Found: Around the Blogosphere

Some days I'll scroll though Google Reader without finding much I'm interested in commenting on. Other days -like today- I find half an Internet's worth of interesting tidbits. Here's what caught my eye recently...

Nory posted the most adorable "Overheard" I've come across. Seriously, while I'm happily unmarried and childless, I'm looking forward to the day the men in my life discuss braids and bows. That being said, Doniree's comment made me spit water at the computer screen. Much more the type of conversation I'd overhear these days...

E.P. echoed my (unspoken) thoughts exactly when she blogged about disorganization and being a 'planner'. I am the same way, despite not always being neat. I'm always organized and I always have a plan.

Lacy's wedding nightmare about the purple dress? I had a wedding nightmare and my dress looked scarily similar. It was a brighter shade of purple. And gold. Thing is? I'm not even engaged yet!!! I'm worried what my nightmares will be once I'm actually planning a wedding.

Arielle re-capped a recent speech. If you had 20-minutes to tell peers, co-workers, etc. about yourself, what would you say? What are the key defining moments of your life?

Finally, Amber has started a new Monday feature. Her first post is very much in line with how I view my career/job. What do other 20-something's think? I'll be keeping tabs on the comments this time!

Anyway, just a few of the things that struck me, while wandering though the blogosphere lately. Have you come across anything interesting?

4 days...

You can do a whole lot in 4 days. You can also do very little...

*I finished work Friday with plans for a wonderful dinner, and 4 days of fun, socializing, Halloween and relaxing. Unfortunately I came home to 18-year old boys invading my living room, along with far more beer and pizza than I could handle. AB is doing an apprenticeship and at 25, has developed a little following of 18-year old classmates who think he's the shizz... He's put them off as long as possible, but finally couldn't avoid having them over. FML.

*Due to the previous evening's shenanigans I slept in an extra hour while trying to psych myself up for a long-run. Alas, I left it for far too long and the heat got to me. It was awful and after feeling freezing cold, and like I was going to faint/puke I walked the remaining 7km of the loop. Note to self: Melbs is only going to get hotter. Get used to getting out of bed earlier to get those runs in!

*I left the house to grocery shop on Saturday, and to run some errands on Monday, but otherwise I've had a gloriously blissful 4-day weekend of reading, relaxing and painting my fireplace!

*I didn't celebrate Halloween or Melbourne Cup day at all, but am fairly okay with missing both. Mostly I was just lazy (and paint-covered!)

*I have a busy month coming up with weekend work engagements, the start of the holiday season, and many more as-yet-unplanned shenanigans. Looking forward to it! It seems November is such an exciting month when it's spring-time not fall/winter.

Is November a blah month for you or an exciting/busy one?

Challenge Month 1: October

After reflecting from my no-alcohol month I decided to jump into each month with a new challenge to help motivate myself to take the steps I know will make my life the one I want to live.

October's Challenge was To be active at least 4x per week.

Unfortunately it was a lot harder than I thought it would be!

Just over a month ago, I decided to get back into running, and have a plan for 3x weekly runs. It's been great and I have been 100% successful over the past month. I look forward to running days, and to challenging myself to tackle distances I haven't run in more than a year! Some weeks are particularly harder than others, like this past one where I had a busy schedule and a lazy butt, meaning fitting in an 8km tempo run ended up being a 5km walk in the rain when my legs felt like lead. Then my Saturday long-run came after an interesting night and my sleep-in pushed the temperature up to 30*C and after the first 5.5km I struggled to even walk the last 7km loop due to the heat. Lessons learned and I've chosen to repeat last week's schedule instead of moving up to even more mileage.

The hard part was the extra 1x/week of exercise. Initially I didn't think it was going to be hard to do. We semi-regularly schedule sports-breaks at work to try out basketball, squash, badminton but for some reason, despite my efforts, they just haven't happened this month. It's been busy for everyone. I scheduled a rock-climbing date with a friend, only to have her cancel on me at the last minute, and climbing isn't a solo activity*. I did a lot of gardening, cleaning, and backyard soccer, but nothing that consistently got my heart-rate up.

So, unfortunately this month is a fail overall, but I'm excited I did consistently get 3x a week exercise. A lot more than I've been doing over the past few years. Keep it up, and work harder to get 'social' exercise in.

November Challenge: Track my spending and evaluate my finances over a week and month.

Looking forward...

So last week, I reviewed the past, but what's to come? I mentioned in my birthday post (Thanks for all the Birthday Wishes!!) that if my celebration was any indication, 24 will shape up to be a very good year indeed.

I'm not quite sure where I stand on the whole 'fate' vs 'choice' issue, but from what I've learned, life has a way of mixing both in a pretty interesting way. So if I don't plan out a few key things that I want to accomplish in the next year, I probably won't head in any direction I necessarily want to go.

Thus, not goals necessarily, but thoughts or possibilities for the next 365-ish days.

At 24 I want to...

*decide with some certainty which direction I want my sport career to go. Event management? Teaching? Health and recreation?

*make plans and take steps towards post-grad education. Regardless of career choice, some post-grad study required.

*enroll in french classes.

*travel somewhere I've never been before.

*make movements towards a new job, but don't move just for the sake of it. Hold out for something worthwhile.

*save equivalent of 3 months salary and don't spend it. Also start saving for a house/property.

*do something that scares me.

*learn something totally new. Like quantum physics. But not.

What do you plan to do at *this* age?

Why didn't they tell us?

Why didn't our parent's tell us it would be like this?

That adulthood isn't all sunshine and rainbows and eating ice cream for breakfast if you feel like it?

They probably did, we just didn't listen. Because when forced to eat your broccoli, responsibility and adulthood seems like a wonderful idea. I mean why wouldn't you eat Lucky Charms for dinner every night if you had the chance? (Probably because after the third bowl the excitement about marshmallows wears off. shhh don't tell!)

But if given the choice between dress-up and mud pies or bills, tough life decisions and heartbreak, wouldn't we all choose the mudpies?

Maybe? What would you choose?

In 24 years I've learned...

... that some things come easily and some things require a hell of a lot of work.

... that love sometimes finds you in the most unexpected of places.

... that my mile-wide independent streak isn't always the best trait I have.

... to jump at opportunities that present themselves because that door may not open again once it's been shut.

... there is nothing better than a kitten curled up in your lap. Really.

... you really can survive without the newest shoes/belt/clothes and the feeling of being able to pay bills is just as good as having a new purse.

... you can't expect to get back more than you've put in.

... that when you make the choice to establish lives in three separate parts of the world, you're always missing the two you've left behind.

... sometimes it's ok to want mediocrity. You can't put 100% into everything.

... I'm often still a selfish brat.

... it's ok to be a work-in-progress

... that I'd happily be vegetarian if steak, prawns and mussels could be considered veggies.

... that even moderation should be done in moderation.

... that while sometimes I feel like I'm missing out on the whole "single, 20-something" thing, I love knowing I've found the boy I'm going to marry. (Eventually.)

... I actually do love to run. Mostly after I've stopped.

... to enjoy red wine. But I really don't think it's 'an age thing'.*

... I need to let go of the horrid* co-worker because 6 months later, no one else cares. Even though I can still find her horrible emails in the inbox that is now mine.

... that Kraft Dinner Mac & Cheese is unequivocally awesome. I don't care what you say.

... someone who can make you laugh until you cry is someone to hold onto.

... I still don't know where I want my career to lead, and that's ok.

... spending time alone is some of my favourite time.

... to take a moment while 'in the moment' to realize and appreciate where you are.

... I don't regret the decisions I've made, but I regret that I put myself in the circumstances to have to make them.

... that just because my college days are over, it doesn't mean the best parts of my life are over.

Here's to another fabulous 24!

* "Oh it must be an age thing" was the comment uttered by Horrid, in response to the fact I disliked red wine. Please note that Horrid is 6 months older than me.

Belated...

Yep, amid my lack of blogging I totally didn't mention it was my birthday last Sunday! I am now 24! Which seems like a pretty great number to me, and if this year is anything like my birthday weekend, it sounds like I'm going to have a pretty fabulous year ahead of me.

It had taken me a few weeks to come up with ideas of what to do, but finally I gave up trying to figure out what my friends wanted to do, and just planned what *I* wanted. It was my birthday after all. Calling for nice weather, we organized a very low-key picnic in Fitzroy Gardens. The temperature was probably 25*C and we brought a few drinks, some snacks, and a picnic blanket. Soon I had bunches of my friends around me, playing soccer, boccie, and enjoying getting to know each other (as always I have a variety of friends from different aspects of my life.)

After a wonderful afternoon in some much-needed sunshine, James & I, his bro and SIL and Dad headed out to a balcony bar in Melbourne for more drinks, Asian street food and fun. Some of the same friends, some different joined us before we headed to two other places to enjoy the evening. Definitely tipsy, I still retained some of my college-girl attitude when we finished up the night with far too much Hungry Jack's (Burger King), but no hangover come Sunday (yay!).

My actual birthday, brought some friends down from Hometown to visit and despite some initial rain we had a fabulous pub lunch followed by far too much red wine, and live jazz in the sunshine.

Seriously, I felt very loved and wonderful, realizing just what little (ok big!) community of friends I've established here. My whole family got on Skype to sing me Happy Birthday, I received some wonderful and very generous presents, and was so touched and thankful that so many people came out to celebrate with me. Pretty much 100% turn round from last year, things are really going well!

While it was no house party with 100 guests, it was exactly what I was looking for and a fabulous way to kick off my 24th year!

More birthday posts to follow this week...