sum hanlin boys

never again. never again in my life am i renovating a house! unless of course the wife makes me!

so everything was to be finished at the end of june. then the first week of july. then yesterday.

needless to say its not done and ive been so frustrated!! the latest annoying thing has been one of the painters varnishing over a price tag on a set of doors!!! been so stressed this week and at one point thought i was going to crack but now im just sitting here thinking ' what the heck'. im chilled out so hopefully everything will get resolved asap.

looking forward to the football camp at ballysillan im helping at next week and kinda looking forward to reach as well altho dont really know what to expect from it! cant wait to get back to spurs as well, altho im hoping robbie keane will still be there! i may cry if he leaves!!

its all about the money

im spending a savage amount of money at the mo! ive also started using the word 'savage' a lot lately, been spending lots of time in enniskillen and all the culchies down there are using it a fierce amount these days!
so work on the house is nearly finished, costing me a fortune but hopefully be worth it. the money for that is all fairly justified - bricks, mortar, windows, kitchen, bathroom etc etc. obviously you have to throw in the odd bit of luxury like a 42inch tv but i think thats fairly justified. as is the sky HD box.
also just spent a few £ on a travel package to wrestlemania next april, cant wait for that.
a few £ on my spurs season ticket. i genuinely had no option on this, not renewing it would be like deserting a family member in need and ive always been high on my family values :)
and i think its important to get the right work/life balence so i got tickets to michael buble, billy connolly, lee evans and coldplay just for some light relaxation tim in the the middle of all the stress! i was tempted to get tickets for neil diamond but (unsurprisingly) nobody was sad enough to go with me!

house

so the big went fence went up at my house today so its all starting to take shape. havent taken any photos yet but when i do ill put some up! cant wait till everything is all finished and i can move back in!

my builder sent me to look at doors the other day, i had heard of the door store before but had never been in so needless to say that was an adventure! in a couple of weeks i have to pick tiles. then there the fun of picking paint. im actually getting stressed thinking about all that!

marathon

on may day i completed my first ever marathon! its something i never thought i would do so im quite pleased i done it. altho im not getting too carried away as i only walked it and it took me 7 hours 20 minutes to do. i said before it that as long as i finished in around 8 hours id be happy. im planning on doing it again next year ad my aim will probably be to do it within 7 hours. it was a great day, raised some money for charity and got some much needed exercise! the down sides were the absolute agony i was in for the next day or so but it was all worth it and in a weird way im looking forward to next year.

have to say big respect to everyone who took part whether it was walking, running the relay and especially to those who ran the whole thing!

also big respect to my mate nicky who walked the second half with me - couldnt have done it without you mate!!!

fun fun fun

so as of last monday my property is now a building site! i was originally thinking the work might start in june or july......2004!!! so its only 4 years late due to various reasons! anyway hopefully it wont take too long to get sorted. gonna try and have some before and after photos of inside the house. had planned on taking some of outisde but (surprisingly?) the builders were very quick off the mark and had half the place dug up before i realised it!

got some stuff put into storage and im throwing out some other stuff. planning on moving out next week before they knock down my inside wall! incidently if anyone has any decorating tips, feel free to share!

incidently, if anyone has the urge to decorate my house for me - please let me know!!

smile please

so, this is lillian garcia. shes the ring announcer for WWE and she was at the show in belfast last thursday. My brother and I had front row seats. As far as im concerned, in this photo she is looking in my direction and smiling sweetly :) the reality of the situation is not important!

attitude

Sometimes I think our attitude sucks. Last saturday I got a phone call to say a resident that I worked with in my last job had passed away. She had a host of medical conditions along with her learning disability and it wasnt totally unexpected but she was only 27, I dont mind admitting that I spent most of that evening in tears as I remembered differant things about her. Even when she was wrecking the place and calling us every name under the sun, she was just so loveable! We had lots of laughs and ive got so many memories of her which im thankful for, but one of the things that struck me was her faith. One day when she came back from her mums house she made me sit down beside her so she could explain to me that Jesus died for us and we were going to heaven when we died. She also told me that she would be there before me so she might try and stop me getting in "for a laugh!". Another time she said she couldnt wait to get to heaven to have a party with the people she used to know and also because when she got to heaven there would be no more pain or suffering, no more learning dissabilities and no more prader wili syndrome (one of her medical conditions).

At her funeral last wednesday it broke my heart to see all the guys i used to work with having such a hard time dealing with everything. Really made me miss them so much more. On a lighter note, we were all standing outside the church afterwards, many people in floods of tears, but we suddenly remembered something that kathy told us many times - when she died we would all be at her funeral crying our eyes out and being all upset but she would be sitting in heaven looking down at us, laughing her head off because she had made us cry. This was followed by her little giggle that she did when she was up to some mischief.

she loved life, shes in a better place and most importantly shes not in pain anymore.

but were still here, probably complaining about stuff that doesnt really matter and getting worked up about things that really arent that important. maybe we should spend more time saying thankyou for what we have and learning to appreciate our lives more?

as i said, sometimes I think our attitude sucks.