April Challenge - Day 5: Running with others = motivation!

So with the run less than 24 days away, we've started a running group at work. Today's showing was just myself and Hayley, but all in all, a great run from the office to Queen's Park and then three loops around the park and back to the office. All in all, 5k in about 30 min.

Running after work was exhilarating - great way to relax and I went back to the office, ate my dinner and did some work. I felt so accomplished afterwards.

I am sure we'll run every Wednesday - even after Sporting Life run is over.

March Challenge - Day 5: Finally caught up with a morbid topic: Obits

Phew, I'm back on track with my posts. Damn, reading and writing is hard (twirls blond lock of hair).

I never quite understood why papers had the obituary sections - I often wondered, who the fuck would read this morbid shit. Seriously, you'd take your time to go through the section and voyeristically look through who died recently and see who's mourning their loss. An old fashioned Death Facebook.

MacLean's magazine gives their back cover story to a reader each week who sends in an obit for a friend or family member that has recently passed. These obits are more extensive, more thoughtful and have changed my mind about obits in general.

Not only are they well-written, the words bring the individual to life, even though they are dead. More elaborate than the 100 words or less 1/64 of a page obit in the god knows what fucking section of the newspaper, these full-page stories bring a 30 year old mother of two who recently died in a freak traffic accident in BC or a 18 year old teenage boy who died on a ski slope, or an 80 year old who lived a long and rewarding life.

Death is nothing foreign to me - I've seen four close family members pass, I've seen young people die for no reason - car crashes, suicides, cancer. But I've been mostly stoic when dealing with death - very rarely showing any grief or expressions. Which is probably why I never understood obituaries - they are expressions of grief from the living trying to memorialize their departed friend or family member.

Then I realized, I've been an obit writer myself! Last year, on the 10th year anniversary of my mom's passing, I wrote a tribute to her on a Facebook note. It was long, featured photos of her throughout her life, and my musings on how she would be like if she were around now. In a sense, it really helped me cope with my loss (even though its been 10 years, it's still incredibly painful to think about). Had I done it earlier, like these people have, perhaps it would have helped with my grief process more.

While I normally never pray, I certainly hope that I will not have to write an obit for any of my friends or family anytime in the near future. However, if that day comes, I look forward to using that as an outlet of my grief, which it seems so many do, to whatever audience that wants to read.

February Challenge: Day 5 - A night out drinking

A friend's birthday = a reason to drink like you're Charlie Sheen in relapse. Last night, I was at the Biermarkt for my friend Shannon's birthday. It was great since I got to see a lot of my old co-workers from TBWA.

Shannon was celebrating a milestone, a second 29th birthday, so what better way to do that than to drink our faces off? After 31 days of not drinking, my tolerance level for alcohol was low. I had two Steigls, one porn star and one orgasm shot, and I woke up this morning with a terrible headache.

Now, how does this night of drinking contribute to a month of healthy eating? It doesn't, it's more like a set back. The good news is that I didn't go grab any fast food afterwards. And really, two beers and two shots isn't that bad...right?

January Challenge - Day 5 The Martini Glass...of Ice Cream

Day 5 of my challenge and after a long (albeit a four day week) at work, I went to the Pilot (a bar at Yonge & Bloor) for drinks with the co-workers. And by drinks, I mean a coke - much to the chagrin of my co-workers. I mean, do they even serve non-alcoholic beverages at the Pilot? My real test of resisting the booze started around 6:30pm.

My friend Reema has returned from a three year stint in Shanghai. She now knows more mandarin than I do :D. We celebrated her return with dinner at Ki (sushi place), desserts at Bloor St. Diner and then Panorama restaurant. I know, I know, can we get any more pretentious?

I can't remember the last time I went out with friends and didn't have at least one beer or a glass of wine for dinner (has alcohol affected my memory that much?) A nice beverage with at least 7% alcohol content always accompanies

a meal out. You can imagine how tempting it was when everyone at the table was having a glass of wine, then there was a tempting pint of Sapporo (my favourite beer) and then girly drinks at Panorama.

So far, I'm holding steady. It wasn't that hard to resist drinking tonight. The gang was pretty good about not peer pressuring me or be mean about my cleanse. In the end, I did get something delivered in a martini glass to the table.

It was dessert - mango sorbet. Sigh...23 days to go.