I went kikki.K-razy!

As is evident is past posts (for example: here) and to anyone that knows a bit about me, I freakin’ love all things stationary and organisation and am particularly obsessed with the brand kikki.K. In the above post I spoke about their Goals Book, Wellbeing Journal and Gratitude Book which I absolutely love and have been using as part of my Happiness Project. I tend to raid kikki.K once every few months so am naturally on their mailing list – a member if you will – and just so happened to get a lovely little email about their new “Organisk” range with a $10 gift voucher.

Of course, I couldn’t resist, so I hightailed it to my nearest kikki.K store and instead of just spending $10 in order to get the $10 voucher, I bought pretty much the whole range. It was all so pretty! Here’s what I scored:

3 Pack of Notebooks

Daily Notes

Note Cube and Pen

Weekly Meal Planner

I originally intended only to buy the 3 pack of unlined notebooks as I was given these as a Christmas gift last year – but in the Botaniska range – and I absolutely love them, I use them for everything. The Daily Notes pad is such an “Eleanor” item – it has different sections for the Today’s Date, Top 3 Priorities, Appointments, To Do List, Water Intake, Tonight’s Dinner, For Tomorrow and “What I’m Thankful For”. I was so excited about this item, it’s pretty much all the notes I take each day but compiled into one super cute page! I also got this adorable note cube with a built in pen holder – and, naturally, I got the matching pen. This has come in very handy for leaving notes for my boyfriend to clean the dishes or to take down quick notes while on the phone. And lastly is something I had been wanting to get for a while, a weekly meal planner. This is particularly useful for planning out healthy meals and to help to do the weekly shopping without wasting time um-ing and ah-ing in the supermarket.

Well, there you have it. My latest shopping spree. This coming from someone that can’t justify spending $20 on a top while in dire need of a wardrobe upgrade – I’ll happily spend away in kikki.K. Hmm, are my priorities mixed up? Oh well, organisation!

Eleanor

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Tough Mudder!

For followers of my blog, you may remember that over the past four months I have spoken about my training for Tough Mudder. I’m surrounded by peers who are fitness obsessed or dance fanatics so it’s hard for me to fathom anyone not knowing about Tough Mudder, but for those out there that have no idea what I’m on about, this is what Tough Mudder is:

“Tough Mudder events are hardcore 10-12 mile (20km) obstacle courses designed by British Special Forces to test your all around strength, stamina, mental grit, and camaraderie. With the most innovative courses, half a million inspiring participants, and more than $2 million dollars raised for the Wounded Warrior Project, Tough Mudder is the premier adventure challenge series in the world.”

Above is the video for the Melbourne Tough Mudder event which I took part in on April 1st (hell of a way to start the month, hey?).

I heard about the event and thought I would push myself to do it and managed to get a whole group of girls from my dance school along with me. Now, I’m reasonably fit, but I’m not one to compete in “fun” runs or marathons or anything boring normal like that. Tough Mudder appealed to me because it wasn’t about competition, you weren’t timed, it didn’t matter how long it took you – it wasn’t a race! Tough Mudder is all about teamwork and pushing your body and your mind to the limit and really testing yourself. That’s why it appealed to me. I’ve never been one to care about competition or winning. Growing up, I always leaned towards more solo sports, which is why I’ve always loved dance. I’m certainly not against teamwork – teamwork is great – I just never cared enough about winning to enjoy competitive sport. Challenging myself? That’s more my style. I don’t need or want to prove anything to anyone else. But I do love the idea of working towards a personal goal and achieving it. Still, in the weeks leading up to the event I started to question what mental state I must have been in to sign up to such an event in the first place.

I drove down to the event early on the morning of April 1st – wondering (read: hoping) if indeed this might have been a big elaborate April fools joke – with my best friend and her parents who were coming along as spectators (oh yes, us crazy particiants were being made a “spectacle” of). The week before I had been fighting of a hella cold while spending equal to the registration fee ($150!!!) on non-cotton, breathable, quick-drying, compression, light-weight gear for this godforsaken event while seriously considering pulling out all together.

pole dancers represent!

Fear of the unknown. Thankfully I was smart enough not to pull out as I can honestly say that participating in Tough Mudder was one of the most rewarding and most fun experiences of my life! The obstacles weren’t as hard or as terrifying as I had made them out to be in my mind and it turned out to be a genuinely fun day as opposed to an arduous four or five hours running/jogging/walking/limping 20km, wading through muddy waist deep water, crawling through mud underneath barbed wire, carrying logs through rivers, crawling through manholes, walking through fire, climbing walls, getting submerged in an ice bath, jumping into lakes and getting electrocuted. Who knew that would be my idea of fun!?

I don’t usually post photos of myself on my blog, but I couldn’t resist giving you a taste of how muddy I got at Tough Mudder (this isn’t the half of it). This is me after I got home covered in dried mud, asking my boyfriend for a hug while limping towards him like Frankenstein (I messed up my knee from all the running and the cramps from the icy water). For some reason he wouldn’t hug me until I came out of the shower an hour later (there was that much mud in my hair).

hugs?

Eleanor

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Aww shucks! I got an ABC award!

I know it is long long long overdue, but sometime ago I was lucky enough to be given an ABC (Awesome Blog Content) Award by mywithershins. Thank you! And enormous apologies for my lack of “awesome content” over this past month!

It’s easy to accept the ABC Award!  Here’s what you need to do:

1. Use the alphabet to describe yourself.

2. Pass the award to as many nominees as you see fit and let them know.

Here’s my Alphabet List:

Affable  Busy  Cautious  Dedicated  Energetic  Friendly  Girly  Happy  Independent  Joker  Kind  Lanky  Motivated  Neat  Organised  Pole-Dancer  Qualified  Reliable  Silly  Traveller  Understanding  Vibrant  Weird  Xylophone?  Young  Zealous

And I would like to nominate two of my favourite blogs, on totally different topics that are near and dear. Baking and Pole Dancing!

Jo the Tart Queen – she really is the queen of tarts! One hell of a baker with scrumptious recipes for all things sweet!

Folly in Little City – A pole dancer’s tale!

Congratulations guys, thank you for producing such fine blogs! And another thank you to My Wither Shins.

Eleanor

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Happiness Project: March

Hello and Happy Easter to everyone! My sincere apologies for my disappearing act over the past month. I think all bloggers suffer this fate at one point or another in the early stages of their blogging life. I suppose it’s just a good reminder to always stay consistent, because it’s all too easy to fall behind. I was on a roll for a while, posting almost every day and then I let myself make excuses for being too busy to write a post or too tired, or sick etc etc.

Anyway, I apologise and promise to do my very best to pick up my game!

So, it’s now April and I am overdue on an update on how my March resolution for my Happiness Project went. The goal for the month of March was Health.

Health

Going back to my Year 11 Health studies, the World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”.

I think the theme of health is one that is very closely tied to goals and resolutions of people throughout the western world. How often do you hear about people making New Year’s resolutions to “lose 10 kilos” or “quit smoking” or vowing to start eating healthily or start that new diet next Monday? It’s a popular and tired goal, but one that most people strive for their whole lives.

I am no different. I had planned to dedicate the month of March to finally kicking off sustainable and healthy eating habits for good. I even bought a book called The Beauty Detox Solution by nutritionist Kimberly Snyder and had wanted to use her advice and recipes to start my new healthy way of life.

For the grammar-savvy folk out there (or, well, anyone) you’ll notice that the above is all in past tense. I had planned to do all these things. But, sadly I didn’t quite achieve it. I could sit here and come up with all number of excuses as to why it simply wasn’t possible to achieve this particular goal – I was busy, it was too hard to sustain, her suggestions were impractical, the food was too expensive, blah blah blah – but the fact of the matter is that Health, like so many other things, is a constant, ever changing concept that I will be struggling with and working on for the rest of my life. It is not something that can be addressed and improved upon in one simple month after reading one book.

And that’s ok, I’m ok with that. Yes, I still eat chocolate more than I should and don’t always have a healthy meal planned with ingredients bought and ready to cook every night of the week. But I am always working and trying to do better, and I think that counts for something. Health is something that is really important to me and my lifestyle and I like to think that I’m a pretty healthy, active person in general. Luckily for me, my interest in health, fitness and nutrition is just that – an interest. I care about my health and place great importance on it because I think it matters and it is in my best interests. I don’t have any serious health problems, I’m not obese or terribly unfit. I’ve got it pretty good.

So, that’s how March went. I’m incredibly pleased to say that, never mind not addressing Health as planned, I have continued to keep up with my January and February goals of Enterprise and Productivity. I’m happy to report that I have been working very hard throughout the month of March on two separate business endeavours while working four different jobs and still dancing at least four times a week.

I’m pretty happy with my progress. There’s always room for improvement and my Happiness Project is designed to be a constant, ongoing and flowing thing. Just because I affix a goal or resolution to each month doesn’t mean that I stop pursuing it once the month is up or get down on myself if I didn’t quite achieve what I had set out to do. I think this is an important thing to think about and always keep in mind, you can always work on yourself and aim higher – if you fall short, just get right back up again and keep trying!

So, what do I have planned for April? Attitude. This month is all about positive thinking and looking on the bright side of life. Stay tuned for an update of my progress throughout the month and a review about how I went at the end of the month.

I also promise to post some yummy recipes, DIY projects, product reviews and more very soon!

Eleanor
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