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Before you write me off as a complete idiot, let me inform you that before I downloaded The fault in our stars, I had in fact read the book (and all of John Green's other books) so I wasn't expecting some cutesy love story. I do still remember how much I cried while reading the story. I knew that death was going to be a big factor given the plot but I was surprised by how incredibly sad it made me feel. As I bawled my eyes out during this movie, I found myself wondering why something like this gets me quite so upset and also why would I willingly put myself through that.  I have always been a little on the emotional side. So if you ever have the misfortune to make me cry then know that it's not that big a deal. I cry very easily and over lots of things. Like maybe you shouted at me or said something particularly mean or just fed me chocolate or wine. I still find it strange how I can watch a movie that really I should have no emotional investment in given that I don...

Last night myself and Stephen had a date night. We have not gotten so jaded this early in to our relationship that a date night is mandatory to ensure that we ever go anywhere. We really wanted to see the Waterford youth arts production of the Crucible so I suggested we go out for dinner first to make a night of it. I think I can accept at this point in my life that I will never become one of those people who eats all of her main meals in restaurants because I will always prefer my own cooking. That's probably for the best as right now I could not possibly afford that sort of lifestyle. I booked us a table in the Olive tree, a new tapas restaurant because Stephen has been wanting to eat there since it opened and I had seen I could eat a few things on their menu so I was willing to give it a shot plus it wasn't going to work out too pricey for me so it was a win all round. And I went all out for our date night, buying a new dress in Tkmaxx ( as if I need an excuse to buy on...

I am sure that unless you have been living under a rock that you have heard of the Ice bucket challenge. As it happens I am feeling particularly sound so I'll give it a really quick run down in case you haven't. Essentially some marketing genius (or team of geniuses) came up with the idea for a viral campaign to raise money for ALS and that idea was is that a person gets nominated to have a bucket of icy water poured over their head and then nominates two to three friends to do the same. According to the rules you must video the whole thing and share it on Facebook, you must start the video by announcing what you are doing then thanking the people who nominated you, nominating some friends to do it next and then urging people to donate. Presumably you are then supposed to donate some money yourself or its just a video of you attempting to get pneumonia for kicks. I think all in all its been a fairly successful phenomenon if you discount the people who forgot to mention ALS ...

In case you haven't heard, there's a little event being run in Waterford called cult classics cinema. Essentially old movies are been shown every two weeks in the Theatre Royal but the movie is decided by public vote. It's not all th\iat complicated but it is a lot of fun. At this stage I'd kind of consider myself a veteran as I have been to all but one film. I missed the rocky horror picture show but saw Jaws, pulp fiction and Labyrinth. To the delight of some people (women) and the disgust of others ( the men) the winner for this weeks movie was the cheesiest of cheesy films and dancing classic, dirty dancing. Now I can't count on one hand the amount of times I've seen dirty dancing but I think the exact number is a lot. I think there's a lot of other women who can say the same thing. I have never actually seen it on the big screen though. I have gone to the cinema to see quite a lot of really bad movies with really good dancing but I wont name them he...

After doing some thinking, I have decided to give this 100 days of a happiness a try. I don't know if this means I have to be full on happy for 100 days because if that's the case then I've full on failed. When I woke this morning I'm pretty sure I was what you would picture when you hear the word ratty. Clearly there are other challenges I would be must better suited to like 100 days of sarcasm, crankiness, general annoyance but that wouldn't really be a change for me and seeing as I have been living it long enough, I can conclusively say there are no merits to  those. I started my happiness challenge three days ago. Right after I mentioned considering it in my previous blog post because I know how likely I am to forget about it if I leave it too long. Just to be clear, I am not planning to be super cheerful for 100 days because I couldn't do it, I don't actually know anyone who could without the assistance of alcohol or narcotics and I have neither on...

When you're feeling down then it's actually quite easy to feel unhappy with pretty much everything. Lately I have been caught in a negative spiral that's tough to get out of and it's made me a pain in the ass. I'd say just ask my boyfriend but I don't think I'd like how many examples of this he would be able to recall off the top of his head. Anyway I've been pretty miserable for a number of reasons and I can't say it's working for me as a life strategy so I think I'm going to try something new.  During a sort of pep talk with my dad today, where I was expressing my dissatisfaction with certain elements of my life, he made the point that I was getting too caught up in the parts that were making me unhappy to the extent that I was neglecting the aspects of my life that didn't. I'm not exactly quoting him verbatim here but that was the general gist of the conversation. I think he might have been on to something there. Now I know whe...

I am not exactly known for my spontaneity. I like lists and plans and I find comfort in knowing what's ahead (to a certain extent). I know that makes me a little boring but at 32 I have made peace with that and I know this way of living is unlikely to find me out of work or unable to pay my rent any time soon and this is what keeps me from lying awake at night worrying. I would love to be one of those carefree go with the flow sort of people but I don't think it's a way of life I would come to easily because I would always have bills and responsibilities floating around in the back of my mind. Sometimes I am little less responsible and I can't say that goes particularly well for me. Case and point, most of my twenties. That's all I'll be saying on that subject but a lot of it was like an experiment on carelessness. That being said, I'm still here so it can't have been as drastic as I once thought. I do on occasion forgo plans to do whatever I feel li...

As a reasonably smart woman who has been doing Crossfit now for over three years I know a ridiculous amount of  exercises that you can do using just body weight plus I have two kettlebells in my apartment, a yoga mat and a great park across the road. Really there's no reason I should not be ridiculously and hilariously fit. If you've ever seen me in person then you know this is not the case while I am not really unfit, I am certainly a lot less fit than I could be.  I have the space to workout and the equipment and the time so really the only problem is me. I cannot and will not get myself to do anything at all. In fact if I did not belong to a Crossfit gym. I'd probably be in a very sorry state indeed. I occasionally join in a Facebook legs or abs challenge but there's no one monitoring my progress or checking that I'm doing it at all so after a few days something will crop up that means I've missed it and suddenly I've quietly dropped out of said chall...

Lately my apartment has been a mess, not likely to feature in how clean is your house or anything but still a mess. It's a lot of different things that have it that way. I'm too tired or too busy and except for in the evenings after work, I Don't spend too much time here so I guess that gives me limited time to contemplate the shoe mountain inside my wardrobe.  I have been doing the sort of secret tidying (particularly in my bedroom) where it all looks fairly good provided you have the good sense to not open that one press. So I've been promising myself I'll sort it really soon but the time never seems to come up and its been niggling away at me like an itch I can't seem to scratch. And then came my sort of long weekend. Usually I get one three day weekend every five weeks or so in work but this time around I found myself off Friday and Saturday, in Sunday and off again on Monday. It worked out for me except for sitting in work Sunday with a very sore head ...

I've been having a rough week and if you're not new to my blog then you already know this. The week has been long and hard and I have dealt with it mostly by making poor food choices and then regretting them. What I haven't been doing is working out, not even a little bit. My last cross-fit class was last Wednesday and despite having sufficient cross-fit equipment at home, I haven't quite gotten around to motivating myself to using it. So it's probably not a coincidence that I have been feeling fatter and sadder than usual. Sure what's a girl to do without her healthy dose of endorphins.  It's been a little over a week since my cross-fit class ( and lot longer since my last confession) and I found myself driving towards Cross-fit Tipperary this morning with an equal sense of dread and anticipation. The dread was partially because I didn't know what the day had in store and also because after a week of doing nothing mor...

Something strange seems to happen when you watch a movie you haven't seen since you were a kid because time distorts memories and sometimes you realize you were holding on to an idea of a film rather than remembering it as it was. You know when you watch something like the birds now and you admire how they build the tension with music but mostly you can't get over how terrible the special effects are when you compare them to what we can achieve digitally in more recent years. I remember watching that while I was young, too young to be watching hitchcock, and being totally freaked out by it. Even now I am wary upon seeing groups of birds gathered in one spot, as though they might be up to something. It's the nostalgia effect. Sometimes the things you thought were amazing as a kid are seen a little differently through your weary adult eyes. This is my third time at cult classics cinema. An offering in the theatre royal of classic movies or at least movies the general voti...

Lately I haven't been in a great place and I mean that emotionally although come to think of it, I'm not in that great a place geographically speaking either. I have reached the point of being so fed up with where my life is at that it's starting to eat into everything else. I already mentioned the binge reading but seeing as I'm only borrowing the books it's not doing much in the way of harm. I'm also emotionally eating like it's just become cool again. I had some mad thought that because I used to turn to sugar when I was feeling down or stressed that when I eliminated sugar, the problem would take care of itself but sadly it seems that emotional eating is more about fulfilling the need for comfort through food than what I'm actually eating. The other day I had a really bad day and I'd like to pinpoint one thing that made it so but there was just something in the air when I dragged myself wearily out of be that told me it wasn't going to go w...

This is my giant pig. Her name is Pigmella and she's going to make me rich because she's actually a giant moneybank and when I eventually empty her, I will have all of the money or at least that's the grand plan. In this photo I am holding her up to recreate that moment from the Lion king for Stephen. Let me tell you a bit more about my Sunday. As many of you know, I am not always off on Sunday. I work either Friday or Sunday on any given week. As its one of my few days off ( the only one ) that I spend with Stephen, rather than being in Clonmel trying to do all of the crossfit, I like to do something special with it when I can. You know not just sitting at home watching shows and being  glad I am not in work. We decided another road trip to Cork was in order as our last one had been quite successful. Stephen was keen to visit Triskell arts centre again as they had recently done the place up and I was keen to hit up Milanos for some of their delicious gluten free pizza....

I think everyone goes through parts of their life where they feel generally unhappy in how things are going and while the small few manage to make constructive changes, most will deal with the stress by doing something to block it out. They will turn to alcohol, drugs or food (or maybe all of the above) just to avoid thinking about things or dealing with emotions. I should know as I spent most of my late teens and twenties getting very drunk and eating all my feelings (sometimes they were delicious). Lately I have been feeling meh and generally quite unhappy with many aspects of my life but I am not making big life changes to remedy this feeling (although maybe I should) or getting very drunk or even eating all the chocolate that I really really want to eat. No, instead my chosen form of escape is books and then more books and a few more books after that.  Admittedly it is not detrimental to my health although I can't say the same for my social life. After work I feel drained a...

Lately in work, with staff spanning a wide range of ages, I find myself on the edge of conversations about Debs from people roughly half my age which makes me feel too old or pension plans from people in my age bracket which makes me feel older still and a little panicked. Mostly because I know this is something I should be thinking about but regardless of how vague my five year plan is at this point in time, it doesn't include me being in retail. My boyfriend constantly gives out to me for being too negative and winds me up spouting stuff that sounds like it should be said by a motivational speaker and while he means well it doesn't stop me being cranky and sarcastic and retorting that I am not a f@*cking disney character (I was quite proud of that one) so I feel entitled to panic and wallow in misery until I come up with a better plan. I know if I was a different person I wouldn't hang myself so much on the what if's and the why didn't I .... and just focus on...

It's been a long and eventful weekend where we did all of the things and  not enough sleep was had. The August bank holiday weekend is the weekend Spraoi ( Waterford's festival of street art) falls on and I had made many many plans. My original intention was to write different blog posts over the weekend but lack of sleep and the need to go to lots of different things got in the way so instead here is a brief summary of my weekend which may not be as brief as I first led you to believe. Spraoi officially started on Friday but they don't usually put much on until the Saturday and as it happened I was off Friday and bank holiday Monday but in the rest of the weekend. So Stephen and I got tickets for Tangled theatre for Friday night. All I knew about was that it was some kind of play being put on and it didn't cost much to go so in the spirit of getting some culture I was happy to go along. I didn't really have any expectations which is often a good place to start ...

If my boyfriend and I were the types to jokingly mark every month we've been together then today would be our threequarterversary, like an anniversary but only nine months in. Well we're not because that would be ridiculous and he'd be mad at me for sharing it on my blog. As it happens, we had our first date on the first of November so it makes it pretty easy to remember. I can't say it was completely intentional but we have a lot going on this weekend so you could almost say we're celebrating (but we're not).  Spraoi starts today in Waterford but all the good bits don't really happen until Saturday or Sunday and just my luck today is the only day I'm off over the weekend. Last year was the year I had my iphone 5 stolen and as I'm still paying off the contract the memory of it stings a bit so at least this year I don't have a horribly messy night like that to look forward to. I'm actually not sure how much of the proper bit of Spraoi I...