I'm off to dancing lessons.

Yes you read that correctly. For the next few weeks I will be going to dance lessons on a Friday night. There are several reasons why this is hilarious. The main reason is that I have no hand eye coordination at all. I can't even do the Time Warp. Or the macarana.

This is what I look like doing the Macarena 

So I before I hit the dance floor I thought I would share with you my biggest issue of the week. It is bloody cold. Yep my overseas readers I live in Western Australia and it is COLD. The reason this is such a problem is because I hate the cold.

I made a deal with my husband last year that I would never complain about the heat, as long as that meant I could complain about the cold. Now the irony is not lost on me that I am choosing to spend half of my holidays in the Snow, but I think that is a little different.

I have always hated the cold. I am not one of those people that say " Ohhh I'm so glad it is getting cold." Nope there is nothing good about the cold at all. Here are some of my reasons. (in list form of course)

1.  It is really cold first thing in the morning. I go running in the mornings. It is really hard to dress for running. You start off with a jumper, beanie and gloves. Then you lose the jumper, then the beanie then the gloves (your stuff the beanie and gloves in the jumper which is tied around your waist). That is a lot of stuff to carry around. You also drop your torch because your hands are slippery, and it makes changing the song on your iPod very difficult. As an aside, once my car got broken into and they stole my gloves, which made me think this morning that it must be really hard to break into a house and steal things with gloves on because everything is really slippery.

2. Beanies don't look cute on anyone over 25. Once you hit over 25 your face starts to drop so beanies are not flattering. I have been growing my hair so I had some hair sticking out under my beanie when I go skiing to look super cute. (Yes I am that shallow). It hasn't worked. I still look old. My running beanie is very clever and has a hole in the back for your pony tail.

She looks super cute in a beanie because she is under 25.

3. My nose runs all the time. It gets really cold and then snot just drips out. All day.

4.It is really hard to get into the shower. 

5. It is even harder to get out of the shower.

6. When you get into the shower  because you are so cold, the hot water really hurts. 

7. You have to wear tights. I hate wearing tights. They fall down, the crutch hangs down, and they get holes in them. When I was at school we had to wear poo brown tights. I think this is wear my dislike of tights come from.

8. You have to wear sooooo many clothes. Today I am wearing a singlet, a long sleeve top, a dress, my fleecy lined tights (yes there is such a thing), my boots, a coat and a scarf (and underwear of course). Thats a lot of clothes to put away at the end of the day. Generally I just chuck everything in the washing basket. I am banned from doing the washing because I accidentally put a toilet roll in with the washing. Do you know how hard wet cardboard it to get off clothes? Well let me tell you, it is really hard, and that is the reason I am banned from doing the washing.

9. Your lips get dry so you put on lip balm and then they get even drier. Which is really weird. 

10. Your skin gets really dry so you have to put on lots of moisturiser so your legs don't look like alligator skin, but because it is so cold when you get out of the shower you are freezing.

11. You sometimes forget to take off your ugg boots when you leave the house. That can be embarrassing. Unless you are a bogan. Or Pamela Anderson. Or maybe that is the same thing.

Pamela Anderson. In ugh boots.

And that is why I hate the cold. I also hate the rain. Of course the cold and the rain is only ok if you are having a home day, can wear your tracky, don't have to do any exercise and have a great big bowl of warm winter food cooked in the slow cooker. Finished with iced doughnuts .

Doughnuts are the only thing that would make me say " I  DOUGHNUT care if it is cold." Haha get it DOUGH NUT -DO NOT. Why are doughnuts called dough nuts anyway? There are no nuts.

all images via Pinterest

Help me, I am an Extreme Couponer

Now I am aware that in Australia we don't have coupons like they do in America, but if we did I think I would be extreme. I am the Australian equivalent which is an extreme loyalty carder. Enough so my daughter laughs at me when we go shopping.Now I know that every few months when there is no news, a current affairs show will do a segment on how loyalty cards have no benefit and are a scam, but personally I love them. And let me tell you why...

This week has been an awesome week of cashing in my loyalty cards. Monday was an awesome day for two reasons- one was because it was my Birthday and secondly my son has hurt his ankle (that's not the awesome ) and I had to be mum and drive him to his exams. This meant I had three hours to kill, so I did what anybody in that position would do - I went shopping. The reason for my shopping was because I was going to use my shoppers rewards. This is what happened 

Stop One was Mecca Cosmetica, which by now you should be aware is my most favourite shop (well one of). Because it was my birthday and I am a beauty loop member I got a free gift,

My birthday pressie from Mecca. Retails at $42.Yep- $42 for nothing!

 a complimentary make up application and a trial nail polish. I also had a birthday voucher from my sister in law so I bought a Nars Satin Lip Pencil

These are awesome! Long lasting and a nice glossy finish

                                                                          The lip balm

Stop 2 was Myer. I had a two reward vouchers from my Myer One card. This one baffles me because I always get a reward card, but I don't really shop at Myer. I purchased Benefits They're Real mascara. My friend Dawn recommended the product and I really like it. I also like how the name has an exclamation mark in it, and we all know how much I love a good exclamation mark.

Stop 3 was kikki.k. They gave me a $10 birthday voucher, so I bought my favourite pens which always get stolen by my daughter. I am on the packet number 3.

Stop 4 was witchery. They very kindly gave me a $20 birthday voucher. I also had $15 credit on my loyalty card so I bought two tops. YAY!!

When I was finished my shopping and on the way home, I had a call from my mum. She had cashed in some Flybuy points and ordered me a cutlery set. (where do all the spoons and forks go?) I cash in my flybuy points and get a magazine subscription to Vogue, Instyle, GQ and Wheels magazines.

Then to top of the week of loyalty cards I used the points from my Woolworths Everyday Rewards card and booked a return flight to Sydney. Which is super exciting apart from the fact that there is a marathon to run in there.

Also worthy of a mention is that last week I went to Priceline, used my vouchers, got money off a nail polish(essie of course)

It is called cute as a button, and it is

         and L'oreal Blur (great product), I got $10 off  that.

 and they gave me this....

            FOR NOTHING!!!! Well apart from may the hundreds of dollars I spend there every year.

So I think the moral of the story is join the loyalty programs!!! I think the key is to make sure that you just shop normally. If you get free stuff that's a benefit.

Now if only Louis Vuitton would have a loyalty club, because I need a new purse to keep my loyalty cards in...

                   I aspire to be this good at couponing

Who invented this shared food thing anyway?

As my husband tells me regularly- I am a really bad sharer. Now I don't think this is 100% true, I can share, I just don't like sharing. I think it because I worry that if I share my stuff people will ruin it. Which is quite silly really because I do a pretty good job of ruining things on my own.

So being a bad sharer make this new food trend thing bloody annoying. In short- I am sick of every bloody restaurant you go to these days doing  shared food.

I find these days when ever I go to a restaurant and the "server" (is that the correct term these days?) tells me that " Our menu is designed to share." My heart sinks a little. If it is two of you, that is ok, especially when it is your significant other, but when there is more than the two of you, this is when it gets bloody annoying.

This is Les Tapas

I blame the Spanish. And Australians who like taking bits of other cultures and not using it properly. You see the Spanish have been doing tapas for years. The word tapas means "cover" and people were originally given something to cover their drinks (to stop the flies getting in their sherry. mmm sherry). Now as in Spain dinner ( yes DINNER) is served between 9 and 11, which means that they have an awful lot of time between work and dinner, so the Spanish being the clever things they are go from bar to bar and have some nice little snacks BEFORE DINNER. You hear that BEFORE DINNER. It is NOT dinner, it is NOT all you have to eat.

This is Les Australia tapas. I can tell because there  are three pieces and there are four people at the table.

So here are the main reasons I dislike sharing menus

1. You always go home hungry and have a ham sandwich. (on fresh white bread with lots of lurpak butter.)
2. Unless you know the people you are dining with really well, you always feel awkward about taking the last bit.
3. They food is served in odd numbers. Which is delightful when you have an odd number, but when you have 4 people, how the bloody hell are you going to split 3 pork belly's into 4?
4. When you have 6 or 8 people, you have to order two of everything. Which is a problem because (see point 5)
5. This sharing business is expensive. When you are paying $15-$20 for 5 meatballs it gets very pricey. They are obviously unaware that you can but a whole bag of meatballs from Ikea for $5.
6. You often end up with some left over bits because no one wants to take that last bit (see point 2) so before you can sneakily take the last bit the server has whisked it away from you.
7. You have to compromise and order things that you don't really like all that much. Like whitebait. What it the point of that? It's bait for God sake the name even tells you that!
8. Like wise you also have to share the things you really like. I can often be reduced to tears when someone takes that final bit of calamari.
9.You drink more wine because you are trying to fill up your tummy. Oh hang on, not sure if that one is a negative.
10. You misjudge just how much food you have eaten. So why you may leave the restaurant HUNGRY, you have eaten your entire calorific intake for the week.

Now there are some exceptions to this sharing rule.

Sharing is ok IF
1. You are having Chinese, Thai, Indian, Yum Cha...(basically Asian cuisine) and Pizza, or proper Tapas. From a Tapas bar. and you are drinking Sangria. Or Sherry.
2. You are having a starter. Sharing starters in fine. But then you have your OWN main meal.
3. If the share dish is large. Like enough for everyone and they don't charge you $10 for an extra piece of bread to dip in your dukkah.
4. You are on a diet, don't like food, are feeling slightly sick or don't like the people you are dining with so you don't care if they think you are a greedy pig.
5. There is no 5. ( I was pushing it finding 4 positives)

and neither does Emma.

images via Pinterest.

We are running a Marathon. Week 1

Week 1 of training and we should all be very proud of ourselves because we have done super well.

We ran 8km on Monday
9km on Wednesday ( I may have miscalculated my distance)
7.5km on Friday ( I was running after a fasting day. Not advised)
and I have just returned from our 11.5 long slow run. It was ok, but the wind was a bitch on the final 5km. Why does it get windy on the way home?

The body is feeling ok. Feet are sore, and my knees are hurting a bit when I walk down the stairs, but then that could be because I am in my second last day of being 42.

Well done everyone. I suggest you all have a nice sleep in tomorrow morning, because you must be exhausted from those 5am starts . Me- I am going to have a little snooze and then get ready to go out for lunch and drink lots of drinks in jars. Now I am aware that I should be going easy on the booze. I'll start that tomorrow.
Yeah right.

and here is todays running song. A nice slow song, for a nice slow run.

Things that baffle me

I have had a lot of thinking time today as I have 3 hours straight of supervising children doing exams. It puts a whole new spin on boring. As I was sitting there watching the kids do their exams (which is a whole other post on its own) I started thinking about things that baffle me. This is what I came up with.

• How do people with one hand do control alt delete to unlock their computer? (try it, you can't with one hand)
• Why do paper cuts hurt some much?
• Why do people with grey hair put brown streaks in it? It doesn't look natural, it looks like grey hair with streaks.
• Why do they offer fish on planes. No one ever wants the fish, so if you are sitting anywhere near the back of the plane, fish is all you are getting.
• Why is marmalade not called orange jam?
• Why does conditioner come in smaller bottles than shampoo when you always use way more shampoo?
• Why is being a Game of Thrones fan not nerdy? Fantasy = Nerds surely?
• Why do people insist on talking about GoT in mixed company? People who don't watch it don't care (trust me on that)
• Why does it always rain on my birthday? (June 9 put that in your phone)
• Why can they send a man to the moon, make hormones that can change your sex but not invent a tablet to make you loose weight. I say want to lose 1 kg? Take 1 pill. GOLD.
• Also why can't they invent a pill that will change your hair colour? You want blonde hair? Take a blonde pill.
• Why does the person that is going to talk through the movie always sit next to/in front of/ behind me?
• Why do I always pick the slowest checkout in the supermarket?
• Why when you have spare money can you never find anything to buy, but when you are broke- you want everything?
• How come you never, ever, ever eat KFC, but the minute you are on a diet that is what you crave?
• How come you have to set your alarm and struggle to wake up during the week days, but on the weekends your body clock is bang on. 5am - you are awake.
• Why is it way more expensive to eat healthy than it is to buy crap?
• How come you never have anything to do, but when you get invited to something you also get 5 other invites for the same night?
• Why am I tired ALL DAY and then go to bed and I am wide awake?
• Why are weekends so freaking awesome?? (Actually I know the answer to that one.)

Happy Friday

Yay! We are doing a Marathon and it is going to hurt.

This is going to probably be most of your worst nightmares. I am going to take you all on my Sydney Marathon journey. I know this because if you believe Pinterest people hate nothing more than someone telling you all about their training runs, and exercise and blah, blah, blah.

So I'm telling you now- I will not be upset if you don't read these blogs. I am doing this for purely selfish reasons. I have seem to lost my motivation. Let me set the scene.....

I think I have talked about my passion for running before. Well maybe passion is the wrong word. I am passionate for the end of a run. Beginning and middle of a run- not so much. At the beginning of last year I set my self a challenge of completing all the "fun(ish) runs in Perth. This resulted in me doing amongst other things two half marathons, two marathons and culminating in a stupid 100km (that I still feel I was tricked into). By the end of the year I had managed to be exhausted, and had put on 5kgs. Yes I am that person who puts on weight when they train for a marathon.

I started off this year full of high hopes, and I would do some running, but I just wasn't enjoying it. I did the first fun run (badly) and a boozy dinner the night before the next one and then forget maybe on purpose to set my alarm so slept through the second one. I was due to do the Perth Marathon but when my brother (my sometimes running partner) decided not to do it, I decided not to do it at all. I have to support my brother after all.

So last week I decided enough. I entered the Sydney Marathon have booked my flights. I downloaded my Marathon training plan (myasics.com) and I am ready to go. Well I haven't literally booked my flights yet because I may have accidentally bought a case of Mumm Champagne with my credit card. ( I seem to be doing a lot of this accidentally on purpose stuff lately). But I will do it next pay day, and I have checked out the flights.

Damn you Dan Murphy's for having it at such a good price to not buy a case would be a crime.

So come along with me on my journey to Sydney. You can then say you have done a Marathon. I will talk you through the pain, the cold mornings, the pain, the rain, the pain and the pain. Oh and hopefully the elation when we cross that finish line together. I'm getting the t-shirt though.

 Week 1-

I have three 8 km runs this week and a 10km run on Saturday. One 8km is slow, two are "fast" and the 10km is slow(which is lucky because I have a boozy birthday lunch planned on Saturday so tired legs would not be good). I have already done 8kms today, so off to a good start. I also saw three dolphins and a jet ski getting pulled over by the water police during my run.

For the record our Marathon is on Sunday 21st September. 

This is our all time favourite running song. " I'm bulletproof , nothing to lose" (except maybe some toenails).

images Via Pinterest.

I've been thinking about friends

I was in the shower today and I was thinking about a KFC advertisement ( I don't get how my mind works either some times). It isn't even a recent ad, it is one from a while ago advertising some burger or meal thing, but the bit that sticks with me was when they said " You don't call your friends work friends, they are just friends." or something along that line.

Well Colonial Sanders ( for those of you under 20 he was the "face" of KFC when it was Kentucky Fried Chicken) I have to disagree with you. I do categorise my friends. Now I don't want this to turn into a "oh my god, I have sooooo many friends," but when I think about it, I have made some awesome friends in my 42 years. I have also lost some amazing friends as well.  The older I get though I realise that maybe friends come into your life when you need them. The friendship may not last forever, just as long as it needs to last.

So if I had to break down friendship groups, mine would go like this.

School friends- these are my school friends. The ones I went to school with. These friends are unique because you may not see them often but when you do it is like you saw them yesterday. These are the people who you had your first alcoholic drink with (Jim Beam for the record).They also know lots of your little secrets so it is probably best not to upset these ones. They are also the ones that when you hear a song from 1988 it will take you straight back to them.

Uni friends. These are the ones you meet at Uni/ Tafe. You spend a lot of time together, but as you get older you tend to drift, and thats ok. You are still really happy to see and speak to them when you see them, but don't really go out of your way.

Your work friends.  I have two close groups of work friends. I have my work friends and then my work friends. The interesting thing is that even though we work in the same place, the two groups actually never mix. Work friends are the bomb because you get to bitch moan and discuss other people that you work with and you know everything they are talking about. You have almost a silent language. You understand each other like no one else would. In teaching your work friends are very important. Because in any other field if you walked in and said " Bloody hell these kids are little fuckers" people would be horrified. Teachers just nod their heads in silent agreement.

Your "boy"friends. These are your friends who are boys. I have some "boy" friends at work. We tend to do crazy athletic things together, like run marathons, go skiing and 100km runs. You can make fun of them, and they make fun of you.  I guess it also helps that my husband is friends with my "boy" friends, otherwise it could be awkward.

Your kids school friends. This group is interesting, because this is the group that you don't really see coming. You are bound together by your children and you may often never had though you would have had much in common but you manage to cultivate some amazing friendships. The other interesting thing is that you tend to bond with your eldest kids friends parents and not your youngest. Unless of course you have a third 10 years after your first. Then the whole thing starts again from the beginning. These friends are usually life long ones,although you are not always super close you will still have a fab time when you catch up. They also tend to be the ones who you go out with on boozy nights, when you kids or husband or all of the above are annoying you so they are know things about you like how good you are at singing karaoke. In Korean. They may also still have the video, so perhaps best not to piss them off.

Your Facebook friends. Facebook friends I think fall into three quite distinct categories. There are you casual Facebook friends. These are the ones that you happily add and are genuinely interested in their life, but maybe not so interested that if you see them at Coles you would say hi. These are the friends that you both make the mad dash to look the other way when you see them out in public, or you try and hide behind the barbecue shapes display, or stick your head in the freezer and pretend to be fascinated by the fact that they sell pretend meat vegetarian meatballs. (Actually that does fascinate me.Why?) It is, however, perfectly acceptable to post on their wall that you saw them in Coles, but wasn't sure if it was them. Then their are the "OMG you frustrate the hell out of me and your posts get me really fired up, but I can't bare to unfriend you because then I would have nothing to be annoyed about." You know the ones. And then there are you Facebook friend friends. These are the ones that get your jokes, and are your genuine friends. These are the ones that if they don't either, like your posts or comment you think you must have upset them.

There are your exercise friends. These are the people that you see everyday , have no idea what their names are or what they do, would probably never recognise them with their clothes on ( no hang on that sounds wrong, I mean with their non running clothes on.) But you nod and say good morning everyday. Hell you even see these people more often than you see your family.

Finally there are your Best, Best friends. These are the people who may come from any of the above categories, who have come into your life and now you don't quite know how you would survive with out them. These know everything about you. They laugh when you do dumb drunk things (and don't feel the need to tell you about the dumb things the next day.) They know all your little secrets, they can tell when you are sad without even asking, they will listen to you when you hate your husband/ children/ animals/ the world. They get your dumb sense of humour and you can have pointless conversations about nothing. These also fit into the 'I can never NOT be your friends, because if some of the stuff you knew about me got out it would not end well."

So next time you are feeling a little lonely or sad just think about all the amazing people you have in your life. 

Failing that there are also those nice little imaginary ones that live in your head.