Chicks Mean Business

Normally at 6:30am I go through the same cycle of getting the kids to eat breakfast, finish homework, put their clothes on, brush teeth and referee fights all while I pack their lunches and get dressed for work.

However this morning I had to be in full dress and makeup and out the door by 6:30am to attend a Business Chicks breakfast, leaving my husband in charge of the morning army drill. As I rushed out the door of my building I saw another girl in full work clothes rushing out of the building. I just assumed she was a high powered executive on her way to mergers and acquisitions. Instead we both found ourselves hailing a cab to attend Business Chicks - along with the rest of Sydney.

At what felt like the crack of dawn there were hundreds of women mingling in the hotel lobby before the big breakfast doing the network thing. With my new high powered exec friend by my side we did just that, then planted ourselves at a table of fabulous women.

The purpose of the breakfast is to create a fun environment where women can connect, be entertained and feel good about contributing to the kids' helpline. Our grand entertainment for the morning was a speaker by the name of Dr. Clio Cresswell who wrote a book called Mathematics and Sex. She was a gorgeous woman and it was fascinating seeing things through her eyes. Everything, she said, has a pattern or a formula. Like the number of partners you should have before you settle down, to the likelihood of a successful relationship, all the way to the numbers behind orgasms. For a fleeting moment I was thinking about my single friends and if they should know the theory that sleeping with more and more men doesn't increase their chances of finding Mr. Right but actually decreases. Hmm.

She showed us a few examples of what these formulas looked like and a general sense of why a pattern can be determined. After about three slides, up went the Women's Hormone Equation. As you can imagine it was one line of pure complicated hell. All the women were thinking, how can anyone work out such a thing. After recovering, Clio showed us what the Men's Hormone Equation looked like. It was no one liner. This equation was an entire page. I had to stop myself from ripping it straight off the screen.

Speed dial wasn't even fast enough to get this info to my husband - the man who calls my PMS "permanent menstrual syndrome". He thinks the only time I'm actually normal is during my cycle which is about five days a month. This is a scary thought when you do the math. It means that I'm so called normal for 60 days a year and the other 305 days is completely up in the air. Now I can blame this fact on the Men's Hormone Equation and conclude that it's the blend of the ever changing needs of a woman and the basicness of a man that is so darn complicated.

Orange juice has never tasted so good.

I Married A Chick

As I lie in bed with cramps, hot flushes and a sense that my period is coming in for a crash landing, my husband says he feels "sick and hot."

This is no coinicidence either. Every single month this happens minutes before I get my period. It's like he puts the stake in the ground and claims the land before me. As if he's going to get sympathy. There isn't a man in the world that can overrule a women's period. I can't believe my husband thinks he's got a chance. Then I realize he is more of a chick than me.

He is the one who actually has the ironing board on full daily operation while I iron four times a year. He can operate a sewing machine and sews all his own buttons. If I needed an outfit he could stitch one up. I don't even know where the "on" button is. He cooks. I use speed dial. He cleans the house and never leaves a mess. He calls my side of the bed a rats' nest. He loves the blockbuster chick flick as much as me. When sport takes a back seat he can embrace E news and Entertainment TV all the same.

Our chick highlight has to be when he bought me the box set of Sex And the City. We lived weeks of bunkering down together like two lovebirds. The pillows were properly positioned with big cosy blankets, the wine was cracked with a nightly cheers and we laid in full spoon position ready to absorb a night after night of sexiness and laughs.

But rest assured he's got the male thing going on like every other guy. He can't multitask to save his life. I know it's no surprises but I don't get this. How can someone so successful and well rounded be incapable of answering a reasonable question while cooking without getting flustered? Or drive across town and hold a steady conversion? His right hand turn is so focused it's like a golf putt for the championship title. There was one time I even put my hand "down there" to distract him... and that it did - we almost landed in a ditch. But I think the worst of the worst is when he catches up with a mutual friend for lunch and all I get are two words that sum it up, "He's great." Peyton wrote an entire blog on the subject and I stand by every word of it. And this is the man who loves chick flicks, E News and Access Hollywood. Hasn't he learned anything about the art of expansion and important details? Nope. Cause he's a man. Albeit a very gorgeous one so I'll take the good with the bad.

Where's that Lovely Feeling?

There is nothing like catching up with a friend who radiates health to get you motivated. Especially when she describes her 30 minute morning ritual on the elliptical trainer as just like brushing her teeth. The words TIME TO EXERCISE stare you in the face.

It was all coming back to me: the feeling of being strong, vibrant and capable. I could almost smell it. I was opening the door in my mind that I closed so long ago. After injuring my hip in yoga three years ago and having surgery, I have only exercised five times. It's been the start, hurt, stop, frustration of my life. I have been living a new identity which is so strange when I think about it. How can fitness become so foreign to someone who walked, talked and dreamt it? I'm on the other side for the first time in my life. And I'm getting out of here. I have been unmotivated, unhealthy and lacking in drive to do something about it for long enough.

The funny part is you'd never know this. I'm thin. People automatically associate thin with fit and healthy. Or even worse they think you have an eating disorder or you over exercise and count every calorie. What a misconception. They don't get the frustration. It's all about scale to them. I often get people saying to me that I'm so lucky that I don't need to exercise. Shouldn't everyone exercise to be fit regardless of weight?

A few months back I had a shocking experience when a friend asked me to join her for a high intensity fitness test at a sports testing academy. I usually blow those things out of the water. Instead, the fitness facade that I seem to exude came to a crashing halt when I couldn't do ONE ab crunch for the test. Not even one. I failed.

What a wake up call. It was pure shell shock. I know in my mind I can pull through any fitness task no matter what but this confirmed I've never been further from it. Obviously I need to start at the ground up after I pull myself out of this rut. I think originally the anger I had over my injury made it easy to close fitness off from my life completely. I went into denial. I didn't want to see a health magazine, a gym or anything fitness. I wasn't inspired. I couldn't feel it or see it.

During my so called fitness hiatus, I learned the true meaning of "stuck in the mud". It is so much harder to exercise when you don't have the rhythm and lifestyle ingrained. To get it back you need a bigger reason than you had before. And I mean BIG! A rocket needs to blast me out this place. I think I finally get this de-motivation thing. It's because you're so far from being where you want to be that it doesn't even seem possible - or you know how hard it's going to be - so you don't bother.

As of now, I'm going to stick with my Oprah ah-ha moment from lunch and let the flood gate open. There is no turning back. My gym clothes are ready for dawn patrols to the gym and my husband is fully trained up on making school lunches to buy me some time. Yes, that's right. There is a god!

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When an iPod Needs a Prenup
Source: www.three2seven.com

I know everyone has different taste in music but I can't believe my husband isn't even in the same ballpark. The minute he hits play I "eject" myself right out of the house. How can something so powerful to one mean absolutely nothing to another? Okay, maybe that's a bit harsh. I may not groove to his tunes but I can appreciate that his passion for music runs sooo very deep. With six guitars hanging on our walls and a million accessories that do this that and the other there really is no escape. Not to mention the band he plays for on the side, which is a bunch of 40-somethings who wish they were touring the world.

It really came to a head on our last trip to the US when I was forced to take extreme measures. After my iPod died I did the unthinkable: I asked my husband if I could borrow his. I knew it was dangerous, but how bad could it be? Come on, music can grow on people right. I tried, I really did. But my thumb wouldn't let go of the fast forward button. I gave each song about five seconds to make an impression and if it didn't it was GONE. Finally, after about 50 songs, I stumbled across a song/singer I knew. Lenny Kravitz saved me. Then, another 300 songs of hitting the gong, I decided it was me and Lenny and the replay button all the way to NYC. Never want to hear that song again!

This has got me thinking about the singers I really like and who I "should" like? I happen to like Kelly Clarkson but if I dare mention her name my husband goes into lockdown. Should I feel embarrassed because I like her music? Okay don't answer that. But really is it such a crime that I like singers like The Veronicas and Pink? They're so cool. In my rock star fantasy moments I think I'd be The Veronicas, Pink and The Rogue Traders - with a splash of J Lo - rolled into one with a Madonna front. Are you scared?

When I ask the head of music in our house who I "should" like, he responds (knowing that I have a thing for female acts) with artists like Joss Stone, Alicia Keys, Missy Higgins and the Black Eyed Peas. I can certainly say I love all of them, they're just not on the top of my hot list.

There's no question I'm a top 40 girl through and through (as if you haven't already figured that out), and it looks like our 5-year-old daughter is following suit. She can't get enough of J Lo, Kylie Minogue, Kelly Clarkson and Madonna. Last night she gave us a Kelly Clarkson "show". My husband almost died with the girl power we've got going on in our house. She had her 6-year-old brother introduce her performance (all 100 times!) while she stood on chair and sang her guts out into her "Barbie" microphone. With Kelly Clarkson blaring from her little boom box, her body shaking like a little Hilary Duff, and singing like Bruce Springsteen meets J Lo, it was a performance we won't forget!