Barbecue Season

Even though I'm rather committed to a winter sport I think that summer may be my favourite season.  We've had some nice summery weather lately (even though it's dark and there's rumblings of a thunder storm outside as I write this) and nice weather means we can break out the barbecue!  Barbecue is one of my favourite things because it's relatively fast and it also creates little to no dishes (washing dishes is the worst I hate dishes).

I wrapped some sweet potatoes and onions up in foil with some garlic, olive oil, cinnamon, oregano, and shredded coconut and put all that and some pork chops (because pork is cheap and I'm a poor student) on the grill.

I multitasked and iced my knee that was sore (just from training not an injury or anything) while I cooked dinner.  I was home alone so while I was waiting for dinner I got to enjoy a couple of our new patio chairs and my book in the sunshine.

Our patio is still a work in progress, we don't even have a table right now (we're working on that) but we got some nice chairs on sale at target and some little tea light holders so fingers crossed there's some nice enough weather this summer that we can spend a lot of it outside.

My finished dinner complete with some leftover chickpea salad that was just chickpeas, veggies, onions, cilantro, red pepper flakes, garlic, lemon juice, and olive oil.

New Challenges

In a perfect world I would be able to skate and train full-time and give 100% of my attention to it.  Unfortunately I don't live in that world and I have to plan for my life after skating so during the fall/winter I have to do school part-time even though it might not seem like a priority right now.  I'm very lucky that my parents support me enough that (along with my provincial funding) I don't have to work during the school year but speed skating is a very expensive sport when you factor in the equipment, the oval program fees, and the travel expenses that I am responsible for not to mention regular expenses like food, rent, and school.

My first summer in Calgary I didn't work (in Calgary I worked at home before I moved) because I moved so late in the summer, the second summer I was back and forth between home and Calgary too much to work but once I started to get even more serious about summer training I was spending all but about two weeks in Calgary so this summer I'm balancing full-time training and a part-time job.  I am well aware that this may make me seem spoiled but it is impossible to work without missing any training since training tends to take up the whole day and that stresses me out.  I need the money, I like my job (so far at least it's been a week) but I worry about missing training and ending up behind where I could be and behind my teammates.  I'm realizing more and more lately that skating is not going to be something I'm going to do forever, that I need to think about and prepare for a life after skating one day but I'm not ready to give it up yet and I want to make sure I can quit (some day, not soon) knowing that I've done everything I could have and without any regrets and right now I feel like missing important summer training could end up being a regret.

I'm hoping I can sort everything out so I can do all my training but right now I'm just feeling anxious about the whole thing because I don't want to let my coaches down, I don't want to depend on my parents for everything, I don't want to make my work angry and I don't want to skate badly next season.

A Taste of Summer

I went to visit my parents in the Vancouver area for just over a week or my home away from home away from home?  I've got too many homes to count now.  While I was there I was lucky enough to experience some really nice weather, summer weather in fact.  I went for a little walk with my mom and my sister and took some pictures that I've spent the day reminiscing over since it snowed in Calgary yesterday ... seriously snow in May, what's up with that?

Being in BC was such a gorgeous change because everything was green and flowers were in bloom and most importantly it was warm, sunny, and there was no snow.

Duckies!

Always love getting my camera out and taking pictures, being creative, if I could I think I'd like to just walk around and take pictures of anything and everything and maybe do a bit of writing in between and nothing else.  Unfortunately I don't get to do that and I've got to start my new part time job tomorrow, wish me luck!