Tag Archives: magic

Annette Lake Hike – Celebrating Spring!

22 Sunday Mar 2015

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Lake Annette 2Ahhh, the first hike of the calendar year…what a fantastic way to welcome the first full day of SPRING!  Yahoo!  Notice I said “first” – ?!!  Yep, I’m planning to do a lot more hiking this year…really stretching out of my comfort zone and remembering that this time LAST year I did a hike nearly 30 lbs (13.6 kg) heavier than I am now.  Oh yeah!  What a difference!  Now, the hike we did yesterday is a lot less steep overall than the one I did last year with a couple of fantastic girlfriends, but I still noticed a difference in how I felt during and after the hike, meaning, my lungs weren’t feeling on fire the whole time thankfully.  After yesterday’s hike I felt elated!  Joyful!  Refreshed!  And, yeah, a little tired! But not like I’d seriously whupped my own ass.

Annette Lake is on the way to Snoqualmie Pass which is one of the highways you cross over the mountains to get into central and eastern Washington state.  Check out the link included to see more pictures and people’s reviews of it!

We’re all about March Madness right now…but yesterday’s hike was March Magic.

But March is a schizo bitch.  It might be sunny and sort of mild here in the Seattle suburbs, but she has her own plans once you get out of the city and away from sea level.  It could be sunny and in the upper 50s F at home, but an hour’s drive and a hike to 3600′ elevation is a whole other story.  Snow.  Rain.  Beautiful, clear cold streams you get to slosh through (hopefully in your waterproof hiking boots.)  Mud.  Slush. Freezing temps. We gloriously experienced all of that and more up the trail. And E was my hero loaning me one of his extra backpacks and some outdoor clothing gear to make sure I was comfortable for any sort of weather. I’m good to go mostly (on somewhat old school but Gore-Tex’d) hiking boots, but an admitted white belt in other areas for sure, like rain gear that makes the weather irrelevant.

We saw quite a few folks heading up this trail in running sneakers and windbreakers or just sweatshirts.  And, turning back before getting to the top.  The trails aren’t treacherous or icy, rather, they’re just muddy, wet and slushy, plus it gets unexpectedly cold the higher you go!

Lake Annette

Here’s another view of the lake!  I love the green/turquoise/grey color of alpine lakes  – there’s nothing else like it!  And you can see a little ice covering the lake still at the far upper right.  We stood in this moment looking at the lake listening to the gentle, persistent splooshes and taps of the rain and snow.  Smelling the pure, fresh air.  And the silence of the mountains that wraps all around it.  It’s one of those lakes so beautiful you’d just want to go jump in and skinny dip, but mmm, errr, maybe its a little too cold for that?  Or maybe it’s not in the summer?

OK that’s my crazy side dreaming out loud.  Hmmm!

Staying Healthy in 2013…Part Two!

13 Sunday Jan 2013

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Seems like new years always start off with a bang…a burst of change on top of renewed activity…exciting!  I woke up this morning just feeling happy. Content. Invigorated, and full of smiles. 

My current work engagement got extended through the end of February and I couldn’t be happier!  And wheels are in motion with interviewing and networking.  I had a phone screen on Friday and have another one at a different company later this week.  Even if nothing pans out from a phone screen, they’re still invaluable to me.  Why?  I call them Practice. 

And it’s icy, sunny and sparkly outside.  Magical.  I wish I’d snapped a pic of the blue and peach sunset across the street a few minutes ago – the sky is now fading to a waning pink shot through with grey.  And soon…blackness – with tons of stars.  If we can keep to this and not get socked in with a ton of rain this will be an ideal winter!

Gotta hand it to our Seattle Seahawks for a helluva comeback today against Atlanta…just shy of heading to the NFC conference championship.  We were down 27-14 at start of the 4th quarter…and scored two touchdowns!  But that last Atlanta field goal ended it.  Phenonmenal job, gentlemen.  We’ve got a young team and lots more on tap next season!

So, with all that’s whirling around so far this year, I’m remembering to relax and breathe.  To create space – an aura of calmness and serenity that’s joyfully, blissfully all mine while I passionately soak up the excitement all around me.

And to follow-up on last week’s post which was mostly about staying healthy with my favorite nutritional supplements and sunscreens, one other commitment I’m re-making (is that a word?) to better health is with exercise.  I’m still blown away that I need 7 hours of exercise a week to be at my very best based on a workshop I took last fall.  And a little overwhelmed figuring out how to cram that into a busy week!  If I could walk to work or get outside for a walk or light run during the day while I’m at work that would really help me get that time in.  But that hasn’t been a reality in over two decades.  When I worked in downtown Seattle and had a full, genuine lunch hour early on in my career I would bring walking shoes and do ‘urban hiking’ at lunch, exploring all the buildings around me, going up and down elevators, discovering good “rainy-day routes” by finding underground pedestrian tunnels, the best delis, etc.

Here are my current favorite forms of exercise!

Rowing.  As in the rowing machine at the gym.  I fell in love with this last fall thanks to getting inspired by my trainer B, who took the time to show me how to use the equipment and the proper form.  I can’t say enough how much I love it…it’s such a great alternative to the treadmill and is a more all-around overall body workout too.  I carry tension and the weight of the world in my neck and upper shoulders, and rowing melts it all away.  And I can now row 5000m in under 30 minutes!!  28:35 was my personal best so far!

But I make a point to avoid my gym the first part of January.  It’s too overcrowded with the new years crowd for a few weeks and hard to get on equipment right away.  So in the meantime I’m spicing up my routine with other things such as…

Walking. As in outside, bundled up.  Bring on the glorious icy air and sunshine!  Thankfully it’s been relatively dry, so getting outside for a walk doesn’t mean a lot of ice.  There have been a few problems but nothing major.  On Saturday I met up with my friend L who I had not seen in probably 10 months or so.  How fabulous to reconnect with her in the sunshine and get caught up! I swear walking outside in colder weather burns more calories…well, that’s my theory at least.

Workout DVDs.  I blew the dust off my Jillian Michaels 30-day Shred DVD, found my 5 and 8 lb handweights and got back to it.  Sadly it’s been a couple of years since I worked out to this DVD, but check out my old post in the link for the scoop.  These are 20 minute workouts, no bullshit.  You move the entire time and do not stop.  It seems deceptively easy, but by the time you’re into the second of the three 6-minute circuits your lungs and/or muscles will be burnin’.  And that’s good – that’s where the changes happen!  The 30-day shred DVD is currently on Amazon.com for $8.99 – an absolute steal.  It has 3 levels of circuit training.  And I think I’m going to alternate between levels 1, 2 and 3 to keep the variety going.  You’re supposed to do level 1 for 10 days, then level 2 for 10 days, etc, but for me that will get boring.  Holy shit, I did level 3 today for the first time and will be on fire tomorrow.  Maybe that will make level 1 seem not quite so tough the next time I try it.

What are YOUR surefire hits for staying fit, long after the New Years resolutions have faded?  I’d love to hear from you!

Come Meet My Soul – a 4-part Journey

18 Sunday Nov 2012

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Oh yeah, here we go!  I’ve taken a beautiful leap of faith with that feeling of flying and the air whooshing all around me…and I firmly grabbed the swinging trapeze bar.  With a huge smile on my face and a squeal of delight! Bingo.

What’s going on here?  Well, last weekend I took a 3-day transformational workshop for women which was all about finding, nurturing and celebrating our inner selves.  Our inner Queens if you will.  Finding out how to bring out the best of ourselves, which in turn brings energy and life to those around us.  Understanding the power of femininity – what makes us beautiful, powerful, essential and magical!

I went in with an open heart and open mind.  And the dial on 10.  I truly believe to fully get and gain the benefits of workshops like this that you have to be in a clear, open state.  Throw away any skepticism or doubts.  Leave daily stresses behind. Given we started on a Friday afternoon, it was wonderful that we each got a moment to ’empty our basket’ in small groups.  Meaning, to take 3-5 minutes to just unload and share what’s on our minds.  Concerns with family, work…even a little guilt about being in the workshop and not taking care of what we’d normally be doing.  That was my basket to unload; I’d cleared that Friday half-day off from work months ago, but our project was starting to go sideways and it felt weird to pull away from the team.  But once I arrived downtown at the hotel where the workshop was, grabbed a quick late lunch and walked into our room, I felt calm and left that all behind.  I was ready to learn and grow.

I stumble a bit trying to describe what we did because it would not be the complete picture for anyone reading these words.  It would be like taking an apple, stamping the bottom of it on an ink pad, and printing it onto a sheet of paper.  All you would see are the 4 bottom points of the apple where it hits the paper.  That’s what my words would be like trying to explain this workshop in greater detail.  You wouldn’t ‘see’ the full apple and wouldn’t have the full context.  So with that in mind, I’ll give it a whirl.

One of our exercises was to find out what it is we wish for the whole world.  What qualities are the strongest in each of us that make the world a better place?  Once we completed these exercises and started sharing our wishes – really, ourselves – with others, it was amazing.  I looked around me and saw women transformed.  Becoming even more beautiful, relaxed and serene.  Glowing.  Yummy.  Facial tensions from our everyday stresses melting away.  A vibe of happiness and contentment filled the conference room and I could literally see it floating through the windows and swirling out into the bustling, horn-honking high energy of downtown Seattle.  I could tell one of the women wasn’t completely happy with the 4 words she chose.  But the next day she re-introduced herself to us – we were a group of 35 – and her new words truly were hers.  I was sitting right behind her and felt warmth, love and peaceful energy flowing from her.  What an incredible feeling!

So who am I?  Meet JOY.  Joy is at the seat of my soul.  It’s one of the essential pillars to be me.  Joy is happiness multiplied by infinity.  I see joy as a huge trampoline to jump and celebrate upon, or a bunch of springs going boing-boing-boing.  Funny, maybe that’s why I REALLY loved Slinkys as a kid.  When I feel joy I feel like vaulting out of my seat – a double back flip with a full twist and stick the landing!  Or just jumping up and down!  I mean seriously, if I can’t live and breathe each day of my life with joy, I might as well fold up the tent and go home.

I’ve been told sometimes that I’m “too happy.”  HUH??  Well, compared to WHAT??  I know I’m not happy all the time.  If you follow along in here you know that too.  I work through lots of struggles, problems, sadness and anger.  Life. But even at my lowest moments, I know JOY is my pilot light keeping me going.  She might just be a little dim or flickering temporarily, but she’ll shine bright and full strength again.  When she does, I’m back at my center.

And I doodle joy with stars.  Yep, it’s true!  Look through my yellow notepads of scribblings or in my work Filofax and there are stars everywhere.  I still have a large, brass paperweight a director gave me at work over 15 years ago.  What is it?  A star.  I love the shape of stars and I love looking up at the stars as they sparkle and shine at night (OK, I have to use the imagination this time of year in Seattle but I can picture it).  I ‘hear’ them twinkling in the sky.  I wonder at what’s out there.  I have an unusual love of both astronomy AND astrology…but they both are all about the stars.

I love writing joy with smiley faces.  Those emoticons we sprinkle into our online/email writings or texts?  I really and truly ‘hear’ them smiling.  I couldn’t possibly put into words what smiling sounds like but it’s a joyful, delicious sound. Oh, and know what else?  Joy just happens to be my sister-in-law’s name.  And I have THE best sister-in-law in the world, just sayin’.

Just three letters – but oh so much behind them!