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I am so, so happy and glad to be back... a whole week without my dear NF friends, a whole week with less than frequent whatsapps, but a whole lot of Good, Bad, Ugly The Good The boys and I had a wonderful time at my mil's place! We loved spending the first two days surrounded by wild animals. I'll add pictures throughout the rest of what remains of this challenge. But to start you off with an appetizer: I was ready and rearing to start the new challenge yesterday, but today I'm a bit slower on the up-take. The Bad While we were away, Brandt told me one night that Stormer, Youngest's dwarf hamster had died. He was upset for a day, but then the visit with granny, playing and other interesting things distracted him and helped. It quickly turned into more GOOD when hubby pitched up at his mom's house last night to fetch us... the reason for having to fetch us...? The Ugly Yesterday morning, on our way home, we were hit by another car. Our car is written off, and so is the other car. Luckily the other driver wasn't injured either. Our car's cabin wasn't severely damaged, but all the safety pillars were bent, the engine has a lot of damage - looks like a concertina, air bags popped out, etc. The car was spun 180 degrees, with some of our books and luggage strewn over the road. Luckily we weren't driving fast, but the other car were. I've got a couple of nice, big blue and black bruises on my neck, arm and thigh. My ankles were very sore, but are better today. The boys have chafe marks on their necks, arms and bellies from the safety belts, but it saved them from serious injuries. People ran from one building to help us, and they soon had a doctor there giving us all meds for shock. It helped me to sort out things with the police, get the kids calmed down, and collect all our belongings on the street, before our car were towed away. Within an hour of phoning hubby (probably the hardest call I've ever had to make!), then phoning his mom asking to fetch us, hubby had organised a house sitter, taken off from work and was on his way to us in Sabie! We left this morning for home and are back safe and sound. I've been inundated with phone calls and messages from friends phoning others and then phoning/messaging me, which made me cry from scratch again. For the foreseeable future we'll make do with one vehicle as we aren't in a position to buy another car right now. We'll finalise the water tanks plans we started with, as that is urgent to have water for the home in the foreseeable future. Back to The Good! I have a lot of ideas that I slowly, but surely want to implement: I'm going to make this next book order, my last one. Then I'm done with the books. I told hubby and he is ok with it. I want to plant our own vegetable garden, and I'm going to make sure that I make time for my friends who made the effort to find out that we were ok after this accident. With regards to training: I want to do my self defence exercises again, strength (lifting/BW), and a lot of walking/rucking. I'm still not quite sure what I'm going to do, but for the rest of the challenge I'll firstly focus on food - eating <50g net carbs on Banting, and try to bring in my exercises again. By start of next challenge, I will be up and running again.

I get lost in adventure novels (no I haven't read this original work yet), but don't really lead an adventurous life. Like Trevor it would probably have to creep up on me and let me fall in to it. With me choosing to take part in a beginner's OCR - The Muddy Princess - I am making the effort to go out and find a bit of adventure. I want to be Hannah however. The Go-Get-It-Girl! So for this challenge Hannah does the training - no hesitation, push through it, she can do anything, and she always comes up with a plan. Trevor is good, but he doesn't always get all the things done. He will concentrate on water and sleep, the essentials. Shaun is a teenager and they (from what I've heard) are sometimes stubborn. I'm going to need him to help me with food. Together we'll face this adventure at the Centre of the Earth, and come out strong and daring to face the OCR, and any other adventures that might occur. TRAINING with Hannah BW Strength: OCR workout. 2x/week - 6x at least for 85% to pass. Cardio: Run/Walk 2x/week - 6x at least for 85% to pass. Mobility Stretches: - 6x at least for 85% to pass. ESSENTIALS with Trevor Water/Rooibos/Herbal tea: 5/7 days a week. Min. 20 days, 80% to pass. Sleep (at least 7hours a night) 5/7 days a week. Min. 20 days, 80% to pass. FOOD with Shaun <50g net carbs per day. 5/7 days a week. By end of challenge 25 days at least. Includes 4 variances for a chocolate or something (thinking shark week or just really want something). Banting approved snacks obviously doesn't count as a variance, but their carbs will count towards my daily carb limit. Knowingly eating gluten, I immediately loose the day even if my carbs were < 50g. A variance cannot be used to eat gluten. Gluten = flesh eating plants! INJURY PROTOCOLS I sprained my ankle while doing the first OCR workout for this challenge during Week 0. I've deleted the previous protocols as they don't really apply. I've decided not to count week 0 as part of the challenge. Will take the rest of the challenge as it comes.

Here I am hiking after Gyddyn, a ranger from Middle Earth. Why? I don't really know except yesterday after my grandmother's funeral I found out that my mother was a distant relation of King Legolas of Mirkwood, or as it is now known, the Great Greenwood Forest. Guess I now also know where my almost pointy ears and my affinity to animals and plants, come from. My father was a human from "New Earth", in a different dimension to their Middle Earth, who accidentally stumbled upon the portal. He was gone for a long time, and when he returned to his own dimension, my grandmother couldn't make head or tails of his story about elves, ogres, orcs, dwarves and fighting. So much fighting. My grandmother raised me from baby till her death, now 27yrs later as my father passed from some infection soon after reaching home. “Keep up, Calithil. We have a long way to the portal still.” The flicker of his star brooch caught my eye as he quickly turned away from me. His faded green long coat fitted loosely over his leather vest, and looked a bit worse for wear. If it wasn't for the fact that my grandmother's last letter spelled out that it was essential I go “home” with this ranger, I wouldn't have set off with this scruffy looking stranger, with his reddish hair and beard, armed to the teeth with bow, arrows, long sword and various daggers, no doubt. “You mind explaining again the urgency behind this trek, please?” I huffed out breathlessly. “And why do you call me Calithil, when my name is Sarah Elizabeth?” “Huh, your human name may be Sarah Elizabeth, but your elven name is Calithil, meaning Moon Light. I wish to reach the portal before nightfall when the mountain trolls come out. They roam that area at night.” “But why am I rushing to Middle Earth now. Why not before?” “That is for King Ellavorn to discuss. I was asked to fetch you, as soon as possible, after your grandmother's passing.” We reached the portal in another hour. It was inside a dark cave which grew colder and colder as we penetrated its depths. Then suddenly all was pitch black and between one footstep and the next there was a shimmering, and suddenly I stood among rocks, with the sun sitting low behind us. As I looked up I walked from under a rock arch so magnificent it boggles the mind. Pointing at the engraving on the arch Gyddyn said: “It says Middle Earth in Elvish. We should reach Bilbo's house within another hour as I've arranged for horses to be waiting for us. Another reason why I would prefer to leave before those mountain trolls wake up. They love horse flesh.” On the other side of another huge boulder we reached a grassy knoll with two magnificent horses waiting for us. “Firefoot and Lightfoot. Horses of Rohan, and descendants of Felarof, first of the Mearas.” His quiet voice held the awe he felt for these animals. We quickly mounted and set off for Bilbo in The Shire, a descendant of The Great Bilbo, The Adventurer, who helped the dwarf king defeat the dragon Smaug. Upon reacing Bilbo's house a while later, I found we were not the only ones to stay over there that evening. As tired and weary as I was, I found the company of these dwarves and one wizard quite enlightening.

I had everything worked out on another theme when Oldest made a comment to his riding teacher: What I'm aiming for... but maybe without the lasso This cowgirl-to-be needs to be STRONG, and obviously has to be able to RIDE (again). She needs to be FIT and for various reasons must be able to defend herself and her loved ones. Most importantly, she needs to take CARE of herself. STRONG: Self Defence (1x/wk), Strength training (1x/wk), Flexibility (2x/wk) [16x for the challenge] RIDING: Get back in the saddle, literally (1x/wk) [4x for the challenge - except if lesson was cancelled for some or other reason] FIT: Walking, day hikes, outings with the boys (to museums and nature reserves, etc. count as well), or mowing (2x/wk) [8x for the challenge - weather permitting, and no unforeseen circumstances, because life happens here] SELF CARE: Bible study (just tick off - not keeping track), Water (bottle/day - at least 25 days), Sleep (at least 7hrs/night - 25 nights) MEASURES: Slowly but surely come down in measurements (cm and kg) (did something come down that week) [overall did cm or kg come down?] Now what about the cat and dogs part, you ask? Well, we got a cat. A young thing pitched at our door two nights ago. Hubby was sure he would return to his home, so I gave him a blanket and left him on our (relatively wind protected) stoep (verandah/porch). The dogs were very upset. Next morning (this morning) the kitty was still there, so we brought him into the house, fed him, warmed him up, and kept him in the bathroom with a blanket, window open. He promptly jumped out the window and went on a merry inspection of the property. Dogs shortly on his tail. Long story short, he came back to the house later the morning. I moved stuff around in our back room to accommodate him, and be able to close the door properly against investigating dogs. Opened a window, and he stayed. We checked in on him quite often. And he stayed, and purred, and meowed, and rubbed his small little head against our shoulders, and hands and anywhere he could touch. So the boys named him Stampy, and they hope that the messages we have sent out about a lost kitty will not be answered. (Me too on the hoping). A blanket and sheep's wool "nest". If he stays, I'll buy him one or two proper sleeping "nests" (basket with a roof/dome), one for the room and one for in front with us. In the meantime it is my job to get him and the dogs acquainted to such a level that they can at least tolerate one another. Our Jack Russell will be the biggest problem. She is very upset just smelling him on me, so I/we will have to give lots of love to all the parties in the coming weeks. And after all this, I hope to be on my way to ride like this:

Thinking of my Level 50 is far too much effort, because I honestly don't know what I'd put in it. So this is my 2015 Bucket List, as it were :') run 5k continuously compete in a 5k race complete sprint triathlon distances in one day (not necessarily compete; depends how this goes) run 10k continuously complete a prelim dressage test travel to Italy with my mother travel somewhere alone do 10 consecutive 'full' push ups do a pull up