards and upwards

Well, last night I went back to the dog training club as the Sports Dog Club was training there and that's where my trainer goes with her dogs. I just wanted to go and have Rosa in a nice stress free environment, no hassle, get her to focus on me, and just get it all happy and nice again. Mission accomplished.

A trainer did ask me if the poodle had been 'broken' I said..No, not a mark or anything on it... she then said my dog was a good dog because her dog would surely have punctured the thing for being so rude and in her dog's face. I felt a bit better after that!

I have been doing so much reading on dog training methods, clicker training, socialisation, aggression etc... my head's spinning, but I feel better equipped now.

We went for a walk this morning and she was excellent. I then managed a full Afterburn workout (just 2 sets through though not 3)...and finished with more attempts at hula hooping.... got a few good ones in then went like a nong again...
The things you took for granted as a kid hey?!

Hula hoops

I forgot to ask... how hard is hula hooping?!?!?!

Yes, I bought a hula hoop the other day as I passed them in K Mart. It has water in it. I swear the water makes it incredibly so much harder.
Either that or I am a complete nong at hula hooping.
The dog isn't sure what to make of it yet either.

Dog training and Poodles with attitude...

Well, dog training on Saturday morning proved to be interesting...and offered more setbacks than solutions.
Rosa proved to happily play with puppies that were around her size - and not fluffy, however, did appear to be growly towards fluffy things that yapped at her. One in particular, was a toy poodle called Mia.
Mia just yapped incessantly and got in Rosa's face.
Time came when we all had to pat each other's dogs and introduce them to each other. Mia yapped in Rosa's face and Rosa snarled and lunged.
Then some wise decision was made by the instructors that now as a good time to go to the offleash area. I kept saying, Rosa is going to eat Mia. Seemed to fall on deaf ears. What would I know? They are the 'experts' after all.
Anyhow, all dogs were off leash and happily introducing themselves. Rosa made the mistake of introducing herself to an onleash dog who was being re-socialised. All was fine, then she must have pushed the boundaries of his comfort and he lunged/barked/growled towards her. Being a staffy, she won't back down from a fight - she didn't do anything, just lots of awful noise and snarly looks. We pulled her away, and then Mia got in her face. She pinned Mia down by the throat. Hmmmm. No damage. Only to Rosa - who was bleeding from the chin.
The trainer said, Oh, she's just got her in the classic trying to get her submissive pose. By this stage I was feeling very uncomfortable. Then they said, okay everyone off leash again - Mia the poodle was still in her Mum's arms. Rosa hopped up and grabbed Mia down and had her pinned again. Obviously hadn't felt that she had finished making that thing submissive. A toy poodle is no match for a staffy though.
The trainers then had the gall to say, oh , this has never happened before.
Now I have to try and determine what it is about fluffy yappy things that causes her to go nasty, and try and work through that....
I spoke to my dog trainer last night and told her, and she said that she couldn't believe the stupidity of letting first time mature dogs off leash....
doesn't help my issue now though... especially with our puppy coming in two weeks.

..and back to blonde

Well, a trip to the hairdresser last night resulted in me returning to blonde after being brunette for several months. It's perhaps a little 'too' blonde, but ... what the heck. Change is as good as a holiday - and my hair is sooooo short that it'll be gone in a couple of weeks!!
Dinner last night didn't end up being a stir fry... I had dear husband mince up the chicken breasts with the good ole' meat cleaver, and I made up the chilli chicken recipe from Survival of the Fittest - it's basically just chicken breast mince stir fried in the wok with garlic, ginger, then you add in some sweet chilli sauce and fish sauce, and I usually add in a dash of lime as well.
Serve 'san choy bau' style in lettuce leaves and you have a pretty good meal! I did have a dark chocolate lindt ball with my green tea after though, and a glass of red wine...
tssk tssk.

Went down the beach with the little girl again this morning, she's so funny. Really gets fixated on birds and wants to hunt them down. Should be interesting when I get her up to the horse property and see how she goes with all the wild ducks in the dam.... could be funny...or disastrous.

This weekend is set to be another busy one - off to dog training tomorrow morning, hopefully start horse back in work - lungeing only - until he builds up some muscle, take temps to ensure no flu symptoms. Then maybe more house painting..

Planning on getting back to kickboxing next week....I am sure I will die...

Almost a full workout this morning!

Aaah, things are looking up - went for the poochy walk this morning, then recommenced week 5 of Afterburn - got about 2/3 of the workout done in between the throwing of the ball.
Had to forego my Thursday morning beach workout session with my workout partner though - wasn't sure that my lungs would work enough to run that much - and still trying to get rid of this cough.
Thank god for Codral with pseudoephedrine..

Food today is :
1: 2 cottage cheese pancakes with sugar free maple syrup, nat peanut butter and blueberries
2: Musashi SLM bar - just discovered these whilst in Sydney on my course - and haven't made any of my Precision Nutrition 'poo' bars for a while so these had to suffice!! Will have to make some more of those tonight though.
3: Chicken breast with greek salad
4: Greek yoghurt with blueberries and handful raw nuts
5: Stir fry chicken and veges

Lots of water & 2 cups of green tea.

The Road to Recovery...

Well, I managed to sleep the majority of the night last night - woke up about midnight coughing again and started to stress out as I thought it was going to be yet another night like the last...but then the 2nd nighttime Codral kicked in and stopped me. I didn't wake up until the alarm went off just before 6am... bliss.
My lungs and abs are so sore from all the coughing though! What a workout.

Took the girl down to the beach for a walk this morning, and as we got down to the beach I spotted a loose dog walking with his owner in the distance - next thing I knew he was bolting towards us - I thought, oh well, this will be an interesting test. She just stood there watching, whilst i just said, good girl (feeble..I know)... then they happily said hello to each other - luckily he was a german shorthaired pointer - all wagging tail and not much going on up top... so it was a good experience for her, so she got a nice treat for being so good.
Onwards and upwards.
She seriously loves the beach though.
My husband calls her piglet, because she looks and sounds like one (cute). I think she looks more like Yoda...
But we are loving having a dog that sleeps through thunder and fireworks... our house still bears the scars of Suki's scratching at doors. I guess we can hopefully fix those now - unless Keith comes with phobias...hopefully not.
Off to see pony tonight - we are now in a 10km radius of EI - which isn't good. This thing has just spread like wildfire, and doesn't show any real signs of abating as yet. So far my horse's temp has remained normal, no spikes, so fingers crossed we may be okay..but I somehow doubt it.

Lurgy No. 5

Okay, I am really over all of this illness that I have so far succumbed to this 'season'. I spent all night last night attempting to cough my lungs up (or whatever's left of them now after all these flu and cold viruses).

Still, having time to contemplate life and the universe it has given me much needed time to reflect on having completely lost focus with where I was headed business wise prior to going on holiday - which then ended up in a whirlwind of emotion following the loss of Suki, horse injury no. 5, etc..
So, now that we have young Rosa (or Tamsin Starburst as I prefer to call her) getting settled in, she's going to be attempting agility training come next Monday night - that should be fun - wonder who'll have more fun? me or her?!And then in a couple of weeks we'll have the young rambunctious Ridgeback, Keith coming along - hopefully they will get on okay - it's time to be able to refocus a little back on moi. So, as soon as my lurgy has finished I need to get back into my workouts which have been too easy in the past two weeks - not enough focus on kickboxing or weights, then I can call a couple of gyms to see where / when I can complete my 20 hours practical component.
Oh...when I was up with my horse the other day, one of the other ladies who has a horse on agistment has just signed up for 10 weeks with the Commando....http://www.commandosteve.com/ - $900 . I asked if she'd watched the Biggest Loser and she said No... I just said I hope you enjoy punishment..! I shall report her progress.

Full on day!

Well, it was up at 4.45am this morning to take little pooch for walk - had to be in Sydney for an 8.15am start at a two day presentation skills workshop.
Definitely not for the fainthearted this workshop, but excellent to get tools to enable you to feel a lot more confident about presenting in front of groups.
One of the things I would like to do when building my PT business would be to give talks to groups of business women at networking functions - hence my enthusiasm to do this course... Generally I would prefer to have teeth pulled then present in front of a group. But I am not alone!
Said Pooch decided that the 800g lump of chicken breast that was defrosting on the bench was far too tempting to just leave be...
She is now sleeping off her excesses ;-)
You just have to laugh and hope that they don't eat far too much for their poor little stomachs!!! Yes, I am totally in love with this little girl.

It's almost like the before & after shots...

Someone had her first experience of the beach this morning. She bristled at the sight of a charred piece of wood as she wasn't quite sure what it was - but she figured she better get her hackles up and stay well clear just in case... until I walked over to it and patted it, then she realised it was okay.

The sand was fun - but the water was scary!

Here she is enjoying the sun - the heater's not on, just holding her up.

It's Monday and I'm exhausted....

Well, I think we packed as much as we possibly could into our weekend. First up was a night with friends on Friday night, and we stayed overnight and headed out from there to go and visit young Keith, who is now 4 weeks old and mobile, gorgeous and growing rapidly.

Then we went over to Staffy Rescue and met and picked up Rosa, our new addition to the family.

She had baptism by fire in relation to meeting her 'extended family' ie, our friends who all came over at various times of the weekend to meet her. Some of our close friends decided to bring her a gift of a squeaky Pumba toy. Unfortunately, they forgot it is their daughter's 1st birthday in a week's time... revenge is sweet. She might become 'little drummer girl' }-) - but I digress.

Rosa was described as being an outdoor dog who only came indoors if/when invited... the way she reacts to the indoors you may be forgiven they got that all round the wrong way! Because our friends stayed on the Saturday night, Rosa got to sleep in her basket next to my bed...however, she kept trying to sneak up on the bed during the night (which is a no-no for my husband!!), so we kept telling her to get in her basket.. which she did, and she remained there for a few hours, then tried again! It's hard to be stern when you're giggling because you have this cute staffy snuffling you during the night. Not to mention her snoring. At one stage i thought it was my husband and was thinking about poking him in the ribs, then I realised it was her!!!

Then come Sunday we had more visitors to see Rosa - and last night we attempted to move Rosa's basket to the laundry, so we had more nocturnal visits during the night. But... when I got up she was in her basket, and stayed there until I popped my head in and said hello. Then it was all waggy tails and snufflings.

This morning I took her out for a walk, then we played chasey in the backyard - then I tried to do some of my workout in between more chase the ball.

I have four weeks to get Rosa settled in and some obedience training and socialisation training before we introduce Keith the gorgeous ridgeback puppy to her. (Blame my husband on the Keith thing...) Hopefully it will go well and she won't attempt to eat him....

Myer in Wollongong show a complete lack of wisdom....

Ha! Well, I just went in to Wollongong at lunchtime, thought I'd pop in to the perfume counter at Myer to see if I could try some new perfume. I've been using the same perfume, Fragile by Jean Paul Gaultier for a couple of years now and thought I'd like to 'trial' some others with a view to purchasing my new perfume.
Well, if you want to do that in Myer Wollongong, it's pretty difficult unless you know exactly what perfumes you want to try. Why? They are all behind the counter, so you have to ask the assistant to try each one. How goddamn ridiculous.
Buying perfume is an experience. You have to experience the smells before you know what you want to actually put on your skin - especially when such a huge proportion of them I just don't like! Anyhow, I expressed my indignation and said I'd go elsewhere.
At least in David Jones, you can try what you like at your own leisure. So I purchased my new perfume, Chance by Chanel. Yummo!

Workouts and stuff..

This morning went down to the beach where it just happened to be howling a gale! The beach was littered with a mixture of blue bottles (North Easterly!) and cuttlefish. One that had washed up honestly looked like a hand - until you got a bit closer and realised what it was. Eeuw.

Anyway, we got through our jog and sprint sessions - just in a very wind blown way.

My legs were really fatigued throughout though - probably due to the gruelling sessions I had the previous two days - the workouts in weeks 5-8 are fairly heavy on the legs! Squat jumps with a barbell are not for the faint of heart at all. Last night I also did a kickboxing class, which was equally punishing, just in a different way.

Two more sleeps until we get our staffy. Then the house will feel like a home again. Yes, I'm excited.

What a weekend.

Well, since we are picking up our new addition to the family on Saturday, we had to work double time to get our new fencing & gates built....
I spent Saturday applying timber decking oil to the timber slats, and painting the metal posts (back breaking stuff). It will look fabulous, but is only about half way finished after all that time.

I also decided that I best give the dog kennel (it looks like a mini house complete with bullnosed verandah) a spring clean also - since it hadn't really seen any doggy activity for quite some time - the dogs had moved to sleeping indoors due to having old dog privileges.
What a dusty/cobwebby job that was!! eeeuwww. I had to keep emerging to breathe & sneeze.
Still, all better and cleaned out in readiness for the new children when they eventually want to use it. Just need to go out and buy some new large cushions to fill it with and then it will be snuffle heaven again.

The horse's leg is looking decidedly good and healing nicely... I have a feeling his retirement may not happen just yet ...but let's not speak too soon. Still no flu emerging around our properties. Although there has been an outbreak in Picton, about a 15 minute drive away, so we'll see if the wind carries it over our way or not. Fingers crossed it doesn't. Someone at work foolishly asked me what the big deal was - I said, you've seen the size of a horse's nose haven't you? Can you imagine the size of the snot globs? That stopped 'em! Hehe.

Since my c/v fitness has suffered a little I decided that a good beach workout session was in order this morning. It's lovely having the sun starting to rise at 6ish again - so much more pleasant than darkness! So, I did a light walk, then jog warmup, then just did about 12 x 60 m sprints, and did a longer fast run. Tonight I should be able to go to kickboxing for the first time in a week - can't wait!!

I will start my week 5 Afterburn workout tomorrow morning.
I think when our girl arrives next week will see me heading down the beach with her for my workouts, and I'll just have to reshuffle the Afterburn workouts in amongst those somehow.