Well, still in Mexico for another week and I am already sad that I am going home. One of the best things about this trip has been meeting more and more new friends. We have actually had a couple of dinner parties and some long nights of playing Dominoes. I think the more time we spend down here the larger our social network will grow.
Pretty much every day I have been going for a walk or a run. The interesting thing about that is all the animals that I get to meet each time. For example, there are the coati which I refer to as a Mexican raccoon. It has a striped tail and a kind of mask but that is really where the similarity ends. They are actually long, thin and brown in colour. I do however, tend to give them the same amount of distance that I do with our raccoons. There is also the sereque which looks like a large Mexican rat but doesn’t have a tail. I haven’t seen the capybara yet but it apparently kind of resembles a small, furry Mexican pig. On other trips we have also seen monkeys but no luck with that one this trip.
But there are also many cats and dogs in our complex. Now even the pet cats here don’t seem to be all that friendly (except my neighbour’s cat Tigger). You can tell the pet cats from the feral cats because the pets tend to wear collars and look like they have eaten in the last week. I do note that the number of feral cats in the complex is getting small probably because of all the development. It seems like just about everyone here has at least one dog (we met a couple that have 5) and I enjoy meeting them when out and about. One in particular is this adorable black terrier whose owner let’s it run in our park. This dog is so friendly if it sees you it immediately drops to the ground and rolls over for a tummy rub.
In addition to seeing so many animals, it is just wonderful to be able to spend as much time in the fresh air as possible. We only need the weather to be decent and we are out on the back deck or poolside soaking it all in. Some of the neighbours who live here year round have found the past several days cold but seriously, it’s been in the low 20’s which of course for us is perfectly balmy for January.
So yeah, I am not looking forward to heading home in a week and giving up my outdoor time for the next few months.
For those of you who do not follow me on FaceBook, there was no way I was posting on Tuesday. It was my birthday and the game plan was lunch with a couple of our neighbours here in Playa del Carmen. That somehow led to drinks at a craft beer bar and then a bit of a get together in our condo. What I originally thought would be a couple hours together turned into a full 8.5 hour shift. Don’t get me wrong, it was an absolutely amazing day.
One of the things we have learned about being here in Mexico is that if you find something you like, buy a bunch of it because you may not find it again. For example, for New Year’s Eve I bought a bottle of sparkling Pinot Grigio. Now that is my favourite wine so it was perfect to bring in the new year. The problem was I then could not find it again and one of my neighbours really wanted to try it. Finally, yesterday I found it again so bought 4 bottles. The said neighbour is coming over tomorrow night for us to sample it.
One of the other things we had previously found down her but became allusive is sugar free syrup. I do like pancakes but without syrup I am relegated to using sugar free jam which quite frankly is not the same. But yesterday we hit the jackpot and found that syrup so bought 2 bottles which will last us for quite a while. This also means that our Sunday breakfast will be pancakes.
I have to admit in Mexico they have far more sugar free (sin azucar) products than what we see at home. Yesterday’s find was ice cream. We got some Neapolitan as well as some chocolate. Unlike at home, it was the same price as regular ice cream. Seriously, this is not something I eat often but it was awesome to have some today.
Ultimately we have learned, if you see it and you like it just buy as many as you can.
Yet another beautiful day in paradise. Today we are getting ready to host our first dinner party at the condo. Over the past year in particular we have made some great friends down here and I thought it was time to start doing something a step up from going out for dinner which is what we normally do with them. Fortunately I brought down my new Instant Pot so will be doing a rotisserie style chicken which is super easy and turns out awesome. Trust me, I’d rather socialize than cook.
I’m pretty proud of myself this week. As I mentioned before I tend to get lazy when I am here because it is like being on vacation. By that I am making comparison to my usual life of being retired. But you get down here and it is just so easy to kick back and relax by the pool with a cold beer. I am firm on doing more than that this time and I certainly have been successful this week. I have put in 6 days of either walking or running and making my goal for minimum steps each day (note one day I was about 1,000 steps short so walked throughout the condo until I had made those up). I have not slept in a single day and quite frankly I am proud of myself.
So what is different this time? I think part of it is I brought some work with me and have spent several days this past week working for a client. Don’t get me wrong, I am still doing pool and patio time but the mornings I have put aside for a workout and then at least 3 hours of work. On top of that yesterday I did my usual Friday morning phone calls to isolated seniors (it helps that our landline here allows for unlimited calls to Canada). Because of keeping to my usual home routine it helped me to keep to my minimum workout routine. The good news is that I have enough work to do to keep at this most of the next 2 weeks though I may take a day off next week due to some birthday celebrating that I will be doing.
Keeping my routine has also allowed me to remember to post my blog on the regular days which I hadn’t anticipated. Having said that, there will not be a blog on Tuesday because that is my birthday and we have some plans with our friends that will take up most of the day. Now, it is patio time!
It is yet another beautiful day here in Playa del Carmen. Sadly I have spent several hours both yesterday and today doing some work. I committed to doing at least an average of 15 hours each week that I am here in order to avoid being overwhelmed completing year end in February for my clients. I try do do as much as I can in the morning to save some pool and deck time for the afternoon.
The last time we came down to the condo I did not do very well at keeping up my workouts. One of the reasons was I had hurt my ankle and that meant running was out of the question and for a few days I couldn’t even do a good walk. But as time went on I didn’t pick things back up and by the last 10 days or so of the trip I didn’t really do anything. Seriously, I could have at least gotten in an hour of biking every day but I admit it got quite comfortable relaxing. This time however, I vowed it would be different.
So how is it going this time? I knew last week would be a challenge so made sure to get some workouts in the beginning of the week before we left home. Since we did a redeye flight I knew there was no way when we got here Thursday afternoon that I would get in a workout (trust me by that time of the day it is simply too hot to do a good walk or run). I also knew that Friday would be a challenge as that was the day for all the shopping and sorting out the condo. Knowing all of this I decided that I would simply forego workouts until this week but I am determined to stick with it this time regardless of what we have going on.
Monday to get myself into the game I did a really good power walk first thing in the morning. Tuesday and Wednesday I managed to do more running each day than I have in months and really it felt pretty good. I will note though that by time I am back in the condo I am already dripping with sweat because it is already warm and humid. My legs let me know yesterday that they had been worked hard so today I did another power walk. I might do the same again tomorrow depending on how I feel but I am determined to get in at least one more run this week.
I know there is a trick to all of this and that is getting up when the alarm goes off. Here I let myself sleep in until 6am so that I can be out walking/running by 7:15am. This is about an hour later than at home but there I can workout in the garage while here it is still quite dark until about 7:00am. I realized that the last trip I kept turning off the alarm and sleeping later so by time I got up the excuse was it wall already too warm. Not this time, no matter how comfy I am in that bed I force myself to get up and start moving.
Obviously so far this is working and I have managed 4 consecutive days. I’ve still got 3 weeks or 18 days of workouts to do (remember I don’t workout on Sundays) and writing this today is something I can look back on to strengthen my determination if I feel like slipping. Bottom line, not on this trip.
We made it to Mexico! Yes it was a long trip and quite frankly we did not do what we should have to recover from taking a redeye flight but still we are doing well. We arrived here last Thursday and were fortunate to have our friends meet us at the airport. However, this is where the recovery plan fell apart. We should have unpacked and then gone for an early dinner allowing us to get some sleep but no, we had to go socialize with the neighbours resulting in a late dinner (thankfully our favourite restaurant was able to deliver) and thus getting to bed far later than planned.
We do have a routine here at the condo. Day one always involves going shopping. We tend to purchase enough meat/poultry to keep us stocked for a couple weeks though we learned the hard way that you want to freeze anything you are not using by the next day. We then cook up a whole chicken because it gives us several meals over the coming week. Of course this time we were up against the clock a little simply because of arriving so close the New Years Eve which meant having to prepare some food to take to the party. However, we pulled it all off and had an awesome time bringing in the new year with a bunch of new friends.
With the shopping, set up, socializing, etc, it meant the first few days that we have been here no workouts were done. That is ok, I knew coming down here I was going to have to give myself a few days to get settled in. Of course all of that ended yesterday when I got up early and went for a long walk. Today I was again up early and did an hour of interval training. It’s always harder working out down here because of the heat and humidity but I am bound and determined that for the rest of our stay here I will get in at least 6 days of training. Yes, I am determined to get my running back to doing 10k’s (it really won’t take long to get there as despite not running as much I still have kept myself pretty fit). And, my husband has agreed to coming for a walk with me every night.
The bottom line is I hope to avoid letting the beautiful weather and great friends distract me from keeping to my agenda. Here’s hoping we stick to the avoiding eating out combined with daily workouts so I keep on my journey.
After a week off yesterday I was ready to hit the treadmill again. I knew that the garage was a far more tolerable temperature and I wanted to use my lovely gym so I could watch Netflix. However, there was quite a big storm that came through last night an into the morning so as I was just finishing up my breakfast the power went out briefly. Hmm, time to rethink using the treadmill. This is not because I didn’t want to but rather the fear that the power would go out again I would end up on my ass after the treadmill does an abrupt stop. Not to worry, I took the opportunity later in the morning to get in an hour of walking outside and it was quite refreshing.
Late tomorrow night we leave for our condo in Playa del Carmen and after the weather over the past week or so we can’t wait. As we are spending more time at the condo now we keep finding things that we want to have in the condo. For example this trip we are taking an Instant Pot. We can’t find one down there at a reasonable price but saw one up here at a Black Friday sale for incredibly cheap. Since I like to do easy, healthy meals at the condo this appliance is a must.
The other thing I have done is purchased several duplicate items that I feel are needed to keep me on track while away. The really important one is a 2nd Fitbit charger. I am always nervous I will either leave it at home or leave it at the condo when we return. Seriously, I no longer function without that Fitbit so it would be very stressful for me if I forgot the charger. The other is a new set of my running earbuds. I have really come to appreciate these as they stay snuggly in my ears when I am on a run. As much as I like my Airpods, they sometimes seem to pop out especially when I am sprinting. Much like my Fitbit charger my fear is I will leave the running earbuds either at home or the condo. Now I have a pair in each place so it becomes far more simple.
Though we don’t leave for a while yet, we are all packed and set to go. At some point there will be very little difference between being home or down south. Actually that is the way we had always hoped it would be.
As I am traveling Thursday (we are doing the red eye tomorrow so don’t actually get to the condo until Thursday afternoon) and it is New Years Eve on Saturday, my next blog won’t be until Jan 3rd.
Happy New Year everyone!
Today was my day to get my Christmas baking done. I was out by 7am to do grocery shopping (for the event Christmas Eve) and by 8:30am I was working on the first batch of cookies. Now, I have completed giant ginger cookies, short bread, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and Christmas bark (the last 2 are low sugar items). While it was a lot of work now I can just do some tidying tomorrow and not be freaking out about time running out.
Late yesterday afternoon I did my walk with Keeva. I was actually dreading it a bit for a couple of reason, first the bitter cold and secondly I was afraid of what the walkways would look like. The street where Keeva lives had been scraped but because of all the snow from the plows there was little accessible on street parking meaning I had to park at the mall which is about a block away. As I walked to Keeva’s building I realized I was right about the walkways, they were not in great shape. To be clear, the requirement is that they be ‘cleared’ but there is a pretty murky definition of what that looks like. In this area absolutely they had been scraped and shoveled but not enough salt or deicer had been put down leaving areas that were very icy and slippery. Not good when there are lots of seniors and people with mobility issues that live in the area. Even worse, I picked up my brother at a little strip mall and while they had cleared some of the parking lot (not well) the sidewalk out front where there are bus stops had been left untouched. I trailed behind an elderly gentleman struggling to use his walker in that parking lot and thought come on people, we can do better than this.
Here is the difference around our home. My husband went out Tuesday morning and used the snowblower to clear all of the sidewalks in our neighbourhood. This would amount to a good 1/2 block of clearing. He then laid down a heavy layer of salt and special melting salt. This was all done by 8am before people started walking on it even though the local bylaw says you have until 10am to do it. The result? Well, there is zero ice and snow in our driveway, walkway or on the sidewalk. This is a pretty good accomplishment given that we had more than a foot of snow overnight. Yes, that much work may be going the extra mile but it is so worth it to keep everyone in our neighbourhood safe and we know that it was appreciated.
It is too bad that not everyone is willing to put in this much effort. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the fact that there are people who are physically not able to clear their sidewalks (there are some in our neighbourhood) which is why my husband does so much work at it. What I don’t understand is condo complexes or businesses who don’t bother to properly clear walkways or to do them at all. It is not just a requirement by law, it is a responsibility and the right thing to do. So, do the right thing, keep access to walkways clear for everyone and if you know of someone who needs help doing this, do it for them. Going the extra mile needs to be the norm, not the exception.
On a lighter note, walking Keeva yesterday was hysterical. I expected her to do her doggy snow angels (which she did) but the funny part was her literally sticking her entire face into the snow and then looking at me with such delight. This was not a one time thing, she did it numerous times during our walk. It almost made up for the freezing temperature.
Finally, I will not be posting on Saturday due to the holidays so I wish all of you the very best of the season.
Yesterday I did the usual get up early, have my breakfast and tea, read the paper and head down to the new gym to do my workout. I lasted about 3 seconds before coming back into the house. It was bloody freezing in the garage! Ok, I thought, this is a good day to take a little break. Little did I know it was about to get so much worse.
We knew snow was coming as they have been telling us for over a week. As the days passed they started saying things like artic cold and substantial precipitation. Hmm, they don’t usually get it right so when they were saying up to 15 cm (6 inches) I was pretty sure that we might see about 1/2 of that. WRONG!!!!! Instead we got 30 cm (a foot of snow) and it was cold, I mean really cold. As you can imagine, no workout again today (unless you include the amount of time I spent removing the snow from my truck which I had no intention of driving anywhere today).
So, what did we do to survive Snowmageddon 2022? First for those of you who don’t live in the Metro Vancouver area let me put this in perspective. We really don’t get a lot of snow here. As a matter of fact I think the last time we had this much slow was in 2008. It has pretty much shut down our airport, canceled numerous ferry routes and in several cities taken out the transit system. No, we don’t do this kind of weather well.
But you know what, there are things we do to just get through this. For example, my husband was out at around 6:30am this morning with the snowblower. He made sure the sidewalks on our end of the street were completely clear as well as several of the driveways. Despite not planning to leave the house I cleared off my truck and then finished my brother’s (while he had ventured out he did not clear the snow from the roof of his truck and to me that is a major safety issue). Because it is cold and ugly out I spent hours today decorating a gingerbread house for our Christmas Eve event. I am also about to take a nice bottle of wine over to our neighbour’s because she works at the airport and I am sure is having a really bad day. I was also fortunate that another volunteer who lives across from Keeva, the dog that I walk, was more than willing to cover my shifts until the roads clear up. Basically, we just hunker down and are waiting for the rain to start on Friday.
I’ve decided I am just going to have to live with the fact there will not really be workouts this week. Tomorrow I have no intention of even checking the temperature in my gym because they say with the windchill it will be -22C (7.6 below in Fahrenheit) so I think I will just put on my favourite jammies and slipper socks and drink tea.
Ok, our annual dinner party with the cousin’s family is tomorrow so today we were doing some housecleaning. The problem I have learned is the men in this household have a different standard of cleanliness than I do. This has resulted in me giving up and just going back and redoing their work. Funny, they then don’t get why I am cranky.
My husband has been determined to turn our garage into a gym. I told him it wasn’t necessary as just having an area for the treadmill is enough for me. However, over the past couple months he has really started transforming things. It started with a general clean up and getting rid of unnecessary things. From there he started organizing including things like hanging our bikes on the wall so there would be more room. He then set up a storage container for all my workout stuff like weights, runners, cloths etc. An area in the garage was then taped off so that no one could store anything there leaving me with lots of room. It was really starting to take shape.
As you recall I recently added a recumbent bike to my workout equipment. That seemed to make my husband more determined to provide me with an actual gym. His latest surprise was hanging an extra tv on the wall so that I didn’t have to try watching things on an iPad while I work out. The tv was then equipped with a Roku device so that I would have access to all my streaming channels. My treadmill and bike were slightly rearranged so I could look directly at the tv. His next step will be to anchor the resistant bands so that I can do more strength training.
Seriously, the treadmill and ipad worked for me. Well, that was before I got this new setup. Talk about working out in the garage and feeling like I am in an actual gym. Yes, this year we have spent some money on new equipment but really, the payback compared to joining a gym is probably about a year and the benefit is I don’t have to be self conscious of having people see me work out. Thanks Babe for going over and above to support my journey.
All right, in less than a week I have gotten myself all caught up on Christmas preparations. Not only did I finish my shopping as I reported on Tuesday but yesterday I managed to get it all wrapped. Now I just have to do grocery shopping but of course that is not for another week. It is a nice feeling that now I can just sit back and watch Christmas movies.
Yesterday was the weekly coffee with the gang. Of course I had gotten up early (which is usual) and done my first workout. It was quite chilly out but I decided I would still run to the coffee shop and then home afterwards. It’s a short little run, only about 15 minutes each way but it still gets me out in the fresh air. Of course since it was hovering around zero I put on my winter running clothes and off I went. Now I will admit that even with my ‘magic’ gloves on my hands were freezing by time I got there though once I got to running the rest of me felt ok. However, I didn’t even think about paying attention to the fact that we are experiencing winter weather.
The run to the coffee shop goes up a bit of an incline and I have to go through several intersections along the way. What became apparent very quickly is not a lot of people had salted their sidewalks. Now this wasn’t too bad while running on the concrete, I soon realized the painted lines at the intersections were extremely slippery. The fist one I stepped on I practically took a tumble. I decided I had to take some extra precautions so I made sure to be veery cognizant of where my feet were landing and avoided anything that I felt might be slick. I had hoped that it would warm up a few degrees before I headed home but it really didn’t so I was just as cautious on the way back as well.
It all got me to thinking that with the next cold snap coming in next week with potential snow it is time to be mindful of winter weather. My family is very good about making sure our walkways and sidewalks are clear (ok, that is really a must when you live with someone that has a prosthetic leg) and that we lay down a lot of salt to help with melting. We also ensure that our vehicles are completely free of frost and snow before driving them. These simple steps not only keep us safe but also others who may be using our sidewalks or driving on the road with us (my pet peeve is people not completely clearing off their vehicles and then a big sheet of snow and ice comes flying off their roof at you).
Just be mindful of winter weather and keep yourselves and those around you safe.
gwennefarrell 