Such a Powerful Influence...

Cassie (on the right) and her friend Georgia celebrating their first win for the day.




The weekend went very well indeed...Saturday was a bit stressful because I made long long list of "to do's" that I was determined to get through but ran out of time...

Sunday was spent driving Cassie to two different locations for two dance eistedfodds about 70km from each other. We arrived at the first event at 12pm and left the last one at 7.30pm, so it was about 8.30 by the time we got home. They won first prize in both events, their performance was in the "Musical Theatre" genre, and they did a piece from the movie Legally Blonde called "Oh my God, you guys!"...very funny and light and bubbly...I was a little concerned at some of the pieces some schools were doing, like burlesque and cabaret type stuff...these girls are in their very early teens, people...really?

Hubby and I had a great day, had a nice coffee and muffin for brunch while the girls were rehearsing and doing make-up etc and generally just enjoyed the performances and fussed over Cassie and her mates.

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I think, no, I know there was one factor which had a tremendous influence on me yesterday, and it's so very simple - The Weather - the sun was shining and the sky was blue...unfortunately I can't control the weather, but gee it really affects me lately.

If it's rainy and dreary I just find everything so hard and depressing, really...give me some sun and blue skies and I positively skip around with extra happy energy - NOTE : I am not fussed about the temperature. To me a sunny Winter's day at 8 degrees is the same as a sunny Summer's day at 28 degrees.


All in all, a lot was achieved, including some laughs, a get-together with lovely family on Saturday night and this morning I was ready to face the working week feeling quite refreshed.


My PT today was a one on one boxing session and boy did I love it!!! I'm going to be one sore little vegemite tomorrow but s worth it! Very proud of my efforts.




Gotta fly, hope the sun is shining wherever you are - does it make a difference to you or am I just weird?


Hugs,

Sandra

I think it's called "Inertia"

You know those days weeks when you feel SO overwhelmed by life in general that you don't know where to begin...?when you feel like bawling but you literally don't have the energy...?when you wish - a) you could sleep for a very long time and wake up to everything having fixed itself while you were asleep OR b) that one day would last about 100 hours so you could get everything done, go to bed and wake up refreshed the next morning...?

That's me right now - and I apologise if none of this makes sense as I can't make much sense of it myself either.

Last weekend was a long weekend, and I think in my mind I had planned it to be a sunny Winter's weekend during which I would catch up the ironing, clean the house and still have time to enjoy a coffee on the deck with hubby while he had a break from clearing the yards...


Nature, or rather Life, had other plans.

It rained, drizzled and was a generally drab three days weather-wise...I had a nasty head cold which made me tired and irritable...

NO ironing was done.
NO house-cleaning was done.
...and much to my disgust,
there was NO sitting on the deck because it was too cold and wet...


So on Tuesday I was quite disoriented as I was sure it was Monday but in fact I'd lost Monday and achieved very little...

Cassie's 14th birthday came and went...she has two Eistedfodds this weekend so there was no night off from dance...Hubby and Maddie made her a birthday cake (and a mess in the kitchen), she got some pressies and I've managed to squeeze in a family get-together for tomorrow night.

I have driven the girls all the way to school every morning this week...I have not been getting up when the alarm goes and as a result it makes them late - I need to get them into the habit of packing bags and getting clothes ready the night before...


As the week progresses I have made no progress...I'm guilty of procrastinating big time and cannot manage to prioritise ... it's all very well to write about it but I need to do something!!!


As the weekend approaches, my levels of anxiety are increasing...

* I am falling behind in work, so much to do but where to begin?
* I have exercised a grand total of one day this week...so much for increasing my fitness levels
* By 7pm I could quite easily fall asleep wherever I may be at the time
* the kitchen looks like a bomb hit (yet again)
* don't even get me talking about the laundry...I can't bring myself to sorting through it...have been doing undies and school uniforms to get by
* Cassie has practice for the Eistedfodd tonight and tomorrow afternoon
* Maddie has just announced that she is going to a friend's place for a sleepover after work (7pm) and they are going to the city to a festival tomorrow but she will be back in time for Cassie's birthday party (this only means that no doubt I will be doing some extra driving...)
* I have most of the food organised but still need to round up the basics, like drinks and nibblies...and the cake! - I know I'm going to forget the cake!!!!
* Hubby has just announced that he is working tomorrow...so I have to pick him up in time to shower and change before Cassie's party
* Sunday we need to leave by 10.30 for the first Eistedfodd and who knows what time we'll be back...then it's Monday. Rinse and Repeat.


The good thing is we are having Cassie's party at the hall in my mother in law's complex. That way they don't have to drive over here in the evening (I would never hear the end of it)...and it is also "hand over time" so mum will actually stay with my brother for the next four weeks.

My energy levels are non-existent at the moment, and the more overwhelmed I get, the less I seem to accomplish...I think it's called "inertia"...


To top it all off, mum is going through her usual last minute demands..."Have you washed such and such a cardigan? don't forget I need to see the podiatrist before I go, I need something better to wear to Cassie's party, can someone paint my nails?" and on and on and on...it's like she wants to cram everything into the last 12 hours here...


Even the fact that I'm posting here and wasting spending way too much time on FB and Twitter shows that I am procrastinating and feeling overwhelmed.


aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!!!!!!!


I NEED TO GET BACK INTO A SENSIBLE AND WORKABLE ROUTINE


I will give myself the next four weeks to establish some new (or long forgotten) habits to get into a routine that works for our family now...

I used to have some *systems* in place when the girls were little but as they've gotten older and things have changed routine is lacking around here.


Can I do it in 30 days...maybe...one day at a time.






Inertia - Inertia has a biological purpose for all animals: to replenish one’s power. All warm-blooded animals require large amounts of sleep to replenish. In some animals, inertia is a self-protective move...There are legitimate reasons for the withdrawal of psychic energy: emotional loss, physical illness, stress and anxiety, and psychological transformation. It is critical to recognize the deeper reason for inertia. For whatever reason when psychic energy is zapped it is not available for consciousness and the person has regressed to a lower level of functioning.
Inspired by Esther Harding’s book Psychic Energy: Its source and its transformation

Room for improvement - Update

Well, we're not quite half way through the year, but I stumbled upon one of my "Room for Improvement" posts from back in January and thought it would be good to go back through what's been happening in those specific areas.


RELATIONSHIPS

Friendships -

Yes, you've all read about it, I finally met the divine Magda and we spent a lovely couple of hours chatting as if we'd known each other all our lives. To me, that's gold. I am quite shy by nature (but a very good actress too) and there is nothing worse than awkward silence...well there was none of that with Magda. I think this friendship is well and truly cemented, who'd have thought?

The Neuroma in my foot meant I had to give away the running back in February...and that's the last I heard of my 12wbt running friend. That's fine. Sometimes people have to put their blinkers on and look after themselves first.

My old friend that I arranged lunch with for March is also the mum of the young girl who is pregnant, and I blogged about a couple of weeks ago. Back in March we caught up for a lovely lunch and booked the two families for a pizza night which happened to take place last week. I hadn't heard from her other than by text to tee up time and place etc so we hadn't actually spoken about her daughter. Well, we all just had a lovely time together with LOTS of laughs and reminiscing about when our three girls were tiny and the things they'd get up to whenever we went out for dinner (we used to do it quite often)...we also found out some "details"such as the fact that the baby is a girl, and that my friend's daughter is taking the rest of the year off but will go back to school part-time from 2013 and complete her HSC over three years...


Unfortunately I haven't done as much "socialising" as I planned to at the beginning of the year, but I am fairly content. We are deciding whether or not to sell this place at all. The market is very quiet and it would be a shame to sell it for less than it's worth. So if anything, I am enjoying unpacking old boxes and deciding what to keep and what to give away/throw out. I guess you could say I needed to do some "nesting"to make this place feel like our home for whatever period of time we spend here...could be a long long time.



Marriage -

Well this continues to be the year of communication for Hubby and I. Let's just say we've had more heart to hearts than we have in a very long time. The good thing is, we (I) no longer need to get into an argument to make this happen. We do it by choice and out of necessity and it's doing us both the world of good...somehow I also think it is helping me with my attitude to the whole weight loss thing...

Hubby is now spending some time away from home with his new line of work, so it means when he gets to spend a whole day here it is really special and every minute counts. Nice.


Parents -

I feel that I am making a HUGE effort to get along with both Michael's parents and my mum but it is a hard task...

I have made a concerted effort to stay in touch with my mother in law and try to visit them regularly but her hypochondriac nature still irks me no end...I just don't understand her 75% of the time, but I keep reminding myself that I don't need to keep thinking "what would I do in this situation?"...
All I can say is that it is a big thing to keep positive with her time after time and takes a huge toll on me. The reward is that Michael thanks me after every visit or conversation and now that I'm handling things more "gracefully" he actually admits that he shares my frustrations and really appreciates my efforts. At the end of the day I guess that's what it's all about.

My mum is also a work in progress...things aren't very much improved. She suffers from depression and although she is medicated, she has regular mood swings and it is very hard to read her.

So in this respect it's one foot in front of the other.



HEALTH

We all know that I've not lost any weight recently. I am about 3kg lighter than I was at the beginning of January. That's it. 12WBT just didn't do it for me.

I tried a couple of other "programs" that had worked in the past for me  <hello Magda ;-) shhh>  but I couldn't stick with either of them.

I have recently started training with a PT. Had two sessions then a break due to her competition commitments but from the 18th June we kick off weekly sessions which I'm very excited about. I have decided the way for me to shed some kilos is to keep my food as "clean" as possible and move *every day*. I've started reading some stuff by Craig Harper which is different to anything I've read before but makes so.much.sense.



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Overall my life is GOOD. I have taken the approach of one day at a time in most areas of my life and it seems to have given me some much needed serenity. We have what we need, my kids are as happy as teenage girls can be (oh the drama!) and we are lying pretty low when it comes to holidays etc because Maddie is about to start the HSC in October so we want to have a pretty steady rhythm happening to be able to support her.

Sick...

I have succumbed to the dreaded flu that Cassie has been down with for a couple of weeks...

Started late yesterday afternoon...bad headache, sore throat and runny nose etc. This morning my head felt like it had been hit by a truck.

Have been drinking lemon ginger and honey tea by the gallon...there's a pot of chicken soup on the stove with enough garlic to kill an army of witches...


So I have decided the weekend is for rest and recuperation...yes, the ironing baskets are staring at me but I refuse to make eye contact...


I may or may not be absent from the Internet, depending on my choice of distraction for the next three days.


***************** I am looking for suggestions for natural remedies/teas that help reducing these symptoms........please share.

xo

Grateful (inspired by Kek)

Inspired by Kerryn's post today, I decided to jump on her bandwagon and list some things I'm truly grateful and a little proud of...here goes -

* My marriage. Hubby (Michael) and I have been married for 19 years this September. At a time when so many marriages around us are *suddenly* falling apart, this is an achievement. During a little conversation we had a couple of weeks ago during which I confessed my currently low self esteem, it was beautiful to hear him say "I love you as you are right now. I want to grow old with you." <swoon>

* My daughters. (Maddie and Cassie). Yes, they are teenage girls, and yes, I do whinge about them, and No, they are not perfect. BUT they are basically GOOD girls. They are caring and have lovely groups of friends. They do well at school. Heck, I can honestly say they've never played truant, and I'm very proud to say, they have a natural aversion to all things drugs and alcohol...hey, I call that an achievement!

* I am constantly trying to improve my health. I am forever grateful for this body that is refusing to act like it's 47 years old....

* I am grateful for the fact that our business brings in enough money for us to live comfortably - we are by NO MEANS wealthy, but we have enough, and that is reason to be grateful in these times of uncertainty.

* Good health. Hubby, the girls and I are basically healthy. Yes, we get sinus allergies. Yes, we get the odd cold or flu, but we don't have anything seriously wrong with any of us, and that is a blessing.

* I am so thankful that we can live in a part of the world we love. We have a good community, the girls go to a good school, and if we could start all over again, we would live exactly where we live now.

* and last but not least, I am grateful for our pets. We have had many over the years, and they are such a source of joy and delight to us all. Michael and I were animal lovers before we met, and the girls fortunately share our joy in having pets around us.


That's some of the stuff that rocks my world at the moment. It may not be everybody's cup of tea, but it's part of what makes me happy.




Thanks Kerryn for your post today. It is so easy to fall into the trap of comparing ourselves to others, and as you say in your post, the internet has opened communications to a world-wide level, which can actually magnify this issue.



It is so important to remember what makes each and everyone of us *tick* and look to ourselves and our own lives for some stuff to give thanks for.



So here's a little challenge for you - what are you grateful for or proud of today? Write in your Blog about it or leave me a comment. We are all awesome! Let's just stop the comparisons.



"Comparisons are odious" - Madeleine L'Ongle

Realistic Goal Setting

It was well and truly time to re-visit my (non-existent) goals if I want to get back into the groove of this fitness and weight loss *journey*.

Yesterday Hubby and I made the executive decision not to attend our company's conference this year for various reasons - we don't have any suitable babysitters for our girls (they're at that funny age where they're a little bit too old to be "babysat" but still too young to be left alone overnight) and we feel our dollars are better put to use somewhere else, like a family holiday at the end of the year...

That means my main incentive to drop some kg's and tone up is gone.


                                         ********************


But that isn't a bad thing from where I see it...

You see, working towards a set event doesn't always work for me...it usually causes me so much stress that I just sit there marking months, weeks then days off the calendar until I reach panic point and resort to extreme measures such as diet shakes or fasting /detox - type stuff...and invariably I don't lose a lot of weight and guess what?- I come back from the conference/wedding/holiday with the weight back on and then some...


So you get the picture, I think it's time to do something I've never done before - enjoy the *journey* without the stress of a deadline. I have some goals that I will have a crack at, but nothing too stressful :


* Fit into my jeans for my birthday (I've shared this one with my family and they think it's a good one)
- my birthday is about four weeks away, so it is achievable, I own a wide variety so I'm bound to fit into something

* Work out 4-5 times a week.
- I have found some old HIIT workouts from a couple of years ago that served me very well in dropping the body fat so am looking forward to re-visiting them as well as adding in some resistance workouts and of course, I'm loving my Monday mornings PT's

* Lose an average of half a kilo per week.
- This is a huge change in mindset for me. I always fall into the trap of comparing myself with others who are trying to lose weight, be it on their Blogs or on the forum of whatever plan I'm following...often these people are heavier than I am and have more weight to lose, so therefore they start off with losses of a couple of kg's a week...at last the penny drops!



I really think this approach will see me drop some weight, gain some fitness and what's more important, keep the weight off. This is about changing my lifestyle, not getting to an imaginary finish line.


On that note, I'd better start dishing up dinner as my kiddies should be arriving home soon from dance and piano lessons.

It's freezing up here, but we escaped the crazy weather Sydney has been copping over the last couple of days. I hope you're staying warm and dry.


Hugs

xo

Oops! I (almost) did it again...

I've been getting a few emails from the 12wbt Admin people reminding me that Round 2 for this year kicks off tomorrow and it's not too late to join this ever-growing band of people trying to "get healthy/turn their lives around/lose weight"...

...and for five minutes...I gave it some serious thought.

I made a really good group of friends in a thread on their forum when I joined for the first time last year...we were a bunch of women aged Over 40 and started sharing not only our weight loss capers but also spoke about our daily struggles and triumphs. This group stayed together through the first round this year, and then we decided to start communicating outside the forum as we were being "stalked"...our thread attracted about 5,000 hits this last round...waaaay more than other threads, and no comments from our lurkers...

We wanted to keep our business private, and as most of us had decided not to go back for another round, we took ourselves *away*...

Two of the girls have decided to join again because they need *structure*...last week when I came so close to joining up again, one of them *shared* Week 1's menu plan with the rest of us...guess what? It was exactly the same as Week 1 in the previous two rounds I've joined.

*** I don't feel this was a breach of her agreement with 12wbt as she did not share recipes, and those of us who saw the material already have all the recipes from previous rounds***


So, for me, I think not joining was the right decision...I would have felt like an idiot to go back and pay for something that is sitting in a folder in my desk...

I'd rather spend my money on my PT on a weekly basis and just stick to the basics - Eat clean 99% of the time. Work out at least five days a week and drink my water. ( this is my basic version of what works for me )



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While I was at the MFAA Conference in Adelaide last week, one of our speakers was Larry Winget (I'm sure you can look him up on Google)

His philosophy was simple, but hit home. He said a lot of people ask him for "the secret" to this and that aspect of their lives...eg -

< insert Texan drawl >

"People say to me : Larry, I'm broke. What's the secret to wealth?...I say, OK. How about this : Spend less. Work harder."

"People say to me : Larry, I'm fat. What's the secret to weight loss?...I say, OK. How about this : Eat less. Move more."



Note to self : IT'S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE


xo

At last...some treatment, and dare I say it - Relief!!!

If you've been following my Foot Chronicles you know that I've had pain in my right foot since late last year...after x-rays and ultrasounds revealed nothing, a MRI said "neuroma" (so did Liz, about five months ago)...

To cut a long story short, today I saw an Exercise Physiologist of my choice because basically I was not impressed by the service I received at the clinic my GP had referred me too.

My "physio" did a full (and to date the most thorough) examination of both my feet and explained a lot of stuff about my feet to me and to his work-experience uni student, which was great as I like to know everything and ask lots of questions...

Once he'd made his diagnosis, he asked me how much of the day I spent in pain...I answered depending on whether I was sitting for most of the day or not, I could spend as much as the latter half of the day in pain...

He then asked "Have you had any treatment yet?"...when I replied "No", he asked me to stand in front of him so he could see how long I coped on my toes etc and for a moment I thought he was going to give me a hug...LOL

Seriously though, I really clicked with him and I think that will make a big difference to my recovery.

He did a lot of manipulation and pressure on my poor sore foot and he did explain to his student that the bad thing about this particular sort of condition is that the treatment is very painful...but he was so caring and communicative that it didn't seem too bad at all.

I have some homework to do in the shape of applying pressure and rolling my feet on a golf ball. I see him again next Wednesday, and I have to take the three pairs of shoes I will be wearing the most so he can insert a little foam "orthotic" in the shape of a tear drop...it's to separate the bones of my toes and relieve the pressure on the nerves in my feet. (That's my layman's explanation of it anyway)

Half an hour after the treatment, I felt like my foot was *lighter*, more *free* and definitely pain-free...it's getting a bit sore right now, but hey, I'm holding on to that sensation anyway.

yes, I can definitely see that light at the end of the tunnel ... here's to ridding my foot of that nasty pain and getting back to my beloved long walks this Winter.

**** and on that note, I am celebrating the first day of Winter! We are lighting a little bonfire Sunday morning and having some friends over for morning tea around the fire....but I did hear that it might rain, so I guess we'll see.

I hope you all have a great weekend.

Being June, work-wise things get VERY busy for me for the next month, so I may not be around here much.

Bye for now.

xo