Archive | September, 2011

Inspiration “Sell Everything, Buy Freedom”

29 Sep

I always dream of quitting my job, buying a camper and spending my life driving around Canada. A life of reading, checking out festivals and events, and hiking is my ideal. Throw a horse in there somewhere (not practical) and it’s my nirvana.

I stumbled upon this great blog I Love Born To Be Wild today and the latest entry was the writer talking about how she and her boyfriend quit their jobs and started travelling. I really enjoyed it and thought you might too.

Earlier this summer my honey + i decided to sell everything, leave our Maui home and hit the open road for some much needed road-trippin, van-campin + festival-hopin. With our hearts on our sleeves, our home on our back and a handfull of crystals, sea-shells + good books, we have found ourselves experiencing a different kind of freedom. 
This freedom is not about working the same 9-5 job for 5 years so that you can get your 2 weeks paid vacation and it’s not about buying a nice car so you can enjoy your drive to work every day…
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Instead, this freedom is about detaching from the material world, letting go of possessions and realizing the impermanence of all things. This freedom is about finding your inner superpower – it’s about being spontaneous, trusting your intuition and following your heart. 
However, in the process of letting go of everything else, we have become pretty attached to our hippie-flippin, road-trippin, festival-hopin, time-travelin motor-coach… this one might take us some time ♥ 
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Multitasking Challenge– Week 2–I Give Up!

21 Sep

Friday- Sunday

Don’t know if I would call it a success for focusing on one thing at a time. My family was crazy busy with the wedding and we were running around like crazy. It was really nice to be around family though and I laughed and laughed and laughed.

Monday September 19

Epic Fail at focusing today. I don’t know if it’s because I was exhausted from a crazy weekend or what but I could not focus on one task to save my life. All I did was bounce around between a bunch of different things. And because of that, I half-finished three things when it would have been better to complete one.

Tuesday  September 20

And I give up! It is impossible for my brain to focus on one thing at a time! It is always racing, racing, racing and I can’t settle it no matter how mindful I am trying to be.

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Summer Summary- I Did Nothing On My List and I Liked It

20 Sep

Way back at the beginning of the summer I set goals for what I wanted to accomplish this summer, unfortunately I did not accomplish anything on that list. Am I upset? Nope, because I did a bunch of other stuff that was super fun.

Now I need to start planning my winter. It should be a good one. I want to do a lot of cross country skiing and snow shoeing in Waterton, I want to go snowboarding more than once this winter, and I would love to do some winter hiking.

 

 

 

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Multitasking Challenge Week 1 Summary

15 Sep

Monday Sept.12

Day 1 of my multi tasking challenge and it did not go so well. At ALL! For one, I had to play music all day, I cannot sit in silence so that right there kind of undid the challenge. But I kept catching myself all day jumping from one taks to another to another. It didn’t help that when my boss cam in around 2:30, he talked my ear off so I couldn’t work for pretty much the rest of the day. I am giving myself a little slack though because I am currently in the process of privately buying a car and attempting to sell my own. That makes for a lot on my to-do list.

Tuesday Sept. 13

After a morning of dealing with car stuff (insurance, registration, more online postings) I realized that I have done everything I can and have to stop stressing and go with the flow. But as for this day being a uni-tasking day, that was shot to hell. I kept telling myself “Focus! only one thing at a time.” But it just didn’t work.

Wednesday Sept. 14

Wednsday was a good day. Besides multitaskign in the morning when I like to sip coffee and read a dozen blogs at once, i stayed focused and on task. I finished a report that isn`t due for a week and read halfway through a super boring report that I have been putting off for some time. I feel good when I leave work, less like a zombie and more like myself, happy with a productive day.

Thursday Sept. 15

Half day at work today. I was terrible! So they came out with a Heartland game on Facebook and as I am obsessed with Heartland I spent most of my morning playing. Oops… maybe next week will be better. I left at noon to drive 8 hours to Idaho Falls. I find long road trips so relaxing, you just listen to music and drive. Nothing calms the mind better. The wedding I`m on my way to may be a bit hectic though. So we`ll see how I do with this challenge.

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Green Juice

12 Sep

I like to read health blogs and articles and I am always hearing about green juices that consist mainly of spinach. I decided to finally give it a shot and busted out some parsely, celery, spinach and orange juice.

My ingredients and my blender

The top was foamy/chunky. Ew!

Taking my first sip

Didn't like the taste

Once I got over the chunky top half, I was able to down my juice. Not something I would drink as a treat, but for all the veggies, it was definitely worth it.

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Blog Challenge- Stop Multitasking!

12 Sep

As I was reading through the many, many articles online I found a great one on Real Simple about how multitasking is rewiring our brains and making us less happy. I read this as I read five other websites because I don’t like to wait the five seconds for the next page to load. I am a TERRIBLE multitasker. I physically cannot do one thing at a time (especially at work). I feel like I have to be working on several things at once to be productive and to get stuff done but in the long wrong I wind up feeling like a spaced out zombie.

How I Stopped the Multitasking Madness is a short essay giving snippets of A.J. Jacobs’ experience of focusing on one task at a time for 30 days.

I decided to give myself a multitasking challenge and I challenge anyone who reads this to do the same starting today.

Go 14 days without multitasking.

Focus on one task at a time and spend at least 15 minutes a day in meditation.

I am modifying it for myself a bit- I will walk for 15 minutes a day with no music in place of meditation.

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Finding Contentment and Being Happy with Your Life

10 Sep

I have to put up a heavy post because lately I have been stressed to the max over things that need to be done right away and things that are so far off that I shouldn’t even spend any time thinking about them but I do.

I have always been an achiever. Throughout life I have made goals for myself, achieved them, made more goals, achieved those, etc. I have always gone in that big circle. If I don’t have anything to do I feel lost. If I spend an evening on the couch watching TV I feel guilty that I wasted time I could have been cleaning, reading, or doing something. This vicious achiever in me has made it impossible for me to enjoy the present- I am ALWAYS looking at the future. While a little thought for the future is a good thing, focusing soley on it is ridiculous. My life is a constant cycle of worry, to the point that I am beginning to wonder if I need an anti-anxiety medication.

Nothing helps me forget my troubles like hiking in the mounatins

I am determined to get out of this rut I am in and enjoy the now. I have already accepted that I will never be financially secure. There will always be unexpected expenses, retirement will always seem daunting and I will always have some sort of debt in my life (student loan, car loan, mortgage). Accepting that I will always have a little financial stress has made it easier on me to accept things as they come up. And I am taking steps to easing that stress as much as possible. I am paying off debts and once those are done I will start a savings account and an RRSP and slowly sock away money. I have accepted I will never be rich, but I don’t need money to be happy I just need to have a grip on my finances.

There are several articles and websites dedicating to helping you find happiness and contentment with life. Because I am such an over organized person, I prefer checklists. So here is a checklistof just a few things to help you find happiness and contentment.

  • Accept who you are
  • Appreciate your life
  • Do things you really like often
  • Accept that your paycheck is enough
  • Turn off the technology (a hard one for those of who work at a computer)
  • Every morning, think of one thing you are looking forward to in the day
  • Do something nice for someone else
  • Walk or Meditate for 15 minutes every day
  • Realize that material possessions do not make us happy
  • Don’t become, just be

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Attempt to hike Akamina Ridge, Waterton, AB

8 Sep

I drug Ryan out to Waterton to go on one last epic hike of the season. I don’t know how the summer went by so fast but now I will not be finishing the Triple Crown of Waterton. But I thought I would at least accomplish Akamina Ridge, a feat that I didn’t accomplish and  will now explain.

Ryan is not a hiker; he laced up his street shoes and had one last puff before we started our hike.

Tsk tsk. This boy needs to quit!!

I was so excited to do this hike

The first kilometer or so is an easy, steady uphill walk until you come to the border line that crosses you into B.C.’s Akamina-Kishena Provincial Park. A map is also next to the sign to let you know what trails lead where.

We should have gone the route to Wall Lake

Very shortly after passing the invisible provincial border, we came upon this sign. I chose to go left to Akamina Ridge, but I knew it was possible to go straight to Wall Lake first and on to Akamina Ridge.  As soon as you take that left you pass an old abandoned ranger headquarters.

Abandoned ranger buildings

Right behind these buildings is a very short path to Forum Falls.

I HATE this picture! But this is Ryan and I in front of the falls

After the falls you begin the ascent toward Forum Lake. I would call it a medium climb, watch out for all the tree roots on the trail. Toward the top you reach a marsh covered with a thin man made boardwalk to walk across.

Shortly after this marsh, we got to Forum Lake and sat down to eat lunch and prepare for the climb along the ridge.

Hmmm...this photo doesn't do it justice. I'll try another

This is a little better. The water was so clear and the weather was perfect for a lakeside picnic

Once we finished eating we were ready for the steep climb up the side of this lake to the ridge.

hiked through a couple of meadows of beautiful wildflowers

Looking down on Forum Lake as we climbed

Gorgeous Mountain Views

Now here is where the true adventure begins. This climb was steep and my hiking style is to take several 15-30 second rests as I hike.  Ryan was getting annoyed because his style is to push through until you are there. We finally get to the top and the trail split into two. We could see Akamina Ridge on our left and below us, Wall Lake.

We could see Akamina Ridge

And below us we could see Wall Lake

Sadly, I had not read enough on this hike to know exactly where to go. So I went by sight (I had seen many photos of Akamina Ridge) and I began to go left toward the ridge, only to come to a very steep scramble. As I began to scramble up, Ryan lost his temper. He was in street shoes and had no traction on the shifting terrain and I didn’t even know for sure if this climb would take us where we wanted to go. So we turned around and went back to the fork and started on the second trail that started to go down toward Wall Lake. I knew this wasn’t right either because we had to hike the ridge. Increasingly frustrated with not knowing where to go, Ryan and I began to bicker and in a temper I told him we were done and going back.

Have you ever been in a fight while hiking? It’s pretty funny. I would storm ahead of him only to stop until he was in my view to yell and keep going. I was mad, not really with him but in general. I have never NOT finished a hike! I couldn’t believe that I was turning around and not finishing what I set out to do. The achiever in me was dying, calling me all sorts of names and it just made me more angry.

Water break on the way down. You can tell by the look on my face that I was not happy

Halfway down, my temper had cooled and we made up. We even ended the hike holding hands, and though the achiever in me was still mad, we both agreed it was a good day and we enjoyed each others company.

All's well that ends well. Ha ha

So now I have to attempt Akamina Ridge again next year. Which I guess I would have had to do anyway to complete the Triple Crown.

On a side note, I was so happy to have my new filtered water bottle. I always run out of water on my hikes; during Crandell and Goat Haunt  I had to ration my water and during my climb to Mt. Vimy  I drank out of streams straight. I decided to change this and bought a Bobble water bottle. I love this because it saves me from having to pack water around. Note: I have not been paid or anything for this, I just really like my water bobble. :)

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