Smell Ya Later…

I’m for a weekend of recuperation in Apollo Bay

Sick

I’m home from work sick today.  I woke up this morning feeling really good, fresher than I’ve felt in ages and went for a run.  I found a new hill to run up – well same old hill just a different street where the hill is bigger.  I drove up it last night and was like ‘yah! Big hill!’ but wasn’t so cheering about the bigness when I actually ran it today.  Anyway I got to work and started having stomach pains and ickiness so figured it was best to come home.  I have a total freak out about having anything gastro-like at work.

Oh here’s a hint for anyone having trouble getting up to go running of a morning *cough* Andrew… listen to the weather report on the radio.  Since they say afternoon storms every day, I think I have to go get out and get my run in early.

Ouchies

I’ve got the world’s biggest paper cut!  This morning I went for a run and there’s a bridge close to my house with about 50 years of posters built up.  As I ran under it, I scraped my arm on the edge where the posters had all started to curl up – 50 years of hardened serrated edges scratching down my arm!

Peeves

These are some things I really hate:

• People who groom themselves on public transport. Applying a coat of lippy isn’t too bad and I’m always amazed at anyone who can apply mascara on a moving vehicle but beyond that it’s just wrong. This morning I had a girl (who was almost standing completely over another commuter) get our her hair brush and start doing her hair! That is so gross. Other people’s hair totally grosses me out and I don’t want it near me. Last week I had two separate, unconnected people on my tram putting in eye drops! These were adult women, not 16 year olds whipping out the clear eyes so mum doesn’t realise. Really, does anyone have a life so busy they can’t wait until they get home to do their eye drops?
• The trees in my street… they drop these little balls then the balls harden in the sun and are like walking on ball bearings. I have no idea why the council planted them because they are awfully dangerous. I’m just waiting for one of the old ladies in my street to fall on them and break their hip and sue the council for $$$. On the same note, is it normal for councils to not maintain nature strips? I’m sure this is the first neighbourhood I’ve lived in where you have to mow your nature strip yourself. I’m very tempted to run in the council elections next year on account of our local council is arse, but the current member is a young Greek guy with thick wavy hair and I don’t think I can beat him in this area!

That’s all I hate. What I love is getting sent home early on my first day of work and buying new shoes

I walked home from work today – I thought it was around 5 kms and it’s 5.6 so that’s a decent amount of incidental exercise.  Now I just have to get myself to the gym to do some weights.

Sunday

It took me ages to get motivated to go running today – it’d be so much more time efficient if I didn’t procrastinate so much, or maybe not since I cleaned up and did some writing etc while NOT running!

I have a 2 km block I run with a big hill and a 5 km block with no hills (except that Clifton Hill hill which is hardly a hill at all and really doesn’t warrant a suburb putting “hill” in their name.  Damn you snotty Clifton Hill people, you don’t see us calling our suburb Northcote Hill even though we have a BIGGER hill cos we are not wankers).

So I did the 2km block first then the 5 km block.  I did the 5 km in 36 mins which is 3 mins faster than Friday but still woefully slow then I got almost home and decided to do the 2 km block again so I’d be up to a bit over 9 kms (around 9.5 I think).  The run was more a slog than a jog!

I wore my HRM today – I’ve not used it for ages and, when I started running, I realised why.  My heart rate went up to around 180 within the first block!  Because it’s an older model and we have lots of power lines/train lines around here, it spazzs out a lot.  It settled down after that and I stayed around 140-150.  My calories burnt were around 10 per minute which is what I’d guessimate when I’m running so that’s good.

I need to buy fruit and vege but I’m feeling lazy as so think I’ll just go to the organic shop.  It might be more expensive but I really can’t handle the Sunday shoppers at the supermarket.  Then I have to go into our local cafe – one of the staff is leaving and we wrote her a farewell poem.  After that I have to go into the city.  I hate going into the city on weekends – public transport is non-existant and I hate driving into the city and trying to park but I’m getting paid to do a market research thing so I’ll just suck it up.  After that, drinks.

Tomorrow I start the new job.  It’s only a 2 week contract but might go longer.  We’ll see.  I’m not sure what I’m going to wear – I really need to buy an iron!

I’m Proud of Me!

I’ve been sleeping badly lately and didn’t get to sleep until after 1.00 last night.  Around 3.00, I woke up after a horrible nightmare.  Finally fell back to sleep and woke up at 7.40 this morning – I had my boxing class at 8.00.  I was so tempted to just roll over and give it a miss.  I could think of 300 excuses for not doing it but I got dressed and jumped in the car.  I’m proud of me because it would have been so easy to pike.   Now I feel all energy and full of beans, if only I could move my arms!

Busy day today, kinda.  I dicked around all morning so I didn’t get out for my run until lunch time.  Oh my god, I did my normal 5 km block run but, running up through Queens Parade was a nightmare today.  There is like 10 cm of footpath space between the tables on the street and the shops and all these stupid gits would come out of the cafes with their takeaways and stand in the middle of the footpath.  Plus people bowling out of shop doorways without looking!  I nearly had a few collisions – don’t people realise they aren’t the only ones using the street?

Yikes – it took me 39 minutes to run 5 kms.  That’s so not good.  Sure the traffic and the mad pedestrians added some time to it, but my lack of self-pushery didn’t help at all.  Kathryn must try harder.

After I showered and changed, I headed into the city to sign the contract for my new job.  I actually went in early because I wanted to look for some new work clothes.  All the usual shops – Portmans, Susans etc – had a scarcity of business attire it seems.  Everything was very casual and wrong.  And I don’t care how fashionable it is, I’m not wearing those short pants to work — they can make them in whatever tweedy, work-looking fabric they like but they still aren’t work clothes to me.

Got to the contract signing and had to wait around.  The guy I’ve been dealing with was off sick so I had to see someone else.  I asked if he could answer my questions about the job and he said ‘what questions?’ as if I was a fool.  I was like ‘der, well who do I report to, for starters…’  That’s always a handy thing to know on your first day.  I got the basic info out of him but not much else.

Afterwards I wandered through the city and decided to see if I could get a tarot reading done.  I’m a bit in two minds about stuff like that – it can be dodgy as (trust me, I used to work as a phone psychic) but I’ve had readings that are scarily accurate.  Years ago, we went a few times to a tea leaf reader in Tassie who was just spooky and, about 6-7 years ago I had a tarot reading by a woman who told me a lot of stuff.  Not predictive stuff like having a tall, dark stranger come into my life but more putting into words things I felt that I hadn’t even acknowledged to myself.  I left the reading and started crying because it was such a purgative experience.

The reading today wasn’t fantastic but she did say some stuff that was interesting – like I’m a gifted writer *cough, cough* and I should focus on that rather than my other job.  She could see me having success with my novel so I liked that bit of it.  She also said I wanted to move but my housemates aren’t as bad as I think they are – I strongly doubt that (she doesn’t have to live with them) but then I guess I would doubt it.  She said I’d think about moving but would decide against it.  We’ll see.

So then I went shopping.  I dunno why but I ended up buying stuff I didn’t really need – if you control the eating, the need to binge just breaks out somewhere else.  I got some eyeshadow which I need but not at MAC prices and the most heavenly tea from T2 plus this awesome tea infuser that you sit in your cup (not a ball).  I actually did need that because it’s impossible to use an infuser ball with fruit teas – they never close properly.

Then I walked home.  Woohoo, go me.  That’s 5 km run + 5 km (or more) walk today.

OMG tonight I got out my knitting.  I’ve been working on this cardigan out of very expensive angora wool for ages and only had the collar band to do to finish it.  I started picking up stitches then realised something was very wrong – the neck shaping is much bigger on one side than the other!  Oh noes… I don’t think it’s at all fixable unless I knit another front piece!  Not good, not good at all.

So anyway, tomorrow is voting day.  Please, please, please let us have a change of government.  Speaking of, I got a letter today about a workplace agreement.  For starters, who even knew you had workplace agreements for temp jobs.  I did this job for like 2 weeks earlier in the year and someone had to process all this crap.  It totally would have cost more to process it all than I paid in tax for that time.  What a waste of money.

Am I a freak?

Is it just me or are other people like this:

• I never get hungry after I exercise but as soon as I have a shower, I’m ravenous. It doesn’t matter if I jump straight into the shower or if I dick around for say half an hour first, it’s like water is the trigger for my appetite.
• When I’m heating up a frozen meal and it says to pierce the plastic two times, I’ve got to do it three or four. No matter what the instructions say, I rebel. Take that frozen food manufacturers.
• I spend all day trying to psych myself up to taking a controlled approach to eating then end up getting stuck into some triple cream brie with blackberry, fig and balsamic paste! Oops – yeah I know I’m not alone there (and who could resist that combo?)

I finished my contract today – no more eastern suburbs for me! Woohoo! I don’t want to offend anyone who lives there but really the eastern ‘burbs suck the big one. They are full of bad drivers and are much too far away. I’ll no longer waste an hour and half minimum on travelling any more and that makes me so happy.

Right now I have to go tell my housemate to STFU. He has a friend over – I hope to god it’s not a girlfriend because I don’t want any chick that’s desperate enough to go out with a loser like him in my house (he’s the one that stole my food).

PS. My evil thought in yoga tonight – when they say to get up in your own time, what if your own time takes the whole class?  I was having a nice nap before class and didn’t really want to be disturbed!

Busy, busy, busy

I planned to run this morning but it was raining so I went back to bed instead   Then woke up feeling guilty so took my lazy butt to the gym for some hill running practice on the treadie followed by a weights session.

Got home and showered then headed to see my massager.  I must have really worked it on the treadie because she said my legs felt like I’d just ran a race!

After the massage I had some stuff to do in the city.  You know what totally shits me?  When you are in the city and it’s raining and you don’t have a coat and brolly.  There is always some bugger walking along.. tra la la, I’m nice and dry under my brolly so I’ll walk really slowly and take up lots of room so no one can get around me.  Grrr… I hate those people.

I did feel better after I went to Peter Alexander though – got most of my Christmas shopping done, including some nice things for me.  Ruby slippers!  I love my new ruby slippers so much.  I’ve always loved the Wizard of Oz and have  had red glitter shoes for years but these are ruby home slippers.

Then I was supposed to meet friends to go to a movie but it was outside so we  went to Wagamama for dinner then Max Brenner for chocolatey things.  I’ve not been to either place before – now I’m asking myself why!

Oh yeah, and when I met my friend at work, he gave me some lovely lillies and peony roses (he works at a florist).  All up a good day.

Tomorrow I’m going into my old job to finish up some stuff then Friday I have to go sign contract for the new one.

Work

I dunno if I mentioned this last week, but I finished up at my job on Wednesday (or was it Tuesday?  One day last week anyways).  I’ve got to go back to finalise stuff on Thursday then it’s over.  I’d been planning for a nice little vacation, figuring there’d be no work around until after Christmas.

So yesterday during lunch I got a phone call – was I available for work?  Then today they called back.  I’ve got a 2 week contract (possibly more) in the city, starting next week.  That’s probably the most effortless job I’ve ever got (although I probably put in the hard yards at some stage, impressing people at an agency interview… or maybe not, maybe they just need someone, stat).

It’s funny.  When I was waiting around at the beauty parlour the other day between getting my hair dyed and my spray tan, I picked up that book, The Secret, and read it.  I reckon all that stuff about putting positive thoughts out in the universe and declaring what you want etc is bollocks.

This is the Kathryn Theory on life, the universe and everything:  it’s random.  Sometimes you got the mojo, other times you don’t.  And you never know when that mojo fairy is going to come sit on your shoulder.  Think about weight loss – you work hard and do the right thing and you get the results – but sometimes it just all comes together and it’s effortless.  Other times it really is hard work.  It happens with everything: work, love, money…  I don’t believe it comes from our thoughts or what we “put out there”; I do believe sometimes it just happens.  Of course when our actions are aligned with our goals then it seems to come together more often.