Looking for Jobs for the move ahead

The move to Singapore has The Husband and myself planning what we need to arrange and sort out before we get there. Because of TH’s job I will get a full visa and will be allowed to find work, however how easy it will be is another thing. Singapore is so full of people at the top of their game that it’s going to be quite hard to get something, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try. Any money that I am able to make will still go into a pot for when we come home so that we can buy our own home.

I was lined up to do some training with work, but because of this move everything im involved with will be winding down and work will be slowly taken from me. I look forward to being able to help with the training of somebody else and can’t wait to get into that role in the coming months. I was looking forward to all of the training that was lined up for myself. I had been accepted to a university course which would have been a great asset for my CV and would have been free as an employee. I was also lined up for some Project Management training which would have been great, but as it is I would have to pay for it, and I really don’t want to even start something I can’t finish right now.

What I have been looking at is getting other sorts of training under my belt so that when I look for a job abroad I will be able to get something half decent. I’ve been looking at lots of courses which I hope will help to set me apart-even if it is just to prove that I can do things off my own back.  Train the trainer training courses are for those who want to get into training others in organisations, so I hope that I can build on the times I tutored with computer training through the library. They do all sorts of courses and this will hopefully build on my skill set to make me look like a good future employee! The courses are mostly under £500 so are something that I am more easily able to get involved with and I seriously look forward to getting my teeth into something new. They do all sorts of things but right now I am looking at getting into something to do with education as we know people out there that run their own school. I hope that this does make me look a better candidate as I think it will be easier to meet new people if I have a job too.

This is such an exciting time and I am really trying to focus on all of the positives as I can be really averse to change so part of my looking at these courses is something to do with preparing myself for the move…. All we need to do now is pack up all of our worldly possessions, sort out all direct debits and bills, sell the car and excess furniture etc…. Hmm, not much then!

Singapore

Can't wait to get over there!

So excited for the move to Singapore

Sorted for Leaving

Sky has always been my go to TV package as it was the one I grew up with when I was little, but when trying to get my Mum the best deal I was keen to look about for a really good package. The point of these packages is to bundle together two or more services in order to make things more convenient and cheaper. This means that Mum would only have to pay one monthly bill rather than several and deal with only one company. With us moving away I was really keen to get my Mums broadband sorted so looked at some of the sky broadband offers available.

While looking up deals I noticed that you can either go for pre-made bundles that are aimed at people who are interested in different things, whether that’s sports, broadband, talking or watching films, or create your own so it’s tailored exactly to what they want from a multi-service bundle. Obviously, the more that is included, the more expensive the bundle will be and when trying to sort this out I found that my Mum is into the widest range of shows possible!

We are getting closer to the mark and with 15 weeks before we go we do have a bit of time. The list of things we have to get sorted ourselves is a bit scary, but I keep telling myself it will be worth it!

Make it Home

Hi everyone, we’re going through such an exciting time here so I haven’t been on the blog much. This year has been crazy, it’s made me crazy, and I’m only half way through it. So far we have unpacked half the boxes after the move as we only got heat a couple of days before Christmas (we still have loads of stuff in boxes). We battled through snow that eventually ended up coming up to my waist (sliding off the road is never how I want to start my day). We had power cuts and broken ovens, broken showers and disconnections, a wrecked garden and a bump to the car.

TH and I have been to the Doctors over stress and infertility. I took over the budgeting, stressed some more and then got things in order. We started to save, and boy have we saved (on average 60% of our take home pay!) but this has been hard.

My goal was to get out of the place we were renting. We wanted an actual contract and to feel safe and secure. We started to like where we lived more. It was about freedom to move about the beautiful countryside which we are surrounded by. I felt so alone not having neighbours, but I started to enjoy our home in a different way. We started to deal with stress and we felt better that we had medical professionals to help us through the infertility. We planned ahead. I booked a weekend away in Edinburgh for Christmas, we started to make more money by selling things and doing odd jobs. TH has taken up a bit of photography and I have a second job with getting And now it’s all change again.

I am changing the blog title to ‘Make it Home’. This is going to reflect the change that I’m no longer a homemaker full time and as a result I have less time to do the homemaking things I used to take for granted. It will also reflect the change to the type of home we will have in the near future. We have lived in a flat, a coastal cottage and a little house in the middle of a field in the time that I’ve been writing this blog. Now we’re moving again. I want every house we have to feel like home, to make it our home. I want this blog to chronicle our journey to our eventual home.

What I want this space to convey is the journey to the place you feel safe, I want this space to be about making things that make me feel like I have a proper home.

I said that we are moving, and we should be leaving our current house within the next three months. We are leaving the UK as The Husband has been told he has the job in Singapore. They want us out there for the beginning of November. We are getting a relocation agent to help us get organised and we will either get a house out there that is already owned or we will have to find a place to rent ourselves. TH will be working in the D10 area, so we are hoping to live around there. So far we have looked into taking Daisy Dog over, but that seems like a long process because of the wait to get air conditioned carriage for her.

So we are having an even bigger ebay clearout and more car boot sales, things are starting to get put back into boxes and packaged up. I am starting to get my CV organised and find out about banks and credit cards abroad. We have a super busy 3 months ahead of us, but we will get there.

Little Friends

The sun is extraordinarily sunny. The breeze is deliciously warm and sweet and I am so looking forward to the weekend. We’ve had seven weeks of sunshine and it’s just so wonderful to wake up to a clear blue sky. The garden has never been so used and I have been spending plenty of time laying on the grass reading my books.

The Husband loves the bigger garden for all of the ‘man jobs’ he can do out there and is in the process of making a garden bench from an old bed. Daisy Dog has also been spending her time luxuriously propped on an old duvet that we’ve dragged onto the patio where the sun spends most of the day. She intermittently wonders back into the house to cool off, but it’s so sweet to see another little soul doing what I wish I could do.

On a wee bit of a sadder note we are having our friends little girl to stay for the weekend as her parents are separating and need to get on with some of the stuff that just needs to get done. It is very lovely that we can take care of her for a little while or give her some TLC when she is down, but we know that there is an awful lot that must be going on in her head. We know that we can’t make the world a better place all at once, but we can make the little part of the world we inhabit better by trying to make lots of tiny little changes.

So, although I can’t give her what she wants the most, I can give her a bit of a break from thinking about what’s been pulling her down.

Smile

The Happiness Project Part 2

I am still in the middle of reading the wonderful Happiness Project and have felt that this book more than any other book of this kind has got me asking really important questions of myself. I said in the last blog post that I was going to read the whole book and then re-read it again slowly. I said this because it is one of those books that I love in which the sections are divided into months with an aim for each. It begins in January and January is all about aiming to get the most energy, then each month has a new aim added to the past months aims. This means that little by little things will change.

The book isn’t about a certain path being followed but shows the writers experience as well as asking lots of questions of the reader. I was reading the book in our back garden last night when I started to think about how my own happiness project would go. What things would I want to work on? What would my aims be? This is from the Happiness Project website and shows you how to get started (I’ve written my own answers next to each of the questions):

“Identify your aims
The First Splendid Truth will help you identify areas to tackle in your Happiness Project.
Ask yourself:
▪ What makes you feel good? What gives you joy, energy, fun?
Going for a walk. Reading. Chatting for hours over delicious food. Making others happy.
▪ What makes you feel bad? What brings you anger, guilt, boredom, dread?
Rudeness, unfairness and cruelty in others. Being unmotivated and lazy makes me cross at myself.
▪ What makes you feel right? What values do you want your life to reflect?
I want to be someone who is fair and helpful. I want to be able to look after children in my life. I want to show that education is important and that working hard is how to get what you want from life.
▪ How can you build an atmosphere of growth—where you learn, explore, build, teach, help?”
This is a much more difficult question and the reason that I am trying to read up a lot on this subject.

The author also made up 8 Splendid Truths and wrote little notes beside them:

1. To be happier, you have to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.
2. One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy;
One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.
3. The days are long, but the years are short.
4. You’re not happy unless you think you’re happy.
(Many argue the opposite case. John Stuart Mill, for example, wrote, “Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.” I disagree.)
5. I can build a happy life only on the foundation of my own nature.
6. The only person I can change is myself.
7. Happy people make people happy, but I can’t make someone be happy, and no one else can make me happy.
8. Now is now.
So far all that I know in my own project is that I need to start in the same way. I really want to start generating some energy within myself. I need to do things and eat things that make me more energised so that I can take more on and squeeze as much out of life as I can.

I hope this gives you a little insight into the book or at least gives you some questions you maybe feel you should be able to answer. Now get to the library!

So Happy

I've been reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin recently.  I'm only on February at the moment, but can't wait to get all the way through it in one go and then hopefully go back and re-read it properly with the hope of following through on a lot of what it says.

I love getting new books and have been reading more and more like this.  So although i can't say too much about it at the moment i can defiantly tell you that this is a really good read...so get to your libraries!