How to have an awesome Single Gal’s V-Day

Tags

#IQS, Barista, Coffee, flirting, single girls, Valentine's Day, Yoga

Start early. The earlier the better. Like January. But don’t worry if you can’t start early this year. There’s always next year (in case you happen to be single then).

Face up to your fears (again and again and again) and get some healing and acceptance going in your life (or whatever other words you choose to set sail by for the upcoming year).

Get your good self aligned with those awesome words so they start to seep into every fibre of your being.

Realise that you’re actually really and truly enjoying your new job. The people, the work, the clients. It’s crazy busy there, but the job is a fit for your quirky personality. 

Make a teensy, tiny decision that you’ll allow yourself one cup of (good) coffee a day, Monday to Friday. Search for the best coffee shop near your new workplace. Get to know the baristas.

Notice that all of your hard work is starting to pay off. Physical and emotional healing, strengthening through yoga, giving up sugar. Even when you thought you’d never be able to say such a thing (about it all paying off): it’s true.

Revel in fitting into clothes you haven’t been able to get into for ages, AND be accepting of your body as it is – ill health, extra kilos and all.

Get a little more yoga crazy than ever before. Spend eighteen hours over the weekend before V-Day doing lots and lots of excellent yoga with one of the best teachers in Australia.

Go to work the next day absolutely glowing (or so your workmates tell you).

Plan a very special V-Day yoga class for your students. All about “spinal love”, aka taking care of the spine: learning how to bend through the spine properly; and how to effectively and slowly build core strength.

On V-Day itself, wear one of those dresses you can fit into again (thanks to losing weight from giving up sugar), knowing you have a client meeting. Get compliments from workmates on your ensemble.

Head over for an early morning coffee at the start of the day (it’s gonna be a loooong and busy one at work).

Grab your coffee when the tall, ruggedly cute barista calls your name. Have a very funny interaction with him that goes something like this…

Barista: There you go darlin’. So, were you showered with kisses this morning, like you deserve?

You: Ummmm, perhaps by my cat…

Barista: Well I’d be happy to do it but it might overstep some barista/customer boundaries.

You: Well perhaps I could get my coffee somewhere else then??

Barista: Perhaps you should… 😉

Realise that you can’t remember the last time anyone flirted so brazenly and publicly with you.

Have a massive grin on your face for the rest of the day.

Get changed at the end of the work day, into yoga teacher mode and fabulous shiny pants.

Teach a VERY full yoga class. Watch as your students enjoy the new things they’re learning about their bodies.

Also, tell them the thought that popped into your head the previous week:

It doesn’t matter who does or doesn’t love you, as long as YOU love you.

Admit that you’re not sure if you read that somewhere or if it was an original thought. But that it doesn’t matter as long as you really and truly get it, on a cellular level.

On the reverse of our Rainbow Hearts

Talk to your students about how real love starts with:

• Self nurturing
• Self acceptance
• Self respect

Be amazed at how awesome your class was and grateful that you get the chance to spread a little love around in a non-clichéd/commercial V-Day way.

Go home, still smiling about the bold flirting of a Certain Barista.

Discover your neighbour has cooked dinner and saved you some. Because she is awesome. Make tentative plans to have a girls night out with her some time.

Bask in all the love.

Clean the house.

Go to bed, still smiling…

~Svasti

xxx

P.S. Happy V-Day to you all!

P.P.S. See, coffee isn’t entirely bad for you… 😉

Fake tan & coffee anxiety

Tags

Adrenaline, Anxiety, Caffeine, Chinese Horoscope, Coffee, Commuting, Fake tan, Health, Morning coffee, Self-pampering, Sensualist, Stilettos, Sydney

I’m not an overly girly girl. I mean, I can be, if I feel like it! Look, I really enjoy getting all dressed up on occasion but you’ll never catch me at the races in a “fascinator” and stilettos just aren’t for me. I’m too tall for one thing – I detest towering over men – my poor old bone grafted toe isn’t quite up to bearing my body weight for hours on end. Also, I like to be able to walk and not hobble. Run if needs be.

And I’d rather not be completely crippled with a shocking back and knees by the time I’m ninety. There’s plenty of stuff I’d still like to be able to do at that age.

I’ve been feeling a tad strung out of late. Partly it’s the commute from deepest darkest Suburbia-Urbia to work (gotta find a new pad soon!), which requires me to be in the shower at 6am in order to take a bus and two trains to get to work at 9am. Yeah.

And then there’s the coffee. I gave up my one cup a day habit (okay, perhaps it sneaked up to two more often than I’d care to admit) around six years ago. It’s the fault of this gag-worthy doco that pointed out in graphic detail just what coffee does to the body. In short – it leaches calcium from the bones to deal with the onset of adrenaline caffeine creates upon ingestion. Kinda gross.

Not exactly conducive to a long life either.

With the extended commute each side of my day right now, I confess I’ve stooped to drinking coffee again. Every weekday morning. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, and let’s face it – Australian coffee does have an utterly glorious aroma. Not like the shite they pass off as coffee over the pond in the US! 😉

As a Metal Boar (Chinese Horoscope) I definitely and utterly fall into the category of the die-hard sensualist. And I’m liking that morning coffee far too much. More than that, I’m suffering the climb-the-wall anxiety that apparently goes hand in hand with imbibing an adrenaline pumping drug for the first time in ages.

The caffeine hit lasts all day long – I get that tense feeling pretty much all over and my scalp itches.

Anyway, this afternoon I found myself sitting in a pink decóred “Hair & Nails” salon directly underneath my offices: Hannah’s. It’s convenient and cheap, with Asian love songs blaring and a lucky golden waving cat at the front door. The girl/women workers barely speak English – not that it matters – and laugh at almost anything I say.

Usually my attempts at self-pampering include a pedicure, or a massage. At a stretch, I might indulge in a facial once in a blue moon. But not today. I’m there, almost inconceivably, to subject myself to a fake spray tan.

Never had one before. Not sure I’ll be doing it again in a hurry. I mean the result was good, but it just seems rather vain to me. Not to mention spraying chemical crap all over my body. And usually, I just don’t care so much how I look.

Geez, if I was still living in Sydney I wouldn’t even need to fake it. Up north I could effortlessly maintain a natural looking perma-tan from just wandering around. But in the deep south we just don’t get enough sun for that. Coming out of my first Winter here I was horrified to realise my skin was several shades of blindingly pasty white.

Right now I’m a pleasant faux light tan colour. That’s after twenty minutes standing in a room the size of a wardrobe stark naked ‘cept for the paper knickers they supply, begging the tiny Asian lady to not turn me orange and hoping she understood something of what I was saying.

The aroma of my skin isn’t anywhere near as nice as coffee though… but apparently it evaporates pretty quickly.

And I guess there’s a laté in my near future, just over seven hours away…

~ Svasti