Collective Facebook Updates

I have too many Facebook updates to post and I don't want to be a news feed hogger and post too many status updates...I do that enough with my Zumba posts.  But, I just feel like I need to get them out.  How did we get our mindless little thoughts and points out before Facebook?  Here's my collective Facebook status updates because I want them out of my head:

• Why is everyone being so hard on Jessica Simpson?!! So what she's a bit heavier than she used to be!  She JUST HAD A BABY! Give her a break...jeez! 

• Are we really sure Psy is saying Gangnam Style and not open condom style because I'm pretty sure he's saying open condom style?

• Are there any fun haunted houses in Derry for Halloween?

• What is there fun to do in Liverpool?  I haven't been to England yet so I want to go and it is a direct flight from Derry....so....what's it like?  Plus, Liverpool apparently is only a short train ride from Manchester and guess what just opened in Manchester?  TACO BELL....oh, what!!!!

• I really want some chocolate digestives and a cup of coffee.  Or even better, someone go to Starbucks and bring me back a Mocha Frappucino with no cream and a Skinny Lemon Poppy Seed Muffin.  I will take this anytime of day.  Thanks.

• Has anyone watched the new Taylor Swift video, "We are never getting back together?"  And, if you have, have you noticed the fella dressed up like a cat or whatever he is (he is playing the guitar too I think) and how sooo in to the song he his?  I love him lol.   And, why is Taylor Swift suddenly so angry?  Have you listened to her new music?  Poor wee critter.

There he is above on Tayor's left.  Maybe he's a bear...or a raccoon?

 

• Why do you call your underwear pants and your pants trousers here?  This just gets me in all types of tricky situations!  When I say pants, I mean my trousers not my underwear lol.

• I so wish I could get on board with this whole metric system thing, but being American, I can't, I don't think I ever will.  I am constantly converting centimeters to inches and if you asked me right now how many centimeters are in an inch...I have no idea.

• Barry and I both have gray Converse trainers and yesterday we wore them out together without realizing it and we looked soooooooo adorable lol. 

• Was anyone else sick of reading the sex scenes in the 50 Shades trilogy by the second book or was it just me?

• Why is the Disco Ball jewerly at Argento so sparkly and beautiful?  I want all of it.

• Why are Crunchies so darn good?

• All the people that come to my classes are awesome and they work soooooo hard and do sooooo good!  I'm impressed every day by their energy and enthusiasm.

• I can't believe Tesco has their Christmas wrapping paper and cards and stuff out!  It's September!!!!

• Why do people say things like, "I'll do that today."  But, in reality, they won't do it today.  They know it and you know it.  What they really mean is "eh, I'll do it in 3 days or so."  Why don't they just say that?

• Barry is a great cook!  And, no he didn't tell me to say that!  I am treated to a gourmet meal nearly every night...I can't tell you the last time I cooked something!

• Does anyone have the recipe for O'Brien's cherry scones?  Ohhhh Meee Geeee, those things might as well be King Tut's golden undies in my book.  Yummmmmmm!

That is all.

The Derryization of Lesley

It has been just over a year and a half since I packed up my life and flew across the pond and set up shop in Derry, Ireland.  A lot has happened in that year and a half, including the newest addition...our part Irish, part American daughter.  And, she's actually one of the few Americans that can ACTUALLY say, "My daddy was Irish."  Because, let's face it...anytime Barry tells someone from America he's from Ireland...100% of the time that person has some relation that "was Irish."

Isla flying her flags.  Hey...that's as good as they are gonna look with my computer free-hand paintbrush skilz!

So, anyway.  I realized yesterday that one of the most prominent differences between myself now and and myself a year and a half ago other than my daughter, is that I have acclimatized, so to speak to life here.  And here's how:

• I no longer think about Taco Bell and the lack thereof of Taco Bell here all the time.  Don't get me wrong, I'd still and I will still eat the hell out of it when I get to America, but I don't cry about it as much.  I never literally cried about it, but I did whine a lot!
• I'm slowly starting to take tea more than coffee.  Although, I still love coffee, particularly coffee of the Starbucks persuasion, but I do enjoy hot tea now, too.  I still miss my Iced Tea, though and homemade Iced Tea never tastes as good as the delicious cool, beverage that is delivered to your table at a restaurant.
• I want and actually crave coleslaw on sandwiches!  When I first moved here, I thought it was incredibly odd to put coleslaw on sandwiches, but now...I like it!  The only think we put 'slaw ('cause we say it 'slaw in West Virginia) on in West Virginia is a hot dog or pulled pork sandwich or something.  Now, I still absolutely WILL NOT put butter on my sandwich...unless it's a grilled sandwich or something.  That to me is still odd, but hey you never know.

A West Virginia hot dog with chili and slaw.

• When I first moved here, I noticed a very distinct difference in the chocolate here.  The chocolate is milkier here than America.  But now, I eat it and I couldn't tell you what is different about it.  It tastes normal to me.  Too normal, in fact, says the Crunchie bar stash upstairs in the bedroom so Barry won't see me eating them.

• I now say "Aye" all the time.  I used to make a very strong effort to never say it in public because coming from an American mouth...well, it sounds out of place.  But now, I don't care.  I say it to whoever and to be honest, no one has ever remarked about it.  I even say some "Derry" things without thinking now.  For example, I say "ano" all the time.  Quick translation...this means "I know."
• I forget that I have an accent here.  I honestly don't here a Derry accent anymore I hear it so much.  In fact, I forget that I DON'T sound like people here until someone asks me where I'm from and then I remember that I am a foreigner here.  But, honestly, I don't get that "where are you from" question that much anymore.  
• And, I have people here now!  Like, my own group of people, that I met on my own and not through Barry.  People that I can "hang" with and call on for help if I so need it! 

Two years and a big zumba thang

Happy two year anniversary to my hubbers, Barry.  Its hard to believe it has been two years since we got married, but here we are...two years later, living in Ireland, with a bambino.  Who ever says the first year is the hardest part of marriage was a liar, personally, I think its the second year, so I personally feel a great deal of achievement on this anniversary, more so than last years.  So, cheers to two years...I'll drink to that (this weekend maybe if we have a babysitter:).

I have no idea what we're discussing here, but it looks serious doesn't it?

I'm still ragin' I didn't get to try the white part of the cake, but the chocolate was nice.  

In other news, this past Saturday was a Zumbathon to benefit Diabetes UK.  Here are some pics.  I would be remiss if I didn't mention this part because I'm proud of the Derry Wans.  Diabetes UK on Saturday had One Great Big Zumbathon.  Basically, in four different parts of the north, there were four different Zumbathons taking place...one in Newry, one in Derry, one in Omagh and one in Belfast.  The Derry ones soooooo kicked butt, because we had a spectacular 62 people come out for that!  Omagh had the next highest number of peeps at 24...so Derry...you kicked butt!

All I did was plug a radio in

Screw it...if I'm gonna get old, I'm gonna do it with class...like her!

When did I get old?  That question has sort of been dancing around in my mind for a few weeks now, but today, it jumped straight up and started screaming.  I'll tell you why.  I plugged in a radio in the bedroom because our bedroom is too quiet.  Barry doesn't like a television in the bedroom and I do.  I like the noise.  I like being lulled to sleep by the flashing lights of the television.  You may remember my discussing the joy of this in this old blog post.  In fact, since I've moved to Ireland, I've had the worst time getting to sleep because my old trusty buddy, TV, isn't in the bedroom with me.  So, I thought the radio would help me sleep if I play it soft enough, so at least there is some noise in the room and not the nails-on-chalkboard noise that Barry provides as he's snoring.

Anyway, I'm getting off track and the TV in the bedroom issue opens up a whole can of worms for me so I won't go in to that now. So, let's go back.  Okay...today, I plugged the radio in and started turning the dial to find a station.  I moved the antenna around until there was no more fuzz on my selected station.  I wondered, do children today even know how to work a radio...tuning into a station and working the antenna until the signal is clear?  I don't know, but I'd say a lot of them don't.  I'm sure my parents thought the same thing as they plugged in their 8-track players.

The station I landed on was playing a medley of old, classic 80's tunes and I got excited because they were so soft and smooth compared to some of the shite that's on the radio now and it took me back.  Back to my childhood and each song reminded me of something different from my childhood.  Then, I remembered times when I was little and I would be in the car with my parents...driving through Marmet or somewhere on the way to Charleston and a song would come on the radio and I remember my parents singing the song.  Of course, it was a song probably from when they were a teenager or whatever and I remembered thinking as I watched them sing and get into this song, Jeez my parents are old.  I wonder what point it is in your life that you just like crappy music? Because, lets face it.  The songs that my parents enjoyed on the radio when I was young, were certainly crappy to a young child.

Of course, now, I still don't know the pivotal point in one's life that makes you start liking crappy music because the music I like now, I certainly don't think is crappy.  And, at that time, the music on the radio that I thought was crappy as a child, my parents certainly didn't think was crappy.

So, yeah there was that (yes, I thought of all this based on the simple action of plugging a radio in) and the fact that I was plugging in a radio!  I mean, who has a radio now?  Most people would just play the radio through their laptop or iPhone, or use their iPod and dock to play music, but no...not me.  I use a radio and suffer through the boring talk that the deejays love to spew and all the commercials because I'm so old, I use a radio.  Yes, I do have an iPod, but I don't use it.  It's too complicated and it takes forever to put music on.  Yes, I do have a computer that I could listen to music through, but it is old and slow and takes a billion years to load up the radio.  And, it's not loud enough because I like my music loud (of course, I teach Zumba classes where the louder the better or maybe my hearing is going because I'm old...I dunno).  And, I did try an iPhone and I HATED it.  I absolutely loathed the thing, so I went back to a BlackBerry.  See, most old people loathe new technology.

So, that was the radio incident that finally made me realize I was old.  A few of the other things that have been hinting that maybe I'm getting a little long-in-the-tooth was the movie incident yesterday.
 
Barry and I went to see a movie and we landed in the theatre...the only ones there.  We took our seat and this squad of little shits (a group of boys about 13-years-old) came in and set up shop in the back row and proceeded shining laser pens on the screen.  They didn't do it through most of the movie, but then towards the last ten minutes they started shining the lights on the breasts and arses of the actors on the screen.  I wanted to turn around and jump across the seats to the back row and throttle them until they cried for their mommies walk up to the back row and politely ask them to stop.  But, I didn't because then they would have proceeded to shine their lights on the back of my head for the remainder of the film.  Of course they would, I know how the minds of these little ones work.  So, anyway, the film ended and I waited until they walked past us in the theatre and I followed them out.  I followed them through the lobby, all the way down the stairs to the main entrance.  I was never more than 5 feet away from them.  Even as they stood in the lobby waiting for their lifts or whatever, I still stood within 5 feet of them.  I knew I probably looked like a creep, but I didn't care.  I wanted to freak them out because of what annoying turds they were being in the theatre with their fancy lasers.  Eventually, after 5 minutes of being hovered over by a 32-year-old weird woman (ahem...me), they left and I felt a small victory.  I thought to myself, we never acted like that when I was their age.  Now, that's a classic, old-person's thought there.

So, how did the theater incident make me feel old? It wasn't really that in particular, but combined with my memories of being up at Foyleside Shopping Centre last week and seeing all of the young ones dressed like horrible fashion tragedies and letting the words, "Look at the way kids dress nowadays," drip out of my mouth to Barry, well that just solidified the fact that, yes, I'm old.  I can remember my parents and grandparents saying to me, "the way you kids dress nowadays is awful."  And, I caught myself saying it...at 32 years old just a week ago.

So, all those things...the theatre and the horrible fashion messes at Foyleside combined with me plugging a radio in this morning, brought me to the stark realization that perhaps I'm ready for an adult diaper. Although, I don't know when it happened and why did it happen to me?  You hear of these happening, but you never think its going to happen to you!  I suppose I should go book my appointment now for my Sophia Petrello hairstyle and just call it a day!

Sophia Petrello from The Golden Girls.