We don't talk much about all of the things that go on behind the scenes. The days where we don't want to move, the times we fail miserably at what we're attempting to do, the hours and minutes spent wishing that you could be better, do more.

Often we skip over these things, maybe because we think people don't want to know about them, or because we want to focus on the GOOD things that happen.

They're both good reasons, one should never dwell in the moments that leave you feeling like you're not enough, that you're too insubstantial to do a good job, whether it's at home, at work, during a workout, with your kids, with your pets, partners, friends; but nethertheless, they still make up an important narrative to our stories.

People fail. Sometimes miserably. I like to joke that I shouldn't be allowed to make decisions, since I make BAD decisions. I make. Bad. Decisions. And I don't do it small scale. Nope. I am a professional. I go in, I fuck up, I DO THE JOB RIGHT.

Just to put this into perspective for you.... my FitBit Surge battery ran out on Wednesday. I was tempted to stay exactly where I was, whilst sending my partner to get the charger and then I wanted to wait for it to charge (please tell me I'm not alone on this one!).

Now, you'll be glad to know that I put my big girl face on and went to charge the watch, much like I would have charged anything else that needed charging. I even LIVED without my Surge for an entire hour.....(ikr!). Don't judge me. If you don't have a FitBit you CAN'T UNDERSTAND and if you do have one then you must be telling porkies!

Everyone I've spoken to seems to go through the similar phases:

• New FitBit, wear it religiously.
• One unspoken day, FitBit gets forgotten for the first time. You feel  betrayed. Like the moving wasn't worth it. It's not the same after that.
• A day or two later, FitBit is forgiven and you're back together. Happily observing the steps you take. Every step you take, every move you make, the FitBit is watching you....

The FitBit fever has well and truely taken me. I set a goal to get 10k steps every day at the start of the year (you can find that post here!).I've been an avid FitBit supporter for a long while. As a company I've always loved the way they treat their customers, which just made me even MORE in awe of them and I've progressed from owning a "one" to being the proud jiggler of a "Surge". During this time, I've caught myself doing rather odd things, so I decided to compile a list of the five ODDEST places I've found myself getting steps...

1. In the shower

It was late, I was low on steps. I found myself jogging on the spot in the shower. I had originally wanted to paint a less desperate picture, one with music and accidental bobbing, but there was no music and nothing was accidental.

Still. I met my step goal....

2. Brushing my teeth

Given I don't really have the "best" co-ordination in the world, this was more of an experiment. I survived jabbing myself in the gums with my toothbrush, and swallowing what was probably too much toothpaste (so minty fresh....).

3. Cooking

When I say cooking, I think anyone who has ever browsed my blog will know that's a very fancy word for what I do with food, but makingslopthatlookslikedogpukeandthenusingthemicrowavetomakeitbetter is really too long a word to keep in common usage.....

Anyway, I KNOW I'm not alone on this one...!

4. Waiting at the car

This one is slightly more likely to draw a few glances....but you know, you're waiting, you could be getting steps.....amiright!?

​5. In a lift

When I'm forced to take a lift, this is what happens. It's usually less irritating for any company I have with me to just take the stairs. Or ride the lift alone. Jus' sayin' ;)

Reading this list makes me appreciate what the people in my life have to put up with, but hey, it's only until I get to 10, 000 steps every day......

Tell me I'm not alone, where do you like to get your extra steps from during the day?

Today is Monday.

Anyone else notice that?


Well, at about 10:00am my day got considerably better - Tom asked if I wanted to go to the pole barn. Did I want to go to the pole barn - what sort of question is that anyway? ;)

So, after school (a long school day I might add) off we went. Since my shoulder is still a bit dodgy my left side is becoming much more dominant. Good in lots of ways, now I even ache in a uniform manner :p


Anyway, the spinning poles made my day....so much fun xD

I may have left my stomach behind about 10 seconds into this, and I didn't get it back for a good hour after the session, but it was totally worth it - my first improv felt amazing. I had a load of fun, and it reminded me that our lives are only what we make of them. My choice to have a "Monday feeling" was MY choice. I made it happen. People are their circumstances - we make them good, or we accept them as bad.

Fight those bad feelings guys - be happy and CREATE your circumstances!

Go out and have an AWESOME week!

I seem to be a day behind this week. It sort of fits exactly with how I've felt all week really ;)

So, apologies for missing you all last night - I found myself tootling off to one of my very good friend's wedding reception. It was the first time we'd actually met and it was pretty awesome.

Good friends that have only just met? Yeah, I thought you'd ask. Well, hubs and I have known Gen for a very long time now through WoW, but we finally got to meet him and his lovely lady for their wedding day. Awesome :D

The nicest thing being - it felt no different than any of the hours we'd spend talking on vent or in game. I don't know how many people here have made friends in the virtual realms, but I'm glad that we did :)

So, getting ready for the event, I put myself in a STRAPLESS dress. Ikr. My first time in a strapless dress (I could never make my boobs work in them before). And this was the effect...

Now, that felt pretty good but it was apparent that the weight lifting and the pole dancing are having their effects on my upper body. This in itself isn't a bad thing of course, I'm getting STRONG but naturally, I have to have a bit of panic before accepting any bodily changes :P

So, asking hubs "do my shoulders look too wide?" "do you think they're getting too big?"

"no" he responds

*pause*

"you ever thought of competitive swimming?"

Git.

You know, one day I WILL take up competitive swimming and then who'll be laughing. Ha!

Anyway, my swimming skills aside, it felt good to get my shoulders out and not have to worry about having flabby arms, or a flabby back. This is why you should lift weights ladies. Or, failing lifting weights, lift yourself up xD


Now, following my very exciting Friday, I had two additional bits of GREAT NEWS. One was scale related, and one was definitely an NSV.

About 6 months or so ago, I bought a pair of size 12 jeans. They're really nice jeans, I really liked them. I got them home, excited to have some size 12s to get into - given all of my jeans are too big now - and went to change into them.

I pulled, I pushed, I rolled, I used talcum powder and I even asked Simon to pick me up by the waist-band and shake me. Those puppies were not going to go over my thighs.

I was devastated. My thighs, the seat of my power,  and the pillar of my demise. The reason I had a war-of-wills with many pairs of hot pants, the reason I can squat more than the boys in my life. Love and hate they were stopping me from getting into those jeans.

Even if magic had happened, there was no way they'd do up over my butt. Not a snowballs chance.

So, I put them on the outside of my closet as a visual reminder and worked towards the day I'd get into them.

That day was today....

Yee-ha Chicas. I'm in.

Now, I'll be honest. There was a little muffin-toppage, and I could have done with a little more wiggle room around the tops of my thighs but they finally went UP and OVER with minimal resistance. What more could a girl want?

Of course, with the jeans compressing my hips it did make those swimmers shoulders stand out more....luckily for dear husband he did not make a comment on this phenomenon...

Now, my second amazing bit of news, that actually (chronologically) happened first was this...

Now this is extremely exciting. If you remember back to last Friday (Friday Feature: Do You Feel Good This Friday?) my feel-good Friday picture was this....

After months of things moving very slowly I'm totally over the moon. I know it's not a full pound of loss, but it's a movement!!

Now, I'm hoping that my wild spreading of the news hasn't offended the scale-Gods who are in charge of the scale numbers and the trend will continue on downwards (in other words - lets hope I've not spoken too soon!).

So - I've had a very exciting "Friday sort of period", what happened this Friday to make you feel good? :D

Remember, you can always come and visit me at Diary of a Pole Addict on Facebook (I've just passed 150 likes - squeeeeee!) or Tumblr, or @Squidgeypaws on Twitter or Instagram!

Ever get those "OMG I NEED CHOCOLATE.....LIKE....5 MINUTES AGO" moments?

I'm just working through one now.

I may have worked through it by eating chocolate.

I may have made myself feel sick.

If this is the case, I totally deserve it ;)

Anyway, welcome to Wednesday. But on Thursday. It's always nice to be behind the actual day in your head, because when Friday comes you're not expecting it. Wooo.

Happy Friday eve!

So. Yeah. Wednesday pole blog.

I'll have to confess as to why I didn't write my pole blog yesterday. I was sulking. Not only was I sulking, but I couldn't actually type without it hurting - I thought you guys wouldn't mind me missing it.....right? I know, I know - the abandonment smarts, but I was with you every moment. Right in here....

Awwww *soppy moment*.

I was going to go for a picture of a real heart, but thought it might actually detract from the soppy moment. That and the real heart isn't responsible for emotions....it should have been a brain, but again, back to the original point... :P

So, yes. I was stropping.

Why? You might ask. Ooooh. Well.

We go to pole, all is well in the world. I'm looking forward to getting back on track after a couple of weeks where I've either not progressed at all or just sort of slipped off of the pole.

We warm up. My shoulder is stiff from the incident with the empty bar on Sunday (don't look at me like that) but it seems like it'll play ball.

I go to spin and BOOM. On the floor. OUCH.

Apparently, we weren't ready to commit to the pole like that. It was 5 minutes into the lesson and I was benched. I couldn't even get my arm above my head. Useless.

Luckily Tom and Amy were in a wonderfully beneficent mood and quickly decided (after MAKING me tell Karen I'd hurt myself) to show solidarity and spin with me. So we got Karen to work on thinking of one armed spins. It's not quite as much fun with one arm, but it passed the time just as quickly xD

Still, Monday's spins looked pretty and they worked well - I'll even share them with you here ;)

Maybe not the prettiest name, but it looks good xD

I'm working on making that kick even bigger (as Karen keeps telling me to!).

Anyway, I've still not quite regained my arm. No pole, no yoga and no lifting and I have to admit I'm getting a little cranky. Luckily I managed a little pilates this evening with no drama, which has alleviated the yearning to go and do REALLY fun stuff that might break me. More. *hmppph*

To distract myself from thinking about the pain, I've invested my time in neatening my left-handed writing (I can write with either hand, but having been encouraged to use my right hand more my left hand is a little wonky....) and paying attention to what I'm eating. Well. Paying attention to what I should be eating. The first statement was a bit of a lie, since I just consumed the weight of a small elephant in chocolate. Not that the chocolate is a coping mechanism. It just tastes really good.

I think I need better mechanisms to deal with being unable to stick to my normal routine!

How do you deal with being laid-up from exercise?

We're here for a short one tonight folks! So after a weekend of busy fabulousness - hours of yoga, being a macho-man (shaping metal with my bare hands.....meat-head style) and forcibly fitting into my first ever "real" size 10 items of clothes (and by forcibly I mean so long as I don't eat for a few days beforehand or breathe when I'm actually in them it'll be ok....) we're back at Monday!

What a weekend. It still hung on a little when I woke up this morning from the very pronounced stiffness in "that" shoulder (I had finished my warm-up set of bench-press with an EMPTY bar when I sat up and my shoulder clicked and popped itself into a gnarly little knot. An EMPTY bar. Sheesh) and the decided determination with which I had to leave my gorgeous warm bed. Still, yoga is always worth getting up that bit earlier for - I've found I'm really quite markedly more amenable when I've done the yoga (queue last Wednesday when I almost ate Simon for speaking to me when I'd only been up for 5 minutes....he was asking me to make a decision guys - WITHIN five minutes of opening my eyes, I mean, eating him seemed fair....).

So, yeah, Monday. This Monday was my half day. I love half days. I went poling :D (oooooh yeah). I'll show you a little bit of what I did today....

This is a spin Tom and I decided to learn off of a lovely DVD he got for his birthday - I think it's very pretty :D Although, my personal new fave has to be this....

A fairy spin....how cute is that xD Lots of work to do on it, but it's a fun one!!

So this has been an awesome Monday for me - nice and chilled with a pole session. What more could I ask for?


Anyway, time for your Monday motivation.....this is a picture I picked up trawling the net looking for something else, but it encapsulates EXACTLY what I think is important in life - choice. Choice is a big thing. We often make good choices, but just as easily, a bad choice can seem like the end of everything.

Still - you have the choice whether you think that or not....

My choice today was to make sure I enjoyed the day. Regardless of the cat puking (everywhere) or the late lunch or the piles of marking. We always have that choice (to enjoy the day, not have a puking cat...).

What has been your best choice today?

So, who feels good this Friday?

Me me me me!

Oh Friday, How Do I Love Thee? Let me count the ways....

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My flexibility can reach, when feeling out of shape,
For the ends of pointing my toes for ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet free-period, by laptop screen light.
I love thee freely, as women strive for that extra mile;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Practice.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old back pains, and with those packets of Oreo cookies.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost cheesecakes – I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my journey! – and, if I choose,
I shall but love thee better after I get some sleep tonight.


Ok, so I just bastardised my favourite sonnet. I somehow feel no shame in this. Only a quiet sense of pride and self-satisfaction...

Sorry Liz.

It's Friday. This week has felt like a long time. Talking to Rosanna earlier it's evident we spend our lives wishing that Friday will come. I'm planning on working on appreciating my every waking moment. Right now, the celebrations are beginning - but what did the days of the week offer me?

Monday: REST DAY BABY YEAH. That was a good day!
Tuesday: Duh. Pole night pole night pole night.
Wednesday: I researched a (VERY) interesting looking Masters. Even booked onto an open day!
Thursday: I discovered Pilates!
Friday: Well. Friday is Friday. But I discovered that today I've ACTUALLY LOST A POUND IN WEIGHT! Whoo!

So, every day this week has offered its treasures, but today is sort of capped off by that scale moving for me. It's been SO long since it has! I mean, don't get me wrong - I don't judge solely on the scale - for instance my strength and flexibility are improving daily, but the scale moving is sort of a BIG thing xD

I know 1.2Ibs in 2 weeks and 3 days won't seem like a lot to most of you - but as some of you will know, I plateaued long and hard before actually gaining weight (which I'd like to think some of which was muscle mass!) so every bit of weight loss is a MASSIVELY exciting event!! xD

So, I think that's my most exciting thing this week. Although there's been loads of good stuff! What was your most exciting event this week? And what other amazing things did you encounter?