Tuesday 12 July 2011

Proof of the pudding...


...is making the food that your sick relative craves...but resisting the urge to try a spoonful.

I guess this is an easier choice to make today than it will be in a couple of weeks, but I'm proud I've stuck to my guns.

Day 1 done!

So how did it go?

Last night, I got a cool plan on Jogging for Beginners from Bob and I tempted myself with a few IPhone apps to track:-
- my route
- distance
- calorie burn
And one of these genius apps launched the Ipod on my phone as soon as i hit GO and chose the Classical music playlist so i jogged to Beethoven's Fidelio and Mascagni's L'Amico Fritz. Very surreal jogging music although now i love Opera, I never came close once to changing to rock or indie.
The jog/walk/stroll was a lot of fun as i was overtaken by more serious joggers in the park and then had to pick up a pack of cold ham on the way home for tonight's food. Thank god i am not doing this to lose any weight.
On Friday, I will jog to the pub and then jog back (how British)- a nice little goal to aim for as i surprised myself with 3k distance today!
A C+ start i think!

High Hopes

I must admit that I have been a bit busy/lazy today. I only did 20 minutes of photography instead of 30 as promised. I will from now on concentrate on one composition and take as many shots as possible and choose my favourite one out of them. This was taken from my leaving room window. I waited 15 minutes for the sun to make its apparition and here we are. This one is called 'High Hopes'.

the daily swim 1

It was 6.45 and I was making a plum/soy/ginger marinade for a duck breast when I remembered my promise. It's too late now. It's overcast. And when I get to the sea: it looks a little cloudy, there could be jellyfish in there. But I go in and when I'm 20 yards out (where I can still put my feet on the seabed if I need to) I laugh out loud.

A plane descends towards Nice airport. A little girl does a cartwheel on the shore. The tall masts of the yachts anchored in the bay swing like slow metronomes.

I am swimming. And I am looking and really seeing things. This one conscious action is spilling over.

Day 1 - The Garden

Hi Everyone!

Mission accomplished day one!  =)

This is a picture of my vegetable and weed garden.  I've been wanting to take one for a while, and now that I have, I see why I haven't.  Hopefully my photography skills will improve by the end of this challenge.

In the front is a strawberry and weed patch.  Behind it is the vegetable and weed patch.  (I guess you've figured out by now that it's been a while since I did any weeding.)  I'm growing broccoli, red bell peppers, yellow bell peppers, roma, early girl, and cherry tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, cabbage, cucumber, zucchini, more yellow squash than is reasonable, and of course weeds.  Oh, and in containers I have carrots and green beans, but you can't see those in the picture.

You've likely noticed the rather sad and depleted looking tomato plant on the right.  It's dying a slow, painful death.  For a reason I don't know the stalk is petrifying from the bottom up.  I've left it because there are a few rather small tomatoes on it, and today I saw they were beginning to turn red.  I'll yank it and toss it on the compost pile after I harvest the tomatoes.  Makes me sad though. 

Ok, more than you wanted to know, I'm sure.  Hope everyone is doing well on their challenges!  Looking forward to reading all about it.

-- kathi

Just under the wire, but I'm in! I rushed in to sit and be quiet. For the next 30 days I plan on meditating for at least 10 minutes/day. It's something I've thought about for years (!). I have books, DVDs, and numerous blogs on my Google reader to attest to this fact. Now to begin.

the daily swim

I love to watch the sea, walk beside it, run along it, whatever the weather or time of year. I was born next to the sea in south Wales. I could see it from my bedroom window, could hear it as I fell asleep. The beach was where we played as kids but in the 20 years I lived there I never learned to swim and grew up, probably 'learned' from my mother, with a fear of water.

In my twenties I got to grips with basic swimming techniques and some years after that, when I was living in Kent, I spent a harrowing 8 weeks in a local swimming baths forcing myself to do mushroom floats (a full scale panic attack and running crying to the changing rooms at the first attempt) to try and get over my fear of being underwater. And I've come a long, long way from someone who couldn't even let the shower run over her face!

So why, since living 300 yards from the Mediterranean for the past 3 years, can I count the number of times I've gone for a swim on one and a half hands? Okay, I have been preoccupied with renovating a 4 storey villa during this time... but that's an excuse and not a reason.

A couple of reasons are likely:
  1. The old fear is still lurking in corners and it flips me away from thinking about it, comes up with obstacles, reasons why not to, suggestions of other things to do.
  2. I can't be assed.
But from today I will be assed, for at least 30 days. And there are no excuses. It's 28 degrees and blue sky and likely to stay that way for the next 2 months. I have guests for nearly the whole of this time who will want to go to the beach. Easy peasy.

Okay, there might be a few little obstacles to negotiate: the beach packed to its scuppers as le monde and his femme arrive on the Cote d'Azur towards the end of the month; the little jellyfish that make regular appearances in our bay; and rather more regular attention will need to be paid to the bikini line. But I am promising myself that I will do this.

Starting today.

El primer día. ¡Comenzamos!

Estoy muy entusiasmado con este proyecto. Primero, porque quiero practicar mi español. Pero más de que, porque hay tantas personas qui estan lo hecho conmigo (¡con nosotros!). Gracias a todos, y buena suerte a cada uno de ustedes.

Yo tuve la idea de la semana pasada, cuando me mostró el video a uno de mis estudiantes. Quise hacer algo nuevo para 30 dias — ¿pero que? Luego, hace dos noches, yo estaba hablando con mis vecinos y nos decidimos a hacer que suceda. Hice este blog durante de una copa de vino (nos encanta neustro vino en Charles Square), y "30 Days" fue llevado. Dos días más tarde, estamos en marcha. ¡Fantástico!

No estoy seguro de lo que voy a escribir, pero estoy muy seguro que voy a cometer muchisimos errores. ;-) Si habla español, por favor, me corrija.

Estoy estudiando español en el trabajo. Es una de las ventajas de trabajar en una escuela de idiomas. Me pregunto si mi maestra, Lupe, se quiere comprobar mi trabajo? Jeje. Mi nivel es pre-intermeditate. ¿Quién sabe lo que será en 30 días? Creo que voy a ser mejores amigos, con mi diccionario (y Google Translate), si no otra cosa. Espero no tener que depender de ellos tanto el próximo mes.

Yo les digo a mis estudiantes que si quieren aprender Inglés mejor, que necesitan para escribir más. Creo que es hora de practicar lo que predico.

Eso es todo por ahora. No puedo esperar a ver lo que hace todo el mundo aquí. ¡Buen viaje!

Day 2 Mitzi G Burger By the Sea

I used the time difference to get a head start on my 30 days, which started on July 11, yesterday.

Yesterday I met the ocean as it pours into Botany Bay, which was especially a relief after a recent inland road trip, and feeling a little land-locked.  


Facing eastward, a view of the distant ocean through the heads.

Sparkly morning sun, enthusiastically shining to the point of blindness. Another reminder of why you can't leave the house without sunglasses in Sydney. The mighty metropolis in the background. It's a 20 minute train ride north, or a 15-25 minute drive, depending on traffic.

I walked for about 40 minutes. Lots of respectable nodding and saying "morning" to strangers.

How Many Times...

...do we relearn old lessons...try to break bad habits...learn new habits...

yet, still, we always seem to be able to have to do it again. so, yes, at the tender age of mumblety-four, i will take up this challenge and do something good for myself. cyberdryad did a great job of cataloging a bunch and others have good ones as well. while i'd like to be able to lay claim to something amazing ("pick up trash on a mile of road a day") or unique ("learn a different national anthem each day") or both ("discover a new insect species"), i feel it best to pick something more mundane (given that it is Monday here) and choose the "read an actual book for 30 minutes a day". well, that's what i'll report to. i may try and do another couple things as well (like that 'clean and organize' thing), but won't report out.

there's a new 30 days next month...i can keep going...

thanks for the invite and good luck to all.

GnuKid