Creative Meanderings – Page 65 – My ramblings and wanderings through life

Overly Competitive

Nov 072016

As the weather is cooling down now in the UAE, more and more activities are happening outside.

I have written before about my running group I joined filled mostly with moms, but they accept this non-child lady. 😉 Anyway, a while back one of them asked me why I do not sign up for a 5k or 10k run now that more and more of them are coming up here and in other locations around the world. I smiled and said, “no thanks”.

One of the reasons is that I am extremely competitive. I always want to win. However, I also know my limits. I am not willing to train to be the fastest or best runner at any distance. Therefore, I will not find it enjoyable to run for fun at a ‘race’. 😛

Instead, I enjoy running a short time on the treadmill or meeting the ladies for a gab once a week with intervals of running/walking. It is enough for me.

It has been about a month since we stopped going to the gym. M had a brain turn and so we both stopped going because I generally exercise every day anyway. However, I have a new fitness goal for myself that is simple and mostly just motivates me to get to the gym. If I am only competing against myself, then I can manage. 😀 So, I was back in the gym this morning instead of making the long trip to Yas mall for walking. I just wanted a quick workout so I could some other things done. It was good to get back in to it and it has now hopefully sparked my motivation again to get to it even if M doesn’t.

So, even though I am overly competitive with others, which keeps me from races or fun-runs, I am still enjoying staying fit and moving the body regularly. 😉

~T 😀

Scheduled or Spontaneous?

Going Mental No Responses »

Nov 062016

It is always amazing to me how long it takes to recover from busyness, travel or any upset to a routine. I often wonder if it is an age thing or if it is perhaps more of a statement on the toll of having structure; in other words, perhaps life should really be a bit more carefree if it is such a struggle to get back ‘on a schedule’?

For someone like me, coming to this realization is a difficult one as my life is ruled by schedules, structures, alarms, etc. Without it I feel a bit loss, disjointed and most importantly, unproductive.

With that said, sometimes I need this as well to bring balance to my life. This weekend was a perfect example of this.

My only plan this weekend was to sleep and rest to recover from the week. With the long yoga weekend last weekend, which normally takes me about two or three days to recover from, then the quick turnaround whirlwind trip to Egypt; I had no time for recovery.

Therefore, in between my regularly scheduled lesson and sessions, I was napping on the couch in front of the TV. We did go out to see a few friends during the day, which was very chilled out and relaxing. Although our normal weekends are quite full, it was most definitely needed and appreciated to have a more flexible and quiet one.

Now, I am refreshed and ready for the week ahead. It is time to re-engage and focus on drawing in more clients for the business and getting my writing done – am a bit behind in meeting my regular article deadline….

So, it is back at it!!! Life is good, though – very good.

New, new, new

Going Mental No Responses »

Nov 012016

It is a new month, new moon (by a day or two) and lots of “new” going on around here.

October ended with a bit of craze, but it was good to highlight some of the areas in which I need to be careful to not get burnt out with all that I am doing.

This past weekend was my second-to-last yoga training weekend. We only have one more in 2.5 weeks and then it is exam weekend! Eeks! Hard to believe it has already been a full year since I embarked on this change of life…. 🙂

I am also off tomorrow to Egypt for a quick 24-hours to do some Apple Education Training. I have managed to put together my presentation in record time, and am actually ready to go. I will see if this is worth the effort, but could be a great beginning to another source of income.

The best new news is that we are back in the ‘modern’ day life! I am typing on my computer from my home using our electricity and Internet. We have A/C, lights, contact with the outside world, gas to cook with, a fridge to chill our food and near-sanity back! Of course, it is going to take some time still to get used to it as we sometimes still forget that we can turn on a light switch rather than use the phone for light. 😛

All this has made me fully appreciate these luxuries of life. I am grateful to not have to hang out in someone else’s home (the generosity is not lost!) or a cafe to do work. I am thrilled to be able to spend my days on my own big screen and watch my shows as I work without spending extra data! 😀

At the same time, all this new-ness points out where I was doing more than necessary to keep myself busy outside of the house. Now, I do not need to do this anymore and can allow myself to find real balance of my ‘inside’ time with my ‘outside’ time. So, my schedule will be adjusting slightly over the next couple of weeks.

Hopefully, I will also return to regulated writing again! 😀

~T 😀

“Busy” vs busy

Going Mental No Responses »

Oct 252016

It has been a busy couple of days. So much so that I totally forgot about writing yesterday – also because my “screen time” routine has been unsynced due to my usual locale for such work being out of Internet commission. 🙁

Being the creature of habit and liking things to be “perfect” that I am, makes adjusting to slight changes such as this rather difficult. I have already shared how bad I am at change…

Aside from the technical issues, I have actually been busy as well. When I say busy I do not mean exhausted, omg “I am so busy” busy. 😛 Rather, I mean filling my time with a lot of activities. 😀

It is surprising how quickly the days pass without really knowing how. I mean when I worked full-time I could not have been more aware of what I did in a day that would make me feel exhausted. However, now I am certain I do a ton more and yet happily forget all that I have done. 😉

Therefore, to miss to a day of writing makes me feel a bit regretful while at the same time joyful knowing why a day has passed without it.

In the end I will always come back to my writing. Eventually, I will be needing some major down time from all this “busyness”!!! 😛

In the meantime, I’m loving life!

~T 😀

Business Update

Going Mental No Responses »

Oct 232016

I realized that I have never really explained properly here what I have chosen to do with my life since quitting. I think I said I would update later and then never did as our lives have been on a bit of a roller coaster since I quit working full-time.

Therefore, let me explain.

Although I have never truly wanted to run my own business, I have always wanted to be free from the authoritative rule of others. To achieve this, being one’s own boss generally comes with the starting of a business. When I started training for coaching and then yoga, I realized there was something there for me that would also combine my nearly two decades worth of teaching experience.

Talent development and wellness training is both ambiguous enough and trendy enough to encompass what The OSH Network has become. Just over two months have passed since I launched my business with a lot of networking activities that I have written about, social media work and collaborations. In this time, I am happy to say that I am half-way to my set goal for the number of clients/sessions per week that I want to have. Also, if I include my tutoring work that I am continuing to do, I am just a little bit short of making the same ‘take-home’ pay as I did working full-time. Thus, I call this success already! 😛

Not really having any idea of what I am doing business-wise, I am going with my gut on the business development. So far, I feel like I am on the right path and not stuck yet. If that happens, I will look for a coach or someone to help me, but for now, all is moving along nicely.

I also have another potential source of income in the works once my visa is completed, so all-in-all I cannot say that I regret by any means having quit working full-time. While it may be easy to say that if I had known the last five months would have been as they were I might have waited to quit, I think that there would never be a good time to make such a leap. It really does require some faith to believe that such kinds of ventures will succeed. 😀

So, that’s the business update. I will try to share more on that as developments occur – or just follow the business site (linked above) and get updates on your own!

~T 😀

_The Bamboo Stalk_ by Saud Al Sanousi

Literary Escapes No Responses »

Oct 222016

_The Bamboo Stalk_ by Saud Al Sanousi

The October Book Club for AWN is this book. We meet next week to talk about it, but I thought I would go ahead and write about it here now that it is fresh in my mind.

Unlike last month’s title, this one was so easy to read and quite enjoyable.

Although not exactly another uplifting story (what is with the selections???), it was closer to home for me and had loads of interesting social questions.

The story is told by the son of a Kuwaiti father and Filipina mother. His mother had gone to Kuwait to work as a maid in a well-t0-do Kuwaiti family. The only son of the family was a writer and different from most sons of an Arab family. He seemingly falls in love with the Filipina maid who has come to make money for her family back home. When she ends up pregnant, the family does not approve and sends her away back to the Philippines. The son, who is half Kuwaiti, half Filipino, struggles with his identity and place in the world. Unfortunately, poor Jose looks more Filipino than Kuwaiti and thus is not likely to be accepted into the Kuwaiti community. His biologically family takes him in for a short period of time, but does not fully incorporate him into the family for various reasons – mostly ‘to save face’.

It is a very interesting story that is written well enough to draw out emotional responses. It is a greatly written piece of work, but I found myself feeling his pain and considering my own identity throughout. I also wondered at the plight of the many Filipinos who live and work around the world because they make more money outside of their country than within it. I wonder how many true stories are like this one. I also wonder at the author and how much is true from his own experience and knowledge.

So, it should hopefully draw up some interesting conversation at the next meeting next week. Will try to update on that afterwards! 😀

~T 😀

_King Leopold’s Ghost_ by Adam Hochschild

Literary Escapes No Responses »

Oct 212016

king

_King Leopold’s Ghost_ by Adam Hochschild

Last month I joined the Book Club of the AWN (American Women’s Network) where I have been spending a lot of my time being active in meeting people and other things. While I never in my life expected that I would become a “book club lady”, I did decide that I was going to try new activities in areas that I am both interested in and new to me.

So, our book for September when I joined was this one. Initially, I found it interesting and a horrifying story of what went on in the Congo. Of course I have heard speckled stories, but this is the first time that it was written out in black & white (literally!). However, this also meant that it took me some time to get through it as it is a fairly detailed ‘history’ book, which is not generally my area of interest. Still, I plowed through and took a bit more than a month to complete, but as it was my first book of the club, they did not mind that I had no finished before our first meeting. 😉

This is the story of King Leopold of Belgium’s obsession with conquering land initially in the interest of Belgium, but then for his own personal ego boost. He worked politically, economically and personally to get others to do whatever it took to make him rich and memorable in a new “empty” territory. However, no one seemed to think of the Congolese as people. It was truly sickening what went on there and the author does a decent job of blaming all people – not just the Belgians – for the atrocities that occurred. He also directed our attention to the fact that these kinds of things still happen in current days….

Therefore, not exactly, an uplifting story to contend with, but interesting all the same. This is the good part of being part of a book club, right? I am being introduced to new stories that I might never have heard of let alone pick up to read. 🙂

~T 😀

On the Verge

Going Mental No Responses »

Oct 202016

We are on the verge of insanity, of normalcy, of living, of dying….

This morning I went to have my medical done, which is one of the last major hurdles before my residence visa gets issued. I am not allowing myself to get excited just yet, but it does mean that we are nearing the point where life just might – just might – start on the path to normal again. 😀

There is still a long way to go before true normal returns, but I am being positive and hopeful that we are on the correct trajectory for that great downpour of blessings.

Weekly, things are going well with tutoring and business sessions. In just two months I am on the way to nearly replacing my take-home income, which is shocking. Again, I am being cautious in excitement, but I feel good about how everything is going.

There are also some other income sources brewing that will also help so I do feel as if we are on the verge – of all that is good and wonderful!!!

~T 😀

_Yoga Therapy: A Guide to the Therapeutic Use of Yoga and Ayurveda for Health and Fitness_ by A.G. Mohan and Indra Mohan

Literary Escapes No Responses »

Oct 192016

_Yoga Therapy: A Guide to the Therapeutic Use of Yoga and Ayurveda for Health and Fitness_ by A.G. Mohan and Indra Mohan

This text that was required for my yoga teacher training course was one of my favorites.

It is easy to read for explanations on yoga as therapy looking at the whole person rather than yoga as fitness looking to exercise. There are also good tips for assessing new clients and sequencing poses to help bring physical balance to the body.

This will be a book I will go back to for sure!

~T 😀

Workout Goals

Going Mental No Responses »

Oct 182016

Ah, do not let the title mislead you. I am by no means setting ‘real’ workout goals. However, that does not mean that I do not think about challenges. Given that my car is in the shop and M needed the car for morning appointments, it was most convenient to have him drop me off at our Tuesday morning meeting point on the Corniche.

I think I mentioned that I have joined a running group that is mostly made up of moms (Moms Run This Town – MRTT), but has the subtitle of She Runs This Town. While I have been wanting to get out more, I have only managed to keep the Tuesday morning in my schedule.

Anyway, due to the car situation, I decided today was a good day to try the full length of the Corniche and see how long it would take me. I had company for the first 3.2km where we mostly power walked. Then, we parted ways and I carried on for the remaining 3.3km.

Although I wanted to run more, the heat and humidity is still a bit too much at 8:30-9am. So, I did short intervals of running and then the rest walked. I guess my pace is not bad considering.

While I have no intentions of running any races anytime soon, if ever, I do hope to be able to run more consistently. So, I am glad to have found a group of ladies who get me out. Maybe I can even start more often when I feel as if life is settled….

Thus, no workout goal per se, but at least there is progress happening. 😀

~T 😀

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