As the story has it, one day I headed to the opposite side of the globe – the Flipside. I arrived in Korea February 16th, 2005 and thought I’d do a year, then leave. I was wrong. I stayed, launched my first company, Flipside Fitness, and then opened Korea's largest boxing club, Hulk's Boxing (now called Hulk's Club).

After 11.5yrs in Korea, I then picked up one day and returned to Toronto, Canada. But then I left again.

Now I live in the Philippines where I am the CEO and head coach of Empowered Clubhouse, the Philippines' first and only boxing clubhouse exclusively just for women. I also am the founder of the Lil' Sistas Project, CEO and designer of Slay Gear and Baa Baa Black Sheep .Ph.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Adding Clean Freak to my Labels...Thursday, August 22

My mother used to make us three kids clean the house with her every Friday -- T-Roy switched every week between vacuuming and dusting, my mom washed the floors and I'd help whomever with half of the dusting.  When I moved out to university, I only had a one room for awhile and my landlady used to insist on cleaning it (which meant she also hid clothes she deemed "unsuitable" for a young lady for me to be wearing). When I got a two story apartment downtown, my roommate and I invested in a weekly cleaning lady.  When I moved to Korea my place was small but then I moved into Sambu, got a dog, and had a boyfriend that was so into cleanliness that he used to make me shower before we ever fooled around. 

Now I have three dogs, a husband, an apartment with 12 rooms and a boxing club that's beyond huge. I clean so much. The first 15mins of every morning is spent vacuuming and cleaning my house and then I spend the first 1.5-2hrs at work cleaning the boxing club.

My mom had it right, delegating extra help to do tasks.  Friday night is the only night I have extra help cleaning at the club but that's because we do a crazy bleach-down of everything and anything at the club.
Cleaning is quite the chore, yes, but it's also become kind of like therapeutic relief and now I hate a dirty place.  I especially hate bugs too because I was always told bugs were a sign of dirtiness.  I joke with Snickers about mosquitoes, telling him they never bit me because I am clean. He insists it has something to do with my blood (which I am sure some would jump in and agree, saying it runs cold and blue). Perhaps he is just way sweeter than me; I can be sour at times... crazy thought, I know... hahaha.

Anyways, all this rambling is bringing this story somewhere. It's bringing me to a little freak out I had last night and then today...

I had come home from work, Snickers went out with friends. I did my usual after work ritual -- clean the house (again), shower and then lay on the couch with my hair in a towel and my body wrapped in another. Pac, who I am convinced is a teenage bot because he tries to mull me and refuses to share me, tried to get under my towel. I shooed him away but his wet nose had hit the inside of my leg. When I went to wipe it away I felt what felt like a bubble. Off throw the towel and on went the lights.

...a B.U.G..... on my body!!!!! Holy nasty.

I screamed like I had seen a dead body and yes, there was the whole accompanying jumping up and down, acting ridiculously silly.  I can deal with blood and I have seen my fair share of nastiness but a bug sucking my blood... oh...my... gosh.  Pulled that bad boy off my body and with half my body totally exposed, hanging out the back window, I threw that bug as fast as I possibly could.

When I returned from work tonight, there were three more... on the floor. Turns out they are ticks and I no exactly where they came from and how they got in our hours. The other day we went to our mountainside play area where we often take our four-legged babies. When we arrived, I caught sight of a baby kitten so I decided to try to search it out -- not an easy task with 3 four-legged friends who don't really let you out of sight.  I never did find what looked like a 3 month kitten but I did trek through some high bushes, as did all three of my friends.  We obviously had picked up some additional "friends" in our search.

I didn't have the exaggerated freak out like I did when I found the one on my body but it was a freak out. Ended up scooping the three bugs into a small Tupperware and putting them into the freezer.  For all I knew these bugs could gang together and pop open the lid or chew through it so I thought I'd make them too cold to want to try any moves.

I hate bugs and now they are in my freezer.

I practically flipped my entire apartment upside down trying to search out if these buggers had friends and then I combed the heck out of Balboa, Pac and Pyen Chi. I even went so far as to get Snickers to wash them all with this special shampoo the vet had given us.  Having to shower and blow dry Pyen Chi is a beast of a task so Snickers did that while I vacuumed the entire house, again.

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