At the moment. I was training a lot coming up to the grading and as a result, my shoulder is sore a lot more often, my neck is bajanxed from a trapped nerve which is nearly recovered and I seem to have triggered a knee problem with roundhouse kicks. Not to mention my poor toes are still not talking to be after barrelling them off a door a week ago. I honestly thought I had broken the. Thankfully they were only sprained and have calmed down a bit. They have their moments where they look for attention. Most times after training now I end up looking like Quasimodo, with ice on my shoulder and a hot water bottle lashed onto my knee. I get so frustrated with my body and then I have Mammy2 talking sense along the lines of I should be resting it. I know I should, but that means missing class. So I am going to my 2 classes this evening and then I am taking a break for 2 days which should give all the aches and pains some time to recover. A hot bath would sort the rest of it out. I am really enjoying the cardio class once I get the hang of the rhythm of movement, if you mess something up its hard to get back into it when the 6ft+ guy in front of you is doing it all shades of wrong. I’ve persuaded Mammy2 to come along to it and try it.

The kid came to class with me last night and loved it. I have to learn to stop being so over protective of her. There was a stage at the end of class where one partner had to do 2 mins of sit ups whilst the other partner worked the bag. Not so bad. However the situps involved a medicine ball and bouncing it off your abs as you came back up into sit up position for 20 times and then passing it to the next person. I was convinced if she bounced it on her stomach she’d throw up on someone and as a result missed half my round on the bag. She was of course grand. I need to remember she’s 20 not 14 anymore. She’s really enjoying it though which is good. Its also good that she wants to go to a class that’s not my regular one because I do still want to do my own thing in class.

I am nearly finished my very first own Word Press theme. Over the years I have changed and modified and changed themes as I download them and apply them and then get bored of them when I see someone else using the same theme. I had always thought it was really difficult to create a new theme but not so, I managed to find a step by step tutorial so I can control every aspect of my theme!I nearly have the design complete , I just to spend a bit more time tweaking it and then I am sorted. I’ve borrowed from a livejournal theme I like and worked with curved corners. They are my friends. Although its a bit difficult to go out and have a pint with them.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 3:28 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

After nearly 2 years of training with MAI, I got my first belt Its yellow and quite possibly goes with nothing in my wardrobe but I love it! The kid calls it gammy yellow, as if there was any other kind?! At the start of the new year I set myself a few goals, not new year’s resolutions cause I hate them. One of them was to get my first belt. Its so strange, because every week I would use most of the stuff I had to do, I have been doing it all the time. Yet when it came to the time I was so nervous. I had some idea of what was involved, but standing in front of everyone including the higher belts and doing the most basic of kicks was incredibly daunting. Mammy2 and the kid came down to watch me. I messed up a couple of things due to pure nerves but redid them and got it in the end and have a lovely yellow belt to show for it. The support from the instructors was great and really helped. We were all done and dusted by 4.30 which was just in time to leg it back to the apartment to catch the second half of the rugby match between Ireland and England.

Saturday was hectic, once the match was over, it was up town for a meeting with my website team. Drinkies, food and then onto another website meeting in Pantibar. The adreneline had worn off at this stage so I was wrecked. But there was mingling to be done and pictures to be taken with a potato. Bella, the new small digital camera behaved herself thank god. Normally she has a hissy fit if the light is not right or its too dark or we don’t pay her enough attention and so on. You may say she’s an nanimate object but I know better. The meet was really good fun, I sometimes find them stressful but I think the team were doing most of the mingling so I sat and ordered people about They don’t take me seriously though so its fine. AND someone gave me a copy of Mr Tayto’s book. I can’t wait to delve into it. I’m currently doing my best to read Wicked. I had started one of Stig Larrson’s books on a recommendation from a mate, but gave it up as I couldn’t get into it. Its not my type of book so that’s gone to one side and am onto Wicked which I am also finding it hard to get into. It’s easy to read and you get stuck into the story and then he goes off on a political tangent which I don’t like. Its one of the reasons, years ago, I gave up reading Anne Rice. She stopped writing good stories and seemed to use her books to push her political thoughts onto us. If I want to read a book about politics I’d buy one. However I am sticking with Wicked because Mammy2 says its worth sticking with and we are going to see it on Broadway when we head to New York in May.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 2:56 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

The makings of a great Titch weekend. Oh and 12 hours sleep on a Friday night. Going to see Lady Gaga on Sat night in the O2 was an expierence quite unlike anything I’ve ever had before. From the gig itself to the trip there with an amazing mixed crowd. Parents and their young uns, although from the amount of times Gaga came out with the motherfK word I’m pretty sure they might perhaps have thought twice about it. The Luas trip was such fun, in a how young are these people. There was talking of bursting to go to the loo and forgetting the floruscent wavy stick. At this stage I felt every bit of my older years. In true diva style she didn’t arrived on stage until 9.20 when the crowd was starting to get antsy. From then on she had the crowd with her every move and every note. She was quite simply amazing. Every second song warrented a costume change and even though she had to disappear at various times, she sang through the costume changes when she could. The crowd was so loud that when Poker Face came on I thought the roof of the O2 was going to lift. Bad Romance was yet to come. An absolutely spectactular 2 hours of pop music.

The kid has been chomping at the bit to go to IKEA and get a new bookcase for ages so she finally decided that Sunday was to be the day. Accompanying her was great fun, her jaw hit the ground at the size of the place and then she wanted to move into the showrooms. Which I can understand as I want to move into the showrooms. She was amazed by the prices, the quality and tops was the restaurent. Just over 15 euros for lunch for 3 people, and when I say lunch I mean 2 full meals and drinks. There is nothing they don’t think of. For once however myself and Mammy2 managed to resist buying something. Instead we bought for the kid as the bookcase she fell in love with was a bit outside her price range. What are guardians for it not to help out once in a while. I felt sorry for the poor boyf who she was arriving home to with some lovely self assembly furniture. The only blight on the whole weekend was my injuring myself not at training but in the apartment and as a result I could hardly walk around IKEA, and was mostly hobbling and in a lot of pain. I stupidly barreled my foot into a door on the Sat night and ended up with brusing on the 2 smaller toes. Of course that night I dreamt the toes were so bad I couldn’t grade and was not impressed. Thankfully they are much better today so I should be okay for going for it on Sat. Imagine not being able to grade cause of silly toes. Scarleh.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 22nd, 2010 at 4:15 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

They really are doing the rounds at the moment and I had thought I had successfully avoided them until Valentine’s day when it finally caught up with me. I’m over the worst of it now and at the red nose need to lead Santa’s sleigh stage. Hopefully by tomorrow I shall be cold free. The amount of tissues one gets through is ridiculous AND I also feel quite strongly about all tissues should have to have Wella balsam, it should be a governement requirement. People protest about all sorts of things. Speaking of protesting I have a good mind to write a letter to the goverment about the whole CP bill thing. Talk about dragging things out. At this stage, there’s rumours it won’t get the committee stage before the summer which means we can’t apply until then which puts out the whole idea of celebrating it on our 10th wedding anniversary. Looks like an autumn wedding if at all. I’m not up on all the red tape but if it came before the Dail last year how long can it take?! I suppose the people who are anti-CP are happy enough. See that I don’t get? I get that you aren’t happy that its not full equality, I get that we all want the full rights that straight relationships have. But don’t start on at me about wanting some sort of protection for my relationship. I have respect for your right to be angry with this ’sellout’ so respect my right to want to avail of it.

The kid was over last night, we were supposed to have sister’s night last week but we were only back from the wilds of Holland she hadn’t seen her man in a few days and so wanted QT. The weekend had been spent with all the titches together talking 19 to the dozen and poor little niece trying to keep up. She seemed very happy having all her aunties wrestle her out of her Mammy’s arms for cuddles. She has grown up so much in 2 months. The sister K is talking about coming over here at the end of March so we get a chance to introduce the littest titch to the framily. The previous weekend to that we went to one of the nicest hotels I think we have stayed in for a long time. Dunboyne Castle Hotel. Its hard to get a good balence with hotels. Too big and they can be
impersonal. Too small and they can be head wrecking. Don’t get me started on the art work and the quilts. Some hotels look like Laura Ashley threw up in the bedrooms. But this place was classy. Throw a spa into the mix and you have one very happy Mammy2. Well it was her bday.

My grading is looming before me and I am starting to get nervous. I have been training for the last nearly 2 years and doing these kicks and punches nearly every week. Yet the thought of standing in front of the instructor and remembering everything is freaking me out. I mean its the first belt, the yellow one. Its the most basic one. No jumping kicks, no spinning kicks, nothing like that. Perhaps its just the thought of standing in front of people and doing what I usually do when its the bag and me. I’m sure it will be fine and I’ll pass. I hope! The kid and Mammy2 are coming down to watch if they are allowed, I must check and also must ensure I don’t pause mid kick to wave over at them because that would be distracting.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 1:10 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

This is all Mammy2 seems to be programmed to say these days. Well since the iphone arrived in the household last Friday. I arrived into bed last night and expected to find a bed and a wife in it, but no apparently she was lying on a beach somewhere listening to the soothing sounds of waves? Waves? There’s an app with relaxing sounds to help you sleep. She never had any problems before this but now sure the iphone will help. I avoided the beachball being flung my direction and got into bed. I reckon if they ever invent a wife app I am gone. Its only a matter of time, they seem to have everything else covered. She has even got the lightsabre app so when we are in Holland at the weekend herself and the sister’s boyf can play Star Wars. Honestly.

Just when I think my family cannot get any stranger, I get a txt from the brother. I am paraphrasing but it went along the lines of:

“Can you check the death notices in the irish indo online, looking for in Offaly?”

The scarier thing? I went onto the Indo and looked at the flipping deaths. I even checked rip.ie which has RSS feeds of the latest deaths. In case you don’t want to miss a funeral like. I txted him back to say there was no-one by that name and he replies

“Okay, they must not have put it in the papers, don’t know his surname, his son drives in here sometimes and he’s a brother-in-law of who does the go-karting”

Let’s just say I am slighty relieved that I don’t live at home anymore. I’m not knocking the rural lifestyle, it works for some people not for me. The idea of a funeral of someone I barely know being high on my to-do list doesn’t sit well with me. However I know down country its the thing to be seen at them. I still get a laugh, even though I shouldn’t from my uncle and my granny heading to the wrong removal and not realising it until the end when they went up to sympathise with the bereaved.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 10:29 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.