Tips for a perfect 2017

I have decided to make 2017 the best year EVAHHH.

How you may ask?  I'm going to follow the following simple steps to having the perfect life:

I will stop insulting my mother in law by telling her I'm trying to write a funny blog post, and asking her to refrain from talking - definitely will not do that in 2017.  Especially since she now wants to read said funny blog post when it's done and now the pressure is on.

Speaking of pressure, I plan to put my self under all kinds of enormous pressure ("Niamh is thinking", my mother in law just told my sister in law, warning her not to talk!)... in the coming year.

I will follow every one of those "in just five minutes a day you can X, Y, Z your self to miracle hair, teeth, relationships, shoes" articles.  I will build on the success of these every day until I work up to one full 24 hour session of 5 minute portions of perfection by teeth pulling with coconut oil, tricks to sort out dodgy posture, loving questions for my children, (she took just five minutes a day and now her kids are perfect).

I will multi-master, no, I will multi-dominate.  No more multi-tasking for me, 2017 is going to be a year of brilliance, and all my limbs and faculties will be full on, full time, 100% of the day.

Speaking of full time, I plan to find and hold down four more full time jobs, so that I have one for each working day of the week, they'll all compliment each other and will sometimes mix and meld, so that no one boss will feel left out and all will find my work stupyfyingly amazing.  This will involve quite a few interviews and job applications at the start of the year, but I'll somehow squeeze that into lunch breaks, which will also involve a bit of yoga and choir practise, but sure you gotta sweat to compete, (compete pronounced to rhyme with sweat - there that's a new word pronounciation I've made up just there now, already and it's not even yet the year for the magic).

I will of course be pursuing my film-making career following the viral sensation that was my first "mini-Movie" but I will be pushing myself in this area and will warn my fans they may find some of my future work a little experimental (stress on the mental part).

There will be charidee work I will be also absolutely trouncing, with a skipathon, a ladies pole vaulting competition in fancy dress that I will win though dressed as a koala, and a massive round of homeless comforting which I will do during the wee hours every second thursday of the month.

I will dissuade Trump from doing anything too silly via twitter, and will also use the same tool to talk the english out of brexiting, I can't believe no one else thought of that, like no-brainer!!

I will stop celebrities from dying in 2017, not on my watch in the year of perfection.

I'd also hope to travel some more, see a bit more of Kerry, or even my own native Cork.  Cork's great so it is, you should go there more if you haven't already been.  I will also aim to try each pub in my local town and sing karaoke in each even if there isn't a karaoke night on.

I will try every recipe in my newly acquired on loan book of Bento lunch box ideas, all 501 of them, before I get half way through the year, so that I know which are my son's very favourites for back to school time.

I am making all these commitments very publicly here so that I may be judged and may judge myself on how I perform.

I hope this is somewhat helpful to inspiring all you readers to go on to greater and greater heights in the coming year.

xx

Now for something completely different

2016 - the literary highlights

First off, apologies to anyone who clicked in here hoping for actual like, international or even nationally significant literary highlights of the year.  Those who know this blog will understand this is just my own little list of things artistic that inspired or that I enjoyed this year... (just - says she, all self deprecating).

Well

Can I think of 10 of them?

I shall try.

10.  I'm reading a bit more this year, which is nice, reading is good.

9.  I'm blogging a teeny tiny bit, and staying in touch with some nice people because of it - hi Bug, Rachel, Cait!!  (Triona?)

8.   I have a weekly habit of a sanity coffee which I've managed to keep up with the heroic help of Mr Cushions, whereby I go away and reflect for an hour on the week past, the week to go, and make mini resolutions and keep sane because of it - the notebook I fill during those hours will be a huge source of literary riches in the future when wanting to delve into the busy early years of family life that otherwise are a blur.

7.  Went to see the Pixies, not literature as such, but still one of the best cultural things of 2016.

6.  The gym and personal trainer, still going to her, still a bit alien and a new world to me, but interesting, inspiration inducing and of course health giving...

5.  Film making workshop - attended through work - how to edit phone videos, more on that in 2017.

4.  Shiatsu workshop - Free on culture week or some such, fascination insight into Eastern philosophy when it comes to the body, the elements etc.

3.  Electric Picnic and the two new poems I wrote for it.  The only 2 poems really of any sort that I wrote this year.

2.  Danger cushions beginning to write his own stories, and making films... wonderful stories and the boundless imagination of himself and Monkey Boots together.

1.  Family, Friendship and Fun in a bewildering world - happy holidays everyone - wishing you a fabby doo 2017.  xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Scaling the new pyramid

A new food pyramid has been put out by the Irish government last week.  Food Pyramids are thing since Sweden brought in the first food pyramid in 1974, same year they won the Eurovision with Waterloo, maybe they were concentrating their effort on the singing that year, as a pyramid is perhaps not the best representation of how we should eat.  A Pyramid is a huge and mysterious thing, the crowning achievement of many generations of great kings in ancient civilisations, would this be partly why most nations have moved towards the plate – like something relatable to actual eating? 

  

No, no – let’s keep the pyramid, it’s a lot more noble, isn’t it?   

Should we make it into like an Irish version, a food burial mound – what like Newgrange?  

 Yeah – it’d remind us of our bellies then too, when we’re lying down like, after dinner… 

No no, let’s keep the pyramid.   

(awkward silence)

Most other countries are switching to plates.  

 Are you a man or a shamrock,  we’re keeping our pyramid!

Pyramids were always loved by doctors too, the very first doctor in the entire world, was a pyramid builder called Imhotep  ( the first part of his name pronounced like Im the irish for butter) – the two things went hand in hand really, building pyramids, and then suddenly needing a professional dedicated to fixing broken people… diagnosing squashed clavicles etc. 

So this new pyramid comes to us, 11 years after it was commissioned by the way, it’s based on a survey of the habits of 11 hypothetical people, obviously they followed one of them around per year…  And what have they done with it.  Well we’re eating too much crap – so they’ve divorced the crap from the pyramid altogether – unfortunately mimicking the elevated evil eye – so now sweets and crisps are subliminally recognised for the role they have in controlling EVERYTHING!   

However the official line is that we should only have sweets, fizzy drinks and salty snacks once or twice per week.  So the selection box should last until the 10^th of Feb instead of 10 am xmas morning.  The box of Quality street should see you through till Easter, and sorry if you started the advent calendar late but if you wanted to follow the guide you should have started it at the end of September.

                    

Now the government are also looking to help us get active, which is great, they give us helpful descriptions of what exercise actually is – so

Moderate activity is any activity that causes

your heart to beat slightly faster and your

breathing to become noticeably heavier without

feeling out of breath. Like taking the water at Dublin airport without paying…

Vigorous activity is any activity that causes a big

increase in heart rate and your breathing becomes

much faster and deeper leaving you feeling out

of breath and sweaty… will let you insert your own joke here.

There’s guidance too depending on how lazy you are – so for lazy teenagers, and adults, they are accepting that some of us just won’t move, so they’ve given us a guide on how much less we should eat if we’re in that bucket.  At least they’ve left kids out of this saying "No kids should be inactive." 

Great timing coming into xmas too –  however remember – it’s not what you eat between xmas and the new year, but what you eat between new year and xmas that matters.