A little motivation to start the weekend

Incredible motivation

If you are looking for some motivation, I highly reccommend Les Brown. He is incredible and has helped me a lot in my own personal development. :) here are a few of his quotes but there are lots of videos on YouTube  as well.

'She believed she could so she did'

Since I only briefly talked about my new tattoo in my last post, I thought I would dedicate a whole post to my tattoo and the meaning behind it. I have wanted a tattoo for about 12 months now, so took advantage of the opportunity to get one when my boyfriend and I went to Melbourne for the weekend. Although I never intended to get one quite so big, I absolutely love my new tattoo and wouldn't change a single thing about it.

I wanted a tattoo that represented my recovery from anorexia and couldn't think of a more special or relevant quote to me than 'She believed she could so she did.' To me, this means that all you need to do in order to make your dreams come true is to believe in yourself. I honestly believe that anyone can recover if they believe it is possible and that they can do it. Now I have done something as seemingly impossible as recovering from anorexia, I really do believe I am capable of doing anything I set my mind to.

Ever since my mum bought me a dream catcher as a child and hung it above my bed, I have loved the idea of how dream catchers 'filter' your dreams. I have also always loved dream catcher tattoos as I yhink they look really effective. The following website explains the actual meaning of a dream catcher tattoo really well;
The tattoo signifies that harmful dreams are chased away and positive dreams will stay, bring protection to the one who wears the ink. 

Melbourne and my tattoo

After having an amazing weekend away with my boyfriend in Melbourne, I really wish we didn't have to head back home. We are currently on the short plane trip back to Tasmania soI thought I would make good use of the time and write a blog post, to tell you all about my weekend away. It was a really busy few days so my boyfriend and I are both pretty exhausted. I dont think my boyfriend was impressed that I booked early morning flights either because it meant we had to get up at 5am. Oh well, atleast we will be back early enough so that I can make it to my university classes.

We arrived in Melbourne at about 10 am on Friday morning and made our way to our hotel. We were stayed at the Crown casino which was really nice and also HUGE.. I didnt realise just how much there was at the crown casino. There were restaurants, places to go shopping, a cinema, night clubs and of course a casino too. It really was incredible! After leaving our bags in our hotel room, we caught a taxi to St. Kilda and got some lunch. I had the soup of the day which was a cauliflower and pumpkin soup that also came with some yummy bread. I also got a serve of crumbed eggplant which were AMAZING!

After lunch we headed back to the hotel and wandered around for a while, checking everythinb out. We went for a swim and the pool was nice and warm.  I also enjoyed relaxing in the spa. After spending an hour or so in the pool we headed back to our room and had a couple of relaxing drinks before heading out to tea and then the casino. We went to a restasurant called the Merrywell for tea where Nathan got a burger and fries and I got wood fire roasted vegetables with grilled chicken. After tea and a couple more drinks we went to the casino where Nathan played some roulette. We had a great night together, chatting and drinking and even went to one of the night clubs for a while before we headed to bed at about midnight.

We slept until 9 or so Saturday morning and then went out for a late breakfast at about 10:30. I had strawberry and rhubarb porridge which tasted amazing. We then went shopping at the DFO's where I got a new 'puffer jacket' as my old one had a broken zip. I got a nice MACPAC one that was $280 reduced to $90 so I was really pleased with that. I also got some new adidas tights to wear to the gym and a Roxy hooded jumper that was only $20 reduced from $70. As a surpprise Nathan bought me tickets to the musical 'Matilda' so we headed to that after we went shopping. I dont think Nathan was that keen to go to the musicalat first but I think he ended up enjoying it just as much as i did. It was a really great show! By the time Matilda finished it was almost 5 o'clock and since we had eaten anything since breakfast, we were both starving.

We stopped at a place called the 'Republic Bar' for tea and we both enjoyed chicken schnitzel with chips and salad. It was really nice to have a simple but hearty meal for tea after eating a a bit fancier foods until then. Then we went back to the casino where we had adrink before heading to the football. Nathan goes for St.Kilda and I go for North Melbourne which were the two teams playing so it was a great game for us to go too. I was really glad that my team won but it was a good game so I think Nathanstill really enjoyed it which is good. After the ffotball we walked back to the hotel and went out until about midnight again. We fell in to bed, both exhausted after a huge day and didn't get up until about 9:30 the next day.

We met my friend Ella for breakfast the next morning at the safe cafe we went to for breakfast the day before. I had a delIcious breafast that came with beans, poached eggs, fetta and turkish bread as well as a skinny late. It was good to catch up with my friend as I dont get to see here very often, now that we live in different states. Nathan and I both said that we would like to maybe live in Melbourne one day though as we both enjoyed our time there so much. Whilst we were eating breakfast, I decided it would be a good chance to get a tattoo while we were in Melbourne. So we found a tattoo studio and I got adesign drawn up that I loved. My appointment wasn't until 3 o'clock so we headed back to the hotel for an hour or two and just relaxed and had some fruitsalad for Afternoon tea.

I was quite nervous about getting my tattoo as I had no idea what to expect. I was getting a tattoo in my ribs which is one of the most painful placesto get oneand it was quite a big tattoo as well. Also because I have a thin stomach, the tattooist warned me it would probably be painful, especially when tattooing over each rib bone. It took two hours and although it was a bit uncomfortable at times, it wasn't too bad. The pain was there but very barable and I coped well with it, probably due to the fact I have a pretty high pain threshold. I absolutely loved the finished product and so did my boyfriend which I was really glad about.

The pictures arent that clear and it is a bit swollen but this is what it looks like :) the quote says; she believed she could do she did

Making big changes

In the last few months, I have been thinking a lot about my life at the moment and the future. While doing this I came to the realisation that if I want to stay with my boyfriend, then one of us were going to have to make a move as we live 3 hours apart. So since I definetely want to stay with my boyfriend and miss him A LOT when we are apart, I have decided to move to Launceston with him, which is a city an hour and a half away.

My plan is to work for the year and save some money before possibly going back to university next year. My boyfriends parents own a house in Launceston that we will be living in and my boyfriend plans to continue working in his current job but travel about an hour to get there each day and then another hour to get back. I feel bad that he will have to do so much travelling but also quite honoured that he loves and cares about me enough so that he is willing to travel.

It has been a big decision, to leave my life, job and family behind in Swansea but I am excited for what the future holds. I have decided to make the move up to Launceston over the easter period and honestly cant wait. Although I am not looking forward to actually packing up all my house and cleaning it from top to bottom at all.

Some people have expressed their concern about me giving up my job and moving away to live with someone who I have been with for less then 6 months, but I honestly feel in my heart that it is the best thing to do. Ever since getting sick I have realised that all that truly matters in life is being happy and my boyfriend makes me incredibely happy. So I'm not going to pass up on the opportunity to be with the one person who makes me truly happy out of fear that something could go wrong.

Recovery makes you stronger

This is so true! After overcoming all of the obstacles of recovery, I know that I am much stronger then I have ever been before....

So true

Listen to your body

Please Remember...

Make it happen

How guys can affect our eating disorders

I feel as though a very important point to make is that we should not ever let guys affect how we feel about ourselves. The year that I first started to try to lose weight was the year that I really liked a boy but things didn't work out between us. Looking back now, I know that the reason things didn't work out between us had nothing at all to do with my weight or how I looked but at the time, I thought that losing weight may somehow solve the problem and make the boy like me.

I haven't really mentioned anything on my blog about this yet but I am currently chatting a lot to a guy ALOT who I really like and I know he really likes me too. We are both really open about how we feel about one another but even still, because he currently is seeing someone else we cant be together. This time around however I have not made he mistake of blaming the way I look or my body for things not working out between us.

I know that this has nothing at all to do with the reason why things have not worked out between me and this particular guy and I know that losing weight will not solve any problem. I adamently believe that we should never try to change our bodies or the way we look for any guy. In my opinion if a guy doesn't like us exactly the way we are, then they dont deserve to have us in their lives at all. Never again will I try to change how I look for any guy and as long as I am happy with how I look, that is all that matters! 

I felt as though looing weight would make me more popular and liked by boys but this was definetely not the case at all. I really hope that what i m about to say does not make me soound arrogant because I ddot mean to ssound that way at all, but I can honestly say that boys have shown a lot more interest in me again since I have become healthy. I can now see that there is nothing attractive about being underweight at all and that boys will like you a lot more if you are a healthy weight :) 

I know that this post is a bit random but it is just something I felt was worth mentioning. :)