peeved

Number one pet peeve of commuting to work?

People who friggin READ when they're WALKING.

Is that really necessary?  Can't you wait until, I don't know, you don't need to see where you're going?

Worst example of above pet peeve: A man pushing his baby...in a pram...crossing a busy London road...at rush-hour...while reading his Kindle.  Oy vey.

/rant

Love is a mixture of desire and misunderstanding

I don't particularly like Valentine's Day and try my best to ignore it.  This year we were going to get dirty Chinese takeaway and call it a night.

But to my surprise, I received this lovely card in the mail at work :) I was very excited indeed for dirty Chinese!

But to my even bigger surprise, as I was leaving work, who should I see but R?  Who travelled all the way up to London to surprise me!

We went to the pub, and then out for dim sum, and it was the loveliest Valentine's Day I've ever had!

And it only took me 3 weeks to blog about it, oopsies!

London Triathlon - been there done that

So Monday was the last day to enter into the London Triathlon.


and I'm not on that list.

I'm a little sad about it, it's something I wanted to do every since I moved to the UK, and I've done it two years in a row (remember?)

I just honestly don't have the time or engery to put in the effort I would expect of myself.  In fact, I don't think I'll be entering any races this year.  Maybe 2012?  Right now, my goal is just to make it to the gym, or go for a run, once or twice a week.  I think once the weather improves, and the days are lighter longer, this will be easier to achieve.

But I have made it to the gym the past 2 Sundays for 2 hours each!  I walk R to the train station then head down, do 45 minutes on the cross trainer, 30 minutes doing weights, 20 minutes swimming and then relax in the hot tub/steam room.  It's a good routine to get in, and I hope to carry on with it.

I'll also make it to the gym tomorrow after work, and will hopefuly schedule in a run next Thursday when I work from home (weather permitting, of course!)

How are your 2011 fitness resolutions coming along?

question mark?

What's going on with my blog?  That's a good question.  As I've been working and commuting more, I haven't had a chance to spend time updating.  Which is just as well as my life at the moment is pretty much eat, sleep, work, commute.

But even before I changed jobs, I hadn't quite grasped what I wanted to communicate.  I read other blogs, and see great ideas I'd like for my own blog, but never quite seem to take the leap to actually do it.  I also have lots of thoughts, opinions, persuasions in my head that I'd like to talk about, but never seem to have the time to form coherent arguments.  And while it's sometimes enjoyable to just write about what happened today, especially when looking back, all in all it makes for kind of tedious reading.

So my goal for the weekend is to have a sit down and figure out what I really want this blog to be, and what I want to write about.  Yesterday, I sent R a work email I had sent out, with a nice comment from my boss.  And he said, "That was great, I haven't read your writing in ages, and I really miss it".  And this was a boring direct marketing email!  How the mighty have fallen.  Anyhow, I really would like to get up and running and find something I'm passionate about to take this blog in a new direction.

Any thoughts or ideas?

1st day of Christmas...

Wow, my last blog is from 1.5 months ago! A lot has happened since then.

R and I moved into a new flat...about 2.7 seconds away from our old place! What can I say, we like the area!  It's purpose-built, and therefore built with purpose in mind!  Very comfortable and warm and cozy.

I started a new job in London!  It's with the same large company, but in a completely new department/brand.  It's very exciting, but still very new.  The commute's a bit of a pain, but I've done a ton of crochet and reading so it's not too bad.

And I haven't done a lick of running in a very long time.  With my new commute, I don't get into Brighton/Hove until almost 7 so I haven't been feeling like gyming it lately.  I'm hoping to get in a session tomorrow and definitely a run in on Saturday morning.

3/5 of our friends due in November/December have had their babies!  We now have James, Freddie and Seren in our circle of friends, and they're super duper cute.  We're still waiting for Hannah, as her due date was 30th Nov, and Kate, who's due the 20th Dec.

We decided not to go to Ireland this Christmas, as R is doing seasonal work, so instead...we will be hosting Christmas dinner!  Yes, R's parents are flying down the South East England, visiting the McFannys, then coming to stay with us. It'll just be the four of us on Christmas, but it looks like we're all meeting up at ours on Boxing Day!  That'll be me, R, J&J, Sister E, Brother O, SIL M and little A!  Eep!  I've done a Thanksgiving dinner for that many people, but it's normally for friends.  Christmas dinner is a big deal! I'm a little nervous, but very excited to have everyone around.  Now that it's 1st December, I'm officially allowed to start decorating the place.  I need to put up my santa sign, and get some mistletoe.  We might try and get a tree this weekend, as well, as we get the potted ones which don't dry out too bad.

I've also booked a weekend trip up to Edinburgh for next weekend!  Although at this rate, there's a very good chance I won't make it up with all the snow.  I really hope I get a chance to see Claire and James and Zonko!  And of course, the Christmas Market :)


So all in all, I'm really looking forward to December, and seeing through 2010, which has been a pretty great year!  I just hope I'm able to get a few runs in before I turn into Jabba the Hut!

ho ho ho (from Neonbubble!)

Royal Parks Foundation Half Marathon

and they're off!

This past weekend, I had the chance to run my first ever half marathon race!  On a whim, I decided to sign up for the Breast Cancer Campaign team to run the Royal Parks Foundation Half Marathon, and I'm really glad I did.  While I wasn't religious about following my training schedule (2-3 days a week average, instead of the prescribe 4), I did make sure to keep up with my long distance runs on the weekend and it was great to keep training after the tri.  And it paid off!  I felt calm and relaxed on the day, and chugged on to a 2:13 time.  Not lightening speed, but certainly respectable, especially considered I split 1:06/1:07!

 showing off my medal (and so happy it's over!)

Look at that, I didn't even break a sweat!  But I did hobble around like a granny for a full 48 hours before I could even think about a swim.

I enjoyed the race so much, I'm thinking of signing up for the Brighton Half Marathon in February, to see if I can get closer to a 2 hour time.  And of course, the next obviousl step is the...Marathon (dun dun dun).  Unfortunately, Brighton and London are now full, but I have my eye on both the Belfast and Edinburgh Marathon (early and late May), so I have plenty of time to think about it.

Where has water-logged Kira gone??? Who would have never ever in a million years contemplated running 26.2 miles???  I dunno, but I'm really enjoying myself, and hope to keep up with the running bug :)

ch-ch-changes

Lots and lots of changes!

Let's see....

R's turned 34 (whoops, missed a birthday post)
I've turned 26
R's quit his job...
...and started tutoring full time
And most exciting of all!

We're moving!

Our landlady is selling our flat, so we decided to take a look and see what kind of flats we could see.  Well, we found one we liked, and places are going like hotcakes so the next day we gave them a deposit and we move in on the 29th!

We're super busy this month with the half marathon (Sunday), ballet tickets (happy birthday to me, from R!), and R's folks coming to visit on their way home from France, not to mention the gazillion baby blankets I have left to make for friends.  But I'm seriously looking forward to sorting out our stuff and getting moved into this nice, clean, fresh, spacious, purpose-built flat.  Did I mention it has a fire place?  I GET TO HANG STOCKINGS!!!

Only downside is we'll probably be too busy to do anything fun for Halloween.  Do you have any fun plans?