My coming year

I don't plan to set resolutions for New Years because I already have my goals and they're not just set on the first day of the new year and forgotten within several weeks - a pattern I used to follow. My goals are ongoing all year round.

Sure I've sat down over the last few days and reviewed, revised and discarded anything which isn't relevant or no longer inspires me but there are no New Years resolutions so to speak for me for the coming year.

All because I believed....

There's something just a little bit exciting at the outset of your holidays when it stretches before you with nothing more pressing on the agenda than rest, relaxation and some time with family and friends. Plus there's plenty of opportunities for me to do some of the things which I've had on hold due to a lack of time to do them.

Up until yesterday I had not done one bit of Christmas shopping. I went Christmas shopping today, amongst the crazy Christmas shoppers and believe it or not I had a smile on my face the whole day. The people and the craziness didn't bother me, I even sympathised with the poor over worked and understaffed employees at Toys-r-us.

Don't wait for tomorrow...

A few quick words before I run off to bed and because my brain is now past writing any more of my Strategic Operations assignment today. Not loving this subject much this month.

This week has been a rough one, it always is when one of my loved ones is going through tough times. I am first and always will be a mother who can't bare to see one of her children in pain. I've been prickly and irritable all week as a result and probably hit out at those around me more than I should have.

I have a dream...

It's Sunday morning and instead of being in school this weekend learning about Strategic Operations and Process. I'm instead sitting at my desk and reading all my reminders on the wall in front of me as I write this post.

I look at these sayings every day and they spur me on. For the record, I'm not playing hooky from school either, this month is an online learning and self paced month, so I can space my learning over the next four weeks.

My inspiration to dream

So yesterday I got an email from a web designer asking if I wanted to sell my humble little blog. Really?

Selling my blog for the small amount that it would be worth would be much like selling one of my children, much like selling a piece of myself which only has true value to me and which money couldn't buy.

Making room for the good

I have a serious need to de-clutter. I've just spent the last hour looking for a copy of a document from a job I had 6 years ago. I'm absolutely positive that I have a hard copy or at least an electronic version somewhere and the sad thing is, I've just wasted an hour looking for it.

Who in their right mind keeps a document for that bloody long? It's a Human Resources doc that I knew I might need a template for one day and bugger me dead if I can find where I've saved documents from that long ago.

Back on track...finally

Surprisingly I still remember how to write a blog post, despite not having been around these parts for a number of weeks. I'm nearly back to my pre-August health, barring a smallish cough here and there as a reminder.

Not that I really need a reminder of feeling disgusting and being the sickest I've ever been in my life. I feel like life has passed me by for quite a few weeks. No blogging, no writing, no exercise, I was barely making it through work each day and all I wanted to do was sleep.

One step in front of the other and gaining speed...

Yesterday was the first night since the 7th August that I've slept all night and I didn't wake myself up coughing. I don't think I've been that excited about a solid nights sleep since my boys were babies and still waking up during the night.

ahhhh, how the little things make us happy...the cough is still there but sleep has returned. I am happy.

The last few weeks have been an ongoing battle to get healthy again. As mentioned to some the other day the doctor tells me that my test results showed that I had Influenza A (the bad kind) and a secondary infection. Reason for being sick....yeah just a bit.

Do what makes you happy

Thirty one days of coughing and still going, but at least I'm feeling better after a course of antibiotics this week. August was a bit of a right-off in my world, so it needs to be full steam ahead for September.

Maybe half steam for the month as I get myself back to full health and normal energy levels.

The 'worry' gene

I have coughed for the last three weeks, I am completely over having to cough. First a virus and then the flu, arrggghhh spare me the coughing. Nothing seems to work.

All I want is a decent nights sleep, lying flat without waking up on the hour, every hour because I'm coughing so much. I've been sleeping mostly sitting up for days, weeks even.

Moments in time...

Do you have those moments when life is rushing along and then you remember that once upon a time you used to do fun things that kept your mind active and stretched your creativity and its been so long since you've done any of them.

Yeah me too, my thing is called blogging and web design, only when I finally get back to my blog (or my laptop for that matter) then I realise its been quite a few weeks since I was here last?

In the wash spin cycle

In May I signed up for the Global Corporate Challenge and ever since then I've been tracking my daily steps with an aim to reach 10,000 plus steps a day. Some days I soar past the requirement and some days I just can't get everything done and walk that number of steps too.

This morning my pedometer hit over 4000 steps before 10am, sadly it wasn't from any extreme efforts on my behalf, but apparently the normal cycle on my washing machine is the equivalent of about 4000 (ish) steps.

Pie in the sky ideas

I'm suffering from a severe case of procrastination so what better way to ease my guilt then by writing about it - and yes there's some twisted logic in there somewhere.

I should be working on an assignment on Corporate Governance, argh hold me back from dying of boredom (apologies to anyone who actually works in governance and enjoys it - not because I'm sorry for disliking it but because I'm sorry you have to work in Governance - I'm kidding, well kind of)

The first signs of old age

You know you're getting old when you forgo sleep-ins to get all the things done that you want to get done. Especially if you're not a morning person and every weekend used to be about sleeping in.

The truth is I'm getting old! For as long as I can remember, my favourite part of the week was weekend sleep-ins. I lived for them, I moaned when I didn't get them because of kids sports activities and all of the kazillion other things I had to do.

My little world is changing

The world is no longer as we know it, this is my first try at online journaling opposed to handwritten journaling. So for the unknowing - I am posting this purely from my IPad - but I've actually copied it from my new personal and private online journal because I wanted to say the same things. 

That is not always the case that my blog posts and daily pages are the same, in fact usually they are distinctively different. One is private and one is for public consumption.

Some days are exhausting...

Never have I been so happy for a long weekend to roll around then I was for this one.

Last weekend meant a full weekend in school, followed by a busy, busy week at work, plus a promise to myself that no day will pass without me walking my minimum of 10,000 steps.

Happy feet

How do you know you've had a busy week - it's the little things. My magazines which I buy every week and always pick up from my local deli on a Monday night are still sitting on the lounge waiting to be read.

Oh and I forgot all about them until the deli owner reminded me on Wednesday night when I dropped in to pick up milk on my way home - now that never happens, that I forget that is.

Devil on my shoulder

The distance between the metaphoric A and B is often a very long arduous journey. The A point being when hubby tells me that something I'm doing is wrong and the B point being me accepting that he might be right. It happens on rare occasions - that he's right that is.

Along that journey there are many occasions when again, metaphorically speaking, that I want to stab him. I don't of course, only in my head - because that sentence would be too much on top of the marriage sentence I'm already serving.

The magic of dreaming

Not enough hours in my days so I'm writing my blog post in my lunch break - whatever works. Tonight I have to finish an assignment, it's nearly done but these days I have to squeeze every ounce out of my days and be time efficient.

In being so time efficient I ran out of the house without a vital object this morning and I feel like I'm missing my left arm - I left my mobile phone at home. How stupid is it that I feel lost without my phone.

The future's so bright

I'm a big believer in fate and the bigger picture because I know that everything happens for a reason.

All of the puzzle pieces of my life are falling into place but I'm still not sure what they all mean because the bigger picture is still too fuzzy to determine.

I am a mother first

It seems that Mothers Day has the ability to make me just a little nostalgic and also makes me reflect on just what sort of a mother I am. I'm a mother who would walk to the moon and back for my children, and a mother who would jump in front of a moving truck to save one of them.

At the same time I'm a mother who will not lay down and let my children walk all over her and who takes pride in helping her children grow in to responsible, loving and well-meaning young men who can stand on their own two feet and make a valuable contribution to this world.

What goes around, comes aound...

Today I did something so uncharacteristic for me and I'm still not even sure why I did it. It started like this - every day I walk the fifteen minutes from my workplace to the tram and during that walk I people watch.

I think it's the writer in me that feels the need to observe everyone and everything and also that imagines who they are and what their life must be like. In an un-creepy kind of way of course.

Change if you dare

Today wraps up the tenth day of a nice little extended week of rest, yet how nice it would be to have more days of doing what I want, when I want.

Sleep-ins are quite a luxury, as are late nights which are made possible by those sleep-ins. I do my best stuff in the hours after sunset and I will never be the happy early riser.

Here it is...my 2014 Vision

After realising that I had been slow in getting my vision board together for 2014, I decided I better get moving. The idea of a vision board kind of fits nicely with the learning from the Strategic Management section of my MBA.

How can a business achieve success without a vision for the future, same too, how can I achieve success without a vision for my future. Amazing things happened in 2013 because I believed in myself and took a leap of faith. I believed that I could do better.

Flashes of Inspiration

I love reading anything which helps me be a better me or which helps me better understand me and why I do the things I do. Along with that, every now and again you come across something that provides that flash of inspiration and just makes everything make sense.

James Clear makes everything make sense, or contributes to it making better sense. I was reading something the other day on Facebook, can't remember what (yes for all its time wasting tendencies there are some really good things to be discovered on there) and a reference was made to James.

Believing works...

I've been doing some work on my website today, in between studying for a Strategic Management exam - that was me having to intersperse the 'want to do' with the 'need to do'.

Anyway in the process of doing some of the web design work I was going through my files and I found my vision board that I put together in early 2013 and I was amazed at how much on that board has actually eventuated.

Memories of childhood and chocolate

Easter is another reminder that my babies aren't babies any more. My favourite part of Easter used to be running around on a Saturday night after the boys had all gone to bed and setting up their Easter hunt.

Little pictures of household items which took them all over the house and outside searching until they finally found their eggs. It's an Easter hunt tradition that my parents did for my brother and I, and was a tradition which I continued for my boys all through the years of their childhood.

Brain Pain

First assignment for MBA is completed and emailed and my brain hurts. A 2726 word business analysis of my organisation for the Strategic Management module.

That's 226 words more than the word count calls for, but just within the 10% more or less allowance - so yes I've always had problems with knowing when to shut up.

Four letter words - there's a few

Roughly two months ago I wrote a post called "Procrastination is a four letter word" well so to is spam (a four letter word that is) because in eight weeks I've had 3303 comments on that post, 99% of which are spam.

As a result I will be putting tighter controls on commenting to prevent 'anonymous' comments - apologies if that is painful for any of you who do normally comment. I would recommend befriending me on Facebook if you want to comment on my blog hassle free.

Spaghetti Brain

So it's the end of day two of my first weekend of MBA study and while I survived the process, my brain now feels like half chewed up and spat out spaghetti. In other words it's a tangled and unsightly mess. I can't think straight.

My brain has been fully overloaded this weekend and I feel like I could sleep for a week.

Returning to study at a masters level is going to be damn hard work, however several things have become extremely clear to me after only two days;

Just a few travel tips

So in place of watching mind numbing shows like Home and Away on television I can put my fingers on the keyboard and write some meaningful words instead.

This week being back at work has been long and arduous. Sitting inside at a computer all day after two weeks of the great outdoors and walking for miles - well there's no comparison really.

Back to reality

There's no place like home, there's no place like home - yes Dorothy, there's no place quite like home, but going on holiday makes you remember just how much you love home.

That said, I absolutely loved Thailand. We had an awesome holiday in a beautiful country and met some lovely people.

We flew back into Adelaide on Thursday morning and we're all still in recovery mode.

I'm still around

I haven't vanished, I've just changed format for the time being  - we're currently in Phuket, Thailand so I'm posting via Travelpod rather than here for ease of use whilst traveling. If you want to follow our journey then you can go to the link below and you'll find my entries which should be on the right hand side of the page.

http://blog.travelpod.com/members/insp2dream

Looking at someone's travel pictures takes on a whole new life now with blogs and digital cameras, the only benefit is that this way when you get bored you can leave the page. Either way, I'll be back here when we get back to Australia.

Cheers, Fi

The Universe has spoken...

So following on from my last post, I received this in my inbox this morning from the Universe.

Ever wonder why some of those who achieve incredible success, amass fortunes, and enjoy sizzling relationships seem so unlikely? 

It's because intelligence, looks, even creativity, come in a distant second place to believing. Achievers achieve because they believed they would, and so the heavens and earth were moved. 

Also I didn't get here yesterday to tell you I was sharing some words of wisdom over at World Moms Blog about our children and social media - so why not drop by and say hi.

Cheers, Fi

There's magic in belief

Sometimes unlikely things can kick start things which have been stuck. Two things happened this week which got me refocused. Wednesday I had my monthly meeting for SARA which is the South Australia group of romance writers.

I've been attending meetings since maybe October (with a break over the Christmas period) and the talent and camaraderie in this group can be a little daunting for a new comer who's not to sure of her own writing ability.

Procrastination is a four letter word

I've been super busy today, dinner is simmering in the slow cooker, the washing has been hung out, the bathroom and toilet are sparkling clean.

I've updated middle son's resume, read several blog posts, checked out what everyone is doing on Facebook and I've even taken the time to subscribe to several new blogs.

Actually, I'm just avoiding what makes me feel uncomfortable.

6WS - Annoyed, despite all my best intentions......

I have an ugly white line on the front guard of my new car, that's on the car that has only done 6500 kilometres. Some pea brain bloody idiot doesn't know how to judge the width of their own car when parking next to me....argh.

Despite me having that new car paranoia which makes me park in far distant corners of car parks and makes me avoid squeezy little car parks. Despite always parking to the far side of a car park if no one can park on the other side, just so that I can keep moronic idiotic pea brains from scratching my new car.

Some things we take for granted

The greatest thing I think I've achieved in my life would have to be my children. My boys are amazing human beings who I love and adore and who make me so proud. Every day I am grateful for them and for my grandson.

No part of motherhood is ever perfect or without its challenges, yet Australia is known as the lucky country and is a great place to raise our children.

The old 'it's too hot excuse' - works for me

There are so many things I should and could be doing today, but with an outside temperature of 43 degrees celcius, most of those things have slipped down the list of importance to be replaced by 'stay cool' and 'don't overexert myself'.

Every ounce of guilt that sneaks in I just have to slap away.

Drinking your way to the top

So somewhere in the world exists a boss who pays his staff bonuses based on the amount of alcohol consumed and the ability to hold it together better than him. I'd be on the poverty line given I'm not a big drinker at all.

What an absurd way of giving out bonuses, I've never heard of anything like this. It was being discussed on the radio this morning when I was driving to work so of course I had to Google and see where this was.

Head in the clouds

Wasting time frustrates me and not knowing how to do something instinctively has much the same affect. I like to divide and conquer. That said - Skydrive is doing my head in and making me want to scream.

I'm trying to move into the 21st century, okay I'm already there but I'm trying to synchronise all of my electronic equipment and foolproof it, or me, as the case may be.

6WS- When a photo says so much

As always when I go to a writers group meeting or a writers workshop I come away brimming with ideas and wanting to write for hours. Today's travel writing workshop was interesting and informative.

It combined nicely with the magazine writing course I did on my 9 week self imposed unemployment stint last year.

American justice - I think not!

So the story which has been in the news recently in Adelaide is this one about an Australian single mother who has been jailed in America for fraudulently claiming food stamps for her children.

If this is evidence of the American justice system then I think Obama should hang his head in shame.

Learn from others experiences..or not

Sometimes you can learn from others experiences and sometimes you still have to do it yourself to really get it. 

Last Friday I got two tattoos, I've been talking about getting another one forever. The new ones, a tiny one on my wrist which is immensely meaningful for me and then another on my ankle. The one on my wrist was just a small blip on the pain radar, the ankle on the other hand...holy cow.

Life is like coffee, so what does your cup look like?

I'm back online today after several days of rest and relaxation in the Riverland with family and friends. Awesome time away, I just wished they all lived closer.

I have so much to do to get started for the New Year but was reading through my emails which have built up over the last week and came across something which I wanted to share.

You really need to watch this because it's so true and should be understood by all of us http://www.lifesecretsonline.com/blog/2013/10/15/LifeIsLikeCoffee/