This Makes my Efforts at Showjumping Look Pretty Poor....

Another great weekend in pictures

                                                                                                                             

My weekend was great, how was yours?

What a great weekend - Pilates, two swims, a big walk on St Kilda pier, packing boxes, looking at seaweed, painting with my Johnny & Leah (ok, supervision Johnny and Leah painting), yummy thai food, low-booze booze (low alcohol wine), peeking through the fence at my new apartment, lunch with Milla (and Hamish via teleconference), Bunnings mayhem, new pot plants, lots of yummy cooking and 5 blocks of chocolate!

Did I mention I shared the spa at my gym with Ben Cousins? Yuuuuuum! Great incentive to train harder!

 

I may have gotten a little scared that a big pink blob-monster was coming to get me while taking this photo, but it turned out to be my finger - looks like I might need some photography training.

Things I've learnt (or re-learnt) this week

This week has been pretty crazy, so now it's Friday I'm sitting down and working out what I've learnt and re-learnt this week. The biggest thing I've learnt is that I have a lot more good friends than I often think. I tend to be very much an 'eggs in one basket' kind of friend, but in the past week I've had loads of support from so many wonderful people. It's sad that I often forget just how many people care for me, and I can't wait to invite them all round to my new place for a cuppa! On that note, moving house isn't as hard as I remember...so far. All of my packing materials get delivered on Saturday, so then the real fun begins!

After spending about 3 months going to the gym 3 times a week, I'm actually learning to like it - I don't look nearly as uncoordinated anymore and I'm even learning to tolerate sweating (although I don't quite love sweating yet). Next big challenge is to actually get down to a spin class like I keep promising I will....hopefully this Sunday.

Today I also learnt how to embed a youtube video into my blog, which is great 'cos now you can all see what my friends Chloe and Paul are up to in the UK. I hear Chloe's swim 'window' starts this weekend, so my fingers are crossed for her!

See, I know famous people! For anyone who wants to find out more about Chloe and her swim - click here to be diverted to her blog.

A really good place for a Monday

I'm in a really good place at the moment, and I don't mean sitting in my office (although the view this morning is pretty nice - I know the picture is kind of blurry, now you know what it's like to see like I do).

Things are really working out for me - My house is clean, my bed is comfy, my job is great and I'm at peace with my family. My friends are all happy, healthy and some of them are very much in luuuuurve, which is wonderful. I'm loving going to the gym, pilates rocks my world, weekly meditation group keeps me zen, floating around the hydrotherapy pool keeps me warm.

For the first time in years, I'm relaxed enough to wear pants (anyone who knows me well knows I never wear pants!), I don't feel the need to get dressed up to go to the shops, and I'm very much enjoying being a lot more relaxed in my attitude to everything.

I hope things are going as well for you too.

My Happiness Project

I love having a few projects on the go, and what better project than one designed to make me happy? I've been reading Gretchen Rubin's site The Happiness Project (here) and I like the idea. Gretchen has another site, The Happiness Project Toolbox (here) which has some great tools for planning your own 'Happiness Project'.

Last year I decided that May was 'Me Month' and spent the whole month doing things to make me happy, which was great, but why stop at one month? For me this isn't about crazy resolutions I won't keep, it's about small adjustments and habits I'd like to form over time...except the shark diving, I'm hoping that doesn't become a habit. I've got a few projects currently on the go, and will keep updating with new ones as I progress.

A few of the things I'm working on for my Happiness Project:

Healthy Heather
I've been working on being healthier by doing pilates and personal training once a week and eating a lot better than usual. From here I'd like to get to:

• PT & Pilates once a week each
• 2 extra gym sessions (even if one of them is just floating around the hydrotherapy pool)
• Eating healthier all the time
• Drinking lots more water, and lots less wine (during the week)

Happy Heather
Who would have guessed that someone who hated writing would enjoy writing a blog so much? I want to keep up the blogging, and as mentioned in last week's post, I'd like to clean out my wardrobe - nice tidy spaces make me happy. I'd like to spend more time with friends who make me happy, and less time worrying about the ones that stress me out.

Handy Heather
I haven't really been cooking much over the last few years, so I'm working on learning at least one new recipe a week...I'm yet to poison anyone so far.

Harmonious Heather
I've been loving attending my weekly meditation group, so my aim is to keep this up, and to remember to take a few moments to 'chill out' every once in a while.

Heroic Heather
Um, how does diving with Great White Sharks sound?

Hidden Heather
I'd like to be more of a 'hidden Heather', unfortunately my habit of over-sharing seems to prevent that...sometimes it's not necessary to tell everyone, everything...I'd like to work on sharing a little less. I'd also like to start making eye contact with people again, not quite sure when I stopped doing this, but it must make me look really shifty - next time we talk make sure I'm making eye contact.

Hopeful Heather
I'd really like to make and stick to a budget...how hard can it be right? I'll post a little more about this on Friday (pay day!)...may as well start fresh with some money in the account!



Do you have any Happiness Projects on the go or any suggestions for projects to try?

The Community Cup, or why UDLs are a bad idea

The Community Cup is one of my favourite days of the year and yesterday's game was no let down. There was sun, mud, dogs, kids, football, snags and lots and lots of UDL cans (last night in a sugar-induced bout of insomnia I calculated I'd consumed 1530 calories worth of UDL Vodka Passionfruit cans....I don't know what that means, but I'm guessing its bad).

My highlights of the day included:

The sun - I love Melbourne winters!

The mud - lots of people got very, very muddy

Using public toilets and not dying...yet.

Meeting Tex Perkins...and offering him money to sing 'This is not the Way Home', repeatedly...he politely declined, repeatedly.

Finding the Rockdogs mascots uniform unattended...need I say more

The football - I think there was some of that too...

This guy's jumper:

What are you doing this Sunday?

This Sunday is the Annual Community Cup - a football game held at Elsternwick Park to raise money for charity. It's a great day and I can't wait to get my blankie out and drink a few Melbourne Bitter stubbies (only for charities sake of course) - go Rock Dogs!!

http://www.communitycup.org.au/index.html

What do you believe?

My friend Cam once told me that if you hear something three times it must be true. About an hour later he told me again, and then he told me once more. Later that evening I unknowingly recited his statement back to him. Does this mean I'm stupid, gullible or easily led? Probably.

When I was a child my parents convinced me that steak grew on trees so I would eat it. They even showed me the trees - a sort of wattle with bulbous, charred-steak like growths.  My mother also put a lot of time into convincing me that I was a clever, conscientious student, and because I assumed she must be right, that's what I was (kind of...). It's a lot easier to live up to other people's expectations than it is to prove them wrong.

The most important skill I've learnt in my career as an Executive Assistant is to question everything. The statement you 'just accept' is bound to be wrong, and you'll look pretty silly trying to tell the boss something wrong just because you haven't checked it. So if I question and fact check everything professionally, why don't I do it in my own time?

I'm amazed at how easy it is to convince myself of things. A few years ago I decided brown pigeons were lucky (not quite sure why), and to this day I still get excited when I see one. More importantly, its scary how my negative opinions of myself become so easily entrenched as self fulfilling prophecies.

• I hate writing (false, as it turns out, I love writing - that's why I have a blog)
• I don't have time to take up any more activities (pfft, it's my life and I'll make time if I want to)
• I hate exercise (false, I've actually been quite enjoying my time at the gym and doing pilates lately)
• If I eat meat I'll be sick (false, I ate some on Sunday and I'm still feeling awesome)
• I can't save money (OK, so I haven't fixed this one yet...)

Re-learning the way you think about yourself is hard, but its well worth doing. I'm taking a bit more time to question my preconceptions these days and life is starting to look a lot rosier.

25, I guess that's kind of grown up.

I've reached an age where people have stopped saying 'oh, that's so young' when they discover it. For the first time in my adult life I'm no longer the youngest member of my social group, children refer to me as 'the lady' not 'the girl', and I've also become quite taken with the idea of spending whole weekends on the couch instead of out on the turps. It appears the world is trying to tell me I'm an adult.

In an attempt to embrace this I've tried volunteering for charity - you know, do the community minded, socially responsibility thing...it didn't really stick. It was rewarding and all (if you consider being sworn at by junkies, proposed to by hobos and pooed at by children rewarding), but it turns out staying home was just as rewarding.

I also tried taking night classes, apparently that's what adults do. After 7 weeks of millinery I ended up with one semi wearable hat and glue everywhere. I went to one class of my six week silversmithing course, realized it involved getting my hands dirty and never went back. Thankfully my adult ballet course was cancelled before it began.

Other people, upon noticing my responsible adult status rather misguidedly left me in charge of their children. This has never ended well, children can smell my fear much like a horse can.

In the last two months i've decided to take it right back to 'adult basics' and focus on getting healthy, i.e. eating well, excercising (granted I still have to pay professionals to force me to do that), going to bed early. One day, if I get the foundations right, I might progress to other more advanced grown up things such as learning to ride a bike, getting my license or even getting a passport...on second thoughts, I think I'd rather stay home and drink some wine.