My May Adventures!

Its hard to believe that we’ve already finished 5 months of 2021. Its been a pretty wild beginning of the year in all aspects. Things definitely feel like its slowly getting back to some form of normalcy. I’m hoping that I didn’t jinx anything especially in terms of work. This month has been quite the slow month in terms of post and one where I needed to just remind myself that I needed to be okay with slowing down blogging to get the real life stuff done. With that said, I’m slowly getting back into the groove of things and yet again, playing a little bit of catch up again by the end of the May. Not a whole lot happened since the last weekend (the past Friday) just allowed to travel inter-regions so hiking has started yet so its been very focused around the home. Either way, lets check it out!

Workout

May 2: Walk 1.17km/14 mins
May 8: Walk 3.79km/42 mins
May 9: Walk 2.17km/25 mins
May 14: Walk 3.97km/43mins
May 16: Walk 1.11km/14mins
May 21: Walk 3.13km/34mins
May 22: Walk 1.09km/15mins
May 23: Walk 2.12km/26mins
May 24: Walk 2.33km/28mins
May 28: Walk 2.10km/25mins
May 29: Walk 1.59kkm/20mins

Nothing much to say this time. I’ve been having slight sleeping issues. Not exactly insomnia but just maybe a little stress and anxiety so affecting sleep so energy level is a bit low making the running not going right away. Plus, we’ve had a pretty hot May in general so as I dig out all my running gear. I decided to maintain walking at the minimum whenever I could (within curfew hours). Curfew was lifted this past weekend also meaning that I can now go for more walks as daylight is a little longer and eventually get back to running as well as hiking.

Garden Centre Haul

We went to the garden center earlier this year to hopefully get a few more plants. Things are definitely back to normal this year as there is a wild assortment of different vegetables and herbs. With a slight expansion of the garden, we’re hoping to plant more although some of these are going into containers and being planted indoors since the zonage doesn’t work either. With that said, I’m fairly certain it won’t be the only trip to the garden center as the front yard didn’t seem to enjoy the abnormal weather fluctuations and a few plants haven’t popped up yet so its a perfect chance to rearrange it and hopefully do a little change to make it look better. Also, I’m seeing what I can do to add borders so that the plants don’t get accidentally mowed when they aren’t in blooming season.

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1st Dose of COVID-19 Vaccination

After a few months of the vaccination campaign, my age group finally was opened in May and the fastest that I could get on a weekend and not affecting work too much was on May 29th for the 1st dose. Overall, it was a decent reaction as I only had arm pain but it wasn’t anything too intense. It probably hurt the most at night but gradually subsided over the next day. I had talked to some others and they talks about staying hydrated being a big part of it and keeping the arm moving. Nothing too intense in terms of movement but just keep blood circulation going and whatnot. Not sure if that contributed it to not having a bigger reaction but a little of my own experience in case you haven’t gotten the first dose yet. My second dose is in mid-September so its a little way away. Still, its a first step.

Optometrist Check-Up

Its been a tad overdue for all kinds of check-up in general due to the pandemic so I’m slowly getting everything back on track. After a year of way too much time in front of the PC for everything including an immense amount of time doing overtime, I decided that I needed to get an eye check-up since my eyes have been not feeling too great so wondering whether I needed new glasses plus, there’s some weird scratches on the glasses and the frames are losing color so I figured I should get some new frames. Good news is that my eyes didn’t get any worse and overall pretty healthy just astigmatism went up a tiny bit. The second which is good and bad is that I got some new glasses even though I haven’t paid so much for glasses as I would get them out of province but seeing as traveling restrictions, I had no choice. However, I did find glasses that I really like. It’ll be a little while until I get them so next month’s adventures will probably be when I give an update on it.

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for this month’s Adventures!
What have you been up to?
Has the pandemic situation wherever you are doing better overall?

Workout Roundup: Taking a Step Back…

It seems a few of these segments are starting to fall behind. However, its completely my fault that I forgot to track anything in the second week. A lot was going on so its somewhat fallen back but I did write a little paragraph to just get an idea. To be honest, I haven’t really been in the mood to work out and that comes down to a lot of reasons but the main thing is just not having the motivation. However, I will get back on track.

Week 1
Monday/Tuesday/Thursday: Walking during Festivals

Monday: 5.75km

Tuesday: 4.5km

Thursday: 5.5km

I’ve talked about this in a previous post but Festival du Nouveau Cinema is probably the most active festival that I’ve attended. Theatres strewn across the downtown Montreal area. Luckily, only one of my films needed to go to the furthest one away from the general batch which averages about 15 to 20 minutes of weaving through streets to get there by foot. While I mostly had one film days, Thursday was the most hectic as it included a lot of speedwalking and light jogging to get to the second screening on time.

Week 2

I have nothing to say about this week honestly. I did do some walking around. Work had a few errands that took me here and there a lot. I went out for lunch walks quite a few times as well. However, with lack of motivation looming over my head, I thought about working out but vouched to catch up on things (unsuccessfully) and ended up watching a lot of TV and just relaxing. Luckily, our eating habits were kept up much thanks to my husband. To be fair, I had some appointments that I usually set on weekends that ended up being after work so that also cut down on time. Anyways, it sounds like excuses so I’ll stop.

I guess that best way to end this recap is some nice and cool motivational stuff and well, a “gameplan” for the next two weeks. This post is obviously late since it usually gets posted on Sunday but I’m determined to get a workout in today so I’ll be back on track soon. Winter is around the corner which just means more time indoors giving me no reason to make any excuses.

Gameplan for the next two weeks (and for maybe a month or two):

• 3 workout days (if not, at least two this week since work this current week is going to be tough)
• Zumba (or some other form of cardio) at least once a week
• Weight Training (at least once a week)
• Add in some ab workouts (since I’ve been neglecting it quite a bit)
• Add one session of yoga

I used to do circuit training workouts so I might actually dig out some of those old workouts to do them as well. Things to anticipate, right?

via Pinterest – Gymshark.com

That’s it for this workout recap.
Not much to recap but at least its keeping me accountable and the next recap will be better. I promise!

Workout Round-up: Making Things Work (as best as I can)

Welcome to a late workout recap for the last two weeks. Things didn’t quite work as I was caught up my black hole of TV series and then other projects and social experiments and doing everything other than working out. Week 2 did have some great improvement. Film festival season so expect a lot of walking logged for part of next recap also.

WEEK 1

Wednesday: Zumba

WEEK 2

Tuesday: Walking

It was a busy week so the only thing that I managed to kick off the week was doing some walking. It wasn’t a whole lot but the day took me for a few errands which rounded to about 5 kilometers. Its not a huge amount but its still something. I was speed-walking most of the distance.

Wednesday: Weights & Calisthenics

3 rounds each

Bicep Curls (15 reps @ 5lbs each hand)
Squats (20 reps)
Tricep Extensions (15 reps @5lbs)
Pushups (15 reps)

Friday/Saturday/Sunday: Festival and Walking

Friday: 6km total

Saturday: 2.5km total

Sunday: 2.2km total

This wraps up these past two weeks.
It might seem like I didn’t really do much but to be fair, I do a lot of walking for this festival as the theatres are well distanced from each other and I chose the films by movie preference and not theatre location.

Workout Roundup

I apologize for the tardy post. These two weeks have been about digging really deep. I’m not going to lie that getting back into working out has been a mega hard uphill trek. As much as I acknowledge the necessity of it, there is always that lack of motivation. As I try hard to stay accountable here (and trust me, it really helps), I’m trying to also find back the push to make me want to find that perfect balance of workout that doesn’t put into a boring routine same thing every week but still enough to keep me challenged and motivated.

Weights & Cardio

Done with 5lbs dumbbells

Weights

After a series of days postponing workouts, I had to get in a few days in a row to feel less guilty. With that said, I’ve been trying to strengthen my arms a little so I went back to do another short arms weights workout. I chose the Tone It Up Sculpt Your Arms Workout.

Here’s the link of the Love (and Sculpt) Your Arms Workout!

So I did 15 reps with 5 lbs weight for 3 rounds.

September 7 to 9: DreamHack Event Coverage

This past weekend was DreamHack Montreal. As with event coverage, time runs a little thin on hardcore workout but cardio and excessive amounts of walking and stair climbing was definitely put in the mix here. I realized that I forgot to set my health app after I switched phones so I don’t have an actual amount of distance or step count.

For accountability purpose:

Friday: attended for 4 hours and sat about 20 minutes for eat and watch an esports match
Saturday: attended for 7 hours and sat about an hour or so for events and game trials
Sunday: attended for 2 hours and didn’t sit much at all. It was a quick in and out to grab remaining coverage

Overall…

I can’t say the last two weeks was a riveting success but getting one workout in a week is already a step forward to getting back into a routine slowly. That’s generally the idea. I realize that when I go too intense, the schedule gets warped and I just end up feeling bad that I let something slip whether it be a blog post or editing a video or keeping up with chores so I’ve actually been feeling great about the baby steps back into a solid workout schedule. Maybe in two weeks, I’ll be back and doing two workouts a week. I think thats a solid goal to set. 🙂

Weekly Workout Roundup – Week 7 & 8

Week 7

Week 7 was quite the fail but I did manage to get one workout in on Sunday. So I’m going to just cut to the chase and talk about that!  Its time for a Sunday Zumba workout!

Week 8

We are starting fresh this week and I vow that now that everything is pretty much done, I’m going to get back on track.

Monday

Walk – moderate speed
Distance: 3.7km
Time: 40 minutes

Saturday

• 2 Hour Gardening (a lot of squatting..)
• 1.5 km moderate walking (evening walk)

Sunday

Our pool is finally open and today is literally 42C with the humidex and for those who don’t know, we rig up an A/C unit in our bedroom to cool down the house with our fan. Surprisingly with the new roof which is white to repel the heat, it helps to keep the house pretty cool. However, no better time to go hang out in the pool that my husband finally got to work after last year’s crazy algae problem. We spent almost an hour in there and of course, it wouldn’t be right to not own up to my promise that if he got the pool open again that I’d do an extra lot of pool workouts.

I did a variation of this one about 2 to 3 times depending on which moves. It did definitely give my obliques the most workout. Refreshing and fun. I actually even did some swimming but its hard to really quantify how much of swimming it did. We didn’t sit around so we were just moving about a lot. Anyways, I love pool workouts because my shoulder and knee joints sometimes take the zumba and the weights really badly so this helps a lot. I’m hoping to find some more exercises to keep some variety going.

That’s it for the last two weeks!
Sorry for combining both together but Week 7 was kind of a disaster so it was just easier to do it this way!

Weekly Workout Recap – Week 6: Slowly Back on Track

Suffice to say that things were not doing too good in the last two weeks. Last week in particular only managed to get in a Sunday workout. Still, one workout is better than none. I do want to keep at least a 3 workout thing in whatever form I can manage. With that said, there was a lot of creativity and things working out to make it happen.

Let’s just check it out!

Monday & Tuesday

The first two days of the week was the overwhelming crazy E3 coming to an end. With that said, it included a lot of coming right home to work on drafts and getting in the recap posts over to That Moment In. We were plagued with time zone differences as usual as well as just being bombarded with all kinds of news. Don’t get me wrong, I love every bit of it but just not so easy to get in workouts.

Wednesday

A day of unexpected events took its turn for Wednesday. Tuesday’s recording wasn’t able to be done so we did another recording after work. BUT..it was not a rest day. I had planned to go for a long walk at lunch and with an unexpected power outage at the office for an hour, I ended up having an earlier lunch and doubling the time I intended to go for a walk.

Distance: 3.3 km – moderate walking

Thursday

It was a busier day at work with lots of little tidbits to get taken care of. Ended up not getting any workout done.

Friday

Another walking day scheduled in during lunch time.

Distance: 2.5km
Time: 30 mins
Moderate speed

Saturday

Zumba time today! I’ve decided to diverge away from the Tone It Up workouts as they were making it slightly routine and boring so I wanted to change it up with cardio. I can’t seem to find time to go out to run and my area has recently had a uncaught kidnapper/predator in the neighborhood so the city also advises against it. Its why I like Zumba as it raises my spirit and energy, a decent amount of challenge and is a full body cardio workout. Some repeats from last week but overall, some routines I just randomized on my Zumba playlist on Youtube.

Sunday

Father’s Day ended up with family visits and getting other things done. You’ll read about in the next Weekly Adventures. I did do a little gardening today. Although, I can’t say it was particularly exercising, especially since most of my day was spent E3 edits for Game Warp for next week.

Overall…

I’m slowly making the best of a busy situation. I got some Zumba in and a lot more walking than I usually did which was my form of exercising. I have been having some knee pains so the running has been taken off for a little bit until I get some running tape or whatever you call it. Things should slow down next week so I’m going to try to get back to weights, more Zumba and hopefully some jogging/walking sessions.

Vancouver & Kelowna: Redwood Park & Iona Jetty Regional Park

Welcome to Day 5 of my vacation this year in Vancouver and Kelowna! We are done with the Kelowna portion at this time but head over to Travel on the menu on top and it will go to the previous posts.

Day 5 is the first full day in Vancouver. We ended up doing two walking trails and going for some shopping.

No day starts without breakfast. Next door to us was IHOP. We both have never tried it so we went to give it a go.

After that, we headed out to Redwood Park. My husband’s goal for this trip was to see sequoia trees and we heard there was in this park. It was a rainy day but had a break when we got there so it was a nice cool walk through the woods. The trails were a bit confusing but we ended up figuring out where everything was. It isn’t particularly a huge park but it was a pretty forest and we enjoyed it.

When we left, it started to rain really hard. You will see in the next few days, we won’t care as much and still pack up the days but seeing as we still had time, we made a stop at Mall Metropolis at Metrotown to try to find a raincoat for my husband since he didn’t have a jacket to better prepare for the next few days and ended up with the majority of the stuff on the shopping haul post HERE! Still, what captured me was this awesome Nintendo booth!

Upon leaving the mall, the rain had died down a little more and we had eaten a quick lunch in the food court. We finally decided to head back to Richmond which is where our hotel is and decided to make a stop at Iona Jetty Regional Park.

Iona Jetty is a long walkway stretching out like a pier. It is right next to the landing strip at the airport so you can see planes landing in front of you all the time. There is a small beach there and wildlife to observe. However, most people go for the walk to whatever distance. We did a few kilometers and decided to turn around mostly because we had a family dinner later that night and had to freshen up and head out.

Unfortunately, my phone went crazy and we didn’t take any pictures of the dinner.

This wraps up Day 5 of vacation! 🙂
Day 6 is going to be a bit different because we went to a lot of picturesque places.

Vancouver + Kelowna: Trails, Winery & Family BBQ!

Kelowna is located in the Okanagan Valley area in Canada. It is beautiful and stunning and just absolutely breathtaking to explore. The day after my cousin’s wedding, we only had a late afternoon gathering at my cousin’s home for a barbecue with the family. We decided to head out for some hiking/walking trails to see capture some lovely scenery and get some exercise. We went out to a winery for lunch and then rounded up the day with the barbecue. That is the quick runthrough.

Kuiper’s Peak Mountain Park

Kuiper’s Peak Mountain Park is a short 5 to 10 minute trail. There are mountain bike trails as well. This park’s wildlife is still recovering after a forest fire in 2003.

Bertram Creek Regional Park

Bertram Creek Regional Park also suffered from the forest fire in 2003. It is a casual walking trail along the Okanagan Lake. There’s a beach and a little area to walk out to take pictures.

Cedar Creek Winery Estate

We went to Cedar Creek Winery Estate to have a quick lunch and then went out to walk around. Suffice to say, it was absolutely gorgeous. I’ll be talking about the lunch portion in a separate post.

Family Barbecue

The family gathering was fun and grand. My cousin’s home is beautiful. They had food catered there and they made burgers for everyone as well. There was this cool sparking wine or cider (local) called Bling. It tasted really good.

The view from my cousin’s place is absolutely breathtaking. It kind of makes its a life goal to try to move out to Kelowna eventually just to live in this quiet little city.

That’s it for Day 3!
Drop by again to check out the Cedar Creek Winery Estate Restaurant post later this week!