Let's get philosophical

Live Life as a Work of Art

I was in my history class and my teacher was talking about an Italian philosopher who said this during the Renaissance. 

For some reason, this quote spoke so much to me and I felt really drawn to it.

It's true, when you think about it, it's rare that we look at somebody's life and think "Wow... that is a great life."

Obviously, there are and always will be bad moments. What can be different is how much importance we give to that negative event and how we view it. 

If something bad happens, the more we think about it, the more it seems to become worse. If we try to look at the good side of things, or at least look at them realistically, and try to brush them off while learning from them, life doesn't seem so bad after all.

Not only does this quote remind me that it's important to be realistic and positive, it also reminds me that we need to give life a try. What I mean by that is give everything you want a try! Too often I've heard elderly people complain that they would've tried this, or done this differently. 

I find that having regrets when growing old seems like the worst feeling. This quote made me realize that it's so important to try things out, even if you're scared or unsure. 

Chances are, you'll learn something from it, or even better, you'll discover that you enjoy it. 

Finally, "a great life" may not be the same to you as it is to me. We all have different ambitions and preferences. I think what's important is to make the best of it FOR YOU.

I want to see my life as a work of art when I grow old. I want to look back and think "Yep, nothing can be perfect, but this sure was a great ride." I want to look at things realistically, and hopefully have less sad moments than happy ones. I want to be the best I can be.

Sorry for this urge of philosophy that I had to express.

I hope that it got you thinking about your life too.

***

♥ Journey To Healthy Update

Last week was not so great for some odd reason. I did stay of track nutrition-wise, although I binged a little too much on chocolate.

I didn't work out at all, though. I was lacking the motivation, but I was pretty active in the sense that I was not a couch potato all week. 

This week, I gotta step my game up. Today I was sick, so my week is kinda out of balance right now. I plan on getting my 3 workouts done and on eating my fruits and veggies excluding today. I also want to limit myself to 2 portions of chocolate per day. We'll see how that goes!

xox :)

NOTD & Review: Classy manicure

Yesterday, I decided to finally paint my nails!
It had been such a long time, but I wanted to go with something very natural, mainly because I wanted to try a new nail polish my mom bought.

Excuse the dry cuticles :S

*Drumroll...* Review time!

I wanna talk about the three products I used on my nails.
First, my base coat.

Misa Base Coat - 7.95 $CAD

This is from Misa and it works great. Don't worry, it doesn't make your nails look pink-y, it goes on sheer. However, it works so well 'cause it's slightly adhesive after drying, which makes the nail polish adhere better to it. Not only that, but it's really meant to protect your nails from getting stained!

The nail polish I used is from OPI, called Bubble Bath.

OPI Bubble Bath - 9.95 $CAD

My mom is yellow under-toned, so she thought it looked to pink-y on her nails. Since I'm more of a pink undertone, I find that it's a great nude for me! Absolutely nothing bad to say. I does need 2 coats to be more opaque, and it dries pretty quickly.

My top coat was also from Misa.

Misa Top Coat - 7.95 $CAD

It does wonders! It dries and creates a shield on your nail polish to protect it from everything. My nails are really dry and thin, but after using these 3 products, I feel like I have gel nails on or something! They have never felt as strong as now. And needless to say, the quality of the top coat is great: no bubbles. I have only worn this for a day but usually, I always chip my nail polish the first day.. not this time. And I did hit my nails on pretty hard surfaces... not a scratch.

I definitely recommend these 3 products!!


♥ Journey to Healthy Update
Last week was pretty good. I managed to eat all of my fruits and veggies like planned.
I did do my three workouts, although I skipped a couple during the week so I had to do 2 Sunday night to achieve my goal.
Next week, I want to do the same thing.
Practice makes perfect! The more you do it, the more you get used to it.
Check out the three workouts I have to do this week!

Finding time to workout?!

Welcome back to my weekly update on my Journey to Healthy!
Last week I mentioned that I wanted to keep better track of my efforts to reaching my goals. So, I put a post-it in my agenda where I wrote all the days of the week and where I put a red check mark for every portion of fruits eaten, and a green one for veggies.
I took this pictures on Saturday morning, here's what it looks like:

As far as working out goes, I printed a calender-like table that I hung on my white board and where I write down every physical activity I've done.

For this week, my fruits and veggies goal remains the same: 1 of each, each day.

As far as fitness goes, I've realized it is surrealistic for me to workout everyday. I can't go from 0 to 7 days of working out in 1 week. So, I've decided that instead, I would find 3 high intensity workouts and do them each week, which means I will have a workout for 3 days of the week. If I manage to get in more, that's great, but I won't beat myself up for not doing more than 3 days of workout per week. I will make sure those workouts last at least 20 minutes, though.
Click here if you want to check out this week's 3 workouts, by Amanda Russell!

Time is obviously an issue when it comes to working out for me, so hopefully I will be able to stick with this.
However, I must say that blogging about it weekly definitely helps motivate me! Hope it's not boring for you to read...

Any requests of articles you want me to do? :)

Until next time,
Happy Valentine's Day!
- Alexx ♥

Squats and Lipbutters

It has been a week since I decided to get on my Journey to Healthy.

I'll be honest, I wasn't as successful as I would've wanted to be. I didn't record properly my fruits and veggies intake. I also didn't finish my 7-day Just Dance challenge, mostly because I wasn't home 4 nights this week, which obviously makes things harder.

However, I can say that I know what I've done wrong and I can only improve.
So, for next week, I will have a little post-it in my agenda on which I will draw a grid of the week. For every portion of fruits that I eat, I will check in red, and for veggies, in green. My precise goal is to eat two snacks per day, 1 fruit and 1 veggie.
For my fitness goal, I want to do 3 sets of 20 sit-ups and 3 sets of 20 squats each day. I'll increase if it's too easy. I'll create a grid which I'll hang on my white board and write down how many of each I've done each day. For the days when I run out of time or am not home, I'll make sure to take the stairs everywhere I go.

Now that my goals for Week 2 are out of the way, I just wanted to mention my newest makeup item which I've wanted for a loooong time.
Revlon Lipbutter! Oh yeaaah. I got it in Sweet Tart and I do love the color. My only concern is that after a while, it dries on the lips, probably because my lips absorb the moisture. I will try using a lipgloss on top.

Not the nicest pictures but the color is pretty close to reality.

What were your New Year's resolutions for 2012? Still working on them?
xox, Alexx :)

Journey to Healthy... How I want to do it!

So in the last 2 days, I've been thinking about planning a routine for my everyday life.
One of my biggest problems since forever has been working out. I don't like sports and having an active lifestyle has been a challenge. However, I think I might have just had a massive light bulb over my head!

So, I was thinking: "I usually suck at achieving long term goals. I tend to forget about them, or become discouraged, since I find it too hard to reach and I'm too lazy to do the work."
And that's when it hit me. "Set short term goals instead! Duh!" I have to admit I was inspired by Just Dance 3, the Wii game. They have a 7-day challenge section where you have to earn a certain number of Sweat Points per day, in a week, and I've started doing that yesterday.

I realized that psychologically, this is so much more motivating for me than setting long term goals.
It kinda reminds me of the saying "Live day by day." Basically, the more you focus on the present, the more you'll make out of it. So to me, setting goals for the year is unrealistic because I have to think of all the days I will have to work towards my goals. However, my idea of setting a weekly goal seems so much more easy to do, especially if you want to shift your lifestyle. You only have to worry about the 7 following days, not 365!

So I'm starting by taking baby steps. My goal for this week is to finish my Just Dance 7-day challenge successfully. I know I can earn all my points easily, the challenge is to actually take the time to do it each day. I also have another goal which is unfortunately not very specific: eat more fruits and veggies.
I think that the more specific your goals are, the more you will be able to achieve them. I should be deciding on a certain number or a certain category instead of being general, but for this week, I'll see what I can do with this general goal.
My plan is to continue shifting my lifestyle in this way: one week at a time, a different goal each week. After time, some things will start becoming part of my routine without me noticing, so hopefully, by next year, I can say that I've become healthier.

And yes, I will try to make a weekly blog post stating what my goal for the next week is, and how the previous week went. Can't wait to see where this takes me, and your support is greatly appreciated!

xox :)