October FMS photo a day challenge complete!

October challenge complete! I missed a few days here and there, but that's ok, I'll consider this my warm up month, especially seeing as I only came into the challenge half way through the month. It's been really fun though. Here are some of what I believe to be my better pics, not always because of the quality of the image but because of the story behind it:

You can check out the rest of my pics here: http://instagram.com/lyndall31#,

Finding a little piece of a lost me

As previously mentioned, there was a time in my life when I was super fit. That time is long gone and while I know it may come again one day, I also know that day is a while away... more than likely not going to happen till the boys are in school/capable of riding bikes alongside a jogging Mum. You get the picture.

I can however begin the journey towards feeling strong and reasonably fit again. I guess that is the main thing that bothers me about my current level of fitness, I don't feel strong. Not Super-Mum, lifting cars off of babies type of strong, just strong enough to push through whatever life throws at me - like zombies, did you know about the rules for surviving a zombie plague (I threw that one in just for you Aunty Mugs and Crazy Aunty Kaz).

Anyways, a few weeks back I re-started my twice a week, squeeze it into 30mins of boy nap time, pilates routine. Late last week I started back on the exercise bike. I plan to go for a run on the weekend. But tonight I threw in 30mins of strength intervals. I know 30mins doesn't sound like enough, but it's all I've got so it just has to be an intense 30mins. So tonight I used a set of exercise cards I got from a magazine, but instead of doing the reps suggested I did as many of each exercise as I could in 60 seconds and recorded my results so that in a months time I can re-do my "test" and see if I've improved.

And so I can't lie to myself, here are my results:

Squats - 38
Push-ups - 35
Bent-over row - 32
Military Press - 24
Upright row - 31
Triceps kickback - 28
Wall squat - held for 30 seconds
Biceps curl - 33
Leg curl - 34
Lunges - 33
Step-up - 30
Crunches - 31
Raised feet crunch - 26
 Bent leg knee raise - 23
Pulse-up - 25
Oblique V-up - 34 left, 22 right
Saxon side bend - 32
Bridge - held for 30 seconds 

NB. I didn't have dumbbells so I used jars of flour.

Toot Toooot!

We had an amazing time this weekend at Illawarra Live Steamers with the multiples crew. The boys loved it as evidenced by the jumping up and down in the line shouting "twains, twains," trying to climb over the fence to get to said "twains" and falling asleep that night muttering "toot tooooot."

They crashed hard in the car on the way home after so much excitement riding trains and chasing seagulls.

Pictures courtesy of Hubby, if you want to see more of his stuff, check him out at http://www.redbubble.com/people/gjnairn

Flowers

Today my lovely boys presented me with flowers.... hand picked from the weed patch! Love em :)

Judgement

I need to exercise.

I don't anymore, ever. There was a time in my life when I'd be participating in high impact sport or high intensity exercise five days a week. Now I can barely find the time for 30mins a day. I've been looking at ways I can group activities or "multi-task" so that I can cram more activity into my days and I thought I'd come up with a winner: during park visits with the boys I can use the time, space and play equipment for a kind of cross-training session.

Then I began to doubt myself. I'd feel silly. You see, all my life I have felt like people were watching me and judging my every move. I am paranoid that someone I know will see me and judge me. Hell, I am paranoid I'll be judged by complete strangers!

The birth or our twins gave me the opportunity (and a reason) to begin overcoming this affliction. I realise that this fear of judgement is very possibly what has held me back from accomplishing pretty much ALL of my life goals and I don't want my boys to grow up with this same fear. So I can't let them see my paranoia. I joined our local multiple births club and took on a couple of volunteer roles that have a somewhat public face... albeit from behind a computer screen (social media is a haven for people like me, who want a voice, but fear the consequences).

Almost a year down the track and I now actually participate in committee meetings (rather than just sit and listen), I had the confidence to join our local playgroup even though I knew absolutely no one there, I post to social media at least four times a day (personally and as a volunteer) without scrutinising every single minute detail of said posts, and every month I team up with a fellow Multi-Mum to produce a fifty plus page newsletter that reaches around two hundred families and businesses, all without really stressing toooo much about the potential  for negative feedback.

BUT

I am still hiding behind this computer screen!

So I hit the park this week and had a go anyways. I tried jogging laps, tried some step ups, tried some pull-ups, kicked a soccer ball around with the kids.... and felt ridiculous!

I feel like I have failed. However I know that I have not failed yet. The fact that I even forced myself to try was but a small step towards overcoming my stupid fear of judgement.

FMS photo a day

A week ago now one of my fellow multiple Mum's began posting pictures to her Facebook account with the tag #FMSphotoaday. For whatever reason, this caught my attention so I googled it and found out about this cool photo a day challenge. You can read more about it here: http://fatmumslim.com.au/how-to-play/#

I felt this may be a really good way to help get the currently dormant creative juices flowing and give me some inspiration to use some of the photography knowledge I picked up on a course last year. I've missed a couple of days already, and only a week in, so not a great start, but anyone who has read this blog from the beginning will know I'm not great at starting things :) 

Here's my first few shots:

Day five - Afternoon.









Day seven - What you saw

Day eight - Corner

Day nine - Pink

I'll be posting my pics on Instagram, you can follow me at http://instagram.com/lyndall31#, but I will share some of the better ones on here too.

Where'd I go?

So I took a break from this blog, even though it never really got started. You can blame Channel 7, they ran a segment about whether you should post information, stories and pictures of your kids online because once out there, you can never take them back. That got me thinking and I decided that it wasn't fair on them to plaster their life on the internet. So now I am taking a different approach. You'll still see the odd picture and read the odd story, but I'll be keeping private their lives and anything that could potentially be embarrassing for them later on.

Here's hoping I actually do keep this up from now on.