irony is a wonderful thing...

so i was driving to work today and the car in front of me has a sticker on the rear windscreen saying 'don't forget to BREATHE' which i think is kinda nice - you know sometimes (usually when you're stressed or busy) you forget to breathe deeply and breathing calms you down

so as i'm thinking of what a cool sticker this is i notice that the guy driving the car is smoking!

he he he...

mmmmm do you think it's bad to

eat the entire pack of ginger kisses for dinner, and nothing else????? and i wonder why i can't lose weight....for someone as smart as i claim to be, that's pretty stupid....

needle in a haystack...

or needle in my ear? yep, you read it correctly, i actually do have a needle in my ear...seriously, why would i lie about that???

so i went to acupuncture today - i go about every fortnight and have been doing that since mid october 2007 when i was 'over' the constant sinus infection that had been plaguing me for nearly a year...

sooo we are working generally on my immunity and trying to get me to a point where i don't catch a cold every time someone sneezes or coughs within a mile of me! and it's kinda working - which i'm a little surprised about but i was at the end of my tether when a friend suggested it and i figured i had nothing to lose!

sooo today is the second time i've come home with a needle in me. the first time i actually had two (one in my lower back and the other on the inside of my left knee). these were to treat bad period pain and could stay in for up to 5 days. didn't need 5 days, pain all gone within a day!! this one, ie the one in my ear, is in at attempt to cure the headache i've had for 7 days - guess i was willing to try anything as i've started to think of nurofen as smarties in that time, and i'm pretty sure that ain't healthy!!!

sooo i have a little needle in my left ear and my acupuncturist tells me it can stay in for up to 7 days! kinda amazing to think that something as tiny as this needle (and it is tiny, and no, i can't feel it and no it doesn't hurt) might be more effective than half a bottle of nurofen...

so i guess we can safely say that i am 'cured' of the needle phobia i had before acupuncture became part of my life...it's so good, seriously, that i usually fall asleep whilst the needles are in and even more exciting is the fact that it actually seems to be working - no antibiotics since mid october and despite having had 2 sinus infections in that time (where previously i had one almost constantly), both were treated with chinese herbs - no nasal spray, no antibiotics and no sudafed...

whoever would have thought that having needles stuck in you might actually be good for you???

random thoughts...

is about all i have the energy for tonight...no structured essay or soapbox appearance i'm afraid...

got a lovely message from a very good friend who i sent a little birthday treat to - she loved it! it made me smile when i heard her message of thanks - and if you read this: you are welcome, i hope you will find something lovely for your home and you deserve it :-)

learning is a truly wonderful gift - guess i never realised that early on in life - i always saw school/uni as something i had to do to please everyone else - now i'm studying something i love! what a difference it makes...i can see now where politicians and education advocates get some of their passion from...maybe just maybe i'll find myself getting on that bandwagon at some later stage - no no no, not the politician one, the advocate one!!! relax...

to all those cockroaches making a home in my kitchen, enjoy it while it lasts - come 3pm friday the 'bug man' is coming and i will be having a farewell party in your honour later that night...

iridescent - what a beautiful word...it came into my head lastnight and i guess it hasn't left - am now madly trying to find an appropriate place to use it!

and lastly, just acknowledging that julie rennie (a former teacher of mine in high school and who passed away in 1985/86) has been ever present in my thoughts in the last week...thank you for being a wonderful and encouraging teacher, the world is a lesser place without you...

nite
xx

i'm a star...

yep, it's true, i am! a big (well maybe not that big!) shiny silver star...

and i am not usually one to brag about my achievements (kinda prefer the tag 'quiet achiever' altho i am not quiet!) but today is a little bit noteworthy - if you've been reading the blog over the last few weeks you will have sensed some frustration in my working environment which i guess, even though i am following my dream and LOVING what i am doing, has given me cause to question myself...

not my goals, or my career change, but moreso the way i was going about things and whether or not i had chosen the right organisation in which to make the switch from finance to HR...it's kinda sad that one or two people's 'feedback' can outweigh all the good 'feedback' - guess it's true what they say: the bad stuff is always easier to hear than the good stuff. why is that i wonder??? perhaps that's a topic for another post!

soooo today just may well have been a turning point, perhaps even a sign! and i can hear you asking 'mmm wonder what she did that was so special today?'...well truth is this! i love what i'm doing, i am passionate about the things i was talking about, i was well prepared, i knew that the work i did would save a shitload of work for the people i was sharing it with, and i was really enjoying presenting this stuff to these people in a way they wouldn't have seen it presented before...

so you see, it's simple: find something you love doing, people you love working with, and you too can be a STAR...

did something i don't normally do

today and it felt ok! not great, but not bad and with not even a hint of guilt...

i went to a one day writing workshop today at the nsw writers centre - have done a few courses there over the years...today's was 'write your vision' with a published author/life coach

was a good day - lots of thought provoking exercises (altho turns out i had slightly misinterpreted the blurb to mean that it was about writing your vision for the creative writing you wanted to do - nope, it was more broad than that) and some really lovely women (no men in this one - altho it is open to men)...

so one of the exercises was doing a collage by cutting up magazines and postcards and frankly i don't find that sort of thing works for me - i've tried in previous workshops and struggled through the exercise conscious of how 'un-visual' i am compared to some...

so today instead of making myself do it, i simply gave myself permission not to do it...initially felt kinda weird, as whilst everyone else was busily gathering magazines and glue, i found myself looking through the 2nd hand books which are on sale throughout the building...

but since this 'activity' was to take up to 40 minutes i decided i would make good use of the time - so instead of creating a collage (which was intended to be in some way linked to my vision for myself) i read over some of my writing for both novels i'm attempting to write and spent the time thinking about the plots for both and how i could (having learned this at another workshop) make sure they had sufficient momentum - hadn't realised how much i had done and in some cases, the quality of the work surprised me...

see the other hard thing about the collage is this: i did my own (big 1.2m x 1.2m that dominated half of one wall in my study in winter last year) vision and i feel as though i wasn't there to create a vision but simply to get some inspiration for my novel writing...

so not doing what was asked and giving myself permission to do something more valuable to me, whilst it seems like a small step, was in fact a big thing for me and i'm proud of myself...

so that's not it! now that i have done it once, i hope that doing it in future will become easier, and eventually it may become habit!

now all i have to do is identify what it was about the environment today that made me feel safe enough to do it, and go about replicating it when i need to - sounds easy enough right??

being told i'm different isn't usually something

i take kindly to, but a couple of weeks ago someone i work with told me that her team had decided i was their 'unorthodox HR person' - i kinda liked the sound of it then and following friday, i like it even more!

you see, it's only been 3 months since i changed careers, albeit with the same organisation i've been working with for just over 5 years...i moved from finance to HR and yep, i guess even that is kinda unorthodox when you think about it!

guess in many ways i have felt a little 'different' my whole life - never really felt like i fitted in and i guess now i finally feel like i'm on the right track (and with that comes a whole stack of confidence to just BE myself)...

soooo friday was really a turning point for me. our team had a 'bonding session' which actually turned out to be better than i'd expected, and it's not like i was expecting it to be bad, but i wasn't expecting the level of 'sharing' that actually transpired...see i'm a very open (usually) and sharing (if i'm comfortable) sort of a girl and this has (in the past) gotten me into trouble...you know those times when you've revealed something to someone because you thought it was ok in the moment only to find that they don't share anything with you in return and you end up feeling exposed and vulnerable??

well friday wasn't like that at all - guess i felt as though being able to share a bit of who i am and how i got to where i am right now means that the team i work with will have more insight about me so that they can add that insight to what they already see, to form a more rounded view of me (and consequently, me of them)...given two of my greatest fears are being misunderstood and judged, i take what happened as a very positive outcome!

sooo one of the things asked of us on friday was to give some feedback of how our colleagues 'experienced' working with us - well this was some of the feedback i got:

one colleague suggested that i was someone he'd learned from, not just about the business and the company we work for, but about himself...that he appreciated that i challenged him and the support i gave him...he then went on to say (even though he was getting 'the look' from his boss) that despite how much he had liked the person who had supported them before me and despite me only having been in the role 3 months, he thought i was a great HR person and much better than who we'd had before...

another colleague said that more had gotten done in the time i was there than previously, that the business finally felt like they had an HR person who wasn't going to move on and who's only focus wasn't 'strategic things which had no benefit to them' (they've had 3 before me who haven't lasted more than about 5 months each) and that they had affectionately started calling me their 'unorthodox P & P person'...

guess i learned something on friday (with respect to work anyway): that being myself IS valued by people, and going about my new job in an unorthodox (read as 'not conventional in ideology, method, behaviour etc') way is having a positive impact on the team i am working with...

kinda supports my theory that diversity and the embracing of it (in a work sense at least) has almost nothing to do with gender, age, race or sexuality, but about DIFFERENCE, and realising that not only is there huge benefit in having difference in a team, but that there is massive downside in not...

i'm so glad it's friday.....

and not in the 'thank god it's friday' sort of a way, and not because i hate my job and the people i work with and couldn't wait to leave (i don't) and not because i've been out two nights this week and am tired (i am) or because i have had a bad headache and am seeimngly unable to go more than 4 hours without nurofen...

i am just really glad that i have two days to myself after what has been a week filled with challenge...truth is the last week or so has been rather an ordeal, emotionally anyway, and only now is it starting to catch up with me, resulting in me feeling a bit like i've been through the ringer...

guess my 'session' on saturday last week was the start of a period of reflection about where i find myself and the changes i would like to effect in my life. and whilst i am absolutely a fan of 'learning more about myself' there are times when it would be nice to have a period of feeling if not perfect, then pretty close to it - you understand what i'm talking about right??

see i've been on a journey of 'behavioural change' - self imposed i might add - and there are times when the journey, or more accurately what effort is required by me, proves too much - you know kinda like when you're on a long plane trip and you keep looking at the time or the map on channel 13 to see how much further the plane needs to travel to get anywhere near the ultimate destination, only to realise that almost every time you check only 5 minutes has passed, and you're on a 13 hour flight...

then there was the 'realisation' that i still liked someone who i thought perhaps i had gotten over, and whilst i am over the disappointment i felt when things didn't go how i might have liked, i am clearly not able to put him out of my mind...

and as i'm writing this i realise that i have almost forgotten one of my platitudes (and not one that i push down people's throats, more something that i have chosen to adopt as a way of trying to live my life): you know the one where we remind ourselves that the journey is more important than the destination...perhaps i should now remind myself of that and realise that no matter what the journey presents in terms of challenges along the way, my experience tells me that:

- things are NOT always as they seem;
- this too shall pass; and
- time is the great healer

so even though i'm tired and feel as though i could sleep for days on end and even though i think i have no energy left to take on anything that might be remotely taxing in an emotional way, i find myself smiling and thinking that what i am experiencing is LIFE...and even though the journey is sometimes difficult, and even though the learnings aren't always clear and easy to embrace, this is my LIFE - this is my journey.....and you know what? despite everything, i wouldn't change a thing...

the pro's and con's of living alone.....

has been something that i've often pondered! sure there are plenty of times when it would be fabulous to come home to someone you love after a crap day and just hang out with them, maybe even have a bath run for you and vodka and lemonade handed to you as you walk in the door...yep i've woken up from that little dream!!!
but then there are the other times when you come home and decide that 'dinner' is going to be scrambled eggs on toast, a box of cheezels, cereal (my all time favourite) or whatever else you find in the freezer that you had forgotten you had in there...
so i'm now going to take a leaf out of someone's book (no pun intended!) and do a list. soooo the pro's of living alone:

• any mess you come home to is your own
• you NEVER have to put the toilet seat down
• you can squeeze the toothpaste wherever you like without the risk of being
• given a lecture on toothpaste wastage (seriously, who cares???)
• you can have whatever you like for dinner (see above) without having to factor in anyone else's eating habits
• you can put your key in the door as you come home and KNOW that there will
• be NO potentially annoying flatmate/house guest is going to expect to be
• entertained when all you really want to do is get into your pj's and take up
• residence on the couch
• a day at home CAN mean not getting out of bed (and nobody else need know about it); and
• you can buy and bring home as many pairs of shoes as you like without living in fear of being subjected to the 'shoe audit'. you know what i mean right? 'are these new honey? how many pairs of black shoes do you need? how many pairs can you wear with only one pair of feet? blah blah blah...

of course then one must, if one is presenting a balanced argument take into account the con's of living alone:

• nobody else takes out the garbage;
• you have to do all the cleaning (or pay for someone else to do it);
• nobody will bring you a cup of tea in the morning;
• worse still, nobody to wake up next to every day and say goodnight to every 
• night;
• when you've had a great day and want to share something good, you have to
• think about which of your many fabulous friends you are going to call -
• sometimes it would be NICE to have a special someone to share it with; and
• - there's nobody home to admire all the fabulous shoes you just bought this
• week...

tough decision really....

going out on a limb or just wearing my heart on my sleeve...

i'll leave it to you to decide which is the most appropriate metaphor for tonight's instalment...

i was out with some work colleagues (actually that's not entirely right! one of them is a good mate and one of them i'm getting to know better) and we got talking about my love life (yeah i know, short conversation)...but after telling them the story of sunday's disastrous date i confessed (yep, the vodka will do that to a girl) that i was actually still 'in like' with someone else...

yep, it's true - i met someone a while ago, we kinda sorta started seeing each other (at least that's what i thought it was) and when it felt kinda good and that it might be moving in a nice (read as more intimate, meaningful) direction, he ran away...

so all contact ceased while i tried to work out how i could have misread the signs (turns out now, i don't think i did!), then with my impending overseas trip i just had a sense of not wanting to leave without seeing him (not sure what was going on there, guess that's what happens when you like someone?) - so we talked, agreed we would 'start over' when i got back and 'take things much slower'...sounds good right?

but no, i came back, we were going to catch up and one single comment by me sends him into a spin (my interpretation) and our catchup is called off...but somehow i can't seem to let it (or him) go...

and now it's months down the track and with only an occasional email as a reminder of what was or what might have been, and still i find myself wishing there could have been more...

i've often thought about trying to understand what's really going on for him but what would be the point? he seems to be content with where his life is at, and showing no signs of wanting to move in any direction, so i guess that leaves me thinking that nothing i do or say will change the situation, despite how much i wish i could...

and if i'm honest i just feel sad... sad we didn't get a chance to see what might be, sad that he is closed to letting someone in, sad that i finally thought i might have met someone with whom i could have explored the possibility of a relatioship with..and finally, sad that another person hurt him so badly that he hides himself away from life behind a seemingly inpenetrable wall...

i'm not even sure i can say exactly what it is i like about him, but something that first day got my attention - maybe it was his unusual and sometimes overly formal manner, maybe it was his unique way of stringing a sentence together in such a way that whilst you understand the words individually, by the time he'd finished, you weren't really sure what he had said, maybe it was an innate shyness that made him appear vulnerable, who knows really?

anyway, truth is i like him, and i wish that things could be different...

did i mention that i love my

nephew...

he lives in melbourne and i live in sydney, so we have got into the habit of having 'phone dates'...now that sounds very structured, but hey, i have a job, he's only six and usually has, sadly, more social engagements than i do!!!

so i tried calling to speak to him Sunday but he was out playing golf with his best friend Oscar! then i tried calling lastnight but he was doing his 'reader' and not to be distracted...apparently this is something six year olds have to do at home after school. now i'm not 6 and it's been a long while since i went to school, but i'm guessing it's what kids these days call homework - a bit less like 'work', but still...

so finally today i call and he's available - not only available but he answers the phone saying 'hi aunty'...and i know you're thinking that i called at some pre-arranged time but i didn't! what i can tell you is that his mum (my sister) has my phone number programmed to ring with fur elise (you know, that beethoven piece that was all the rage when i learned to play the piano in the '80's!!!) so he actually knows that it's me calling...either way i don't care. how nice is it to have someone pick up the phone and say 'hi aunty'??? imagine how much i'm gonna love it when he's old enough to have a mobile phone....

so by the time i finally get hold of him we had loads to talk about: Carlton's first win of the pre season on Saturday night - see usually we talk either immediately after the game or the next morning so we can do a 'post match review' and if they win sing the team song together (this has become something of a tradition - long may it live)...and i knew that on Monday his school (along with 49 or so others) had gone to some AFL training day hosted by Richmond and Geelong so he was hoping that he would get to see Nathan Brown...

now for those of you who are AFL fans you will be confused, right? yep, the little guy is a Carlton fan and yes Nathan Brown plays for Richmond but ages ago (like maybe when he was 4) him and i wanted to make sure that we were talking only to each other on the phone so we chose 'secret passwords' as a way of identifying each other (yep, you can imagine how many 4 year olds i was in regular communication with)...anyway he chose 'Nathan Brown'...clear as mud now right?

so tonight we are talking about what he'd been doing today, whether or not he got to meet Nathan Brown on Monday (he didn't...) how school was etc and i told him i'd been at Bunnings looking at paint so i could choose a colour to paint my lounge...he said almost without thinking 'well why don't you paint it navy blue and get 'fevvy' to come over and help you and then you can also paint CFC on too' - doesn't miss a beat this kid! i had to laugh - can you imagine my lounge-room decorated as if it were Carlton headquarters, and don't get me wrong, i LOVE my Blues, but seriously....

i love how kid minds work! so it gets better - i tell him that Carlton are playing their 2nd game on Sat night and he says (and groans) 'not the Hawks?'...classic!

then i tell him that as it's a night game i'll call him Sunday morning for the post match review...i also tell him that i hope we get to sing the song as it's been ages since we've done that...so then of course he bursts into song and gives me a fabulous rendition of 'we are the navy blues' and says to me 'now it hasn't been ages aunty'...

is that sweet or what? he really is a sweet child...i am blessed he's in my life and i love that being with him or talking to him ALWAYS makes me smile...love your work mooky!

starting to feel as if things

are going to get a wee bit smoother at work...and this is not before time, god knows i've had my share of idiotic, arse-kissing, yes men, zero EQ bosses over the years...maybe it's finally my turn, just when i had almost given up hope of it ever happening...

so, my new boss started today but since we work in different locations, i decided to call him to 'welcome' him to our team and offer my support should he need anything as he transitions to our team....in the end, we had 3 telephone calls!

before that, someone i work reasonably closely with but am not sure i trust, took it upon himself to give me some 'tips' (you know what they say about free advice???) about how i might have to 'change my style' to work effectively with my new boss...

well i'm delighted to say that i stuck to just being me - kind, authentic, open and with intentions of building a strong working relationship...and for the record, it seemed to work...go figure:who ever thought being yourself might actually work in creating a good working relationship...

my new boss has a mountain of experience (read as i can actually learn something from him, rather than just look on him with sympathy and disdain like i have so many other so called 'leaders'), comes well recommended by one of my best friends (she's previously worked with him), and in the space of a few phone calls, we talked about heaps of things. he helped me with something i have been weighing up - not even in a 'i'm the boss and you'll do it this way' sort of a way - more of a 'give me your thoughts and we can work thru it' sort of way... think i'm going to like working with him...

thank you universe, maybe just maybe (and i don't want to make a snap judgement and go getting ahead of myself) i finally have a boss who gets it...

never ceases to amaze me

how dense some men are (and i apologise to any of the male species who read this and are offended as i realise it's a generalisation)....i had a date today with a guy i met on the internet, been emailing with him for maybe a week and we finally met up...

and maybe it's not just men that are dense as i had a sneaking suspicion from the first email that perhaps i should have let him go through to the keeper!!!!

his profile said he was a smoker so when he sent me an email i actually asked him if he was trying to give up - my profile states clearly that i am a non smoker an the 'you should be' section of my profile, also states this! pretty clear right??? apparently not!! he said he was trying to give up and that he didn't ever smoke around non smokers....

sooo after a few emails and one phone call, where i declined to meet up with him friday night, instead preferring a night on the couch and watching the tele (mmmmm think i should have known then that it wouldn't be a goer!) i agreed to go out with him on sunday afternoon...

i suggested manly for coffee as it was forecast to be sunny (well, at least dry!) - he said he wanted to go somewhere 'accessible' so then i started thinking 'shit, is he in a chair? is he catching public transport?'....his version of accessible is either the Oaks or the Great Northern - can you imagine going to either of these places for a first date on a Sunday afternoon????

after toying with the idea of not even bothering to go at all, i end up suggesting the coffee shop in the newly opened Borders at Chatswood (figure i'm going there anyway so no harm in meeting up there)....

i get there on time, to find him already there (that is usually a positive sign) and i walk towards him and before he even finishes saying 'hello, how has your day been' i almost gag at the smell of cigarettes emanating from him - and i wasn't that close...

so i wonder if the look of repulsion that surely was written all over my face (which for those of you that know me, would surely not have been subtle) escaped him??

we order drinks (tea for me, coffee for him)...when he picks them up he complains incessantly about the size of the coffee he's got - he ordered regular and got regular which he decided to point out to me was NOT in fact regular sized cup of coffee...

deep breath on the outside and inside i'm wondering how much longer (i've been there 10 minutes) do i have to sit with this guy before making a graceful exit...

i drink my tea - he tells me why he won't pay the whitepages $400 per year for something that would be tax deductible for him...are you starting to see why this guy isn't for me???

i finally make it to 45 minutes and decide it's ok to leave now without looking really rude, so i look in my bag for my phone, say (all innocent like) 'oh is that the time?' and tell him i need to leave...

on the way out of Borders, he tells me that he's never heard of Borders before and assumed it was a coffee shop chain...he also takes this oppportunity to mention that he hates shopping, and before that when he asked me what happened in the Super 14's (we had been talking about how early the football seasons are starting these days) and I told him the Blues had won - he said 'oh, I don't follow the rugby league'...

so we leave, he tells me where his car is, i try my best to be polite in giving him instructions (which happens to be thru Myer, same way i'm going) and i'm really hoping that he will have picked up at least one of my cues or noticed some of my body language in the excruciatingly long 45 minutes i have spent in his company, but no, just as i'm about to make my exit he says: 'so how about another catchup later in the week?'...

is he blind? deaf or just dense? seriously, what must a girl do?

it's been a funny old day

really, and only now, as it's end approaches am i feeling a little bit more together...

started off with me waking up at 7am (altho i didn't have my alarm set until 8.45am) feeling cold! can summer really be nearly over? it's only the 16th of feb? altho having said that both the pre season AFL and Super 14 competitions both started this weekend - these are, after all, winter sports! but of course it's a confusing time as cricket is still on......

i had a 10.30am appointment but as i left the house just before 10am (without either earrings or my sunnies) i had a terrible feeling that in fact my appointment was at 10am! which would have proved to be something of a problem as the drive to the appointment is in fact just over 35 minutes! so i spent the entire trip trying not to speed too much and telling myself that in fact even if i only got 1 hour of a usually 90 minute session, that would be ok....

of course, i got there at 10.26am to find my session started at 10.30am. phew...

the session was hard for me - what i wanted to do in this session was start to work on how i can get in touch with my 'body cues' when i find myself in stressful situations (i'm not going to bore you with the entire details or history of how this has come about, suffice it to say i think that i am not as aware as i could be of the physical cues available to me in stressful/confronting/challenging situations, and i think that if i were, then i might behave differently) and i just left feeling like maybe it was all too hard - that the sorts of things i wanted to learn would be insurmountable - ever had days like that? kinda like starting something and wondering if, despite all the effort you know you will put in, you still may not get there? good, well you know how i was feeling then...

then i drove across town (saturday lunch time thru the CBD - not a good look - do all the bloody weekend drivers who have no idea what MERGE means come out at midday on saturday??) and picked up my lovely friend T and we drove to Paddington where along the way we must have picked up the 'parking fairy' as we got what my friend Anne would call a 'rock star carpark' in william st - day seems to be getting better :-)

had a lovely lunch, a good chat, a micky's chocolate thickshake (sorry Kirst, you weren't there and i couldn't resist) and a stroll through the markets where between us we bagged out just about every Gen Y person who either bumped into us because they were too busy on their phones or talking to their other similarly rude Gen Y friends and not bloody well looking where they were going? don't they teach them anything about etiquette these days or am i just getting old??? now you know my day must be getting better because i'm on the soapbox about something - in fact i think i could dedicate an ENTIRE blog entry to Gen Y (but that's for another day...)

having dropped T off home i made my way to Chatswood to see if some retail therapy might help me ditch the sombre mood i found myself in...managed to find 2 great books at DJ's (thanks sister, used the birthday voucher you got me), went into T2 to smell all their lovely teas and then got bored (yep, you heard it, bored in a shopping centre - see now you know that something isn't quite right today) and decided to head home...

thought i might sit down and watch a movie that i'd taped from foxtel but to my absolute delight as i scroll through the online guide i notice that Carlton's (yes my beloved navy blues) first game in the pre season comp would be broadcast live on fox! happy days...any ideas of watching a movie are quickly dispensed with as i make a cuppa and settle in for the first AFL game since mid august!

Blues won - now i'm not going to get ahead of myself and i'm going to try and curb my enthusiasm (after all, they've had the wooden spoon so many times in recent history, they could start a shop! and they've won the pre season comp 2 out of the last 3 times, even tho in the real season they can't make it out of the bottom 2) but they were good! they fought hard, two of my faves are back from injury and i admired the commitment of a young bunch of players - go Blues...

did some housework, cooked myself a nice dinner, spoke to one of my best friends and suddenly i don't feel so sad :-)

amazing how the little things in life can make a difference...

ever thought that ESP wasn't real or

couldn't really get your head around the concept that there might actually be some sort of universal power??? well lately i seem to have had too many instances (and i won't call them co-incidences, as i'm not convinced ANYTHING that happens in our lives is co-incidental) that would suggest otherwise.....

the other night for example, i found myself thinking that i should find my phone handset as one of my friends would ring, and as soon as i found the handset, the phone rang........and it was her!

tonight for example as i'm watching cricket i get thinking about my dear friend Sparra. at some point i have a break from the cricket and check my email, as i'm doing that i am thinking that i should ring Sparra's lovely wife to say hello and see how she's getting along....so when i get back to the cricket (and my mobile phone) i find there is a text, from her!!

so, if i was a doubter before (and i really wasn't) then i am certainly now a believer....a believer that there is something or someone out there watching over us :-)

kind of comforting, don't you think?

inspiration and hope appear in many forms...

and being able to spot them (despite how subtly they may appear) is a skill worth having...this is what happened to me in may of 2007...

i found myself attending a business forum hosted by the institute of chartered accountants (this was before i made the move to HR) and one session i attended was about having difficult conversations at work (you know the ones i mean: when someone isn't performing well, when someone's overstepped the line, you know those 'being authentic' type conversations that nobody really teaches you how to do)

the session was run by a woman who had previously been a partner in an accounting firm and having realised that she wasn't living her dream had been courageous enough to leave that all behind her to set up her own business as a leadership coach...mmmm a leadership coaching business, kinda weird since my longer term dream is (and was even then) to combine corporate leadership capability coaching/training with a counselling practice...

so imagine my surprise when half way through this session (which was attended by about 150 people) i find myself not only in the front row but taking the roving microphone to ask a question! as i have said to her subsequently, i NEVER do that sort of thing, preferring instead to sit quietly at the back so that a) i am not noticed and b) i can leave early if i get bored...

so even funnier is that at the end of the session i find myself going up to her to thank her and introduce myself - even funnier still is that i remember asking if i could take her for coffee sometime so i could get some insights on how she made the transition...

truth is she inspired me and she enabled me to find hope - i just needed a little reminder that it was there - i had finally met someone who seemed like me, who shared my values, who had a similar professional background and who shared my passion for leadership....better still here was someone who had 'followed her dream' and done so successfully...

so you see, i think that my being there and meeting mandy was in many ways serendipitous (i love that word).....you see i never really felt as though i belonged in finance, it was just something that i fell into and got trapped in! mandy represented both hope and inspiration for me at a time when i had absolutely no idea about how to extricate myself from a situation i found myself in with seemingly no way out...

so a few months later we have that coffee, a few months after that she invites me to a womens networking breakfast, another few months goes by (we both have overseas holidays) and finally yesterday we caught up again...

our catchup was great - we got to know each other a bit better, we talked about books (she has recently been asked to contribute to some books on leadership and she very kindly gave me copies, thank you), we talked about people, about what drives them, about what makes them behave without integrity, about what is it about our very different life experiences that lead us to share the same values - all in all a great conversation, a fabulous exchange of ideas, mutual admiration and support for each other and ultimately what i hope will be the start of a longlasting friendship...

so thank you mandy...for being you, for supporting me being me, for being my inspiration and for helping me rediscover my hope :-)

when will i learn, that with some people

honesty is just not the best policy.....

i can't even begin to describe the array of emotions i am experiencing today. words like sadness, disappointment, frustration and betrayal come close but don't seem to do justice to the melting pot of emotions that are getting close to bubbling over....oh that's right, they already have!

i'm beginning to wonder if it's me? if my expectations are too high? if they are unrealistic? am i too trusting? i guess the hardest thing to get my head around is that these things rarely happen in my personal life (must have become pretty good at attracting the sorts of friends who share my values!) but at work, in a place where one set of values is espoused, and yet, people seem to be rewarded and promoted for behaving in a way that is contrary to those values - how does that work? seriously, how does it?

this is the 2nd time i have found myself in this sort of a situation in the last 13 months and i am starting to question not only my judgement (and that in itself is a sad thing, and possibly my biggest area of concern) but whether i am actually cut out for corporate life? methinks perhaps not...

but alas, the corporate prostitution must continue until the intimate relationship i have with the CBA (in lay persons terms we would call that a mortgage) becomes much less intimate and/or i win the lotto and/or my share portfolio starts to provide me with an annual income of greater than the odd dividend cheque for $13.89...

so where to from here i hear you ask, and it's a good question and one i have been pondering since about 3.45pm (shortly after i got the bad news)...the answer right at the moment is that i'm not entirely sure! the good news is that i have a plan! the not so good news is that it's a long term plan which means for the forseeable future i will be where i am right now!

so i ask the universe to help me with a few things tomorrow:
- to remember that i've survived this before;
- to remember who i am and what i stand for;
- to remember that i simply cannot trust everyone; and
- to help me to behave with kindness, authenticity and grace

on a funnier note a girlfriend sent this to me and it made me laugh out loud:

THE WORLD'S SHORTEST FAIRY TALE!

Once upon a time, a guy asked a girl 'Will you marry me?' The girl said: 'NO!' And the girl lived happily ever after and went shopping, dancing, camping, drank martinis, ate chocolate, always had a clean house, never had to cook, did whatever the hell she wanted, never argued, didn't get fat, traveled more, had many lovers, didn't save money, and had all the hot water to herself. She went to the theater, never watched sports, never wore friggin' lacy lingerie that went up her ass, had high self esteem, never cried or yelled, felt and looked fabulous in sweat pants and was pleasant all the time. The End.

don't you love it when you learn something new....

i learned today that the word 'blog' is a shortened version of the term 'weblog'.........cool huh! and dictionary.com has 8 listings for it's definition: the one i like is an online diary or chronology of thoughts - guess mine is kinda both!

i find it amazing how quickly certain words or expressions become part of our daily language.....you know what i'm talking about right? words like blog is one of them.....kinda scary too that until today whilst i knew what it meant, i couldn't have provided a definition to anyone who asked. scarier still was that until about 9 months ago when a recent uni graduate starting working in our CIO's office and started a 'blog' for him, i had absolutely no idea what a blog was!

it's interesting how some people use these words that quickly make it into the everyday vernacular, even though it is clear when they are talking that they have NO idea what they mean......often they will mispronounce the word (guess sometimes that will be a genuine error, for which they can be forgiven), but more often than not, in my experience people simply use the word in the wrong context.........

when i started tonights 'post' i had NO idea what i would talk about but as you can see a theme has emerged.....my pet hates:

1) anything and something are spelled with a 'g' not a 'k' - it's not anythink, or somethink - seriously it's not that hard!

2) ask is spelled ASK and not AKS - again it's not that difficult - maybe they don't cover this in English classes anymore?

3) my other favourite is 'pacific' and i don't mean the body of water that lies between here and the USA, i mean the word that a lot of people use when they mean specific...........really, how hard is it?

4) the other thing that really gets up my nose are some of the buzz phrases that people use - i have no idea if people in the real world (and by that i mean those that don't find themselves prostituing themselves to a corporation in order to pay their mortgage each month) use these expressions but these are some of the more frequently used 'phrases' at my workplace right now:

- think outside the box
- let's socialise that idea
- adding value
- on the same page
- skin in the game

seriously, have we forgotten that we speak english??? and that the english language is a very comprehensive one with many options for the construction of clearly worded sentences, without having to resort to ridiculous buzz phrases that are not only ambiguous but ridiculous??? don't people realise that instead of creating their own little phrases, they could simply consult a thesaurus.....where they might actually learn something.

here endeth todays lesson

acutely single.....................

that's how i feel.......and i haven't felt like this in ages, well that's not entirely true but the events of this weekend have really highlighted the one area of my otherwise fulfilled and happy life (and it is only one thing, seemingly one tiny little thing, but it's not, it's bigger than that, and proving to be elusive) that i just don't seem quite able to get quite right.....

and i'm not alone in this predicament, i know that but right now that is not helping, and it's not that i don't care about everyone else's situation (as I do) but it's my own situation that is causing this sharp, intense and poignant feeling that i just don't seem to be able to shake......

and don't get me wrong, i'm not depressed and not even having a mean reds sort of a day - it's just that i realise that i'm nearly 40 (ok ok it's nearly a year away) and i don't have someone special to share my life with.....and wishing that somehow it could be different

so now you are wondering how i got like this - not single! but feeling acutely single, and why now? well i think it's a combination of things really - in the last year there has been a lot of change in my life, most of it great by the way, but still, a lot of things for me to adjust to but really it was a great party i went to on saturday night - a red carpet 40th birthday party held by one of my good friends - where everyone was married, with kids except me........yep, yet again i was the only single person there, and it didn't seem to matter that i looked and felt good, and that nobody could believe i was nearly their age, i still felt a little like an imposter...

true, there have been many changes in my life of late. i'm nearly half way thru the study i started in 2006 which i thought would amount to nothing (i was wrong!), i have parted ways with a number of friends throughout the year, and whilst i believe this was meant to be, it's still sad to say goodbye, i am finally starting to recover from a year where i battled constant sinus infections and a variety of other injuries which left me feeling less than my best physically, and last but not least i went thru an emotional rollercoaster with respect to work and now find myself in a job i love, working with people i like and on an entirely different path to where i was just six months ago.

soooooo this all sounds good right? things are getting better and i am happier and more fulfilled than i have ever been, yet i can't help but let that little voice in my head tell me that 'you're not there yet' because i haven't found someone to share it all with......seems all i can focus on right now is the fact that i am still single.....

now i admit, there has been a lot of change in my life and perhaps the universe is waiting for things to settle down before he orchestrates the meeting of myself and this man i'm supposed to be with (you know the one EVERYONE tells you 'you will meet him when you least expect it') but i'm beginning to wonder if it's EVER going to happen?

i have come to accept (in more recent times) that everything in our lives happen for a reason - that's why some people you meet stay for just a short while and others are there for the long haul, it's why somedays you get a parking space right at the door when it's pouring down rain, it's why when you see something you like in a shop and think they won't have your size, your size is the last one they have and it fits you perfectly, it's why somedays when you are thinking about someone, the phone rings and it's them, thinking about you too........so why is it that despite all this i am struggling to accept my acutely single status?????

i'm done with waiting i really am. i think i've been patient, i've tried to focus on the positive things in my life, i am grateful for many aspects of my life, but i want more, i don't want to dread new years eve parties because i have nobody special to kiss at midnight, i don't want to spend my life going to movies on my own, i want to have someone to wake up next to in the morning and someone to kiss goodnight before i go to sleep (and i want that to be the same someone!), i want to have someone to share those special moments with, i want to be with someone who will support me in following my dream and let me support them in following theirs.....

so universe if you are listening, please please please hear my wish :-)

my faith in men is restored.....

tonight's post will be a short one as i'm madly trying to decide what to wear on sat night so i can pack it and then go to bed early as i'm flying to melbs first thing tomorrow morning!

sooooo to you canadian johnny i want to say thank you!

you'll probably never read this and we may never talk again but because of you my faith in men is restored - you are lovely, smart, funny, understanding, actually seemed to get me (this is no easy thing to do), called when you said you would and wrote me poetry..................

you are living proof that nice guys exist :-)

i am truly blessed......

i really am! i don't like to use the term lucky - i'm not lucky, but i am very fortunate.......i was thinking (as you do when you write a blog) about what to write and i thought i'd write a thank you to some of my friends who have left an imprint on my life and in my heart.....thank you:

to pistachio (she knows who she is) for being there lastnight when i really needed to talk to someone who i knew would be on my side, for being the best travel companion in the world, for not having long hair so when she threw up on our holiday i didn't have to be close enough to hold back her hair, for not reminding me that i missed her 21st to go to a football game, for putting up with my incessant swearing even though she doesn't, for being my chosen 'big sister' and for being her :-)

to my pissoir (she knows who she is too) for always telling me i'm beautiful even when i'm 10kgs overweight, for occasionally letting me beat her at tennis, for being one of the worst friends at regular communication but for being one of the best friends coz she's been there when i really need her, for sharing my love of shoes and for letting me be the best chic at her wedding even though we couldn't talk about it :-)

to lovely anne, who makes me feel special and valued, who is great to hang out with on a saturday afternoon, who taught me about rock star carparking, who has a pencil case for a handbag, who made me buy a pair of fabulously girly light blue suede shoes i'm probably never going to wear and who write this about me (when responding to a quiz thing):
What do I think of Sarah? She's an angel and I'm absolutely blessed knowing her. She's hyperactive when in my company (maybe it's me!) and makes me laugh to no end; especially on a Saturday shopping adventure. I think Sarah deserves everything she hopes for - she's a grand girl and has a heart the depth of the ocean. May her true love dive into her life - love is blind, let him see clearly the truly wonderful, special, happy, bright and beautiful woman she is. AMEN!
to mrs j who i hardly ever see anymore but i know she still thinks about me, who i shared a 'desk thing' with when i first started work, who used to put up with me walking down pitt street mall at lunchtime, who makes great roast chicken and potatoes, who's children were the first to call me aunty sar, who always makes me feel like part of their family and who would only be a better friend if just once she would let me beat her at boggle.......

to mjb who has been a friend since first year uni, who has been there through all my bad choices in men, who told me that i shouldn't move overseas for one of them unless he gave me a diamond, for marrying his wife who has become a good friend now too, for asking me to be godmother to their lovely little girl, for letting me invite myself round to watch the odd game of rugby union so i don't have to watch it alone, for still being my friend even when i don't invite him to my 'girls xmas lunches'.....

to 'the big guy', who tells it as it is, who makes me laugh, who shares my love of books and movies, who remained my friend even tho i didn't make it to their house in the hunter until they'd lived their for 7 or 8 years, who kept his word, who has integrity and is the only american i know who likes cricket.....

to stormy who despite how it may have appeared all those years ago when we met, is actually a good friend - he wouldn't admit it, but he is and i'm grateful that when i need a friendly face to buy me vodka he is almost always there, who makes me laugh, who always makes me feel good about myself, who despite having gotten 10 years older in the time we have known each other, has not grown up, who was there when i was at my lowest point and helped me (even tho he doesn't really think he did) move in the right direction....

to my friend sparra, who died last year, who made my days at the scg memorable and something to look forward to, for letting me be me, for betting with me about when the next wicket would be, for always offering to buy me a drink when he went to the bar, for never asking me to get the beer, for being our entertainment at micky's after day 1 and for that unforgettable night in manly where he just couldn't talk at all............i miss you but am blessed to have known you at all

to my uncle campbell, who's not really my uncle, but if i could choose one he would be, for showing me what it is to be australian, for being a cranky pants when anyone other than australia is doing well at cricket, for his kindness and generosity and for the odd occasion when he just rings to say hello...

to the chooks, who made working at citi not only bearable but fun, for letting me drag them round god knows how many shops looking for ridiculous burberry crap that i'm never going to wear, for all the nights we had 'meetings' at Jet, for all the nights we will have 'drinks' in the big apple, for appreciating me for who i am and their continued support and encouragement....

to kk, who shares my love of books, who has been just about the only thing that kept me sane at wbc when i thought i couldn't stand it anymore, for our shared love of that height of designer fashion 'SES', for the many cups of tea we've had and the many more that will follow, for being there when the cfo job came and went, for our saturday afternoon hair do's, for our micky's thick shake addiction and for finally getting an e-tag so she can drive over the bridge to see me...

and to miss megan, who i've known as long as i've been in aus, who's more gorgeous now than she was in her year 10 formal frock, who has followed her dream, who has fabulous hair, who remembers our trip to the PM's XI cricket way back when we were young, who shares my love of anything blue, who makes a fabulous cup of tea and who sat with me and cried at the scg on day Steve Waugh retired....thank you to you all
sar
xxxx

it's a no win situation, really it is........

ok i'm angry, really angry and it all started on saturday morning with a call to my parents following an email from my mother who forwarded an email from my cousin.........sounds like nothing right? WRONG..........

so turns out this cousin, who lives in england is apparently coming to australia with her husband (he's nice, i've met him) for xmas - she has emailed my parents asking (amongst other things) if i could provide some tips on new york and if they can stay with me when they are here in sydney...

now this person is not 15, she is nearly 28, seemingly well educated, married, holds down a job as a solicitor but seems to think it's ok to ask my parents if she can stay in my house? how the fuck does that work????? why can't she get in touch with me and ask me - it's my house after all.........last time i looked i paid the mortgage each month

so it gets better - after getting cranky at my mum for being the messenger (sorry mum, that was probably out of line) i suggest to her that she tells this cousin to email me directly......

so tonight i get home to find an email from said cousin and when i open it, to my horror, it is simply the email she sent my parents which she has forwarded to me....................with two sentence changes so it doesn't look as though it's actually been forwarded!!! no hi sarah how are you? heard you had a new job, hope it's going well, no we are coming to australia and are going to be in sydney just before xmas and were wondering (even tho i haven't spoken to you for 3 years) if it would be ok for us to stay with you etc etc - simply the email she sent to my parents forwarded to me.........

i am gobsmacked......almost speechless. ok ok i said almost!!!

so i have something of a dilemma! this is someone i do not keep in touch with (ok, we did when we were both younger as i was the 'cool older cousin', now i'm probably just that old cousin who lives in sydney), i don't see her when i go to the uk unless her mother (my aunty) organises 'family' type gatherings that she happens to be at - i haven't spoken to her at any length in more than 3 or so years and now i get a forwarded email and they expect me to put them up..........where is the courtesy in that? she was brought up with the same values as me - surely it wouldn't be that hard to actually take a few sentences (yep, that's all it would be really) and enquire as to how i am and would i mind if they stay with me, even tho we hardly really know each other

now i realise we are family, i do honestly, i totally get it! but i would NEVER be as rude as she has been to me

so the dilemma is this - do i simply say 'no sorry, won't be convenient for you to stay but happy to recommend some hotels' (which is what i want to do) or do i have to 'for the sake of family peace' suck it up??????

told you - it really is a no win situation!

i have a few addictions......

but the one i'm going to talk about today is books.......my relationship with books, yep it's sad enough that i actually think i have a relationship with them, is frankly, obsessive! not obsessive in a technical definitional sense, but i do have 'issues' shall we say in relation to them.......

just ask my Mum: her and i had one of our biggest fights (well maybe not quite our biggest, but a big one all the same) over a book - yep Anita Brookner's Hotel du Lac (one of her best, in fact probably the best as all the rest have sadly been about sad women who never seem to have relationship success - frankly she's a whinging old woman who in my humble opinion, should have spent more time trying to get laid than writing sad books) - i conveniently forgot that Mum returned it, i on-lent (is that a word??) it to another friend and when a year or so later i accused (strong word, but she says that was how it came across) her of not returning it...............well as you can imagine, not pretty!

i have so many books that i had to move houses to house them all, comfortably......periodically i inventorise them and even more often i not only sort them in alphabetical order, but also in genre alphabetical order!!!! just ask my friend Kirst: she's had to assist with the inventorising (and here's me thinking i'm a fun friend to hang out with!)

so as someone who puts a lot of time and effort into making sure her books are comfortable i expect something in return - i expect them to be a good read......with realistic storylines, plausible characters and frankly, better grammar than i am capable of - is that asking to much? i don't think so.....

so you can imagine my disappointment when i finally select 'Atonement' from the shelf - it's been there for years - unlike some, I don't read stuff when it's popular: for instance, i have never and will never stoop to reading anything by Dan Brown and if that makes me a book snob, perhaps even a literary snob, then la de bloody la! i don't care.....i'm not reading it.

also i like to read more than i like to see the movie adaptation of any book - and i say adaptation as that's exactly what it is - somebody elses adaptation, and whilst i will admit that some adaptations are good, most are frankly crap! and not worthy of my $15.50 and the two hours i spend in the cinema.....

so, sorry, got a bit distracted there. 'Atonement' by booker prize winner Ian McEwen, finally gets it's moment of glory - how long it had patiently sat on my bookcase waiting to be selected i'll never know. anyway, the recent hype of the movie made me think it was about time i finally read it. it took some getting into (and by that i mean it didn't have me hooked from page one) and i don't actually mind that - one of the reasons i read is to be educated, to learn new words, and as a wannabe writer to experience different ways of writing and expression, in particular i am usually interested in imagery, characterisation and momentum......

anyway, i digress! after the first 50 pages i was hooked, the switch from the end of their childhood to the protagonist at war (ie some 5 or so years later) was very well handled (apparently this is called transition - anyway, it was good) but frankly, the end was not. it not only came out of the blue, but felt to me like there were loose ends - kinda like he ran out of typewriter paper or something so just wrote whatever came to mind in order to have it over and done with????

kinda like an afterthought, which after such a fabulously good story (and one with the potential for a truly great ending) was just downright disappointing :-( disappointing that i invested all that time and effort into to a book that just did not meet my expectations......

wonder how long i will feel the need to atone for my very public slagging of not just one, but two, Booker Prize winners.........

filling the void......

why is it so hard to lose weight? this is a question i have asked myself many many times and i still don't have an answer, well at least not one i'm happy with...

how come some people seem to do nothing, eat what they like and still look fabulous? how is that fair? how come some people are effortlessly slim, look great in jeans and never seem to have a fat day???? and more to the point, how come i am not one of them!!!

note: this is not a mean reds kinda day, but i am frustrated with the effort required by me!

and I don't want to be skinny: firstly, i have no desire to give up everything i love eating (where would be the fun in that?), secondly, i don't want to lose all of the curves i have worked hard to love (yep apparently i'm a woman and i'm curvy - go figure!) and third, i do not want to have that emaciated look that evokes comments from passersby like 'when did she last have a meal' - i just want to be slim........slim enough to fit into my favourite Jigsaw size 12 navy blue $1,000 suit, slim enough to feel great in jeans and slim enough to be able to wear the entire wardrobe of colour coded blouses i had tailor made without fear that the buttons are going to pop because they are too tight!!!!! can it really be this hard??

i got to 'observe' an AA meeting on Friday (i am studying Alcohol and Other Drugs at school right now) and i realised, after listening to a few members tell their stories (thank you - i felt priveleged and humbled to be there) that perhaps giving up drinking isn't enough to recover (well maybe not for everybody) - that perhaps the alcohol addiction was simply filling a void inside of them and maybe just maybe, that food is kinda the same for me???

well of course that's a wee bit scary for me to think about, seriously, not to mention a little bit confronting. what void? i hear myself say defensively to anybody who suggests i might be filling my 'void' with biscuits, cakes and basically anything packed with sugar that tastes good in the moment, but then shortly after, leaves me feeling bloated and frankly unsatisfied........

now i'm not huge (i'm currently a size 14), i'm curvy and always will be, i don't need or even want to be a size 10, and just two weeks ago (before i started exercising and trying to eat more healthily) a guy told me i had "a great figure" so why is it i don't feel great in my jeans and now find myself trying really hard to eat well and exercise at least 4 times a week?????

i do this every year - this is kinda the sad part - every year after xmas and my birthday i give myself the 'ok, you're not on a diet, you're just going to live a more healthy lifestyle' pep talk......what crap! coz if that were true and it really were a lifestyle change, then surely i wouldn't be doing it every single year??

now the other frustrating thing is this: i'm a smart girl, i get that eating well and exercising regularly is good for me and i know this because i do it EVERY year and feel good when i do it, but there's always something which throws me off or makes the routine impossible for two or three days in a row, and as quickly as the 'lifestyle' becomes a routine, it isn't - it really is a slippery slope.....

so now i'm faced with yet again going through the same thing i go through every year, altho this year it's different - now i've worked out that maybe just maybe i'm filling my own void (fucking great!) so now, not only do i need to change my lifestyle blah blah blah, but now i also have to rid myself of the void that's making me eat in the first place!!! and i thought by writing about it would make me feel better - NOT!!

on a positive note, i have written my blog every day so i AM writing more :-)

they say the universe works in mysterious ways

the strangest thing happened tonight (altho there is a longer story, let's call it the 'pre-amble' that needs to be told)........

my first time on internet dating i met a guy who i emailed with for a few days and just before the time i would normally suggest meeting up (or actually the time when i would hope they would take the initiative and ask me if i'd like to meet up) he told me that he'd met someone else and that he wouldn't feel right about seeing us both - i was cool with that, altho disappointed as he seemed kinda nice.....

anyway, a year or so passed, and i never really forgot about him - wasn't like we'd had anything special - i just kinda liked him (at least the online email version of him) and i thought it would have been nice if we'd met.....he would occasionally pop into my head and i would wonder how he was getting on and hope that perhaps one day we might reconnect.....

so it's a week after i get back from paris and i'm getting my hair done - the girl sitting next to me (also looking like something from another planet with foil protruding from her head at odd angles) starts chatting to me - we do the small talk thing 'hi i'm sarah', 'hi i'm anne' and then she starts telling me that she can see me in a garden - a french garden - that of an artist - i start thinking how weird this is as i was in fact in Monet's garden (yes, french impressionist artist Claude Monet of waterlily fame) only 10 days or so ago........i get goosebumps as she's telling me this. then she says casually 'oh someone nice will come into your life tonight, his name will be peter'. I rack my brain - only Peter I can think of is my boss who has a partner - so I figure she is talking complete and utter rubbish!!!

so you can imagine my surprise when at one minute past midnight that very night, the boy from internet dating (his name is Peter) sends me an email titled 'Hi, we chatted once, a long time ago.....'

soooo we email a bit, have a phone call or two and then finally some one year and five months after we originally started chatting on the internet, meet up......we have a wonderful evening, he asks me out again and i think this could be the start of something nice :-)

we date for a few months and for a variety of reasons it doesn't work out, but neither of us seems capable of really moving on......we end up trying to date again a few months later but seems like we are actually better as friends......then we don't see each other for a while other than as friends (which is going really well - at least i think it is) but he says he wants more - i figure after trying two or three times already, and nothing having changed that it's probably not going to work.......so we kinda don't see each other for a while (here's me assuming we are still friends) and then i don't hear from him for months on end

so it's now 2008 and i haven't heard from him in 7 months and i think, ok i'll send an email to see how he's getting on - no response, no reply, nothing, nada! i figure i have his email address wrong and send him a text.............the response is this:

"Sarah, I'm sorry but you must accept that i feel friendship isn't sustainable for us. Because I always thought about having more than just that. In the end I realised my pretending otherwise is not good for anyone. That's why I'm not available. I figured you got that as well. I just can't be what you would like because we can't be anything else. I tried. But I can't. I need more".......

in some ways a nice compliment but in another way disappointing - he had become someone who's company I really enjoyed, someone i loved going to the movies with and just hanging out with and someone I trusted and felt comfortable with :-) oh well, I respect his choice and I hope that in time he will find what he is looking for......

now to the bit about the universe moving in mysterious ways as you have by now patiently (or not!) read this and I can hear you saying 'where is she going with all of this?'..........well tonight i had dinner with my best friend and her little boy. they kindly (or stupidly) offered to pick me up in town so we could drive to my place and get dinner at our fave mexican takeaway place.........so as we are sitting (and i mean literally sitting in traffic) on Park St in between Pitt and George streets, I tell her about Peter's text to me and as she's reading it, I look up to see him, yes Peter, the one who wrote the text, the one I haven't seen or heard from in 7 months, walks right in front of the car.............

how weird is that?????

it's kinda like an addiction......blogging i mean!

in that since posting my first one i am now constantly thinking of things i can blog about........so many topics, so little time........and since the real reason (well the one i'm admitting to anyway) for me starting the blog in the first place was to get me writing more (in the hope that my writing a blog will in fact have the inspiration spill over into the sort of inspiration that will help me finish one of the two novels i am attempting to write........), all it's really done is make me think.........about whether or not anyone will read it, like it, comment on it - or worse still will no-one read it and in a week even when i re-read it i think it's utter crap!!!

weird too that i'm studying alcohol and drug addiction and i now think that blogging could itself (in time) become a form of addiction that appears in the manuals and text books for psych practitioners ...................maybe one day it will make an appearance in the DSM IV - wouldn't that be something??

so what i really wanted to write about today was gratitude and this is something that is (in my humble opinion) under rated! i saw Martin Seligman speak sometime ago (he's a professor in the US and largely one of the founders of positive psychology) - he talked about the benefits of practicing gratitude (in some cases he recommends writing a daily journal of at least 3 things you are grateful for that day) - sounds pretty simple, and i guess it is, but the long term effects are kinda neat! simply put doing it has a way of making you think about what's good in your life, even on a crap day i can ALWAYS find something i'm grateful for and 99% of my entries are about people (ie not material stuff).......another plus is when you are having a really bad day and i mean a 'mean reds day' (if you don't know what this means i highly recommend watching Breakfast at Tiffanys!) then looking back over what you've written in the last little while makes you realise that your life is in fact pretty good and that helps..........maybe not in the same way as vodka, or retail therapy but it does, trust me! in fact don't just take my word for it - try it for yourself!

soooo today what i'm most grateful for is this: in mid september whilst in Paris (yes Paris, France) with one of my best friends, i had a bit of a breakdown (hate work, don't want to do finance anymore, boss is an arsehole who wouldn't know what leadership was if it smacked him in the head, can't stand another day there but can't see a way out etc etc - you've all been there) and kinda worked out that when i got back i would 'follow my dream' - this is something i have admired in many people for as long as i can remember, but was (if i'm being honest) a bit too scared to do myself always finding convenient excuses like 'oh my finance job pays too much', 'nobody's going to let a finance chic move into HR' blah blah blah - anyway, i got back from holidays and within 3 short weeks had not only looked for an HR job, but applied for one, and got a different one!

so a step back in hierarchy and a move out of the 'ivory tower' to a non CBD site and I find myself happier than I've ever been, more comfortable being myself (rather than someone i'm expected to be) and really enjoying working with the people I support.......people who thought they knew me and my motivations were horrified by the move - comments such as 'but you have so much potential' and 'you'll be bored in HR' were commonplace - not that easy to hear when you are following your dream, but you work out pretty quickly who really is a supporter and who's not!!!

so that brings me to today - i find out that after only 11 weeks in the job, a structural change has opened up an opportunity and i'm to be promoted! not only is it a huge professional (and personal) compliment to me but it just confirms what i always knew - that i would be happier doing something i loved and was passionate about (even if initially it meant taking what looked like a backward step).......well done me for not continuing to do what everybody else expected!

it makes me realise that sometimes the best things in life aren't free, they don't come easily and the things we fight hardest for are indeed the most gratifying :-) so thank you to all those people who see my 'real potential, to those of you who have helped me believe in myself and for supporting me in taking a courageous leap of faith........