wallpaper

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Barbell Deadlift

Deadlift with Weight

"The deadlift is perhaps the most useful gym exercise in existence" (Schuler 164). In Lou Schulers book Lift Like a Man, Look Like a Goddess, Schuler gives many versions to the great deadlift while your on your next gym fix. Deadlifts use the movement of picking up something heavy from the ground and correct the imbalance of the muscles on the back and in the front.
To start the barbell deadlift load the barbell and set it on the floor and stand with the bar against your shins, toes forward, shoulder-width apart. there are two ways to go by doing a deadlift. the first way is to squat down and grab the bar and stand back up pushing through the middle of your feet using an overhand grip outside your legs (Schuler 165). The second way is to bend at your waist to pick the bar up the same way, although you have to keep your back strait to get the benefits from this deadlift.

Start by lifting the bar. I am improvising showing form and technique since I was unable to get to the gym.

Finish by standing lifting the barbell up against your legs while bringing your hips forward. For safety carefully set the weight back on the floor in front of you.

Which version do you like best or want to try first?

Schuler, Lou, and Cassandra E. Forsythe. The New Rules of Lifting for Women: Lift like a Man, Look like a Goddess. New York: Avery, 2007. Print.

Paris Is A Womans Town With Flowers In Her Hair

Dear friends,

Paris is a city you fall in love with immediately! And unconditionally! Well at least that is how it was for me... I was in love with Ireland and France ever since I can remember - I blame it all on Alexandre Dumas father and son and + my mum who was listening to Joe Dassin + all the movies with Louis de Funès that I saw when I was a wee lass... I always knew that sooner or later I will want to see Paris and so I did. I had to wait many years - until my second year of Masters degree - until I went there with Clara :) Claire Bear is a sweet friend of mine andI have told you about here, on my blog. We went for a longer weekend to Paris and it was beautiful! So I wanted to share with you some thoughts - and some quotes - on Paris and maybe even make you think of jumping in a plane and having a weekend there for yourself ;)

My Fav Picture From Paris - Taken With My Nokia E51

“Oh, London is a mans town, theres power in the air;
And Paris is a womans town, with flowers in her hair;
And its sweet to dream in Venice, and its great to study Rome;
But when it comes to living, there is no place like home.”
Henry van Dyke

“Paris was a universe whole and entire unto herself, hollowed and fashioned by history; so she seemed in this age of Napoleon III with her towering buildings, her massive cathedrals, her grand boulevards and ancient winding medieval streets--as vast and indestructible as nature itself. All was embraced by her, by her volatile and enchanted populace thronging the galleries, the theaters, the cafes, giving birth over and over to genius and sanctity, philosophy and war, frivolity and the finest art; so it seemed that if all the world outside her were to sink into darkness, what was fine, what was beautiful, what was essential might there still come to its finest flower. Even the majestic trees that graced and sheltered her streets were attuned to her--and the waters of the Seine, contained and beautiful as they wound through her heart; so that the earth on that spot, so shaped by blood and consciousness, had ceased to be the earth and had become Paris.”
Anne Rice, Interview With The Vampire

“The English language is like London: proudly barbaric yet deeply civilised, too, common yet royal, vulgar yet processional, sacred yet profane. Each sentence we produce, whether we know it or not, is a mongrel mouthful of Chaucerian, Shakespearean, Miltonic, Johnsonian, Dickensian and American. Military, naval, legal, corporate, criminal, jazz, rap and ghetto discourses are mingled at every turn. The French language, like Paris, has attempted, through its Academy, to retain its purity, to fight the advancing tides of Franglais and international prefabrication. English, by comparison, is a shameless whore.”
Stephen Fry, The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”
Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

I must admit I wanted to do this post for a very long while but I did not have the time to sort through all the pictures from the Paris trip with Claire so I had to make do with the pictures I already had on Facebook - but you will forgive me for that ;) It would be madness to try and explain Paris or what it means to me but I can tell you some things that were on my to do list and some extra things we managed to do.

Stay in a small hostel, just in the back of the well known Moulin Rouge. Dont be afraid of the small elevators and always eat breakfast at the hostel, the croissants are tasty and hot and the coffee is very good ;)
Talk to people around you and especially to the people at the hostel and in the room you are staying. We stayed in a 4 bed room with inside bath and it was really cozy and quiet. We made friends and we even went together to a walk in the evening at the Tour Eiffel.
Try to get off the beaten path of the tourists and get yourself lost. We got lost in Montmartre and we bumped into wonderful street artists. There is the first place I have ever heard of / heard / seen a hang instrument.
The Hang Drum :)
Visit the Versailles and leave leave yourself at least a day for that. An entire day to wonder in the beautiful palace and make sure to wonder around in the gardens and even have a picnic on the grass there - nevermind the rain, even if it catches you... Make sure you will not miss the Petit Trianon. Although Madame de Pompadour, who wished to “relieve the king’s boredom”, was the instigator of this small palace that Gabriel built in the 1760s, it is the memory of Marie-Antoinette that hangs over the building. In 1774, Louis XVI offered the Trianon estate to the Queen who was able to live away – too far away for some – from the Court.
Inside-out Versailles is a dream... (above 2 pictures were taken with Nokia E51)
Inside Marie Antoinettes Rose Cottage & Garden
Save another day for 2 of the best museums in town: The Louvre & The Orsay. We choose to stay at Louvre just for the paintings and the sculptures and we went off the premises after 4 hours! Orsay is much more easier to handle and it is very intimate and very special for me as it holds numerous Rodin pieces I love :)
Have a very relaxing day at the Montmartre and see Sacre Coeur and visit the cemetery where you can find Emile Zola, Hector Berlioz and my all time fav author Alexandre Dumas. You can take your time and pay your respects for the love they put into you for a country far away.
Alexandre Dumas Grave
At least walk by the Paris Opera house and think of the story of The Phantom Of The Opera. Unfortunately one of the things I always wanted to do was go inside The Opera and see it in its full glory. Maybe that means that one day I will be back :)
Conquer the Tour Eiffel - tell you the truth I have not managed that. First time we tried to go up but the queues were so huge we said we would just walk up the stairs... We did not figure out that it would be so chilly and windy. We ended up 2/3 of the way and stopped there as all elevators had huge queues and we were to cold to go further on foot. We said we would try again the next day - which we did but unfortunately the upper part was closed the next days due to strong wind... Another sing I must come back ;)
Check the Notre Dame for The Hunchback ;) or at least have a look at the gargoyles and feast your eyes upon the best view over Paris :)
Yep! We made it! :)
But we did not find the Hunchback... (taken with Nokia E51)
Walk! and ocasionally be wild and take the Metro :) each stop has these wonderful metro signs very antique and twirly and artsy. There are so many things that you just pass by... just open your eyes to the beauties that Paris has to offer you and dont go all automatic pilot into it ;)
Paris Metro - On My Way To Versailles
Go into a ordinary local small shop and buy cheese, to another one and buy some grapes, buy a baguette and get going with your friends to catch a good place to sit down under The Tour Eiffel and watch it light at night. Watch it light and sparkle and pop a bottle of wine and have a picnic. Have a picnic, I did that ;)
Have yourself an early morning or late afternoon walk along the Seine and take in the sights and the people... the local artists selling antiques - books and prints and whatever you think of :) Grab a sandwich and eat it as you take a look in their merchandise but be careful not to stain anything ;)
Watch as Notre Dame de Paris appears at a distance and make your way through to feed the pidgeons in front of it and maybe sit down and sketch the facade...
Walk in the night - be not afraid, it is calm and quiet and you get to see the wonderful old buildings come to life. You will see The Louvre all light up and you will watch the Tour Eiffel sparkle in the distance and you will go back to your motel with a full heart, passing by people drinking wine in the street and dancing without any care...
Go visit Napoleon Bonaparte and see how cold and monumental a grave can get... How weird is it to have thousands upon thousands visiting you and you being locked up, unable to say that maybe you would like the kind of privacy that maybe Alexandre Dumas or Emile Zola has... that even though there are so many people around you, you still feel cold and alone...
And last, but NEVER least, go inside a bookstore and get yourself lost there... I got lost into finding the book I love, one of the books of my childhood, a book for children and for grown up alike, a book about true love and about friendship: Le Petit Prince.

** I did this post for the Traveling Tuesday but most of all I did this post with all my heart. I hope that one day you will manage to go to Paris and you will let me know of your own checklist. I hope and pray that one day I will come back and I will manage to go inside The Opera and I will manage to go until the end of Eiffel... One day! :) All in due time ;) **

Yours truly,
A LadyBug In Love With Paris

Thoughts Upon The Upcoming Christmas

My dearest friends,

For a while now I have been taking pictures of Krakow facing Winter with a smile upon her face. How does one do that when outside is so cold, so chilly and windy that your bone marrow freezes? Well... here is how I put a smile on my face: I think of my beloved ones and I think of Christmas. I like to think of happy things, things that make me warm inside-out... like when I was small and everything was a game. When little things mattered more than money and time and deadlines.

I love having long walks and at Christmas time, when everything is well prepared and decorated, its a pleasure to have the camera with you to see what else came up. Due to my awesome husband now I no longer have to carry the camera with me. With my new Samsung Galaxy S4 I can do photos good enough to quickly upload on my new Instagram profile or on my Facebook Page :) On Facebook I already have an album dedicated especially to the Christmas/Winter season of 2014. I try to upload things on a daily basis, when I find a new #windowdisplay that catches my eye :)

Everybody was rushing in head on into the holidays! Ever since beginning of November... Actually, to tell you the truth, once Halloween is over and then Thanksgiving Day, everybody starts thinking of Christmas. I can already see the counters of how many days till Christmas remain... It is a bit of madness there, but hey! Who am I to judge? I wish Christmas could stay all year round! With more than a month to go until Christmas, the shops/stores were competing whom will have the most fancy look so I thought I might give it a go and record them :)

Its odd, you know, that only at Christmas we open up more. We are more warm and caring to one another. Like we would like to take out all the generosity in the world and fill it in only 31 days... Only in December people could care, people would buy gifts for others and care for anyone else then their person. Its sad how we forget the principles of forgive and forget in our day-to-day but we miraculously pop them out of our pocket when December comes...

Christmas was always a special time in my heart and December was always close to my heart. Of course having the Civil Wedding in December helps it get to the top of my favourite months :) As Dr. Seuss said, Christmas does not come from a store. Christmas means more than lovely decorations, kick-arse window displays, rushing into malls and buying dozen of gifts (most of the times at the last moment, as we are all so very busy nowadays...). Christmas for me = love.

Christmas for me is a time to love and be loved. Of course, you may object and say that actually we should love eachother and ourself at each moment of our lifes. I can totally agree with that but what I would like to underline is that less and less people think nowadays about love in its more true and pure form: God. Christmas should be a celebration where we speak of the love that God had for us, to come to Earth, be as us, and teach us about the true love.

Bob Hope once said "My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?" - I can agree with him. God created us so we could love and be loved in return. We live in a world where people forgot what Christmas really is and what we really are celebrating. It is sad how far away we always seem to move from the truth...

“Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.” ― Laura Ingalls Wilder

Christmas Fair At The Main Market Square

I was also thinking this month, as we were packing things to move into our new home - oh, yes, this is a surprise for you guys, but we are not ready yet to tell you more :) - I was thinking about how many things that we actually do not need, we store during our life... on the possibility that one day we may need it or it may come in handy. I remember my mum telling me about a friend of hers who would buy per season 2-3 pieces of clothing that she would give away at the end to get new ones... she never had a full closet but she always looked gorgeous. On the other hand, I watch Downton Abbey and you see all those wardrobes with so many clothes and accessories... the temptation is so big, so how do you actually fight that?!

“Want to keep Christ in Christmas? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive the guilty, welcome the unwanted, care for the ill, love your enemies, and do unto others as you would have done unto you.” ― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

So many different thoughts and feelings come to me, as Christmas closes in. Not to mention the end of the year and closing the book, checking statistics and figuring out if the year was good... All these mixed up emotions between the material and the imaterial in life... I hope you will celebrate Christmas nonetheless and I hope you believe in God. We tend to forget that Christmas comes for Christ. Maybe we should put a sticky note on our forhead with that :) In the meanwhile, I for sure, will keep you posted on my new Instagram profile and on my Facebook Page on how Krakow looks. How it transformed for Christmas, how it transformed for Winter and the Holidays :)

Yours truly,

A Passionate LadyBug

How To Do A Pre Proposal

Dear friends,

I shall share with you a story today also in the VGA version :) Due to the fact that I was cleaning up my phone card I bumped into some very old pictures that brought back very nice memories that I wish to share with you. On the 29th of April 2012 these pictures were taken inside 2 airports: the Henri Coandă International Airport in Bucharest and the Chopin International Airport in Warsaw.

I believe - if my memory serves me right - that it was my fiancees first trip to Romania :) I came for 2 weeks and he came for one (my last week) so we could leave for Krakow in the same day. Unfortunately, as we took the plane tickets in different days we did not get the same plane back. He was the first one to leave and I had to wait in the airport for about 4 hours. But actually I do not mind that! I love airports! And if I could get stuck somewhere it would not be a bus or a train station but an International Airport, please :)

The trip to Romania was awesome for my fiancee and he admits he loves Iasi (and I DID NOT! force him to say that and he said it from the bottom of his heart, more than once! What can I say?! I have an adorable family and cute town ;) ha!). He fell in love with me even more and with my family around :) When we came to the airport (very early in the morning, around 5 am...) we had to wait for the flight he had and because we were both hungry after the hours by train... (yes... the train from Iasi to Bucharest takes a while...) we went to the Restaurant that opened around 7 and ordered a typical American breakfast: Eggs Benedict :) Either they were just purely awesome or we were really starving :p But while we were there... He asked me what I would say if He would ask for my hand... what would I say if He asked me to marry him? Sincerely I knew this was coming, as we were talking about marriage and engagement for a long while... He was just so cute! He said he was so in love that he would have to propose to me then :)

We used to play around with this idea, and during the week he was there, while we were out, he even proposed to me with a ring made out of a drinking straw ;))) But he was so serious in the airport :) I said that I would, I would marry him, but in order to make sure of that he would need to ask me again when he will have the ring fit for asking... Now that I think of it, this sounded so very materialistic of me! And I am not a bit like that! :) I was just teasing him and doing this all in good fun. And of course he knew that ;)

After the pre-proposal (as I called it) we continued talking on about the engagement and the wedding and making plans. And I must admit he is awesome at that! Nothing fails him :) After a while it was time to go and the 2 pictures above are with his plane... I waved him goodbye, the plane took off, and there I was, alone in the airport with around 4 hours to go until my boarding time...

So I started wondering around the airport to see the latest changes (and I must admit they were quite a few and the airport changed in time since the first time I was there, somewhere in 2007, when I was coming back from USA). I was in a mood for sweets so... You can find Brioche Doree at Facebook or on their site, right HERE :) I found it at the airport, by mistake/chance and I am thinking of those sweets until today :) I had the Lemon Tart with make me mouth-water even now, when I remind myself of it :)

To spent time right I also bought a Marie Claire (my fav magazine in the World!) along with the Wall Street Journal I found on the bench ;))) and I started reading and enjoying my awesome lemon tart that I wished it would last forever and a day! It was all rainbows and unicorns! Like a tart should be :)

Also, the first plane was not the end of the trip. The Flight was Bucharest - Warsaw - Krakow. So after the international flight I also had to wait about 2 hours in Warsaw Airport for the domestic flight until Krakow :))) A whole lot of fun, Im telling you, to get from Krakow to Iasi... It never gets below half a day! ;)