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!

Little by little

Little by little, life is progressing. And I’m not sure I want it to! 

Current job - this morning we finished delivering leaflets for the event we’re holding at the church on the hill on Saturday. I’ve bought materials this afternoon, and I’m ready to set up the church tomorrow morning. This progress is great, I’m loving the different things I’m doing, and the fact that its relaxed, laid back and I’m not overwhelmed with stuff to do!

New job - CRB check is through, we’re now trying to sort a start date! This is very scary! I’ve become quite comfortable at the church on the hill. There is a part of me that is looking forward to the new job, but if I could push it back further and further I would. The fact is that I will never feel ready, it will be scary, but once I’ve got the first few months under my belt, I hope I will be loving it and growing rapidly! So I’m going to start when they want me to (most likely beginning of July!)

New house - The survey has been done (we’re waiting for it to be written and posted to us). The estate agent reckons we could be exchanging contracts by the end of the month! I’m no longer excited about this, its dragged on too long. If I think about it at all, I worry too much about the whole financial commitment! I’m sure the excitement will return, probably when we exchange contracts and have a date for completion. Then my spare time will be spent packing!

Study - I’m enjoying it again, and I’ve started reading for the next assignment due at the end of July. I’m once again trying to get the best out of the process - developing my work journal, and wanting to make the most of supervision. The extra time I have is really helping me study, as I have more time to read etc.

The strange thing is that I feel quite settled in this period of transition. The desire for the new job and new house has decreased slightly, I’m happy with my cosy life as it is! But the change will happen, and it will bring excitement when it happens. I only have a month of this cosy life left, so I’m going to enjoy it as much as I can. That means using the spare time I have to relax, read and get ahead on my studying!

back from the lakes

We stayed for four days in the lake district, and in that time cycled 40 miles on the tandem. It was great to be up there again, even if it was cold! Strangely I didn’t feel like I needed a holiday, probably because my work load has been a lot lighter over the past few weeks of transition. The holiday had all the elements of a top holiday for us - tandem, self catered, beautiful countryside and a mixture of TV, puzzles and books to keep us occupied in the evening. We also had some great news on our journey home, our offer on a house has been accepted! Pretty soon we could be moving and settling into our new home! Now it is time to really get stuck into my new work with the church on the hill.

the decorating bug

We spent Monday - Thursday this week decorating our ‘not our home’ house. Every room has now been painted, the master bedroom has a new carpet and all the other carpets have been cleaned. It looks great, and we’re a bit jealous of the tenants who will move in next weekend. Never have we lived in such a fresh looking house! And so we have caught the decorating bug. We know that if we really want to, we can decorate one whole room in one whole day (providing one coat only paint is used!) So this week, we are decorating our dining room. We decided on the colour scheme ages ago when we bought a shelf for the room. Now we’re actually getting around to putting it into action. Hubby and I are having different days off this week, so he’ll be taking the furniture out and starting the preparation on Monday, and I’ll be painting and finishing off on Tuesday! In just two days we will have a stylish dining room, which will easily be the best room in the house - perhaps motivating us to do even more rooms!
But right now I have an assignment to finish off!

back to normal

Life seems back to normal, after a restful day yesterday I’m back on top of things. I really enjoyed doing nothing yesterday morning and catching up with my old school friend. I did some work in the evening, but with all the hours I did Thursday, I didn’t have a lot to do to make my hours up!
Today it took me two hours to clean the bathroom and kitchen (but I hadn’t done it for far too long!) I’ve done lots of work, worked my way through the massive ironing pile and now it’s time to study. The next assignment is due June 21st, but I’ve given myself a deadline of June 10th, due to the weeks holiday we’re having (more decorating on the ‘not our home’ house ) the week before the deadline.

My assignment is all about assessing young people. The first part is reviewing current assessment tools, and then the second part I have to write my own. For my own I’m thinking of assessing ‘distance travelled’ by a young person. The hope being that I can assess and record the development and change in the young people I work with over a period of months. This would probably be done either through a questionnaire or interview.
Do you have any assessment tools that you use with young people?

Need Sleep!

I’ve had a great few days but am now in great need of sleep! Sunday afternoon I hopped on a train. After arriving in the rain, I was very glad that our new ‘not our home’ house is very near the station! I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening sanding the kitchen walls and cleaning all the cupboards. I also found time to strip one wall of wallpaper in the dining room. Monday was spent stripping more wallpaper and then painting the kitchen. Hubby joined me Monday night and took me out for pizza. Tuesday we sanded and painted two whole rooms and ordered a new carpet for one of them! We worked hard. I ached, and I still ache (my right arm especially.) I also didn’t sleep well as we were sleeping on a hard floor, and for some reason I’m no good at that any more. I reckon I got somewhere between 4 and 6 hours sleep for the two nights I was there. Tuesday night we drove home, and then got up after 7 hours sleep to help at the childrens fun morning at church. I spent the afternoon planning house group and getting some rest. (And then attended and led house group which went really well.) Thursday, that’s today right? I’ve been with 13 of our young people, making them revise and then enjoying cake, pizza and a film to celebrate their hard efforts. I got home half an hour ago and I’ll be out in less than an hour to go bowling with pretty much the same group of young people (really did not plan that one well!). Tomorrow - a long lie in followed by lunch with an old friend. Fantastic! (I might do a bit of work too, there’s still a lot on my to do list!)

aaaaaaaaggggghhhhhhhhhhh!

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

In the past five weeks:
the vacuum cleaner broke
the sat nav had a wobbly turn (it appears to be working again)
the digital camera won’t download pictures
our car appears to be leaking petrol, hubby is out trying to buy a new car as I type!
Hubby’s website and email has been out of action for 5 weeks

I think that’s it!

Update - I forgot the shaver, that’s not working properly either!

filing system

I have a rather strange filing system. All of our bills etc are filed in folders in a filing cabinet - quite normal I would think. What my husband thinks is really strange is that I call the bottom drawer of my desk a filing system. This is where I dump everything when I can’t be bothered to action it or file it. I’ve just gone through it all (probably the first time since September last year) and amongst all the paper I found two book tokens! Yay! I now have £20 to go and spend on books. I have known them to be there in the past, but it was a surprise to find them today. Perhaps this time I’ll spend them!

new double glazing!

Yesterday and today we’re having double glazing fitted at the front of the house. This morning we have been able to move all the furniture back into our office upstairs (as they finished the upstairs windows yesterday), and tonight we hope to put our lounge back together.
It’s great that the window no longer rattles when a bus goes past. In fact its more than great - it’s amazing and fabulous and I’m wondering why it used to bother me that much already!

boxes, boxes, boxes

When I was about 10, my sister, I and two friends from down the road spent a whole day playing with empty cardboard boxes! We created a den and played numerous games. I don’t remember the details, but I remember having lots of fun and I have some strange photos to prove it!
Packing boxes to move isn’t as fun as playing with them was that day. We’re nearly there. We move on Friday. I can’t wait to be in the new house, all unpacked so I can get stuck into my new job. I hope that in just over a week, I will no longer be posting about boxes, but the excitement of being in a new place, starting a new job.
This time next week, I will have been in my first staff meeting in my new job! Cool!