I'm just not feeling well, okay!?

I have been extremely slack lately, thanks to a nasty virus I seemed to have caught out of the blue. I honestly haven't really felt up to finding material to write about either...

One thing that has come out of this whole being sick thing, is finding out how annoyed I get when people assume that I am pregnant just because I'm married now and feeling a bit off colour.

I understand that people get excited and whatever and expect that we will be parents soon, but seriously, my husband and I will get preggers when we're good and ready. I guess it's my own fault for putting it out on FB that I haven't been 100% - throwing up and nauseous, dizzy and all the rest of it... but please stop jumping to conclusions!

Also, I kind of feel like once we start trying, I don't want anyone to jinx it (I am kind of the superstitious type).
I know for sure that once we find out (we are pregnant), it will be a complete secret - this has taught me something - don't put anything important or anything that may be misconstrued on Facebook!

But thanks for all those who have wished me well in recovery! I am happy to say I am feeling quite better and should be all good by the weekend  : )

Happy Happy, Joy Joy

I think it’s super hard to try and please everyone. I mean, I think you could literally have a nervous breakdown if you were one of those people who just tried to keep everyone happy all the time.

As much as I’d like to be able to achieve this, I am not this person.

Unfortunately some of the things I say/do sometimes don’t go down well with people; but you know what – that’s just A-OK with me.

I am reading this novel at the moment and a character in it is torn about her wedding – her rich fiancé’s mother has offered to throw a lavish affair overseas with all the trimmings, but her parents want her to get married in her home-town chapel with a BBQ and marquee in the backyard.

She can’t decide what to do because she doesn’t want to upset either family, so what does she do? She has two weddings just to keep the peace.

This may be going a tad over the top, I mean you have to give yourself some boundaries don’t you? You have to be able to step in at some point and let someone down, nicely of course.

It got me thinking about how we try and keep other people happy – our boss, our family and friends, our bank managers… I don’t like to ‘rock the boat’ so to speak and I’m lucky that I can be open and honest with my family and friends, but I know what it’s like trying to please someone just to avoid confrontation.

I used to work for this scary-ass lady (I will refer to her as ‘Melanie’ in this blog and I won’t mention where I worked at the time) who was never satisfied.

I pride myself on my work and consider myself to be a pretty conscientious and driven person; but no matter what me or the other staff working at this establishment did, it was not good enough… even if we achieved all our collective goals.

I got to the point (this was just before I left the company) where I think I even lied about a big sale I had made just to avoid getting berated by this woman.

The same thing goes for touchy friend subjects. I know a girl who is too petrified to bring up an issue with another friend for fear that she will dissolve the friendship completely. I told her that the other girl wouldn’t be a real friend if she didn’t understand, but alas, the issue will probably remained bottled up in my other friend’s mind forever.

I don’t get this – you can’t live your life on everyone else’s terms – live it on your terms and if you are unhappy about something or you feel like you’re conforming to unrealistic expectations, do something about it.

There is nothing worse that living an unhappy life, where you wake up with that overall feeling of dread. Lighten the load a bit and accept that sometimes, you just can’t make everyone happy.

International Women's Day

Just a quick note that today is International Women's Day. I just wanted to tell all the wonderful women in my life that I love them so much! Today marks 100 years of this milestone - so make sure you tell all the women in your life how much they mean to you on this special day!

This year's theme is: Equal access to education, training and science and technology: Pathway to decent work for women.

For more information about the day go to http://www.internationalwomensday.com/ 

Reassurance in words

Did you ever hear a story, watch a movie or read something that really just makes you think about what you want in life? That inspires you to chase down your dreams and make a change for the better?

As it happens, such a thing has happened to me. I have just finished reading the wonderfully written Eat Pray Love – the tale of Elizabeth Gilbert who wrote the book after pretty much going through the lowest time in her life, making a change, and starting again from square one.

All I can say is that after putting the book down, I knew I was meant to read it. I know it sounds silly because millions of people have read it and empathised with Liz as she struggled to find herself through adversity… but it struck a chord with me so strong I feel like there was some higher power guiding me through the library to the little shelf where the tatty book sat.

Liz Gilbert’s tale about life starts in New York and flows through Italy, India and finally finishes (or you could say, begins) in Indonesia – more specifically, Bali (where my husband and I went for our honeymoon). I laughed, cried, sympathised and at times, envied her for getting through the tough times with such grace and finally, understanding and acceptance for her position in the world.

Lately I have been struggling with a few personal issues (lets call them hiccups) that have seemed to have caused me more torment that what I thought they would. Basically, I thought I was stronger than what I actually am and haven’t been dealing very well…

I really do feel though, after reading this book that it has helped put some more perspective into my life and I’ve made the decision to make some (minor) changes that I hope will make a bigger difference. I guess you could say that it’s kind of given me that final push I needed to make moves to do something about my situation.

Before people start making assumptions I really am okay – you know when a few issues just get you down and instead of keeping a level head, you kind of lose your shit a bit and start drowning in knee-high water? That’s me at the moment. I just need to change the way I look at things and put my thoughts into more organised categories.

I’ve also learnt from Liz that it is important to forgive yourself in order to move forward and as I’m writing this, I’m smiling as if my emotions are my conviction that I know I’m on the right path.

For those of you have haven’t read Eat Pray Love and without going into the synopsis, I would simply say go and read it. Even if you’re not a book reader and find reading wanky; just give it a go. It might change your life for the better.

PS: I am not giving you permission to just go and get the movie – it in no way begins to even scratch the surface of this amazing story.

Academy Awards 2011

So the 83rd annual Academy Awards happened yesterday in the US. The Oscars is my fave awards show by far… it really is a guilty pleasure of mine watching awards shows!

I was really excited to watch this year’s one because I saw most of the nominated movies that were up for the Best Picture award. I was stoked that The King’s Speech won (although I thought that The Social Network may prove to be an upset on the night).

Apart from the awards themselves, I love the red carpet fashions. Here some of my favourite looks of the evening…

Natalie Portman

 Halle Berry

Gwyenth Paltrow

Cate Blanchett

Mila Kunis

Justin Timberlake

Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg (although not sure about CB’s beard)