Help Charities for Christmas 2011 xxx

I know a lot of us are struggling with money and finding work, but taking time out to help charities and even give as little as 99c for a charity single makes a whole lot of difference to the volunteers and people/animals that benefit from your generosity, and makes you feel good inside too.

A Christmas Tree in middle of snow and star covered light

Have a look at the charities I have given a little to this Christmas:

• I sent a few euro to Cancer Care West ( http://www.cancercarewest.ie/ ) and to the Galway Simon Community ( http://www.galwaysimon.ie ). Both sites take Laser Debit cards as well as Credit cards, so I didn't have a problem with that.

• Niamh is raising money for Outreach Moldova, which helps with the orphanage out there for disabled women and girls. She has organised a "12 Swims for Christmas", which she encourages others to join her in swims, and to donate as little or as much as you can for this brilliant charity ♥ More info at  http://www.outreachmoldova.org and Donations to http://www.mycharity.ie/event/niamh_ni_argains/

• 100-140 Irish Twitter people got together and recorded "Wintersong", to raise money in aid of the Neonatal Unit at the National Maternity Hospital in Holles St., Dublin. @BrendaDrumm started this idea. The single is available on iTunes for 99c. http://itunes.apple.com/ie/album/winter-song-single/id485227782 

• Foireann iomlán Ros na Rún tagtha le chéile lena gcéad shingil charthanachta Nollag "Cuireadh Do Mhuire" a thaifead don charthanachta ainm2hithe, MADRA! *** The entire cast of Ros na Rún come together to record their first Christmas charity single "Cuireadh Do Mhuire"  in aid of animal charity MADRA! .. Ceannaigh an singil, 99c. Déan é anois! :D ♥ ♥ ♥ Buy the single for 99c. Do it now! http://itunes.apple.com/ie/album/cuireadh-do-mhuire-single/id485788038

• Storyfold brought out their single "Another Year" to raise money for St. Vincent de Paul. A lovely song, costs 99c. http://itunes.apple.com/ie/album/another-year/id483061075?i=483061076

• Ryan Sheridan is raising money for the Make-A-Wish foundation. Buy this lovely song "Walking in the Air" from his EP on iTunes for 99C ♥ ♥ ♥ http://itunes.apple.com/ie/album/walking-in-the-air-ep/id477272660

I'll post up more if I remember. A brilliant site you should sign up to is http://www.mycharity.ie/ where you have a wide choice of charities to help fundraising and donate as little or as much as you can to them. Check it out!

Hugs, M x

*EDIT POST: 11/12/11 18:30
Please donate to the GalwaySPCA ( http://www.galway-spca.com/home.htm ) if you can.
Their Heathlawn Animal Sanctuary was broken into last night. 5 dogs were stolen, and these were animals that had recently had surgery and were needing medical attention. The Sanctuary was also ransacked, they took anything they could, with windows broken into. The GalwaySPCA need all the help we can give right now, coming up so close to Christmas.
This is really upsetting news. These animals had already endured so much, and then this had to happen. There are photos of the dogs on this website, so if you hear or see anything suspicious.

Don't ignore any signs or gut feelings you have if you see an animal that is neglected or tied up all day by their owner. Don't leave them there to suffer any longer.

** EDIT POST: 20/12/11 20:00
I raised over €100 for Arthritis Ireland this year ( http://www.arthritisireland.ie/ )
More information on this at Arthritis Ireland's Get Your Joints in Motion 2011

Glitter and all that sparkles...

Happy December!

Working on essays for college, but I need a break. It's taking forever to finish these essays.

No pressents have been bought yet. A week ago, I used Tesco.ie for a huge Christmas food shop to bring home. Picked up some Selection Boxes, a Selection of Crackers for yummy cheese, a box of Black Magic for Mum, Advent Calenders for my sisters and best friend, some Pringles boxes and a huge Quality Street tin! All essentials for the festive season. I bought myself a Peppa Pig Advent Calender!! Awww, I love Peppa Pig, she's cool1 :D

Of course, every year, I miss the decorating of the Christmas tree, but sure college takes over when you're always half organised. Or feeling ill. Either or.


Am amazed by the amount of people doing things for charity.
*We had Movember, but I knew no-one taking part in that to give money to. *My friend Niamh is raising money for Outreach Moldova, which helps with the orphanage out there for disabled women and girls. She has organised a "12 Swims for Christmas" which she encourages other people to join her in swims, and to donate as little or as much as you can for this brilliant charity! More info at her charity page !http://www.mycharity.ie/event/niamh_ni_argains/ and at http://www.outreachmoldova.org/
*#twitterxmassingle 100-140 Tweeps recorded "Wintersong" to raise money in aid of the Neonatal Unit at the National Maternity Hospital, Dublin. @BrendaDrumm started this idea, and now its 6/1 for Xmas No1! This is amazing stuff, that so many people could get together via Twitter and get this single organised for a deserving cause. Woo hoo! Go the power of good!!

So, there is a sparkle in the air. I don't have time to take the Christmas Market of Galway and the lovely decorations, but I can read it around the Facebook and Twitter feeds, and it does make me smile.

Love,

M x

I woke up to a howling wind activating an alarm to some building or car, either that or a burglary happened. It's too far away, so am not going to bother my bottom and find out.

So, things are going well in University. Am back in the thick of things, reading over notes, articles, poetry and prose, interesting little pieces of information that tie the whole thing together.
There's two worrying problems about this, lack of time and constant tiredness.

I know I've asked tips on tackling tiredness before, but I should be feeling on top of the world these days.
*Am taking my multivitamins and 3Omega tabs.
*I have breakfast, lunch, and sometimes a proper dinner, sometimes a spelt bread sandwich.
*I drink lots of water, cranberry juice, and Lyons tea.

Yes, it's fun fun fun here :/

I haven't weighed myself recently because am afraid to see if I've gained anything. Honestly, I know I've not pushed myself with losing the weight as much as I said I would. It's just a question of "where's the time?".

Lumbar Puncture #2 happened on Monday, 12th of September. At that point I was down to 117kgs.
It was done at the Medical Assessment Unit on the Ground floor of the UCHG.
This time around, the doctors found it very hard to find a space at the back of my spine to insert the lovely long needles. They were on their last go when they found a space, so they proceeded to remove a good amount of Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF).
Due to the amount of times I was poked with these needles finding a space, I suffered from very bad headaches, and two days after, I couldn't hold most foods down, so I lived on chicken noodles for that time. I began to feel normal 1 week and a half after the procedure.

I did not fully get back to university life and study until 2 weeks after. There was a lot of material and classes to catch up on, but think I'm up to date now. To be honest, there are people worse off than me, and they are the people I think of now when I get up in the mornings. Am lucky.

Need another tea. It's 6am. Why am I up? Urgh.

Well my pretties, the past few weeks were quite eventful, for me anyways...

For the past few week, I had been suffering from floating images and black spots in my vision. At the end of July, after having my eyes examined at Specsavers (opticians), they told me to go straight to Accident & Emergancy, where it took 6 hours to be seen to, and another 21 hours to be told I would get a hospital bed for more tests. Overall, I spend 5 days in hospital, which wasn't fun.

I had the whole nine yards of tests done to rule things out. In the end, they found it was Benign Intracranial Hypertension (simple meaning: too much stuff going on in the brain, but its all good). They had to perform a lumbar puncture on my spine to measure the pressure of CSF (cranial spinal fluid), and found the pressure to be very high, which must have put pressure behind my eyes.

I have orders now from my Neurological and Ophthalmology doctors to lose weight in order for the pressure to decrease. There is a strong case of serious illnesses linked with being overweight. It is a constant struggle to lose weight though. It really is my life story, but have lost quite a few pounds since before hospital. Yippee! Long may it continue!

Three really good points to losing weight

• Drink tons of water
• Watch your portions, three meals a day
• Be more active in your life, whether on a walk down the road or a good workout

Most of all, be happy :)

Summer: London.. Misterman.. Houseparty.. Food.. :)

Weight today: 19stone 5pounds


Life is good at the moment. It's the last week of July, the sun is coming out to play more often in Galway, and am  enjoying time with friends and family. The last few weeks have definitely been eventful :)


Travelled over to London for two nights at the start of July. I had planned to do loads over there, but things didnt turn out that. On the first day, I had come in plenty of time, but my friend's bus was at least 10 minutes late. We queued only to find out our boarding gate had closed and we had to pay an extra €100 each for another flight. Typical Ryanair! I didn't hear any announcement over the speakers to us to come to any other line to go through faster, but they were adement they had called for us. Never flying with them again!


My friend had felt down over the weekend, so was trying to cheer him up. I wasn't really a success to be honest. Was afraid at one point he was going to take my passport and stuff and leave the hotel to go home early, while I was taking a shower, because I wasn't being nice enough to him. Who does that to someone? Who does that? Why do I get those people in my life, messing with my head? Needless to say, I am still alive, back in Galway, and not feeling ill anymore.


The Galway Arts Festival was on for the past two weeks, so me and my friends Shane, Ciaran and Gráinne went to see Cillian Murphy in the one-man play "Misterman". What can I say... Wow! He really knows how to use a huge stage area. If there is ever another showing of that play, you must go see it. At the end, I didn't know whether to be afraid or laugh out loud, it was that effective. Was actually afraid to clap.


Of course, I was at Shane's houseparty, the annual event of our calender year! His mum goes on holidays around July every year, so he has a mega houseparty with all his cousins and friends, me included. I was still feeling over the London weekend, so he was looking after me as well, but felt a whole lot better after a few Kopperburgs and shots of Tequila ;D ... Oh and chatting to friends, of course!
He had the usual, a huge spread of crisps and chocolate, spirits and fizzy drinks. His brother Ciaran was the DJ for some of the night (music videos on Youtube), but later on, Breda brought in her IPod Bucket with loads of tunes!
We ended up in Tí Josie for 45 minutes. It's the nightclub for Carraroe, but really, it's just like a shed with music and drink LOL. Came back to the house, and he was making his famous houseparty toasted cheese and ham sandwiches! Yumminess! 


I really needed that nightout, because sometimes you just need to be around loads of familiar faces, people you're comfortable with, to chat to them and dance and all that. Feel a whole lot better after it.


In regards to being healthy and taking Xenical, I haven't been sticking to the meds. In the past week, I've taken a good amount of the meds with meals, the best I have done. I weighed myself today for the first time in a month. I have not exercised, but that has to start soon. 


On Friday, when I came back to Galway city after a week at home with the parents, I bought white spelt and brown spelt bread from Griffin's Bakery on Shop St. It cost €9.90 overall, but it is worth it if you want to stay off the wheat. It is the nicest spelt bread I have found so far, seeing as my baking skills are not very good in regards to spelt bread. You can ask them to slice the loaf for you.
On Saturday, I decided to seperate the slices and freeze 2 white and 2 brown per bag. I froze 4 bags, and put the few remaining slices in the fridge for the next day or two. I have a tendency to binge and eat a lot of those slices, so this way, the temptation is taken away from me.

Another thing I did this weekend was go on a fresh vegetable shopping spree. Well, not really. I bought a bag of fresh carrots, some parsnips, celery, ginger pieces, etc. I cut up 11 carrots, 5 parsnips, 6 pieces of celery, a good amount of ginger, 4 cloves of garlic. I threw them all in a pot of hot water, and left to simmer until cooked. Once they were done and had time to cool down, I seperated into small bags and put them in the freezer until needed. There's enough for a weeks worth of portions. I love this idea, because it's all fresh produce that you're using. The ginger and garlic add flavor to the vegetable, and also help with blood circulation. Thanks to Mum for suggesting this idea to me :D

So, I should be thinking of what I'm putting into my body instead of how many inches I'm losing in the waist. If you're intolerant to wheat, dairy and other things, you should really try not to eat them, or at least limit the amount.

*I use light SuperMilk for my cereal and tea, but that should be ok.

*I still love cheese though, I will have the odd slice of Emmental with the spelt bread now.

*I bought Special Flakes (made with corn and rice instead of wheat), so I will have that with a bit of All Bran or Rice Krispies mixed with it.

*I am allergic to eggs. Am not allowed to eat them, because spots come out on my hands. Even though I love eggs :(
*I will still have my chocolate, but very little of it. Dark chocolate if possible.

They are small little changes, but if it helps you not feel bloated or come out in spots, do it. I've only had 1 bowl of cereal so far today, and I don't feel hungry or ill. So far so good :)*

June news...

Happy Summertimes to all!

How's everyone doing? Am just ticking over these days, seeing my parents as much as I can since college finished for the year. The older you get, the more you appreciate how much your parents did and do for you over the years, if you are lucky to have parents like mine. They are truly a blessing  in my life.

Marshy curling up in her little box

Over the last few weeks, I have gotten more into the vast amount of books on my bookshelf; my comics i.e. Tin-Tin, Asterix, and anything manga; and anything Doctor Who related. It has really relieved me of the stress of college, and is now a distant memory. I feel I could have done better in my exams, but was never an academic person. Let's just pray I did well enough to get into Second Arts.

Regarding my weight, I have not lost but I have not gained any weight the past few weeks. It has been steady. Two weeks ago, I started on a prescripted pill called Xenical. The doctor thought I would benefit from this pill during the summer. The main aim of the pill is to control the amount of fat that enters your system, and if you eat more than 30% of the daily recommended amount of fat, that it would cause certain bad consequences.

Am taking each day as it comes. I have good day with food, and bad days with food. More bad days than good the past two/three years. Just have to handle it better.

Starting to go on the online dating scene again the last few weeks. I have accepted myself as a BBW (Beautiful Big Woman) so guys know what they are dealing with. My confidence has taken a knock the last few years, so describing myself as a BBW now and guys being ok with that is helping me a bit. I know that online dating is not something I should be getting into, some of my friends have reservation with this style. I used to try it when I was younger but was never serious about it. Right now, I am a bit more serious about finding a nice guy and seeing how it goes. I hardly go out and meet people anymore; when I am out, guys never look at me, they look at my friends. Let's see  :)

A beautiful bunch of flowers from a nice guy

I met up with a nice guy on Monday in Dublin city. I had known him online for a few years, and this was our first meeting in person. I had text him on the way there, and explained that I hadn't eaten that morning. So, when he landed first in Dublin, he ran to Moore Street to pick up some flowers for me, and then ran to the shops to get me some food, and ran to meet me back at the bus station before I landed. It was so sweet :)

During the day walking and chilling out in Dublin, we chatted about anything and everything random. We checked out Forbidden Planet, one of my favourite places in Dublin, where I picked up some Cardcaptor Sakura, Tin-Tin and Asterix stuff, and he got a electronic TARDIS! I wanted to steal it off him, giggle. Generally, I am a very kind person, too kind at times. People sometimes get put off by that. You need a little banter to keep it fun, but hopefully my kindness didn't put him off me. It is the first time I've had a "kissing friend", so it was quite weird. I can be mushy, so he did tell me a few times about that. It is a new thing for me. In the future, I hope we can become strong friends, like my friendships with my very best friends Shane, Sandra and David. I am very selective with who can be close to me, it is just how I am. So, here's to my new friendship, and to finding someone to love and settle down with :)

On a final note, I started reading a blog last week: Alice Pyne's Bucket List . If you can read it at all, do it. I have signed up to the Bone Marrow Registry in Ireland because it is her wish to see everyone join this registry to help people who need bone marrow. I may not be able to give blood, but I can surely give my bone marrow. Fingers crossed! :)

Hugs, M x

Edit: I thought I had side effects from the Xenical drug, but it is working well for me now.