Fitness and Jazz

So for all of you that really know me, you know that I have to work out. It's kind of an addiction (can you really call an addiction to fitness a bad thing). Now while my trip of a lifetime to Europe was amaaazing it also put a 7-week long kink in my usual fitness routine. Also added about 10 more pounds to my permanent fitness goal. Boo. This is the look I was rocking at the beginning of my career during training:

Upon my arrival in Lafayette I'd had enough of this and made a commitment to get back on track. So I joined Anytime Fitness between work and home (no excuses to pass it by on my way home). I went it alone for about a month and a half, wasn't really seeing results so I made two big changes: a solid eating plan (stolen from a magazine which I'll speak about in a later post) and bootcamp style classes sometimes twice a day to get everything started. HUGE fitness improvements for sure (at the beginning I wanted to die).

The next level was to keep it going with bootcamp classes from Alli, the best motivator, TRX classes and... wait for it... ZUMBA! I jumped on the band wagon. I'm so sad I didn't do it before then too because I know how much my Hali friends loved it.

So after putting in a pretty solid effort I have a progress update:

Minus 12 pounds and still going. I've hit a bit of a lull right now but haven't gone up, so that's progress right? Anyway it's ironically time for lunch, so get out there and sweat your butt off!

Massive Update

Alright so unlike one of my besties, Kaylee Shannon, I am probably the worst blogger in the world. So I'm going to try and catch everyone up on what everything has been like since I've moved down stateside and have been really bad sometimes about keeping in touch with people (I try and do my best). With that being said, this is gonna be a long one...

Apparently this is the only non-ridiculous pic of my apartment I've taken.

So right off the bat, once I arrived in Lafayette (yes I live in Louisiana and ALSO in a place named after a True Blood character), I got my new (read: free/company-provided) apartment. Furnished and all. I also was roommate-less for the first month! How could I lose really?

After my first week at work, I showed up to being told that I was going to work in a bulk plant for a week (read: 2.5 weeks) on my birthday. Slightly depressing birthday present but this is the life I chose right? Anyway it's literally a port in the middle of nowhere that you have to travel 30 minutes to get to a Wal-Mart. But there were two saving graces:
1. Dolphins

and 2. Kitties

They were feral and lived under where we stayed; of course I fed them :)

There was nothing else that really happened there of importance except for unloading a few trucks and loading a few vessels full of bulk dry cement. Fun times.

I also decided that I wanted to volunteer at an animal shelter because I missed my poor little Fernando (read: spoiled) who is being boarded by my parents back in Newfoundland. They have officially turned him into an outdoor cat (unimpressed as this will not be accommodated very well when I live in an apt/condo and am reunited with him). I had my orientation and got to go there once. Hopefully once I work the schedule I'm supposed to (3 weeks on, 1 off) I'll make it back to visit the kittehs more.

Another work adventure took me to a chemical storage/dry blending facility in Raceland. Which was nicely downwind of the sugar mill during harvest season. How can something that makes things taste so delicious smell so foul when they're processing it? There was also a kitty here (beginning to see a trend? I think it's the universe's way of replacing Ferd while I can't have him down here with me). My roomie was there as well and we named her Butters.

The week after we also visited the lab facility in New Orleans. It was def within walking distance of Bourbon Street and we actually went there on Halloween night (unfortunately not dressed up though). But thankfully we left in time before some sketchy stuff went down that showed up all over the news the next day.

The next exciting thing that happened was probably my first Black Friday experience. I desperately wanted a Christmas tree because: 1. everyone leaves during Thanksgiving and I wanted something to do and 2. I LOOOOOOOOVE CHRISTMAS! So brilliant Erin went to Wal-Mart to buy a tree Thanksgiving Day at 8 pm-ish (Black Friday sales weren't supposed to start until 10 pm so I thought I'd be ok). Silly naive Canadian. This was the line-up after being there for 2 hours:

Buuuuuut it resulted in this:

It seems at no point did I take a fully decorated pic; my colours were lime green and purple :)

Then came pre-school to learn lots of things about swinging hammers, running pumps and maintenance. It was actually pretty fun to do some hands-on stuff finally. This is me helping replace a centrifugal pump:

And this is a butterfly valve I built:

I was pretty proud of myself

Then my awesome manager let me have a legit block of time off to go home for Christmas. It was kind of a crazy time, between the travel taking about 24 hours total between delays and prolonged layovers, making it home just in time for some Tibb's Eve festivities, and a lot of family time. Sadly over the holiday we said goodbye to my Poppy John after his battle with cancer. But there's always a silver lining: I made it home to see him, he knew who I was, and we had some great visits those last few days. I also would've been heartbroken if I had missed his funeral, so as sad it was to attend I'm so glad that I got to. I also have to say thank you to Diane who gave my dad some home movies of a Thanksgiving we spent at the camp in Grand Falls when I was only five. Watching it was a pretty great (read: still sad) way to spend my New Year's Eve while fitting in a last bit of time with the fam.

I'm currently in Kellyville, OK for Operational School aka learning how to run a cement unit... ish. Won't lie; the first time I did it, it was terrifying. But it's getting easier as we get more practise (funny thing that is, practise). Final evaluation on cement mixing is coming up this week, then some more classroom stuff, then VACAY!!! On the schedule: Calgary, Orlando, Miami and cruise with the rents. Some definite motivation to get through the second half of this school :). 

Sorry for the ridiculous post; I promise I'll stay more on top of it from now on so this doesn't happen again.