Growing Up....

I feel rather upset/emotional today. But in an extremely good way, if you know what I mean?

While at college, I formed friendships wiht a lovely group of people. We all remain extremely close several years later after graduating. We have all had our respective boyfriends and girlfriends and ups and downs through the years. The usual frienship stuff. Nothing too serious. Just a lot of laughs and hugs!

Well today I got a phone call from a female friend of mine. I'm closer to her than anyone else in the group for some reason. Anyway, she said she had news for me and asked to meet up. Two things ran through my mind. We met up and she told me she was pregnant. She has been going out with her boyfriend for near on ten years so I was delighted for her. Ecstatic in fact. So happy for her.

But then I felt such an overwhelming rush of emotions. I couldn't help but start crying. I just felt that she was the first of us to "grow up". And she is so little and cute and she is going to have this baby. I just wanted to help and protect her but didn't know how. I just want to mind her. I know her boyfriend will but I just feel so overwhelmed by it all. I can't believe it. I can't believe she is growing up so fast and having a baby!

It truly is great. I can't wait for her to give birth. It's going to be great.

Working 9 to 5, What A Way To Make A Living! Or Not, In My Case!

As of the 21st of August I am officially unemployed with seven months! The time has really flown by. In the beginning I spent most of the day trawling through recruitment websites desperately searching for a suitable job. It turned into an obsession. I felt I had to find a job and find a job fast. After two months of unemployment, in a cold, damp and dark two months I may add, I decided that I needed to get away on a cheapo holiday! Cheap as chips was the motto. And it was. But it was ideal. Just what I needed. It gave me time to think and with having no internet connection I was cut off from the world and unable to search for a job. Bliss.

So when I came back I didn't bother looking for another job for a couple of weeks. I had enough of the searching. I'd have a look every few days. Just a quick look really. Spend 10 or 15 minutes looking at the various recruitment sites. I found other ways to occupy myself.

I would meet friends more regularly. Babysit my baby niece. Visit my heavily pregnant cousin and help her out. Visit my grand parents. Prepare lovely meals. Gardening. Things like that.

So in effect, I was fine from April onwards. I was busy and enjoying the Spring/Summer and the long bright nights and more importantly, the warmth! Around the end of July I started to dread the Autumn coming. The nights would be drawing in. Weather would be getting colder and wetter (if that's possible). This really started to bother me. I couldn't face a long cold Winter stuck in the house.

A light bulb went off in my head one morning. I decided I was going to do some voluntary work. At first I was thinking of doing some work with a charity of some sort. I'd have a big interest in counselling/psychology/addiction studies, which is not even my field but I was still trying to think of places where I could work voluntarily. Then I thought why not do something to add to my work experience and do something within my own field, being finance.

Sent out a few emails and I started today for 1.5 days per week until January. I'm working in the Finance Department of a large organisation on a voluntary basis. They don't even like having me there voluntarily as they don't think it's fair that I do not get paid but they want to give me some experience that I can use on my CV. I am truly grateful to them for taking me on. It's great to be finally back in the workforce and talking to people and to just be in an office environment again.

I'm chuffed with myself for having had the idea in the first place. Ha.

Now let's all hope one of the nice ladies that I will be working with will get pregnant and I can get a maternity cover job!

There Is Nothing In A Catterpillar That Tells You It's Going To Be A Butterfly

OK. I fear I may be getting old. I just watched the below video and I can't help but feel I am growing more mature and appreciating the finer things in life! Maybe it's part of the maturing process I have been experiencing lately.......I will blog about this at a later date. Maybe my next post!

Anyway, this is a video with a very nice piece of music and there are "smoke signals" synched to the beat of the music. Watch out for when the strings start to play. Wow! Very pretty indeed.

Enjoy folks.

let yourself feel. from Esteban Diácono on Vimeo.

The Builders Are In!

We are building on a very small extension onto the house at the moment. Its near finished, after four weeks of work so far. The builders themselves are extremely neat and the mess is all contained in the immediate area where the building work is taking place. Unlike most builders who would just throw rubble and dirt all over the house and garden so I am very impressed with these builders!

However. I hate having anything done in the house. Does anybody else find that no matter what is going on the house itself, every single room in the house is disrupted? It drives me mad. I like everything just so and then there is turmoil in all my rooms.

It's so stressful. Now that the builders are nearly finished, probably in the next day or two, I'll have to wait for tilers, carpet layers, etc. So this disruption can go on for another week or two yet!

Does anybody else feel like this? Or is it just mean being a freak as usual? :)

The Weekly Trip To The Post Office!

Every Tuesday I diligently scamper off to the local post office. All happy and excited about getting "paid" for the week. I really do enjoy the build up to going to the post office. As much as I would love to be working, there is nothing like getting money for nothing!

This excited feeling that I experience doesn't last long. It usually turns into anger the moment I set foot inside the post office itself. Why? I hear you cry! Well when I get to the door of the post office there is usually one person, sometimes two, in front of me in the queue. That's not bad! I hear you say. Well actually it is.

You see, today I entered the post office at around 12.10pm and there was a middle aged lady at the counter.

He lost his card and it's from some new system that Royal Liver are putting in. I have an account number. She said.

I'll try that and see if it works. It didn't.

What am I going to do? I really should ring the comany and get a new one sent out.

Yes, you should. Otherwise we can't make your payment for you.

Now I dont usually make this payment at all. It's for my uncle. Is it made up of two payments? €7 and €15?

No it's one single payment of €22 per week.

It has to amount to €22 per week. It must be €7 and €15.

At this point the girl behing the counter was just bewildered and beaten down by this woman.

Erm...7 and 15 is 22.

Oh right. I see. So will I ring the company and get a new card?

I'd say that would be the best to do as otherwise we can't make the payment for you.

I'll do that later on. I have to go into town and look at some curtains in the sale.

I'm sure the post office teller was bothered about the woman's curtains!

Now, the pension book is done in a post office in the city and I want to get it changed to here. Can you give me the form?

There isn't a form. You fill in the back of the book itself and send it back and then they send it back to here for you.

That doesn't make sense. Sure, I won't be able to get the pension then for a few weeks when all that is going to and fro in the post!

This went on for another few minutes. I looked at my watch. It was now 12.25pm. 15 mins of this. Meanwhile a hefty queue was building up behind me. She eventually cleared off into town to get her curtains. I went up the desk and what was sitting there on the counter? Only her keys! 15 seconds later I was done and out the door quicker than shite off a shovel.

As I walked out the door, in she comes saying, Oh I forgot me keys. I won't get far without them!

I got into my car and then she got into hers. I was pulling out of my space and next minute she whizzes out of her space opposite mine and she barely missed me. She should come with a warning sign on her.

I was traumatised after my visit to the post office today. Worse thing is, its like this most Tuesdays. Grrrr.

I am sitting here now laughing away. Do you wonder why? Its because I am imaging her in the curtain shop as we speak...God Help Them!

Getting Life In Order

This weekend has been a very strange one indeed. It started on Thursday night and I was in a shop where I saw an item my sister was looking for so I phoned her to see if she still wanted it. Now my sister is the type of person that once they start talking they don't shut up. So here I was in a very busy store and my sister blabbing on about nothing really. Now, my sister and brother in law have an 11 month old baby and the three of them were heading to the UK for the weekend on Friday. It was kind of a trial run to see how the baby would get on in the plane.

Out of the blue my sister starts telling me how scared she was of flying with her baby. My sister is well used to travelling but this was different. She was thinking what if the plane crashes and the poor little baby only starting her life and then it'd be over. Stuff like that. Here am I in a crowded shop and my sister talking like this on the phone. I just said to her that the baby would probably survive as they kinda bounce. Strangely, that reassured her a little bit. THEN she said something which stuck me to the ground. She told me that if anything were to happen to them that I was to look after the baby. I had never even thought about it before. I suppose it'd make sense. I'd be delighted to raise the baby in that unfortunate circumstance which I hope never happens.

I was 20 mins on the phone to her in the shop. People must have thought that I was mad.

I came home and told my mother. She said she had been speaking to my sister aswell and she was told that in the even of an accident that we were to go to my sisters house and remove all items before my brother in law's family got there. As if that would be the first thing on our minds but anyway.

They came home from the UK yesterday and the baby was brilliant on the plane. Not a sound out of her. So all is well there.

Then yesterday morning I was in my grandmothers house. We aren't a huge family but its mainly my parents and my sister and I who visit my grandmother and who do most of the work for her. My grandmother called my father. She told him she is putting €1,000 in an envelope with his name on it and that we will find it when she passes on. He just laughed at her and told her not to be stupid.

What do you say in a situation like that? Thanks very much. That'll be great.

My other grandfather done something similar a few years ago. We are his only grandchildren and at Christmas he gave us an envelope which we thought was the usual Christmas card but it turned out to have €5,000 each in it. Again, he wanted to thank us for all we did for him before he died.

I hate the morbidity of this weekend. I know its inevitable but I really don't like dealing with things like that.

It certainly makes you wonder, what exactly it must be like for elderly people as they get older. What goes through their mind etc. It must be frightening.

There seems to be a lot of talk of death the last few months. Probably since my grandfather died in May of this year.

I hope things are starting to brigthen up now though. Since my grandfather died I have only ever seen one magpie. This happened on a daily basis. One little magpie sitting in the garden. Until Saturday afternoon. I looked out and saw one magpie. I then moved over a bit and saw another one. Two magpies. I have never been so glad to see two magpies in all my life!

Strange.

Hello! Is There Anybody Out There? Just Nod If You Can Hear Me!

What will they think of next?

I stumbled across a website this morning. It's a little bit out there!

But for the heck of it I said I'd let ye have a laugh with it. You can send text messages to the nearest planet to Earth! Total madness. But fun. I imagine a little green alien with all the old Nokia 5110's that the Jack and Jill Foundation get and he laughing his little alien ass off at all the mad texts he is receiving. Of course, he'd be on the Meteor network. Naturally.

http://www.hellofromearth.net/

(Jack and Jill Foundation are a great chairty and should be supported)