Tag Archives: lululemon

Black is the new black

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fashionfriday

Good morning and WELCOME TO THE WEEKEND!!!

Today I want to talk about something I have found to be 100% true in fashion and can be relayed to all aspects of life…

trueExample: Writing my blog posts. I could be in a corner of my house on a couch writing down whatever comes to my head first. But no.

Every Tuesday, Thursday and some Sunday afternoons, you will find me around 3:05 pm looking something like this..

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This blog is quite literally fuelled by dubstep and lattes. In case my entire tagline was lost on you. I am a literal person, almost to a fault.

So when I started buying my own clothes, I tried to go with the cheap, mall type bits and got exhausted with shopping almost constantly. This will not come as a shock to you, but I am not a trendy person. I do not enjoy sorting through the latest head wear, sheer baby tees, or jelly shoes and figure out how it will work with my personal style, because the reality is…it won’t.

I love classic, boring old non-colours. For me, black is the new black and it will probably always be that way. So instead of relying on the people who do it poorly, I have sought out some people that are doing it very very very well.

Here are some of my absolute staples that are professionally made and certifiably awesome. To make this list, each item must have stood the test of being worn within an inch of their lives and show minimal wear. In the “buy it once, have it forever” category.

My light grey, viscose REISS blazer.

My Fossil watch.

clothes

My black Christian Louboutins.

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My Longchamp errand bag.

 

My Lululemon winter jacket.

#notme

My JBrand jeans.

There is a story behind these that must be told. [soon]

I understand that quality stuff is expensive. I bought most of these items on a student budget, but they stood the test of time and I will continue buying them in the next decade or so when they start to wear out.

Where on earth did this all come from? Well, I was reading this month’s Elle magazine and I came across a fantastic article  by Amanda Fortini on beautiful clothing:

“What appeals to me about these clothes is their timelessness, their structure, their impeccable quality. Last winter I got so disproportionately bummed out when a pair of maize-color mittens unraveled after one wearing that I vowed I would never again buy anything else made with chintzy materials or blah design. On a practical level, it’s a waste of money and time. But I also think that after you reach a certain age, ephemeral clothing subtly reminds you of all the other impermanence in your life—the relationships that have ended, the places you’ve lived and had to leave. And such throwaway pieces are nearly always mass-produced. I want clothing that’s unique, even rare, clothing that looks like me, the outward expression of my distinctive tastes and triumphs and mistakes, acquired over years. “Life shapes the face you have at 30,” Coco Chanel once said. Shouldn’t life also shape your wardrobe?”

While we are on the topic of awesome things in the awesome pile of brand loyalty that will never be extinguished…

That is all.

Have a fabulous weekend. I am teaching a few classes, working a trade show and heading to Burlington and Vaughan to get some Fitness Instructor credits so I can teach some more awesome stuff like kick boxing and aqua fit and some boring but necessary stuff like step and body sculpt.

What is in your closet that will always be there?
Do you agree with Fortini?

New tactic to get my attention

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Good morning everyone!

I hope everyone had a fantastic St Patricks weekend. I spent an evening with friends on Friday, taught a few classes on Saturday and spent the evening with my parents watching this movie:

What a bitter sweet movie. I loved it – anything with Meryl Streep in it can do no wrong in my mind.

Sunday, I went for a run.

Jesse was with some friends in Kitchener and I realized it was colder than I thought. I raided his dwindling closet [he is in the process of moving] and found his ratty, lululmon windbreaker that he used for landscaping last summer.

And some socks gloves.

Upon my return, I began stretching while Wilson, Jesse’s Yorkie, circled around me.

Wilson is a special animal. He has a bit of a sordid past so he can be a little strange.

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He wanders aimlessly from room to room with a blank stare on his face and is quite like a cat in the way that he will come to you as he feels necessary and never when called. Hearing his name is more like an open invitation to bolt away from you.
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He has a collapsed trachea so he sounds like a goose in distress every time he takes a drink of water.

He has cataracts so his eyes never quite seem to focus on you when you are talking to him.

He hates playing.

IMG_5633If I try to take him on a run or a walk he deems too long, he will feign a limp, but the second there is a dog nearby that could rip him into two, he will run straight to him as if his life depends on it. IMG_5627(Is it any wonder that the leading cause of death for Yorkies is overconfidence?!)

All this to say that he has developed a new “ism” so to speak. This is his new tactic to get my attention:

I will never understand this dog.

If you have a pet, what are some of the stranger things they do?

a good challenge at things I generally suck at

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I am WAY too sleep deprived to be operating a blog post with any level of proper mental functioning as I have been at a music festival all day, but I did want to share this with you all.

I enjoy a good challenge at things I generally suck at, which is why I am doing one of those 30 days of photos things and would love you all to join me!

I am doing Lululemon’s September one, seen below.

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To see my daily take on what each word means to me, follow me on Twitter! I will be posting my daily photo over there.

And check out today’s take on the word centre. (Warning…I went with the obvious.)

If you join in, feel free to link your pictures below! Or your thoughts on what the word centre even means.

Heart is the centre of love and peace. - Sri Sathya Sai Baba

Aka My Happy Place

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Last night was a revolutionary one for Jesse.

We were finishing up his birthday dinner and he mentioned he had gotten a few texts re: his birthday post. I hauled out my laptop and let him read what I wrote.

At first, he was touched.

He quickly moved on to…”Wait…how much do you write about me on your blog?”

I looked at him for a moment and then said, “Jesse…your mother and sister are some of the most reliable readers of my blog. Many of your relatives subscribe to my updates. You think they are doing it because I only write about myself?”

Thankfully he is not overly tech savvy, bless him.

Anyways, I am eternally grateful to his sister who provided proof that he has been mastering the “tuck and roll” from an early age.

And he’s still got it.

I digress.

I want to update you on my latest race, The Starbucks Run for Women (chosen for obvious reasons). It happened last Saturday in the quaint little city of Unionville. I can only describe it as that little town at the beginning of Beauty and the Beast where all the townspeople are bursting out of their windows and doors and shouting out “Good morning!”

Anyways, I awoke at a ridiculous hour of the morning, sped down the 401 and arrived in Unionville in time to grab my race pack, do a quick warm up and head to the starting line.

There was a 5 km or 10km option. I chose the 10 km because it was bound to be less people and if I am driving a distance, I want to run a distance!

This was a woman’s only race, so I gauged the runners and went to the front. I was standing behind two (what I can only assume to be) Kenyans and a woman who looked like she ate nails for breakfast and was wearing the tights that looked like this:

I tried to ignore the feeling I would be miserably passed, possibly lapped and tried to occupy my mind with the Starbucks coffee and oatmeal at the end of the race.

The gun went off and I started way too quickly and was in second for about the first km. Obviously I started getting passed but I was feeling great and running strong. I quickly altered my  goal to finish in the top ten.

I kept a strong pace for most of the race. It was beautiful! We ran through the town and it seemed as if all of Unionville was outside to cheer us on. When we were not running near people, we were in wooded areas and by large bodies of water. Gorgeous. It was a mixture of a trail race and a road race (aka, my happy place). I kept hammering on, slowly edging past runners and moving up.

I had a good sprint to the finish line and I finished in 47:10. I had just crossed the finish line when I bumped into an athletic woman and as I started to apologize, I realized it was Catriona Le May Doan. We swapped race stories and then I turned incredibly awkward as I started gushing on about how proud Canada was to have an athlete like her, etc. I managed to pull it together for her to sign my race bib and take a quick photo.

I went to check the times board and was shocked to see I came in fourth and first in my age group.

How can this happen? Well, this is the second year of the race, so there were only 334 people in the 10 km. It also was an all woman’s race so I am not competing against males who by nature are stronger and faster runners. Most ladies were making this a fun run with the girls as well. So this will probably never ever happen again, but it felt good to have my name this close to the top for at least one race. (Check out the ages of the ladies who won! They were amazing!)

Anyways, if you are interested, race photos can be seen here. (aka, there you go, mom).

I picked up my prize and collected my race bracelet that all runner get instead of medals (girls race, I told you!) and revelled in the high “estrogenness” of the race.

To cap off the “girl power” theme of the day, I ended up at the Lululemon outlet and of course found another piece to add to my obsessive collection.

Pre-Race Checklist

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It’s the day before a big race for me and I have slowly learned through trial and error what works best for me before a hard run. Perhaps it would have been simpler to glean the information from running professionals, but I wouldn’t have followed it anyways. I have this small issue of needing to make the experiance mine before I can do something wholeheartedly.

So what am I wholeheartedly doing today?

  1. Eating. You cannot be shocked at this. I am making attempts at eating whenever I get hungry and constantly. Again- how is this any different from normal, you may ask? I just finished eating oatmeal and a peach for a snack…before lunch. Ergo, I am seeking out carbs and trying to make them as healthy as possible.

                                               

Me. Eating some good (edit: yummy) carbs.

2.         Shaving. And before you rush away, I will not post any picture for this. And don’t assume I live as Sasquatch, I definately don’t, but the day before a race I always shave, no matter what. Nothing is more annoying then wearing those unsightly short shorts with any semblance of hair on your legs. Plus, it makes you more aerodynamically correct! (At least that is my arguement)

3. Hydrate! I use the best water bottle in the world and I drink as much as humanly possible the day before. (Mind you, science tells that the coffee I am slugging back has an opposite effect, but I rebut with the simple fact it is a liquid! See? Common sense! )

                                                         

My fabulous water bottle.

4.   Get my sleep. (ish) It is frusterating to get enough sleep for a Saturday race because I am 21 and Friday nights are my specialty. But really – sleep makes a huge difference. I am not too worried about tomorrow because I race at 5:30 pm.

5. Get my stuff together. You know: shoes, clothes, map to race, keys, BOOK if you don’t have people coming to cheer you on and talk to (often it is fruitless to drag any friend or relative out to the highways and trails before dawn to watch me run..I can’t imagine why not???), water bottle, snacks (like granola bars, fruit, nuts), monnnnnnnnnney, etc. That is a lot of things to remember when you are not fully conscious, so do it before you go to bed!

6. Don’t think about it too much. I am not one of those people that visualizes my races. I am there to run and have fun. So I put it out of mind until I am lining up to start. This will encourage ” What was I thinking? What did I get myself into?” thoughts about half way through, but this is normal for most aspects of my life, so why stray from the normal?

7. Move as little as possible.

I, for one, would love to spend the day on the couch today watching Gossip Girl and carb loading with popcron, but I am at work. So I take the stairs as little as possible, I am not running today and I am just chilling. It is pretty nice for now, but I will be antsy to move once the starting gun sounds. Perfect.

I will post a recap following the race. I am doing the 30 K Midsummer Nights Run in downtown Toronto. As if 30 K of night time city streets isn’t enough of a Jess thing, it is a Shakespearian theme. Hello!!!!! :)

The link: http://www.amidsummernightsrun.ca/

Run strong!