The new challenge

I've been somewhat secretive about my new training challenge, most have now put two and two together but for those still in the dark, yes I have decided to enter a body sculpting comp! Why? Why not! Common words to describe me are determined, motivated and competitive! I'm always up for a good challenge and it's been awhile, 5 years ago to be exact since I stepped out of my comfort zone and embarked on my last big challenge. For years I've toyed with the idea of maybe entering a comp, I've always had the ability to build muscle fairly easily so it seemed like a logical challenge. But it's something I've only now finally decided to do seriously. I've been training towards it for the last 14 weeks, but a part of me kept telling myself that I would just do the training, get my body to the point I could do a comp but not actually do the comp. I love the training, but the thought of getting up on stage in a skimpy bikini and attempting to walk in high heels as I'm being watched and judged scares the crap out of me. Not to mention the prospect of looking like an Oompa Loompa with all that fake tan!!

But last week it suddenly dawned on me that in 6 months I turn 35, yikes! Surely it hasn't been 10 years since I turned 25 and suffered my quarter life crisis, is it too early for a mid life crisis?!

So with my 35th birthday now only 6 months away I've decided to commit to doing a comp and what better day to do one than the day after my birthday. At least I can then celebrate with champagne and cake after the comp!!

Am I crazy, probably, am I determined to give this a go, absolutely. The next 6 months will test me both physically and mentally but I'm up for the challenge and maybe ticking something off the bucket list won't make turning 35 seem quite so bad afterall.

It's ok to say no sometimes

I've often found it difficult to say no to people, I used to find myself saying yes to everything and everyone and over committing myself. Since becoming a mum I've finally started to feel more comfortable in saying no to people (perhaps it's a more common word in my vocabulary after dealing with a toddler!) I've often felt guilty when saying no, recently however, I attended a Buiness Chicks function where Zoe Foster Blake was speaking and she spoke about how when you say no to others you are actually saying yes to yourself. By not prioritizing doing something for someone else you are preserving time to do something for yourself. I'd never really looked at it that way before, but as I often find myself verging on the edge of overload this has been extremely useful advice to take in and last night I needed to give myself a kick up the bum and remind myself of this very advice. I was recently given an opportunity at work that could have been great for my career (it also could have completely set me up for failure), I made the conscious decision to say no and ever since, have felt guilty and worried that perhaps this could have been a career limiting move. It was only after talking to my dad last night (a great man of so much wisdom) that I realised yet again that it was ok to say no. With so many other priorities on at work at the moment, not to mention my priority to be the best mum I can be to my daughter I said no to ensure I kick ass at being a mum. Which right now is feeling pretty bloody tough when I'm also faced with sleep deprivation due to a toddler who now seems scared to go to sleep.

Sure sometimes my decisions may reflect poorly on the eyes of others, but right now at this point in my life there is only one set of eyes that are important to me, those big blue eyes of a 2 year old little girl looking up at me.

She is the reason I find myself saying no, because right now in my life she is my number one priority so I choose to say yes to things that make me a good mum, and if that means saying no to others then so be it. I've recently learnt to say yes to myself and reprioritize being fit and healthy because this makes me happy and being happy makes me a better mum. I found that I was prioritizing everything and everyone above my own needs and I didn't like the person I was becoming.

So if you find yourself in a situation where you feel guilty for saying no to someone, remember that you're actually saying yes to yourself. Prioritizing time is tough, even tougher when you've got little people that need your time to. Take a little time to prioritize you!

My Story

I thought long and hard about writing this blog, and then even harder about whether to post it or not. But here goes nothing.

I love my beautiful girl more than anything in this world, but truth be told I wasn't ready for a baby or the life that I now have. I fell pregnant having only been in a relationship for 6 months, and at the time it was a painful decision about what to do but in my heart I knew there was only ever one answer and that was to have the baby. I was happy, in love and whilst scared I was excited about becoming a mum as it was something I had always wanted. After getting through the initial shock that we were pregnant, we were both pretty excited. At 9 weeks though I had some bleeding and I knew something wasn't right, sure enough a scan the following day confirmed my worst fear, I had lost my baby. This was the hardest time in my life, I was so distraught by grief and I felt that the only way to ever be happy was to get pregnant again, holding a baby in my arms was the only way to cure my grief. In hindsight I should have sought help to deal with my grief. I should have realised that maybe this was a sign that I wasn't ready to have a baby, I wasn't in the right relationship. But at this point in my life I didn't think at all with my head, I let my heart rule the way and I became pregnant again very quickly. Now 3 years on I am a mum to a beautiful, independent and adventurous toddler, she is my absolute world and I now can't imagine a life without her. Yes I am now on my own, I juggle motherhood and a career as best as I can but I love my life

(most of the time).  

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. 

1 step forward and 2 steps back!

After a recent relaxing holiday in Fiji, I returned home feeling invigorated with a new lease on life. I threw myself back into exercise, maintained a positive attitude at work and stopped worrying about things outside of my control. 4 weeks later and I feel like I've completely gone back to pre holiday mode! I've managed to get the mum flu, it's kind of like the normal flu but nobody cares and there's no time to rest from it when constantly chasing an energetic toddler. Being sick has meant no exercise and craving winter comfort food! Whilst my positive attitude towards work has remained, juggling work and motherhood is one constant obstacle course. Monday I found out that Mia's childcare will be closing at the end of the year so I'm now on a mission to find a new one. Yesterday in the middle of my work day I was called to collect her from childcare as she was suspected to have hand, foot and mouth disease (turns out she doesn't). So instead of a productive afternoon in the office I attempted to work at home with a toddler hanging off me as I typed up emails and whilst on the phone to a work colleague I had to run after her around the house to stop her drawing on the furniture with crayons! The holiday now feels like a distant memory, though another one is now only 2 months away. I may have retired from triathlon but this new form of racing is far more exhausting and there is no finisher medal and towel and the end of the 12 hour event! Just a messy house, mounting piles of laundry, a work to do list that is ever expanding, and a beautiful sleeping toddler!