Distances

Ack! It is yet again the end of another month, and I am thinking to myself "where has the time gone?!"
Week by week goes by and something comes up that is worth blogging about, but I just don't seem to find the time to get it down in type. For instance, I have uploaded pictures from an event at the very start of the month, but never got around to writing about it. I remember thinking that getting the pictures up is the part I always dread because it takes the most time, so I tried to do that first. However, it seems that it has taken me longer to sit down and hash this out.

So, what have I been up to?!

Like I said, the start of the month was the Living Angels Concert. Our friend organised a camping/ music festival weekend to raise money for the Living Angles charity that he set up. The event was held just outside of Tamworth (just outside of Birmingham) on a fantastic summer weekend. The weather was hot and the whole gang managed to make it out for the weekend. The gang + some ex-POWD memebers from Sunderland that Craig and I hadn't seen in a really long time. There was live music all weekend (including Chilli con Queso from the Cosiers) , foot massage (bliss!), Zumba, and some North vs. South cricket.

Next up was the completion of the Global Corporate Challenge event. I took part in this last year and this year. All it really is is a challenge to see what corporate team can take the most steps in the 100-or so days. So from early May, I don a pedometer to track my stepping. This year I beat my daily average from last year with a whopping 13293 steps per day... Most of this stepping came from my 3-Peaks challenge which has significanty skewed my results, but still... I am happy with anything more than 10,000 per day. In the course of the challenge I mustered:

-1,475,620 total steps= daily average of 5.29 miles and 536 calories

-Total calories= 59, 497, which according to the calculator= 367 glasses of wine or 441 pints of beer or 165 bars of chocolate.

For your information (again, according to this calculator): 10,000 steps= 4 miles= 400 calories.

Or, more simply: 100 calories per mile.

One 175mL glass of red wine= 119cal

One 175mL glass of white wine= 130 cal

One bottle of rose wine (Faye)= 533 cal

35mL of JD + Diet Pop= 79 cal

On the topic of mileage and drinkage, I have been running again. I have a second 1/2 marathon of the year coming up on October 23rd. Hooray!! I had been feeling really negative about running againg, but a magic banana and a new route seemed to work that negativity out: I am now feeling really pumped about this race.

So pumped, that I registered for a 10km race the 2nd weekend of October.

Now let's see how this balances out:

If I run an average of 10 miles on the weekend (sometimes more and sometimes less), that = 1000 calories; thereby, on the weekend I can drink 8.4 glasses of wine!! Fantastic!! And on that note and as it is Friday night...

Moved in!

Oh no. I have posted this far later than anticipated, and I do apologize for the nearly 2 month wait. All for a good reason, though. I have been EXTREMELY busy moving into our new house!

Finally, just over seven full months from receiving the keys, and ten months from putting in our offer, we are living in our house. From my last entry, it's been a big push to get things finished. Kitchen painted, new kitchen fitted, tiled, flooring, filling, carpets throughout the house, furniture shopping, furniture assembling (we are flat pack experts!), packing, unpacking, and we are here. Of course, there is still some work to do, but I really feel in no rush to get these things done. I now understand why en-suites go unfinished for eons and am glad that we got the major operations finished before we moved in. I am starting to even ignore the persnickety little lines that I want to touch up because they have been banged up during the moving process or weren't straight enough from the start. Once you are in, and working, and living a normal life, you simply haven't time to get around to these things.

What I am still looking forwards to doing is filling up our walls a bit. Time to break out the old albums and see what pictures are worthy to decorate the walls.  And here are some pictures for you to look at to see where we are. If you want to see more, I have a full set of old vs. new on Facebook.

Other than the house (and work) filling my time, we did go on holiday the last week of July. We joined the Nowell party in South Devon for a spot of sea canoeing and mooching around the small towns. I really enjoyed Devon. The whole place seemed a bit more up-market than Dorset where we visited last year. Really nice atmosphere, rolling hills, calm seas, and small pebble beaches. The beaches were a bit strange at the start and most practical if you are wearing (shocking-pink) aqua socks :) but once you are sitting on the pebble beach, it was great. You could mould the rocks to however you comfortably wanted to sit and they were large enough that they didn't stick to you in places you hoped sand would never go, but always does.

We glamped at a site where you could see the sea when drinking your morning coffee, visited Agatha Christie's house and estate, fished off the pier in Torquay (but didn't find Faulty Towers, nor any fish), twice canoed in the sea off of a beach called Blackpool Sands, walked to a lighthouse (and learned that the British Government will always fund the lighthouses because the American Military owns GPS, thus who knows when they might "turn it off"), mooched around the shops in many of the small local villages, fished off of the beach, fished off the canoes (successfully), and ate the freshest mackerel sushi I have ever had. All in all a good week and a good past month and a half.

Oh yes, and with the recent events in England... we are all safe. I blame the rioting on bad parenting. People who have no morals or values or respect for anything. Life lesson: force manners and values down your kids throats, because eventually some of it is bound to sink in.