Practice what you preach!

My first week back at work has been manic to say the least! As within previous blogs, I have alluded to how important time management is and this week has just totally gone out the window! I returned back to work with 270 emails, voice messages and urgent requests so what I had planned to do on Monday didn't happen at all, in fact I didn't get anywhere close to it.

Monday was spent all day picking up with my team, sorting out issues and going through emails. Its strange, before you go on holiday (or paternity) you rush around trying to get things done for when you are away and when you come back its no different! By 10am on Monday morning I hadn't felt like I had had the last 2 weeks off, in fact I felt like I had never been away.

Monday ended on a great high through, my buddy Ben and me had an awesome training session. We started off with a 15 minute run, then some really intense workouts on the punch bag, free weights, working on core stability and generally getting the heart rate pumped whilst doing the weights. After the session I was feeling really pumped and the adrenaline was running high. Ben went onto have a great week of training, I on the other hand, didn't do anything else that week.
There are two main reasons why I only had one training session. First of all the volume of work and secondly not feeling 100%. Symptoms been sore throat, headache and general lack of energy.

To emphasis the time, its now over two weeks since I initially started this chapter of the blog so I have decided to write that week off........................

Striving for Better, The Essence of your Imagination..............MOTIVATION.

"Motivation is the art of creating an environment in which you want to perform in order to satisfy your own needs or desires".

This level of Motivation can be applied to your personal life, goals, family, home, financial status, Social & Cultural beliefs and your physical health. To what level we succeed at this is down to you the individual as you are the biggest instrumental factor in how much "Fire you have in your belly" to satisfy your needs and desires.

The below "Essence of Imagination" can only be fully achieved with the imagination to see below the surface and bring that to the forefront. As individuals, its in our nature to strive for better and increase our personal development. Our possibilities are endless!

We can all be inspired by other people, what see and what we hear but ultimately unless we have the motivation within ourselves to change and become better through personal development, we will look back on missed opportunities, under personal development and generally not being the best we can be.

Having that inner desire and pushing our motivation levels to the max will inevitably deliver against our needs and desires and ultimatley deliver Self Actualisation which I believe is an ongoing framework we work towards.

So get MOTIVATED!

Start as we mean to go on...................

Does thou love life?

Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

Life doesn't get much better at the moment. Ive had two weeks off to spend quality time with my three girls. Now Nikki is well on the road to recovery after the pregnancy and we have settled into the new routine with the both the girls, it has allowed us to make to make the most of the second week of my paternity.

To look at Nikki a couple of hours after the pregnancy, you wouldn't think she had gone through giving birth to our second daughter. Two weeks on, Nikki is virtually back to normal and looks fantastic. I'm really proud of her, she really is a great wife and mum to Nyah and Ciara. Saying that, I have respect for any women who have given birth, truly amazing!

I'm really pleased with my commitment to the gym this week and especially my diet. I find reading the Men's Health magazines and researching on the web about healthy eating and training a real dose of motivation. I have been training on and off over the last 15 years and never really feel I have reached the "blue sky physique". This is down to a number of reasons, work, home improvements, children. These are all big milestones in my life that have taken up time. These are all reasons for not maintaining the gym but not really excuses. I pride myself on been organized and utilizing my time effectively. I have realised that even when you don't necessarily want to do something, for example go in the gym, if you force yourself to go in and do the session, when you have finished, showered and sat down you can reflect and think that was a good session and I'm glad I have done it. More importantly because the gym is in the garage my turn around for start to finish (gym & showered is between 30 - 45mins). No excuses now, cover model for xmas!

Motto's we use at work and that will be at the forefront of my training will be:

Passion for action

Being the best we can

Pride in what we do and how we do it

Honest, fair and determined to win

My aim is to maintain the hard work I have done over this week and keep to the training regime 4 times a week and diet.

Anyway enough of the training talk and back to the family. This second week has really been an action packed week. We visited a kiddies play house called Creepy Crawlies in York on Wednesday. Creepy Crawlies is an activity centre for kids with ball pools, slides, climbing frames and an outdoor farm with horses, pigs etc. Nyah loved it, especially on the slides where I flew down with her. Its a great chance for Nyah to interact with other kids of the same age so it is something we would definitely do again. After we had been there for a couple of hours we decided to head to my mums to feed the girls. Luckily we arrived just in time to see an old school friend Sukina and little Izac and Isabella. Its been years since we saw each other so it was really good to catch up.

Nikki is from Leeds originally and we lived together for 2 years in Colton. We had some great times when we lived in Leeds and dont really visit as often as we would both like. On Thursday we visted for the day. We arrived in good time and went to visit our good friend Grant who is the General Manager of the Malmaison Hotel in Leeds. He is a top guy and has done extremelly well for himself at such a young age to achieve this position. Having had our own personal guide of the hotel we then headed for a walk around the shops. I love the atmosphere in Leeds with its bustling coffee shops, trendy fashion boutiques and peoples individuality. Alot of window shopping was done but we still seemed to spend a fortune!

We then visited Filey on the east yorkshire coast on the Friday with my mum and dad. To say we are in October the weather was great, very windy but great. We met at 10am in a wonderful coffee shop Nikki and mum went to a couple of months ago then headed down to the beach. Nyah totally loves the beach and the sea an couldnt get for going when we could see the sea! My dad went to buy a football for Nyah to have play around with. Now I must stress, the weather was lovely but so very very windy. My dad bought the lightest inflatable ball that shop sold. He threw the ball to me and the ball took off in the direction of the wind which I naturally chased (forgetting about Nyah who was running to the sea). Needless to say I got the ball back safely and senior saved Nyah! I managed to get some great snaps with the Nikon aswell of Nyah and my mum and dad. It wouldnt be right visiting the coast and not having Fish & Chips so we headed to Browns Restaurant. I remember going their years ago with my grandma and grandad and it brought back some great memories.

Friday night saw us entertain some really good friends of ours, Dash and Nat. We met them initially through Nikki when she worked at the Student Support Centre and since then they have become really good friends. I also agreed that I would do the Great North Run next year with him and Carl his bestman so thats now in the diary!

Its now the eve before I go back to work after two weeks off paternity. The time has flown by so quickbut its been great spending quality time with the girls, family and friends. With only 10 weeks till Xmas, its going to be a real special time with Nyah been more aware of Santa and all her presents! My work load is going to be quite high and intense for the rest of month and really up until Xmas. I am determined to get my team up the dashboard ladder to finish on a high for the end of the year. Heres starting as we mean to go on with the family, gym and work.......

What a great first week on paternity!

If this week is anything to go by I am going to cherish every minute with my girls as the first week of my paternity has flown by, but what an exciting and bonding week it has been.

We have had lots of visitors to see Ciara, Grandparents and Great Grandparents, Auntie Sarah and Vanessa, Natalie, Katrina and Seth, Keith, Sarah & Ben, Chris and Vicky, Louise, Jane and Peter and Stuart and Fin to name a few.

Friday saw me, Nyah and Grandad May go on our usual bike ride (although first time for Grandad). Its a great circuit me and Nyah normally do and she really enjoys it. We leave Brayton and head towards the Canal then over to the air field at Burn. From here we head on the Trans Pennine route that takes us towards Snaith, but then we divert to Temple Hirst, West Haddeseley, Chapel Haddesely, Gateforth then past Brayton Barff back home. The circuit is about 15 miles and gives Nyah a great way of seeing and experiencing new things. We always see Grandad Mays Hull train going past at which point she shouts "Chu Chuu".Seeing Cows, sheep's, planes and feeding the horses are all part of the ride.

On Friday evening I made a long list of jobs that I wanted to try and get done while I was off and I managed to make a big dent into the list over Saturday and Sunday.

Following the completion of our extension I still had the drive way to jet wash and clean. I managed to get this done on Saturday and probably double our Water bill for this month! Over the past 9 months while we have had the extension done, the garage has been used as a storage place which has restricted me working out. As a result, I was up till around 10pm on Saturday and finished off building my shed on Sunday around lunch time. This has created alot more room in the garage for me to train and room for my rowing machine when it arrives next week!

I even had some help from Nyah cleaning up afterwards!

I have enjoyed every minute of this week spending time with the girls. Nyah is growing and developing at such a rapid rate, I didn't really realise how much until having this week off. She picks up on everything you say, she is understanding alot more and as a result communicating more. As a parent, its a real sense of satisfaction when you teach your children something, they do it and really enjoy doing it. For example with Nyah, she is carrying her dirty nappy (in a bag) from her bedroom down stairs to the utility and putting it in the bin.

Nikki is well on the road back to recovery now so we have said that next week we are going to get out for days as much as possible. A day to Leeds, York and the coast are all in the plans (along with a couple of bikes rides) so lets keep the fingers crossed for some good weather.

Well, just watched Match of the Day and seen the Tigers roar to yet another amazing victory, 1-0 against Tottenham. Last week they beat Arsenal and the teams confidence is going from strength to strength. Hull have now scored the same amount of points as Derby (promoted) did for the whole of last season. That's some achievement from the boys. The city of Hull will certainly be buzzing at the moment.

Here's to another Mega week with the girls..........

My Three Special Girls........and the new routine!

Its been 72 Hours at home with the latest edition to the family and what a dream she has been! It brings back so many happy memories of when we brought Nyah home but its been better this time round. The reason for this is Nyah is now 18 months old and its great to see her interact with her little sister. She really has been great and is doing some really cute things like kissing her little sister, feeding her milk, passing her toys and stroking her, the perfect big sis!

Monday was quite emotional as my Grandma and Grandad came over. I know that seeing four generations together is amazing but for my Grandma and Grandad it must be something special. Its like me still been around to see Nyah and Ciara's children have children, it must be such an awesome feeling and an amazing sense of how important a close knit family is.
I can only hope that me and Nikki are around to see this replicated.................

Little Ciara is perfect, I got my first little smile today. Her skin is so soft its like velvet and the smell of her temples and body, I could just smell it all day (apart from when she has a poo!)

As with Nyah, we wanted to adopt the same routine for Ciara and so far this is going really well. Myself and Nikki feel that it is really important to keep a structured routine so that we get to spend quality time with the girls but also get that quality time for me and Nikki especially on an evening to reflect on the day or week.

(That last paragraph was wrote 20 minutes ago! Little one has been crying so I have been up to check her nappy, wind her and give her a some water.........and she is still crying!) so much for so far so good.

Today has been a really good day, we have just spent it together the four of us so it has enabled us to get a bit more familiar with things. Nyah is really developing at such a rapid rate, especially with her vocab. Words and sentences she is saying at the moment are, "Come on then", "Sooorry", "Book", "Go walk". I took her out in the car today and as a little treat I put her in the front in her car seat, she loved it! Again it was so cute seeing her with her thumb in looking through the front and side window smiling. I really am looking forward to spending some quality time with my three girls over the next couple of weeks!

Once the kids had been put to bed tonight at about 6:30pm I got changed and headed into the gym and had a really good session. Its been a week or so since I last trained so I had a really good session on my abs and chest......I am aching already and I only finished the session a couple of hours ago. Its one of the best things I did converting the garage into my rocky style gym. Its time effecient, convenient and allows me to keep up to training with no real excuses as its on my door step!

It really feels like autumn now, the nights are fast closing in, the temperatures have really dropped and the garden is now covered in leaves. Guess thats the summer over with for 2008, or you could say, "Did the summer even start?"