GeoNerds On The Loose

Some years ago I learned about geocaching - which is basically a nerdy "sport" which means,"finding stuff via GPS," and I thought it would make a great family activity. At the time I did a bit of research into it and what was involved, but the website itself was so confusing that I dismissed the idea as too nerdy for us (which, given our nerd factor is pretty high, is saying something.) Some new friends recently came into our lives, and mentioned in passing that they are into geocaching...and so, the emzee family got sucked right into that world along with them.

Yes, geocaching. *sigh* It all seemed like so much fun! And healthy! And something smart people would do! Like a real life treasure hunt! Yippee! Let's all run into the woods with GPS in hand!

Beware of Muggles! (Yep. Non-cachers who are around the places where you are looking are referred to as Muggles. It's just that cool of a sport. Sorry, "sport.")

We've now done it 3-4 times and the good news is, it actually can be a lot of fun. It certainly meets my aims of having some family time spent together outdoors, giving us something all ages can have an interest in, and helping us discover bits of Melbourne we've never seen before. From an exercise point of view it's also good as it gets all of us moving around and being active rather than being weekend couch sloths (although we still manage a bit of that...come on now, people. I'm fabulous but not entirely virtuous.) 

Of course there is one small part of our new found nerd activity which I can't stand. You see, in all my enthusiam for a new activity which combined fun, fitness and nerdiness...I'd forgotten just how competetive and goal-oriented I am. This of course means that if we go looking for a cache and can't find it...well, I'm none too impressed. In fact it irritates the HELL out of me if we can't find what we're looking for, and especially if the logs say someone has found it the day before, or if several previous logs say it's an, "easy find." Sure, yeah, easy for YOU, you clever geo-nerd shmucks.

Even more irritating about not finding something is the parental need to be all up-beat and pretend like I don't care that we haven't found it and that it's about winning. What utter bullshit that is. It's TOTALLY about the finding of stuff, for cripes' sake it's not called "geolooking!" I find myself saying all the cliches of, "It's all about getting there, not about the reward," and "We can come back and give it another go another time," and, "Let's just keeping looking a little longer, maybe we missed it," and "Come on, kiddos,this is meant to be FUN!" You get the idea. I hate the idea of finishing an afternoon of searching having not found something (oh, the crushing disappointment!) and so I have been known to gee everyone up into finding "just one more before it gets dark," in the vain hope that the next one will practically have a sign on it which says, "I'M RIGHT HERE!!!"

Geocaching. It's meant to be a fun, family, nerdy, recreational activity - not a competetive, irritating, testing my parenting skills sort of thing. Shit. I think I missed the memo on that one.

Kindness or Complacency

The last 9 months or so have been pretty crappy for me. Various dramas with family, health, business and life have conspired to give me some very challenging months. Throughout all of it, I've managed to maintain my weight by maintaining my fitness -which means I've been eating pretty terribly, but exercising plenty - so the end result is that I've maintained the status quo on the scales. While I'm none too proud of the almost daily Slurpee-and-meat-pie habit, I am immensely proud that I've kept things in balance enough that I'm not sitting here all these months later crying into my giant jar of Nutella.

The last few weeks, I've not been exercising as much as I'd like to be - still gym going as usual but not getting in any of my usual additional activities.  I haven't beat myself up about it too much because frankly, I'm not in such a happy place and on some mornings, I've just needed the sleep more than I needed the 30 minutes of cardio.  On quite a few occassions I've made the choice to just be kind to myself and have that lie in. In part it's because it has been such a rough few months, and in part because I am by far harsher on myself than anyone else is and (along with my word of the year) I'm working on celebrating my wins rather than berating myself for my losses. I've chosen kindness, and I'd venture to say that I'm at least a little bit better off for it.

Here's the question though - at what point (if any) does being kind to oneself actually morph into letting oneself become complacent? Suppose I let myself have that lie in a couple of times a week. I'm tired, I'm stressed, life is hard, I deserve it, yadda yadda. But then - that's a couple of times a week when I'm not getting any exercise and I'm not doing myself any favours on the health front. Instead of being kind to myself, I'm letting that kindness be an excuse for not getting enough exercise. Or not eating better (I'm so stressed, I will totally feel better if I eat that chocolate...). You get the idea. You can use "being kind to yourself" as a justification for almost any behaviour, can't you? Buying a new pair of shoes more often than you can afford, drinking a few extra bottles, delaying the "boring but important" paperwork on your desk. Whatever. It's just so easy to say, "I deserve this," isn't it?

Hmmm. I'm pretty certain I've not reached that stage (and that I'm thinking about it implies I probably never will...) but it's an interesting idea. Modern life being what it is, we're often told we should pamper ourselves, not work so hard, let the house be messy, whatever... but I'm not entirely convinced that we are not in fact, on some level anyway, killing ourselves with all that kindness.

The Story Of Beautiful Tropical Helluatu

I was going to write a really long whingy post about our experiences on our recent vacation, but I decided that there was no point in dredging it all up again. Besides, I had a mighty good time doing that on Trip Advisor, so at the very least I got it all out of my system. Plus, DH and I are immensely loved and blessed to have even been able to go on that vacation in the first place, and I am nothing if not grateful for the experience. First, because it meant that DH and I did in fact get the opportunity to do nothing for several days - which as you will recall was the whole point of the exercise. We really did spend days and days doing very little. The suitcase we packed with just our books and reading materials was something like 8 kilos in weight and we managed to get through all of it with no trouble (I finished 3 novels in a single day.)  The second reason I'm grateful is because it's given me some wonderful stories to share with friends, a trip I'm not likely to forget anytime soon, and yet another experience which I can look back on and laugh about. Life is about experiences - both good and bad - and this trip was absolutely an experience. It wasn't all bad, it really wasn't...and I've come away with two vital life lessons. One, never travel without anti-bacterial wipes. Two, just because you have run away from home, it does not mean that where you go it will be all rainbows and running water.

Above all, I love that my life is one colourful, entertaining story. Okay, yeah, so the pontoon sank, DH got sick, the taps fell off the sinks, the humidity was horrid, and the food was pretty average...but imagine what a boring blog entry it might have been if it was in fact all rainbows and running water?!

I might have to run away from home more often just because it makes for a good story.

Home

I love to travel.

I love everything about it. Getting new clothes, buying lollies at the last minute, picking up $35 worth of trashy magazines at the airport, not sleeping well the night before, filling in the little green departure cards (why are they always green?)...I just love everything about travel. Even airplane food with it's cute compartments and itty bitty sachets of salt.

What I love most about travel - is coming home to my own bed and especially my own shower.

Never was this more true than after a week of being stuck on a tropical island which has no running water for 3 days.

Oh, yes. There is a reason why I now lovingly refer to it as "our week in Helluatu."

Not the vacation I dreamed about...but definitely the vacation worth blogging about.

More soon.

Some People Are Just Jerks

My company recently hosted a cake decorator from another country. I invited him to come and teach some courses for us and this involved an enormous amount of logistical planning, effort and money over about 18 months. It's a very, very, vvveeerrryyyy long story but suffice it to say that he managed to take those 18 months worth of work, effort, love and good will and destroy it in about 20 minutes of verbally abusing me. In the aftermath of his destructive, unprofessional and entirely uncalled for 20 minutes, I found myself talking to DH and on the phone and asking him, "What on earth did I do to deserve this?" The answer: "Not a damn thing. Some people are just jerks." (I suspect his answer was based on more than the 20 minutes. It had been a very long three weeks...)

From my point of view, I'd done everything I could to make his experience here - with me, with my business, within the city - as good as it could possibly be.  No matter how many times I went over it in my head, I could not work out what I could have done which might have made his trip here any better for him. In fact, he and his wife told me repeatedly what an amazing job I did, how they were amazed at my organisation of it all, and how if he decided to teach again the only country he would consider coming back to is Australia...and yet a mere few days later, I'm listening to this man tell me I'm selfish, judgemental, made him feel bad for two days, care only about myself and my feelings... and don't give a shit about anyone else. Funny, that. Because there I was thinking all I gave a shit about for the past three weeks was him and his wife.

Makes you shake your head, doesn't it?

So here's the backstory. I invited them to a BBQ at my home. First, to spend some non-work time with them, and also to give them the chance to say goodbye to me, my family, and my employees. Because of a number of different things (including them telling me it was 'not BBQ weather'), I asked if we could change the event to the following evening, and they flat out refused. Why? Because he and his wife wanted 'couple time.' Never mind that they were leaving here and heading off on a 3 day 'couple time' vacation, or that I was just asking for a few hours of their time (when I hadn't asked for any until then), or that they wanted the chance to say goodbye to everyone as well, or that (according to them) this was a work trip and they had had no time alone (really? I counted 10 working days out of 21 spent here in Melbourne.) For whatever reason, the decision had been made and they would not attend the event - an event held especially for them. Okay. I don't understand it, but *shrug*, their loss. There were 15 of us keen to have dinner, and 2 of them - so we decided just to have the BBQ anyway. They then spent the better part a good day texting and emailing me and asking me if I was angry with them.


Oh, dear reader, I'm guessing you know the answer to this, don't you? You who may not even know me in real life know that I generally can't be bothered with an emotion as pointless as anger, and that if someone needs to ask a question like that in the first place...well, chances are they already know me well enough to work out the answer anyway.

Here's a cheat sheet to help just in case:

Your first clue - that someone needed to repeatedly ASK me if I'm angry means they already know the answer, doesn't it? Keep asking and eventually you're going to hear a truth which you'd rather not hear. Second clue - I actually finally broke down and admitted that yes, I was disappointed that they  didn't show up to dinner but that by then I was well past caring about it. Their response was to blame me for cancelling the event. Third clue - I've worked my ass off for them, I PAID for them to be here, and my biggest crime was asking them to move dinner to another night.  Fourth clue - they felt bad about not coming. I didn't magically put that emotion onto them. They felt bad because they TOTALLY KNEW they did the wrong thing and that they should have come to the BBQ.
 
So - my changing the night of dinner was the reason for the rant in the car. 18 MONTHS of hard work and he made it all disappear in 20 minutes. Sure, intellectually I know I did not deserve the verbal abuse. I even know that the rant was because, in his heart of hearts, he knew he should have been at that dinner. My admitting I was disappointed in their lack of attendance probably only added fuel to the fire.

What I can't fathom is how this man thought his actions were justifiable - that he thinks it's okay in a professional relationship to spout abuse like that is just totally beyond me. Needless to say, it's taken me several days to exhale from all of this. It's really, really unpleasant to have a grown man shouting at you. A little scary, too - considering I was in peak hour traffic on the freeway and all I could think about was finding a place to pull over and kick his ass to the curb. (I didn't do it in the end. *I* was going to walk away with my integrity intact even if it meant I had a heart attack in the damn car.)

So where does this leave me now? You remember I said that I lived through this experience and learned a heap of lessons? Without doubt, the single best lesson this thin-skinned, emotional woman learned is this: some people are just jerks.

Wordy Time Of Year

Two years ago I stumbled across the concept of picking a Word of The Year - the word which would serve as your internal reminder of what you were working towards, the word which could serve as inspiration if you ever found yourself in need of some. I suppose the word of the year could also act as a bit of a mantra. Two years ago I picked the word "progress," and in that year I made enormous leaps both professionally and personally. ENORMOUS. I would actually say that the year of the word of progress was a seminal year for me - it was the year everything changed and I started to look at the world through entirely different eyes.

Last year, I really struggled to find a word that 'spoke' to me. I never did settle on one properly - 'progress' still really loomed large on my landscape - and so I ended up not choosing a word of the year at all (or at least not for any lasting amount of time).  There is NO way I'd blame the very stressful year I've had based on my lack of a word (I'm a wee bit more spiritual these days, but come on now. I'm still firmly in Camp Sane). Still, I found myself missing having a word, and I actually thought about it quite a few times but could never bring myself to commit to anything for very long.

Given that I've been bereft because of my lack of a word, I've already started to consider what my 2013 word might be. I'm leaning towards 'reflection.' Because I am SO thin skinned, and emotional, and move at warp speed - I rarely (if ever) stop and think about what I've achieved. I rarely stop and think about just how damn good I have it (although I am grateful for it, I don't think I'm going at mindful appreciation). I think using the word reflection also implies a certain slowing down - in order to reflect, you must STOP and engage in thought which is not chaotic.

Having made such enormous progress, it's high time I reflected on it - "it" being how much I have, how far I've come, thinking about what I'd like to achieve, and focussing on all the awesome things rather than the one or two crappy things. I think too that starting my year by staring out into the ocean is a damn fine way to be reflective, don't you?

Here's your opportunity to join me in reflection. Did you have a word last year? Did it act as your guide, or did you forget it minutes after reading my blog telling you to find one? If you want one this year, what's your word going to be?

Holiday Planning

In the new year, all the planets in my life are going to align. Each of the kids is headed off on a different adventure, the business is going to be officially closed for holidays, and DH is able to take a few days off.  With all those things lined up, I decided that DH and I needed to take off on a holiday.  Of course, we're skint - and with our kids scattered all over the country I was a little worried about taking off to lands far and wide. However, the opportunity to get some quiet time and NOT have to worry about ANY of my five babies (3 kids, 1 dog, 1 business) was too good an opportunity to pass up. DH and I started to research our holiday options. I wouldn't say I'm picky, bbbbuuuutttt......

• There had to be a hammock involved
• All meals had to be cooked AND cleaned up by someone else
• There had to be sunshine
• No humidity to speak of
• No TV, radio, internet or smart phones
• It couldn't cost the earth (not even a very small continent)
• Wherever possible, I'd prefer it if other humans (other than DH) were not within eyesight on a daily basis
• There needed to be a warm body of water, either pool or ocean but the key word here is warm
• It had to have as few or as many activities as I like, with no obligation to ever get up from the hammock if I didn't want to
• Not so far that it took an entire day to get there

My first choice was the Cook Islands, but it failed the last one on that list with a 14 hour travel time. Second choice was Lord Howe Island, but that had limitations on the days/times you could get there and the accommodation did not scream 'relaxing holiday.' All the usual cheap Aussie holiday locations (Bali, Fiji, etc...) were going to be humid at that time of year. With the end of the year getting closer and closer, and the options getting narrower and narrower, we were getting dangerously close to a staycation, which would definitely not have hit any of the above points other than perhaps the one about the other humans.

Several nights ago, I was half asleep with DH next to me tappity-tap-tapping on his laptop. "Hey, emzee? You awake?" "Um, kinda..." "Okay, just stay awake long enough to listen to this, okay?"

This is what I heard:
"mumble mumble mumble hammock mumble mumble no tv mumble mumble average water temp is 28 degrees mumble mumble secluded mumble mumble breakfast included mumble mumble hideaway island mumble mumble." Wherever this place was, it sure sounded good...but I heard enough to think he must be talking about a place which didn't actually exist, so I asked the deal breaker question. "Exactly how far away is this shangri-la?"

"Put it this way. Leave the airport at 7am, be sitting with a drink in hand staring out at the ocean by 2:30 that afternoon."

I suddenly found myself very much awake.

"Book it, babe. BOOK IT."

So that's how, in a mere 5 weeks, DH and I are going to find ourselves on an grown up holiday, doing a whole lot of not much, hanging in the hammock (yep, even that), revelling in the blissful silence of no electronic devices and as few humans around as possible. DH and I haven't been on a holiday of longer than a weekend in...15 years.  In all those years, we managed a few weekends away together but that's pretty much it.

The irony of all this? I'm so overwhelmed by the possibility of sheer, uninterrupted quiet and indulgent luxury that every time I stop to think about it for even a minute, I start to cry.

Hmmm.

Stressed much?

Now here's hoping I can learn to quieten my internal chaos long enough to actually milk every moment of that quiet for what it's worth.

Thanksgiving

One of the MOST vital exercises I did under the guidance of Guru Guy was working out why I'm in business in the first place. It sounds so simple, doesn't it? What a basic question. Why on earth am I in business in the first place? I'll tell you what I told him when he asked: the business began in a somewhat organic way (as I think most businesses do). Some friends got together and bought me an "Buttercream Level One" class after I'd been messing about with cake decorating as a hobby (my first official cake was when I was 16 years old.) I was reminded of how much I enjoyed it and so I just started messing about with cake a little more seriously- and eventually word got around, and people I didn't know started to ask for my cakes. Some el cheapo business cards from Vista Print later and suddenly I found myself in business.

As time went on, and I made bigger business decisions, things just started to kind of...happen. So my second lot of business cards were a little nicer, I started to look around for a commercial kitchen, I began to buy more cake tools, and things just grew organically from there. I never stopped for a second to consider why I was doing any of it, I just did it. Natural progression and a complete belief in myself (even if I didn't know it at the time) just kept propelling me forward. It was only when Guru Guy asked the question that it occurred to me to even think about it in the first place.

Working out the answer was a bit of a process, but the end result was pretty simple - I am in the business of cake for reasons which have nothing to do with cake at all. I'm in the business of happiness - my own happiness and the happiness of my clients, and the two are of course intermingled. By making my clients happy, *I* am therefore happy and fulfilled - and the business earning money makes me happy because it means I can provide for my family, and use that money to give what I can to the people I love to make them happy (eg SSOTH fees!). I'm actually simplifying it here quite a bit but you get the gist of it - as much as I love the actual art and science of cake decorating, ultimately it's not about the actual cake at all.

Because I know it's not just about the cake - and I am not quiet about that fact - over the past couple of years I've had other business owners (cake or not) ask me for advice about their own ventures. A few have asked for a formal mentoring relationship, some have asked a question or two and that was it, a few come in and out of my life as needed. Whatever the circumstance, I'm generally pretty happy to share my knowledge and experience, with the proviso that I don't know it all and that different people have different takes on things.

Why do I share my advice? Because my business and my life is not about cake, and if I'm honest, it was probably only really about actual cake in those very early days.

A few nights ago I was mighty upset about that client who emailed me a nasty-gram (read back two blogs to read about that situation). I spent a good part of the next day being quite crumpled about it all, mostly because it's so hard to keep the motivation for working so hard when you get knocked down. I was still carrying around some of that annoyance when I got an email on facebook from another business owner, asking my opinion about a business situation. I replied the only way I know how - with frank honesty and with a decidedly emzee spin on things (I pulled no punches!).

This is the reply I got from her (a few bits edited out for blog purposes):

emzeegee,
THANK YOU so much for your honest and prompt response. I just wanted to say that you have been a huge inspiration to me in my career. The very obvious love of the job, care and tremendous effort put into all your cakes is so easily seen. I followed you as you moved your business from your home to it's current location with great interest as I am a mother of 2 young children and desperately wanted to take that next step but thought 'it's just a hobby - no one will be interested in my cakes'. But seeing what you've achieved and you've obviously found the balance between your work/home life, I've recently just completed the fit out of my gorgeous new XYZ business.  But I just wanted to thank you for being such an inspiration to the up and coming cake decorators of tomorrow.
Kindest regards,
Facebooker Fan xxx

Clearly, she has a rosy view of my life, based on what she's read/seen - but If I ever needed any more clear cut message that this business - and my life - are NOT AT ALL about cake, this was it. Right there. In black and white.

And so today, on the eve of American Thankgiving, here is my bit of gratitude and thanks - to Guru Guy for asking the question, and to this business owner for reminding me of the importance of the answer exactly when I needed to hear it.

In Your Own Backyard

My business recently provided a whole lot of beautiful biscuits for the anniversary dinner of our synagogue. In organising these to be made, the marketing person called and asked me if I could email her our logo for use in the event's press. She offered to print it in the booklet, announce it out loud, and basically make a big deal over my company because we provided these treats.

While I appreciated the offer, I flat out refused to have ANY mention of my company at all - and even went so far as to not label the biscuits themselves as we normally would. I think the marketing lady was a little surprised about this. After all, what company does not want some publicity and attention?

Here's the thing - the people who attended this event are NOT my target market, and they know me personally. Knowing me personally means they would not hesitate to call me and either ask for a favour or ask for a discount. Why? Because they know me personally, of course. Then if I didn't provide either the favour or the discount, word will get around that I'm less than generous - and while I don't much care what "gets around," I'd rather it was NO word than a bad one.

Does this mean I don't want to give my friends and acquantainces a discount or do them a favour?

Nope.

It just means I'd rather do it on a personal level, not a professional one. The very last thing I need is people calling me and wanting something for nothing simply because they know that I have a life outside the business. Yet again the "don't shit where you sleep" adage suits this situation well. YES, I wanted to support my community, but NO that doesn't mean I needed to crow about it.

Second reason I didn't want the advertising? I wanted to avoid the Rock Star Effect. I knew if my business name was plastered all over the place, I'd get attention at the event and we all know how far I will go to avoid that sort of stuff.

Take home lesson here? Not all publicity is good publicity. 

Thin Skinned

(Ed's note: Yes, I know. I missed two days of blogging, thus rendering me not technically qualified for NaBloPoMo. A bit like when you've snuck a bar of chocolate when you've been on a diet, the important thing is to go back to eating healthily rather than beat yourself up about the Cadbury Fruit & Nut Bar. This is me eating healthily, from a blogging POV.)

I got a nasty gram from a client today. We made and delivered a dozen gorgeous cupcakes to her daughter on her birthday. The client failed to request any special decorations, so we just made them beautifully birthday-esque and sent them out. I got ripped to shreds in this email, because she didn't complete the order with any special requests and so we didn't put ladybugs on the cupcakes.There were no ladybugs on them because she never asked for them, but this was somehow MY fault.

Her daughter got a beautiful, heartfelt gift. Sent with love by her Mum, created and delivered with love by us.

I don't see the problem here, do you?

The fact is, there is bound to be some sort of back story here. Her ungrateful daughter did not thank her Mum properly. The Mum feels guilty for not doing the order right and is looking for someone to blame. The Mum is just having a bad day. The daughter cried about her cupcakes. Who knows? All I know is, I was the recipient of an email telling me I was unreliable, my service was crap, the cupcakes were a rip off, that she could have used any cupcake company in Melbourne, that she did not have faith we would deliver in the first place, and that she won't use my service again or recommend the business to anyone.

Oh, how I would love to tell you that knowing her reaction has nothing to do with me means that I shrugged it off.

(...but how boring this post would be if that was the case!)

I did shrug it off ... eventually. But not before feeling particularly irritated about it, wondering why this woman felt I needed to be her target and basically being fairly crumpled about it. I suppose I've got a very thin skin - I take these things personally even when I know I shouldn't and even when I know I could not or would not have done things any differently.

People talk about growing a thicker skin as they meander their way through life's challenges, but I kinda hope I never do. On the one hand, it's really NOT fun letting those sorts of things get to you, but on the other it just means that I love and care enough about these things that it hurts when someone tells me I've disappointed them.

I think there are worse things than being someone who loves and cares too much, don't you?

Of course, the real loser in this situation is not me, and not the birthday girl. It's the Mum who cannot see that she did something lovely for someone and that is surely worth celebrating. What a terrible loss of time, energy, and emotion that is. I'm guessing I got over my irritation long before she got over hers.

Yes, I think I'll keep my thin skin. 

Weary

Somewhere in my head there is a blog post desperate to be written - but at this point I must tell you I'm exhausted (physically) because I spent my day cutting, baking, decorating and wrapping something like 1340 gingerbread pieces and just finding the arm strength to type this is an effort.

I couldn't bear to miss a day so this is a bit of a cheater post, in so far as rather than be witty and thought-provoking, I'm just going to tell you all I'm exhausted and then bid you adieu.


*yawn*
*fall over in a heap*

Until tomorrow (when hopefully I can engage my brain a bit!).

Halfway

Yippee, I made it to the halfway point of NaBloPoMo...and I'm exhausted. Not from the blogging (like every year, I find it much easier to find the time than I thought) but just from all that is happening in my mad, sweet world. Most of it good, some of it challenging - not enough the washing machine lost it's mojo but last night the sewerage pipe decided to clog up leaving us without water or toilets. I've always maintained that my life is one great adventure, it's just that some weeks it's more adventurous than others!

I chatted to my sister on the phone today and I was telling her about an exciting job opportunity DH has on the horizon. DH has been chasing this opportunity for a long time, and he's excited about it - emotionally and intellectually it presents a challenge he would love to take on. Am I worried about it? No. Not really. Yes, a few things about it make me feel a little apprehensive, and yes a new change like this is always a little hard to cope with at first - but in the main I'm thrilled for him. As someone who spends most of her life taking leaps and worry about the "can I do this?" type of questions later, it would hardly be fair if I didn't let him take his own series of leaps. 

Her immediate reaction was not one of celebration, it was one of caution. I can't say I blame her, my DH has had a rather chequered work history since we've been married. I still found myself a little disappointed in her reaction, even though I know it came from a place of love and wanting to protect her little sister from history repeating itself. My disappointment comes not because she is by nature a cautious person, and not because I would have rather she be joyous for us (although of course I would have) - it comes because I found myself wondering if she has actually learned the lessons our Dad's death taught us: that nothing in life is a certainty, that there is no way to predict the future, and that a better trait to cuiltivate than caution is resilience. My immediate, knee-jerk reaction was one of slight irritation - of the, "Why can't she just be happy for me?" sort.

However.

Whenever I'm dealing with tough stuff (and tough does not always mean negative) I've got a friend who reminds me to stop my stressing out and instead ask myself, "What's the lesson I'm meant to learn from this?" Sometimes that's the last thing I want to hear (I'd much rather hear, "poor you, now here's some chocolate to make it easier...") but there is no denying that it has completely re-shaped the way I think about so many things in life.  So when my sister was less than thrilled about something which I think is a great, exciting (and yes, a little stressful) opportunity...rather than get more irritated at her, I just thought, "What's the lesson I'm meant to learn from this?" The lesson is a pretty simple one - it was a reminder that I'm loved. Her reaction was more about her worry and love for me than it was about anything else. I have no idea if she has learned the same lessons I've learned from our shared experience of loss - but does it really matter?

Yesterday, when I was staring into a sink filled with grey, disgusting, stuff-floating-in-it water, I wanted to cry. I really did. My life is bursting at the seams at the moment and I don't have time for another domestic drama. Since I'm pretty good at self-talk, I looked into that nasty sink and thought, "so what can possibly be the lesson meant to be learned from this mess?" (admittedly I was not looking for a terribly spiritual answer. It was said with a whole heap of mental sarcasm than anything else.) While I was contemplating the sink situation and the secret lessons held within it's murky depths, DD1 yelled from upstairs, "MUM! There's something wrong with the toilets and I've gotta GO!!!!"

Lesson to be learned?

Shit happens.

And sometimes it happens so much it gets your pipes blocked.

The Lies We Tell Ourselves

Earlier in Spring I decided that I needed to get out of the rut I'd been in all winter. Thanks to some work and family drama, it was a bit of a long, miserable winter for me and I was feeling decidedly blah.  Thanks to my penchant for emotional eating, I'd also put on about 3 kilos - so I was feeling out of sorts and out of shape. Since I know that exercise for me is the equivalent of therapy, I took a friend's advice and signed up with a personal trainer for an eight week stint. I figured her pushing me would not only lead to emotional results but also help me shed those kilos and just give me a good kick start into summer, when I tend to be more active anyway. I was still going to the gym three times a week, and walking with my son twice, but I really felt I needed a bit of a jolt of energy.  To say that hiring her was a luxury is an understatement as it took me several weeks to save up the money for her sessions.

Sadly to say, somewhere around week four it all went a little bit pear shaped. The usual trainer got replaced with someone else, there was no accountability (eg they never tested, weighed, or measured me again), they changed the time of my session (which was determined by my work schedule so not really negotiable) and the new trainer didn't so much push me as she just annoyed the heck out of me. A personal training relationship is an intensely personal one, in so far as you need to both respect them enough to listen to their instructions, and like them enough to want to listen in the first place. I wasn't terribly happy with the whole thing, but having committed the time and money I was loathe to just give up (in hindsight, this was stupid - I totally should have spoken up.)

Around week six I decided to jump on the scales and see if at least the needle was moving in the right direction. It hadn't. I jokingly commented to the (new and crappy) trainer, "I must have gained and lost the same three kilos every week for the past six weeks!"

Her reply?

A look of disdain, bitchy tone of voice, and, "It's amazing the lies we tell ourselves, isn't it?"

I was left speechless. Literally stood there with my mouth hanging agape. I didn't have a witty reply and so I just turned on my heel and left.  I then fumed the entire way home and for most of that day because her comment got under my skin in a big way.  Clearly, that I was going to personal training should have been an indication that I was in fact facing up to the truth of my weight gain? That it was her job to help with my weight loss endeavour (and it wasn't working so I commented on it) should have been an indication to her that we needed to step it up a notch. So many things about her remark were hurtful and upsetting.

I eventually chalked it up to her not knowing me, and not knowing my story and how hard I've worked in the past three years (and continue to work). Often we make judgements when we don't know the back story, and I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. That being said, she's there to motivate, and her comment was hardly motivating - so I decided to call her on it. Tell her my story. Explain that in an effort to lose AND KEEP OFF close to 70 kilos, a 3 kilo bounce is almost nothing. Explain that I was feeling physically and emotionally crap, hence why I started this program. Explain that I'd worked hard (literally) to afford this, and it was important to me that each session count.

You know, basically say - I didn't appreciate your comment, you're a personal trainer, and the key word here is personal so I'm going to tell you this so that you can get better at what you do.

I walked into my next lesson, and before getting on the treadmill, I said, "Listen, I just wanted to let you know that the comment you made last week was really hurtful. I'm not sure if you thought it would be motivating, but it ended up upsetting me. I'm not sure you know my story, but I've worked really hard to get here and this 8 week venture was meant as a pick-me-up. Comments like that just drag me down."

She looked at me, bitchy sneer and all, and said, "Oh I KNOW your story, you've lost a heap of weight, supposedly you go to the gym a bit, yeah, I've heard. I still think the lies we tell ourselves are amazing." She then turned and walked away. I didn't have the best workout ever, as I wasted most of my energy on fuming and gnashing my teeth.

Needless to say I don't think we are going to become besties any time soon, but even so I can't help but agree with her on some level. We DO tell ourselves very convincing lies, about all sorts of things. The sausage roll we had for lunch isn't as bad as the burger and chips we might have had. The exercise I was going to do today (but it was too cold to do it) I'll do tomorrow. The boyfriend who treats you terribly is going to change, he really is. I can eat anything I like as long as I exercise like a crazy lady.  If only I could X, then Y will happen. You get the idea. Us humans are mighty talented at feeding ourselves a whole lot of mental rubbish which we then believe - because we know exactly how to frame it in the right words so it's very convincing.

Even if I agree with her in principle, in this specific case I wasn't lying to myself. I KNOW I need to lose those kilos, I KNOW it's my lack of effort that means they're still hanging around, and I even know what I (really and truly) need to do to get rid of them. However, the lie I'm telling myself is that engaging her services continued to be a good idea several weeks after I knew it wasn't going to work for me.

The lie she's telling herself is that she's a good personal trainer who motivates her clients with bitchy looks and cutting remarks.

No prizes for working out which one of us might have an easier time of dealing with the lies we tell ourselves.

Love Notes

I'm a member of a parenting-of-HOM group on facebook (for the uninitiated, HOM = Higher Order Multiples, a fancy word for multiple births that are triplets, quads or more because clearly that sort of parenting is a higher order of insanity.)  It's a fascinating group because it has everyone from all stages of parenting HOM's - the ones who are still pregnant all the way to ones with adult children. Recently one of the mothers (of fairly young triplets) posted a photo of a note she wrote to her husband, captioned, "Can you tell I was pissed off?"

I won't post it word for word here, but it basically was full of curse words and things like, "just because you work all day does not give you permission to come home and sit on your backside" and "I work all day too you know, they are your children too!" and so on. It was one of the most angry notes I've ever read and clearly she was having a pretty crappy day. Not every day with baby triplets (or baby, singular) is a picnic and she was obviously having one of those days.

In all the times when I've wanted to throttle DH, I can honestly say I've never wanted to do it in print like that. Yes, of course, there are times when I've torn shreds off of him (verbally) because I too had one of those days, and I was really just taking out my frustration on the nearest target. Even in my angriest moments, I can't imagine putting pen to paper like that - which is surprising given that I'd almost always rather write my thoughts than speak them.   I suppose this woman's version of communication was on paper - but I was really struck by that note and how indelible it's mark now is. (I won't even begin to analyse her need to post it on facebook...)

While I believe that you cannot take back words that have been said, I think words that are on paper are almost worse in a way. Seeing something in black and white like that is somehow more hurtful than words which are said ... I suppose because we all blurt out things we do not mean when we are angry, but taking the time to write them down implies (to me) a certain amount of thought and effort beyond what you might blurt in a moment of weakness.

This is probably a reflection on my communication style in general though - I don't write anything (not a blog post, not an email, not a birthday card, not even a text messsage) without either editing it first, OR going back afterwards and reading it again and then sending a second missive to explain myself better. With blogging I try very hard NOT to edit (because I find I express myself better when I don't force it too hard) but I still consider my words carefully as I write them, and I will re-read my posts many times after I've already hit the publish button. I don't know - there's just something very real about words which are written down. I just think they somehow carry much more weight than spoken words do.

What do you think? Which is more powerful? The spoken word, or the written word?