Working out how to work out

As of tomorrow I'm going to have to get creative about exercising.
Twice a week we go to a council-run play group, which also operates as a crèche for parents who want to use the council gym. So Rosie 'plays' and I work out/walk on treadmill while reading on my iPad.
And today is our last play group session for the year. Ergo, the last time for a couple of months that I can drop Rosie into a room full toys, babies and preschoolers and hope they keep her occupied.
I always look forward to these sessions. Because I love the little gym. And exercise isn't bad either. Especially exercise done alone. The 'alone' part is more desirable than the 'exercise' part.

My local gym. Yes, all of it (plus a couple of
racks of free weights you can't see). And
this is usually how I find it - empty. I get it all to myself.

I've always found some joy in working out. But for a long time it was also stressful. Something to squeeze in around work and home chores, and too often with the sense I hadn't done enough. Plus, I was forever comparing myself to whomever was on the machine next to me. They always seemed fitter/stronger/hotter/better overall. 

The weight I have on my squat bar - a whole
7.5kg each side. Go me! Plus the bar - I don't
know exactly what it weighs but it's in the vicinity
of freaking heavy. 

None of that really happens any more. Now I enjoy exercising, as well as having exercised.
But finding ways to do it can be a challenge when a crèche isn't available.
There's walking of course. We do a lot of that. Gets a bit trickier in summer when the only bearable time to be outside is between 7pm and 7am. And the toddler is not in favour of going straight from the containment of one space (her cot) to that of another (the pram) in the morning.
Swimming laps drives me spare. And again there is the issue of child minding.
So, what to do?
Thankfully, the prospector works shorter hours at his new day job, so some afternoons he will be in charge of toddler care.
And I expect to make use of these:

A couple of my kettlebells.

Doing a kettlebell workout in your bedroom (because it has the best air con) alongside your shoes and shirts while a kid and cat look on from the bed isn't weird is it?
And there's always the option of dancing to the Wiggles. Which is bloody hard work, believe me.

Does scheduling exercise take a bit of work for you? How do you fit it around work and family?

Mid-week mundanities

It was just Rosie and I again yesterday, with the prospector back at his new-old day job (more on that later). Had a productive yet relaxing day, but was shattered by the end of it. Waking early takes it's toll and every morning I think 'am definitely having a nap when young miss does today' but then I get caught up (usually in reading) and often don't. And then when she woke after only an hour I was glad I hadn't tried to sleep - I'd have got about 5 minutes and felt ripped off.
It was my first day of following a system of spending allotted hours on work/chores - from my to-do list, at least, not things like cooking dinner, folding washing, so on, that have to fit around other things and can't be put off anyway - some 'structured' play (because I'm told you're meant to do these things) with Rosie and taking the rest of the day as it comes.
Went for an early walk to Moran's (IGA) - before it got too hot and before she was likely to get tired and fall asleep in the pram, which results in day-nap malfunction. 

Breakfast time. Thank god for onesies
- in them she still resembles a baby, not
the toddler she really is.

In the morning: Churned through a good chunk of the to-do list. Even made custard. And by leaving it on the stove for an eternity it actually did thicken on its own - why can't the recipe say it takes more than half an hour? Apparently you're meant to stir it while it thickens but I'm not standing at the stove, spoon in hand, that bloody long. The recipe is from the Commonsense cookbook but devoting close to a (pretty much mindless) hour to something that results in less than half a litre of food doesn't sound very sensible to me.
I left the mix to its own devices, gave it the occasional stir to get rid of lumps and whaddya know, I got custard. Proper smooth, thick creamy custard. Which incidentally makes me want to hurl (always has) but Rosie would be hooked to a custard IV if she could and I'm sick of buying commercial stuff, so it was made for her.
Whacked it in a nifty EZ Squeezie thing, handed it over and it was met with approval.
I've been making my own chocolate fudge stuff (dairy and sugar free) for a while and needed to make another batch. Tried a new recipe. Didn't like it. So made a batch of the original stuff and mixed the new stuff in to try and mask it. Kind of worked. Eating the blend will be no hardship, but will stick with the original one in future. 

In hysterics with Trixie. And no, I have never
before allowed dogs inside. I must
be getting soft.

Later in the morning: Tackled one of my most hated tasks. Fecking filing. Finished it and promptly researched ways to cut down on paper crap. Subsequently swapped what accounts I could to email billing.
Late afternoon: Rosie's lack of sleep caught up with her and she decided she needed to be glued, or, when that was too boring, within arms reach, of mummy for every remaining moment of the day. Glued to me on the trampoline, much wailing when I dared move a few metres away and ducked inside to check on dinner, more wailing when I wouldn't watch TV with her because I was serving dinner, glued to me while we ate dinner... (She was very relieved to get to bed. And she wasn't the only one. )
Earlier, the prospector had come home with a ginormous hamper of Christmas 'goodies'. Seems every staff member got one, provided by the guy who picks up the scrap metal. By 'goodies' I mean processed, sugary, gluteny, preservative-y items generally called food. And a jar of salsa. At least I'll enjoy it. (Yes, it's a lovely gesture and I was impressed and grateful. It's just not the sort of stuff I appreciate like I once did, what with the paleo/clean eating thing. Bah humbug.)

The hamper, containing about half it's contents.
I had to pull the rest out so it would
fit in the cupboard.

2013, where are you going?!

The calendar tells me 2013 is almost done, even though it feels like it's only a few months old. It's been quite a year for this rambler. 
I had some significant losses - my dear old dog (the other dear old one is battling on), my grandfather-in-law, who died in January, I had an early miscarriage and the prospector was retrenched from his day job. 
Also, my baby became a toddler.

January 2013. Kindly sitting in one place.

Late November 2013. Playing in the rain.

Of less significance, I lost patience with a few TV shows. I can no longer tell you what's happening on True Blood, Sons of Anarchy or The Newsroom. I probably can, however, tell you what letter Anthony used in his alphabet segment on the latest Wiggles episode. Should you like to know.  
I also made some significant gains/discoveries. Chiefly, paleo/primal living and minimalism/simple living. To me, these are almost the same thing, and I interpret them as focusing on being kind to yourself - your body and soul - as well as those around you, and the planet. 
I feel like have been leaning blindly towards this kind of lifestyle for a long, long time. And it has been a revelation to finally stumble on practical theories and guides on how to actually live it. 
Also gained were new skills and confidence through my graphic design course. Though my lack of practice means I've forgotten half of them now. 
And two cheeky puppies have moved into the rambler residence.

Cleo and Trixie.

We travelled a bit this year (three trips over east and back and two to Perth, for Rosie and I). And between that and study and freelance work, the year was busier than I'd have liked. Still, I count myself lucky to have also had countless wonderful moments and (almost) every day living life exactly as I want to. 

How's your year been?

Broken

We had a night of wild wind recently and when I went outside the following morning I discovered our driveway gate had broken. One shoddy hinge had sheered off a shoddy post. No surprise - it's shoddiness comes from partly from being old and mainly from being poorly made.

My bigger concern was that my dogs had escaped. My fear was misplaced, however. The poor old body of the elder one, Razz - the escape ringleader - was also broken. She could only manage a couple of steps and her back legs would collapse.

She was 12 years old and arthritis had been creeping up. But it seems something had happened overnight that suddenly resulted in nerve damage and severe pain. So we had to say goodbye.

And we went to bed that night with our hearts broken. 

She was my first baby, so to speak.

She had to be involved in whatever you were doing. 

She loved being on holidays.

Hanging with the toddler (in the last photo
I ever took of her).

Just imagine...

Image from www.thenomonworkshop.com

Children are simultaneously a source of great inspiration, and an impediment to, creativity.

I'm currently doing a part-time graphic design course. The tutors - obviously - encourage us to pursue creative past times. Doing so is also recommended by the primal living guy.

Both say its good for the mind and soul. That it doesn't really matter about the quality of what you produce. The process is the point. Devote enough energy to the process and, more importantly, have enough fun with it, and the results will take care of themselves.

My current lifestyle allows ample opportunity for creativity, at some level. My 'job' involves lots of mindless tasks during which my head is free to turn over ideas. And there's Rosie herself, of course. Her laugh, the tiny curls at the back of her head, the light resting on her round cheeks, little hands and feet in action - it all has me longing to capture every fragment that is the beauty and joy of child and childhood.

Yet whenever I sit and attempt to commit these concepts to paper or pixel, it is invariably that moment in which she climbs on the couch and falls off/gets stuck under a chair/gets a little too affectionate with the cat/has a meltdown because some toy or random object won't do as she wishes ... You get the picture. 

And I remember it's not just about chasing my own creative genius (ha!) but being a mummy who comes to the rescue. Who soothes that precious little soul so it can dust itself off, jump back up and once again follow where imagination leads. 

Imagination at work in recent weeks.

Going bush and facebook shame

Those of you who see my facebook feed may have noticed a recent status update - about camping - with no punctuation and no capital letters. None, I tell you! How embarrassment.

This is because I committed the cardinal sin of fiddling around on my facebook page, getting distracted (I'd like to blame the toddler but it more likely was the fact that my coffee was ready, or the mail was delivered) and leaving it open without logging off. My husband (who never met a rule of the English language he couldn't disregard) came along, assumed it was his page, and posted the offending update.

Now, he never logs out of his facebook page, which has me constantly shaking my head. I've 'liked' any number of things - mummy blogs, nappy sites, feminist writers etc - on his behalf, thinking I was logged in. But this time it was the other way around. Thank god he put up something so innocuous - though omitting full stops remains a grave offence, in my book.

Typing and facebook felonies aside, we did indeed have a 'good camping trip out to the block'.

To clarify, 'the block' is a parcel of land less than an hour from home on which we have a prospecting lease. I don't go much for the prospecting, but I do appreciate having somewhere peaceful to escape to for short camping trips, or even shorter day visits. It's not an actual camping site, just a patch of bush, so we don't have to share it with anyone.

I've always loved camping. And since reading up on this primal lifestyle thing I'm an even bigger fan. Turns out being out in the fresh air, away from crowds, being in sync with the sun, getting a bit dirty, staring into a fire, all the usual camping business, is how we're designed to live.

While out there Paul, the prospector, obviously did some prospecting. In his slippers. Including a stint on the edge of a dam:

This is why, despite repeated requests to do so, I did not buy him a pair of uggs of pure wool and costing upwards of $150. I knew something like this would be their fate and the $12 Kmart jobs were the best option.

He also did a bit on dry land with his 'helper'.

Who also helped with the sieving of product.

We saw a rainbow. And an echidna, emus and a baby goanna that popped out of a log once it was on the fire. Luckily it didn't fall into the flames, and the Prospector got it to safety.
Then we came home and I revelled in my flushing toilet and comfy bed. This is the 21st century, after all.

Doing it for me

There’s been very little activity here lately. Obviously. I’m hoping to change that. Well, a little, at least. Because I’ve kind of been missing blogging. Not all of it – some elements of blogging I feel like I ‘should’ do can become a downright chore. And, hey, I don’t have the world’s most fascinating life, so topics can be hard to come by. But the actual writing bit, I love.

Image from www.escapenormal.com

So, my plan (as it stands today, anyway):
1. Take a leaf out of the slow blogging book. I only just heard about this, and basically it means uploading the odd post now and then. Not caring about how relevant your timing is to current events. It also means taking time to create thoughtful, well-considered posts. Ha! Think I’ll skip that bit. I’m not that bloody dedicated. If I’ve actually managed to write something, it’ll get a review or two and posted.
2. Write about what interests me. Which is myself, basically. What I do. Where I go. What I think about. Clearly this means my posts are likely to be rather mundane. Dull, even.
3. To elaborate on point 2, my topics will probably consist of:
* My daily life. Bet you're dying to read all about that.
* Rosie. Of course. Naturally, these ones won't be in the least bit dull, not even for readers completely uninterested in new teeth, nappies, breastfeeding and so on.
* Some work I do as part of my graphic design course. Figure I may as well include it.
* My move to a simpler, more – as described by its proponents - primal life. This was prompted by the enormous sense of calm I felt when I left full-time work and my days followed the rhythm of a baby. But then life got busy and draining again (not that I’ve returned to full-time work. Or much work at all) and I started looking into ways of reclaiming that sense of physical, mental and emotional wellbeing and vitality.
The first step was deciding to quit eating sugar. And led to adopting what is called The Primal Blueprint (and Primal Connection). The most tangible way of practising this is through food and exercise, but there is much, much more to it. So you, lucky readers, will get the chance to hear all about what I eat, my strolls through the countryside, and various attempts to live ‘in the moment’. Again, bet you can’t wait.