An Urban Desent

I was driving home through the city from a morning run in Kings Park on Sunday morning as was stopped at the traffic lights to look up for just a second and see people dangling off the top of this very tall building! After my double take, I realised they weren't just dangling, they were abseiling down the side of the building.

Looking closer at the bottom of the building I saw banners up advertising the Abseil for PMH. This was an event where people got sponsorship to lower themselves off the side of this huge building, all raising money for our states children's hospital. At first I thought, wow these people are nuts, but once I found out the reason why they are doing this, this thought changed to pride in these compete strangers for doing something most of them would be terrified of.

If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try

 

This is something I saw written not too long ago when I was trying to change some big things in my life and I was terrified. Now I try not to let the fear get in the way and try to look at the bigger picture. These people did not let their fear get in the way of helping thousands of sick children and as a result raised over $378, 000 for the sick kids of WA. 

Black Swans

I was with some friends down at the river late afternoon one day and these big black birds were all around the place. The black swan is out state bird and can be found on  the crest of Western Australia, so we have them everywhere.

Before today I have never really had an encounter with these birds. But today these two started swimming towards and then waddled out of the water, bee lining directly for us while we were sitting by the river. They started to get pretty close, so I stood up to try and send them back in the opposite direction. Then the one on the left hissed at me, I ran!!

These two birds had guts, since when were swans so stubborn? There were no bushes or anything that could signify their nest around us, so we think it was unlikely they were being protective of their eggs. So as much as having a swam hiss at me was not ideal, good on them for not being intimidated!!

One of my friends did manage to stand her ground though and eventually the swans did turn around and swim away, it wasn't until then that I could come sit down again!

My Car

I honestly don't know what I would do without my car, and in particular my huge boot! The picture above is my car packed for my Sunday. I have my dance bag for my tech rehearsal and all the cards and bracelets I had made for my kids, from there I was heading to the pool to race in a swim meet so I had my swim bag and my gear bag in the blue crate. After that I was off to bootcamp so I had my gym back and all the equipment that was needed for that such as skipping ropes, mirrors to write the program, speakers, cones and a couple of towels, and finally from there I was heading to Matilda Bay to catch up with some uni friends so I had another change of clothes for that one too.

So I leave my boot space to be packed for my day, but in my passenger seats I have just my general life. This is where all my bootcamp stuff lives, I also have two spare towels, a jumper, pair of shorts, pair of bathers cap and goggles (you never know when your going to be able to squeeze a swim in!) and a blow up dolphin...don't ask! There is bug spray deodorant, strapping tape, pen and paper, road maps...you name it, it's in my car! Nothing like being prepared.

I have some friends who don't have their licence yet and some without cars and I honestly don't know how they get around to everything they need to do in their days. Without my car I would not be able to do half the things I fit into my days!!

Drawings

 

I get given drawings done by my kids all the time, this is the most recent one I received. Some of them draw them for me at school, some at home, and others while they are waiting for their class. These kids put so much effort into their pictures. I get pictures of me with them, of houses, flowers, people under trees and then I get the really inventive ones which have glitter and shapes cut out, or the ones where you paint on one side and fold the paper in half so it transfers onto the other side as well.



 

I love seeing the pride in their faces when they give their creations to me, that makes me just as happy as the actual picture. I have them all hanging about my bed room window where I can be reminded of the effort these kids put into something a simple as a picture and their big smiles when they give them to me. I reminds me to be proud of what you do - give everything you do all the effort and focus you can and be proud of what you produce. Or when in doubt, go draw something!

Comebacks

I quit elite level competitive swimming in May this year. The training and pressure I was putting on myself for racing was becoming more of a burden to me and my health then the motivation and enjoyment of the sport. So imagine the surprised looks of my old coach when he found out I was competing at the next State meet.

Three weeks ago, with the small amount of swimming I've done in the past 6 months compared to what I use to do, I decided to enter a 50m Free. I wasn't a sprinter when I was competitive, and I am no more a sprinter now, but 50m Free was always the race I enjoyed the most, so it seemed like the best one to go back to.

I walked through the doors of that stadium and it was like I had never left. There was the same smell of chlorine, sound of the starting gun and 8 people entering the water, with the pounding kick that would follow their breakout strokes. But all of a sudden there was also the pressure and expectations, the nervousness that builds while you sit in the marshalling area and the questioning of why you are doing this.

The swim turned out ok, slightly off my time but all things considered a decent race. And while I am glad that I come back to race, I am glad I made the decision to quit competitive swimming in May and this just confirmed it for me.

One Week To Go!

I'm sorry about all the dance related posts, but it is November. And this is all I am doing, well maybe not the first two, but breathing and dancing, yep that would cover my last 72 hours for sure!

Dress rehearsal. Chaos! we had kids running, crawling, climbing changing in hallways, standing on chairs while we put shoes on, pinning costumes onto them. We lost costumes, found costumes, worked out we were missing costumes, broke and then fixed costumes...utter chaos!

However, once the costumes were on -  the best we could get them done for the day, and my littlies were on stage, they impressed me. They knew what they were doing, where their positions were and what came next. The only thing they didn't do was smile. But that will come!

So one week to go and I'm counting down the days, but things look like they might just work out ok!

Keeping Traditions Alive

Ever since I can remember, my Nanna would make a Christmas Fruit Cake for each of her children every year - my dad, his brother and sister. Unfortunately my Nanna passed away last year. Christmas 2012 there was no Christmas cake and we still had an empty chair and candle for where she would have been sitting on Christmas day.

My aunty was going through some of her books and things at the beginning of this year and came across the recipe book - well diary from the 1960's where she had stuck in recipes she had collected over time. Known to have done a bit of baking in the past, the book was passed on to me. And so was the roll of making the families annual Christmas Cake.  

So I converted the ingredient quantities from the Imperial System in which she had hand written them at that time to the Metric System and started the three day process of making enough cakes for the family. Day 1involved combining all the fruit together and covering in brandy to let soak for 24hrs.
Each cake needed 4 hours in a low temp oven, and you could only cook one at a time. So Day 2 I made two separate cake batters, managed to get one cooked and out of the over before I had to go to work, and had the second prepared and in the tin for when my mum got home. I had written her clear instructions of what time it had to go into the oven so that it would be close to ready when I got home from work and training later that night.

Finally Day 3 and I made and baked one more cake, got them all out of their tins and wrapped up in glad wrap now ready to sit for around 3 weeks. So I am thankful for being able to keep this family tradition alive even without my Nanna still with us, and for the trust my family has in me to maintain this tradition.

Timing

Two weeks out from the concert and things are finally coming together for my Juniors. My kindies...they're so cute it doesn't matter what they do on stage, they are going to capture the audience regardless. Last year for example, I had the cutest little boy with a big mop of ringlets and all he did was stand there! Even after the dance had finished, the rest of his class had left the stage and the next item had started, he was too busy watching!

But my Juniors, there is some expectation on them to remember their own dance and be in time with the music and with each other. Just last week I was worried and starting to get frustrated. I start the end of year dances pretty early with this class because I know how much time and repetition they need to remember it. So after last week which involved a lot of yelling out steps, corrections, patterns and hand positions from me, I was apprehensive about what I was coming back to this week.

Happily surprised! They remembered to skip with their hands, to have their foot popped when doing their hips and their timing was much more in sync. I'm now actually excited about their concert performance and feel they are going to do me proud!

Flies

Before you jump to conclusions, no I'm not thankful for flies! I'm thankful for ways to keep them away.

Summer in Australia = so many flies. If your outdoors you are constantly swatting at these annoying flying insects. At a training session one afternoon, one chick announces she has a solution for our fly problem. This girl is from South Africa and this is something her grandparents showed her to keep them away. The idea is you get pieces of alfoil and put them in a clear bottle of water and put that bottle in the sun.

The thought behind it is that flies have so many eyes facing in all different directions, so as the light reflects off the foil which is floating around in the water, it comes at the flies into many different directions, hitting lots of their eyes and they don't like it. To them its a big glaring disco ball...makes sense.

So after talking her idea up for over a week, she called her grandma and asked how exactly to make this bottle and it was brought to training. The first day she had it there, the wind was so high that I think there would have been no flies regardless of whether the bottle was there or not.

Second attempt - still a bit of wind but while I was sitting on the grass I was swatting, so we may as well give it another go. And you know what, while the sun was out (probably for only about the first 30 minutes) I think there were less flies. It wasn't as windy as it had been the first day we'd tried, so this could be a potential solution for our fly problem!! We'll keep you posted.

Getting Into Weird Positions

I'm flexible. I don't know if it's my dance and gymnastics history (yeah it's probably that) or it just comes naturally to me. I'm the kind of flexible where the typical standing quad stretch does nothing. I have to go into a hip flexor stretch, then add the knee flexion and probably a psoas stretch on top of that...I might feel something. Or a kneeling hamstring stretch with one leg straight out in front where your typical person has trouble touching the ground, my elbows are on the floor. So yeah, I'm flexible.

Flexibility is on of these spiral effect things. You gain some muscle length and you can move deeper into a stretch, or have to add a component to continue to feel a stretch, which turns into a whole new position to feel anything. The more flexibility you gain, the stranger the positions you can adapt. Take yoga for example. You start by bending one leg so you foot is sitting over the top of the opposite quad. you then bend forwards and wrap your hands around your outstretched foot. Too easy. So bend that straight leg to plant your foot on the floor directly in front of your hip. Now wrap your same arm around that leg and behind you to meet the other hand and grab hold at the back and voila...human pretzel!

I do a class that focuses on mobility and maintaining joint range of motion and muscle length. I got sent a link to a video by Mobility WOD guru Kelly Starrett, and was pretty much told to make it happen. So I did. Lying on my back, with hips abducted and hips and knees in 90 degrees flexion, the aim is to get you butt as close to the wall as you can, with your feet still pointing perpendicular to the floor and maintaining your hip abduction. Once there, you maintain your foot position and rotate a knee in towards the wall. All of this with a giant rubber band hooked over your knees and around your back pulling your leg bone into your hip socket.

My flexibility meant that it was possible for me, some of the not so bendy....very entertaining!

Getting It Done!

At the end of each dance year, I have made personalised cards for each of my dancers, each with a hand written message. My first year of teaching I would have only had around a total of 20 dancers, so only 20 cards. Over the past 7 years, my numbers have slowly grown.

This year I made a total of 63 cards. I folded 63 pieces of card, cut and bordered 63 dance pictures, wrote 63 names in 3D glitter paint, bordered those and then stuck all these pieces onto each card. The key to this process...production line! A good production line meant I could make all the cards in less then 2 days. The part that took the longest was writing in each of the cards. I like each of them to be individualised and I sometimes get stumped on what to say, so the writing took over a week to get through.

This year I decided to add an extra challenge to my end of year production. I made each dancer a knitted beaded bracelet. I use to make a heap of these years ago, but haven't made any in the past four years at least. I made them with pretty much whatever I could find...buttons, sequins, bells, beads and they are all different.

At the time, it felt like I would not get the numbers out in time, but like many things in life you just have to get it done. Happy to say I got through them all with a week to spare!

Significant Jewellery

I rarely wear jewellery, but when I do, it is most often these three bracelets. These three because they have a lot of significance with my life. The first is my Pandora bracelet which I was given for my 16th birthday and have been slowly accumulating the charms. Every single charm has some significance to something I have done, achieved finished or something about me and all of them have been given to me by someone else. 

I got the running shoe after I had competed in the National Athletics Champs, I was given one fish for swimming, another fish because my dad calls me Blowfish, a graduation had when I graduated high school, the book stack when I graduation from Uni, the purple flowers because my favourite colour is purple and it was from a friend who I call blossom, ballet shoes for dancing...it keeps going!

The second bracelet is my Thomas Sabo pearl bracelet which was given to me by my school friends for my 21st Birthday with my birth stone and a C. And the last is my Tiffany and Co bracelet which my best friend gave me for my 21st.

Like I said I don't often wear jewellery, but when I do I love wearing these bracelets because they remind me of some of the amazing people I know and some of the things I have done.

Saying Goodbyes

For everyone in the dance world, you know that November is Dance Month. There are rehearsals and costume fitting/alteration mornings, Tech Rehearsals, Dress Rehearsals, Stage Runs, Staff Meetings and weekly classes thrown on top of all that. If you're involved in dance, say goodbye to your social life during November!

Well at the Studio this week, the news is out that this is my final year of teaching after 7 years of being the schools Kindies and Juniors Jazz Tap teacher and 18 years of dancing at the school myself. There are two girls that I am still teaching today who started in the dancing world the same year I started teaching them. One is my cousin (Spiderman in the above picture), and the other is this gorgeous little one.  

At the end of one of the Juniors weekly classes, this little poppets mum came in with tears in her eye and her hands shaking as she was getting her phone out and asking if her daughter could have a photo with me. I was guessing she had just found out I was leaving. My mum just so happened to be at my classes that day as well - she comes to watch them during class time so she doesn't have to come to the concert and gives her ticket up to someone else. Seeing this mother upset triggered the tears in mum as well.

I then got a call later that night after another rehearsal from a father of a girl in my Juniors Class who has been with me for 5 years saying his daughter has just found out I was leaving and cried the whole way home in the car. Teaching for 7 years means that I have been with a lot of my little ones for well over half their lives and have watched them grow. These girls often make and break my week and I love them all so much.

Saying goodbye to my kids, and the people who I personally have grown up with over the past 19 years is going to be hard come concert night...cue the tears!

A Line To Follow

Whether it's a line on the bottom of the pool, the boundary line of an oval, the line on a foot path or a long road. Give me a line to follow and I'm a happy girl!

When I was racing open water, I preferred racing in the rowing regatta lakes then at the beach. Yeah the water at these places tasted like algae, was brown and murky and you could barely see a meter in front of you, but there were lines of buoys down the whole lake. And what are the buoys attached to? A line of rope that is about a meter below the surface of the water. So once the race field had spread out a bit and you had your own space to swim in, I would get as close to the buoys as I could and look hard for this yellow rope. Once I had my line to follow, the race became a whole lot easier. I just had to remember to clear the buoys every 5m.

When I have a line to follow, its one less thing I have to worry about. There is something telling me which way to go and I can forget about directions. It creates a sense of calm in me...sounds weird I know. A line can be more or less endless, or as long as you want it to be. If you get to the end of it, just turn around and head back the way you came.

Rock Tape

Kinesiology Tape/KinesioTape/Rock Tape is relatively new to Physio treatment. There are thousands of ways to tape different muscle, movements, restrictions, facilitations and stimulations and every Physio will have a different way of taping.

As with anything new that comes onto the market, some people are very sceptical about the tape, whether it works or whether it is all in our heads. I love the stuff. I have been using it personally for over 5 years now to help manage my own injuries, and am starting to use it more and more in practice on my patients as well. Given there are some people who don't really think it helped them or facilitated them very much, but there are more people I treat that agree with me and love it.

The idea is to apply the tape in the direction of the line of pull of the muscle (to prevent fatigue and allow recovery of a muscle) or in the direction of the movement you want to facilitate. When I put the tape on, the muscle feels instantly supported and when I use that muscle, there is less resistance and heaviness in the movement. The muscle is stimulated to remain in a shorter position, decreasing the length tension relationship and preventing the excess use of the muscles energy, letting it recover.

Some may not agree, but I personally love the stuff and it has helped me through so many injuries allowing me to keep doing what I love.

Party Rock Anthem

I taught a group of Year 12 Borders at an all boys school a hip hop dance for them to perform at their Annual Borders Ball. The boys had chosen the song they wanted to do, Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO was the one, and pretty much all the boys wanted to do was shuffle. So I was brought in, to not only teach them to shuffle, but to string together a few other simple steps for them to do over and over again.

The boys were good fun to work with and (most of them) tried so hard week in week out. Not many of them being natural born dancers they had a lot to pick up in a pretty short amount of time, but were completely happy to make absolute fools of themselves and have a good time while they are doing it.

Every time I here Party Rock Anthem now, I can't help but think of these guys and have a laugh to myself.

Receiving Thanks

Last week I treated a lady who has severe emphysema and is down to less then 10% lung function in both lungs. She is on oxygen 24 hours a day, extremely frail and is using all her accessory muscles to get air in (this means she is using muscles that she should be using for arm and head movements instead to help expand her lungs and get in as much air as possible!).

After using these muscles for a job they are not suppose to do, they have become sore and tired. She reported to be in constant pain which is affecting every aspect of her life. She saw a male physio at our clinic last year, but came to me this year because she was embarrassed. So I took her on and treated her.

I got into work today and there was this note in my diary. What makes me happy, is spending 20 minutes with this lovely woman has made her feel better at the time, as well as improved her quality of life.

Color Running

If you have never done a Color Run, I highly recommend you do. The idea: you start of clean and white, you finish covered head to toe in powder paint which tends to all mix together and you end almost brown. The paint hits you most during the Color Festival at the end of the run. But to get covered, you have to run first.

It is advertised as a 5km run, but for all those non-runners out there, it is not even close to 5km so there is hope for you yet! You run through colour stations during the run which is where you get hit with single colours at a time, so this is when you look a little more like a rainbow then a brown puddle but you get hit with no where near as much colour due to the number of people running through these stations at any one time.

But the Color Throw is like nothing I have ever done before. All together thousands of people throw packets of power paint into the air. What I didn't expect was the powder to completely block out the sun and it to be so dark under this cloud of paint. And it goes everywhere - you breath it in, it goes up your nose, in your eyes and ears and down your clothes. For a bit of a clean freak like me, it was definitely an experience I had prepared myself for and I swear I was still scrubbing the paint off my body days later!

Franklin The Fighting Fish

This is my fighting fish. His name is Franklin. I was given him for my 21st birthday. Growing up we didn't have too many pets. When I was really little (like 2-3 years old) we had a cat called Cocktail, which I think was a stray that we just kind of adopted. But he ended up with a brain tumour so we had to put him down probably when I was about 4. I don't know if I had reactions when I was that young but now I am allergic to both cats and dogs, so that makes them an unrealistic possibility as a pet.

When I was 10 I got a bunny called Layla for my birthday. She was my baby for a very long time. We had our bunnies (my brother when through two, Layla out lived them both, go girl!) trained to run around our big garden for the day, but when we hit a plastic bowl against the bricks, they would come back to their cage. She was a good bunny but got sick when I was 15, spent 3 weeks in the vet, where she died.

I then went pet-less until 21 when I was given Franklin. I had heard stories from other people with pet fish that they didn't live very long, a year if you were lucky and often died in the winter because of the cold. Franklin though is now almost two and still going strong. After going on a hunger strike when I thought this might be it for him, he has bounced back and is now fighting as strong as even. He just keeps swimming!

Finding Direction

I went to a seminar recently that was all about goal setting and planning for the future so that you can live your best possible life. And it couldn't have some at a better time. I've settled into my job now and feel like every day I'm just going through the motions not really sure where I was headed. And not just at work, but also in terms of my training goals, health and the relationships I had.

With some help I came up with a couple of goals for various aspects of my life and learnt how to break them down so they didn't seem as overwhelming and I could see the path I had to take to achieve them.

I went home that night and my head just wouldn't stop! So I mind mapped. I had flow charts, explosion charts, to do lists, dates written down and by about 2.30am, I finally felt like I had it all out and I had some sense of direction in my life again and could go to bed.

Complete Strangers

I'd had a pretty bad morning. My juniors couldn't remember their dances (4 weeks out from the concert and we have been practicing the same routines for over 20 weeks now), my iPod ran out of battery and my phone didn't have the music on it, so they ended up dancing to my counting, which was mixed with me screaming corrections over 40 pairs of tap shoes.
 
By the time I finished teaching I was exhausted and did some stupid things on my drive home. For example, I had apparently turned the lights of my car on (it was midday) and didn't realise I'd done it until about five minutes into the trip. I had put my car into reverse instead of drive and as I started rolling my brain couldn't tell my foot to hit the breaks, I was centimetres away from the car behind me by the time the breaks were on. So I cried, the whole way home. Within an hour and a half of being home, I was still extremely worked up...the only way to calm myself down and clear my head? Go for a swim.
 
Jumped in a lane with one other guy I didn't know just plodding along and swam a straight 1500m before I felt calm enough to stop for a breath. When I did the other guy in my lane had also stopped for a rest. I lift my goggles and he said to me

  "Jesus, you swim like a fish! I swim two laps and I'm completely stuffed but you just keep going,      it's amazing!"

Day Made! I started trying to talk myself down a little and compliment his swimming in return, but then I remembered, I'm trying to receive. So I shut up and said Thank You.

Thankyou stranger in my lane, you brightened my day more then you could understand!

Lady Bugs

I was sitting outside late afternoon reading and swatting flies. The flies around at the moment have been nuts, so I was constantly swatting. I felt something land on me again and right before I swatted yet again I looked up and saw a lady bug sitting on my hand.

I don't know what it is about these little insects, but every time I see one near by or one lands on me, I just go awwww! Suddenly there is happiness sitting on my hand. Why is it that we will do whatever we can to save a lady bug, but if its a bee or a fly story changes!

These little symbols of luck can melt away all your problems and worries in an instant. I could watch them walk around for hours. Lady bugs are so much better then flies!

Running Further Then Expected When There's A Lot To Think About

I had done my boxing class for the morning and I would normally go for a run after it. Today I was tired from a big weekend and a big couple of days of training I'd had, and extremely sore partly from training and also from my Deep Tissue the day before. So put my keys and drink bottle behind the desk at the gym, told them I wouldn't be long and planned just to get through a short run...that would be better then nothing.

I set off and yep, feeling pretty terrible. Legs were heavy and everything was aching. But by the time I had run the 1km down to the river, I had forgotten about my heavy legs and aching body and was completely distracted by some news that had just been told to me which was going to change some things in my life in a few small ways. One small event was going to change a number of different things and the further I ran the more changes I thought of.

I was still trying to process the changes ahead when I realised how far away I was from my starting point. Thought I better turn around and the thinking continued to plough ahead the whole way back to the gym. By the time I did make it back though, my body felt so much better then when I had set out to start with and I felt I had made some sense of the information I had been given and a way forward from here. These head clearing runs always come when least expected but most needed!

Fun Patients

Each day when I get into work I quickly cast my eyes down my days patient list to see who I've got coming in and what injuries I need to prepare for that day. Like with any job, there are always those patients who I love treating because they are just good fun to work with.

Today looking at my diary, every single one of my patients were those fun patients that I look forward to. I started off with this this lovely lady...my friend and ex-training partner. She sees me regularly to stay on top of her muscles length and tension to allow her to continue training and competing in Open Water Swimming at her full potential.

But her appointments have to be strategically placed in my diary. I need to allow appointment slots for her and it would be ideal if there is no-one booked immediately after her as well. Partially because I need a rest, but more so because she scares off my patients. She screams, yells, swears, pants and hits things to get her through the appointment. Most people hold their breathe and tense up against me...not this one! She lets everything out.

Not only do I love treating this girl for the entertainment value, we get to catch up regularly about the common people we know, find out what's happening in each others lives and have a good laugh as well.

Fun patients like this chicky make the day so much more enjoyable and make it go super fast.

Great Minds Dress Alike

I pack my bags early in the morning, sometimes even the night before. My clothes are quickly thrown into my bag and then bag into the car. So by the time I get to training later that night, its almost a surprise as to what I'm wearing for training. Despite the rush and chaos at which I throw these clothes, I do still make a point of them coordinating!

I was getting changed at work before driving back to the gym and I found this grey and pink top. I had a quick think about what I had on tonight and who I would be training with and it did quickly cross my mind that there is a chick there tonight that also has this top...wouldn't it be funny if we both wore it on the same day??

I arrived at training and there she is, wearing her matching top! I couldn't help but laugh. It was a running joke throughout the night - we paired ourselves together, we decided we were an exclusive group, you had to stay over the other side unless you were matching us and our tops instantly made us identical. We were very entertained, and I'm sure its going to happen again in the not too distant future.

Calm Before The Storm

I was walking to training this morning, and everything was still. There were no flies (which have been a big hassle lately), the wind hadn't picked up yet and everything was quiet. Training this morning was an outdoor session completely in the open with no place to hide and could see these clouds ahead of me. It looked pretty awesome, but would probably have looked even better if I knew I wasn't going to be stuck in it and it was coming my way!

I got to the training location and the wind picked up ... a lot. When I jumped with burpee's, I was blown sideways. Looking at that sky line, it was a given that we got wet. But maybe for the first time I was thankful for it being really windy, because it blew most of what you can see past us so we didn't get completely soaked. So it turned out to be the calm before a light/windy shower...thankful for that!

Katy Perry

By far my favourite artist! This new album was recently released and has been on repeat in my care since it fell onto my iPod. There has been a big lead up to the release of this new album, and in my opinion, she delivered.

Not only do I love Katy Perry's music and song lists, I love all that she represents and believes in. Being an individual, standing up for what you believe in and that you can be anything you want to be.

Everyone has that music they turn to...well this is mine.

Being Organised

Most of the people I work with bring very little with them each day. The guys - their phone and wallet. The girls - a handbag with their phone and wallet, plus all the stuff that tends to accumulate in your handbag.

Me on the other had, I tend to bring at least 3 bags with me each day. I've got my work bag with notes, copies of some of my patient programs (because my patients often see me at different practices), my stethoscope (I seem to get all the cardio patients), my iPad to fill my empty appointments and has all my articles and a water bottle.

Then I have my training bag which has my sneakers, a separate pair of socks, crop top, shorts and singlet, a pair of bathers, towel, cap and goggles because if I don't make my scheduled training session because of my work diary I will go for a run or a swim instead.

My final bag is for after my training session - most days I have to go out from training as well so I have a change of clothes, jumper, extra towel and another water bottle. My car gets pack for the day very early in the morning, but planning for the day begins the night before. Without being organised my life pretty much turns into chaos, not being organised is not an option.

Halloween

In Australia, this American holiday is a bit hit and miss. Some people really get into it, I was driving home from work and training last night and I saw some kids dressed up in costumes walking around the streets obviously Trick-or-Treating. I don't know if I have never been driving home at this time in the past (probably normally in the pool) or the holiday is slowly becoming more popular down under, but this is the first time I have seen people out in costumes going from door to door.

Personally, I don't really get into Halloween, not phased by haunted houses or any of that. However, when I was 13 I did go to a Halloween party at a school friends house and we went trick-or-treating around her suburb. But really once was enough for me, have ticked that off my list and don't feel the need to ever do it again. I remember when I was going to this party, my mum made it very clear to me that she didn't really support the whole idea of Trick-or-Treating, knocking on strangers doors etc.

Times must of changed because over the past few years, I have noticed that each year she becomes more and more prepared for Halloween. And despite getting her little pumpkin and lollies to put inside it, we have never once had a Trick-or-Treater come to our door. A couple of years a go it was just a packet of lollies in the cupboard in case someone came by. The next year the packet was waiting at the front door. The next year she had bought the pumpkin which was waiting at the front door. This year I arrive home from training to see the pumpkin waiting outside the front door in our drive way. And you know what still no Trick-or-Treaters! But here's to being prepared mum!!