I had my Bodan Belt testing this afternoon. For those of you that aren’t familiar with Tae Kwon Do, the Bodan Belt is half red and half black. It is considered a black belt even though it is not all black. It is the belt before you test for your 1st degree black belt. In a sense it’s a jr. black belt, but don’t let the jr. fool you. It still takes a lot of work and as Grandmaster said today as I began my combination kicks, ‘this is a black belt, these need to be good’. Yep no pressure thanks 😉

I’m always extremely nervous about testing because I have performance anxiety. I completely blank out sometimes. Since I was technically black belt testing I tested seperate from the 10 other students. They did their warmups, 13 exercises, blocking sets, answered questions, performed poomsaes and broke boards all while I sat and waited.

I was taking deep breaths trying to stay calm and after their promotion to their next colored belts I took the floor for warmups. Most of the kids and their parents left, a few stuck around to watch my testing. I tried to block them out and surprisingly enough I did.

I ran through my poomsaes that I was asked to do. Then I was told to do 100 pushups. Have you ever done 100 pushups? And not the girly kind. I had to stop after 60 and take a break. Though it really wasn’t a break since they were telling me I had 40 more to go. 40 more! I was afraid I wasn’t goin to make it. But I did and when I stood up I was told to go into the next requirement.

I ran through 10 blocking sets, 9 1-steps (I realize that you probably don’t know what these are but it’s ok), self-defense, combination kicks and finally board breaking. Oh board breaking. I had a routine all planned out. 10 boards in all. I had practiced and was confident that when the time came Grandmaster would toss my routine out and tell me what to do. I wasn’t disappointed.

5 spinning hook kicks, 2 hand chops (right hand) and a punch (right hand). I got through the spinning hook kicks and hand chops. The punch…oh the punch it didn’t break the board. Grandmaster told me to snap kick so I did and I broke the board, it was a piece of cake. But he wasn’t satisfied, he was determined I’d break the board with a punch. So he picked another one up and gave it to my dad and one of the other black belts that was helping judge. I tried with all my might to break that board and I didn’t think about the pain in my hand. No such luck, my punch didn’t break the board.

I thought I was off the hook. Grandmaster walked away saying that was enough, ‘I tried twice, now I’m afraid’. But instead of walking off the mat he picked up another board and turned around, ‘one more time’. I had no choice. One more try. This time I broke it. But I paid a price. My right hand is swollen and quite bruised. Luckily the adrenaline was pumping so I barely felt it.

And now I am a black belt. Grandmaster predicted in 6 months I will be testing for my first degree black belt. The full black one where I will have my name embroidered on it. The one where my paperwork will be sent to Korea and my picture will be given to the police station, because I will be considered a weapon. Cool huh?

I will have some video up (maybe) or some pictures up sometime next week. This is a huge accomplishment. Not just the black belt but the fact that I didn’t let my performance anxiety get the best of me. Wow, what a rush.

I have a a couple confessions to make. I enjoy some of the quirks from when I was a teen thankyouverymuch.

– I use the Magic 8Ball more than I should. I wish I had one that was tangible that I could hold. I know. I know. I really should grow up.

– I check my horoscope daily, I’m not fanatical about it, but I like to see what my day could possibly be like.

– When I hear certain songs played spontaneously on the radio that remind me of people I wonder if they are thinking about me.

– Certain color combinations remind me of people from 8th grade. I know you are smiling IC because you know what I’m talking about.

That is all for now.

I’m 26 and I’ve never dyed my hair. My Mom instilled fear in me whenever I would bring it up when I was in high school. “Your hair will NEVER be the same!” she’d tell me. I was always proud that I inherited my mom’s hair. She didn’t start coloring her hair until she discovered some grays and even then it wasn’t a regular occurence. I have to say that I love the color of my hair. In the winter it looks black, BUT IT’S NOT! (I have feelings about this) It’s actually just dark, dark brown. In the summer the sun brings out the red highlights that I believe I inherited from my Irish Great-Grandmother. (Yes I’m Irish thankyouverymuch. At least about 1/8 🙂 I’m also 5/8 Filipino so some people laugh when I say I’m Irish)

Recently I was thinking about saying “fuck it” and dying my hair. I go through stages where I just want to be different, haha maybe be someone else 😉 I was at the doctor’s office when this mother and daughter sat down next to me. They were talking about the color of her daughter’s hair, which was a very dark brown.

Mother: I wish I would never let you dye it, it’s NEVER going to be the same

Dauther: You don’t like the color?

Mother: It doesn’t look natural, it’s a nice color but you had such beautiful auburn hair before you dyed it. It’s NEVER going to be the same.

Daughter: Yes it will

Mother: No it won’t

Needless to say, I abandoned the idea of toying with the color of my hair.

*looks up to the bright blue sky, “I hear you Mom, I promise I won’t dye it”

I’m going to spend my weekend cleaning, I think. Which is fine, but it got me thinking. When I clean, I wipe down counters and anything that is obviously visible. But the basement, closets and cupboards are another story. See you only see that mess when you open them up. It’s kind of like my life right now.

I can be clean and organized on the surface, but underneath I’m pretty much cluttered and a mess. The parts of the house that no one sees, I don’t want to even start cleaning those up because I’m overwhelmed. I don’t know where to start. Cleaning the basement, closets and cupboards means throwing things out that have sentimental value that I no longer want or need.

Things I outgrew, like my cabbage patch dolls, barbies, kiddie games, old clothes, cracked cups and broken dishes. I know that it can’t wait forever, that one of these days I’m going to have to take the effort and time to clean up both the house and my personal life.

I lied.  I guess I feel like writing.  I was outside with my phone on lunch jotting thoughts down.  I’m so exhausted today.  I have no idea why, but I can’t remember the last time I’ve been this tired.  This is even worse than when I only got 2 hours of sleep.  I guess I haven’t been sleeping well lately.   Anyhow here’s a bullet of my randomness:

• I like the smell of wood (shut it! lumber…you pervert )
• I had a dream I was doublefisting donuts last night.  One was jelly filled, the other was glazed and had chocolate frosting on it.  YUM!  (sidenote: I used to be able to resist donuts…yeah not so much anymore)
• This morning someone brought in donuts, I chose the jelly filled, but wished I would have gotten a chocolate frosting one.
• I totally realized I dropped the ball on some work that didn’t get done.  It was an honest mistake I swearz!
• Red vanilla tea…amazing
• Favorite lyrics as of right now: “guess i’m wishing my life away, with these things i’ll never say”
• I want to curl up with my pups and sleep
• I need a vacation
• Sometimes I imagine myself going home to another place like another dimension of my life where the only things that are consistent with my real life are my dogs
• Some people hide their crazy well, others do not
• I eat a banana every day Monday-Friday
• I miss being responsible for just me

Ok back to work…

I let some of the anger go today. Anger is my defense mechanism. I don’t know when I developed this, because I remember being anything but angry when my Mom died. I was sad and heartbroken but I never got angry.

At the beginning of the summer shit started to hit the fan and all I felt was anger. I’ve been angry for going on 3 months. That can’t be healthy. What is that saying? Anger is one letter short of Danger?

The sea of angry water retreated somewhat today and I felt for the first time the hurt of others around me. I quickly “got control” and let the anger protect my heart from feeling any more. The truth is, (my real life friends that have heard me bitch) the family has A TON of issues yes, BUT they also (when not being a major pain in my ass) act like they care for me when I am there.

I guess it’s just family dynamics that I’m not used to. I don’t have any siblings, much less any that complain about each other on a normal basis. Another truth? C tries so hard to be what I want him to be a lot of the time. Things I’ve neglected to mention because I’m angry. Sometimes I think I’m not fair to him. I acknowledge only his faults and nothing else. Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty I could punch him in the face for. But through these bad times I know that he would defend me over what his family says anytime, any place. And he has on numerous occasions.

For a moment I remembered why I fell in love today. My heart broke for him because of the pain he was feeling. But the anger is still there, bubbling beneath the surface. I’m trying to put it away, at least until a better time. It’s hard. I hope I can hold it back for 2 more days at least. But I feel it boiling to the surface sometimes, and now is not the right time.

So send me positive vibes, because believe me, I need them.

I finally did it, I broke down and bought a laptop. MA will back me up here, I’ve been talking about buying another laptop for a good six months (my previous one died a horrible death, hard drive crashing taking everything with it). But financially it never seemed like the right time. Is there ever a right time financially? Really? I don’t ever seem to have one, for anything.

Anyhow, I went to Best Buy to buy a printer because ours died a little while ago and I had every intention of scrapbooking today. I pulled out my table and all my billions of supplies. I took one look at everything and got overwhelmed so I decided to get a printer so I could print out sayings and quotes because my handwriting really sucks. I think it’s because I hardly ever write anything anymore, I just type. Much easier and cleaner. W

hoa, I’m getting off track. So Best Buy, I had to walk past the laptops to get to the printers and I was drawn so I bought one, along with a printer. Here she is, she’s pretty and perfect. I don’t plan on doing much other than basic office work and internet surfing on it, so this Toshiba suits me just fine. I spent 2 hours setting her up (I have no idea why she’s a girl, though now I have to name her. So I”m sitting on my patio enjoying the nice weather and catching up on email and blogs.

I’ve also started playing with scrapblog again….LOVE! I love it even more that I can sit wherever I want and be able to be creative. I’m starting to wonder if digital scrapbooking is more my thing. That would be ashame since I have all kinds of paper and supplies.

Sunday night or maybe early Monday morning we were at the cottage in Port Sanilac. I was having a dream that this fat guy was coming at me so I punched him. And then a sound woke me up and I started to giggle.
Groggily C whispered in the dark, “what was that?”
I answered between giggles, “I just punched the wall”

I don’t know why I find this so hysterical. Maybe because I wonder how many times I do things like this and never hit anything because of the way the bed is positioned at home. I mean really, how hilarious would it be if at night my arms are flailing. 😉

I do know that when I was little I used to sleepwalk. Not far, usually in the morning there would be clothes pulled out of my dresser drawers. I haven’t done it in years but it makes me wonder if I could start sleepwalking again. Ew that’s kind creepy.

When I was up north with LW she woke me up because she was laughing in her sleep. Not quietly giggling but loudly cracking herself up. I thought that was a little odd, I’ve heard of talking in your sleep or even crying but laughing?

Do you know anyone that sleep walks or does strange things in their sleep?