Sometimes Life Just Gets In The Way

Ok, so I haven’t posted for a while… Over a week. Wow, as they say times goes faster when you are having fun!! Actually, I was MEGA busy. First up there was our curry fund raising event that I made 6 different curries for and then the event itself. Naturally I forgot to take photos of EVERYTHING so I am a little bummed about that. BUT on the up side we would have had at least 100 people come through in spite of the rain AND even better, we raised $700 for our Conquer Cancer Ride!! Woo Hoo!!

I was also involved in the Western Australian Marathon Club Relay Marathon with my Keep On Tri-ing buddies. I pulled out of my 14km leg of the relay ‘cos a few weeks ago I popped something in my foot which meant I couldn’t walk, much less train for the event. I did end up running with Colleen on the last 5km leg to lend some moral support. Well, at least I hope I was giving support and not being an annoying, distracting pain with my constant chatter!! The point is I WAS trying to distract Colleen because she looked SO nervous before the run and she had never run 5km before… YAY Colleen!! You did it without stopping once!! So proud of you!!

Besides all that I also worked on the Sunday morning, giving my little communications lecture to 17 engaged couples as part of their marriage preparation course. That is always interesting and very rewarding.

And then there was the echocardiogram. Now THAT was an experience. I have been “suffering” from high blood pressure since I got pregnant with number 6 and it has just never gone away. (Number 6 turns 3 this Sunday) So as part of a routine check-up/ assessment, my wonderful nurse practitioner Mr. Adrian Large, I get to go for this diagnostic test… It involved a lot of wires being stuck all over my chest and back, ultrasounds of my heart and then a jog on a treadmill… great fly on the wall conversation… “Oh so you’re a triathelete, ok, I think we will put you on the high accelerated speed.” “Huh?” “Oh that just means the treadmill will start speeding up and inclining faster”… “Oh…”

Hahaha… As daunting as it sounded, the run was actually very easy. The hard part was when they made me get off to ultrasound my heart again while I was still puffing from the run… THAT was tough, trying to hold my breath while the sonographer did her thing!! I haven’t gone back to get the results yet but I guess no news is good news right? I’ll make that appointment for next week.

And of course there are my wonderful children, their activities and our homeschooling. I read this marvellous quote the other day by Chris Hedges.

“We’ve bought into the idea that education is about training and “success”, defined monetarily, rather than learning to think critically and to challenge. We should not forget that the true purpose of education is to make minds not careers. A culture that does not grasp the vital interplay between morality and power, which mistakes management techniques for wisdom, which fails to understand that the measure of a civilisation is its compassion, not its speed or ability to consume, condemns itself to death.”

And this ladies and gentlemen is a pretty summary of why I do what I do and what I am trying to achieve with my children. Mr. Hedges definitely has a new fan… Now I just have to figure out now how to link his feeds/ blog to mine… Everyday is a new learning opportunity!!