Just another Manic Monday

Oh oh woah, wish it were Sunday, Cos thats my fun day, my " i dont have to run day " ....


Blah di blah di blah, you know the rest. The point is it WAS Monday, and it WAS kind of manic, at least towards the end of the day. I think the combination of a lack of eyewear patients and a tad too much chocolate had my colleague and I a little hyper. Never mind that i'm 24 and she's almost 36, the last two hours of work went by in a haze of gossip, giggles and " Big Brother " updates. Yes, we're sad " Big Brother " addicts ( hey, there were two housemates from our town this year, both of whom i know as acquaintances, so i HAD to watch ) but we're also really compatible as workmates and friends. I think i've actually been kind of lucky like that - we're a little apart in age, and technically i'm the boss, but we're fine to call each other names or make jokes. Its a good work environment and, despite what it may sound like, we do get all our work done at the same time. We're women - we multi-task.

I also spent a good proprotion of the afternoon pulling stuff together for my upcoming conference. Tomrrow afternoon we fly down to Sydney for a one day conference, all the eyewear contingent from my company together. But seriously, how good is our management ? They chose to organise our conference for July 2nd, in Sydney which means - they're taking this all to State of Origin! Yay! Now if you're Australian, particularly from either NSW or Qld, you will know that this is a big thing. An important game. Pride rides on this ( especially as half the staff at the conference will be from Qld ). If you're not Australian its like the Super Bowl for Americans; or FA Cup final for and Brits; or the Springboks playing just about anyone in the Rugby World Cup final ( hello South Africans! ). I'm not ashamed to admit i'm excited - its no secret that i love rugby league, i've been raised on it, so attending this game is something i'm looking forward to.

So i'll be missing in action for next two-ish days. Nevermind the conference itself, the presentations, the discussions. I'm really only in it for the sport, and the company ( as in the people, not the business ). That being said though, if NSW lose, i will be crying into my breakfast come Thursday morning.....

Progress, episode #1

So, guess what i did today ? I ran on the treadmill at the gym. RAN. Yes, me - i ran. The last time i've ran anywhere for anything was so i didnt miss the last train back to New Jersey after a John Butler Trio concert in New York City. In heels mind you, but i digress.

I have steadily been improving my fitness over the past 8 weeks or so to the point where i was getting kind of bored with a fast walk on the treadmill. Admittedly, i like the bike and the rower more ( i'm even getting callouses on my hands from the handles on the rowing machine... yay! ) but i thought maybe i could liven up the treadmill section of the workout. Why not jog a bit?

Bare in mind that i had the " why not jog a bit ? " thought about two weeks ago, but couldnt bring myself to do it until today. After having had the initial thought the rest of my self-conversation went like this :
Me#1: " You cant jog - you arent fit enough for that. What if you keel over and die, wearing tracksuits pants and a Cookie Monster t-shirt ? "
Me #2: " I dont think i'll keel over, but maybe i'm not fit enough yet".
Me #1: " Of course you arent fit enough yet. Plus, you'll look ridiculous running. Everyone else at the gym is giong to look at you and all you're wobbly bits jiggling around as you jog. "
Me#2 : " I dont have wobbly bits! Do I ? "
Me#1 : " I hate to tell you sister but... mm hmm. For the love of God, dont do it! "

So that was two weeks ago. I listened to Me #1 then but today, well, Me #2 said " Screw it! There arent many other people here anyway so just push yourself a bit and see what you can do! ". So i sucked it up, and thats what i did. I only did it in intervals - one minute jogging with two minutes walking in between - and only for 10 minutes, but the point is i did it. And, even better, i'll do it again.

Congratulations me! As one of my teenaged friends would say - i took a cup of cement and hardened the fuck up!

Uncle Steve the Big Red Alligator and introducing the Doormat Branch

So heres the thing - i dont sleep too well. Most nights, i wake up four or five times, i toss, i turn, and by the time the alarm goes off i am back to being tired again. Its that whole " I'm so tired of waking up tired " thing for me. The other thing is, the more tired i am and the more restless my sleep, the weirder my dreams. And i'm talking weird. Crazy. Like, wake up in the morning and go " What the forking beejesus was that supposed to mean ?!? " crazy. Let me elaborate:

For those of you who are either new here, didnt already know or who may have forgotten, i was once an au pair in the United States. Instead of having to explain what au pair actually means - i was a nanny ( to three very wonderful boys... but i digress ). Anyhoo, so last night i dreamt that i was a nanny again, but it wasnt for the same family. Some members of this family were white, but the parents and one child were dark skinned ( i'd be politically correct and say African-American or Aboriginal, but truth be told i dont know where this dream was taking place ). Weirder still was that the youngest child in said family was my neice, Hannah. And there i was, nanny to this family, brand new into the job and off we go to visit their Uncle Steve. But Uncle Steve was no ordinary man-uncle - no, Uncle Steve was a big, red, alligator. And by big, i mean HUGE. You remember Clifford the Big Red Dog ? Well Uncle Steve was the alligator equivalent of Clifford. He was a monstrous, red, reptile and he lived in a huge pond. With a lid. Like a coffin lid. On a pond. Uncle Steve could also speak - in English suprisingly ( in a dream like this you would have thought it would have been some obscure Russian dialect or something ) - and he was really sweet. The kids and the family got in the pond and swam with him. I sat on the edge and gave Hannah a marshmallow from my handbag. There were other kids playing nearby the pond and when one of them fell in and started crying, i pulled him out and gave him a marshmallow too. Just as Hannah starting yelling out " Amma! Amma ! " - the name of a Finnish exchange i knew in high school - i woke up.
Seriously - can anybody else say what the ?!? Perhaps the combination of bad sleep and brain altering medication is pysching me out....

But enough with dreams, and on to reality. Yes, we all have to wake up sometimes, and that kind of sort of, happened today. My colleagues and I all came to the conclusion that we are the Doormat Branch. That is, we are the branch of our company that everyone else takes advantage of and, frankly, we're sick of being walked all over. But what are we to do? Find new jobs? Conduct a walk off and picket outside the store? Fire off an aggressive email to management ? Or just take a cup of cement and harden the fuck up ? Our branch has been understaffed by at least two people for almost a month straight now. We have been coping the best we can, some of us even taking on roles and duties that do not come under our job description. One of my workmates came in to work sick as a dog, dying of the lurgy, ill to the point where she had lost her voice and couldnt talk, because she was the only person to fill that role that day. And we soldiered on. Sure, some of the paperwork got backed up, but when you're short staffed and ( some of you ) are on deaths door step, that cant exactly be helped. Management, however, thinks it can. No " Thanks guys, you're really doing well down there ", no " Job well done in a hard situation ", no " Can we send someone down to help you guys? ". No, only an email from our area supervisor querying why some paperwork had not been put on and questioning our priorities and understanding of our job. Even though she was aware of the no staff and the dying of the lurgy bit. Are you freaking kidding me ? We spent a good half hour following the arrival of managements email bitching about how unappreciated we are. Whenever someone else at another branch is sick or needs holiday coverage who do they get to go ? Someone from our branch. One of us goes away, say for a week long tutorial, and we dont ask for a ring-in, we just buck up and get on with it. Management even sent one us away to another branch for six months ( which is why WE are now short staffed ) to begin a job looking after some agencies and when a new agency opened, one that my workmate had been working on for months, did he get to go to the opening? Nope. Some other douche from some other branch who had little to nothing to do with it went. What a crock of crap.

Perhaps i should get my good buddy Uncle Steve the Big Red Alligator to rock up to management and tell them how we really feel.....

Happy Sisters Day!

Yep, thats right, happy belated Sisters Day to all the sisters out there! My sister and I " invented " Sisters Day three years ago because we didnt think its fair that Mum's and Dad's get presents on a random day, but we didnt - so June 15th every year ( for three years running ! ) we have a day where we buy each other a present, we hang out and eat good ( alright, bad ) food. That would be my sister Erin, and I, showing off the good food we were eating at the movies. Thats what we did - went to the movies, went shopping ( for groceries mind you, but we were together... ), watched a DVD i bought her for a gift and painted our nails.

So here's to all the sisters we have, whether they are blood related or not..... long live the Sisterhood!

Carson Kressley - stylist, fabulously flamboyant gay man, inspiration

So here's the thing - i desperately want for Carson Kressley to be my cliche gay friend. So does my sister. Maybe we could share him, and we'd be this cool, well-dressed little trio. I'm obsessed by fashion makeover shows and, if i had cable or pay tv, i'd probably only ever watch the fashion channel. Point is, Carson is my favourite of all the celebrity style gurus. I'm loving his new show here on Channel 10 - " How To Look Good Naked ". Ironically, apparently the key to looking good naked is knowing how to dress yourself, or so the theory goes. See, the basis of the show is that Carson takes a woman who has body issues and teaches her to love her figure by showing her how to dress for her best assets. Its actually kind of a theory i wrote about in a post a few months back - only i didnt exactly advocate the getting naked part.

Anyhoo, this brings me to the crux of my post. After this weeks episode, my sister and i discussed the parts of our bodies we like - and, i'm glad to note, we both had positive things to say. I dont know if i've mentioned it before, but although my sister and i both wear the same clothing size, we have vastly different body shapes , plus she is 7 years younger than me, so it was nice to be able to share and compare with someone who was going to have something different to say. My sister, in my perspective, is tall and thin, with long-ish legs and a small upper body. She's the kind of girl that can pull of a micro-mini, where as i am not - but thats all good. I totally rock a pencil skirt because of my curves, where as my coltish sister probably wouldnt be able to get away with it.

And so, this brings me to the shortlist of things i like about my body. Yep, even though i do blog about going to the gym, and trying not to eat crap, it doesnt mean i'm suffering on a diet or having overwhelming body-hate issues. Here it is, a post where i, a young, modern, woman, lists the things she LIKES about her body:
1. My waist - so alright, i like my waist. Its a small, defined, waist. I'm not going to give a measurement ( even though i know it ) but suffice to say i go (slightly) out at the chest, in in the middle, and out at the hips. Having a well defined waist means that when i wear my favourite pencil skirt with a fitted top, or a cute fitted dress, i get that awesome, old school, hourglass shape. I like that, too.
2. My upper arms/shoulders/decollatege - so technically thats three things in one, but they're all kind of inter-related. What i like about the aforementioned area is that its toned and tight, a legacy of yoga and light weights training. I dont have that flabby, old lady upper arm thing - which is not to say i would hate myself if i did, or anyone else for that matter - but i've worked hard and it shows. I'm proud of that. It means i can pull off strapless dresses or cute little camis and still look trim and toned.
3. My eyes - i know most women would list their eyes as one of their favourite features - because its really hard to find fault with them - but i really do like mine. Their big and their brown, and i have naturally long eyelashes that only look better when coated with lashings of black mascara. They get played up by purple shadow or liner, and are the first thing i choose to highlight for special occasions make up. Its kind of hard to go wrong with my eyes ( unless i let my 2 and half year old neice do my make-up - it was a fun game but she's not coming at me with an eyeshadow brush next time i hit the pub ).

So there you be. Any ladies readers feel free to take this as a challenge to list your own body loves, and male readers should feel free to take it upon themselves to list what they really love about the female species. Share the love, y'all, share the love!

Wii is weally, weally, gweat!

Would someone please be kidn enough to donate me enough money to buy a Ninetendo Wii system? Seriously, i've never been a huge gamer or anything but the Wii is pretty ace. And guess who bought one? My parents. Yes, you read that right, my 40-something parents bought themselves a Nintendo Wii so that they could use the Wii Fit program, in the comfort and privacy of their own homes. Bless them for embracing technology i say. I also say their awesome because now my brother and i can rock up to the parentals place and challenge them to any number of Wii Sports games. I've just spent the past two hours playing Wii Bowling and Wii Golf - who knew i'd be so good at interactive sports ? We also played a trivia game but that wasnt half as fun because my sister accused me of being too smart for my own good.

That, and nobody fell over answering trivia questions....

I have to find a man outlet - fast!

I have an inappropriate crush on a bank teller. There you go, i'm putting it out there - i have a crush. Not one of those school girl crushes where you write the guys name all over your school books and follow him around making puppy dog eyes. No, this one is more a dirty, perverted type of thing. Don't look at me like that - girls are allowed to have those kinds of crushes too. See, there is a young guy who works at the bank across from my work. I say young because he's probably around 19 years old - approximately 5 years younger than my good self. This young bank teller has the biggest hands i've ever seen. Seriously, he's not absurdly tall but he's built like a football player and he has enormous hands. Strong hands. Manly hands. So, for stories sake, lets call him Banky McHands.

Anyhoo, Banky McHands has these big, strong, manly hands. I know for a fact, seeing as i used to go to the same gym as him, that these big, strong, manly hands lead up to big, strong, well muscled arms. Thats my thing, you see - just like some men are boob guys, or some women fall head over heels for that V thing some guys have at the hip ( incidentally.... yum ), i'm an arm girl. I like guys with well cut arms, arms that look like they could alternately pick you up and hold you against a wall or wrap themselves around you until you fall asleep. So here's Banky McHands with his big hands and muscular arms and here's me, every time i've been to the bank for the last few weeks, subtlely watching his hands move and wondering how well he can use them. Don't look at me like that either - you catch my drift.

But its getting worse - i discovered, in a brief lapse of focus, that Banky McHands has a really good bum. I'd say arse, but thats makes me sound even more horny, perverted and desperate than i already am. I'm now alternating between daydreams about how much use i could put those big hands to, and visions of his bare bum as he rolls out of bed. Good lord child, i have issues.

A woman cant help developing inappropriate crushes on well cut bank tellers when she hasnt had a man to speak of for quite a while. Can she? Seriously, quit looking at me like that....