Simple?

Why is it that the simpler the thing you want, the more difficult it is to attain?

All I want is to be loved - when no-one is there to love you
I just want to get some sleep - when insomnia becomes your bedfellow
I'm simply looking for a pair of jeans - when the twentieth pair you have tried on still isn't right

I just want a job - when nothing is out there.

I sometimes wonder if God (or Budda, or Allah or whoever or whatever else it is to believe in) has made me unemployed to test me and to make me grow. I sure as hell have been tested and I like to think I have grown and learnt and experienced (even bad experiences are experience at the end of the day).
So Please just let me have a decent job, preferably a permanent one.

Pleeeease.

Patience is not one of my many shining virtues.

x

Picture via Red Lips and IceCream

How To.

Image from Isaahunny flikr

I would like to apologise for my lack of posting this week. I fully intended to post every day this week to make up for my possible non-blogging next week however, what with my 50minute train journey home taking two hours on Tuesday (all of which I had to stand, grrr), finding out my job ends tomorrow so looking for a new one, contacting recruitment agencies and trying to organise references and me FALLING OVER at the train station yesterday morning (it was an impressive full dive to the ground), I have been a leeettle busy this week.

Here are a few things which I have come across this week which I would like to share with you.

How to be happy

Step 1:Smile. Smile even if life isn’t good,

smile because life can be good. Smile because

of the possibilities and everything that’s going to be.

Step 2:Find a way to destroy whatever (not whoever)

destroys you. No matter how long it takes.

No matter how hard it is. Make it go away.

Step 3:Get yourself a passion.

Something (not someone), a hobby you can live for.

Step 4:Love yourself. I know it’s hard,

but you have to find a way, or you will never

know how good life can be.

Step 5:Stop thinking. What others think is not relevant,

if it makes you unhappy. Enjoy.

Concentrate on what you’re doing.

Decide by feeling: If you feel like something’s

the right thing to do, just do it.

redlips&icecream

How to get the perfect messy-chic parisienne bun here.

Found via a new fave blog called A Cup of Jo.

How Do I Love Thee?

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and Ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

Hope to be on here again soon, until then - Toodlepip!

x

Another Wednesday marks the middle of another week. I was supposed to be at this job for one month (beginning of September until the end) but I have now been here for 11 weeks. However, the end of the project is in sight and I am now once again staring down the black hole of unemployment.

I got the offer of an interview next week.

Part of me thinks I should feel happy to be offered anything in the current economic climate, but the other part of me, my gut instinct if you will, says this isn't really what I'm looking for and that I should hold out for something better.

Also that the first interview is in a Holiday Inn rather than their offices does seem a leeeetle weird, right? Like I should be delivering a brown paper package or drinking champagne (maybe only fizzy white wine at a Holiday Inn come to think of it) with a wealthy businessman!

Just feels wrong to turn down an interview is all.

I'm sure you will be hearing a lot more about how things progress on here in the coming weeks.

And now onto something completely different

this picture totally captured my heart. So sweet and clever I love it.

Have a good afternoon and evening dear readers.

Back tomorrow with Poetry Thursday.

x

Images via Red Lips & Ice Cream and Marnie Pill on Flickr respectively.

Confessions of a Home Girl

One week ago:

Colleague1: We're all going for drinks next Friday for Bob's* leaving do. Are you coming?
Me in head: No
Me out loud: Sure why not.
Me in head: Damn. Oh well, plenty of time to think up an excuse.


One week later (i.e. now):

Colleague1: Still on for drinks tomorrow right?
Me in head: Buggerbuggerbugger
Me out loud: Oh, erm no, didn't I say? *clears throat* something's come up so 'fraid I can't.
Colleague2: Oh what's that?
Me out loud: *high pitched vioice* dinner. Yep dinner with... some... friends. Unavoidable I'm afraid.
Colleague1: Oh, how about next week?
Me out loud: Sure!
Me in head: DAMN!

OK, ok, I admit it I'm a homebody. I'm a girl whose heart is where the home is. There, I've said it. I live with my superlovelyfavegirl sister and though I love a great night out with my fab friends as much as the next girl, I would rather spend an evening at home with Sis and a good DVD than go out with people I'm not crazy about.

I find the people I get on best with are those with whom I don't have to pretend I had a Kerazeee night out on Saturday night then spent Sunday Massively hungover when in fact I spent Saturday night watching Lord of the Rings and Sunday playing badminton and gardening.


By the way I trust this goes no further than you guys, ok?

And if anyone asks, last Saturday was Wicked man, we got sooo drunk we were Wasted innit. Got that?

Phew.

Oh yeah, and if anyone knows of a good excuse then feel free pass it on.

Love,

your Home Girl

x

*Bob is not his real name. Names changed to protect identities.

Shrinking violet

As much as I am enjoying this job (and the money it brings) I am beginning to feel a little too much like I did when I left school or just started college - not quite comfortable in my own skin, not completely sure of myself. At university and on my post grad I grew into myself and 'blossomed' into the person who had been hiding before. I know everyone puts on a mask and there are very few people who I am completely at ease with but I am sure this is true for most people.


However, I feel myself shrinking into my shell like a shy snail. Biting my lip. Fading into the background.


By the time I left the educational sphere I was doing a postgraduate course and had reached the 'top of the ladder' as it were. At 22 I was a lot older than most those below me. But now I have entered the world of work I am at the bottom of a new ladder and feel incredibly young. I like to consider myself (possibly over flatteringly?) relatively well educated in literature, music, current affairs etc but I suddenly feel very inexperienced and uneducated.

In addition to these new unwanted feelings I had a day of embarrassing/annoying moments yesterday -

Exhibit A. People at work having an intelligent discussion on the war in Afghanistan and despite the fact I have opinions on this, I just completely clammed up and sat looking gormless.
Exhibit B. After happily wolfing down a delicious almond croissant in the morning I looked in the mirror at the end of the day only to realise I had had a small piece of said almond croissant in my hair All Day.
Exhibit C. After said croissantgate, I was late to catch the bus and ended up doing a strange bended knee, half walk half run scuttling movement to make sure I caught the bus. I can safely say crazy scuttly forward crab running is Not attractive.
Exhibit D. After being in lovely hot shower for approximately 5 seconds I managed to get shampoo in my eye so spent the rest of a now unenjoyable shower with my eye closed, rubbing my eye on my towel which then was covered in mascara and spent the whole evening with a red bloodshot eye assuring my sister that I would definitely go blind from this.

I rest my case Your Honour.

However, just so you don't sit back in your chair and sigh, thinking to yourself "wow she sure is turning grumpy. Where is all the giggling and happiness, pretty pictures and silliness gone?" here are some nicer things that have happened to me:

1. I had Sushi today for the first time (pretty yummy)
2. I sat outside St. Pauls Cathedral at lunch where there happened to be an ABBA tribute band playing (currently humming Waterloo to myself).
3. I bought some pistachio macaroons today which I have never tried before (hence the pretty picture) from 'Paul' which is the most spiffing patisserie ever - a 'Maison de qualite' in their own words - where I spent a lot of my hard earned cash on delectible goodies (let you know on Mon how the macaroons go down).
4. I get to pick up my new glasses tomorrow.


Hoping to finally take my camera out for a spin this weekend and promise I will try to upload some photos over the next week or so.


Enjoy the weekend y'all
x

Neglect and apologies

I have shamefully neglected my dear blog over the past week and for that I apologise. My only excuse is that I have been working. Yes, that's right I have A Job. The temporary position that an agency have been dangling tantalizingly before me for the past couple of weeks finally came through and I am working at a large law firm in London until the end of the month.

I am enjoying the experience of working in London very much. The atmosphere is in London is unlike any other I know of. The grand buildings interspersed with curious Harry Potter like structures, the stream of iconic black cabs and red buses and the hustle and bustle of the streets all amounts to something exciting and special and the feeling you are in the middle of something great.

I hope to take a few pictures whilst I am working in this city which I shall share with you.

I have just finished reading 'The Last Templar' by Raymond Khoury - I always have an interest in books on the Knights Templar. The book was quite compelling but not brilliantly written, and a little predictable in places. I plan to read The Idiot next and will let you know of my thinkings on it.

Another day, another job hunt.

A few months ago I was sure I would be employed by the end of August. However, as is often the case with these strange feelings of certainty one has about the future, the end of August has come and gone and I am still without a job. I can't believe it will be too much longer before I get a job - if it is, then Christmas presents will consist primarily of hand knitted scarfs (I can only knit in straight lines) and copious amounts of paper mache with glitter.

I'm trying to view my time without work as an opportunity to pursue my other interests which have had to take a definite back seat whilst I have been studying. This is one of the reasons I started this blog in the first place. I personally enjoy blogs which are, without sounding too corny, 'from the heart', and not just how perfect life is. Hopefully this blog will be like that too - things which make me smile and I enjoy coupled with my reality.

I enjoyed the long weekend just gone. Had a mini splurge on DVD purchasing - Yes Man (very very funny although not a particularly accurate representation of the book), Little Blackbook (one of my favourites - possibly for it's abundance of Carly Simon songs) and The Mystic Pizza (how could I resist a film with that name I ask you?).

I also accidentally bought the American InStyle magazine at the weekend. It was interesting to see how different American magazines are to English ones. Came across the phrase "Jonesing it" - never heard of this before. Can only assume it's to do with keeping up with the Joneses? The mysteries of the English language across the pond eh.

Plus my raspberry plant continues to blossom and I hope it wont be too long before I get some fruit.

I leave you with a little gift which made me laugh, hopefully you will too

Here you go

Lots more giggle inducing Beartato here

Have a nice day
x