crazy life

I am loving my new job, and am getting used to the changes it has brought - mainly the hours I work. I still have to figure out when and what to eat when I’m working a long day and evening! Four egg mayo sandwiches in one day was a bit much!

Today we were supposed to exchange contracts on our new house. It hasn’t happened but we hope it will tomorrow. Then we’re into packing mode! We move at the end of a really busy week for me work wise and a day before hubby goes of for 10 days of work and two days before I go on holiday! Our life for the next month will be out of boxes! And I’ve also got an assignment to improve before sending it off just three days before we move!

This afternoon I started to read the long list of blogs I regularly read. It took me far too long, so I’ve cut the list drastically. I’ll eventually get into a routine of when I read blogs, check emails and even write on this one! I also have a hope of starting a food blog, but that will have to wait a while. Most plans are on hold now until the end of August - by which time I hope to be settled in a new home as well as a new job!

Meme

I’ve seen this around blogworld recently, and thought I’d have a go. Kathryn invited anyone to have a go, so here it is!

Rules: The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about himself or herself. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

Ten years ago: I was sitting my first year exams at Loughborough Uni. My degree was in Engineering Physics, and I’ve not used it since! About this time I would also have begun to date my now husband! (The relationship ended in July ‘98 but we got back together in Mar ‘01)

Five things on today’s “to do” list:

1) Gardening - weeding mainly.

2) Read draft assignment, cover it in questions, edit it and hopefully complete it!

3) Clean the house - bathroom especially, and the kitchen floor.

4) Prepare for tomorrow’s sunday school group (done)

5) Wash the towels (done)

Things I’d do if I was a billionaire:
Re-decorate my new house before I move in (new bathroom and kitchen included). Buy a peaceful getaway home (by the coast or in the lake district). I always used to have a dream of a church which provided for all the needs of its community from the one (mega) building. I’m not sure whether I would build this now or whether I’d fund a youth project or something. I’d definitely do something community orientated.

Three bad habits:
1) Having to read blogs before I start work in the morning. (This one will have to change when I change jobs)

2) Putting my hands/fingers over my mouth, touching my nose. It’s a comfort thing.

3) Watching far too many soaps!
Five places I’ve lived: It was great to only have three addresses to write on my last CRB check!

1) Parents home in Surrey

2) Loughborough Uni (halls, then two student houses)

3) Bury, Manchester

4) Leicestershire (village then back to Loughborough for a year)

5) Back to Surrey again!

Five jobs I’ve had:
1) Saturday assistant in a bakery

2) Scanning Electron Microscope Operator! (part of my degree year in industry)

3) Youth worker

That’s it! Though the youthworker has taken different forms.

 

journals

I have two journals (apart from this one that is). I have a prayer journal, which is really my personal journal, where I share everything with God from prayers of praise to prayers of desperation. I’ve been writing this journal since 1998! I also have a work journal. This is relatively new to me, as I’ve gone through keeping recordings of my work, to blogging on a private blog, and now to writing reflections connected with my work in a journal. It was my study which prompted the writing of reflections on my work, and now I think I’m happy with the format I’ve settled on - my relatively new work journal. The key principles for my journals are that I write in them when I want to, which tends to be at least once a week. This freedom means that when I do write and reflect, I am motivated to do so, and the reflections are actually useful to me!

Then there’s this place! The focus is really just my life, stuff I want to remember, stuff that I want to think through that doesn’t belong in my other two journals! Over the years I’ve been blogging, the focus has changed from time to time, but I enjoy blogging and I guess that’s why I do it. I also really enjoy reading it back, reliving some of the memories.

A new start.

This is where I join wordpress! A new start to my blogging.  I’ve taken a break of 5 months from blogging, and it’s good to be back, this time anonymous. Hubby is going to think I’ve gone crazy!

The name - Work ahead - there certainly is. A new house and a new job are on the horizon, and then there’s my study, and the work I want to do on myself (mentally, physically and spiritually!) There’s certainly a lot of work ahead.

Blogger posts below. Let me explain the strange array of posts below. They’re taken from two blogs I’ve had in the past. Some of the posts were from my private blog (that now I’m happy to make public) and others are from my public blog (which I stopped posting at a few months ago.) The past 9 months haven’t been easy for me, so beware that there is a lot of anger and hurt being dealt with here. I’m over it now and looking to the future. There are also a lot of boring posts related to my study. Feel free to skip these. I’ll be editing them over the next few weeks, and all comments up until this point will be deleted.

So here’s to a new start, and some positive, fun blogging!

blogging update

I love reading through my blogs! I was thinking of deleting them, but I can’t. Perhaps there is a way of going anonymous and archiving my old posts all in one place. That would be nice.

But for now, I’ve just copied a few posts and will print them out to go in my new youthwork reflections journal. This saves them all having to be on this blog, keeping my blog more a place to write when I need to, and making my work reflections more accesible. It will also be helpful for supervision. I may still write things here and then print them out, but we’ll see.

Once again I have been reminded how I love blogging, and how it works for me. I much prefer writing and exploring my thoughts, to do all my work thinking on here would get a bit boring.

beginnings and endings

3 years ago today I began this blog, and 335 posts later I’m saying goodbye. I’ve been posting less and less recently, and generally don’t have a lot to say. I feel it’s time to draw this blog to a close, but in doing so I will be making a commitment to comment on at least one persons blog each day! I love reading what others have to say, but am a bit of a lurker, only commenting once in a blue moon. (edited months later - I have failed at this, though I managed it for about a week!)

My life is also in a time of transition. We’re going to be moving on in the next year. We don’t know where yet, but we know we’re going somewhere! This has contributed to my decision to end the blog, as there has been a lot of stuff going on that I haven’t been able to post about. Maybe one day I’ll appear somewhere else in blogland, but anonymous this time.

So for now, it’s farewell

Happy New Year!

I’m back! I’ve spent the past month working on my private blog, which I now use for all my personal reflections. Seems a bit daft to have a private blog, but I find the whole typing while reflecting thing very useful, but sometimes what I write isn’t appropriate to the blog here. So here’s to a new year, with a new look, and probably a new feel to the blog too.

Christmas and new year were pretty normal, nothing that interesting to report. I’ve got the inlaws coming over for lunch today, so I’m about to go and put the pork in the oven and prepare the veg!

post one!

Dear journal, this is an experiment, that might later transform itself into a private blog. You see, there is something about typing my reflections on life which I find helpful. Writing them down doesn’t interest me, I think its because I can type quicker than I write, and so with typing, I can type my thoughts as I think them kind of thing. It’s also like therapy, like I’m talking to someone, especially if it is going on the internet. It doesn’t really matter who reads it if anyone, its more the action of getting them out of my head that is the therapy. Writing helps. What I don’t understand is that writing my prayer journal works. But I think what is good about that is that it helps me to pray, to articulate what I want to say, and my prayer becomes meaningful for using it. I like the action of writing it, and I consider more what I will write before I write it. This may not make any sense to anyone reading this, but actually just typing and thinking it through like I am now is helping me. This is good for me. It helps me to clarify my thinking. What I have just clarified for myself is that my prayer journal and blogging are about different activities for me. My prayer journal is about making prayer real to me, whereas blogging is about helping me think things through and get them out of my head.

So, my next thought is that I need two blogs. One to just let my thoughts ride, a daily (or perhaps not quite daily) journal which only I read. That way I don’t have to worry about what I write. Why a blog and not just a word document like this is starting off as? A blog is more interesting and colourful I guess! I can also make distinct entries and use labels (if I figure out what they are.) A blog makes it more interesting and easier I guess, even if it is only I who reads it. But the good thing is that if on reading back my reflections I like what I read and feel it would be useful to share, I can cut and paste it onto my public blog. Which leads me onto my next question, what is the purpose of my blog? Who am I communicating to? And what am I trying to communicate? At the moment I am sharing my life – my spiritual highs and lows, my questions and general life stuff. Why do people read it? Generally because they know me or because I’ve commented on their blog. They don’t necessarily pop by for the content. What I like about other people’s blog is what I find interesting or is relevant to me, and not every post is. Things I think I should blog publicly about :
- general life stuff (holidays, days off etc) not too much detail, but enough to interest people who know me.
- Lessons I’ve learnt (personal, youthwork etc) this could be anything, but because I will have put all the detail in my private blog, I can just post the lesson on my public blog without all the personal detail.
In other words, all my processing and reflecting will now be done on my private blog, and the more general lessons and fun stuff will go on my public blog.

Am I happy with this? Have I resolved this issue? I guess my only fear is how this will work in practice. The first step is to set up my private blog and put this as the first post! Then if over time I begin to see this working, then I can announce and make changes on my public blog. I tried to start a new blog before and it failed. Probably because I didn’t give it long enough, and I felt able to post everything on my public blog. I think it would be helpful to take a break from the public blog for a month, to see the private one develop. I will need to develop the discipline of reflecting on my private blog, rather than half reflecting and then deciding whether it is suitable for the public blog. I am convinced that I need to make this change, and am hoping that it will be as good as I think it will.

blog break

I’m at Swanick conference centre, for my first YMCA residential. One of the things we’ve been talking about is reflection, and so I’ve been reflecting on how I use blogging to reflect! Without going into the ins and outs of it all, I’ve decided to take a blog break. This will be for a month, so I’ll be back in the new year.
So Have a good Christmas and I’ll be back in the new year!

blog number two

Well I’ve just taken the plunge and started a second blog. I won’t tell you where, because the idea is that I will be completely anonymous there and so the range of things I can post will increase. I plan to use it mainly to vent and to reflect on things which I find hard to think through here. This may lead to increased postings here, or it may mean I post less! We’ll see. It’s all a bit of an experiment at the moment.