My God I’m 27!

As you may have guessed from my Botox blog I may have an issue with getting older. Well I have always had an issue with age full stop! And as I have turned 27 today it made me stop and have a think about getting older. When I was younger I always wanted to be older and I hated that my high school boyfriend was older than me by a full 6 months and now I would like to be younger by a full 6 years. Well not a whole 6 years maybe just 2.

When I was 25 I could deal with that and I decided that this was a good age the half way point to 30 ok I would like to stop now! Apparently it doesn’t work that way. Damn you father time moving that clock forward! But I looked at myself naked in the mirror this morning to see if things had changed. Silly I know I really don’t take much time to look at myself in the mirror sure I do when I’m shoving make up on my face or checking what I’m wearing looks ok. But I decided that I would take a good hard look and not in any kind of dirty way. And I came to a few conclusions firstly I look much better now that I did 3 years ago and that’s a lot of gym work and good food. My butt hasn’t dropped to the floor (just yet) it is actually smaller. My tummy is much flatter and also has some definition to it, thanks Amanda for that one. Legs are leaner and more tone, so I have to say I haven’t aged so bad.

So apart from the body I had a think about how else I have changed in the last few years. Well I think I’m a lot more calm than I was a few years back, I’m learning not to sweat the small stuff. I am also learning to be a lot more accepting of people in the whole. I use to be a like this person drives me crazy, but now I am more excepting of people and everything that comes with them. I don’t not like anyone anymore I just accept people as they are and there rubbish it’s not worth not liking people.

I also remember when I was younger that I thought by 27 I would be married and have one child and pregnant with my second?????? Man I am so not ready for children. My friends who are my age with children I think are amazing who have children I have realised I am just not ready for them yet. My fiancé on the other hand is.

So after my reflection on my birthday maybe 27 isn’t so bad but ask me next year when I am half way to 30!

The Bucket List

So I woke up this morning at the stupid hour of 5:15am and one of the first things I do is check my phone. I’m a bit of a nanna and am asleep early as I get up really early and there is a text from my mum that says “At the hospital they think your nanna has had a stroke” Well not the kind of text that I usually wake up to. Now I have to say this is no big surprise my nanna is in her late 80’s and has been unwell for a while so we have all been waiting for this text or call saying she has taken a turn for the worst.

Now after a few phone calls at a more reasonable hour I have found out that my Nan had a mini stroke and she seems to be ok but will need to be kept in for observation.

So this had me thinking today that life is very short and we need to make the most of it. So I have created my bucket list, things I want to do or see before I die. Some of these things are already being for filled at the moment but I have added them anyway.

• Walk the Inca Trail. This is a mountainous jungle hike leading to the sacred Inca city of Machu Picchu. The 45km trek is usually covered in 4 days.
• Go to Africa on safari
• Marry the man that I love with all my heart (Doing that one in February)
• Have children
• Back pack around Europe
• Get my motorcycle license
• Go to Glastonbury
• Learn French and Italian (That should be interesting)
• Go to university
• Be 70 years old and playing bingo with my 3 best friends



So what’s your bucket list?

Budget Is A Spread Sheet That Has What My wedding Is Costing Me!

So I had my friend Lorna over the other week and we are getting married within a few weeks of each other and we were talking wedding costs. Such as how much is brides maid dresses worth and what we were willing to put in towards bridesmaids and groomsman. My other client turned and said “Oh what kind of budget do you have?” to which Lorna replied “Budget what budget? A budget is a list of what everything is costing me on a spreadsheet” I had a really big laugh at this as this tends to be the case for a lot of people getting married and I am totally n the same boat. I know what we wanted for our wedding we have booked it and every month money goes out to all sorts of things. Honeymoon, rings, photo booth and so on. I’m really good at budgeting for things and I have felt I have done a reasonable job with the wedding as I still have money left over from the original budget that my parents and Joe's parents gave us. Now to be honest I never really payed attention if I liked it and thought it was reasonably priced sure I’ll have 5 of them.

That’s really my philosophy on shopping full stop why should my wedding be any different. But the old wedding can get a little out of control when it comes to cost. You just have to utter the word wedding and you can add 50% to everything. We tried to I actually didn’t tell one place I wanted it for a wedding I wanted it for a function and got a price once they realised it was for a wedding it went up by 20%. So is a wedding really worth all money we put out for it. Remembering that all this money is for one day, the average Australian wedding in 2009 was $49,202! I would like to know who these people are and can I have a loan! Lets round that up to $50,000 I can do a lot with $50,000 pay of a chunk of my house, go to Europe and live for a while and actually stay in places that aren’t hostels. Now personally I think 50k is a little bit to much for one day seeing that is the average Australian wage.

So I have done a quick calculation of what our wedding is costing us just over $26,000n this includes everything from suits, dress material and so on. Now I still know this is a lot of money (A deposit an apartment) but it seems to be something a little more reasonable. (Please comment if you think I’m wrong)

The one thing I am looking forward to is after the wedding is having my money back and not paying for things for the day. Not that I begrudge paying for any of these thing but I'll tell you right now my shoe spending has gone down.

So I am now asking for comments or private messages on what you think is reasonable, what you have paid or what you know people have paid that you think was crazy or really reasonable.

What Classifies As To Skinny?????

So as I have mentioned in previous blogs I have been trying to lose some weight before the wedding in February. Now I have been quiet successful and am pretty much close to what I feel is what I would like to be for the wedding. Now this has been through a whole lot of hard work and exercise to get me to this point. Now I haven’t deprived myself of anything I want I have just been eating right, lower carbohydrate intake and for me I have cut out a lot of wheat. (I react to go to gluten quiet badly if I eat to much and it make me retain a lot of water) So I have been feeling quiet good about myself and proud that I have done this without going crazy and going down any path of eating disorders or so on.

So I have been feeling good about myself until the other day at work. I was in our lunch room eating my salad sitting across from a lady who works with me and she says to me “Danielle have you lost weight?” My response was yes. I was feeling good someone had noticed that I had lost weight and was ready for my compliment. (I know lame and yes at that point selling tickets on myself) But no there was no compliment there was the following comment “Well your looking really thin! Almost sick” Well I know this wasn’t to be rude this comment came out of concern. So I was a little taken aback by this so I’ll admit that I went to check myself out in the mirror to see if I had any bones sticking out or looked like a lolly pop head. Nope everything seemed in proportion I was wearing tailored pants and a lose fitted top. So I could say it was maybe say that this was my thin clothes and maybe make me thinner. So I brushed off the comment and went on with my day. Now I have had comments about my weight loss especially from my partner “Your too skinny” or “What’s this?” That would be my hip darling? You seriously went to uni? Now firstly Joe doesn’t like change and sometimes I think he doesn’t look at my body. Not in a bad way but I don’t think he intently looks at my body and then one day he will take notice. So I tend to disregard what Joe says a bit about my body cause well he’s a boy.

So today I have come to work really tired I did a two 13 hour days and I could barely pull my sorry ass out of bed. So had to go up to the same ladies office to speak with another lady and she called out to me to say hi. This comment follows “Danielle you are shrinking in front of my eyes and you look exhausted!” Well if I knew that but thanks for pointing it out to me. Now this lovely lady and she really is sits me down and talks to me about maybe having some time off to recuperate and is truly interested in my health which is a really lovely thing as I have worked in places that I have don’t care if you’re sick or well you are expected to show up and do your job and not complain. So after this comment I thought I haven’t weighed myself in a while I might go have a look at my weight. Well figured out what the deal is, I have lost 5kg my aim was 3kg and I have lost 5. So I understand where the concern comes from as 5kg from my fame is quite a lot.

So back to my original question what classifies as too skinny. Now I am not talking about Donatella Versace’s daughter thin cause that looks terrible I mean at what point do we stop? Now it is hard for the people losing weight as I don’t really notice the difference (Well except for my 2xu tights cause those boys are like a second skin on me) It’s easy for us to say to one another you don’t need to lose weight and you look fine. But at what point do we sit one another down and say you are looking really thin. Now I love this women for checking that I was ok and she has done it in such a nice way that I didn’t feel threatened or upset. I still don’t think that I am border line anorexic or anything and I am probably happy where I am now.

A Blog To The Teachers!

They say that those who can’t do teach! Really? I don’t believe that I taught for a number of years and I feel I’m a fairly good hairdresser. But trust me I know there are some absolute rubbish teachers out there who are giving out a tonne of wrong information and there are people picking up the slack elsewhere.

As I have mentioned before I work in a natural therapy college so I am surrounded by teachers every day, I don’t get to see a lot of these guys in action as my job is more in administration. What I do here at the college is work with a team that supports people studying by distance education and my job is to help these guys through the clinic aspect. All our courses have modules where our students need to spend time in the environment that they are studying in and observe, perform consultations and do treatments. No for anyone who has studying by distance whether it is a theory bases course or a practical based one this is a very hard thing and you need to be completely motivated to do it. I take my hat off to these guys as I speak to them on a regular basis and 9 out of 10 of them are ploughing away to get there work done and rarely complain.

When I started here I was informed that I needed to organise a Intensive Clinic for students who have massage as part of their course to come and attend here for a 4 or 5 day Intensive so they could do some clinic time and get feedback from our supervisors. This wasn’t an easy task we had a few hurdles to get through to be able to make this happen and you always have the fear of what if people don’t show up or if they hate what we have organised for the clinic or what if they get in there and they and we blow their heads off with to much information! Now I always knew I had amazing massage therapists in the clinic upstairs and I have been lucky enough to have massages from then and they have made me feel a million dollars afterwards but I have never seen these guys in action until yesterday. I really wanted to get a feel of what these guys are teaching our students and how they handle these students remembering that some of these guys have never even touched someone and let alone perform a massage on a paying client. I sat up in the room yesterday and observed how they worked and taught, now I know nothing about massage and god help anyone who gets one off me as I’m more likely to do damage to someone then make them feel relaxed or even better. So here I am sitting in this class and taking notes on massage and watching on why you massage like this and how to look after a pregnant client (We have a pregnant student in our class and she was kind enough to be a guinea pig) I also came to the realisation of one of the things I miss about teaching is the moments when you watch a student make the connection and when everything starts to make sense. I saw this on nearly every student yesterday and it made me smile as this is the thing that make my job worth wild. I have students ring me on a daily basis that you sometimes to need to pull of the ledge and say that it’s all going to be ok and lets break this down into chunks. So to see these guys who have never been in a class room for this course drink up all the information that was provided.

So I want to say a really big thank you to the guys upstairs changing some of these students lives this week and a big thank you to Steve for working with me to get this done and writing such a amazing program for these students. I and they appreciate this so much.

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.