Alice Rediscovers Her Mojo And So May We All

March 7 POD

"Johnny Depp: making crazy look hot since....whenever!"

Thanks Caitlin, for that great quote. Khizzie, my belly dance instructor agrees with you. Johnny (and Orlando Bloom) have provided inspiration for many of her classes as she makes us pretend we are mermaids bringing golden coins on our hips to Captain Jack Sparrow's pirate ship. A bit of a Pirates of the Caribbean fetish goin' on with Khizmet, to be sure. A whole lotta fun, but you probably had to be there...

I think he's been making crazy look hot ever since Edward Scissorhands, but I might have missed a character or two before then.

Mizz J and I went to see Alice in Wonderland on Sunday, after treating ourselves to a mani/pedi at the mall. Why is it so hard to find a salon that can consistently do a great job? Last time I went to this place the pedicure was pretty good. Still good this time, but the manicure was dodgy...mostly because the manicurist was rushing to be done with me so she could do a pedicure on a walk-in. And we had booked appointments! Argh. I'm going to stick to pedis from now on. I can do a better manicure and polish on myself.

Anyway, the movie was mostly fantastic. Way better than Avatar. Johnny Depp and Tim Burton are a match made in Heaven, once again. The actress who played Alice, Mia Wasikowska, was quite wonderful, I thought. Mizz J especially liked the fact that Alice was such a strong female character...she didn't start out that way, but became so as the movie progressed. Yes, a pretty decent young female role model for Mizz J, who is in the process of discovering herself and the world!

The Futtenwacken dance scene - what was up with that? It didn't seem to fit into the movie at all. Like it was forced in by some Disney exec for a product tie-in or something or to appeal to some demographic. Music and dance style did not jibe with the time period of the movie. Imagine Micheal Jackson dropped into 19th century England. Just weird.

But overall, a highly enjoyable movie.

It's Time to Get Serious...

Feb 11th POD

About fitness and the wedding, that is.

Purchased a few cheap exercise DVDs to spur me on. Two for kicking my butt, and one for STRESS RELIEF! With a bonus talk by the Dalai Lama on meditation....how could I pass that one up? Plus, did I mention it was cheap?

Feb 12 POD - Catching Olympic Fever - Go Canada!!!!!

Since paying attention to my eating and trying to ramp up the activity (thank you Pedometer!), I have been feeling so much better and I have lost 2 pounds to boot! My body really does want to heal itself, I just have to give it a chance.

I started off slowly, by just increasing the amount of time and intensity of walking Mizz Lucy. Now I am adding workouts in the pool (sprinting laps), elliptical trainer, and DVD workouts.

Feb 13th - Date with Jackie Warner for a 15 minute total body circuit training session. Oh my goddess....I have no core strength. Sad. But I certainly have progress to make in that area, and that will be rewarding to note of as I get stronger. No wonder I have been struggling so much with most belly dance moves!

Who knew you could get so much done in 15 minutes? I am impressed. And pleasantly sore 2 days later. Not crazy-Frankenstein-walk soreness, but just enough that you remember you worked your body good.

Wedding planning got kicked off into a higher gear this week. We met with (and booked) our photographer, the lovely Jillian. Who was a fountain of wedding advice, due to her experiences at weddings of all sorts. And we also met with Tracey, at the Village Hotel, who was/continues to be also most helpful! Things are starting to come together, that's for sure. And about time.

And, in talking things through with these two, we are slowly developing the picture of what we want our guests to experience. We've nixed the DJ/Dance idea in favour of live music and hope we can find someone to fit that bill. Guitar, piano...someone who sings too would be wonderful.

Otherwise we just may be recording hours of our favourite tunes and investing in an iPod and some speakers. We've also decided against a receiving line. The guest list is small enough that we won't have any problem mixing and mingling with everybody immediately afterwards and during the rest of the night. Wedding dress shopping starts tomorrow. Things are starting to come together, all right!

Re-Vamped

Last week I saw a show on Slice that has piqued my interest:
http://www.slice.ca/Shows/ShowsPage.aspx?Title_ID=240165

It's a reality show, transformation-style. Get together a bunch of women who have recently had their hearts broken savagely and stick them in a resort for 6 weeks with a bunch of experts to give them their mojo back. At the end of it all, they put on a burlesque show with their newly made-over fine selves, in front of their families and friends....and their exes!?!

I get the whole revenge aspect. Who hasn't wanted to meet with someone who dissed them, or overlooked them, or crushed them, on a day when all the planets align and you LOOK, FEEL, ARE spectacular, at the top of your game? Wearing your most kick-a** shoes, a killer outfit, hair and makeup perfect (for once). It's a wonderful little fantasy.

The Ex aspect though, not sure how I feel about that part of the show yet.

I am torn between the part of me that says: Yeah, show him what a doofus he was for dumping you! Sour grapes buddy - you can't have her now! Look at what you're missing, what you couldn't see, that was there all along: a vibrant, sexy, confident woman!!!!

And the part of me that says: whoa....doesn't this lock these women in with their exes for another 6 weeks at least, instead of them moving forward with their lives??? And I really hope the motivation for these ladies is to look and feel great for their own sakes....not just completion of the "looking this hot is the best revenge I can inflict on you" scenario.

The burlesque expert on the show intrigues me as well. Being a belly dance fan, I am also finding myself becoming a fan of burlesque costumes and dance (although I admit I know almost nothing about the art. It's not stripping or pole dancing - that much I know). She dresses like a 40's pinup (very cool!) and made a comment on the show that has stuck with me all week:

"Sexy is not comfortable"...meaning you have to work consciously at it all the time when performing! Something I think about when practicing belly dance. Reminding me to engage all of my muscles to execute the moves properly.

I am hooked. And I am going to keep on watching.

This is the first day of the next year of my life...

...which is, of course true for every day. However today IS special. This day next year I will be getting married (for the second time) to the mate of my heart and soul (for the first time). We've been a couple for seven years now (engaged for one), and he still makes me sigh...and not always with exasperation either.

My future sister-in-law emailed me today to ask my permission if she could host a shower for me next spring or summer. What?! Oh my goddess, that's right - I am a bride-to-be. At first I thought: Wow, that's nice! She remembered it is 1 year to the wedding today! Then I thought: Oh, wait. A wedding shower - for someone this old and on her second round? I don't know...it feels weird. Do people do that?

And then I remembered my mom having a wedding shower thrown for her when she married again after my dad passed away, when SHE WAS 63 YEARS OLD. Hey, I guess people DO do that sort of thing - I guess I can too. And SIL-to-be loves throwing a "do" and she's very good at it too, so I am kinda looking forward to this.

There's a lot I want to get done this next year. Some of it I should be doing anyway - and getting married is a lovely impetus, is it not? I am thinking, naturally, of losing weight and getting in shape. Been talkin' about losing 30-40 pounds now for about 4-5 years and been giving it a half-hearted effort, with the subsequent half-hearted results. I lose 5-10 pounds, then life gets in the way (don't it always?) and I lose focus and back they come on again.

I have very valid health reasons to do so, not just to look good in that special dress (which I haven't picked out yet). Heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and stroke have already affected my younger sisters. I seem to have won the genetic lottery (in my family) so far, but my doc and cardiologist are in wait-n-see mode. So, I believe it's in me, and I also believe I can avoid or delay it coming out by lifestyle modifications.

Other goals:

Belly Dance - I want to become a better belly dancer this year. This means I am taking the route to Carnegie Hall....practice, practice, practice. In fact today I was practicing my 3/4 shimmy at work while waiting for a timer to go off during a DNA extraction procedure. Thankfully no one entered the lab at the time and thus I avoided hideously embarrassing myself.

Running - I had a goal of running a full-marathon during my 50th year however, since I haven't lost the weight yet, that goal is looking not so good. I have run a couple of half-marathons, disgustingly slow due to injury or inadequate training (see Life Gets in the Way, Lack of Focus, above) and vowed not to do the full unless in much better/lighter shape. So I think I need to re-evaluate my running goals for this year. More on that later.

De-Clutter - Part of the upcoming co-mingling involves moving from my abode to his. Also renovations and such, but that may be part of The Next Year of My Life: the Post-Wedding Year. I've been in this place now for 9 years and that, my friends, means I have accumulated a pile of unnecessary crap. So I plan a room-by-room, show-no-mercy assault on the house. Should be a heck of a garage sale this spring if all goes according to plan.

I think I'll stop here. I have a tendency to over-reach, become too scattered, too diluted, take on too many projects etc. End result: Lack of focus, thus no goals met. I am by nature a "dabbler", not a "digger" (thanks Dr. Eydt - I still remember you telling me this and it's still true today), which means I am not programmed to pursue something single-mindedly for any huge length of time. I also remember my esteemed prof telling me not to despair, for "though the diggers get the Nobel Prizes, the dabblers have all the fun".

So - this is one dabbler who is determined to have a fun year leading up to her nuptials, AND meet her goals at the same time.