Growing up

When was the first time you truly felt like an adult?

A couple of weeks ago I was in a Mediterranean restaurant with about twenty of our friends for a birthday celebration. During the evening I gazed around as people relaxed round two huge circular dining tables, pouring wine, mixing up dressing from the bottles of Spanish vinegar and oil and laughingly passing round olives and crusty bread.

It suddenly struck me that I am an ADULT. No one organised for me to be there. I wasn’t just tagging along with my parents. I was there because I was part of a group of intelligent, engaging people who liked me for who I am.

Now, this might seem a little random and I’m certainly not saying I feel immature or out of my depth. It was just one of those light bulb moments where you feel how did this happen? When did I make the transformation from gawky teenager, to shy student to happy-as-I-am adult. Weird.

I guess all of this has been going round in my head because we are making some big decisions at the moment. In the next couple of weeks we will be taking another step towards our future, and will be finding out whether the door we’re pushing is going to be opened wider or slammed in our faces.

We’ve also recently found that a couple of our close friends are having a baby. They are the first in our close friendship group and it just makes you realise that we are getting to the age where loads of our friends seem to getting married and having babies.

 I wonder if people look at Josh and I and think we have it all together? I’ve already made the link between ‘growing up’ and ‘getting married’ – and we’ve been married for over two years. While, I’m not saying I feel immature (in fact Josh and I have had to deal with lots of situations that you could say are beyond our years), I’m not saying I feel like I have it all together either…

 I’ve got a feeling that becoming an adult is one of those mythical statuses that you aim to achieve as a child. Like turning 16 or 18…when you actually get there it doesn’t feel any different.

 So…a question for you. When was the first time that you felt like a real adult?

Welcome our new addition

I would like to introduce a new addition to our family.

Meet Ieuan (pronounced Yay-an) the Syrian Hamster.

Ieuan joined the family a week ago. He wasn’t really planned, but we had been thinking about getting a pet for a while. I didn’t really want any pet other than a dog, and Josh wanted a fish, so we went for a compromise and got a hamster instead.

Last Wednesday we moseyed down to the pet shop and Ieuan was the first hamster to run up to the bars of the cage to say hello. In hindsight maybe we should have realised that it would be a mistake to take the most energetic, lively hamster there. The first thing he did when the shopkeeper opened the cage was to fling himself into the wild beyond off her hands and land on his back on the floor. Then later when Josh was holding him he made another break for it. Unfortunately Josh was talking to the shop keeper at the time so I put my hands out to try and stop him escaping. Josh assumed I wanted to hold him and so let him go. By which time Ieuan was off like a shot, clawing his way all over me before, again, shooting off into the wild blue yonder and landing on his back on the floor.

So…maybe not the best of starts. But as we had already nearly killed him twice we felt an obligation to take him home. Ieuan has settled into his new home well (which by the way is proportionally bigger to Ieuan than our own flat is to us – such luxury!) and we’ve been handling him daily and he has calmed down a lot.

I really wasn’t sure about getting a pet. I mean, small animals don’t do a lot and you just have to clean then out and feed them. But my affection for him is growing daily. Josh is out so much that it’s nice to have Ieuan out running in his ball while I sit reading on the sofa at night. He already recognises the sound of our voices and comes out of his bed to say hello when we get back from work, and he loves being groomed (which he needs because he has funky hair which sticks up in all directions!).

So, until we live somewhere we can have a dog, Ieuan is the next best thing. Welcome to the family!

Mrs M’s Marriage Tips

Now that Josh and I have been married for two years I don’t think that the term ‘newlyweds’ really refers to us anymore.

Perhaps now we have been married for 104 weeks, people will stop giving up that ‘oh aren’t they cute and young’ look and saying “soooo….how’s married life then?!”

Now that I have been a Mrs for over 731 days I thought that maybe I now qualify to crinkle my nose in a companionable way and to give some unsolicited advice of my own.

So, here we have it. For all my just married, or soon to be married friends here’s Mrs M’s top 5 marriage tips;

1. Girls, guard your socks. Might sound weird but it just needs a man to mistake your sock for theirs one time and their great oaf feet will stretch it out of all proportion. Or you could only buy pink sparkly socks, that could work.

2. It might take you a while [read: a year] to get used to the fact that there is MAN sleeping in your bed at night, but don’t worry – one day you’ll come to appreciate exchanging foot fives before you go to sleep.

3. Unfortunately saying “FINE, we’re made up” doesn’t really count as an argument ender (or an apology).

4. It’s always better to laugh than cry. Washing machine just exploded? Car broken down in the middle of a roundabout? If something stressful is going down or you’re just getting worked up try and put it into perspective. Is it really worth having an argument over? Could this be turned into a happy memory just by laughing?

5. Always remember that marriage is made up of Fish and Chips* Feelings and Choices. When Josh and I were dating I knew I wanted to be with him forever because even when I imagined a future without him I would suddenly stop short and think ‘Oh, if Josh wasn’t around I couldn’t tell him that’. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to kill him sometimes, but I’ve made that choice to share my future with him and that means whatever our problems are, we face them together instead of letting them get between us. Once you have decided that, nothing seems so hard.

Well, that’s all from Mrs M today…I guess now that I have been married for about 17544 hours I just get to look forward to the “so when are you going to have kids?” comments!

*It’s from our wedding sermon. A post for another day perhaps?

Still laughing…

Just a quick post to share some hilarity, because it’s bringing me joy every time I think about it…

Yesterday Josh went into our local bakery to get some lunch. He’s a cheerful chap so always likes to make some small talk with the people on the till, and like any good British citizen yesterday he chose to talk about the weather.

“It’s very hot”

“I BEG YOUR PARDON?” spluttered the woman on the till incredulously

“Erm…the weather” replied Josh, turned beetroot red “it’s very hot…”

“OH, I thought you said I was hot”

Hahahahahaha…still laughing 24 hours later

Flat – Before and After (Part 1)

Bedroom (before we moved in)

 

Bedroom now - complete with chaotic shelves

Bedroom now - small but perfectly formed

See the teddy bear in the bottom left of the photo? I found the following photo on an old CD the other day. He is nearly 23 years old now and still going strong!

Yes, I was that small once

Hall before - uncleaned and full of previous tenants junk

Hall now - Clean and full of OUR junk

Check back tomorrow for more before and after photos.

Staff Fun

Monday was our annual staff day out, which is always looked forward to with a mix of trepidation and hilarity.
This year we went to ‘King Arthur’s Labyrinth’ which didn’t really help quell the over-excited among the group*.

*The Children's Worker

It was, as expected, hilarious.

You’re taken into ‘the past’ by a mysterious cloaked man on a boat into some underground caves and made to walk around in the dark with only a few small lamps dotted around while you’re told some of the lesser known legends of King Arthur . One of which involved a head in a box…

 

I can't really remember was this was about

Most of us regressed back into childhood happily…

The we headed back to Aber to my boss’ house for a BBQ. Her husband is a butcher and we had pretty much every meat you could think of. SOOO good! Sorry I don’t have any photos, I was too busy stuffing my face.

Then, in the evening Josh and I headed out to do some moth trapping, and I had one of the best wildlife experiences of my life.
Unfortunately I have guests coming over in an hour and I need to start preparing food. Check back tomorrow and I’ll tell you all about it. For now, here’s a taster…see if you can work out what we saw that was so amazing…

Answers on the back of a postcard please...

First Impressions

Attention people! Operation move Josh and Rachel has begun! I have reached a stage of barely concealed panic as I have just collected the keys for the new flat and have realised how much stuff we are going to have to cram into such a small space.

 I visited the flat in my lunch hour for a proper look round. It seems a little rough and ready in places but overall it’s nice.

I’m especially excited about the fact that…

• We now have a proper comfy sofa, as opposed to the hard, tiny uncomfortable ‘sofa’ we had in the old flat which wasn’t suited to lounging or entertaining.
• We have radiators and central heating and a BOILER opposed to useless storage heaters so we can be warm in winter and actually have hot water for washing up when we need it.
• We have carpets! Okay, so they’re a bit raggedy but it’s better than laminate any day!
• We have curtains rather than the weird blinds that we had in the last flat. Curtains! That open and close! I’m easily pleased…
• We have a table in our kitchen which means we can keep the lounge just for sitting rather than dining!

I am not so excited about the fact that…

• There still seems to be a lot of junk lying around from the previous tenant which will mean things will be even more cramped until we manage to get rid of it
• There isn’t a space for the washing machine where we thought there would be. That means we are going to have to have it in the bathroom which is already small. It’s not ideal.
• The bedroom is tiny!

We have around 15 people who have said they will help us with the move tomorrow. I just want it to be over! Anyway, why am I writing this when there is panicking packing to be done?!

Updates and some money making schemes

Firstly, hopefully this will be one of the last times I have to stay late at work to use the internet to update my blog because we should be getting internet in the new flat when we move in next week! Horray! We figured that we can afford it with the new lower rent, and it’s also getting really annoying not having internet at home and having to remember to do everything after work and in my lunch breaks. PLUS, we can watch BBC iplayer which will mean we don’t rent so many films!

Secondly, Josh didn’t get his ideal job. If I had written this 3 hours earlier I would be ranting but I have just about got over the disappointment now. They wanted him to work Sundays, and he didn’t want to work Sundays. We have already been told we are being too picky, but he doesn’t want to be missing church. That’s the decision he has made and he’s sticking to it. I feel frustrated as nothing seems to be going right for us but all we can do is keep trusting that something will come up soon.

In the meantime I have been coming up with some handy moneymaking schemes and as long as we keep to our (tight) budget we should be okay.

As I have mentioned before I would love to be able to make a living by selling my pictures, cards and other crafts. When I was at university I began selling my cards under the name ‘Just Original Creations’. I sold enough cards here and there to make a bit of pocket money for uni but stopped making them during my finals and when we first got married due to lack of time.

Now, as money is tight we are thinking of every way possible to make money and so I decided to revive Just Original Creations and put some items for sale in the bookshop I manage.

I have started off by producing a couple of seascape themed photo-frames each containing three photos with a chunky plain black frame. I have only made two so far because we didn’t have the money spare to buy loads of frames but I sold 2 within 3 days of putting them out in the shop and already have another on order. I really need to get round to making up some more as I seem to be onto a winner!

Also, have you ever heard of fotolia or istockphoto? I hadn’t until last week but apparently you can upload your photos and then companies or individuals pay around 60p to buy each print. There are loads of really good quality photos on there so it’s not a dead cert you will make any money but we have loads of really good hoverfly and butterfly pictures which seem like they could fit into a fairly untapped niche market. If we don’t try we’ll never know!