Thursday, 20 March 2014

Happy Happiness Day


I’m rubbish at blogging, partly because life gets in the way and I don’t find time for it – which is a rubbish excuse, but lately I’ve been struggling to fit everything into my day, time is becoming quiet precious and I need to learn to priorities things in life – otherwise I’m constantly running around like a head-less chicken.

I’ve side-tracked…so Happiness Day; thanks to the UN March 20th is International Happiness Day, falls in the same month as International Womens Day, which is a lovely coincidence as without women this world would not be a very happy place - in fact we wouldn’t be able to re-populate the world and there would have been no Eve, so Adam would have probably had sex with a monkey and got aids and died. Anyway in a way to create more posts about life in general and what’s going on in the world I thought I’d write reasons why I’m happy today.

It’s the first day of Spring, and it seems like the south of the UK is well and truly basking in its glory. Sunshine makes me happy. Sunshine when it’s not too hot makes me even happier. Spring is definitely my favorite season, and when it’s an unusually dry one, it makes me even happier. So happy happiness-1st day of Spring- Day.

Thanks to a family friend visit from Sri Lanka I managed to get my hands on 100 bags of Akbar Brothers Premium Gold Blend tea. This tea is AMAZING, literally the smoothest, tastiest, loveliest cup of tea I have had in a long time – I brought in the box to share with the office; who are all enjoying it too (I’m slightly regretting this as I’m sure it won’t be around for long now). This LOVELY cup of tea has made me extremely happy, and a little pang of joy  fills inside me every time I have a cup. So happy happy tea-fueled-filled Mandy.

Running, yes that’s right I mentioned exercise and how its making me happy (shock, bloody horror). I’ve taking up running regularly again, the spring weather has sparked this decision + it’s a cheap way to burn calories, get some fresh air, lose weight, build muscle and just generally feel a lot better about myself.  The first run was tough, it feels like it’s been such a long time since it happened, however the second run was a lot easier. The endorphins are making me crazy though, as I’m thinking about signing up for the Blenheim Half Marathon in October – which is a crazy long distance, but I do have enough time to train for it….so watch this space.

BBC Get up and Go! Sport Relief Playlist – I needed a new running soundtrack and this is amazing – it’s 51 songs long; which is about 41 song longer than I need, but it provides get motivational songs from throughout the decades – everything from Little Mix to the The Pointer Sisters to Wu Tang. It can be a little cheesy at times, but when you are pushing yourself that little bit more the cheesiness helps you forget about it as you sing-a-long in your head to the lyrics.  It's also just a great motivational, inspirations, playlist - that can turn moods around, so I'm pretty much listening to it all the time now. Listen to it - everyone needs a good injection of (mostly) good  pop songs in their life.


So why are you happy today?

PS – Here’s a photo of me and my Mum, who is the one lady in the world that can turn my mood around from sad to happy in a sentence. She doesn’t look very happy in it, but she is, we both are (she's just not a very good smiler in photos).
PPS - If your reading previous posts, Juicing went well - I just had no energy to do anything, let alone blog.




Monday, 20 January 2014

Juicy Juicy


WARNING – STARTING A FAD DIET

I’m attending a wedding in just over a month in Australia – so what do I go and do, buy a dress one size too small. I didn’t do this so I’d have a goal dress to squeeze into (though it’s working out that way), but because I saw the dress on sale and the only size they had was one size smaller than I am. So even though I’m promoting the notion of no fad diets – it’s all about healthy eating and exercising lots, I’m going back on my word and starting a fad diet (just to squeeze into this dress, honest).

So what’s the diet I hear you ask -  well as you may have read my earlier post on how we brought a juicer at the start of the month; I am doing a one meal a day Juice Fast. Two meals will be a mix of fruit / vegetable juice and the other will be a balanced healthy meal. 

I’m starting today (Monday) and doing it for the next four days, as I’m spending this coming weekend on a hen weekend, where no doubt there will be A LOT of vodka sodas involved I’ll be eating ‘healthy normally’ whilst there – to keep my stomach lined. Then re-joining the juice fast from Monday.

In total I’ll be doing it for 20 days (with a 3 day break for the Hen Weekend). I’m doing it this way so I can eat something each day – otherwise I’ll go crazy, plus it ties in with my social life too. I’ll still be exercising and alternating weights days and cardio days, so I'm still keeping fit. During the week I think it would work well to have juice for breakfast and lunch and a meal for dinner.  I’m going to try and have my lunch juice as late as possible, so that I’m not starving by the time I  get home, and climbing the walls till the boyf comes home to eat dinner.


Mission is to get through the next 4 days. I’ll write and update on Thursday afternoon / Friday morning to let you know how it goes.

Friday, 17 January 2014

A blog a week keeps the doctor away?

I vowed to write a blog post every week, and as it’s Friday and the week is coming to an end, time is ticking on getting this post out and not breaking another one of my new year’s resolutions. It’s been a busy week; except for today work has been demanding all week, but enjoyable – doing the ‘fun’ parts of my jobs. I’ve not exercised as much as I would have liked too, and I’ve not eaten as healthy as I would have liked too – but the weeks passed now and I don’t have a tardis to go back and change that. I just have to accept it.

However I am learning that lots of things are not in my control and sometimes you just need to kick back and have a ‘slower’ week – when work is demanding; try and balance out the stress by having a less demanding time out of work. When things don’t go as planned, just try and stick to the plan next time – every decision is your own, but it’s impossible to control everyone else’s decision around you.

Emotional outburst over…back to normal stuff.

The boyf and I have started watching Game of Thrones. 3 episodes in and so far, it’s OK. Struggling to take the King seriously; as whenever I see Mark Addy in anything I think back to him acting as Fred Flintstone.

Besides that not much more to report – hopefully a more interesting post next week.


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