I’m officially registered for Earth Hour again this year, are you?

The actions shown by cities of the world and their inhabitants are crucial to leading a low-carbon resolution to climate change, says Earth Hour Co-Founder and Executive Director, Andy Ridley.

“The C40 suggests that cities are responsible for up to 75% of the world’s carbon emissions, so their role in addressing what is unequivocally the greatest threat to the planet today is absolutely vital,” Andy said.

“By turning the lights off for Earth Hour, cities are reflecting the aspirations of their citizens as a community that has resolved to take action on global warming,” he said.

Described as “One of the most important surf movies of our times” and YOU have the opportunity to come along and see it on the big screen. “Somewhere Near Tapachula” is a truly inspiring story of love, life and hope. Set in Tapachula, Mexico, this film follows the stories of 54 children from lives of poverty, trauma and abuse, and their journey to Mission Mexico, a children’s refuge founded by Australian couple Pam and Alan Skuse.

It also focuses on the unique surf community that they have pioneered in Tapachula, a coastal city with no other wave riders. The surfing experience has had a phenomenal impact on the children, creating an escape from their unimaginable pasts.

“Somewhere Near Tapachula” will challenge you with the important things in life and open your eyes to the power of riding waves, wether you are a surfer or not.

The film recently won the People’s choice award at Yallingup Surfilm Festival in W.A. It has also featured in the latest edition of Surfing World Australia and this week’s copy of Grazia Magazine. “Somewhere Near Tapachula” has also been nominated for the “Heart of Gold Award” in the International Film Festival held in Gympie this month.

You can check out the teaser trailer on www.somewhereneartapachula.com

This is going to be a fantastic night with live entertainment, art show, prizes and giveaways, Q&A with the director and producer and one of the stars from the film. 100% of profits go to Mission Mexico Children’s Refuge.

Maryborough Town Hall, Friday 19^th March.

Adults $ 15
Concession $ 10
 Family $ 40 (2 Adults, 2 Children).

Doors open: 6:45 pm
Tickets available by calling the numbers below or online at www.moshtix.com

For further information please contact:
Rachel 0424 190 494
Ana 0431 227 324
Lupita 0403 797 723

On the weekend I went to the Bunya Mountains and enjoyed a relaxing and exercise filled weekend thanks to a very kind invitation from one of my training partners and his wife. We stayed at their beautiful home “Characters”.

On Saturday my friend and I did 8.6km kilometres of hill and rainforest running.
There were wallabies everywhere plus we also feed some parrots!

We also went on a Clydesdale carriage ride into the rainforest and had the yummiest damper and billy tea and sampled roasted bunya nuts. The horses can get up to quite a fast pace, it was very exciting! Please contact Allan Govan on 4668 3115 if you are interest in the horse and carriage ride, you won’t be disappointed.

That evening we enjoyed a delicious 3 course meal at local restaurant Puzzles at Rice’s Log Cabin, ph: 4668 3133. We started with bunya nut bread then I had pumpkin, sweet potato & zucchini soup, chicken for my main, followed by five different desserts on the one plate. The food was absolutely scrumptious and the service friendly and prompt! 

Sunday it was off for a 17km hike through the rainforest to the Wescott Picnic area and back, followed by a huge BBQ lunch back at our gorgeous 3 story accommodation.

We warmly welcome you to our mountain paradise, peacefully nestled adjacent to 1,700ha of subtropical rainforest National Park, where we offer you eco-tourism accommodation and function facilities with the magical Bunya Mountain difference Experience the Bunya Mountains where…Time stops and Paradise begins

To find out more on accommodation at the Bunya Mountains please click here. 

The Bunya’s are the most beautiful place, I had the experience of a life time and I can’t wait to go back!

Monday night it was off with the girls for my second attempt at donating blood. You can read about my first amusing experience here. Both myself and my friend Emma were far more successful donating 440ml each and not doing the full bag of 470ml as the staff cut us short and told us we were too skinny …..Helloooooo I’ll take that as a compliment!

Kirsty another friend of mine came along too for her first go and went really well with no problems. She even had the Dalai Lama giving her guidance with his autobiography sitting on her lap!

Well done ladies, see you in 3 months time with hopefully some more recruits!

To find out more about the opportunity to donate blood and help others, please click here.

Please enjoy some words from my meditation and spiritual guidance teacher – Choeying Dolma (Resident Teacher| Buddhist Nun). We are very blessed to have Choeying on the Fraser Coast!

I received the news that the cancer in my mouth that I had over twenty years earlier had resurfaced for the second time. After having surgery and another biopsy I was told that the cancer had spread and they recommended I have more surgery along with radiation treatment. 

After surviving the ordeal of treatment for the second time I later found another lump.

Things were not looking good for me being able to enjoy a long life. My partner looked at me with so much love and compassion in his eyes as he asked, “Where would like to go or what you would like to do before you die . . .I will do whatever and go wherever you like? 

I was so touched by his loving kindness and replied, “I am very happy where I am at the moment but I would like to hold the hands of His Holiness the Dalai Lama before I die!” 

I later decided to go to India on a spiritual pilgrimage and become ordained as a Buddhist nun. On my return I had the great fortune of attending the visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama while in Sydney. 

I could not believe my luck when I found myself staying in the same hotel as His Holiness and having the good fortune to meet him in the lobby. 

It was the most surreal moment of my life when he greeted me by lovingly placing my hands between his. . . making my dying wish come true.  I was spellbound being in the presence of such a holy man. I was awe struck by the tangible power of his compassion. 

In this profound moment I realised how compassion was SO much more powerful then anger and war. I tasted the possibility of compassion being the solution to all wars and could see clearly how His Holiness can stay resolute in choosing compassion over war with the Chinese Government. I pray the Chinese Government have the good karma to be in his presence to feel this powerful compassion to be able to let go of their fears enough to at least sit down and engage in peace talks with His Holiness.

At the time his hands embraced mine I remember thinking, “Now I truly can die happily!” 

It seems, up until this moment at least I still have the good karma to still be enjoying this precious life I have been given. I couldn’t have had this life in the first place without my parents and I am so grateful to them for giving birth to me. 

Facing death is a true blessing as it helps us to deeply understand how important it is to live and love well. It helps us to see clearly that this precious life can be taken from us without any notice. In fact most deaths are like that. 

 My journey helped me to understand on a very deep level many things that on reflection I only understood intellectually when teaching on impermanence for many years.

I am so grateful for getting cancer as it taught me to not take life for granted.

But it is, “Meditation” that keeps this memory alive in me and shows me ways to enhance my life in ways I never imagined. 

I would like to share with others just a few of the many insights meditation has shown me.

This life [that could be so short] needs to be lived mindfully, in the present moment, in order to be called a well lived life. 

That every moment we are not mindful by dwelling in the past or the future is the very moment we are robbed of truly living our life. 

How we constantly live in the past and the future and miss the present.

How in the present moment there are miracles all around us that we cannot see because we are not there. 

Cancer woke me up to how short and precious this life is and how important it is to not miss it.

Meditation clearly shows me how stress causes dis-ease and how meditation can cure mental and physical illnesses. It helps me to not to forget and lose this great gift I was given of being able to practice being present.  It reminds me how important it is to have peace and calm in my life Meditation has shown me that, “Pain is inevitable – Suffering is optional?” 

I am truly blessed and am ever grateful to my teachers who have so generously shared with me the precious gift of knowing how to meditate in a way that has bought me so much happiness and peace in my life and allowed me to see the many miracles that are all around me if I can just stay in the present moment – If I can just learn to sit and be with myself and dwell in the bliss of simply sitting with myself.

But most of all it reminds me how grateful I am to have such a wonderful tool in my life to help me stay calm, peaceful and free of suffering. 

I am so blessed to be able to share this precious gift with others by facilitating Calm Abiding Meditation Courses and Weekend Retreats at the Oddiyana Dharma Sanctuary

Now my dying wish is… 

“May all beings find the gift of meditation to find true happiness and be free from suffering!” 

Choeying Dolma
(resident teacher) 

For more information on finding peace and calm in your life plus learning meditation please contact Choeying at THE ODDIYANA DHARMA SANCTUARY – 4125 5530 or 0408 257 071.

Or register ONLINE for the next meditation course starting at the end of February:
 www.oddiyanadharmasanctuary.org

Yesterday I set off with some mates to map out the route for a trail run across Fraser Island to be hosted later in the year (click here to subscribe for info on the event). I hiked / jogged 25km from Kingfisher Bay Resort to Eurong Resort the width of Fraser Island. We ran though bush, soft sand and beautiful rain forest. The 25km part of the trek took 5:45mins with a few breaks.

After lunch & a recharge break at Eurong the boys headed on further completing another 23km’s going up the beach to Lake Wabby, tackling a huge sand dune and came back around to meet us at the 4wd.

We were all thoroughly exhausted at the end of the day. I enjoyed a huge steak before we got the 8.30pm barge home last night.

It was an AWESOME ADVENTURE but I’m very stiff today!

Well I can already tell this is going to be a very long month!

It’s nearly the end of day 3 without an alcoholic beverage and I’m quite surprised I haven’t got the shakes yet.
It’s strange, when you can’t have a beer at the end of the day; you tend to think about beer all day!!
I’m certainly craving a Pure Blonde! 

What is Feb Fast?
Participating in a Booze Free February!!!

What’s in it for me?
Lose weight, save money, gain more energy and raise money for charity!!  All very positive outcomes! 

I’ve finally got my registration in order so; if you would like to make a donation to support me on what I consider to be a huge challenge please click here to make a donation that goes straight to charity.

Proceeds raised through registration and fundraising go towards the Australian Drug Foundation, YSAS (the Youth Substance Abuse Service in Victoria), Mater Hospital’s Adolescent Drug and Alcohol Withdrawal Service (Queensland), The Ted Noffs Foundation (NSW and ACT) and FebFast’s grants program for smaller grass-roots organisations.

On the weekend a friend asked me what I though the definition of ‘Love’ was, to which I found I was not able to articulate a very informative answer. I said the best definition I had heard so far was from Choeying my Buddhist Nun friend so I decided to email Choeying and seek her wisdom on this matter……..

Hi Jeanette

Lovely to hear from you. 

This is a very big question that takes more than five minutes to answer so I have borrowed concepts from Thich Nhat Hahn who I believe is the world’s expert on love. Okay, Love has many parts and levels. 

However ,when trying to understand love we also need to contemplate what is NOT love. Most love we experience is clouded in attachment especially when our minds are obstructed by our delusions mostly, in this case our desire, passion etc. When we “fall in love” as they commonly say it is mostly due to our karmic connection with the other person and the delusions of desire and passion. We  deludedly think this passion will sustain our love forever and are devastated when it doesn’t. We don’t see that love is like a a beautiful garden – it only stays  vibrant and alive and beautiful with tender loving care,  nourishment and the understanding of the needs of the soil, plants etc. 

I have attached the rest as it is easier then typing on email. (download pdf here) Of course as always these are just intellectual concepts and are not very useful unless one meditates Firstly find self love and then the ability to love others. If we cannot love ourselves how can we possibly love anyone else. We will continually expect the “other’ to fill this loveless barron self and this is a recipe for destoying self love – we become a barron dessert thirsty for love  destined to a life of looking for love, “in all the wrong faces in all the wrong places” as the song goes! 

I hope you both benefit from this and may you meditate to find “self love” so abundant that you have no choice but to share this abudnace of love with others.

Love and prayers

Choeying
www.oddiyanadharmasanctuary.org

These days, ‘working your way to the top’ is almost unheard of, but not for chartered accountant, Toni McCulloch, who has just celebrated her 15th year with a Local accountancy firm … Accounting North ….

PLUS had been an awesome business mentor & best friend to me for 19 years…. (I wonder which has been the hardest job!)

To learn more about this inspiring & motivated business woman and her remarkable achievements please click here and read her Profile Magazine editorial.

This weekend I did a flying overnight trip to the Novotel Twin Waters which is such a beautiful resort.

Upon check in was a quick costume change and off to climb Mt Coolum which is 208metres in height.
It took me and my mate 14.30mins to run and climb up to the top.

Upon returning we jogged around the whole Novotel resort, then enjoyed a swim / spa and settled in at the bar for the rest of the night!!

Sunday it was up early to check out Bli Bli Castle then off to climb Cooroora mountain at Pomona.

It took us 30:10mins to reach the top and we got caught in an absolute down poor; the mountain had water running down it like a waterfall.
This made the climbing conditions a little difficult especially with a hangover on top!

Certainly felt Awesome to reach the top, though backing up with Bootcamp this morning my legs are starting to ‘Feel the Burn’!

 This popular mountain walk that rises to 439m is a steep and difficult. Every July the Pomona King of the Mountain challenge takes place and the record is about 20 minutes to the top and back. Allow two hours and that will still be some effort on this steep climb with some loose stones.

I’ve decided to finally wind down from the festive season and have decided February is the month to do it, so today is the start of Feb Fast for me, one month without alcohol!!!

What is FebFast?

FebFast is a charity that is now in its third year of operation.

We work to reduce the impact of alcohol and other drugs on young Australians by raising funds to support organisations working in research, prevention and service delivery concerning alcohol and other drugs use by young people.

We conduct a national education, awareness and fundraising campaign that invites people to sacrifice their alcohol consumption during February, and at the same time raise funds to support youth alcohol and other drug services.

Over the past two years we have seen more than 3,500 people take up the FebFast challenge to give up the grog for amonth. Collectively these people have raised more than $700,000 to support our cause

This is going to be hard work, so lucky for me I’m very good at achieving anything that is hard work + you can always buy a ‘Time Out’ (phew takes the pressure off a little)!!

Buy a Time Out; You don’t have to miss out on a special event! You can purchase a $25 date stamped Time Out Certificate to have a guilt-free day off from your FebFast.

“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure.

I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle.

But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.”

— Marilyn Monroe

(My thoughts exactly!!!!)

Another beautiful day in Hervey Bay, that’s what!

This morning’s exercise regime:
10km bike ride, 3km run, 1000 steps, 300 sit ups + some SUPping (Stand Up Paddle Boarding)
…. followed by bacon, eggs and coffee.

The ocean was crystal clear this morning.

Life is good! 

Donate here

Voluntary Administration to Managing Director in FOUR MONTHS!!

Well welcome to Hervey Bay Malcolm Quinn!
Will you now be giving me back my $2,505 you owe me for my ticket to the Donald Trump seminar?! (Read more here.)  I’ve have been secretly hoping Karma (or the courts) would deal with this.

Wow and you’re starting a new advertising firm after putting your last one the ‘Concept Store’ in Voluntary Administration just four months ago, after racking up the below debts?

To cap off Quinn’s woes, the creditors are mounting up.

So far, just 1500 tickets out of 8000 have been sold, and those ticket holders are owed an estimated $1.5 million.

Trump himself is demanding the further $950,000 he says he is still owed, whether the tour goes ahead or not.

Sponsor Sarina Russo faces a loss of nearly $50,000. Gold Coast Convention Centre is owed $16,000. Sydney PR guru Max Marxson says he’s “sold a few tickets” to the event, but is probably going to have to “write it all off to experience”

“Think Like a Billionaire” had been badly promoted by Mr Quinn, whose background was in newspaper publishing and advertising. ………. “I think it was amateurish and unprofessional. It was obvious the promoters here bit off more than they could chew.”………..

….. click here to read more …… or here  …… or here …… or here …..

Superior Advertising, poor Mr Quinn would be lucky to manage a chook raffle with his track record!

Anyway all the best ………. I guess I can always start a competition publication….. Mr Trump may like to buy my first Front Cover!

For HONEST, PROFESSIONAL & OUTSTANDING Marketing & Advertising on the Fraser Coast make sure you utilise a professional with a proven & award winning track record DESIGN HOUSE!!

Blast from the past for my readers, some info on my experience in the 2001 Darwin Beer Can Regatta:

Though I did WIN:
2001 -Winner Darwin Beer Can Regatta; Best Beer Can Boat (A trophy)
2001 – Winner Darwin Beer Can Regatta; Best Beach Attire (A cheque) 

 I had the initiative to contact XXXX head office in Brisbane and asked them if they would sponsor my boat and supply me 3,000 sealed cans.

They were happy to do this and freighted the cans in two large boxes to me in Darwin plus supplied some mens XXXX t-shirts, a flag and stickers.
All I had to do then was enclose the cans in chicken fence wire to make my 6 seater catamaran as the cans were sealed.
There were no gluing cans together so I saved heaps of time and knew I would float! (Quite ingenious really!!!) 

I and my team of friends had an Absolute ball!!!

THE TEN CAN-MANDMENTS

1. Thou shalt enter the event in the right spirit

2. Thou shalt build the craft of cans.

3. The craft shall float by cans alone.

4. Thou shalt not drown.

5. Thou shalt not take the name of the craft in vain. Any craft bearing signs or lettering that may be offensive will be barred.

6. Thou shalt not drift from the straight and narrow and end up at Mandorah.

7. Thou shalt not protest too much.

8. Thou shall honor thy Committee.

9. Thou shalt not commit adultery – nothing really to do with the Regatta, but it gives us an air of responsibility and respect.

10. Thou shalt go back and read the first can-mandment again.

That’s my New Years Resolution!

And unfortunately it’s not a 6 pack of Pure Blonde BEER, it’s to do with my stomach muscles!!!! OMG

Today’s training 12km bike ride, 1500 stairs, 200 sit ups + 80 push ups! TICK!

Bring it on, HOOYAH!

Sorry everyone for the loss of images. Technical Support is working on  the issue.

…… Hmmmmm, it appears over 800 images were deleted from my blog………!

Apparently my blog wasn’t even backed up to the server so the images could be retrieved.

I guess I have some uploading to do over the Christmas break!

Honestly if you want things done correctly it’s best to do them yourself!

I now am hosting my own website on a new server that is backed up DAILY!!!

Should be back on track soon ……………

OMG for the last week I must have received at least 30 nuisance phone calls!

Most being about INSULATION!!!!
My work phone especially but even on my home phone number which is a private number! (Nice one Telstra, what am I paying for there!)

If you are fed up like me register your number here. (Please note I have all ready previously registered on here and still am getting bombarded but I will try again!!!)

Click here to Register or re-register your home or mobile phone number!