Winter

I love winter. To me it's just so romantic. There is just something about snow falling outside, and being snuggled up inside wrapped in blankets with a good book sitting in front of a log fire. But reality is completely different.

This year which is a first for me I'm so done with the the snow and ice and can't wait for it to be spring again. After wrecking my car early in December, I'm not  confident in driving in the conditions right now, but still need to get to work. So still have to drive no matter what.

Also I miss running and can't wait to get back out there. I know people run all year in all kinds of weather but I worry about kidlet stuck in the stroller, so running doesn't happen really in the winter months which does suck.

More variety

So this blog is about me and my intrests and my every day life. It's about the things that I get up to on what I feel is my boring life.

Take today for example. 11 hour shift at work. Had kidlet the whole time. Kid let did great but I'm so glad to be home. I love running and I'm studying Wicca. I count myself as Wiccan but like I've said before I'm still learning.  I plan to talk more about my Wicca when I get a chance, however right now I'm looking at how fat I am and how I need to be healthier, as is common with most New Years.

I am planning a few more Wicca related posts over the next few days. So watch this space for them.

Group 42

I used to belong to, well actually I still belong to a group on Facebook that my one of my friends started. It's called group 42 because of the possible points you can get every week. It's a weight lose group but it's more for encouragement then anything else.

The reason I'm talking about it is because I'm thinking of starting up again. As in counting my points each week and recording them on here. How it works is every day you can get a point for each of the following,  getting 8 hours of sleep each night, drinking your 8 glasses of water each day, not eating sugar ( as in not eating candy, chocolate and cakes), exercise, staying within your calorie allowance each day and lastly not eating after 7pm.

The basic idea is that if you follow each of these everyday you should in turn start to lose weight, and also be leading a healthier lifestyle.I liked doing this when the whole group was doing it and even restarted it with a couple of people after everyone had stopped after a few months.  I'm going to think about it's for the rest of the week and let you know if I decide to start this up again. This is just a simple way to motivate me. And posting my weekly totals and any weight lose on my blog might be enough to keep me going as I then have the accountably.This week I'm working with my jawbone. But this in addition to the jawbone would be a really good idea.

What do you guys think?

Fitness and diet.

If any of you know me before I had my kid I was big like huge. I was 225lb. After giving birth I lost a ton of weight and dropped down to 156lb at my smallest. However over the past year I have managed to gain half of the weight back and I'm now currently around 180lb ish depends on the day.

I never managed to reach my weight lose goal which was to be 145lb. I was nearly there. So with the new year and with hubby making some lifestyle changes I am going to get to my goal weight. Maybe not this year but I will get there. I'm going to do my best this year.

Hubby got me a jawbone up. Only had it about 24 hours right now. But so far I like it. It helps keep me active with the idle reminder and tracks to make sure I'm getting enough sleep. Also I can track my diet to make sure that stays on track. And the best thing I don't even know that I'm wearing it until it vibrates. So for me so far an all round plus.

Let's see how it goes. I need to start running again. But it snowed again today. Looking to buy a treadmill. I will get one day.

My first Wiccan ritual

So on New Year's Eve I did my first Wiccan ritual. I did a new beginnings ritual to see in the new year on a positive note. 

As this was my first ritual and I was nervous to make sure it went well I followed a basic idea from Patti Wiginton who is the wonderful author of paganwiccan.about.com. I love her articles as they are so informative and suitable for every level. I changed the ritual to work with what I wanted to do and changed the wording around but the basic structure came from Patti. I was also still sick so wasn't really able to completely write my own ritual. 

So this is what I did. For this ritual I used. Incense, a black candle, a green candle, paper, pen and a fireproof bowl or cauldron. So firstly I double checked that I had everything that I would need for the ritual. Once I knew I had everything in place I grounded myself by meditating. Once I was ready to start I lit my incense. Now this time I used vanilla incense. I only did this because I find the smell relaxing. But in the future I will try to use incense more designed for the purpose of my ritual. I may post what the different incenses are for at a later date.

I then lit the black candle and watched the flame for a while. While watching the flame I thought about all the negative things that had happened over the past year. I also thought about the negative traits that I have that I want to get rid of and any things that I felt had held me back this year. I wrote all of these down on some paper then when ready I lit the paper in fire with the flame of the black candle. I placed the paper in the fireproof bowl so that it could completely burn. While it was burning I said the following on repeat until the paper had stopped burning. " you are my past I send you away, far away from me, you will no longer hold me back, I banish you, you are banished."

Once the paper was completely burnt. I extinguished the black candle and lit the green candle.  This
time as I watched the flame I thought about all the things I want to achieve this year. All the ways I
can be a better person and tried to set some goals to work on. I wrote all these down on some paper. I then lit the paper using the flame of the green candle. As this piece of paper burnt I said " now is the time for change, time to be a better person, time to be true to myself.  I am strong secure and confident. I am asking for assistance and guidance from the universe to help this year. To help me be who I want to be to help me with my goals. I send my goals put there in this fire and smoke. I know I can be better. "

Once the paper had completely burnt in the fireproof bowl I meditated a little longer. When I was done I extinguished the green candle. I took the bowl of ashes outside and let them scatter into the wind be outside in the universe.

Things that I will would do differently next time. I will cast a circle to help keep me protected while doing ritual work. I will also consecrate my candles, to ensure they are charged with my energy. And 
I would also ask a specific god and goddess for help instead of the universe. The only reason I didn't do that this time is because I'm still researching with god and goddess I'm most connected to. 

So there you have it.

11 hour shift

I'm working on a few lengthy in detail post which I plan to post over the next few days. Today please beat with me on the small not very interesting post.

I'm stuck at work for 11 hours and I'm training so its hard to really type a post.

Yes you heard I'm training, which means I hired. Will see how it goes with the new person.

Hats hats hats

This is a very bad selfie of my wearing one of the hats that I have made.

I'm wondering what people thing about  them. Do you like them? How would you feel about receiving one as a gift? Like I've said before I can get at least 2 out of each ball of yarn and so I'm getting a little collection of ones that I won't use. I don't think I could sell them.  I'm not the best crocheter in the world. But I'm thinking of giving them as gifts what do you think. 

Bucket list.

Last new year I set up my bucket list. A list of things that I wanted to do or achieve before I died. Not that I'm planning on dying anytime soon. Some things on the list were easy and some things I don't know if I will ever achieve but I will try.

So far I have 81 things on my list. I would love to make it an even 100,  but still trying to think of last 20 or so. In the year 2013 I managed to cross off  7 items from my original 81.  I wonder how many I cross off this year. Some are on going like read all the books on my book list. Well as my book list is 5 pages long it will take some time. Same with my watch all the movies on my movie list. That again is a long list and will take some time to finish. Probably doesn't help that I keep adding to both of these lists. Others involve trips around the country and around the world. I'll travel one day. Always wanted to travel and will get to it sometime. Been a dream of mine to travel. I just haven't been able to do so yet.

The items on my list that I managed to cross off were run a half marathon. I did this on September 14th. My time was 2 hours 19 minutes and 07 seconds. This is a little way off my ultimate time goal but I don't think to bad for my first half. And I only started running June 2012.

Another item crossed off the list was to crochet something to wear. Now I have been knitting fora. Few years and have made several items. I learned to crochet as well but for some reason I always had problems understanding crochet patterns. So I set myself the goal of following a pattern and making something to wear. I completed my first hat on September 24th. And haven't stopped making them since.

Being Wiccan I have a love for the earth and trying to grow plants and flowers. My problem is I don't have a green thumb at all. In the past whenever I have tried to grow something it always dies no matter how hard I try. Well with a little help from my very green fingered Mother in Law I managed to have a small vegetable patch over the summer.  It wasn't big but we had quite a good harvest. I planted some peas. A cherry tomato plant a big boy tomato plant and a bell pepper. The only pepper that I got fell off while I was out of town for a weekend over the summer. The peas where delicious. The big boy tomato plant gave a small harvest, but was drowned out by the cherry tomato plant. Which for some reason became the biggest tomato plant I had ever seen, and according to my Mother in Law the biggest she had ever seen. We got a ton of tomatoes off that one plant alone.

Some of the simple things on my bucket list are just to try different kinds of foods. One of them was eggs Benedict. Tried that liked them would eat them again.

I love food and I love great food so it's no surprise that I have want to eat at some of the worlds most famous chefs restaurants. I would love to eat at a Gordan Ramsay restaurant, a Jamie Oliver restaurant and a Bobby Flay restaurant. All of these are on my list. But I was lucky enough to eat at Bobby Flay's Meza Grill in Las Vegas.  The food was amazing. Totally have to go again. Also while on the same trip to Las Vegas I saw my first real music concert. I got to see The Who live in concert. Loved it one of the best days of my life. The whole experience was phenomenal.

Unfortunately this year with sickness in hours over all of the holiday season we were unable to go to the family thanksgiving meal. So this allowed me to cross off make an entire thanksgiving meal from scratch off my list.

So it leaves me wondering this year. What will I cross off this year???