I love it when life is good. I love my boyfriend, I love my job, and I am healthy and having a blast at karate.

The tournament really amped me up for the next 6 weeks of training for Worlds. I am bounding out of bed every morning, despite the lack of sleep and abundance of soreness that I am getting from training. HL is being super supportive and sweet. He took over the management of the checking account and his number one priority has been taking care of me. He even suggested I buy my sais (the same weapon that Elektra uses) so I can train for a weapons form at Worlds.

My boss even bought me tulips and truffles for Secretary's Day (with only a reminder or two coming from me this month! :) )

I am happy, truly happy, and definitely loving it!

*mwah*

IIIIII am a Champion, My Friends (Sorta)

Four months of training is over and it resulted in (drumroll, please!)



Ta-Da!! I won third place in point sparring and sixth (ugh) in forms. I am disappointed in my forms place but I didn't come in last (which is great) and I think that I did good for my first ever tournament. But the fact that I got THIRD in fighting amazes me. I didn't think that I would do well at all. My coach, K.C., helped me a lot , though I thought he was going to have a coronary in the first round that I lost because he kept telling me to *hit* the chick I was fighting and I guess I was being too timid. I wasn't in the other round though!! *yay me*

The studio as a whole did an awesome job. We got a bunch of national titles and almost everyone at least placed. I had a blast and now I can't wait until Worlds. Six weeks left!

Best Week Ever

Okay, not really.

Sunday night, I got the WORST. TOOTHACHE. EVER. I have been keeping the wolf from the door of said toothache for about a month with copious amounts of Advil ( not have dental insurance sucks) but there was no amount of pain medication in the world that would make this thing go away. I staggered into work and kept my mouth numb with ice water as I tried to concentrate on getting my job done.

Did I mention that I am out of my ADHD meds? Concentrate? Yeah, right.

HammieLove calls me around 10:30 am. He is on his way home because our friend called him concerned about our adopted cat, Jake. Jake was lying in the grass, breathing heavily and the habitually skittish animal was not moving when strangers approached. Jake’s littermate, Rocky, had just been put to sleep for feline leukemia a couple of weeks ago so we feared the worst. My great boss let me go home to attend to Jake so I met HammieLove at the vet’s.

So long, Jakers, my handsome boy with bright blue eyes. He was only 3.

I took the rest of the day off to nurse mine and HL’s broken hearts and my tooth. It took 10 Advil, 6 Alleve, 3 Tylenol PM’s, 2 vodka tonics, and 10 years worth of liver damage to get me to sleep that night.

Tuesday comes and I go to work suffering. The good news is that HL can put me on his health insurance because I am his "domestic partner" and the better news is that his company pays for the spousal benefits too. I make an appointment with a dentist who will do a temporary root canal on my tooth to relieve the pain and I will be able to do the rest of the root canal (the EXPENSIVE part of the root canal) when I have insurance. My great boss let me off early again to go to the dentist.

Three novacaine shots later, the dentist tells me that my lack of numbness is because of the abcess (yummy) and I will have to do a course of antibiotics before he can drill. So he writes me a prescription for antibiotics and Tylenol with Codeine and sends me on my way.

Tylenol with Codeine? Sucks as a pain reliever. But it is great for making you puke ALL. NIGHT. LONG. No sleep for Hammie on Tuesday night. I did feel like I was going to die though.

I am used to all nighters from my old ADHD meds but I am NOT used to not having the upper that came with my morning dose.

Wednesday comes and I go to work, suffering and tired. Finally, good news comes my way as the antibiotics begin working and I start to feel better. HL picked up my ADHD refill and that brings us to today…

Pain is minimal and focus is optimal. I have my dentist appt. this afternoon to fix my tooth.

This week is progressively getting better, which is good because I compete in THREE days. I haven’t been able to train all week but we were supposed to take it easy this week anyway. I’ll head into the studio to review my form and stuff and will spend Saturday watching the black belts compete. My competition is on Sunday. My knee and leg are better. I think I will get a sports massage on my leg on Friday just to make sure that I am as ready as possible.

I am totally freaked out that four months of training are going to come to a head so soon. Hopefully it was all enough and I will put in a good performance.

Cross your fingers!