The mystery of September 4th at 12pm

You know those forward planning bits you have at the back of your diary? Well when I came to change diaries last month (Yea, I still think in academic years) I noticed that in the September section I had written

“4th 12pm”

 It’s been worrying me ever since. How could I have been so stupid? This is me we’re talking about. My diary as pretty much become an extension of my arm in the last couple of years. We have so much going on that I don’t even bother to try and remember any of it, it all just goes down in the diary.
With neat little codes and highlighted annotations…sigh

So, what was happening on the 4th September at twelve? Was I meeting a bookshop rep, did we have a meeting with the police or someone from the council? Was it even about me, or was it work related? Was I meant to be reminding someone else of something important?

Then, a couple of days ago my worries were relived. I got a text message from my dentist reminding me that I had a dentist appointment on 4th SEPTEMBER at 12PM. Horrah for technology!

Normally I hate these text messages. Every other one I have received I had grumbled about big brotherish modern technology. Why can’t people ever write down their appointments? Surely people survived before mobile phones were around? But it looks like this time it saved my bacon. Not even I can be a super efficient office administrator all the time I suppose.

However, next time I won’t need a text message to remind me. This time it’s going to be highlighted in the diary with neon pen. DENTIST 5TH MARCH 12.30PM.

Introducing Thomas

My last guest blogger of this week is Thomas from The Week that Was. I met Thomas at University. Unfourtunatley he has left Aberystwyth now, so blogging has made it easier for us to keep up with each others goings-on. Thomas is lovely and his blog is great, especially as he keeps me on my toes challenging me with his campaigning efforts for various charities. Go and check it out!

If you’re anything like me, you would have checked your blog feeds/roll/subscriptions (however you actually check your blogs) and became excited when you saw that Rachel has updated her blog. Sorry to disappoint, but she hasn’t. Instead, Thomas of The Week that Was has, so you’ll have to make do with him I’m afraid.

When I was asked to be the guest blogger I instantly said yes, and then the realisation dawned. I’d have to write something. And it’d have to be good. Suddenly the art of blogging, because let’s face it, it is an art, was suddenly foreign. I’m quite happy drawing my childlike pictures (to run with the art metaphor) and admiring the Vincent Van Goghs of the blogging world, but then to be commissioned to actually create something good is a tad bit scary.

But what to write about? Lasagne recipes? No, I cheat with sauces in a jar. Churches? No, stuffchristianslike.blogspot.com does it too well already. Blogs? A bit too meta, and Rachel’s done it before. Jobs? Ah, I have a few funny anecdotes about them.

Recently I’ve been job hunting. I already have a job, as a youth worker, but that’s only for 12 hours a week. So I need to something else with my time, and I don’t fancy taking up knitting. One place was the Daily Echo jobsite. The Daily Echo, for international readers (i.e. Northerners/ Welsh and Americans), is a Pulitzer Prize winning local newspaper. I entered my details. Part-time, please. Within 10 miles of Southampton, please. And the first five were full time posts in Canada. Now, there is a small village in the New Forest called Canada, but I don’t think they have much need for a refrigeration/air-conditioning mechanic. The requirement that the applicants must be passport holders makes me dubious as well. Another job listed was a receptionist, and it quite clearly stated that the salary was £7.50. Okay pay? Not really. £7.50 per annum. Refreshments are provided though, the advert cheerfully insisted.

I’ve found some possible jobs to apply for but the all leave me with multiple dilemmas. You’ll have to read my blog for that though…

I originally forgot to give this a title…I can’t think of anything witty so this will have to do

I’m finally, reluctantly writing a blog entry under the instruction of my beloved brother (don’t use online translators – they make up words). I haven’t written an entry for a long time, I know. I’ve been busy doing various, unblog worthy things and (at the risk of sounding old) the days have just been rushing by.

Blogging hasn’t been at the top of my agenda, and to be totally honest my fingers have been hovering over the ‘delete blog’ button an awful lot lately.
If it wasn’t for the fact that my family use it to keep up with our comings and goings I would have clicked it by now. I feel like time is rushing by with nothing much to report, life is dull.

Or maybe I’m just tired and grumpy because work has been really busy lately and I haven’t been able to be bothered to go on the computer again when I get home, and soon things will be back to normal and I’ll get over it.

Yes, I think that’s probably right too. The world’s best advice. Get. Over. It.

ANYWAY (sorry, feeling a bit weird today), lets attempt to do some sort of recap of the last few weeks…

Welsh week was really tiring but good. It surprising how even a small amount of Welsh can help you understand things that are around all the time. However I haven’t really been practicing (for the reasons stated above) and feel like I have probably forgotten quite a lot. I enjoyed being back in an academic environment though and having my brain stretched by something other than people complaining about the fact they can’t work the carpark machine. I also now own a bilingual diary, but I made Josh buy if from the Welsh shop because I was too scared.

The weekend after the Welsh course we went away to Ffald-y-Benin to sooth our tired minds. It’s a Christian retreat centre in the middle of nowhere. Very, very relaxing and absolutely beautiful. It was also really exciting and encouraging to hear of some of the stuff that is going on there. They have a really powerful Christian healing ministry and it was great to hear some first-hand stories about how they have seen God working in awesome ways – growing people’s limbs back and things like that. They have written a book about it called ‘The Grace Outpouring’ which is meant to be really good, and which I plan to read soon. Available from all good bookshops (including mine!).

View from Ffald-y-Brenin

Then it was back to office to find a huge mound of things that needed to be done. I’ve been working flat out for the last 2 weeks and have just about caught up with things now. I have been doing a lot of design work which I love, so it wasn’t all bad (such as the postcard featured in the last post)

I think that’s about it for now. If you’re in Aber we would love to see you at the film festival each Wednesday at 7.30pm and if you’ve got kids that are already bored by the summer holiday don’t forget to check out the Showstoppers holiday club that is starting next Monday in the bandstand – it’s free!

Enjoying Sunny Wales

My family came to visit

we went to Aberaeron

then we went to New Quay and walked along the coast path

...it lived up to its name of being the best place to see dolphins in the UK (that dot is one!!)

It was a perfect summer's day. The End.

A thousand horrays

Josh got the job! Yipppee!
He’s now going to be working for Prospects, which is an organisation that works with people with learning disabilities to enable them to live their lives to the full and to gain a valuable range of skills.

This is great because
a) it’s a very worth while thing to be involved with
b) he’s going to love it because he’s a real people person
c) it’s going to be great experience for him and will be good for his CV for vicar school
d) We’re no longer going to have to scrimp and save on every penny

Praise the Lord!

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!

Eco-buttons and Avoidance Tactics

I’m pretty sure that when the electrician who is testing the church circuits got up this morning, he didn’t think ‘today I am going to ruin the office administrator’s day’. Well he did. Well done to him.

I’m pretty sure he also didn’t realise that the office administrator is in a highly fragile and stressed state and being (very) patronising about her eco-buttons would make her want to pick up the said eco button and throw it at him, along with the computer it’s attached to. Hard.
However, because the office administrator is too polite to say what she actually thinks instead she will just burst into tears and have to go and find her husband for a hug.

Apparently, the stand-by eco buttons I bought caused our computers to black-out this morning making us lose our work. How convenient that it is the stand-by buttons, which incidentally have never caused this to happen before, and not the electricians which have been tripping the switches for three days. Anyway, I’m going to stop ranting because I have already done that here.

I’m really stressed about moving. I don’t really know why – it shouldn’t be a big deal. We’re only eight days away from taking over the new flat and I haven’t really prepared at all. I just keep using avoidance tactics…like going for a walk in the woods instead of packing. We don’t have a lot of room to pack things up and leave it and so I need to pressure of actually moving imminently to motivate me to work.

Anyway…enough of the ranting and complaining already! Enjoy some photos from our walk last night. Imagine the woodlands around you, alive with bird song and the smell of damp earth and new spring growth swirling around you. Forget you’re at work and you’re having a bad day…and relax.

Get Back to Work

Our holiday is over and we are back in Aberystwyth and back at work. I can’t quite decide whether it’s a good thing or not. I love visiting friends and family, and I hate the fact that we are too far away from them to just visit for a day here and there, but I do tend to get a little restless when I’m not doing anything constructive.