Showing A Little Gratitude

It has been quite a while since I've written one of these. I'm going through a bit of a troubled patch, with my confidence taking numerous and significant blows in multiple domains. Chaos seems to be swarming about me and I long to find quiet and calm.

What better way, when feeling tested, troubled and blue, to reconnect with happiness and joy than to write a list of things for which I am thankful? More people than things though...

• I have a cat who loves me and keeps my lap warm. She runs to greet me every time I walk through the door. She always wants my attention, pats are her favourite thing and she has affection on tap, ready for me to call on anytime.
• Eddie is much the same *giggle*. He thinks I'm amazing and is always helping to keep my spirit strong with his kind words and affection. I get amplitudes of cuddles, massages and help. He would move hell for me. He regularly goes above and beyond and he does it without complaint or hesitation <3
• I have a cute little apartment to house me and keep me safe and warm. Everything here is working. I am never hungry, I have good food, I cook like a little Martha Stewart and there's fresh, clean drinking water on tap. The air is fairly clean, the weather not too extreme and I live in the most beautiful city in the world. I run by the beach and cycle in the park. 
• The support network I have close at hand is strong. In times of crisis, I have the resources to find suitable solutions quickly. My car is out of action, but I have Eddie to drop everything and arrange his family car as mine in the interim. I have amazing friends like Mick to drop me home from the scene of the accident, and Chandler who changed plans to pick me up from home, as well as Meaveen so we could run as we had planned. I have the love of my family.
• I have clients with beautiful spirits who train with me because they believe in me, as I do in them.
• I have friends in places I don't even know who reach into their pockets to make my dreams come true (money for my bike). 
• I have an incredible coach who is devoting his time and energy to making a rider out of me and managing Debzillah The Handful. 
• I have the support and backing of TADNSW and Clarence St Cyclery, Bill Webster and Geoff Rimmer.
• I am able to reach out and help people who need it, through Fitforgood at Mission Australia and at East Sydney High. I have the opportunity to be the catalyst for positive change not just as a speaker and volunteer, but as a PT, a Spin Instructor and as an every day Australian.
• I have a bike to ride and the rage to master. Everything is as it should be.

Good Food and Wine 2011

Hello Again!

I'm only 2 days late. I'm not sure anyone is reading, anyway.

Here's the story about Eddie and Deb's adventure to the Good Food and Wine Show on Saturday, July 3rd.

We arrived at about 2pm and it was THROBBING. People everywhere and many of them had trolleys! We had to grow accustomed to being run into, run over AND elbowed. We managed!

I spied an interesting stand not long after entering, a selection of jams and pickles by Anathoth NZ. After tasting a wide variety, I decided on the tomato relish and farmstyle pickle as both rank high in tastiness. Unfortunately, both also rank very very high in sugar. I suspect as high as the jams. Nevertheless, occasionally, treats are OK. I'll refer back to this statement frequently :)

Eddie was hungry so we had to find the mini burger stall for him to sample their wares. Once we had roamed and filled our bellies with a free selection of tasty treats, Eddie was next to flex his spending muscle. Below is what he purchased - the KLEVA Sharp, which came with a free grater!

 

Ed has been gone for days on his knife sharpening frenzy, but I'm sure he'll come home soon.

We wandered through the whitegood pornography supplied by Fisher and Paykell as well as its budget range by Haier. We were excited to see one of our favourite wines EVER, the Pinot Noir by ARA, on display - we stayed well away from all things wine though, it IS Dry July after all! We sampled many delicious smoothie cube flavours by Creative Gourmet, black pudding and potato bread by The Irish Butcher and the full range of Gü's puds and naughties (lime pies OMG). 

We don't normally like Gloria Jeans, but we did on Saturday. They did some awesome treats! They had these caramel filled wafers that melted into your free tiny coffee and were delicious. They also had free carrot cake AND lamingtons. We were spoiled... by the power of hillsong! We figure its OK cos we didn't invest $$.

 The rest of the purchases were made by me :) The chocolate chai above is AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS and nearly all gone already - I'm not sure where to? Teehee. I'll be buying more from the real chai website and taking it to Avanti's bridesmaids luncheon, so she can compare it with her mum's recipe. OM NOM NOM.

When I'm feeling run down, I like to put manuka honey in stuff for extra energy. Juuuuust in case all the stuff they say about it's magical properties is true. NZ holds the patent for Manuka and we pay a fortune for it. Beechworth honey have made a manuka that can't be graded because it isn't a kiwi and is therefore less $$. It is tasty (in my chai AND on my pear with natural sheeps' milk yogurt) so I'm winning.

The very last thing I bought were these 2 packets of M n Ms, which made it from Saturday until Wednesday night unopened, but after a massive spin class last night, having trained chest and back earlier in the day, I deemed it appropriate to sample these wares. The coconut flavor tastes like imitation coconut essence, which is an imitation of tastiness. I'm in no hurry to finish these. The peanut butter ones on the other hand will not see the week out. Oh boy! I love peanut butter. I also love chocolate. Whenever these two meet, I die and go to heaven.

Here are some of the samples I collected - two new flavours of herbal tea to add to my extensive collection. They were cranberry and pomegranate as well as Raspberry, Strawberry and Loganberry. I've already had them. How CUTE is that almond tin? I squealed with delight when I saw it and the girls on the stall were kind enough to give it to me on the sly, along with information on what makes Australian Almonds the perfect recovery food. That was music to this little athlete's ears, I'll just at any excuse to eat nuts so I have had my almond tin packed full of almondy goodness and on my person ever since.

Noteworthy mentions from the day abound! I'm excited about the gorgeous range of gluten and dairy free cooking sauces and dressings from Ozganics, but not quite as much as the gluten and allergen free baking mixes from Well and Good! Their everything was DELICIOUS. Best quality gluten free baked goods I've sampled so far - very important in my family.

The most exciting thing, though, by a long way, was the arrival of Harney & Sons teas in Australia. I am a tea NUT. I have a HUGE tea collection. These teas are really the creme de la creme. They smell incredible, they taste divine and they come in tins so pretty you want to display them always and forever. I can't wait to start my new collection!

I hope you enjoyed my food post about the naughty side of Debzillah. I'll talk about healthy food next week, promise :) Xx

Plaguerism!

I know I had promised a food post today. It was supposed to be about the Good Food and Wine Show - I have pictures and everything! Then I was going to tell you about my weekly cooking adventures.

I have, however, run out of time and will have to delay that update until either Thursday or Friday.

I WAS at the Observatory for High Tea two weekends ago and my galpal and baker extraordinaire Swah has reviewed the experience over here. 

Birthday treats are the best kind <3

Mission to Motivate

I started this post on Thursday afternoon AS IT HAPPENED PEOPLE.

But as it happened, blogger failed and I wasn't able to repost it until NOW. Right before masterchef... How convenient?

Anyway, allow me to recap:
"This is awesome. I'm feeling headachy and chesty and run down, all of which is a bit crap, BUT I have come home, put my pjs on and jumped into bed with a cup of lemongrass and ginger tea. Its 230pm and I have laptop, tea and doona. I've never done this before. I can see this becoming my new bad habit.

I've just come home from my first talk at Mission Australia Surry Hills on behalf of Fit for Good. I feel really good about being able to share some stories and time with people seeking motivation and inspiration. They were lovely!

The talk was the 1st in a 4 part series, called Daring to Dream and it discusses what you need to build inside yourself to allow yourself to Dream, so self awareness and self worth, then moves on to cover goal setting techniques to start a successful journey"

Aaaaaand the rest of my post, which I had completed IN FULL got gobbled by the ether! *fist shake* I'll get over it, though and write it all again.

I'll be doing the 2nd talk, What it takes to win, on July 26th. The focus shifts from inception to delivery and how to deal with road blocks, obstacles and self doubt, using a positive attitude to turn them into opportunities for “adversarial growth”. The end result is to get the dream across the line.

I also spoke a fortnight ago at East Sydney High. I went in to give the kids a rev up speech and make sure they understood that life is going to go however they design it, so they better take their choices seriously and decide who they want to be. It was another extremely rewarding day and next term I'll be back to do a more in depth half day workshop with them on Strategies for Success Past School. Paid work, which is awesome...

On the subject of paid work, I've just launched a new business to encapsulate both Debzillah PT under Body and Breath, as well as my speaking work under Mindful Motivation: Inspirational Industries, with the motto Inspired, Ingenious and Infinite. The gorgeous Ingrid of Frankenmedia Design has secured the domains and will be starting work on my new website forthwith :) Huzzah!

Watch this space, Tuesday I'm talking about food and the good life!