#itsagirlthing

2 months in....

I know  I promised to keep y'all updated but it's not so easy.  The internet is not so cheap and not always reliable and when I go out in port I would rather enjoy time out then search for wifi.

Like I said, this contract has been a positive one. New friends and old friends and a great team and I feel alive again. Let me share some photos with y'all.

Upon flying to Miami I of course had to make my way to Lincoln Road and hang out with 2 of m favorite Miami people, old friends who also used to work for the same company as myself. We ended up taking a late night dip in the pool as we watched lightning in the distance.

The next day I hopped on the bus for the 45 minutes ride to Fort Lauderdale. Stepping on my ship I felt so welcome, felt like home. I was getting love and hugs from everyone and I truly felt so special and lucky.  The stress of my tough and emotional vacation just melted right off.

I think us Seafarers fall so deep in love with the sea that we can never leave her. Watching the sea through my port hole or going for a morning run on the jogging track brings me such peace.  I mean, just look at these photos.

There is no doubt that one of the best perks of being a seafarer is being able to see beautiful ports of call.  Curacao has become a favorite, its so colourful and charasmatic. Lovely place for hanging out at resorts and watching the sunset as you enjoy dinner and some wine with friends.

A good old favorite of course is St. Maarten. Love this island, always have. I celebrated my first ship birthday there 9 years ago.

Aside from shore fun, we also have fun on the ship although I don't attend all the crew parties as my work schedule is too demanding. Here's a few from our Uniform Swap Party.

BUT believe it or not I do actually work. Haha I won't put up photos of my many meetings and things but i will share with you a few photos of our Social Duties.  

Woke up to this

If Titanic sank today

The Universe has spoken....

So I have been here for almost a month now. I feel good. 

Everyone welcomed me so warmly when I came back and it just seems like all my problems and stress from my vacation melted away. It is so odd how everything works. Last time I was onboard I wasn’t feeling like myself and I was starting to get all negative which is so not me. Then it got worse when I got home. I was back in the gym and training hardcore but the negativity and third life crisis were festering in me. My last couple of weeks I was having panic/anxiety attack every other day and mood swings like no tomorrow. I would burst out in tears for no apparent reason, I didn’t even recognize myself.  I am the girl that people call Sunshine, how could I be this dark person all of a sudden? I am that yoga loving, Buddha quoting hippie that everyone goes to for advice but I was bursting out in tears in broad daylight and in public.

My guru friends told me to dig deep and have trust in the universe and take it one day at a time. I came onboard and I was so unsure of what was going to happen but all of a sudden things became light again. The same odd way that everything went dark all of a sudden the universe made it light again.  Balance was restored.

I feel like myself again. I am smiling, feeling grateful, I can see the silver lining in everything again, I am happy to get out of bed in the morning, I look forward to events, I am able to sleep again and I am back in full force with my training. This is me, this is who I am and it feels so good to be that person again! I don’t know why everything shifted but it did.

I still feel like I need some sort of a change and I have no doubt that something good is coming my way. All you have to do is believe, project and visualize it and the universe will bring it to you.

I made a new vision board and printed it out, I put a copy in my cabin and my office and made it my desktop background on both my cabin laptop and my office computer.

Just as I was organizing my plan of action to conquer one of my goals, the universe spoke. And she spoke louder then ever before with an opportunity greater then I can imagine.  It’s here and right in front of me. Now I will still have to fight for it and work for it and make it happen but it’s there and within my reach.

Send me your positive vibes cause I have to give my all to make it happen and I know I can and I know I will.  I just have to believe.

Good things are coming…..

Putra, Bali and his orphans

So I have been here for about three weeks now. My handover was smooth and I won’t lie, it felt really good to be welcomed so warmly by everyone, like I am back home. I feel like I have left all the stress and near nervous breakdowns back in Canada.  I still feel like I need some change in my life but of course I don’t know what that is.  But this time I am feeling positive and full of energy and just happy, I feel like myself again and all the negativity of the last contract and last vacation has evaporated into thin air. 

I do get frustrated with my job as I am sure like everyone does with their land job. But then sometimes someone reminds you why you do all this in the first place.

I have to tell you about a special little guy named Putra. He is a galley steward (kitchen cleaner) from Indonesia and I met him last contract, it was his first contract on a ship. His job is probably one of the least glamorous jobs on the ship and he earns a modest salary.  I first noticed him in the crew gym, he was always talking to people, laughing and smiling from ear to ear. Now most new Indonesian crew members are very quiet and shy but this little guy was making friends everywhere. 

I soon learned that his family owns and runs and orphanage in Bali, Indonesia. Putra came to our company to gain knowledge and to take it back to his family. He also sent every penny back home for his orphanage.  I saw him one day looking at our employee of the month board and someone walked up to him and told him he would never make it, he told them “Putra will be up there”. 

Putra called me one day and told me some of his kids at the orphanage were sad because their family’s house burned down in a house fire and they felt guilty for surviving. He wanted to make a video of all of his friends and send it to them to cheer them up and to encourage them to learn English.  I made the arrangements and gathered everyone and we made the home video.

Months and months went by and Putra became known all over the ship for his contagious positive attitude and his ear to ear smile. He was nominated to be employee of the month several times. In December of 2014 we unanimously decided that Putra embodies our company values so well and named him our employee of the month.  I felt like a proud Mama, no one deserved it more then him.

The other day Putra found me on Facebook and he told me has a little something for me. He sent me these photos and I immediately burst into tears and I think I cried for a good 20 minutes.  He used the money that’s awarded to employees of the month and he bought his ‘kids’ new computers and bicycles.  But he is so modest that he says that we, his management friends, bought those items for the kids because we made him employee of the month. He doesn’t understand that its all him and his amazing positive vibe, the contagious smile he shares with everyone, his outlook on life and his hard work that got him employee of the month.

I was so moved by these photos, so moved by Putra’s words and his gratitude, it just put everything into perspective. I shared the store with all my friends whose names they put in the photo and we all agreed, Putra is our hero.

Here we go again....

Well tomorrow I fly to Miami and I join my ship the following day.  I've been off work for 3 months and I probably had the most stressful vacation ever dealing with all sorts of drama and being a stand in housewife.  I am looking forward to just throwing myself into work so I can stop analyzing and thinking so much about where my life is going (or not going at this point). I hope the universe can give me some answers soon. I know I need a change in my life but I just don't know what that change needs to be.

I hear the Caribbean calling.....at least there people understand my accent :)

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day Y'all. Feels great to actually be in Canada to celebrate it.

As for the photos, I can't retrieve them from my blog. No one from Google has responded to my plethora of emails and no one is helping out from the public forums so it looks like I have to manually fix the posts. That's 13 years of posts! Annoyingly enough the random stuff of little significance is still on the blog but the ones most important to me (my travel posts about Brazil, Colombia, the Caribbean etc), their photos are missing.  *sigh*

Where are my photos?

I don't know what happened but a lot of my photos have gone missing from my blog. I am trying to get help from Blogger and Google + and friends but I am not really getting anywhere.

Sorry Kids!

This summer's earnings

The color run

So I FINALLY got a chance to do the color run. I've wanted to do it since it came out but I was never in the same place as the run itself. BUT I got extended one more week for my vacation at home so I got to run it with two of my friends who used to work with me on ships.

So much fun!

Frustrations

So i've been beating myself up over  my lack of progress in the gym lately.  I still lift weights daily but I've not really been doing any cardio and been half-assing my clean diet. I have to remind myself that standing still is temporary and remember how far I have really come. BUT I also need to work harder and tackle my weak points. I may hate cardio but for my body, it's  a must and you can not out exercise a bad diet. I CAN do this.

Anyhow, I took a selfie on Friday and saw more definition then I thought I had. Check them shoulders out! :)

Only in Canada

Go Outside!

This is what I miss the most when I'm at sea. I may have all the white sands and turquoise waters in the world but they will never replace the great Canadian outdoors!

Who do you run for?

Amigos!

Especially those amigos that run or workout on a regular basis. My chiropractor told me about this wonderful organization. There are lots of special needs children and adults that have mobility challenges that cannot do the things me and you do on a daily basis. If your avid at working out (be it running, yoga, weights etc.) what you can do is dedicate your runs or workouts to them. You will be assigned a buddy and tag them in your active photos (min. 3 a week) on facebook. Not only will this bring a smile to their face but will keep you motivated too. What a great way to cheer someone up!

Check it out!

http://www.whoirun4.com/

What's a gypsy to do? Am I having another third life crisis?

Theme of 2015 for me is what's a gypsy to do? How do I know where to go if I no longer know where I am from?

If you actually know me that you know I now sounds like a Latina Jamaican from South Africa. After 9 years of living out of a suitcase I no longer sound or act Canadian. I don't really feel like I fit in any country either. On top of that, I think my English has gotten worse cause I only speak it when I am on duty at work.

Most people's problems is that they have to do in life what their circumstances have brought them to. My problem is the opposite, I have so many opportunities available to me that I don't know which way to go. I don't have kids or a house or even a car instead I have savings, degrees and experience coming out of my wazoo. So what to do if anything is an option? How do I continue to challenge myself after being at sea for so long? Where do I go? What do I do?

I am so great at giving 1200 crew members advice and help but I can't figure my own life out.

All I know that I can not stay still.

Ahhhhhh......I think I am having another third life crisis. Doesn't someone have answers for me? Buddha, are you listening?

Help!

Give me a sign universe, please.

Confessions of a phat kid continued...

Confessions of a phat kid

If someone told me a couple of years ago that I would be running 10k races and participating in mud runs with military like obstacles courses, I would call them crazy or drunk or all of the above.

I was always a chubby kid. I thought I was pretty awesome until I moved from an immigrant neighbourhood to a more upscale area in the middle of grade 8.  It was a painful transition and it wasn't long before the mean kids pointed out my faults; big forehead, freckles, glasses, strange hair colour and of course my weight. And here I thought I was pretty awesome, guess I was wrong.

It wasn't long that I immersed myself with magazines and became obsessed with the ways that "pretty" females looked. My Mom put me on diets for as long as I remember, I can recall being 10 or 11 riding a stationary bike in our living room and being so hungry cause all I ate was 2 eggs that day. That was my 'diet'.

Things got worse when I went to high school. I really looked different then everyone else. I was already 5'8 and realistically speaking my 145 lbs weight shouldn't have been something for me to worry about.    But when everyone else is 110 lbs, it seemed to be a big concern for me. This growing lack of self confidence spiralled into smoking, substance abuse and an eating disorder. I hated myself more and more with each passing day and I was never small enough.

In my 20s I ballooned to over 200 lbs. I believe at my heaviest I was around 250.

Then something wonderful happened. I don't actually remember how I got to this point or what triggered it but I started to change my view point in life. I think going to Cuba had something to do with it, seeing people have so little yet appreciate what they do have made me stop and reevaluate everything including my petty complaints.

I started focusing on being grateful what I have and stopped obsessing on what I didn't have (size 6 body, flat stomach). There was so much more to life. I started enjoying my friends, socializing, traveling and doing things that made me happy. 

Eventually this obsessions with losing weight went away. I started to love myself more for who I am as a person. I am strong, funny, adventurous. I kept strengthening my good qualities and not paying attention to the ones I didn't like about myself.

2.5 years ago I decided I wanted to be more active. I was on the ship and I recruited our ship personal trainer to help me. My health wasn't good and I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I threw up the first few sessions but I felt so alive that I had to keep going.  4 months later the ship caught on fire and the experience was mentally and physically draining. But something wonderful happened, my body didn't let me down. No aches and no pains and I was able to walk 9 decks of stairs to our command centre without a problem and I was able to lift 40 lbs boxes in our human chain without straining. I realized how much better my life is when I am active.

I came home and I started training regularly with my bestie (wifey Nikki) while another bestie Kathy challenged me to run a 5k with her.  I had 4 weeks to train and I've never ran before. It wasn't easy but I did it. I trained, I Ran and I didn't stop.

3 weeks ago I ran my first 10k. I trained for it in 2 weeks. A week ago I ran a mud race with 25 obstacles. I have another race in 2 weeks.

I can't believe it. My phat kid ass is a runner! And strong enough to do military obstacles! I never thought this was possible. I feel amazing and I feel alive (despite the fact that I am covered in bruises).

Now I can honestly tell you that I don't give a shit about the photos in the magazines. Which one of these malnourished biatches can run 10k without stopping or squat a human being? 

My beauty no longer comes from outside, in burns from the depths of my soul and glows from inside me.  Right now at the age of 35 and 200 lbs., I feel the best I have ever felt inside and out.  I am not size 6 and probably never will be.  I may have spring rolls around my middle or have muscular calves but you know what? I don't care. I love me just how I am and wouldn't change a damn thing. 

I am full of life and I am happy being me. I crush every challenge that comes my way and I enjoy the process,  there is nothing that I can not do. I, Natalia can conquer the world. One crew member asked me why I am glowing and which Doctor did my Botox.  I told her that it's not Botox she sees, it's my positive attitude glowing from the inside.

Point is I am much happier now at 200 lbs (or at least that's what I think I am since I refuse to weigh myself anymore) then I ever was at 145 lbs. I look and feel better since the minute I stopped being this frail, negative and body obsessed shadow. Since I've changed my attitude, one opportunity opens after another. Confidence will get you everywhere you want to go. I may not look like the girl in the magazine but believe me, there's a never ending line of suitors outside my door.

Life is beautiful, being who I am is amazing. I am who I am and I am not changing for anyone. There's no room in my life for negativity.  I am perfect just the way I am.  I Thank Baby Jesus and Buddha every day for the wonderful people and experiences I have been given to make me the tough, smart, strong, determined beautiful woman who I am today.

I am Natalia. I am strong. I am beautiful just the way I am.