Early morning thoughts.

Had a good run yesterday. 9kms along the river with perfect conditions - not too hot, good tunes, and a well behaved dog. Exactly the kind of run that makes you happy to be alive. 

Work is stressful at the moment, as is life. One month out from the wedding and I'm travelling for work at least once a week is a little too much. I currently have insomnia and woke up at 5am today thinking about everything I need to be doing a should be doing. It's a vicious cycle. 

Something that is really frustrating me at the moment is the fact I am dwelling on the negative, the little things that are really inconsequential. Overall, life is pretty damn sweet, and if things like stupid public transport tickets and email at work being down are the worst things going on in life to worry about, then I've got it pretty damn good. I KNOW this, and I KNOW that my stupid first world problems are just that. But still. It's the little things that tend to make and break me, and a lot of little things are building up.

Does this happen to anyone else? What is the best way to stop worrying about the stupid things?

Sunny Sunday

What a weekend! Friday night silliness dancing to daggy hits with old and new colleagues and random friends (Savage Garden? Don't mind if I do!), cheese for dinner (proof that there is a God), long sleep ins, even longer runs and cooking from scratch...great weekend!

This week I started my 100 push ups challenge. Initially I started doing them on my knees girly style, but when it came time to do the first bunch I felt bad and thought I should start it properly doing proper push-ups. But I only made seven. Seven?!? Not cool. So I started from there and did the challenge the first night, and then later some chin-up preps at the local park on the walk with the dog.

Despite setting a reminder, the next work out didn't really happen. In my defense, I had work functions on and things...and, you know, I'm lame. So today, I started again! And it was good. Although I also realised that I have an app on my phone to do exactly that, so I did a double workout to make up for being crap this week.

I also went for a beautiful 20km run with the dog, off lead the entire time. It was a gorgeous spring day and we ran along a local river and kept on going. It started getting wilder and wilder, which is phenomenal since we were only 15-20kms away from the city. Cookie cooperated well and all in all, life was good. I keep on meaning to take photos of my runs but my Cardio Trainer app doesn't allow photos - I'd need to stop the run to take it and start again. Which I'm not too cool with.

One of the highlights from the weekend was also this guy in someone's front yard:



This yard also had a zoo of other (more traditional) gnomes, and a 'cantankerous cat' who was actually quite lovely. A bit more interesting than your standard grass and flowers set-up hey?

The week that was.

Well, it's been a crazy week. Mainly for good reasons.

We had our work conference this week, which I attended for the first time. It was great, and I learnt a lot and networked a lot, but I still have a lot more networking to do and a lot more 'stuff' to figure out in relation to the industry - being a city girl and getting my head around agriculture and rural Victoria does take time. But I'm getting a crash course in the next few weeks with a heap of conferences to attend, including the one in WA, so I'm sure I'll be a pro in no time!

It was Winter Solstice this week, the shortest day of the year and longest night. The great thing about Yule is that even though it's just the beginning of winter, from here on in the days will get longer and the nights shorter. Woohoo! I feel like I haven't really connected with my roots for a while, so doing something for it this year was good (even though I only really did stuff last night). The official Solstice was celebrated with lots of mulled wine (possibly to much for a Tuesday, but such is life) and warming, hearty foods such as black bean enchiladas.

This week I've learn that black beans, whilst awesome, take ages to cook. After getting ridiculously excited at getting black beans from the Queen Vic Market (Black Beans. In Melbourne!), I found out they need to soak for a day. And then be boiled/cooked for about another two hours. So the black bean enchiladas were epic. But totally worth it. See?





Nom!



Yesterday Dan and I took the dog for a walk along the river for just over 12 kms. It was a gorgeous sunny day in Melbourne, and my first bit of exercise since hurting my rib. So it was spectacular! We went further than we expected and it was just really nice. And today I took the dog to the usual part, and we had a great time and met a heap of other dogs (and owners), and it was just really nice. All in all, it was a really nice and chilled weekend.  And my rib is hurting less and less! I reckon with luck I'll be able to compete in the half marathon. And Goddamn if I do I am going to finish it!!

This is the dog I've been talking about, a little knackered after her walks. And yes, she is in a cat bed. The bed the cats rejected. Sigh.