Take Your Herbs!

So as I have mentioned I work in a natural therapy college, not only is this an amazing place to work its I have a few little perks to my job such as free massages, free beauty treatments and getting to work with the best of the best natural therapy practitioners that Sydney has to offer.
One of which is the amazing Kylie Seaton naturopath, now Kylie was a little hard to miss on my first day of the college. What is your job here she asked apparently no one had filled my team in that I was starting that day or that my role existed "Oh I'm the External Clinic Coordinator" oh great the job with no description she said with a smile, I knew I like her straight away. You only have to speak to Kylie for about 30 seconds to like her and an extra 10 on top of that to know that she's knows what she talking about. You only have to look into Kylie's background to figure out why she is so good at what she does her awards include
Blackmores Professional Award for Excellence in Naturopathy, Traditional Medicine Supplies Top Naturopathy Graduate, NHAA International Phytotherapy Conference Student Member of the Year, NHAA International Phytotherapy Conference Peer Support Award.
Oh and the official qualifications are: Bachelor Health Science/Naturopathy, Advanced Diploma of Naturopathy, Advanced Diploma of Western Herbal Medicine, Advanced Diploma of Homeopathy, Diploma of Nutrition, Certificate of Iridology, Bachelor Arts Communication/PostGDip Communication.

Kylie is for sure one of the top naturopaths around, so here is the million dollar question whats a naturopath???? For people who are not completely natural therapy savvy a naturopath is a someone who deals with health issues with natural products and herbs. Now if you spoke about a naturopaths 10 years ago people would look at you like you had 2 heads for not going to the doctors to get your health issues fixed. But after numerous reports of doctors prescribing drugs that's we don't need and filling our body full of chemicals with terrible side effects people are now looking for natural remedy's to our health issues. I am a firm believer that natural herbs can very much be the way to go I have used them for depression and never had side effects like I have had on other prescribed medications. Kylie is able to treat condition such as fatigue, IBS and many common issues without using drugs.

Kylie has recently been interviewed in RUSSH magazine on an article called Both Ends Burning.
I am very lucky that when I have been unwell I just need to look at Kylie and she knows what to give me to have me sorted out in no time. She has an amazing bedside manor that people feel comfortable with her as they constantly look to her for advice. The other thing that I admire about Kylie is the lengths that Kylie goes to for her patients to ensure there health. Kylie left work the other day to go with a client to the doctors as this client has been unwell for a period of time and trying to figure out what is wrong has been a challenge. She did this free of charge and gave up an hours pay to be with this clients consultation. Now not to say that I am doctor bashing here as there is a place for prescription medications as well and Kylie will work with doctors to make sure that her clients have results.

So the next time you are feeling unwell or have a niggling issue that just wont go away take a look at visiting a naturopath as they my be the one who can help with a natural alternative rather than pumping your body full of chemicals as all we need to do is stand on a busy road for two minutes to get enough chemicals to last a life time.

For appointments with Kylie please email Kylie on kylie@takeyourherbs.com.au

My Favourite Thing In The World Shoes!!!

As someone who regularly trains I find having the right type of shoes is something that is really important to being able to have the right shoe for the right kind of training. Now I’m the first to put my hand up and say I am not a podiatrist but I do have a little common sense. It makes me laugh when I see guys in the gym in there slip on boat shoes working out with weights. Even funnier when I see them drop a weight on their foot and break a toe (True story happen 2 weeks ago and yes I laughed!) Or my other personal favourite in the builders who come in their work clothes including their steel toes boots and king gee’s work shorts to do a work out prior to starting work.

I am a big fan of shoes of all kinds, for anyone who knows me when it comes to heels the higher the better and I refuse to believe the reason my calves are sore! But I am also a huge fan of joggers and here is my top picks for some great joggers.

In the last 12 months Nike have seemed to pick up their game and started releasing some really amazing shoes that are very cool looking and very comfortable. The Nike Free (pictured above) seem to be the shoe of the moment as they are everywhere, I have had 2 pairs of these funky shoes and I am a huge fan. They are super light weight and they don’t feel like you have anything on your feet. My recommendation on these are they are great for weights, aerobics, classes such as Body Combat and Abs Butts and Thighs. These shoes unfortunately aren’t good for running or spinning as they don’t offer enough support and aren’t firm enough for the stirrup on the spin bikes.

My next recommendation is Asics Kayano these are not the cheapest shoe on the market but well worth the investment. They have a great gel base on them that makes them great for running. They also have a very firm toe on them as so they are perfect for spin as you won’t feel like your toes are getting crushed in the stirrup. They came in a wide range of colours and I find that they are perfect for all types for feet. My recommendation for these are for weights, spinning, running and classes like Body Combat. I find them a little to heavy for any aerobic training.

The best place to find your Nike Free is on http://www.mode-shoes.com/ they are very reasonably priced and have a good turnaround time on delivery. For your Asics I recommend Rebel. They hold a large range of Asics and are competitively on price with other stores.

Eat Pray Love

I went on a date night last night with one of my best friends Corrine to see the movie Eat Pray Love. This was a movie I was really looking forward to as I read the book in Thailand earlier this year and fell in love with it, I then passed it on to Corrine and she loved it just as much.
For anyone who hasn’t read Eat Pray Love we follow Liz Gilbert on her journey of discovering herself after a painful divorce. She decides to spend 4 months in Italy to eat, 4 months in India in a ashram to prey and she finally ends up in Bali were she unexpectedly find love.

I really enjoyed the movie but it didn’t delve into the complexity of the book as it would have been a very long movie trying to get all the information without turning it into a movie longer than titanic but a great film to watch all the same.

Now I don’t find many books that make me stop and think about my life but this one certainly did and there is 2 points in this book that really helped me. There is one conversation so specific that rang true for me that made me think that when I wanted to start losing weight that I wasn’t going to take it so serious that would have me going down another path of binge eating and so on. Liz and her friend are sitting eating pizza’s in Naples and her friend says “Liz I can’t eat this I have put on 10 pounds since I have been in Italy and I can’t fit into my jeans” Liz promptly responds with when you have taken your clothes of in front of a man has he ever walked out” Her friend responses “no” exactly says Liz the guy is so stoked that there is a naked beautiful lady in front of them they don’t care about a measly 10 pounds on your hips. So we’ll enjoy this pizza and we’ll go buy ourselves a pair of jeans in the next size up. Now I have to say Joe has never balked at me in with no clothes on and I doubt he ever would (If he knows what’s good for him)

Secondly there Liz talks about having a hunger for life and for work. I was in a dreadful working situation when I was in Thailand, my work was one of those places that had a rotating door and people were constantly coming and going there was nearly 100% staff turnover while I was there I went away wondering if I would have a job when I got back. I hated this work place and hated everything it represents with is such a hard thing to say about a not for profit company. I also was in a little bit of a rut in my personal life, I was newly engaged (this isn’t the rut part) but I became wary that marriage would change my relationship with Joe and I. I have had a fair few friends that have had amazing relationships but when they got married everything changed. So this prompted 2 very big things in my life, firstly a conversation about my life with Joe and how we were going to make a marriage work. Secondly I made the decision I to leave my job, this was a little bit of a no brainer but I felt it was time to really sink my teeth into something I would love. I knocked back a fair few job for various reasons one being money it wasn’t until I had a job description put in front of that actually felt worth wild doing and working for one of the largest companies worldwide.

I highly recommend this book for someone who needs a little soul searching or just a bit of plain inspiration for their life. It’s a great read and had a huge impact on my life and hopefully it will on your after reading it.

Taking Responsibilities For Our Actions.

I woke up this morning to find I had a few missed calls from a friend of mine. I gave her a call back this morning to see what was up. This friend works for a company that is technically employed by myself and other people who live in my block. She doesn’t have anything to do with myself or block in her day to day work. Now I haven’t had a great relationship with the person who looks after us from her company nor has 90% of the people who live in our block.

In the recent months the residents of our block recently came to the decision that we would terminate our contract with this company as we have felt that the women who takes care of our block has done things that are not only are not in the interest of our block but unethical. Last week the residents had a meeting to make the decision of what we would do and the women in question was to attend. The unfortunate part of this meeting it probably came 1 year to late as on the night people were quiet angry at the treatment of the people in the block and made the distaste very clear to this women. It wasn’t the way I would have like the meeting to have gone down but I can’t control what other people think or the way they act. When the vote was taken it came that the contact was voted to be terminated.

So we thought that the situation was done and dusted well that was until my friend gave me a call. My friend has 2 small children and only works limited hours. When she arrived at work last night some accusations had been made against her saying she was involved in our lot leaving her company. Now firstly I would like to add 1 person in our block was aware I have a friend who worked there and secondly I made sure I kept my friend out of this as it wasn’t her problem nor was it my place to put her in a awkward position. But all this is besides the point.

This women who represented the company wasn’t doing her job and when this happens you can lose your job or in this case lose work. Now the smart thing would have been for this women to take reasonability for her actions. Not pass the buck because what happens when we do this is that a lie will only hold for so long. When you are incompetent at your job it only takes so long for people to realise that your useless and then after that your bosses.

In life we all do stupid things, I don’t think I know one person who hasn’t and most people freely admit to this. It’s the way we handle things in this situation which define the person we are but finger pointed and shifting the blame doesn’t work. Now the thing that really upsets me about this situation is my friend is amazing at her job I have known her for nearly 10 years now and I would hate to think that the actions of this women could affect her career as she has done absolutely nothing wrong and now has to try resolve the situation.

So next time you make a mistake or you know you are doing the wrong thing instead of pointing the finger at people how about taking some responsibilities for your actions karma will surely reward it for you later on.

HAPPY FATHERS DAY! (I’m only a few days late)

I was going to write this blog last week and got a little caught up with some other stuff going on at work. So I thought I would write about dads this week in the festivity that is father’s day! Now I am very lucky I have a pretty amazing dad. I really admire my dad in a lot of ways, he has a strong work ethic he had the ability to go to uni as a mature aged student and has god knows how many degrees and also has the ability to scare anyone straight with this particularly quiet voice that has the edge of you really don’t want to mess with me (I’m told it takes years to perfect) He is really tall has salt and pepper hair with matching beard, hazel brown eyes and thick sausage fingers! Now anyone who knows me knows I look nothing like him and my eldest sister Jacqui is the spitting image of him and my mum didn’t really get a look in on her and I could definitely be the milk mans baby. Now I may not look like my dad but I am definitely my father’s daughter and I didn’t realise this until I was much older.

When I was younger my dad and I could fight and not one of us would back down. My dad was tough on us but always fair and as much as it pains me to say it was what has made my sisters and I the strong women we are today (obviously with my mum’s help) I remember a fight we had over I can’t remember and we didn’t speak for days. He was at the time working in Malaysia at the time and he dropped me to work when he was back home for a short visit and he was due to fly back to Malaysia that day while I was at work. I have a feeling that my mum asked him to put the issue to rest as he was leaving to go back for a few weeks and she didn’t want him to leave with us still angry at each other. I remembered my dad apologising and I pretty much told him to bugger off and traipsed into work. The fight continued till the next visit home. People seem to think I get my stubborn streak from him but I really don’t know why? (I say this with a smile)

As we have both gotten older I find we are both less stubborn and don’t really fight anymore and we have both come a little bit softer with age. But his dry sense of humour is still there I had to warn my now fiancé when I introduced him to my dad. Just laugh at anything he says he will be joking and he has a really good poker face. (Joe would love to be able to do this when he actually plays poker so he could win some money) I am grateful everyday that I still have my father as my best friend unfortunately doesn’t have hers and fathers day is always the hardest. I never had the pleasure to meet him but he must have been the most wonderful man as he gave me a friend like Corrine.


Happy Belated Fathers Day to my dad and to everyone else’s fathers who are out there.

So The Election Is Over, What Happens Next?

Now I know what your thinking isn't the rule not to talk about politics and religion. Well yeah but I logged onto Facebook tonight and saw a whole lot of disgruntled status updates about who one today election (I'm from the shire and it is a very strong Liberal seat and kills it every election, so if you live here and you vote Labour don't advertise it as you may lose a limb) Now I must admit I had one myself as I am not keen on the this whole election as a whole and after speaking to various people who did the donkey vote they have said if they knew it would be this close they would have actually done it properly.

We all get so geared up at election time and to be honest it's the only time I see a tonne of status updates about the politics and it will all die down within a few days and I will go back to seeing what people have had for breakfast or how bad there day is going. While a lot of us are not happy about the result we now need to ask ourselves Where do we go from here? A few things to remember is that the seats are on a pretty even split between parties so making changes and having policies go through will be very hard for Labour if the other 75 seats don't agree. I also believe that this election will change a lot of things Labour and Liberals know they are on a knives edge with the Australian people. If they didn't they both wouldn't be trying so hard to swing independents to see there side of things and start looking at rural Australia more.

Also this is a 3 year contract so to speak, if it all turns to rubbish what chance do we think Labour will hold a 3rd term? I do believe that the independents and Labour do there best to make the most of this 3 years and I really hope they do as the Australian people need a good 3 years after a particularly rough last 3.

So the thing to remember now is to give Labour a chance and let Julia Gillard have a go and lets try start this with a clean slate. Worst case scenario we can vote them out next year and vote in the sex party!

Stephanie Rice You IDIOT!

Today I jumped on facebook and saw my sisters status of Stephanie Rice you idiot! I started reading through the comments and was getting an idea of what had happened and that she tweeted a offensive word and it didn’t offensive word was. Clicked onto Ninemsn and low and behold I was right. I'm not going to write the word but lets just say it's in refrence to gay males. The thing that I find the most terrible about this is for starters it's such and ugly word and is extremely frowned upon in society, secondly you have a open twitter account with god knows how many followers and you think you can say it and no one would notice? Now I realise that athletes and celebrities get put up on a petistool and we expect them to act in a particular way so they are role models for young children. I don't always agree with this as it doesn't allow these people to make mistakes and when they do they fall particularly hard!

Ben Cousins is a prime example a football player who was a role models then he bacame addicted to drugs and when he fell he fell hard.
I don't excuse his behaviour but he obviously is a troubled man and had to have this played out in front of the media which is not only hard for him but hard for the family as well. I know a few people who have had addictions and doing it without the media is hard enough on them and the familly. 99% of my friends drink now there is always a chance that we can get addicted but for a good chunk there isn't. I know lots of people who take drugs recrationally and don't get addicted but sadly I know a few who do. Drug addiction is something I don't know a lot about so I don't feel I can comment pass this but I hope you are seeing the point I am trying to make.

But when I see people in the public eye make statements like this for me it isn't oh well everyone make mistake and has prices to pay. I find this stupid that all if us know better better than throwing around slurs of any kind and the sad thing is I don't think she is a nieve girl who doesn't know any better. A point my friend Lizzie made (congrats on the engagement as well to her) is that one of her fellow team mates Mathew Mitcham is an openly gay man who I’m sure wouldn’t appreciate it. The sad thing is I think that we have come so far in the way of race and sexuality that this makes me sad. So I really hope before anyone thinks that it’s ok to use any derogatory terms take a long hard look around were not if the 1800 people get with the times.