Hey guys – I have been seeing these day in the life posts all over blogs lately and I think they are really fun! Emily has even started a whole series on them and I will be doing another one on her blog in December. In the meantime I thought I’d do my own here. I would love to have beautiful photography to go with it like That Wife’s day in the life posts but that isn’t going to happen so you’ll have to bear with the iPhone photos sprinkled throughout this post!

It’s also kind of long. I personally find it fascinating when people write about their day in great detail rather than just write “work” so hopefully I’m not the only one that appreciates that! And if not consider yourself warned

Day in the Life – Wednesday, October 26 2011

5:43 AM – alarm goes off. Turn it off, roll over. Contemplate getting up for a run. Doze and cuddle with Eric and Webster.

6:16 AM – finally roll out of bed to go for a run.

6:37 AM – actually leave the house for said run after eating 1/2 a banana and taking the dog out.

7:10 AM – back at house after 3-mile run to change into Vibram’s and pick up Chloe.

7:15 AM – head back out the door for another 1.5 miles in the trails with the pup.

7:20 AM – witness a beautiful sunrise that makes getting out of bed this morning completely worth it.

7:30 AM – enjoying running in the trails so much I decide to do 2 miles instead of 1.5. Finish the 5-mile run (total) with a lovely 1/4 mile walk back up the hill to our house in the beautiful, crisp fall morning.

7:45 AM – 8:45 AM – make coffee, have a shower, do my hair, get dressed, pour a cup of said coffee, pack my lunch, make oatmeal for breakfast, say goodbye to Eric for the day.

8:45 AM – 9:00 AM – eat breakfast, start writing this blog post, read blogs.

9:00 AM – 9:20 AM – work on freelance stuff, attempt to do an interview for an article but get voicemail.

9:30 AM – arrive at office.

9:30 AM – 10:00 AM – catch up on emails, meet with co-worker on new urgent project.

10:00 AM – 11:30 AM – meet with two co-workers on some new business development initiatives we’re working on including creating a blog. This time period was also interspersed with me leaving the meeting to make urgent changes to a client’s ad using inDesign.

11:30 AM – 12:00 PM – continue going back-and-forth with client on above ad. Get final approval around noon.

12:05 PM – meet friend for lunch (I was late due to the above ad stuff!)

12:50 PM – another interview for a freelance article I’m working on (different from above).

1:10 PM – 2:30 PM – back to the office. Start sorting through the beast that was my inbox after being in meetings/tied up with the ad all morning. Get a few small requests and to-do’s off of my desk. Once inbox is completely cleaned out I’m ready to dive into a project!

2:30 – 5:30 PM – work head down on creating an advertising plan for a client. At some point in here I eat my “second lunch” of the day at my desk.

5:30 – 5:50 PM – wrap up at work, sort through the emails still in my inbox, plan my day for tomorrow and write out my to-do list.

5:55 PM – 6:05 PM – commute home (love my short commute!)

6:05 PM – 6:50 PM – unstack and restack the dishwasher, play with the puppy, make a green smoothie for dinner and drink said smoothie, reply to a few personal emails and try to clean out my personal inbox a little, get my bag ready for yoga.

7:15 PM – 8:35 PM – yoga class! Last nights class was different from most I take because it was an arm balancing class. So it was done in a 30 C (90ish F) room instead of a 40 C (100ish F) room and we spent a lot of time working towards and practicing arm balancing poses. I FINALLY got into crow (on the right) for two whole breaths at the end of this class. I did not get even CLOSE to the pose on the left pictured above but a few people in class did!

8:45 PM – 9:15 PM – drive home from yoga, stop at the bank to deposit paycheque (yay money!), clean up, change into comfy clothes and take my contacts out once home.

9:15 PM – 10:05 PM – fire up computer, catch up on a few more emails, eat a bowl of cereal, schedule this blog post.

10:05 PM – 10:20 PM – read my book in bed.

10:20 PM – lights out!

And if you are *just dying* for more details of my day (ha ha ya right) you can check out my food blog here to see what I ate yesterday!

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Not all days are this busy! I like to keep at least 1-2 nights a week where I have NOTHING going on after 6:00 PM. Because I have a lot of freelance work this week (way more than usual, 6 stories to do vs. the usual 2-3) I am also squeezing more interviews into my day than I normally would.

Also, yesterday was a perfect example of why it’s awesome having my brother around. Eric also had a long day yesterday and was at school from 9 am – 8 pm. Luckily my brother has Wednesdays off so was home with the dog all day! Yesterday definitely would have been a lot more hectic for both Eric and I without Logan here to help with Chloe!

OK, well that was my day yesterday! Sorry if this was terribly boring for anyone

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Question of the day: Do you enjoy day in the life features or not (be honest, but nice please)? How long is your commute? (Words cannot express how thankful I am for my 10 minute commute. 15 minutes MAX!)

Lisa gave me a fabulous birthday present when I saw her in Victoria; Mama Pea’s Cookbook!

I’ve already made two recipes from it: Thai Veggie Burgers and Pea Daddy’s Jambalaya. Both were smashing hits!

I think my favourite thing about this cookbook so far is how ridiculously easy the recipes are (at least the two I’ve made). Vegan and vegetarian recipes can often involve a lot of complicated steps and take a long time to make. Mama Pea’s recipes are really simple and straightforward and both these recipes took less than 30 minutes and involved just a few dishes.

I am trying to cook bulk meals on the weekends to get us through the weeks lately as last week we relied on eating out way too much. Next I have my eyes on her tempeh chili and cowgirl cornbread I highly recommend this cookbook, I can already tell it’s going to be one I turn to often. I was not asked to do this review, I just REALLY like this cookbook and wanted to sing it’s praises

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On a similar, foodie, note. I’ve started a Tumblr Blog: Girl with the Red Hair Eats. Weight has been a topic on my mind for the last few months and with heavy training being put on the back burner until December/January I think now is the time to get my eating in check. I’ve been indulging in far too many glasses of red wine and bowls of ice cream after work – I just finished eating ice cream and was drinking red wine while I wrote this post last night!

Even though it’s been on my mind the idea of counting calories repelled me. Then I thought about how conscious I am of what I’m eating on days when I record it on the blog and thought, why not do that regularly for awhile so I can get back in the habit of THINKING about what I eat instead of just mindlessly stuffing food in my mouth.

Except I don’t want to take over my precious blog with gazillion’s of boring old food photo’s that would result in multiple posts a day so I started a tumblr, downloaded the app for my iPhone and as of today I will be posting photos of everything I eat on there. My goal is to become more aware of what I’m putting in my mouth and to get back a bit of the balance I’m craving! Not sure how long it will last, maybe just until I start marathon training, maybe longer. We’ll see!

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Questions of the day: What is your favourite cookbook? Do you track your calories or your food intake in any way?

So despite not really blogging about it I am still doing hot yoga on a regular basis (just not as regular as I did at one point!) and still working at the yoga studio 3 hours per week in exchange for free yoga.

I try to get to one class a week at the very least and prefer to go 2-3 times per week if I can squeeze it in. Now that I’m done training for a bit I’m hoping to up my yoga before marathon training starts.

Anyways, I was in my new favourite class on Saturday afternoon – an hour of Baron Baptiste inspired power yoga that leaves me dripping sweat and with shaky arms – when I looked around the room.

Yes, yes. I know you’re not supposed to compare yourself in yoga. And for the most part I don’t. But I couldn’t help but notice that in a class of around 40 people I was one of only a few that could not get my arms into a bind during extended side angle pose. {image source}

We actually discussed this when we were in Victoria and all three of the girls could easily get into a extended side angle bind even with jeans on! I am not even close.

I also can’t even get close to doing this pose {image source}:

Like I said, I know that every body is different, and just because you’re not in the full extension of the pose doesn’t mean you’re not doing yoga – I totally get that and accept it! It’s just I feel like I’m in a small minority not being able to do these bind poses and after doing yoga regularly for over a year I haven’t had any improvement in this area.

I’m not sure what parts of my body are too tight. Shoulders? Chest? Hips (first one)?

It’s at least a little bit of consolation that Eric can’t do the bind poses either – yes I immediately went home and asked him after class on Saturday! Eric is extremely flexible for someone who never really stretches. He can put his his feet (one at a time) behind his head! That takes some major hip flexibility (which I do not have at all).

I know I have some yoga instructors and hardcore yogi’s reading my blog. Any advice on how I can work on my binds? What part of my body is keeping me from doing these?

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Question of the day: Can you do either of the binds pictured above?