Sara, just so you know...

You are the best. Always will be.

xxx :-)

Thoughts and dreams

The annoying thing about self-fulfilling prophecies is that sometimes they're fulfilled. Other times, not. Other times, you just can't tell. But, in other news...

I had a dream last night. Not a nice one. I was in a house with someone who was obviously my partner. I can't recall all the details to get us to the point, but we had to quickly shut ourselves into a cellar, by going through a door and down some stairs, because we needed to get away from someone.

Whoever my partner was, he got through the door. By the time it was my turn, someone else had come into the house (I think we were standing in the kitchen). I shut the door, so they wouldn't know my partner had already gone to hide and I outstretched my other arm to try to keep the person at bay.

He grabbed my wrist, took a small knife from his jacket, and carefully cut the vein in my wrist. I thought to myself it would hurt more if I looked, so I turned away as he did it. There wasn't a struggle. I was resigned to the fact he was going to do it and there was nothing I could do. I slumped to the floor and could literally feel the life draining out of me. Even when I woke up, it was such a strange sensation.

After he cut my wrist, I was on my knees and had fallen against his legs, as he stood. He leaned my head against his thighs, lifted my hair, took the knife and made another cut into my spine at the base of my skull. Again, I could feel my life literally draining away. It didn't hurt. It felt almost like I was simply getting heavier and heavier, but I was going to be asleep soon and that would be that.

I woke up at that point and still felt that way. It took a good half hour or so for me to adjust back to reality.

I'd had not the most pleasant of conversations prior to going to sleep, so I'm sure the dream is somehow related. It's a while since I've experienced such a vivid dream, though and I'm not keen on having another like it any time soon.

Nature

Last Sunday, I needed to get away from suburbia for a while, so I drove about an hour away into the mountains. I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, because it was sunny and pretty nice outside. There's a 7km fairly steep and winding road that takes you to where I was going. By the time I got to the top of the mountain, rain had started falling lightly.

There was a sign on the main road, pointing to a lookout area in the national park, so I thought I'd take a look. It was raining heavily by that time, when only minutes ago it had been sunny. I got out of my car and it was freezing outside. Fog had come in so quickly, I could not see anything past a few metres. Looking over the edge of the mountain, all I could see was white. But it was incredibly peaceful, and quiet, with nobody around and just the sound of the rain. I didn't stay long, because it was too cold, but it was worth the trip just to be there and be completely at peace for a moment.


I took this photo a week or so ago, from the oval where I take my outdoor classes. This was the sunset just before our session started.

I wish I had a camera with me yesterday morning. The sun came up during our first session. The sky was dark, but the sun was bigger than I think I've ever seen before. It sat just on the horizon as a massive bright orange ball and was truly an incredible sight. Next Saturday morning I'll be prepared and hopefully I'll get a good photo.

Hyper

I picked up a new client this week; one of the girls in my office, who's technically my supervisor, but now I do most of my work directly for her boss. I'll train with her three times a week. This week was good. I didn't push her too hard, but I made sure she worked. Whatever I did, it's made her into my biggest fan and she's basically selling my services all over the office, which is great in a way. The unfortunate thing is she's so manic about it, she's annoying people, including me. She spends a lot of time, apparently, texting and emailing her friends about how good the training is, but it means she's not doing her work and that's falling onto other, already busy people, who are getting pissed off. I can't control that, but I will say something if it starts to mean people start to associate her bad work performance with my training.

I'm grateful that she's 'recruiting' clients for me and I've got at least one more person who's a definite. The flip side is she's encouraging other people to come train with us - um, no, not going to happen in a one on one session - and sent an email to the entire office (which is basically all the people in the court facility, the medical facility and the police facility on our site) trying to organise a running group and has proposed two 10km runs for everyone to do. Aarrrgh!

I already had a bit of a health incident at work last Friday and had to be driven home at lunch time. The last time I had similar symptoms, I was working at the school and they carted me off to hospital in an ambulance, because I lost all my motor skills. The nurses and ambulance staff actually fought over who would take my heart rate chart they produced while I was on the way to hospital, and eventually took half each. It was that unusual. This time was not so bad. But I know I have to be mindful of not pushing myself too hard....especially because school starts back up in a week, for another 8 weeks.

I think I can get around the current dilemma by organising a couple of group sessions per week, at lunch, or in the mornings. But I need to find a diplomatic way to get this girl to stop committing me to things. After our very first session, she told me one of the guys asked if he could come running with us. I said fine, because he's a sports coach and him running with us would not detract from what I do with her (if anything, I could learn from him). I spoke with him afterwards and discovered she suggested it to him, not the other way around.

I can do this if I plan well, eat well and get enough sleep. I just have to work out how to do that. The sleep thing is the biggest problem. It's 3am at the moment and I've been awake since 2am. Not that I sleep well at the best of times, but my sleep patterns have been extra shot this week. I need to be up at 6am to take two morning sessions. At least I can be back in bed before 10am. And it's Saturday! Yay!

Happy Birthday

I wish I could link back to the site where I found this photo. Unfortunately, it's too close to home (family). I'm sure the 'owners' of the photo won't mind.

Simple things

M and I have still not met. Quite frankly, there's a major part of me that's quite happy with that. It has the potential to change a whole bunch of things that I'm really not sure I'm ready to have changed. Besides, I barely have time to make time for someone at the moment. So, we haven't met and I don't mind.

But we're getting on great and that is something I appreciate. I am enjoying the moment. However, being that I'm a girl and sometimes prone to a ridiculous level of over-analysis, I've spent too much time thinking about the whole meeting thing. (Interestingly, I've spent little time worrying about what might happen after that. Too many possibilities.)

Today, he said, "I'm not gonna run away because, oh my god, shes not… B@rbie!!...If you like me too much I'll do something to make you unlike me to a point where you can handle the situation ok!!" I think that's funny...and it eases the tension I create in my brain. Posting things like this on my blog generally seems to jinx the situation, although I hope that doesn't happen.

Different

Sometimes, I'm glad I don't do everything the conventional way. I'm glad I don't think like everyone else. I'm glad I see situations from a variety of different perspectives, rather than just one. I'm glad I'm different in a lot of ways.

I don't want to be the same.

Offerings

I had a call from an agency about a job to interview for last week. I got the position description today. It's full time, in the city, working for good people in a good environment. The money is...well, it's a lot.

The thing is, I think I've already decided not to go for the interview. I need the money badly and the regular income would be good. But it's not what I want to do. I don't want to be in an office. I want to work how and when I want (within reason, obviously). Turning down the opportunity will mean I stay in financial mud for a while longer.

Turning it down will also mean I'm doing the right thing for myself. It feels good to know that, but it's still going to be hard to make the call.

Dead tired

I don't have much to really talk about, but since Ian asked so nicely for an update, here I am. :p

The top guy in our office came to see me first thing this morning. I've been given more and more responsibility each day for the last few days and I was wondering what the heck I'd be doing next. He actually took the time to go from his building all the way to mine (not a long way, but kinda inconvenient) to let me know three of the people I've been working for have said I've been producing work of superior quality and everything I do for them is exceptional. Did not expect that! But it was pretty cool acknowledgment.

In other news of the day, this was our weather this afternoon. I don't remember the wind being so strong in the 12 years I've lived here. One of our major bridges had vehicles restricted down to regular cars (no trucks, caravans, motorbikes, cars with trailers etc) and the outside lanes closed due to wind gusts and the subsequent diverted traffic was insane. Most of our staff went home just after lunch time and the CEO came around to my office about 3pm and said she thought we should go home. I left just before 4pm and I've never seen the city in such gridlock. My car felt like it was going to move at one point when I was sitting at a set of lights and a gust swept past. Not something I expected at all! We get extremes of weather all the time, but it's rare we get wind like this. We were joking earlier in the day about people rushing out to buy tinned food and stock up for Armageddon, but the whole day was a bit surreal.

Of course, Melbourne being Melbourne, tomorrow is going to be about ten degrees less than today and we'll freeze our arses off. I actually like living in a city where I have to check the weather bureau website each night and again in the morning, no matter the season, to make sure I'm prepared for the right weather, or a combination of every kind of weather possible. Keeps life interesting.

No personal training work updates other than to say I'm loving it. But you already knew that.