Squeaky shoes

I have struggled and been extremely embarrassed by squeaky running shoes for so long. It is only in running shoes, not in cross trainers or any other shoes. I put it down to wearing orthotics and resigned myself to squeaking and not looking cool in the gym. I never noticed it when I was running or in the cardio room, but when I had to walk through the quieter weights room, there it was.

A friend of mine (some time ago) suggested putting powder in my shoes, I thought good idea, worth a try, but I didn't own powder. A couple of weeks ago the Avon catalogue caught my eye and I ordered some. It arrived and sat in my bathroom for a little while.

Then my husband said that he had googled and found a site that offered remedies for "squeaky shoes" (he has far too much free time). One suggestion was hand cream in the shoes and another powder so I tried it, and in both pairs of runners, the squeaking has stopped. Not only that but they must smell pretty good too, as I have no sense of smell I can honestly say they do but they must.

How good is that and I must learn to take peoples advice sooner.

World Vision - Aids

I, like many other Australians (or I should say other people in Australia, because I am not really Australian) sponsor a child in Africa, Mozambique actually, through World Vision. I decided to do this after realising how lucky I am to have such a rich life. I have 3 (usually) healthy children and I have food and water every day.

Even though I have made this committment, I still need to be reminded now and again of how difficult life is for these children. Today I got an email inviting me to an exhibition called "One Life Experience" where you’ll get to ‘live’ life through the eyes of a child in Africa.

From here I linked to the website and found the following...... I find it very hard to comprehend how 5,500 people in Africa are dying from Aids every day. http://www.worldvision.com.au/

HIV and AIDS

HIV and AIDS have created the biggest crisis the world has ever seen. It is killing more people than any war or famine in history. Every 11 seconds, someone dies of AIDS. That’s 2.9 million deaths a year. This death toll includes a lot of children, who are often infected during pregnancy or through breast-feeding. Millions of parents have died, leaving a whole generation of young orphans forced to take care of themselves and their younger siblings. Although the toll is worst in Africa, where 5,500 people die of AIDS every day, the pandemic is right on our doorstep. The World Health Organization has predicted that by 2015, there could be one million cases of HIV infection in Papua New Guinea.

Claustrophobia

Claustrophobia is an anxiety disorder that involves the fear of enclosed or confined spaces. Claustrophobes may suffer from panic attacks, or fear of having a panic attack, in situations such as being in elevators, trains, boxes or aircrafts. - Wikipedia

Does that include being put into a coffin like contraption, strapped down and being told to stay there while they take an MRI of your shoulder?

I should have known when several times before the MRI I was asked am I claustrophobic. I had that nagging in my brain, but said no. I don't consider myself to be claustrophobic, I don't freak out being in elevators or trains or aircraft, I don't panic in crowds, but I don't like the doona over my head.

I'm a grown up, I can handle this, it's all ok.

Then the man (not sure what his job title would be) said it would take about 45 minutes, put headphones on me and the machine carried me to my grave. Oh I should have told you, he said my breathing was very important, no deep breaths, keep your breathing under control at all times. Well that is like being told not to touch, you have to. So.........I freaked. I was ok until the headphones went on. I asked if I could leave them off, he said yes. I survived and I know that I could have one again if I needed to but I won't be in a hurry.

Tax Time

In a former life I was a tax advisor and then a tax investigator (not really sure I should admit this but there you go, it's out there now)

Anyway, I read this on the Herald this morning

Tax office targets

The Australian Taxation Office has decided where its spotlight will shine when it reviews tax returns this year. It says it will focus on:

Tourism, travel consultants and guides
Fitness and sporting industry employees
Construction tradespeople who are employees
Guards and security employees
Mining site employees (for another year).

Oh joy!!

Classics

My 2 year old daughter is coming out with some classics at the moment. Earlier this week, she shouted at me, "I'm getting very angry with you now." All because I said she couldn't have a yoghurt.

This morning she came into our bedroom with a clean nappy and said her nappy was full and could we change it please. We did and she went back to her own bed for an hour. I know this sounds like she is getting ready to toilet train, but I am just not ready for that yet. I haven't got over the last child yet.

My kids are growing up fast.

Parties

I had a ball yesterday, first to the children's party at Lollipops. The kids went off and did their own thing and I was left to talk to the mums. Usually this would fill me with dread - I love my children but I can't talk about them all the time - but these mums were gym regulars, it was so nice to talk to like minded mums - those that also love their children but really enjoy that couple of hours in the gym when the kids are in creche. To top it all the mother of the birthday girl is owns a personal training facility in Melbourne. How cool is that. I should have talked to her weeks ago.

After that I headed home for a quick dinner and then off out to the clothes swap party. This was with a group of girls from my gym. I didn't come away with anything, can't really explain why - can't really explain to myself why and I have tried. Anyway it again was fun to get out for a couple of hours.

My life in Sydney finally seems to be coming together. It has been a long time coming and has been a lot harder to settle here than in New Zealand but I guess the circumstances are totally different. When we moved to NZ I had only one child. When we came here I was pregnant with my third and then very soon had 3 children, 2 under 17 months so socialising was quite difficult. As I said, that is improving now and I really like living here. (Still miss my mum though, and my dad, and my sister, and my brother, and my nephews and nieces - you get the idea)

Proud of my children

My son is sick, he was sent home from school on Wednesday morning. I'm not sure if it was the stress of the dress up day or the fact that reports were being sent home on Weds afternoon, but he came home a quivering wreck. Only joking he is the best son, and he was really sick.

My daughter is going to a party this afternoon and all week I have been trying to get to the shops for a present but my son was not up to it. He even vomited to prove he wasn't up to it. - Nice.

Today we got there, he was dosed up on Nurofen and we made a run for it before it wore off. (Nurofen and Panadol and Calpol are wonderdrugs when it comes to children)

While we were out, he got a little appetite back and wanted some food. A good sign, I thought I would treat him to a muffin, after all I was making him shop when he was sick, but no - he wanted a fruit salad. How proud was I. My kids would choose a fruit salad over a muffin - and sushi over McDonalds. I don't think anything will ever beat chippies though.

My daughters favourite food is broccoli and she likes nothing better with her broccoli than carrot. The youngest one, well she is so in the terrible two's at the moment, every day is different. I am treading very lightly where she is concerned at the moment.

....................

After the lollipops party this afternoon, I am heading to another party of my own. A clothes swap party. Idea - swap clothes you don't wear anymore. I have never been to such a party before and since I lost all the weight and slowly (very slowly) started buying new clothes, I have nothing I can swap. I will just have to go for the fun of it.

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Oh and the present was My Little Pony. Well what else?

Sore legs

I know, I don't know what happened yesterday. My little fingers just would not stop tapping.

After some major work on convincing my son that it didn't matter that Luke Skywalker has a green light saber, blue or red would work just fine, we turned a black tshirt inside out (to hide the logos) donned some black pants and a blue light saber and voila - Luke Skywalker.

This morning I bumped into a lady I train and she said her legs and butt hurt. I felt a little (only a little) bad for her so thought I owe it to her to make mine hurt - and I think they will tomorrow.

Dress ups

We are having a panic. My son's school is having a book week parade tomorrow, this is where everyone has to dress up as their favourite book character. I am in no way domestic so making a costume is totally out of the question. As my son informed me the only dress ups we seem to have at home are tinkerbell, cinderella and various other fairy costumes. It would probably damage him too much to make him wear a tinkerbell outfit. I have suggested so far Captain Underpants - he is not too impressed with that. The latest suggestion is the invisible man, I could then keep him home for the day - panic over!!!

He is so over dress ups so we don't have them, he is too old for spiderman and batman but the pressure the school is putting on him is really getting to him. Why do the schools put so much pressure on kids and therefore the parents. This is supposed to be enjoyable for them, but from what I am hearing most of them are stressing about outdoing their mates.

Laminator

You will notice that this is the first time I have had to blog in ages.

Last week I bought an A3 laminator. This may not mean much to you but for some reason I have wanted one for ages, and I love it. Just one word of warning, Don't stand still, you may be laminated.

New beginnings - result

I wrote a little while ago about how my focus was going to change, I was going to focus on health fitness and happiness. I am pleased to say that in the two weeks since this I have been very happy, felt more in control of my eating and therefore in my life generally. I have still enjoyed the 'sometimes' foods and wine, though Saturday was a bit more than 'sometimes' in relation to wine, anyhow to move on, I lost 0.9kg in weight. I am very pleased, this is a lifestyle I know I can continue with and whilst the weight loss was a bonus, the relief from the 'need' to lose weight was so much better.

Graduation

Saturday night was the Graduation Party for my class. It was held in the City and promised to be the party of the year. Unfortunately it was not the case and the night did not live up to my expectations at all. Maybe my expectations were too high, who can say, but I have had much better evenings. That is not to say I didn't enjoy myself, because I did. It was great catching up with all my class mates. We spent so much time together that it seems ages since I saw them and not just 3 weeks.

A girlfriend and I decided not to drive, but to stay in a hotel in the city for the night. We planned on having dinner and then on to the party. However we arrived so late that all we had was a muffin at Starbucks, not exactly the dinner we had imagined.

I don't really want to complain so I am only going to briefly say what disappointed me. Not enough bar staff for the volume of guests. Not enough room for the volume of guests. Not enough nibbles for the volume of guests (especially when most had not eaten before). The microphones did not work. Music not to my taste. No room to dance.

Had a really nice breakfast on Sunday morning though at the Vibe hotel. It definitely helped with the hangover, I am sure I swore so many times in the past not to have ever again. Will I ever learn?

I am now wondering how many of those classmates I will intentionally see again. I hope that I will see them again, it just seems that these days people are too busy (me included) and our schedules never seem to coincide.

I did try to take a couple of pictures on my camera phone, but they didn't turn out very well so you will just have to imagine how good we all looked in our cocktail dresses.

Oh I didn't mention that Adro from The Biggest Loser was there. I think he graduated from one of the other classes. I didn't talk to him. Not my thing to talk to 'celebrities' and pretend that I know them.

Long Weekend

We had a pretty quiet weekend. We stayed home mostly and tried to get up to date with some around the house jobs, including cleaning out the office, putting draught excluders around the door frames, playing a few games with the kids and trying to get some laundry done between the rain showers.

Monday morning my outdoor class that I am doing work experience at was running so off I went at 6am. Many of the class were not coming so the instructor decided to change the class to a 4.5k run. I was so not prepared for that. I had done a 4k run the afternoon before and was not yet ready for another, but I did it. I was taught as a trainer not to complain and that you should always be able to pull another 10 push ups out of the bag when needed. Well in this case it was a 4.5k run.

Later as the kids had cabin fever (and we were on the verge of committing crimes against them) we attempted to take them 10 pin bowling, only to be told they only had one lane left at 2.30pm and then 6pm. The kids were so disappointed but we booked and my husband took them back at 2.30pm, while I had a nice sleep.

Actually the sleep was not so nice, I could swear I was awake the whole time, I must have been dreaming that I was being woken up by noisy children, children that weren't even in my house.

Later we watched a recording of Nerds FC. It was very amusing. A group of self confessed nerds who have 3-4 months to become a soccer team capable of holding their own against a team of international soccer players. Their first game was to play an elite team of under 11's. Amusing.

In an attempt to avoid surgery, I yesterday braved the elements and went to see a Chinese Medicine Therapist. At this stage my shoulder is not giving me too many problems, but I am also not doing very much with it either so I thought that I would combine the increasing usage with acupuncture. Whilst surgery may be the way to go, it is a last ditch attempt and I don't want to go there until I have exhausted every other avenue.

The experience was quite relaxing, I think it could have been more so but the therapist kept talking to me about training her daughters. It is a good thing that I am so into health and fitness and could talk about it non stop.

Whilst I was left there was a tape running explaining all about acupuncture and how it can be determined from your radial pulse how the organs in your body are. I need to do more research here but I found it so interesting.

I then attempted a trip to our local shopping centre, I only needed a couple of bits and as I was out in the area and without children I thought it was a good opportunity. Was I mistaken? I couldn't even get into the street with the car parks, there was no way I was going to get a car park in a hurry and the parking rage of other drivers, I could do without. There was nothing I needed that desperately. So I came home.

A quick trip with the kids to rent some DVDs for this wet long weekend and back home again.

Last night we put on Christmas with the Kranks? Dimmed the lights, lit the candles, popped the corn and unscrewed the wine and had a nice family movie night with the kids.

After the kids had gone to bed we watched "Dirty Sanchez". It's a program similar to Jackass, but much funnier, I think we related as it is a group of guys from Wales and not too far removed from some of the Uni antics my husband and his mates got up to. We both laughed so much that our ribs are sore today. I appreciate that it might not be to everyones tastes but I have to admit that I sadly find humour in other people hurting themselves (not seriously hurting themselves, but just enough for the expletives to start flying) especially when they do it to themselves intentionally.

Eeeewwww, I have just searched Dirty Sanchez on Google to maybe upload a picture of these guys. Well call me naive but I also found the Wikipedia meaning. I had no idea. I'm not going to post it here, I will leave that to your discretion to google if you wish but would say if you are easily offended - Don't.

Cold outside - Warm inside

This weather is horrid. I know we need the rain, but the wind and cold I could really do without. It reminds too much of home (England) where the weather was like this more often than not, it is a very depressing thought. I am actually quite homesick at the moment but days like this remind me of yet another reason I am here.

Anyway, I was dropping my daughter at preschool this morning, getting wet from the rain both from above and underfoot, I was huddled over trying to prevent any more huge drops from the trees run down the back of my neck and I was cold. I realised though that I had a warm feeling inside. That feeling was coming from the little 2 year old hand that was in mine. It was the nicest feeling. That little being was there, giving me comfort by just holding my hand and from me she was feeling safe. I was protecting her from the cars, sheltering her from the rain, she trusted me so much. When the days are cold and wet, rushed and stressful, even when it is these little beings causing the stress, they still make me feel warm and cosy inside.

New beginnings

For a little while now (actually probably longer than I care to admit) I have been having the all too frequent struggles with food. By that I don't mean that the demons tell me to eat something a little bit naughty and I do, it's more than that to the point that I felt out of control. I could have good days or even weeks but then the "bad" things creep in and your mind starts to tell you it's ok it won't hurt. I was finding myself eating food I didn't even enjoy, I knew I was feeling grotty because I was not eating enough fresh foods, but then the sugar and fat addictions kicked in and I overate until I was too full to eat the healthy stuff.

I can't say exactly when this started because it is an on/off thing with me. I do however remember during my weight loss, feeling fantastic, even when I was still too heavy, I felt in control, my whole adult life I had been working towards losing weight and finally I was achieving it - consistently. I exceeded all my goals and got to a weight (61kg) that I had never even dreamed I could be. I couldn't have felt better. I maintained that for a while and felt good when I saw that I hadn't gained any weight, but I never felt great. In fact even though I was at my goal weight, I was disappointed that I wasn't losing anymore. See I guess I never imagined I would get to goal, but that I would always be trying. It seemed that all of a sudden my life purpose was taken away. Add to that a shoulder injury that messed with my training and my mind and the weight crept back on slowly. I got to the point where I was always covering up, pulling my clothes around me. Not realising that even though I had gained a bit, I was still 24kg lighter than when I started this journey.

Anyhow last week I decided that I was not going to focus on weight anymore, weight (and I truly believe this) is a by product of how we live our lives, instead I was going to focus on being fit and healthy and happy. I would take away all the strict regimes and mostly eat healthy, exercise most days and do something that makes me happy every day - and acknowledge it. I removed the scales and the battery and made a pact with myself not to weigh myself again for 2 whole weeks. Boy was I tempted to jump on after weighing a client but no I resisted. And so I am now on day 6 of this new thinking and I feel great again, I don't care (hope it lasts) how much I weigh, all I care about is that I am in control again. (well maybe not of my children, but you can always hope).

I am eating good food, exercising again like it has a purpose and I am taking time out every day for me.

I will keep you posted..............

Communication

I think I joked in a previous blog that my husband and I seem so busy that we communicate mostly through this blog.

Well he has been away for a few days and he complained yesterday that I had not updated here for a while, so for his benefit I need to say that we are all fine, we have had breakfast, all the kids ate theirs. They got washed and dressed without a fight, the two other girls did not come this morning, I talked to my mam - she is well. Getting ready for the gym now. Looking forward to you coming home tonight, we all love you.