Life, Love and the Everyday

I was never the out-doorsy kinda gal. I preferred the comfort of air-conditioning on a hot day with a cold drink in my hand. (I still do like that) But lately I have surprised myself at just how adventurous and out-doorsy I can be. About two weeks ago I was humming and harring over what to do for my 20% exercise regime when a burst of energy came out of nowhere and my inner voice told me to get my runners on and go for a walk. I remembered that there was a local park nearby and decided that was where I would go. I craved something akin to adventure and fresh air and I found it in a small rain-forest oasis about five minutes from where I live.  I walked down a trail and found myself fascinated with the idea of walking down a path that had been worn down over time by enthusiastic out-doorsy people and I knew that I would not be satisfied until I had found out but I didn't want to go by myself - what if there was something or somebody who was dangerous on the other end of t...

"Libaries are resoivours of strength, grace, and wit, a reminder of order, calm and continuinity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark. In any libary in the world, I am at home, unselfconscious, still and absorbed." - Germaine Greer                                                                                  * A libary is like a bar with a tab that has a beverage for every palate and preference, for the discernable or the naive. I always feel a sense of awe as I walk down the aisles of a libary; the legacies of authors living or deceased. All different genres, fields of interest, raw and gritty or sweet and fluffy. It has been a year since I have graced a library door with my presence because I haven't been able to pay an overdue fee. Last Saturday I fi...

With my 2-3 day work week plus job hunting I have alot of time on my hands. When I am not running a load of laundry or blasting my way through another chapter in my recent romance novel I am dedicating my time to reading and hiking. The weather is lovely at the moment, my ideal weather for a walk. Sunny and cloudy, sometimes overcast. After a morning of job searching and researching for my next blog post I felt I needed to spend time in nature again. I packed my back-pack with a first aid kit, three drink bottles, a container with crackers, a carrot and two banana muffins incase I needed sustenance as well as a note-pad, a pen, a sketch book and pencils incase I felt like being artsy. I rode the bus to a stop across the road from Queen Elizabeth Hospital and set off in search of a trail. How hard could it be? It tirned out to be a little trickier than I thought and that was when I realised that I needed to do my home-work and research some local trails. But I did find me a little gem ...

      When I was in my teens I went for walks everyday after school. I'd relish the independence of being on my own without people telling me what to do, how to do it, when to do it - that's the craving of every teenager. Freedom to choose. I'd plug my ears with head-phones and drown out the white noise of cars driving by and do a thirty minute loop. I used to live walking distance to by aunt and uncle and would drop in to visit them. That was my happy place, an escape from the crazy life of being a teen and also was my exercise. That's how I maintained my size 14 frame and without knowing it back then, that was me practicing self-care.  Fast-forward thirteen years later and its only been the past few years that I have had an idea of what that means. Not just in relation to what I put in my mouth but what I'm thinking and who I hang out with.  Last week I sitting in front of the television on a Sunday aftern...

A good walk clears the mind, puts things into perspective. Sometimes the hardest questions in life can be answered by walking into the forest. Hard questions from the mind which are answered gently with our souls. Early tonight I felt the need to walk amongst nature and inhale fresher air. Like Moses answering the call to climb a mountain, I slipped into my flip-flops and walked in the direction of a local park. Six months ago we moved into a new house within walking distance to schools, various fast food chains, cafes and restaurants.  What used to be rich farming land has become a nice slice of suburbia surrounded by rain-forest. Its idylic for people who want that small-town feel with a twenty minute drive into the city and a ten minute drive to big shopping centres and cinemas. I put my head-phones on and listened to it for half a song before yielding to my inner wisdom demanding I be present in the presense of nature. This wasn't my mornin...

Friendships are like cheese. My favourite cheese is Crackerbarrel, it's $6.00 which is pretty pricey compared to the generic cheese you can buy for $3.50 in a bag all shredded and ready to go. But when you shred that Crackerbarrel cheese over my Mum's spaghetti bolonaise - it's freaking amazing and I'm not thinking about how much it costs but how good it tastes. Any one you consider as a friend is like cheese and being with them should leave a good taste in your mouth.  The reason why I associate friends with cheese is that there are different kinds of friends and different kinds of cheese. You can get blue cheese. You can get blue friends. You can get shredded cheese. You can get shredded friends. You can get holey cheese and holy friends. You can get stinky cheese and stinky friends. You can get Camembert. You can get classy friends! I love cheese. I love the cheese platter at parties and how they compliment the glass of Moscato in my hand. I love sharing a...

"I know my place, it is time you learned yours." These are the words that Mulan's father told her, they were said with frustration, anger and bitterness and perceivably to me, a little sexist. But those words drove Mulan to find her place, she followed her heart to the battle field to fight in the place of her father and miraculously came home. She challenged herself to become someone people constantly told her she could not be. A kick-arse warrior and a woman. When she came home as a decorated war hero she presented her father with the medallion from the emperor and the sword of the man who had tried to kill him. Her father looked at her with such love and said "The greatest honour is to have you as a daugther." From that moment on, Mulan did not doubt where she belonged. She belonged at home with her family and by following her own path, she found her place and herself. All of us long to belong somewhere. Whether its in a social setting or a working one, ...