I joined a gym.

On Wednesday morning I went to see a guy about a gym.  I liked what the gym had to offer in the way of classes and a special price membership, so I joined! And I’m actually excited about it!

Goodlife is on my way home from the train station so after work tonight I went straight there for a yoga class.  I nearly didn’t because I was tired from a rare full day at work but I’m so glad I did! Mind you, anytime I get to lie on the floor, legs and arms askew, deep breathing to a meditation that feels like sleep, is a good time!! 😂

I have been looking at getting into yoga for ages!! I do a little bit at home but the guided class was amazing. And there were perfect beginner options for me too. A couple of poses I surprised myself with! Others I did well not to collapse in a heap on the floor!  I’m sure I will feel the stretches tomorrow!

Last night I went to a Zumba class. Omg the most fun ever! I’m pretty sure that’s what I’m going to do on Wednesday’s from now on! Most of the steps were familiar so I was able to concentrate on putting them all together instead of just trying to find my feet.  But oh gosh how you forget what seeing yourself in a mirror mid workout does to your eyes… Oh the horror!! It’s amazing how ugly you can look in your fancy new activewear, bouncing all your bounceable bits around!! Hilarious!   

trying to breathe again after zumba

 
 I get a couple of rest days now.  No classes after work tomorrow and nothing I can get to on Saturday.  Plus Mum arrives this weekend! Excited!! I have a Kickstarter session with a personal trainer on Wednesday next week. I’m going to wait to complete that before attempting machines on my own.  I’m feeling pretty good about myself today and that’s a massive step up from my last few blogs. Long may it continue!! 

Easter Sunday

Rise up and shine.

I love the idea of starting fresh. Of being the Phoenix rising from the ashes. I love the Easter story. The dying on the cross just to rise again 3 days later. To make a big change and start again.

I feel like I get that chance every time a depression cloud lifts.  A chance to take charge and be that better person and make those small changes that mean everything to a new way of life.

I have been doing so well with my fresh chances. A new me on the go. I need this cloud to lift! I’m feeling like a failure and that’s not right. My head flicks through things that aren’t my best moments and exaggerates them.  I’m a good person, a good friend and a hardworking person!! I know all this about me.  I’m doing my best to be the best I can be. But that defeatist crap that floats in my mind is doing its best to upset me.

Tomorrow I wake up and I follow my plan.  I need to build the habits that make my life work.  I need to remember to forgive myself every morning for whatever it is that my brain decides I have failed at overnight.  Then I step forward.  Acknowledge the people that challenge my happiness but move around them.  Embrace the people that accept me as I am and help to lift me out of reach of my own worst enemy – myself.

I know I am starting to sound like a broken record on all the depression stuff but it really does help me to get it out.  This blog has saved my nights many a time.  I get it all out and I can sleep.  You guys get to read it and when you like or comment on Facebook it helps me see that it is not all a waste of time.  That my life isn’t a waste of time.  It has been over a year since I have been on the floor in tears at the thought of having to keep living with myself.  This blog has helped keep me afloat.  YOU have kept me afloat.  So with this Easter weekend in mind, I just want to say thank you to all my readers, whether you are my best friend or someone I don’t know, THANK YOU! You give me purpose.  I hope you all know that you are worth something and that if you need your phoenix moment then just do it.  It’s so easy to forget that without you, your life doesn’t exist.  Take care of yourselves.  It’s important.

And thats enough blubbering from me.  Goodnight all and sleep well.  We get to wake up and do it all again tomorrow and isn’t it a blessing?

 

Good Friday

For me this year, Easter is about forgiveness. I guess it always is, but it’s my focus this year.  Not only forgiving those that have hurt me but also forgiving myself.  I have had a rough week personally.  Depression is well cloaked on my shoulders and I’m struggling to shake it off.

I have been waiting for the 6 month work mark for ages. The bank told me I could apply for a loan after 6 months in a casual contract. They should also have told me that they weren’t going to give me anything until I had some kind of credit score in this country.  How I had forgotten about the importance of having a credit score. I really hoped I would be on the home run with my debts this week, bundling them all into a nice little package I can pay off.  You can imagine the devastation that descended on me when I realised no one was going to give me a loan until I had a credit score.  

I do have something up my sleeve now to get that bit sorted but it puts me back more months with sorting my other debts. And then work cancelled my public holiday shift.  Bye bye much needed money for trip to NZ.  I know it’s probably not personal but when I’m being cancelled so regularly it’s really starting to hurt.  I worked hard this week and to be rewarded with a cancelled shift was gutting. Oh well.  That’s the lay of the retail land at the moment.

I’m going to do an MYOB course.  If I can add bookkeeping skills to my resume I have a much higher chance of securing an administration job.  I was going to wait until after my trip home but I think I need to get on to it sooner rather than later. Or at least find out when the next course starts. I have to make it work here.  The improvement in my health is every reason to stay here and make it work. I just need to remember to stay positive.

But back to the forgiveness thing. Ian has been in my mind a lot this last week.  I knew it would happen because my depression seeks him out and rolls around all the hurt in my brain again for me to dwell on. Add him to my general sense of failure at the moment and I’m in murky waters.  I couldn’t handle it today so I took Daisy to the park. I thought about going to a church service but I really just needed to sit in the sun and reflect for a while.  Daisy happily ran around while I sat on a park bench and worked on forgiving myself.  I tried not to fight with myself and just to let things go.  After half an hour of sun and watching daisy have the time of her life, I started to feel better.  That cloak of depression is still sitting there but it feels less restricting.  I can move forward again.

I know this post is a bit disjointed but it’s how I am at the moment.  Hopefully a big sleep and day shopping with a friend tomorrow will help.  I need my structure back.  Cmon structure!

Xx

  

The things we find

  
This picture appeared on my Facebook feed today and it made me laugh. “That’s so true!” I thought to myself… Then stopped laughing and realised this is exactly how I’m feeling at the moment.  You would think I would know the signs by now, but depression is a sneaky bitch.  And it sneaks in so quickly! 

It wasn’t that long ago I was making daily and weekly goals and sticking to them. I was happy and positive that things were good! Then crash! I’m grumpy, eating crap, avoiding exercise, hiding in my room, stressed, tired all the time… Oh welcome back black dog of doom.

No wonder I started complaining again. I’m all about “poor me” too. And it’s funny because things outside of my head are actually going ok! I have enough work in the next month to survive, I have fun friends that allow me to harass them in and out of work, I have things to look forward to, and I’m healthy! But my mind has cranked up the hamster wheel and set me spinning again.

At least now that I can acknowledge that my head is in a bad space, I can work to get out of it.  Do little things to make myself feel better.  I started tonight by cleaning up the kitchen and emptying the dishwasher.  Seems like a small thing but it is something I haven’t done for a couple of weeks.  My room looks like a bomb hit it so my alarm is set early tomorrow to get up and tidy it, to re-establish order where there is chaos.  Small thing but significant.  Sunday’s job is to do my budget for the fortnight so I’m not stuck as short as I am this fortnight.  Small things to force back the good habits that I have abandoned so quickly recently. 

It’s good to have small achievable goals on hand.  The feeling of accomplishment after ticking each one off is worth its weight in gold.  If I can clean my room tomorrow I can do other things as well.  Training myself in this thinking is hard, but so worth the effort.   

Home

As much as I love my new life here in the land of Oz, great huge waves of homesickness still crash over me when I least expect it. I’m planning a trip to Queenstown in July and the more I think about it the more I miss my people!!  Dunedin is only a few hours from Queenstown and I miss my best friend and her adorable boys so much that I just want to go see them! But it all depends on finances. Hopefully work will pick up now that school holidays are nearly upon us and I can think of something. Mum is coming over to visit in a couple of weeks and I’m looking forward to catching up. 

I am also looking forward to Easter next weekend and a perfectly reasonable excuse to stuff my face with chocolate! I might even find a Church for Mass on Good Friday. I always loved Good Friday service and it might just give me the time and place I need to reflect on my journey so far and direct where I’m heading next.  I feel unbalanced at the moment and would really like to have my equilibrium restored. 

But for now I’m going to snuggle down with my favourite dog and attempt sleep. I have a big day tomorrow.  Xx

 

Cranky Beast

One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone takes it in their heads to get mad at me or hurt by something I have said/done and then doesn’t say anything to me about it, just grumps at me all day with no obvious motive!! I know that when I’m in a playful mood I can run my mouth. It often operates faster than my brain.  But I never ever mean to cause hurt or anger in anyone. I do my very best to make sure I am a kind person and if I accidentally overstep a mark you have drawn in the sand, then tell me!! I’m not a mind reader. 

Rant done.

Obviously you can see why this post is called what it is. I think I’m just tired. I have worked two 10 hour days in a row and that’s a lot considering I barely worked 20 hours in my last fortnight.  I miss the routine of going to work every day! I have tomorrow off and then back to the office on Thursday.  Hopefully I will have shaken the cranky beast that has settled on my shoulders by then.  If nothing else for the sake of my jaw!! Clenching my teeth is not the best way to get through a day and I can’t afford the dentist just yet!!

Ugh I don’t enjoy this feeling.  I’m not an angry person. A sad person, yes. I’m definitely used to being that person. I have become rather fond of my happy person lately though and it sucks when what I like to think of as “the ancient me” sneaks back in to take over my brain. I think I will snuggle down with Daisy, do my sleep meditation, and (happy person willing) kick the ancient me out of my head while I sleep. Tomorrow I need to set my daily, weekly and monthly goals, and I need my happy person on board for that.

Wish me luck xx

Possible complaining ahead

I held off blogging last night because all I could feel in my fingers was complaints.  I have changed my thinking so much over the last year that I really didn’t want to launch into a poor me post full of bitching and complaining and “why me?” And “it’s so unfair”.  So I slept on it.  But it might happen a little in this post… Just because I haven’t completely shaken the itchy fingers feeling.

Luckily today was Sunday, so already my favourite day of the week.  I did my usual routine of sleep in and walk Daisy, and then spent a couple of hours back in Year 9 English.  I know I’m struggling with the work stuff right now but I am glad my school days are behind me!! Although I do appreciate the workout it gives my brain.  It’s amazing just how much you forget you know.  

I still have heard nothing from any of the jobs I have been applying for. It’s a lot disheartening, as I’m sure those of you in the same boat are all too familiar with, but I’m fighting hard to stay positive.  I have had hours at Myer this week and have a few days next week, so that always helps with motivation.  I know I am struggling to maintain my awesome attitude though. I see it in the junk food I have been finding excuses to eat, the exercise I have been avoiding, and the spiralling of thoughts back down the rabbit hole. I definitely need a refocus day. A day to set my weekly and monthly goals again and focus on them. Obviously today is not that day.  I’m too busy sulking about life.  I’m picking that a good nights sleep followed by a hard day at work tomorrow will help sort my head out.  I felt better after my walk with Daisy today, as I always do.  Funny how exercise is the one thing guaranteed to make me feel better and the first thing I avoid doing!  Anyone else as good at life as I appear to be?! 😂🙄

I think I’ll go try and sleep this mood off now…  Night all xx

Sleepless in…

It seems that I am only allowed 2 awesome nights sleep in a row. Sigh. I thought I was on a roll! Alas, it’s not to be.

My body is tired. I walked Daisy for an hour and a half today.  We went to Petbarn and got her a new collar, some deodorising spray for her coat, bright pink poo bags, and some treats.  Then we went over to Harbour Town and sat around for a while.  That dog really loves people watching!! And people interacting! She was petted by so many people today as we lazed around Harbour Town.  She was in doggy heaven!

My eyes are definitely tired. I’m squinting at the screen writing this and I had to put my book down earlier because I couldn’t keep reading.  Not even my glasses helped.

It’s my brain that’s letting me down.  I’m sure I can hear it laughing at me, taunting me with childish chants of “ha ha no sleep for you”. Ugh I wish it had an off switch. Daisy is passed out next to me not even moving.  She is too tired for her usual active dream life.  I wish I could fall asleep as easily as she does! 

 

someone has her eye on my ice cream…

  

…and she was too cute to refuse!

  

new bling for Daisy! new collar and cute initial!

 

Results!

Went and visited my doctor again this afternoon for my blood test results. Excellent news! My cholesterol has lowered from 7.4 to 6.6!! I don’t need to be tested again for 6 months and I just have to keep eating the foods that help lower cholesterol, exercise 30 minutes a day, and enjoy life!! YAY!!!!

Sunday Funday

  
Sunday is very quickly becoming one of my favourite days of the week.  I think I let myself relax on Sunday’s and my mind takes the day off from worrying about the rest of my life.  Today I enjoyed a long lazy sleep in, late breakfast, and my book.  After I cleaned my room and showered I took Daisy out for her walk.

We walked up to Discovery Park again and she headed straight for the pond she found on our last visit. She was so happy to be swimming! She swam for nearly half an hour.  She also weeded the pond by pulling out all of the sticks and lumps of weed floating in it. She didn’t quite know how to deal with the lily pads though.  She tried to weed them but they stuck fast and when she tried to walk on them she sank hehe. It was very entertaining watching her! 

  
When we got back home she crashed and slept for an hour. I have been doing well with my job applications. I’m up to about 10 for the week so I’m happy with that!  I have some saved up to do tomorrow night as I got distracted watching the people vs OJ Simpson on TV.  I definitely haven’t met my exercise goals this week but my intake of water has improved! I got lucky and have been called in to work tomorrow so that will get my body moving and my water drinking up! I’m also seeing my doctor after work for my last blood test results.  Hopefully there is an improvement!

Right I should attempt sleep. It’s raining so maybe some darkness and the cool breeze through my window will aid in falling asleep quickly! I can only hope…