For the past three years I have looked after my upper left wisdom tooth with great love and care but now its gone and I have to say that I am so relieved! Ever since it made an appearance all those years ago I have monitored its progress and waited patiently for it to come out properly...but it never did.

I have to say I was quite fine with it half in and half out, it never bothered me...until last week when it decided it wanted to be a proper tooth! I have never known pain like it, everytime I ate or talked it felt like my mouth was being shredded. :( An emergency trip to the dentist proved I wasn't wrong, it turns out I had a mesial impacted tooth, meaning it was growing in the wrong direction and had caused an infection in my cheek...no wonder I couldn't sleep or eat. :( The only option was to have it removed and I couldn't wait! However, the appointment was two days away...the day after my birthday and I was told I'd have to take antibiotics for a week, meaning I could not drink.
Happy Birthday Ashley! :(

In the waiting room, I was nervous, I'd never had a tooth removed before and I had heard some horror stories but I can put my hand on my heart and honestly say that I could do it again tomorrow if I had to. It took just a few minutes to numb the area and after a couple of tugs, which I can only describe as a bit of pressure on my tooth, it was out! I couldn't believe it, how easy was that!

Its now a few hours later and I wanted to pay homage to my wisdom tooth. I already feel a huge sense of relief now its out, even though the local anaesthetic is wearing off and I can feel a huge gap in my gum but its nice to not have constant pain. I didn't actually realise how much room it occupied so I'm pleased that its gone. Now I can look forward to getting better and celebrating my birthday next week and actually have some of my birthday cake, yay! :)

Bye bye wisdom tooth!

Last week I attended the DIBI (Design It. Build It.) Conference at the Sage in Gateshead, in my home town of Newcastle upon Tyne. I had been waiting weeks for the event to arrive and I wasn’t disappointed!

The conference was split into two-tracks, one track for designers and the other track for developers and all attendees had the option to listen to speakers from both tracks depending on what they wanted to learn from the conference.

Pre-Event at the Pitcher and Piano
Everything was thought of right down to the smallest detail and to kick things off there was a pre-night social networking event at the Pitcher and Piano.  I’ve always been a little bit put off going to these types of events alone but I bravely did so with my new Moo business cards which I had specially made. I needn’t have worried though because I started chatting with people as soon as I got there and the venue was a good choice too. Luckily the weather was nice which is surprising for Newcastle and the bar was actually FREE! Hoorah! It’s just a shame that I was driving so I stocked up on the fresh orange juice whilst others took advantage of the free alcohol (Note to self: Leave car at home next time).

DIBI Conference
Free stuff!
At the conference, after registration, I was given a free DIBI pen and a small notebook for me to take notes and everyone got a DIBI badge on their lanyards too. In the afternoon it was revealed on Twitter that each DIBI badge had a number on the back which represented which ticket number you were - it’s all about the small detail!! I was number 152 if you’re interested and my DIBI badge is now attached to my purse…I guess that’s a bit geeky isn’t it, ah well I love free stuff!

The conference ran on time and the DIBI team seemed to have everything under control. My main focus was the development track and my fellow colleague Dan (@dan099scott) was there for the design track.

The development track was very interesting and it was good to see what other developers are doing as well as learn from their experiences. There were some aspects of the design track that I would have really liked to have seen but unfortunately they conflicted with speakers on the development track so I had to pick which one I wanted to see more. I ended up staying on the development track all day so even though I ended up feeling a bit numb after an hour of sitting, it was worth it.

The Food!
I have to mention the food too! There were big muffins on offer for breakfast (there was fruit too but I thought I might as well enjoy myself so I opted for a chocolate muffin) then there was burger and chips for lunch! I was in my element! In the afternoon there was red bull on offer to wake people up (great idea, this seemed to please a lot of people) and then we were offered small pots of ice cream too! I was tempted with a second round…but I managed to resist.

After-Party
The after party was great as well and this was located at the Sea Nightclub down on the Quayside. I managed to meet a few new faces and there was also another free bar! I’d been wise enough to leave the car at home this time around and I took advantage of the free alcohol, yay! They had even ordered pizza’s from Pizza Hut (I have never seen so many pizza boxes in one room!) which was great so I got myself a “small” plateful.

Conclusion
Overall the conference was a great success, the speakers were fantastic and I have already bought my ticket for next year’s event too. I can’t wait to see what they have on offer next time around and it would be great to see some of the people I met at next year’s event too.

Since the New Year I have made a promise to myself to get fit so I decided to take up running, that and the fact that I had been signed up by my dearest work colleagues to participate in the Sport Relief 6 mile run. My motivation levels were up but then after only 1 proper week of training I ended up with an ankle injury, ankle tendonitis, so I was forced to give it up for 6-8 weeks (doctor's orders).  As you can understand my enthusiasm for keeping in shape nose dived and I welcomed every easter egg and burger with delight and didn't care about my diet or my increasing waistline until last weekend.

It wasn't until I saw pictures of myself from my holiday to New York just last week that I saw I had put on some weight so I made the choice to change my diet and start exercising again, even my skin was starting to suffer. Now I am on salads, fruit and lots of vegetables and I even decided to get weighed, just so I could keep tabs on how I was doing. I had in fact put on 3Ibs which isn't a great deal but it's enough to notice.

I was then told about dailymile.com, a website where you can upload your training and your friends can see what you have done and make comments, so I signed up. Last night I went for my first run but decided to take it very easy and then added this training to the website when I got home. Within minutes I had friends congratulating me and it really encouraged me. It made me feel good getting praised for exercising (who doesn't like a pat on the back every now and then) and I in return will do the same for them. I think its a great way to encourage exercising and its made me eager to get back out there running just so I can keep adding logs to the website. There is also a daily chart which shows your training efforts for the current week so I am determined to do well because I know others will be able to see how I am doing.

I think anyone who enjoys running should join dailymile.com and add me (ashleyemma) as your friend and I'll praise you if you do well :D