Goodbyes

Went and said goodbye to my friend today. Really hard thing to do. Despite it all it was a beautiful goodbye. It may not be the last. I'm so glad I believe in heaven. I told her I was going to look forward to dancing with her.

Hospice

My friend is moving to hospice today. I can't believe how quickly things have changed. 2 months ago we were laughing, trying on make up, talking about boys, careers, summer, overseas exchanges and dreams. Now its PAC pumps, blood transfusions and hospital rooms (and still a bit of chat about boys and high heels thrown in). This week keeping busy failed me and I'm grieving yet she is still here which sucks. I'm horribly aware of the short time that is left and the fact that we can't ever go back to what we had.

Despite all my training and lectures on end of life care I still feel horribly inadequate with no good words to say. This feeling of utter helplessness hurts so much. I'm such a do-er and a fixer yet there is nothing I feel I can offer. It's going to be a dark period of time.

Confessions

I happened to get myself involved in a little competition for summer. Its the "who can get the brad pitt in fight club/ bond girl body by march 2011" and it looks like its going to be a tough comp and ruthless as well. There are about 5 people currently doing, hopefully more to join in along the way. I'm stoked to be motivated and challenged (and to hopefully look like the bond girl of my choice come march).

Today though I've secretly given up on my training. Had white bread for tea and am about to tuck myself into bed with a dvd and large moro bar. Best part is... I don't think any of the competitors read this so I can get away with it scott free :)

Heaven thoughts

Been thinking a bit about heaven recently. Like how I hope its like a big wedding. With a feast, and dancing, lots of dancing.

Rainbow Juice

One of the best and worst bits about making homemade juice is seeing the variety of colours that you can made. Some juices are an evil vile colours (cue celery and apple juice left for 5 minutes prior to drinking) and others are beautiful rainbows that make me quite excited about life (cue below photos)

Its an apple, lemon, beetroot and carrot mixture. yum yum yum.

Energizer Bunnies

For the past month or so I've had an incredibly short attention span. I never realised how precious an attention span longer than about 12 minutes was until mine disappeared. Attention spans let you read books, they let you get lost in plot. They let you sit at the beach and just watch the waves crash in. They let you remember that you are baking and remind you that you still have things in the oven. They let you zone out and lie in the sunshine drinking it in.

Without an attention span you feel like you have ADHD. All over the place all the time, always running, your mind jumping from topic to topic, your brain never switching off. You talk too fast. You can't rest. You just go go go, like the energizer bunny clanging his cymbals together and you know that your batteries will die eventually you'll stop clanging so much, your arms will grow weary and eventually stop. Stopping sounds like bliss, but my only question is, is the bunny still breathing?

Stair master

Totara Park stairs x6 running. Take THAT stairs! And hello butt muscles I didn't yet know existed.

Half Marathon Beginnings

Auckland half marathon was a few weekends ago and once again I headed along to cheer all the whilse secretly wishing I was one of the ones being cheered on. Knees, knees, knees. You are not my friends. I also got challenged to run it next year. This may have been the persons post run beer talking, but I've been seriously considering it. Is it worth just training, doing it, perhaps thrashing myself and then just spend the rest of my life recovering? Are my knees just an old excuse keeping me in my safe non challenging bubble?

So what did I do post conversation? Rung my Mum. Who helpfully said "Oh i want to do the Buller half in Feb" and I found myself considering the timing and thinking, yeah I could do it. One book on how to run half marathons and a sparklying new pair of running shoes later I think I may have started training. The book talks about a really gentle easy approach which I think looks really doable. I dug out my old physio exercises which I'm going to try implementing into everyday life again and we'll see how this goes! So the majority of future blog posts may contain a lot of content about running.

Map My Run

Map my run depresses me.

If you've never used it, don't. You think you have gone for this amazing run and it must of taken forever and ever and gosh, isn't it cool how you are so much fitter than you were this time last year. So in a blaze of fitness freakiness you decide to map your run. You joyfully mark all the little markers on, trying to be exact with the corners and carefully marking in landmarks. And it tells you that your run was 4.35km long. And you were hoping it was AT LEAST 6, maybe 8. Cry cry cry. So you go back, extend the corners a little bit in hope of gaining extra distance. Still no better as the guilt tells you that really you cut many corners on the actual run and it was probably only 4km to start off with.

On the brightside, that's still 4km. I have two legs, they carry me. My body all works. I might buy new running shoes that don't. And there were at least 350 uphill stairs in that run.

Positive Playlists

I found myself exercising to Haste the Day the other day and I found this quite concerning. For those of you who don't know they are a Christian hardcore bands and much of the music is straight screaming. They are also a favourite band of an ex and I was listening to try and see what he saw. I did found a few I like (mainly the ones with the least amount of screaming possible) but for the most part they were not my favourite. Time to move on I think. Time to listen to what I like. So came home and I upgraded my playlist. They have been added onto my trusty iPod shuffle which is a the perfect size for clipping onto my running pants and holds just enough music to make it interesting. Now I wish I could tell you I bought unheard of but super cool bands that are funky and super cool and the new big thing so I can say in 12 months "Oh I heard of them first". But I can't. I'm always a bit behind with music and only like things once they are half bashed to death by the radio. So I bought songs from Katy Perry, Bruno Mars, BoB etc. I'm a sell out really, but I guess I was already sold out.

But on the bright side all the songs I bought have a wicked running beat which will power me through many tough stairs and make me into super woman.

Oh and if anyone has any great songs that you think I'll love and are good to run to, please let me know, I'm not too picky

Fireworks

Fireworks aren't really floating my boat this year. Typically I'm a little but of a pyromaniac and love watching them or holding sparklers, but in recent times the need to see burning things has dwindled. This year I just feel old as I hear the bangs. They strangely enough sound way too much like guns going off for my liking and invoke unhappy memories or scared times as a teenager.

I'm also acutely aware of the wastage of it all. So much money is spent on fireworks and so little people to enjoy them and they are over so quickly. I say spend money on fairy lights, that way there is way more enjoyment for all, without the wastage. Or we should be more community minded and get together and all watch at once and enjoy the shared-ness. Perhaps I'm not really getting old, I'm just becoming more of a hippy. Or I'm too stingy to buy my own fireworks as I'm coveting new running shoes and am attemtping to work the budget around to slot them in. But the hippy idea is taking my fancy... it goes better with the mung bean love.

Exciting things of today

Today lots of little things have made me feel happy today. Here's my list:

* Going for a run in the park at 9am with the sun shining and blue skies and feeling fit and healthy

* Intense smoothies with all my fruit requirement for the day in 2 glass fulls

* Sunshine to make you smile and dry my three loads of washing

* Shoe shopping for new running shoes and finding some winners

* Friends that give you awesome discounts and free protein shake shakers (cheers Adam!)

* Realising that I've actually got long hair now. I've managed to not cut it

* Natural curls as it's Saturday and not blow drying/straightening the heck out of it

* Trying on perfume and catching whiffs of it whenever you move your arm

* Wearing zero make up and still feeling beautiful

* Plans to head off to Bach'n for dinner with Naomi. Such great food combined with being at the beach.

Uncomfortableness

I've been a bit slack recently on posting. Maybe because I don't feel like I have much to say thats really all that worthwhile.

I've been on "keep busy" schedule. Busy means less time to think about all the things that hurt. I know its not the best way of coping and I'm going to burn myself out, but stopping to think hurts a lot and I find myself crying in quiet times. I don't know anyone who seems to do grief well, Jesus most likely did though, I know He wept. I wonder if He ever was tempted to shake his fist at God, to ask "Why God, Why?" on repeat and mutter rude words about the uncomfortableness of cancer. My view of Jesus and who He is in my life is growing and moving, hopefully into good directions. I hope that He is with me through my uncomfortableness, hating cancer as well and gently loving me through my fist shaking thoughts.

My flatmate has loaned me a book on Christian meditation. He said that extreme busyness is a fast track to depression. I don't know how he got all wise all of a sudden. I'm going to read it to fill that empty spot between getting into bed and sleeping, the most dangerous thinking spot of all. Then I can meditate while falling asleep. Perhaps the first step along the road to accepting this horrible tension.