for a trip to a theme park!

This week at My Home Truths we are choosing our own confession...

So I am confessing that when it comes to theme park rides I am a big 'ol scardy cat!!!!

Over the weekend my sister and I took advantage of a Shopper-a-Docket deal where you got 2 for the price of 1 tickets to Dreamworld on the Gold Coast (seriously....I would never pay full price! Way too expensive I reckon!)

We looked on in horror as brave little souls lined up to ride The Tower of Terror and other such heart-dropping in your chest rides! NO THANK YOU! I can not think of anything worse than being flung into the air, hung upside down, shot up into space (ok maybe not space but you get the idea!), pushed/pulled/jerked at the speed of light (ok again another slight over-exaggeration) all in the name of "fun".

A train ride is a little more my speed!

Luckily for us there is a lot more to do at Dreamworld than risk certain death go on scary rides! We definitely both loved watching the Cub College Tiger Show on Tiger Island, watching the Crocodile's get fed, strolling through the animal parks and we braved a Train Ride, the Rapids ride and the Log ride, taking any opportunity to get a little wet on a scorching Autumn Day! We were a little sad the Big Brother House was closed - my sister is a big fan!

These big cats are amazing! As are their keepers!

So fess up....are you a theme park ride lover or avoider??
If you've got something you've always wanted to confess...now's your chance!
Head over to the all new looking My Home Truths and get it off your chest!
I also link up each Monday with One Mother Hen! Head over to her blog for what looks like an amazing cheesecake recipe!

for Wordless Wardrobe Wednesday!

Am linking up so late this Wednesday but am taking the view that better to be late than never!

I am linking up with the lovely ladies at My Little Drummer Boys and Twinkle in the Eye for Wordless Wednesday, but this week I am also linking up with Kimba Likes for Wardrobe Wednesday, making my post Wordless Wardrobe Wednesday....!!! (despite the words I just had to use to explain this!)..

Here's what I wore from my wardrobe today....

Not the most attractive photo! SO hard to take full length selfies!!

for a bootcamp update!

We have just entered week 6 of 8 of our bootcamp and I am enjoying it so much! When I looked back I realised that I haven't done an update since Week 1!

I spoke then about the things that I was going to find a bit of a challenge but seem to be managing them ok. I thought it was going to be a big struggle training so late in the afternoon (we train from 6pm-7pm), as I have always considered myself a "sit-on-the-couch-and-don't-get-up" kinda girl in the afternoons but work has been so busy that I pretty much get home in time to just change and run out the door again, so haven't had time to think about not going.

There's 18 girls in our group, however for a variety of reasons I don't think we've had a session with the full 18 of us, I guess we probably usually average about 10 girls. I will admit to missing the odd session due to other commitments as well - sometimes things just happen.

We have four sessions a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday nights from 6-7pm and Saturday mornings 6am-7am. We do a wide variety of things which I love, you turn up not really knowing what is in store. I think this is great so that you don't get bored by it. We do a fair bit of boxing but I really enjoy that so I don't mind. I think it's a great whole body workout and have definitely noticed a change in my arms (I not quite ready to claim "guns" status, but am pretty close!).

Saturday mornings are usually a little different from the usual training sessions. Saturday just gone we ran the 10km track from the recent Peak2Park event in Toowoomba (a 'fun run' held each year to raise money for different local charities). I was stoked when I finished with a time under an hour!

Us after our run! So damn proud of all the girls!

The halfway point of bootcamp came at a very emotional time for me. My eating had really gone by the wayside for a few days so I wasn't really looking forward to what the scales and measuring had to say. The scales show a loss of 1.2kg (not great after 4 weeks but better than nothing.. or worse still..a gain) and measurements a loss of 9.8cm from various parts of my body, my waist being the most which is a little exciting! It seems that I may have had a slight increase in the measurements of my thighs, but I am trying to tell myself it's because I am building muscle... (That would be right wouldn't it???)

Two other things that I am trying at the moment to improve my overall health and well-being are:

1. Oil Pulling 

what the..? you may ask! So did I when my sister mentioned it. She saw an article shared on Facebook and was intrigued. So was I, so I turned to my trusty Google and Pinterest and came across a plethora of articles discuss this technique. One of the main ones I read was from a blog written by The Wellness Warrior. Basically the idea is that first thing in the morning you put a tablespoon of Coconut Oil in your mouth and swish it around for 20 mins. The oil pulling has a detoxifying effect on your mouth and rids it of toxins and bacterias. I am not claiming to be any type of expert but if you click on the link above you can read more about it. I have only just started and can certainly report that my teeth feel a lot cleaner, not sure they are whiter but will continue to do it and see what happens. I have noticed a few other changes in myself that are listed as benefits of oil pulling but as I am trying a few different things it's hard to know which one is having the effect or if it's a combination of a number of healthy changes.


2. Green Tea Extract

 

This is something that our trainer has told us about. I am a bit fan of green tea and usually try and have a cup every morning but this takes it to a whole new level! Each sachet claims to be the equivalent of 20 cups of green tea which, as we know is full of antioxidants and other healthy goodness! The website claims that the product may increase metabolism, increase your energy levels, detox the liver and kidney and is full of trace minerals and vitamins C & D. It is also sugar free, gluten free and diabetic friendly - gotta be happy with that! It comes in different flavours and I bought the 'starter pack' which contains 30 sachets in total - 10 Original, 10 Raspberry and 10 Tropical Flavours. Again I have only been on it for a few days so time will tell..

Overall I have been happy with my progress with the bootcamp. There have been times that I have slipped up with my diet but for the most part it has been good. I am definitely a sucker for chocolate. It is my weakness.... I can forgo sweets, cakes, biscuits all of that, but put some chocolate in front of me and I can't resist.... I wonder what my progress would be like if I could but then we need to have some pleasures in life!

Linking up with Essentially Jess for IBOT!!!

to belong..

This week at My Home Truths for I must confess, Kirsty has given us the prompt...

Which actor would you like to be ” you” in the movie of your life – 

what would you call it?

So naturally this got me thinking about my life and struggling to come up with a person to play me, let alone a title.. "Would anyone even want to watch a movie of my life!?"

Tonight (Sunday night - my usual 'blogging night') I was catching up on some blog reading and suddenly it dawned on me.....

I must confess.... I don't know where I belong...

Image Source

 (The teacher in me really really wishes those were capital I's!)

The blogger was talking about being a local in their small town and I realised, I am not a 'local' anywhere. I was born in a small town in Central QLD, leaving there when I was 9 months old and moving to a sheep farm between Inglewood and Stanthorpe on the Darling Downs. I went off to boarding school for all of my High School years.

Once I finished High School I moved straight to Toowoomba for University, 4 years later I was a teacher and took my first posting in Normanton in the Gulf of Carpentaria. From then until now, 13 years later, I have pretty much transferred with work every 3 years...

Around the time I moved to Normanton, my folks left the farm. It was a bizarre feeling. I felt like I hadn't lived on the farm for so long but it was still 'home'..

I have moved back to Toowomba twice in the last 13 years but I am not sure this is 'home' either. I certainly don't consider myself a local. It's not that it's not a nice town, but I suppose it's a safe town for me. It's like my little security blanket. I know it here, I have friends here, I have family here, but I am not sure here is where I want to be forever. I don't know why, can't put a reason on it, but just can't help but wonder if there isn't something more...

I must confess I have never really felt settled anywhere, I feel like I am always looking for the next place to move to, the next job, the next school... hoping that in the next town things will be different, work will be better, I will meet someone...

Each of the places I have lived has given me some wonderful adventures, some wonderful memories, some not so wonderful memories and everything in between. Some of my best and closest friends are from these places and for that reason they will all hold a special place in my heart, but none of them made me feel the burning desire to stay become a local. There is that old saying Home is where the heart is.. well that doesn't make things any easier as I feel like I have left a little piece of my heart in every place that I have lived.

I suppose I probably have never really given myself enough time in each of these places, but looking back the decision to leave each time seemed right at the time. So I just continue to live where I live and do what I do, for the most part life goes by as if on auto pilot, with the mind constantly wondering 'what is next?'.... When people would ask me where I wanted to live, where I saw myself living in 5 years time, I would joke and say "wherever my husband is!" but to be honest I am really not sure.

So tomorrow is another day and I'll get up and do what I do every day and wait for inspiration to hit and until it does I will  (hopefully) have some more adventures.

Image Source - edited using Pic Monkey

A map of QLD for those not sure where these places are that I speak of...

The stars obviously indicating some of the places I have lived..

How about you? Do you feel like you are where you belong? Are you a 'local'?

to outsource..

Confession time again.....

If you could outsource any part of your life, what would it be?

oh the mind boggled...

I think I have settled on..housework! I know I am a single person who lives alone but I really really despise housework.

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Oh so true! Also for the reason listed above, I can't quite justify getting a cleaning lady. Now it's not just the cleaning that I despise, in fact, that's not so bad as, around here, it really doesn't need to be done every weekend. I also hate doing the laundry, it seems like such a monotonous task that is just constantly repeated, wash, hang, fold, put away, wear, repeat... And throw in there iron and man it's annoying! There are days where I deliberately avoid wearing certain items because they require ironing and that requires getting the iron board out of the cupboard...*yawn*... Boring! Could think of a million other things I'd rather be doing!

I think it comes down to my whinging about never having enough time so when I do have some the last thing I feel like doing is cleaning. I am the sort of person that walks in and drops whatever is in my hands on the kitchen table or on my office desk. It is a bad habit that I am trying to break! I am the sort of person that does more cleaning in the 10 minutes prior to a visitor arriving than I do all week!

Recently a friend of mine became a Norwex consultant and I got roped into having a party offered to host a party after attending her launch party. She was an awesome salesperson and I ended up purchasing more than I thought I would, all with the promise of making my life so much easier and cleaning quicker (and better for the environment! Bonus!), But a few weeks on I am yet to use a lot of the products and am still trying to convince her to come be my cleaning lady and use my place as a 'model home' for her products! lol...

So while I could 'outsource' this part of my life, at this stage in my life, I think it's a bit of a waste of money!

What about you? Are you a housework lover or hater? What part of your life would you outsource?

Head on over to My Home Truths to link up your confession

to stop the hurting..

I don't really know why, I can't really explain it, but ever since I heard the tragic news over the weekend of Charlotte Dawson's passing I felt the urge to write about it.

I, obviously, didn't know Charlotte personally, I barely even knew much about her at all. I knew she was the tall skinny ex-model with beautiful hair and a lovely smile who would pop up on Kochie's Angels and other such panels from time to time to discuss all manner of things. I knew she'd been on Australia's Next Top Model or whatever show it was but I never watched it. But, unless you have been living under a rock these past few years, I think everyone knew of her battle with Depression and the so-called Twitter Trolls who harassed her online, I watched the interview with her on 60 minutes. I am not going to dwell on what they said as I don't want to give them any 'air time' so to speak, but I cannot believe the horrible nasty things people would say about this woman that they did not even know.

I think I was sad for 2 main reasons when I heard the news. The first obviously being the tragedy that is suicide. No one will ever really know what was happening in those moments leading up to her death, if it could have been prevented, whether she was struggling or had made her peace, but the fact that it obviously got to the point where she saw no other way out brings a lump to my throat that I can't even explain. The other thing that upset and disturbed me was when I read an article about her passing and a close friend had said 'alarm bells started ringing when she had not posted anything on Twitter for 19 hours'..... Really...??? This saddens me... I'm really not sure what this says about our society in general... Are we really that disconnected from 'real life' that the only way people will worry about us is when we haven't 'tweeted' or updated our status in a while....

She has been dubbed an Ambassador for Anit-Bullying after the work she has done recently on trying to stop all this online bullying that seems to be pretty rampant at the moment and I hope that if anything good can come out of this tragedy, it's that people think twice before hitting that 'send', 'update' or 'tweet' button. I see all too much of the effects all this has on students at my school every day. Unfortunately whilst there are cowards in this world hiding behind a computer screen and a keyboard who never seem to be held accountable for their actions, we will never completely stamp it out.

I feel sad that she was brave enough to stand up and talk about Mental Illness, and in particularly depression, and try and smash the stigma, but at the same time be shot down and ridiculed for it. I can't even pretend to know what her thoughts might have been that night but I am guessing it all just got a little too much to handle. As I kept hearing people reporting on the story over the weekend say, hopefully she has found the peace she so desperately craved. RIP Charlotte..

Image Source

Linking up with Essentially Jess for IBOT..

to discuss blog names!

This weeks confession topic from Kirsty at My Home Truths....

If you could do it all over again, what would your blog name be and why?

To be honest... I wouldn't have a clue!

My blog title is something I have talked about from time to time over the past year.

It surprisingly didn't take me long to come up with the title for my blog and if you've been with me from the start you'll know I started my blog around the same time I started the 12wbt. I had made the decision that it was 'time' I started to focus on myself and do something for me. I guess the full title of my blog is really "It's time for me"...

I had actually thought about blogging for some time. I do like to write, some times I used to think that I may actually have some stories that might be worth sharing but never really had the courage to do it. 

Before I actually started this blog, I used to think that if I did have a blog I would blog about the ups and downs of being a single girl in this day and age, a kind of Carrie Bradshawesq type blog and the title would be something witty about being single and proud and you having to be awesome to change that, but really titles more along the lines of desperate and dateless were jumping to mind! Because lets be honest... my singe life is really not that exciting!

I am really happy with my title and I like that it allows me to continue it in the title of each post and I really wouldn't change it..

What about you? Do you like your blog title? Have you considered changing it? If so, what to? Or more importantly do you like the title of my blog?? (LOL...)