This Ambition of Mine

Aberdeen is built on some hills, and although I’m not at the top of a hill there is a wee bit of a dip down at the bottom of my road which then climbs up quite high above sea level. This gives me a perfect view when I go over the photocopier and peak out of the corner window. I can see all the way down the hill, past all the big fancy houses and over to a really pretty park then out to sea.

I therefore do an awful lot of the scanning, or ‘oh I’m just waiting for my print’, or really quite a general wonder around the office looking as if I’m on my way to something important, but really out for a walk. When I was younger I never wanted to work in an office, I wanted to be free. I wanted to spend all my hours doing a fun and exciting job, out and about in any weather. Now as I’ve got older I realise I just want to do my own thing, but then there’s money. So because I need money I’d much prefer to do any sort of job that pays me fine enough, keeps me warm and dry, lets me walk in some days at 10 and lets me leave some days at 4. I like the people I’m with, and when its home time that’s when I do the fun or fulfilling stuff. Maybe one day I’ll work the two in together, but for now this is working.

My friends friend is graduating in December and saying she’ll take a year off to find herself. Her Mum has bought her a house and she says she’ll never be found in an office, (God forbid), she is going to DO something with her life…. Well, good luck to her! I can certainly say that I am not jealous of that. When I left Uni it was the worst experience ever. Firstly you have to pay council tax, then just as you earn more you find out there is a threshold for you paying tax-you just never reached it before now. You instantly find all your friends dispersed across the country, you don’t have parties and clubs to visit and the goal you had since you announced you were going to University in your Primary 7 project ‘what I want to do when I’m bigger’ is suddenly gone!

Nope, I would rather be good old boring me. I would much rather let my mind go blank and enjoy the view from the train journey in the morning. I would much rather happily sit and get my work done, but be able to put it aside at the end of the day, or even at lunch time to go and do my own thing. I am more than happy that I will not be contacted at the weekend. This isn’t lack of ambition, my ambition was to go to the wonderful University that I went to. My ambition was to create a lovely home, this is something that I’m doing now and I’m saving for our future home. My ambition really is to have children, whether I give birth or not-they will be little people I help to raise. My ambition is to have a house where other little ones are welcome. It is to have a friendly house with enough money to pay bills, food in the fridge and a warm environment. I couldn’t care less about what I have to do to get the basics-I am more than happy being pleased by gardens, and birds and walks. I delight in cooking for my family. I want people who visit to feel calm, I am so proud if someone snoozes after a big dinner at our home, this is what gives me joy!

Now, I’m just off to post this very important letter…*ah, stepping out into sunshine*

Every Penny Helps

I’ve been reading lots of blogs about saving money recently, hoping to find ideas I haven’t already had. I can’t really do a list, as I think so many of them really have ideas that we all know are good, we just sometimes can’t be bothered with them! There are a couple that I think I will do. For example one said to save as if it was a direct debit, which I do think is a good idea as I love direct debits as then I can never forget about bills and get a fright when a new bill comes through the door! One also said you should ‘bank’ any spare money like in The Weakest Link, I defintly think it is out of sight, out of mind for me too.


I’m already selling some things I never use on ebay, and my paypal account which was empty in January now has £64 in it! I was very proud, as I wasn’t doing anything with what we sold. The thing now is to only spend it on something we needed anyway. I certainly am guilty of finding these little piles of pennies and using them for a treat! Hopefully we can have a carboot sale soon. There is a big place close to us that has them on a Sunday morning, so it is when I already work. Last year we kept meaning to have one, but the weather was so awful I was glad I didn’t take a day off to help out. They normally last 9 hours (as you are pretty tightly locked into the selling area), so it would be TH and I together so one could at least nip to the loo if need be!

TH is a reiki practioner and is hoping to extend his client base (this is his site here). One day I hope he does it full time as it makes him so happy, but I think it would also be quite scary starting out a new business, and now isn’t really the time. He has been getting some training for using the hopi candles properly and all of the types of massage that should be done with them, so I think he’ll be able to start advertising his skills in that too. TH’s friend also sells salt lamps and we said we’d help out with that. I love them to bits anyway-and they were so helpful when we moved into the new house and it was a bit dampish and cold, so I know I could sell them with real passion!  I'll be sales person of the month in no time!

Ferris Bueller Has Nothing On Me

Days off mid week are utterly delicious. They are like stolen gems of time and are enormously more fun than a week-end. Those are simply days off for working all week. These are the days spent chasing those chores that slipped away when you came home too tired. Week days spent lounging are like a month of Sundays-rare, but even the thought of them make your toes wriggle with delight.


Tomorrow is one such day. Tomorrow is for hanging washing on the line outside, a big pot of tea and the papers. It is for a big breakfast and for a jaunt into town. It is for a look around the delis and charity shops. It is for tea and cake where ever we wish to visit. For garden centres and gardening. Tomorrow will be good.

Paradise would be...

"I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library." Jorge Luis Borges

The walk to the bus stop is short but the wait for the bus is long. It has been held up again. The fences have been blown away and there is sheep on the road. The bus trundles into the village, fighting against storms that hurl rage and wind unparalleled in strength. I begin to wonder if I should just let nature win. If I have lost this battle and should return home where it safe and warm and familiar, I do not know what this weather will turn into. My hair is whipped around my face, but through it I see the bus. It is dark and I hold my torch onto the road in front of me. There are no street lights near me and I don’t want the bus to splash me as it passes by.
On board I squeeze down the aisle fattened like a Christmas bird, but with layers of jumpers, jackets and scarves. I'm undressing as I descend through layers of red weather beaten faces, I want to reach the back, I want two seats together to place my things. Seated at the back, wet throughout I rummage in my bag to find something that will make it better. I find my book. I'm not in the bus anymore. I'm on an island or reading about an amazing person. I am finding criminals or moving from poor house to big house. I am not on the bus, I am with my book, and that, quite frankly, is my kind of paradise.

 

Busy, Busy, Busy

I still do the occasional shift at my old job in the big black and orange DIY store. It is good for pin money, discount and I have a lot of good friends there.

Apart from it being a place for me to get good value garden things round about this time of year it becomes a good place for me to see Christmas things!

I know that it is annoying when shops do this, I completely agree that starting to doll the place up in glitter and glitz this many weeks before Christmas makes it water down the excitement that you do get.

However when it first appears and it does look sparkly and new it is quite nice, and normally made better because if you do get one small thing from the pile of decorations and fairy lights it makes you feel very organised and smug!

I have been working the last couple of days because of all of the people taking time off while their little ones are on holiday and now is the time that I am seeing all of these decorations being put on the shelves.

I'm even prematurely congratulating myself because I have been earning a little extra and have not yet blown budgets when I leave shopping until the last minute! Hmmm shall we wait and see how long this lasts!

Every so often I make myself a big pot of tea and plan to write on here. I get half way through describing a place I have been or a book I have read and I stop only to delete the paragraph, get up and start washing the dishes.

I do however spend time reading other blogs, which say, do and make many things I wish I could.

The Husband and I recently returned from a lovely two week holiday in Cyprus, and I guess very much like a New Year makes us say we will act differently, and I feel a break does the same.

This leads me to the point of why I wish to write on here now, and not get up half way through. I wish to say that I haven’t fulfilled many of my New Years Resolutions, and getting into my favourite season is going to spur me on to do what I actually want to do with my own free time.

My New Seasons resolutions are to use up the flexi days that I am entitled to through work. I am very lucky to be given an opportunity which not a great many have, so I will use it…and do you know that in my head they are already spent? I plan to potter, and potter a great deal. I plan to use up weekday holidays moving plant pots from one room to the other. I plan to use them by completing a great book in a day. I plan to drink plenty of tea.

Another resolution would include spending more quality time with The Husband, who falls into a category marked ‘other’ at present. We sit together when there is not another task to do, we walk together when there are not other people wanting our time and we collapse together when we are tired from the activities of the day.

I look forward to bringing these resolutions into the Autumn, and I also look forward to actually blogging in the season too.

Time to breathe

Its been a long time coming, but i can finally breathe.  I'm starting my new job soon, but for now i am without work, and i couldn't be happier.  I am in a very lucky position where i know I'm starting soon, but I've got time to tidy up, redecorate and make things beautiful, and make beautiful things in time for Christmas!

 Im finally starting to get the festive feeling and get back to looking at everyones lovely bloggs. 

x

Would you like to be my grown up?

Stress-it can rule some people’s lives, different people find different things stressful, but it can ruin everything if you let it take over. I AM STRESSED. Right now I’m having an awful horrible time at work, and it’s very hard to leave it at the end of the day. I wish that if there were to be job related stress it was in my other ‘just doing it to make the pennies’ job, but its not, its in the job I had hoped to spend the rest of my life in…the worst part of it all is that it’s a person that’s making me feel like this.

I am currently willing to try anything I can to feel better, so I will be all ears if anybody has ideas.
At the moment I'm doing the whole ‘think of something nice as soon as a bad thought pops in my head’, but I'm taking a whole lot of deep breathes over here! It’s really making me weigh out what I want from work and what I want in my life. I think the scales are overloaded at one end of the scale, and I know to change that I need to make some very grown up decisions. I need to be brave and I need to do what’s best for the family that The Husband and I have created with each other. It’s a very scary time right now, as I’ve always been a bit lucky and floated into a lot of nice options.

Who wants to be a grown up for me? Please?...um, hello out there!

What a difference a season makes

I used to be a bit of a night owl, that is, until I started this new job, I am now a ‘up and at em-bright and early person’ and I think that this change works out well. What with living in our new home and the start of spring peeping at me –hidden for too long underneath the frost- that this is the perfect time for change. Change of the seasons, a change for me, and overall-a big change in our home. The change in sleeping patterns has come on really slowly, after a couple of days where I woke up at 4 thinking I was going to sleep in for my 6.15 alarm call I’ve really settled into my new routine.
Poor Husband and pup have had to fall into line too, but The Husband has just started a completely new job too, and one of the best things for him…and possibley worst for me, is that he is away an awful lot. Its very exciting that he gets to visit Australia and a whole host of other places on the other side of the world, but one, it knocks his sleeping patterns all over the place, and two….the great big problem is that I miss him, and generally find it difficult to sleep.

So getting off to bed early with big plans still whirring about my head is an ok way to deal with things, and that’s how I'm going about it at the moment. It does mean that I instinctively wake up bright and early AND I get to see the sunrise…magical. I love waking up and listening to the wonderful Chris Evans on Radio 2, I love making a giant pot of tea to trip back and forth to while getting ready. I love taking the short walk with the pup to the shop for my paper and still trodding on the frost from the night. I love the difference waking at a different hour makes. I love looking forward to spring, and I love thinking of the possibilities that can come from this year.
Have a wonderful day.
x

Where's the week gone?

What a time has went by and how i have been ignoring all life in blogland.  I have, however, been awfully busy.  That's why i couldn't  post about any weight...ahem, loss?  I haven't had any weight loss at all, but i didn't post because of me putting on 1lb (hangs head in shame)....I'm too bad, but i didn't hide away and not post because of that, i haven't posted because I've been working away....AT MY NEW JOB.

Not a very exciting job, but a job all the same.  I still work at the library, but as i was only doing that part time, and as i have a magazine habit (not to mention CK habit, shopping habit...any other naughty costly shopping related habits there could be), i needed some more cold hard cash!!  So I've gone and got myself a part time job at one of those giant emporiums that are quite literally taking over the world..yup, I'm a lowly drone for some shop...but hey-it keep my family better of and my home warm!! Oh my goodness, and we need a warm home-the snow has started up again....its been a long winter!
x

What a week, what a week..

What a week, ranting, horrible, evil work week!!  When Friday rolled around it was all I could do not to scream out loud because I had already promised to do a shift swap for someone and I had to work on Saturday morning.

There I was, almost skipping from the building, when a giant rain cloud passed right over me...and......let the sun peep through!!  It was the biggest smile I had on my face all week!!  So there I went, walking-the boss was too close for me to do any skipping at this point really, on to the bus stop when what should happen?....the bus appears right away to take me into town for a bit of 'pick me up' shopping.

Anyway, the sun was getting brighter and brighter the more we headed into town, so much so that I treated myself to a milk shake once I got into Union Square.  After a little look around the shops (why is it that when you find you have money there isn't anything in your size?), and a bit of a nice wonder about, I got straight onto the bus home...where I found The Husband and his friend having a very fun afternoon eating olives, cheese and bread in the back garden...talk about medicine for an awful week!  A couple of hours of the weekend had me in a very good mood again!!

From there we walked down to the harbour, where we met a friend for drinks in their garden at the beach and we pretty much sat there for three hours although it only seemed like three minutes!  We got home, got the BBQ and firepit set up and ate so much chicken, burgers and smores that we almost fell asleep outside under our little blankets!

I am really, really working on not sweating the small stuff, I promise I am, and this weekend has really been exactly what I needed.  I am so, so lucky to have a great husband, lovely friends, and to be happy with what I have (most of the time!!).

I hope everyone's had a great weekend too!

Sheila

x x x