Bzzzz

Plan Bee was definitely an interesting book especially if you like bees. It is basically a book all about the facts of bees, honey and beekeeping. If you are interested in becoming a beekeper this book would be very useful, unfortunately that is not my calling in life. I did learn a lot about it and I will see bees in a different way from now on, but I think I am ready for another type of book so the next one on my list to read is A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemmingway it is his biography.

I have finished Camilla as my summer reading program progresses. I am down 2 and 23 to go. Camilla was an interesting story about a 15 year old girl living in Manhattan New York in the 1950's. She is learning a lot in this year about her family and love and the world around her. She had to mature quite quickly to deal with everything around her and yet she is still a child.

My next book is Plan Bee by Susan Brackney, after picking it up from the library I realized right away that this may be a tougher read for me as it is not a novel but more of a book about honeybees and bees in general. Hopefully I can learn a bit about these busy little creatures.

It didn't take me long to finish my first book of the summer. I finished it last night and I have already picked up,thanks to the library, my next choice to start tonight. Camilla by Madeleine L'Engle. I am not sure what this one is about but will try to be as excited to read it as I was with the last one.

Yes, My Darling Daughter was a very captivating book and kept me wanting more. Although at one point I thought I may have read too much too late in the night as I ended up dreaming about it and couldn't get back to sleep. It is quite an intense book full of mystery and wondering what will happen next. It seemed very real like watching some of the CSI episodes.

Summer Book Reading

I have decided to take Oprah up on her summer book club, she has a list of 25 books that she says you can't put down so I thought that it is a good start for me. I am trying to get most of them from the library but since summer has started today I went to Chapters to get my first read. I am starting with Yes, My Darling Daughter by Margaret Leroy. I will be going to New Brunswick for a week in July so I am hoping to get a lot of reading done driving there and in the early mornings before we head off for the day. My goal is to at least get through 1 book a week and see how that goes.

Boston Bound

I am on my way to the Boston Marathon with a qualifying time of 3:39:44. This will be my first time to Boston and I am looking forward to it all. I trained hard since January to go and now it is a reality. Someone I trained with also qualified and I am so happy for her too she worked hard and was very determined to get there.

To hear more about how this all came to be check out my other blog here.

I do have to thank my running group for putting up with me and dealing with my competitive nature. I know they are happy for me too and I am so lucky to be able to run with them all.

A Sad Day

TSN'S MAGGIE THE MONKEY TO RETIRE AFTER 2009 NHL PLAYOFFS

http://watch.tsn.ca/nhl/clip159423#clip159423

TSN regrettably confirmed today that world-renowned post-season prognosticator Maggie the Monkey will officially retire after making her picks for the 2008-09 NHL Playoffs.

Maggie will make her first-round playoff picks during the NHL ON TSN PLAYOFF PREVIEW SPECIAL on Tuesday, April 14 at 9pm et/6pm pt. Throughout the network's NHL playoff coverage, TSN will look back at Maggie's stellar career and her on-again, off-again, relationship with NHL ON TSN host James Duthie.

"This is an emotional day and really an end of an era," said Duthie. "Sure, we've had our ups and downs, but Maggie helped put this network, and the NHL, on the world stage. We plan to send her off in style, so if anyone has a great recipe for a goodbye banana cake – we'd love to have it."

Maggie the Monkey, a crab-eating macaque from the Bowmanvile Zoo, gained international fame in 2003 as a guest analyst on TSN's NHL Playoff coverage with her ‘highly scientific' method of predicting NHL winners by spinning a wheel. Maggie boldly - and correctly - predicted the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim would make it to the 2003 Stanley Cup Final® by beating favoured Detroit, Dallas and Minnesota.

Overall, Maggie the Monkey's playoff prediction record is an impressive 40-35. Maggie's best year was 2006 when she finished first out of a panel of TSN hockey experts including Bob McKenzie and Pierre McGuire. The one blemish on Maggie's broadcasting career – is that she has never correctly picked the Stanley Cup® final winner. She plans to go out on top and improve her record with her 2009 Stanley Cup® winner prediction this year.

Taken from tsn.ca

New Job

My new job has been going well, I am a much happier person and stress free. Sure the drive is longer but it is definitely worth it in the end and I do not have to deal with traffic as I am now out in the west end. I can easily get to my running group after work because it is on the way home.

I have 2 little ones, one is almost a year old girl and the other is 2 1/2 year old boy and they have quite a busy schedule. I go to 2 music classes in the week and 2 playgroups then I have Friday to do what I think they would like to do. Grandad also comes by once a week to take the little boy out and spend some time with him at the different museums and galleries. He really looks forward to his time with his Grandad. Now that the weather is nicer we get out to the park outside their front door on a regular basis.

This is definitely a good fit and I look forward to going to work again.

Google Reader

I was informed of this great website http://www.google.com/reader. It allows you to type in the sites/blogs that you visit frequently all in one place and then you can go to this site to see if /when anyone has updated their blog. It helps save you time, instead of going to each separate blog on your own and finding nothing new, you can go to this one and view them all.

You will need to sign in and set up a profile but think of all the time you can save while still enjoying all the great things to read. I think you should try it out and don't forget to add my 2 blogs to it.

http://boston42km.blogspot.com
http://stephgordon.blogspot.com

Confessions of a Shopaholic

I just finished reading this book. It was a nice light read nothing overly exciting but an easy read. It is about a woman (Rebecca Bloomwood) who works at a financial magazine, yet has a hard time keeping her own finances under control. Basically, she just loves to shop too much.

I know that the movie is out in theatres now but I don't think I will be one of those going to see it.

My next big book is Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, it is about 817 pages so I am not exactly sure how long it will take to finish. I figured that if I can read this book I can possibly read anything.

These past 2 weeks I was out of commission at work as I have decided to change families. However, I was asked to supply in a daycare centre. Yeah money!!! It was quite a different experience for me as I am used to one or two children at a time and working 10 hour days. At this place I worked with about 8 preschoolers and there were also about 5 kindergarten children. These children are very busy and when they first told me their names about 4 of them told me it was Spiderman, some were the red one and the others the black one. The ratio was about 4 boys to 1 girl, so there was a lot of Spiderman action going on.

The weeks went by quite fast and I was happy to help them out. They seemed happy with me too and were sad to see me go on, who knows maybe I'll be back full time one day.

Changes

I am making a few changes with my blog. I will no longer be blogging on here about my running, instead I have decided to start a new blog dedicated to just running and my progress. For those of you interested in that part of my life feel free to visit me and comment at http://boston42km.blogspot.com .

I will keep up with this blog as well but leave it more to my thoughts in other areas and my day to day things like books I am reading or have read and other such things.

I haven't been keeping up with my running routine as much I should be. I know it is early on and I shouldn't be skipping runs already but it seems whenever I am suppose to do my run we get another 20cm of snow, plus we had our bus strike so it would take me a long time to get home or to run club (sometimes too long that I miss run club). Running outside on my own is not really safe either and the treadmill is broken. Although now I don't have much of an excuse to miss because I am off work for 3 weeks.

I gave my notice to my family in mid January giving them about 2 months to find a new caregiver (how nice of me eh?). They decided that 2 weeks was sufficient time and so now I am off earlier than I expected and a little tighter on money too. I believe that it will be worth it in the end. The new family heard about it and offered for me to start about 2 weeks earlier (so nice) so now I am just stuck with 3 weeks instead of 5.

This weeknd is going to be a nice treat, as my aunt is coming up from NJ and we are planning to get together and maybe take in the Art Gallery and eat Beavertails along the canal, plus it will be the first weekend of Winterlude. I am looking forward to it.

Reading "The Reader"

So it has been just over a week and I have finished yet another book, The Reader by Bernhard Schlink. Quite amazing for me, but I wanted to finish it sooner than later in case I liked it and wanted to see the movie. I found it to be interesting, yet depressing about a young boy who began a relationship with an older woman and read to her many books until one day she disappeared. He later (years later) ran into her when she was on trial for a very serious crime. I will leave it at that so I don't give too much of it away. I am not sure about seeing the movie I may wait until it comes on DVD, but Kate Winslet did win a Golden Globe for her part in it.

On another note, my Marathon clinic started on Tuesday night and so far so good. I know, I know I haven't gotten to the hard parts yet but I feel pretty good about this one and I am sure no matter what happens it will help me on my road to getting to Boston. We learned that over the course of the clinic we would have run the equivalency of running from here (Ottawa) to Toronto AND back. That is before running the actual race! So I still have a lot to do since at this point I have only run 22km.

I'm Back.....Finally

Yes it is true, I am back and hopefully will be back for a while now. I have been quite busy over the past while with Christmas and New Years and making changes with work. I have been reading lots but I haven't posted anything. So here I am.

I just finished this lovely book The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. It takes place in 1946 in London and in the little Island of Guernsey which is located in the English Channel near Normandy. An author from London befriends a group from Guernsey who lived through the Occupation. It is not like other fictional books but letters sent back and forth telling their story. It was a nice change from some of the other books I have read.

Other things happening this New Year is next week I will beginning my training for my next Marathon. It is being held here in Ottawa and I am also going to be a group leader with the Running Room which will give me more motivation to get out and run. Although hopefully it won't be as cold as it is today -36 with the windchill!! Not exactly what I call fun. I hope to finish the race with a time of 3:50:00. Yes that is 3 hours, almost 4 hours of straight running. Anyone want to join me? I didn't think so. I am also considering running the NY Marathon in November but it is hard/expensive for a Canadian to get there. So I am trying my luck in the lottery and if they choose my name then it is a go. Cross your fingers for me.

The Rideau Canal opened on New Years Day and has been opened since then. I work near there so I have walked along it with the young one, the smell of the Beavertails keeps me coming back, I don't always eat one though. I also went for a skate but I may have to wait a bit before I do that again.

Vive Le Montreal

I planned a trip away this past weekend to get out of Ottawa for a while, Montreal was the city of choice. One reason being because I haven't really visited there in a long time and the other being it is only a 2 hour drive. It was such a cold day but the sun was suppose to shine most of the day. I was able to get away from the Ottawa Santa Parade, but noticed when I got to Montreal the over abundance of children with their parents lined up along Saint Catherine Street. Apparently I didn't miss the Santa Claus Parade after all, I just got the french version. I did find that the Montreal Parade was much more entertaining than the one back home.

I tried to use my french while there but it seemed like everyone knew I wasn't really from there and so switched to english for me, although in one spot their english was as good as my french so I didn't feel too bad. I did meet quite a funny sales guy in one of the shops explaining to me how he knew and I tried to defend myself but english was used in the end.

After some lunch I strolled through McGill's campus, the buildings are so beautiful. I would definitely want to visit here again but on a warmer day so I can enjoy it more. All in all it was a good day.

We Are All The Same

I have just finished this book by Jim Wooten and it was definitely an eye opener as to how life is so different in other parts of the world. It is about a young boy, Nkosi, who came to this world infected with AIDS. He is from a place in South Africa which was known as Zululand, his mother had the HIV virus and when she was impregnated passed the disease to him. He was only supposed to live a few years but because of all the love given that was given to him he became a role model to others living with this disease.

This book also talks about the history of South Africa and how the government helped or rather didn't help this boy or the other millions of infected people, but rather ignored the issue. It really touched me and made me truly thankful that I am living in a place with such freedom, love and help. I do hope that there will be a lot more positive changes for the people in Africa and that the government understands the full meaning of it all.

Barbara

I have just finished reading this wonderful book. It is a memoir of Barbara Walters. It showed how she began, some of her personal life and the many many interesting people she met/interviewed. I enjoyed watching 20/20 and learning more about these interviews she did was like a sequel to the show. She has come so far and is still going far with the many tasks she is accomplishing even now.

What I enjoyed the most was the chapter on The View, all the different roads they took in finding the right combination for their panel today. I don't always get to watch the show because of my job but when I do I am not usually disappointed. It is like a calmer kind of debate than the political ones.

Definitely a book I was looking forward to reading and was not disappointed.

Toronto Waterfront Marathon

Last Sunday I ran my first Marathon, that's right all 42.1km of it. I met up with a friend of mine that I have been training with and we decided to run together as much as we could. I didn't want to hold her back if she was having a good run and I wasn't. We started off well in the big crowd of people, for some reason they wanted the half marathon and full marathon runners to start together which was very busy and difficult to maintain a pace as we were dodging around some of them. I felt good and took all my 10 and 1's religiously, for those that don't know what that is, it is running for 10 minutes then walking for 1 minute.

My first 10km was right on track for my pace. I continued to feel strong and run through it all. When we reached the halfway mark things got more serious for me as some of the runners were finishing and I could focus more on the other 21km I had left. At that point I noticed that I had lost track of my friend and so I carried on alone. Because the race had a lot of turn around marks I was able to cheer on the leading man and the leading woman as they went past me and eventually found my friend.

At about the 40km mark I noticed my calf starting to cramp up but remembered there were only 2 km left and so I pressed on ignoring the pain. It didn't take long to forget about it because the adrenalin kicked in and it was so nice and helpful hearing the crowd cheering me on. I felt strong right to the end and pushed it right over the finish line. No hitting the wall for me.

My gun time was 4:01:07

And my chip time was 3:57:40

I came in 37 out of 154 in my age/sex category and 891 out of 2532 over all.

I guess I am bound for Boston one of these days. My next marathon won't be until May 2009.

One and a Half

In a week and a half I will be heading down to Toronto to run my first ever (and hopefully not my only) Full Marathon. I had run a Half Marathon (21.1 km) back in May and had a good time finishing it so I thought the next thing to do was train for a Full (42km). The only problem was that there was no time to recuperate after one race before training for the next. I guess I didn't have to choose this Marathon as Toronto has another one mid October, but I liked the idea that the Waterfront Race was quoted as being "flat, fast and festive". I wanted a good experience for this first one so that I would be willing to try it out again and one day get qualified for Boston (one day).

The training through the summer was tough especially with all the humidity we had this year, but I made it through and learned a lot about my body and what gels worked. I was also busy this summer with Ultimate Frisbee which is a nice change from the constant pounding of my poor feet. My summer Frisbee team had a pretty good season in that during the playoffs we won the second tier. Now the fall season has begun and we now play 2 nights a week, which means that along with all my running and the increased distances/speeds/hills I don't really get much of a break. Plus when I play Ultimate I don't just go and have a good time but I am also very competitive and want to make the plays so I have fallen on my knee a few times the past week (but hey, I caught the disk), I now have a few bruises there but not too much pain right now. I will be playing in 2 more games before heading to Toronto so maybe I should go a little easier on myself (if possible).

I do have to say that after all the work I have been doing I will definitely be glad when this race is over and I can just go and run with no plans and schedules. I will let you all know how well I do after the race, but since it is my first and I am just wanting to finish the race I do still have a time to finish in mind (between 4h and 4h30min).

Wish me luck

WICKED

I was so happy to get to go see this Broadway at the NAC. It was very good considering I didn't really know what it was about. I knew enough like that it involved the Wicked Witch of the West and how she became so "wicked". I tried reading the book before going but couldn't really get through the first few chapters.

The music was good and catchy (I will probably get the CD soon) and the costumes were amazing, especially this one that ressembled a pom pom. It was a nice break during a very busy day and much needed.

I moved out of my place the next day and into another the day after that. We had such great helpers too, we could not have packed a truck any better ourselves even if we tried. We kept wondering if all our stuff would actually fit. Our motto ended up being "Don't worry about the chairs".

Moving in had a few hiccups as we were supposed to have the keys and the elevators at 9am, although when we showed up there was no one there and there was no number for us to call either, I started to worry since I had to get the truck back by 4 that afternoon. It turned out the lady had to take a bus and forgot about the holiday hours. Then she couldn't find our keys and so had the super let us in so we could start to unload and hey look there on the counter were all of our keys. After that everything went really smoothly and we had everything out of the truck in about 2 hours. We had great help for the move in too and we appreciated all that they have done for us.

Thank you