Gym etiquette!

So I've recently reignited my love for training. I've always loved to keep fit and for most of my 20's I trained for triathlons, however after completing an ironman and retiring from triathlon I've been up and down with training. Being a single mum and working full time also doesn't allow a whole heap of time for training either, but with a new found focus and something new to train for I have found myself spending a lot of time at the gym lately. Not quite to the same levels of my early twenties when I was there so often my dad started telling people I had a new boyfriend and his name was 'Jim'! It never ceases to amaze me the people you see whilst working out in the gym, I've been getting my fix of people watching at the same time as working out. 

There are the girls with the faces full of makeup that walk at snail pace on the treadmill whilst texting or reading trashy mags, making sure they don't work up a sweat and ruin their makeup.

The guys that go in groups and spend more time checking out their muscles in the mirrors than actually lifting any weights.

The grunters, those that can't lift a single weight without the whole gym hearing them. Sure if you are doing an absolute max effort and exerting yourself, but the other day I thought I was in the gym with Maria Sharapova, when a girl was grunting with every single rep.

There are the show offs, the guys like one today who set the weights on the machine so high that they have to use the worst possible form to even make the weights move. 

The ones that sit on the equipment on their phone for longer than they actually use the equipment, ensuring they piss those off who are waiting for the machine. Or worse, the ones who talk to loudly on their phone, again whilst hogging equipment. 

Or my personal favorite is when you are in an empty gym, there are 30 treadmills and only one person on them, but the next gym goer has to come in and set up on the one right next to you.

Then of course there are those who don't wear enough deodorant (if at all), don't wipe their sweat off the equipment, don't re stack the weights, hog five pieces of equipment and one time and spend 10 minutes in the shower during peak hour when there is a line waiting outside.

I'm loving getting back into some serious training, and do always love a bit of good people watching, especially when it gives me enough content for a new blog post!

Toddler Troubles

As an adult, I find many things to be stressful, frustrating or upsetting. Today I started to understand the frustrations a toddler faces, to me all of these things seem insignificant but to a 2 year old that has yet to experience much of the world, these were all moments that led to tears.

Firstly the concept of having to share, if I want a toy then why should I not be able to have it? Why should another child be able to play with it? And of course even in a room filled with toys, children always have to fight over the same toy.

Next was the babycino dilemma, whilst being a very well behaved little girl and patiently waiting for her babycino a look of disgust appeared when mummy's coffee arrived first. Seriously, do they not recognise that babycino's are far more important than coffee? Upon receiving the babycino I watched her little eyes search the plate for the holy grail that is the marshmallow. As she realised that one very important component of her babycino was missing the tears started to fall. We're not talking toddler tantrums but rather a really emotional cry, as if one had just lost her best friend. I mean what kind of cafe doesn't have marshmallows! Mental note to self, in future check if cafe has marshmallows before ordering a babycino.

Then of course are the bedtime dramas, when one insists on wearing the peppa pig pyjamas but doesn't understand why she can't? Wet washing, seriously mum, you should have thought ahead and made sure the pj's were dry before bed time. Then to add to the frustration when mummy really can't understand what book it is you are asking for. We do both speak English, so I don't understand how hard it could be to know that I want to read 'Dear Zoo'!

Today taught me that everyone has frustrations in life, things may upset some more than others. I realised that whilst my daughter's problems may seem insignificant to me, to her they were huge. Everyone's entitled to show their frustrations and emotions, we are only human afterall. 

Baking for the baby!

Well the baby is not quite a baby anymore, in fact she turns 2 on Monday. Last year I was smart enough to outsource the first birthday cake to a friend who makes amazing cakes, this year however in an effort to prove something to myself I decided to make her a birthday cake! I found the perfect cake and had my heart set on creating her something special (not that she'll care or ever remember it though!) From start to finish the whole thing has been a disaster! I found myself on Friday night baking 3 cakes to build a layer cake, after cooking them I decided the cake wasn't going to be high enough so I baked another two! Today in reading the recipe for the butter icing I decided it wouldn't be enough for the cake so I doubled the recipe, 1.3kg of butter and 12 cups of icing sugar later I had enough icing to cover a house. The icing was meant to be a pale blue but instead became a shade of green instead! The tower of cakes surrounded in butter icing actually turned out pretty well. However tonight came the hard part, pouring icing over the top to give it the drip look effect, now I just have one very messy cake with icing running everywhere! Nothing like the cake I had desired to make. Part of me wants to bin the whole thing and start again, the other part has no energy to even contemplate baking ever again! So here I am feeling like a failure of a mum all because I stuffed up a silly birthday cake for a 2 year old that will never even remember it.