Another Perspective

It's impossible to feel contented sometimes...

2010-10-08T04:44:00.001-07:00

I think contentment is one, if not the, hardest feeling to achieve, when talking about true, honest contentment. I'm not even sure it's a good feeling to feel, one part of me thinks that to be happy you need to be content, but then another part of me thinks that to be content is perhaps to have given up, to have stopped trying.

Unfortunatly I am OBSESSED with the word, I spend my life trying to feel content. I spent the first 10 years of my and P's relationship filling it with my own personal brand of dis-content. Dis-content with myself and how I was choosing to live my life. In the summer of 2009 I made a vow to myself not to waste another 10 years doing the same.

I'm so discontented today, I can't actually finish anything I start, so I'm going to log off for now and try again later! lol

Well on my way to becoming a fitness professional!

2010-07-05T02:01:00.000-07:00

The weekend just gone has been a very, very productive weekend! I managed to catch up and have dinner with friends, catch a much anticipated movie and pass my gym instructor assessment. Which has led to a very positive start to my working week. Although with all the excitement this busy weekend created I didn't manage to sleep much last night (think I managed about 3hrs all in all) so although raring to tackle a new week in my new job, i'm feeling pretty knackered truth be told, but hopefully the exhaustion will hold off tilll tonight and will mean a sound sleep this evening (fingers crossed).

Two of my friends have moved house recently and this has re-ignited my desire to better my current situation, i've emailed a couple of gyms already this morning to see if they are looking for part time instructors, if I can get some more pennies coming in perhaps i'll be able to start saving and looking at slightly more expensive houses...we shall see how this week pans out with getting a job in one of my local gyms...

Exciting times

2010-05-18T05:00:00.000-07:00

I've had a really exciting turbulent time over the last few weeks, what with the butterfly effect that is my mind, going into overdrive. I've been focusing on my 'professional' writing for Civicboom whilst also passing my Physiology and Anatomy module for my personal trainer diploma.

Watching my sister run the London Marathon re-focused my attention on my own physical activity and I have been making sure that I am doing a minimum of 3 days a week of hard physical exertion! Currently this week this is taking the form of cycling to work every day which is an 18 mile round trip (thank god I'm only working 4 days this week).

Having passed my P&A I am now off to a plush looking sports center near Watford to attend my 3 day gym instructor course, which I'm hugely excited about! When I reminded P last night that I would basically be 'working' all weekend I suggested with a sly wink, that he could be the 'house husband' wouldn't that be nice coming in each evening to a tidy clean home and cooked dinner...Ill have to let you know if it happens lol x

St Georges Day and the London Marathon

2010-04-25T00:06:00.000-07:00

Preparing to make my way into London to watch my sister in the London Marathon is making me feel very proud right now (and after celebrating St George’s day in fine style at work on Friday, very proud to be British). I have uploaded a few pictures of the antics we got up to at work on Friday. We planned a charity day and wanted to celebrate all things British, in the aid of St George’s day and more importantly to raise money for the British Red Cross.

The charity team (myself included) planned events throughout the day, starting with opening our own version of 'Ian Beales' cafe where we sold bacon sarnies and tea to the office at large, an elevenses trolley was then rolled out shortly after adorned with cakes kindly baked by very generous members of staff. Outside we had a penalty shoot out going on, followed by an after eight eating contest, another tea and cake trolley before ending the day with a pub quiz and an auction, where three very delicious cakes were bid for and brought out funding raising total to just shy of £300!

It was a brilliant day, everyone made a huge effort and it was brilliant to celebrate St George’s day in such a big way.

Now I’m going to high tail it over to pick up my niece so that she and I can go and support my very brave sister attempt to run the London Marathon in under 4hrs! It sounds crazy I know but I wish I was running it with her! All in all it's been a very proud and patriotic weekend.

Civicboom: Opinion: Blogging, what is it and why get involved?

2010-04-23T16:16:00.000-07:00

Civicboom: Opinion: Blogging, what is it and why get involved?

Civicboom: Opinion: What is happiness?

2010-04-12T06:46:00.000-07:00

Civicboom: Opinion: What is happiness?

Weekends and addictions

2010-02-20T14:22:00.000-08:00

It's been an amazing Saturday. The sun has been shining, albeit's pretty damn cold still. I took P to see our new little niece this morning for some very high quality cuddles. Then back home via Sainsbury's (I think there must be some unwritten law somewhere that you have to visit a super market at least once every weekend...with no exceptions) to get changed and go for a very satisfying 6k run while the sun was still shining, finishing up with a few more exercises back at home just to make sure I was happy that i'd enough variety on the exercise front.

The afternoons activites thus enabling me to bake a ridiculously decadent chocolate cake early evening and while waiting for the cake to cool I was able to sit back and wait for dinner to be served (spicy meatballs with spaghetti a la P).

To sum up, the perfect combination of family time, exercise and delicious food. The icing on the cake (literally being) that the chocolate cake tasted almost 'too' chocolatey when I finally indulged in a piece with a cuppa. I don't know what it is with me and chocolate, but without fail as soon as I allow the velvety substance into my system my whole body suddenly craves more and more and more like an uncontrollable compulsion. I guess I must just have an addictive personality. Having given up smoking and also trying to cut down on my alcohol intake, i've turned to chocolate. I wonder if it's possible for me to one day live a life free of any addictions?

Should you only apologies when you mean it?

2010-02-15T00:41:00.000-08:00

Valentines went with a bang, which can sometimes be the case with P and I, this year. We had a table booked at a lovely Indian restaurant, which was a lovely idea of his considering he's not the biggest fan of curry (but knows I love them). He had agreed to work Saturday day, so I was able to have a very productive morning studying the first module of my PT course Anatomy and Physiology, I then managed to fit in a 5k run, and quickly washed my car, before heading into town to by P's valentines present, and my Nan's birthday present (also on Valentines day).

I was keen to find out what P had got me as he seemed incredibly eager to do presents when he got in from work. I got him a Spanish CD, as he'd mentioned wanting one over Christmas (which I was also pretty pleased with).

Once the shopping was done I went for a drink with a friend, my sister and her boyfriend, and also happily coincided with P arriving home so I then encouraging him to swing by and join us for one (thus also meaning I got a lift home).

I stupidly then had a couple of glasses of wine while getting ready for dinner(which truth be told pushed me from happily merry to drunk). Luckily we did presents first and I was really charmed to receive a copy of 'The Time Travellers Wife' on dvd (I had raved about the book at the latter end of last year). Unfortunatly my drunken state did ruin dinner, leading to a row Sunday morning. Which brings me to my point, I didn't want to apologies, childishly thinking well it makes a change that it was me and not you. So my apology, when I managed to force it out, was not well received. Rows are usually caused by my inability to feel contrite (when i've done wrong) coupled with my reluctance to fake feeling the necessary 'contriteness'. Ironicly the previous evening (before we left for dinner) I had highlighted that this time last year we'd had a huge row on Valentines, which P reminded me with sardonic humour after we'd both calmed down.

However the day played out well, mainly thanks to P acknowledging our mutual subborness (surprisingly in a positive light) this somehow allowed me to genuinely feel appropriately sorry for ruining dinner and we were able to move on enjoy the latter part of our morning, mutally and happily proceeding to spend the afternoon apart (with respective friends) and then came back together early evening, both contrite and anxious to make the other one happy, and have a lovely dinner and evening. It's almost worth the row for the making up!

Future Fit

2010-02-10T14:53:00.000-08:00

I've signed up to train as a Personal Trainer through Future Fit. The friend I train with at work is part way through the course and loving it, so i've taken the plunge, lets see where it takes me!

The weekend just gone I spent the whole of Friday night baking cakes for my sisters babyshower on the Saturday. The shower was good fun, pregnant sis said she had a nice time, everyone seemed to like the cakes and then stayed on at big sisters house after preg sis and her friends had gone, played with my niece and nephew had some wine and dinner then got cab home (before midnight, so not horrendous). Then had the worlds most amazing Sunday, spent the day in my pj's watching lost with P, only breaking to have a superb roast, then film then bed, it was heaven to have such a lazy day.

This week now i'm just anxious to get on with my Personal Trainers course. I had a brilliant boxing session with my training PT on Monday and again today, we had planned to go for a run but were foiled by the sudden blizzard around 5pm! Arms are starting to ache a bit now so will sign off.

Note to self: Must not forget to get on with writing assigment this weekend.

Chasing my tail

2010-02-02T13:46:00.000-08:00

I explored the web when I had a little bit of time the other week searching for more insights into the Zen Habits phenomenan, and stumbled across some comments from other followers, centering around how helpful they had found elements of his blogs, but also how they had left them frustrated by a lack of basic human faults. This got me thinking about how I blog, I've always shared how I feel, while reminding myself that it's unlikely people will be gripped by reading individuals angst about how they fail themselves time again, it can make for comical reading the times that you fail to achieve what you set out to...

I've said before, I always seem to spend my weekdays being good but weekends are generally a constant battle to try not to be naughty! It's so easy for exercise, soft drinks and 'to do lists' to be abandoned in favour of reading (trash, not the classics!) or, more often in my case, a lunch that turns liquid...

Since arriving in my late twenties i've been trying to spend my free time productively, bettering myself in some way, being better educated, physically fitter or simply spending more quality time with family and friends and when I focus I manage to do this a reasonable amount of the time (there's always room for improvement). However the easy care free weekends always loom close to the surface! The one just gone was wholey 'unproductive' but on the whole pretty enjoyable and surprisingly for me guilt free! An added bonus amidst the slovenly unfocused behaviour wasa that I still managed to spend a bit of quality time with family and friends (perhaps thats the reason I was free from the ever readily availiable guilt...hmm).

As goes with the territory to this type of weekend, I managed to avoid all forms of exercise, in favour of drinking vast quantities of cocktails, wine and beer (over the course of 3 days, i'm not a complete animal). Then allowing myself Monday to help achieve a full recovery, I was back in the game today, boxing at lunch time and going for a 10k run after work, although I did end up finishing my 'hangover' chinese tonight and I'm out for dinner tomorrow so the return to healthy eating will just have to wait until Thursday, in the meantime I'll keep my guilt at bay with more exercise and a bit of productive reading, having just discovered 'The Online Journalism Review' and a million possible projects buzzing around my head, which will keep me out of trouble for now!

Irrational feelings?

2010-01-27T01:46:00.000-08:00

My day started out pretty well yesterday. I got to work early again to hit the gym before going to my desk. I was going to spend 12mins on the treadmill running as fast as I physically could and record the distance I ran and the calories I burned to report back to my friend at work, to get some feed back and guidance on how I could improve my workouts. I nearly burst a lung running at maximum capacity for those 12mins, so I then took it fairly easy and just spent a few minutes on the bike and on the cross trainer to make it a 30min work out.

My boyfriend had been trying to get hold of me while I was in the gym and by the time i'd rung him back I was a little short tempered as I was trying to get to my desk on time (and he'd rung several times). Later on that evening he called again just after i'd got home wondering why I hadn't replied to a text he'd sent. I immediately felt cross feeling like he'd spent the whole day expecting me to be at his beck and call, chastising me when I hadn't been in contact quick enough. The call ended with my telling him this, him completely disagreeing (and sounding a little annoyed himself) so me telling him that he was wrong and to think about how he had been talking to me (aka harrassing me all day)!

I then stormed around the house justifying my reactions, huffily doing housework and relaying the days events and the conversations in question to myself...I wondered if perhaps I was actually the one 'in the wrong' here (I hate the phrase). Had he really simply been concerned this morning when he hadn't been able to get hold of me (should his concern have irritated me)? This afternoon when i'd got in from work, he'd text me a question and an hour later I hadn't replied with an answer (I had but he hadn't received the text for whatever reason) so was it wrong of me to have instantly got cross and argued with him about my having definitely sent the text and then again accuse him of expecting me to just sit waiting for a text from him that I must then instantly respond to. Perhaps on reflection I was...?

The question remains, why that reaction from me? Hmmmmmmmm

Inspired

2010-01-25T13:50:00.000-08:00

In all aspects of my life I need to feel inspired. When I don't feel inspired my mind tends to take a holiday.

With physical exercise I've got a friend at work that never ceases to make me feel inspired to do more and try harder. Since becoming a keen runner in 2007 I have gone from running to keep fit and occupied, to running for pleasure and for fulfilment. Over the last two years I have competed in several running events and have doubled the distance I cover on a 'casual' run.

I have also built up a variety of different exercise regimes that I can do either in the gym at work or in my living room at home. A combination of circuit exercises (which I shall list another time) as shown to me by my friend at work. This morning, knowing that I was going to be doing boxing at lunch time (and feeling guilty that I had been pretty slothenly over the weekend) I go to work and ran 5k on the treadmill before I started work for the day. The guilt I feel when I put myself in direct competition with the people around me is an incredibly powerful, motivational tool, which also has the added bonus of leaving me feeling exhilarated once I've finished my workout. There is no better start to the day.

So many thoughts...

2010-01-21T12:33:00.000-08:00

Some days I find myself so bombarded with thoughts and intentions that I simply don't know what to do with it all? I find myself making lists on occasions such as these, in order to capture these ideas in the hope that I can use them to live my life in a more fulfilled and productive fasion;

- Enter running events to give yourself something to aim towards while training (expand on further).
- Book a weekend away with my sister towards the end of 2010.
- Start planning Paul's birthday.
- Try and plan my weekends better, spend some time looking to see what events are happening locally i.e. farmers markets, concerts, comedy shows and make sure I invite friends to BBQ's (to make up for not having dinner parties due to not having a dining table).
- Continue to write, explore different writing opportunities and fully utilise the opportunities I already have (expand on further).
- Help and support Paul to fulfill his potential in any way I can.
- Further my education, study and become better qualified, research the areas of study fully (expand on another).
- Research the housing market, find out the pros and cons of buying and renting (refer to Zen Habits for tips and expand on further).
- Start to plan my wedding, research costs, venues, decide what is most important to me (expand on further).

So you can see, my brain does not sit idle! Much work to do, will spend some time expanding on each of the relevant threads.

The discovery of Zen Habits

2010-01-19T14:11:00.000-08:00

Today I was given some very good advice by a woman at work. I mentioned to her that I had just started blogging and asked her if she could offer me any guidance. She kindly told me about 'Zen Habits' and in the brief 15min window I found this afternoon I appreciated the enormity of what the creator Leo Babauta had achieved through blogging.

It has renewed my determination to try and explore this world, so new to me and see where it leads. I have just read one of Leo's tips on 'how to have fun for free' and it's made me realise that my boyfriend and I do actually make more of our time together than I give us credit for. It's like when I read the Twilight books by Stephanie Meyer, I started to feel wistful and long for more romance in my life, then thought about what I do currently have and realised it was pretty great already.

In December I suggested to my boyfriend that we make our first Christmas cake together. He is a keen cook and a (like myself) a lover of cake and we spent an amazing few days in December making, feeding, decorating and later eating our cake. I was so amazingly suprised by the enthusisam Paul demonstrated. To the point where (inspired by an amazing Christmas present from my lovely sister, the hummingbird bakery cook book) he suggested that we bake a cake together at the end of each month, hinting that the next one we try at the end of January should be a gorgeous decadent chocolate cake...hmmmmm I can't wait!

This doesn't do much for my fitness goals, but I know deep down I do enough exercise to compensate lol.

Repercussions

2010-01-18T02:08:00.000-08:00

The weekend just gone has made me reflect on how I chose to spend it. I have spent the last couple of weeks trying not too drink to much, I can't deal with hangovers like I used to. Also i'm trying to avoid feelings of toxic guilt when I haven't done anything constructive. This in mind when Saturday night passed in a blur of wine (a celebratory glass or two as a pat on the back for my constructive thing that day, setting up my blog) I woke up on Sunday, really disappointed with myself! I felt terrible, id also had a couple of cheeky cigerattes having been good and not had one for two weeks. I just felt like a scum bag, wasting my weekend (there we are again with the toxic guilt). My aim is to find a happy medium, enjoy my weekends, do something constructive that makes me feel happy, and if I want to have a drink, enjoy it, don't just tip it down my throat.

The mind set I find myself in, after a hangover, is so destructive! This week i'm going to mentally pick myself up, shake myself off and spend some time writing, and personalising my blog!

Sunday feeling...

2010-01-17T09:58:00.000-08:00

I'm reading Russell Brands autobiography while Pauls making a very decadent cottage pie for dinner. I spend my week days watching what I eat, trying not to consume too many unecessary calories, but at the weekend it always goes to pot!

The last couple of weekends i've been pretty good, I haven't drunk too much, which has in turn let to me eating fairly sensibly. However last night I ended up having too much wine, and i'm going to gobble down this delicious dinner with it's buttery bacon mash with half a loaf of bread on the side, followed by half a double decker duo hmmmmmm I can't wait!

I'm also desperately trying to work out how I can get the most out of using both this and twitter http://twitter.com/vickyhorrix

Saturday

2010-01-16T07:47:00.000-08:00

I am today making good my first 2010 resolution. To go forth, learn and trial new ways to indulge my passion for transcribing my thoughts. So far all I know is that I like to write and I like to write about my life and my views on things. I like to try and make these witterings entertaining in the hope that they may be enjoyed by more than just myself.