Let me start out by giving a huge shout out to my race buddies, Ali and Jamie. What an awesome weekend of scheming and running!

For those who don't know, Around the Bay is the oldest road race in North America, and has been held every year in Hamilton since 1894. The full race is 30 km, but we each ran 1/3. I ran the 2nd (and shortest) leg, from the 10km mark to the 19.5km mark.

On Saturday evening, we all met in Burlington for some Thai food and for some pre-race scheming that continued on at my Grandma's house! You see, the typical relay runners have to meet at the start at 9:15 and take buses to their respective starting points where they just wait... How boring!



Instead, the Spatula Runners went to the starting line for a photo shoot. We also got to test my shoe pack to see if the chip registered while it was in there.

Go Spatula Runners! Photo courtesy of Running with Spatulas

We left Jamie in the throng of runners then walked to a spot on the route closest to Colin's parked car and waited for Jamie to run by. While we were there we saw the elite runners, who seemed to be sprinting, and Elvis!

I couldn't get over how fast they were running!

We found her! Photo courtesy of From Couch to Iron Woman

We then tried to drive to the relay exchange point, which proved to be a little bit difficult. Colin, Ali's hubby, did some amazing driving, but we still managed to get caught behind those crazy elite runners for a little bit. We got there with enough time for me to stand in the GIANT line-up for the port-o-potty's.

Jamie and I nearly missed each other at the exchange. We thought that there would be two sets of mats to record the relay times, so she was looking for one, and I was in the back of the pack stretching...

We got the chip and spatulas exchanged and I was on my way!


I started a bit too fast, as is typical for me in races. The first 3 km felt like they were dragging on and on and on. There were lots of nice people cheering, and some amazing people running and walking including:

...a helicopter

...3 people from Canadian Armed Forces and their packs

Seeing those things made me forget about carrying the spatulas!

The last 2/3 of my race went by much quicker. I had a few people ask me why I was carrying spatulas, so I told them about Ali's blog, and how we were there to 'spread the love'. One guy asked if they were in case anyone cut me off!

I was nervous I was going to drop my spatulas along the Burlington Lift Bridge. If I'd dropped them anywhere else they would have been easy to pick up. The Lift Bridge has an open deck, which means if I'd dropped them, they would have been in the bay... Good thing I held on tight!

Image courtesy of Running with Spatulas

That last hill got to me a little bit. All of my training has been in Toronto by the lake, which means very little elevation change. I walked a little bit, especially after my right knee started to hurt. It's normally my left knee that bothers me, I'm not quite sure what happened.   Thankfully this was at my 9 km mark, so I knew I only had 500m to go. Time to push through!

Photo courtesy of From Couch to Iron Woman

I saw Mike at the exchange point first - he was the lookout. He yelled at me to run to the right, so I immediately went left... Thankfully I managed to find the rest, get Ali the chip and spatulas, then she was on her way!

Photo courtesy of Running with Spatulas

 According to my watch, I'd run 9.5km in 1:05. Translated to a 10km race, my time would have been 1:08, still a personal best by 5 minutes! Makes me want to do a 'proper' 10k to get that made official!

I grabbed my food kit and water from the back of a van. Thankfully they had these vans rather than making us all wait until the end to get our race food. We walked to the car to drive back to Copps Colosseum. We managed to get into the same parking lot where we had started!

Jamie and I waited by the runner's entrance to Copps Colosseum, where we saw a disturbing number of people trip on the curb on the way in. Jamie spotted Ali first, so I sent a quick text to Colin and Mike to let them know she was on her way!

As a team, we finished in 3:12:41. Not too shabby!

Photo courtesy of Running with Spatulas

Please be sure to read Ali and Jamie's recaps as well. They also have much better pictures, taken with actual cameras. I only had my crappy blackberry camera with me.

My sister and her boyfriend had Leafs tickets, so I was puppy sitting my sister's dog, Bamf. What a great time!

First, we went for a run/walk to cherry beach, where he ran straight into the water! He stopped suddenly and slowly backed out of the water, and didn't go near it again. We played a little bit in the off-leash area of the beach and then ran/walked back home.



My roommate's dog, Kali, my other running trainer, and Bamf got along really well. I love how much they're both smiling in this photo.


They played the entire time he was here. She's a jack russell, and he's a boxer puppy, so the energy level in the house about quadrupled while they were together!



Then, for fun, my roommate and I went to the dog park where Kali and Bamf chased each other around, and played with the other dogs that were there too.

My sister said he fell aseep pretty much immediately after getting into the car.

Back in December, I came across the Kanelstrand blog Simple Living Challenge. The idea of living simply, sustainably, and consciously really spoke to me. So I took the pledge, which ran from February 1st to 22nd.

Little did I know how much was going to keep me from it during the actual challenge. R, my love, came to visit from February 10th to 21st, and as I alluded to in my last post, work has been absolutely insane since January, and will remain so for at least the next month. As tough as the work is, I feel like I'm actually accomplishing things with it and adding value for my clients. It also means I can bank time and therefore spend more time with R!

So with no further ado, let's get started! I'm not pledging to do one of these a day (it's taken me a week to sit down and write about just one!), but I pledge to do them fully.


The Steps of the challenges are:
Step 1: Embrace Your Imperfections
Step 2: Simple Living as Men's Trait
Step 3: The Rules of Simple Home Organization
Step 4: Simple Crafting for Happy People 
Step 5: Simple Scheduling and Planning Routines
Step 6: Spend More Time With the People You Love 
Step 7: Spend More Time Alone 
Step 8: Connect to Your Inner Self 
Step 9: How to De-Stress 
Step 10: Learn to Live With Less and Enjoy it
Step 11: Start a Debt-Free Life
Step 12: How to Overcome Consumerism
Step 13: Declutter Your Life 
Step 14: Get Rid of Toxic Cosmetics and Reclaim Your Natural Self 
Step 15: Wean Off Plastic 
Step 16: Celebrate Your Story  
The Final Step: Gratitude

February was really busy. At work my projects tripled. R visited for 11 glorious days. Which meant no blogging for me. No one wants to read a month worth of entries that say "I went to work, came home and went to bed."

But now it's March, there is a new addition to our team starting on Monday, and I am determined to get back to it!
Grow a garden on our porch
Our garden is still frozen solid, so this won't be happening for at least another month or two.

Read more novels
In February I read The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy), Water for Elephants, and the Pelee Project.
Learn (and practice) to cook well

Learn to speak Dutch
No real updates since my January update. I decided to sign up for a class, but the only one I could find is at the U of T and doesn't start until September. So I'm still researching.

Get rid of the junk in my bedroom and the garageI sent all of my remaining shoes and bags to the goodwill, and have started another pile to take soon.

Simplify my wardrobeAs I noted above, I've started another collection of clothes to take to goodwill or to sew into new things. I've got a lot of things that I noted this month that I rarely wear, which means more downsizing!

Finally get my Professional Engineer designationWork has been far to busy to do anything about this. As important as it is, billable work takes precedence!

Pay off my debtThe last two are pretty big fails for me this month. With R here, I spent more money than I usually do. We had a beautiful trip to Ottawa, and I feel like it was worth it. but now I'm back on a strict spending diet!

Track the waste that I produce each week/month
I don't know what happened with this. I was really good in January, and then I just stopped! I'm going to work at getting back into this again, because if I don't measure how much waste I produce, how am I ever going to reduce/eliminate it.  I did make my first homemade toothpaste today. I haven't tried it yet, but I'll post about it as soon as I know it's not terrible!

Seeing as it's now the 2nd of February, I figure it's time to take my first look back at my love list from the beginning of the year.

Read more novels
So far this year I've read The Girl who Played with Fire (of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy), Catching Fire (of the Hunger Games trilogy), and Sleeping Naked is Green. I've already started The Girl who kicked the Hornets Nest and am in line to read Mocking Jay to finish up my trilogies. My Aunt and I have done some book trading, so I also have three or four novels from her to read.

Learn (and practice) to cook well  
I made my mom's 'speckle' meat loaf, so called because there are lots and lots of carrots in it.  While it was a step in the right direction, I haven't done much else!

Learn to speak Dutch
I am now on lesson 30, the last one, of Pimsleur's Dutch. I`ve learned how to say `I love the Netherlands`(Ik hou van Nederland), and I want to stay in the Netherlands (Ik wil blijven in Nederland), neither of which my family will be too happy to hear, I suspect! I also learned `Nee, het is te duur`, which means No, it`s too expensive, an important thing to know in Dutch according to R

Get rid of the junk in my bedroom and the garage
I went through two boxes in my garage, and labelled them as garage sale. My parents are planning on having one in the spring, so I thought i might partake. Anything that doesn't get sold will go to a reuse store or on freecycle. Nothing I own is nice enough to put on consignment!

Simplify my wardrobe
Rather than reducing my wardrobe in January, I added... But I added thoughtfully and with purpose. I bought two v-neck sweaters whose arms go to my elbows (just like I like them), one black and one purple, and one light blue button down shirt with the same type of arms. If it had been cheaper, I would have bought the light purple one as well. I also got some new underwear to replace some old stuff that needs to be replaced. February will be for eliminating the parts of my wardrobe that I don`t need.

Finally get my Professional Engineer designation
Work has been chaotic, which is why I've been a delinquent here, and a delinquent with my PEO application.

Pay off my debt
About a year ago I started tracking my spending with Mint. It's a pretty easy to use system, and there are cool graphs, like the following:


As you can see, my net income has been in the positive for the past 4 months! Which means, slowly but surely my debt is being paid off. When it gets closer, I`ll share the page of the net worth. It`s too depressing to share at the moment. The giant dip into the red was from when I went to Peru. A trip very much worth it!

Run 10 miles
Seeing as I'm already signed up to do one third (10km) of the Around the Bay Race as part of Team Spatula Runners, I might as well add it to my love list! I've been trying to run 3 times a week, and it hasn't been terrible. I'm going to have to start increasing my distances soon, seeing as the race is in March.

I also signed up to do the Tough Mudder with my Wipeout Canada family in August. I didn't quite realize what I was getting myself into when I signed up, but needless to say I will have to get my butt in gear to prepare for it. 10 miles?! Yes I can!


Track the waste that I produce each week/month
In January,  I generated 702 g of landfill and 1,202 g of recycling.Weight wise, that's about as much as a 2L bottle of pop. Volume wise, it's probably much bigger.

Now I've got a target. There's still lots to do, but I've made a lot of changes to help facilitate that. And you're going to hear all about them, whether you want to or not!
I ended up tired of weighing my waste every day, which is why there`s a giant weigh in at the end of the month. This is how I'm going to operate going forward.

On a related note, I share garbage bins with my roommate and our upstairs neighbours. It drives me bonkers that they seem to fill up 2 'medium' sized bins, while we only use a small kitchen catcher in a two week period. I'm half tempted to label them as 'upper' and 'lower' to see if anything changes, though it's probably too passive aggressive. Maybe I'll suggest to my landlord that he replace one of the 'medium' bins with a 'small' bin for us!

Her name is Kali, and she has a LOT of energy. She was having none of my slow pace nor walking 'breaks'.

She spent the whole time looking back at me like this:

Get a move-on missy!

She's a Pug-Jack Russel Terrier mix that my roommate got from the OSPCA yesterday, although she's been thinking seriously about it for about two weeks. Kali is super smart, and very high energy. She's been on two runs today, and doesn't seem to have slowed down at all.

My roommate says she has a face only a mother can love, but I think she's cute. In an ugly sort of way. I can't wait to take her with me on sprint days!

I'm cute when I smile :)

I work for an engineering consulting firm. If you've seen office space or read Dilbert, you've got a pretty good idea of what I deal with on a daily basis. The company I work for is pretty good about being environmentally conscious. Most of the company's buildings are either LEED Certified, or are in the process of certifying, we report our Carbon Footprint yearly, are pursuing ISO 14000 certification (boring reading, if you're interested), and have a yearly commuter challenge. We can sign up to have our pay stubs electronically through e-post, rather than by mail, which of course I did!

At an office level, the printers are automatically set up to print on both sides, there is a bin in the main kitchen for compost and recycling in addition to garbage. There's also a lot of ceramic mugs, plates, and for everyone to use. And so long as there isn't a lunch 'n' learn going on, there's usually cutlery as well! Our office usually does pretty well in the commuter challenge, and could easily do better if people would participate. (I'm a joiner, always have been!) Not surprisingly, there are things that I'd like to add, like a compost/recycling program for the paper towels in the bathroom, but all in all, it's not bad.

It's also a really cool looking office, it was converted from the old McGreggor Sock Factory. Check it out!


I've also made some personal changes at work to try and reduce the amount of waste that I personally produce. A lot of my job involves comparing something to a code or standard, like the LEED Reference Guide or ASHRAE Standard. Or both, on a good day! I requested (and got) a second screen so that I could avoid having to print those codes and standards.  I also put a 'references' toolbar on the menu bar for the codes and standards I use the most so they're as easy to access as the binders I used to keep them in.

I also added a 'projects' toolbar to access my project folders so that I don't have to keep project binders. My old boss loved to have project binders. So much so that he would print everything, including emails, and store them in the project binder. And I work in the 'Sustainable Buildings' group... It drove me crazy!!! I have since filed most the relevant documents and recycled most of the rest.  I did keep a few binders for active projects as a test to see if I use them in the next 3 months. If I don't, they're all going to be filed, and I will no longer keep paper copies of anything!

I keep single sided prints, both mine (when I have an odd size of pages to print) and the ones I see in the recycling box in the printing room, and keep them as scratch pads. I know our Ottawa office keeps ALL single sided prints and every once in a while someone makes scratch pads for anyone in the office who wants one. My goal for this year is to start a similar program.

I keep a 750mL glass bottle at my desk for water. Having it there reminds me to drink the 8 glasses I should be drinking in a day. I also have a personal mug for my coffee and tea, and I brought one of my extra hankies to work to cover up food I put in the microwave rather than a paper towel.

I use One Note to record my phone calls and teleconferences, rather than keeping them in a notebook. They're much easier to search through, if needed, and there's obviously far less waste. My next challenge will be to try to do this in real meetings. I'm not a big fan of laptops in meetings because it feels like they put up a barrier between the user and the rest of the group, so I'm thinking about requesting a tablet for taking notes. I've only ever used one for games, so I don't know if it's a viable option, but I can't think of any other. The key will be to remember to turn it off when it's not in use!

Lastly, I got a power bar that has an on-off button and plugged all of my electronics to that.  That way my monitor, computer, desk lamp and cell phone charger are not drawing phantom power while I'm not even there.