Tag: Inspiration

Coffee Catch-Up #16

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If we were having coffee I would tell you what an interesting week I’ve had. Working less opens up more exciting opportunities that I would have normally missed out on.

If we were having coffee I would tell you about Parramatta Toastmasters 50th birthday celebrations on Thursday night. It was a special night with stories from Russ Walkington, the gentlemen whose ideas and  hard work made it to happen in the first place. What a dynamic speaker. He said it took a lot of convincing however once Parramatta Toastmasters Club started in September 1966 it had been a great success.  I was a little surprised however that for the first 25 years it was a men’s only club, with women not allowed to join until August, 1990, actually 2 days before my wedding. The women joining of course brought them even more success and in 1996, Parramatta Toastmasters Club was recognised as the fourth top Toastmaster club in the world.

Also at the dinner were many past members who have gone on to do great things as well as a few charter (original) members. One of my favorite thing was the parade of past Presidents of which there were 19 of the 49 present on the night. They were piped in by one of the current club members wearing his kilt and took up 3 lines on the stage.

Happy Birthday Parramatta Toastmasters Club

Happy Birthday Parramatta Toastmasters Club

If we were having coffee I would tell you how exciting it was to hear Toastmaster’s 2016-2017 International President Mike Storkey, DTM speak at Parramatta’s 50th Birthday. He was an inspiration and encouraged everyone to focus on the future not just  live on past successes. I agree. Life is definitely a journey, with the more interesting views coming after a challenging climb.

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If we were having coffee I would tell you what a great day I had on Friday at Better Homes and Gardens Live. Better Homes and Gardens is  Australia’s favourite TV show and magazine, which brings together ideas for renovating, decorating homes and gardens as well as advice about pets. From the shows stars I learnt about chalk paint —making furniture restoration fun, quick and easy desserts and how to cook the perfect roast pork. Once we have finally settled into our new home, I look forward to testing out these and other ideas from my day out.

Education aside, I would have to say the most fun was had at the end of the day with Fast Ed attempting to make pigs fly. He attached helium balloons to his pig shaped shortbread cookies and willed them to fly. In the end it took 3 helium balloons to finally get lift off and they kept going until they rested on the ceiling.

Flying pigs

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If we were having coffee I would tell you about supporting my husband yesterday by going to the cinema with him to see The Beatles Eight Days a Week—The Touring Years. This documentary by Ron Howard  made sense of the Beatles Journey. Prior to this my knowledge of the Beatles was minimal however they really were game changers in more than the music scene. The movie is based around their 815 shows in 4 years performed around the globe. It was fascinating to see from old footage, the impact The Beatles had in a very different world and to consider problems like early crowd control. At the end of the movie came half an hour of seeing the Beatles live at Shea Stadium, New York concert. It was the biggest ever concert at the time involving 55,000 people. Amazing results, especially when you consider that they couldn’t hear where they were up to in the songs because of the loudness of the fans screams. If you get the opportunity, even if your not a big Beatles fan, take a break from today’s world, travel back 50 years and take in some history. Its well worth it. Ron Howard, you did a great job.

If we were having coffee I would ask you what is happening in your world? Let me know in the comments.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Rare

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036 - The Veiled Virgin

037 - The Veiled Virgin

040 - The Veiled Virgin

As this weeks photo challenge calls for something rare I am reposting my photos of The Veiled Virgin. I couldn’t believe that her veil is made of thin marble. She is so beautiful.  If you ever get the opportunity to visit St Johns Newfoundland, Canada, go out of your way to immerse yourself in her presence. It is a rare and memorable experience that will leave you smiling.

For more information about The Veiled Virgin please click on my earlier post below.

V – Veiled Virgin # A – Z Challenge

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/rare/

Share Your World – 2016 Week 33

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Would you travel into outer space?

Sure why not, however I do have one condition. I must be a passenger. I don’t want any responsibility for getting us there or back. Mechanics and science aren’t my things but I am up for adventure and floating around with no gravity would be fun for a bit.

Which country/city in the world (that you have never been to) would you most like to visit and why?

The top country on my bucket list is Iceland. I love natural beauty and the volcanos, geysers, waterfalls, hot springs and glaciers really interest me. The other thing Iceland has is aurora borealis—the northern lights. What a sight they would be.

Photo Credit: Google Images

Photo Credit: Google Images

What could you do to breathe more deeply today?

Running a marathon would do it, however at the moment I think I will stick to running in 100 metre spurts. You never know one day 42 kilometres might be an option but I sincerely doubt it.

Complete this sentence:  This creamy peanut butter sandwich could really use some …

processed cheese slices, then it would do my husband for lunch.

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up? 

During this week I had a birthday and I am always grateful to celebrate another year of wisdom and longevity. Next week I am looking forward to the blessings the universe has install as I transition into my new working life. Each day brings new beginnings.

Share Your World – 2016 Week 33

Admire

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It’s very easy to criticize yourself and others. But it’s not helpful. Instead learn to admire and be grateful for the things you and others do well. By focusing on the positive, we set goals, move forward and become the best possible version of ourselves. So let’s take the ADMIRE challenge.

Acknowledge what you and others do well

Discover the ways you can continue to grow

Master the oppurtunities

Insight is important

Recognise, respect and take responsibility for your abilities

Encourage yourself and develop confidence as you communicate with others

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/admire/

Share Your World – 2016 Week 29

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What is the perfect pizza?

I like a spicy pizza but not your ordinary Mexicana. When I make a pizza at home it has a pesto, chilli sauce and tomato paste base topped with the following ingredients:

  • roast pumpkin
  • roast sweet potato
  • roast capsicum
  • olives
  • cherry tomatoes
  • feta cheese
  • jalapenos
  • dried chilli flakes
  • fresh capsicum
  • bacon/chicken/hot salami/pepperoni  (which mix of these meats I use depends on my mood)

Once my pizza is cooked, I top it with rocket, sour cream and avocado (if I have any.)

What is your favorite time of day?

My favourite time of day varies depending on what I have on but it is always based on the one thing – ME TIME. I love the quiet time each day when I can do whatever I choose. It keeps me sane in this crazy world.

Show us two of your favorites photographs?  The photos can be from anytime in your life span.  Explain why they are your favorite.

I love this photo of me taken on one of the bridges crossing the Ottawa River, Canada. As we walked from the Quebec side of the river back into Ontario I am not sure which state I am standing in at the time but as we loved them both, it doesn’t matter. It also reminds me of the fun we had walking in the first serious snow we had during our 6 week trip to Canada. We kept believing it would come and eventually it did. I think it was also the last time I wore those jeans as they finally wore themselves out in Canada after over 10 years of faithful service. The colouful hat scarf I am wearing I made close to 30 years ago and is very unique. It remains in good condition however, as Australia doesn’t have enough days cold for me to wear it in.

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This photo the original of Inspiring Max’s profile picture was taken 5 years ago from Melbourne’s Aquatic Centre. My daughter and I were there for her last School Sports Australia Diving competition which marked the end of an era for us. At the time there was a lot of difficult things happening in our lives that got worse as the year progressed. However, never being one to focus on the negative, if I needed an extra boost of positivity that everything would be alright in the end, I would get out my double rainbow, feel inspired and keep going.

Another thing I love about this photo is that it was one of the first photos I have taken that I was really proud of as you can see the individual rainbow colours on both sides.

Complete this sentence:  I’m looking forward to…. 

moving back to Newcastle and commencing nursing in a new hospital. I have been working towards this for over 12 months and now it is getting very close.

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up? 

My husband starting his new job and getting together with my family without having to rush back to Sydney to work. In the next eek I am looking forward to my future employment being confirmed and maybe even a start date given.

Share Your World – 2016 Week 29

 

Perfectionism

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Perfection

 

The meaning behind the above quote is that in general perfection cannot be reached. When you aim for perfectionism in all areas of your life you stop setting realistic achievable goals. This is because you believe you can’t achieve them so  you don’t bother attempting to, which affects your contentment.

However, perfectionism can be healthy if it is isolated to only one achievable area. The difference is how you feel about yourself and why you are attempting perfection. In some sports, Olympians can achieve a perfect score. However, remember that to get one perfect score—on one skill or routine—they also have practised the skill thousands of times imperfectly. They may have also injured themselves attempting to complete the skill. Athletes accept this as part of the journey and get back on track to do their best. They know and accept that while they may achieve one perfect score—they won’t always be able to keep this up and on a different occasion, they may achieve a low score for the same skill or routine. It is what it is.

The following table considers some of the differences between healthy and unhealthy perfectionism.

HEALTHY PERFECTIONISM UNHEALTHY PERFECTIONISM
Achieve your personal best Increasing anxiety due to fear of not achieving goals and self-worth is only achieved through completing unachievable goals
Do a good job at your workplace Setting yourself up to fail then being afraid to try
Do the best you can in specific areas of your life e.g. Olympians with perfect scores or students who score high scores in some exams Fearing failure to such an extent that you avoid the task at hand
Setting high but realistic and achievable goals Setting unachievable goals

If you want to aim for perfectionism, make sure it is healthy and achievable for you. Aiming for perfectionism in all areas of your life creates so much anxiety that you never get started and as a result your self-worth and content of life plummets.

 https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/perfection/

Coffee Catch-up # 8

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If we were having coffee I would tell you it seems like forever since our last coffee catch-up, although the reality is that it has only been 3 weeks. During this time, most of my time has been taken up completing the Blogging from A – Z challenge. It was fun, although some days the pressure to come up with inspiring posts took over my world. But in the end I was happy with all of them even X, which for me was the difficult one. I certainly enjoyed putting the “I survived blogging A – Z banner” on my blog as I feel like I earned it. Next year, I think I will do a lot of pre-planning in the hope that makes this challenge easier.

If we were having coffee I would ask you where you thought all the smoke haze around Sydney today was coming from. My hope would be that unlike me, you may have listened to the news and have known that it was coming from more than 40 hazard reduction back burns happening all around Sydney especially in the Blue Mountain areas. The smoke was so bad it was playing havoc with the fire alarms in many businesses including the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre, where for more than 30 minutes of our aqua aerobics class this morning, the instructor had to yell or mime the instructions. Oh and ironically the alarm stopped at the same time as our aqua class. Who knew!

If we were having coffee I would tell you that this week has been a shocker. If something could go wrong it did. For me, the most frustrating thing was that instead of enjoying myself on Wednesday night, I got to sit and wait for NRMA roadside assist after I quickly discovered that in a moment of mindless thinking from my stressful week, I locked my car keys in the boot. I think it has been over 20 years since I last did this. I also had nothing with me to do, not even a small bit of paper to write a blog post on but fortunately for me it only took them 45 minutes to come instead of the 90 minutes they promised service in. Thank you NRMA.

If we were having coffee I would tell you that I enjoyed District 90 First Annual Toastmaster Conference last weekend. It was held at Rooty Hill RSL — the largest RSL club in Australia. I had never been before and the venue, the food as well as the conference’s educational sessions were fantastic. I am sure the other parts of the conference were also excellent, however due to time constraints I was limited in what I went to.

If we were having coffee I would tell you about my work’s cultural lunch this week. This is a regular event where you take a dish from your culture for everyone to share. For me this has always been difficult because being a hospital we are a very multicultural workplace, however I could never really come up with a dish from my life to share that was interesting and easy to share. This time I got it right. My trifle was a great hit and will now be my signature dish. I hadn’t made a trifle in years and I only remembered about them at Easter when I took desert to a family friends house. It was weird not making it with sherry but the sacrifice still tasted yummy.

If we were having coffee I would ask you what you have been up to this last week, let me know in the comments.

Coffee Catch-up #7

 

V – Vincentia

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Vincentia is a seaside town on the shores of Jervis Bay, 200 kilometres South of Sydney.Arriving at our B & B, we decided to take an afternoon stroll and found ourselves taking in the natural beauty of the White sands Walk along Blenheim Beach and Jervis Bay National Park. It was a glorious winter day and a great way to relax.

N – Niagara Falls

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December 2104 saw me tick a major milestone off my bucket list, a visit to Niagara Falls. We visited from the Canadian side which I loved as we got to go under the falls. The power of the water rushing past was deafening and awe-inspiring all at the same time. The bus trip from Toronto dropped us further up the Niagara River and we walked down to the falls taking in some amazing scenery as we went until we reached the spectacular Niagara Falls.

The journey under the falls and the view looking out into the wall of water.

American Falls and Bridal Falls on the American side of the Niagara River walking towards Niagara Falls.

Maids of the Mist take the winter off and are stored on the side of the river.

C – Cockington Green Gardens

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Cockington Green Gardens located in Canberra—Australia’s capital is home to meticulous crafted and highly detailed miniature buildings and landscapes. It is a wonderful place full of creativity with replicas of many international known buildings or scenes. If your ever visiting Canberra take a couple of hours and enjoy a roam around the gardens and be inspired.