For me the key to doing exercise and being active is being with friends and not taking yourself too seriously. Although I have been working out in the home gym, that is always by myself and so when I got asked to go to Zumba with Mary-Louise and her sisters on Thursday I jumped at the chance. I am not a good dancer at the best of times – I think Mima inherited that talent rather than me – but it didn’t seem to matter and we had such a laugh. It reminded me how powerful sport can be in bringing people together and fired me up again about being able to spend six months in South Africa using it to impact lives. I have also been thinking about starting a boot-camp course over Christmas to help raise a bit of extra money for those who want to keep fit.

I also added two more firsts onto my list this weekend. I drove an automatic car (a BMW no less) on the wrong/right side of the road, whichever way you look at it (thinking about it I’m not sure if this counts as two firsts or one, if it’s two then please edit the first sentence to ‘three more firsts’). I managed to stop at a stop sign, give way to traffic and stay on the road (although only just as I had to keep being reminded to stay closer to the middle of the road otherwise we would be in the grass very soon). And I didn’t damage the car or injure anyone (that’s always a bonus). Doing this reminded me how important it is to step out of our comfort zones otherwise we could miss out on a lot of awesome things in life. Although it scared me, I’m so glad I had the experience. “Do one thing every day that scares you.” – Eleanor Roosevelt.

My second/third (delete as appropriate according to your opinion on the previous paragraph) first (that is very confusing, I apologise) that I experienced this weekend was a baby shower! Baby showers are not a big thing in England, not like here anyway. It was very cute; there were baby related games, food, presents and lovely decorations. We even got free stuff to take home (I realise it was supposed to be celebrating the baby and all but it felt a bit like my birthday all over again, not complaining!). The theme was mustaches and so everyone brought the baby-to-be dummies (or pacifiers depending on where you are from) with mustaches on, highly entertaining.

I now have a ‘pumpkin list’. All the pumpkin related experiences and things I have tried. So far I have eaten; pumpkin pie pop tarts, pumpkin spiced pancakes, pumpkin sloppy joes, pumpkin pie ice-cream, pumpkin lava cake, cookies shaped like pumpkins, pumpkin bagel with pumpkin spiced cream cheese, a pumpkin smoothie and had several pumpkin spiced latte’s. I have also bought mini pumpkins, tried on  pumpkin hat and used pumpkin smelling body wash, lotion and spray. It is now my challenge that each day I aim to try something new based on pumpkins. Because why not make the most of it while I am here?! It got me thinking, if I set myself that challenge in my every day life and let it shape how I live, how much more could I achieve. So I challenge you also to decide on one thing you are going to do each day; it could be encourage someone every day, or use an opportunity to talk about your faith each day, or do something meaningful whatever that may be, or to do something that scares you and pushes you out of your comfort zone, as the quote said earlier (if for some reason you got bored and skipped to the last paragraph, now you are going to regret it because you won’t know what I am going on about. Lesson for you – don’t be rude and read the whole thing without trying to take shortcuts). I guarantee that whatever you choose will start to become an automatic priority and you will feel so much more fulfilled.