Laptop!!

Woohoo, I am rather excited!! Show and Tell this week is allllll about the new laptop!

As you can see, it has a red cover, which distinguishes it from the black ones that everyone else in the family seems to have (although Andy may have a silver one, I can't actually remember!!), still at least if I need to leave in a hurry then I know that I can just grab the red one!!

Anyway, it has been a while in coming - I have wanted a laptop since forever as you get so much more freedom with a laptop (which is the point of course!), I can show off my photos without having to cram everyone into my third bedroom, I can curl up on the armchair and chat to Mum while watching Dr Who (as I was doing last night - how dare Dr Who leave us all on a cliff hanger!!), I can take my laptop to my brothers house and go online without having to wait my turn on his laptop!!

As you may recall from earlier posts, I had great difficult in choosing which laptop to get, as you can see I eventually ended up with a Dell Inspiron 1525 and so far so good, it's light on the lap and fast on the internet! What was also rather good is that the laptop was very much plug and play - I just had to plug it into the wall, open it up, turn it on, do a few bits of setting up and then away I went, I didn't have to add any software or mess about with the settings too much, I was online about five minutes after I'd unpacked it all!!

P.S. If you were looking my weekly faith based question (that I get from Christian Women Online) yesterday - I have set up a new faith blog so that you can read it if you want to, after all, not all of you may be interested in my faith journey, anyway that's where you'll find yesterdays question!

Childhood game

Thanks to the Rich Gifts blog I discovered an online version of one of my favourite childhood games, I don't know if it ever had a name, but it was a good travelling game. All it involved was pencil and paper, and you had to set up the game first by drawing lots of dots on the paper all in several lines both vertically and horizontally and then you had to use the dots in order to create little boxes! You have to take it in turns with your opponent and whoever gets to close a box wins the box and naturally the person with most boxes wins!! Have fun!!

Gadget by LabPixies.com

A one word meme

AMomTwoBoys has recently posted a great meme where you have to answer a series of questions in one word and one word only! She hasn't specifically tagged anyone, but said that if we want to do it we can, and I quite fancy it!

However, I cannot do justice to the meme that she did because she did it twice!! Once with one word answers and then again with the answers that she really wanted to give - it makes funny reading so do click on the link above and check it out!

Where is your cell phone? Handbag
Your significant other? Nonexistent!
Your hair? Unruly
Your mother? Slender
Your father? Bald
Your favorite thing? Books
Your dream last night? Forgotten
Your favorite drink? Tea
Your dream/goal? Undecided
The room you’re in? Library
Your hobby? Reading
Your fear? Spiders
Where do you want to be in 6 years? Holiday
What you’re not? Ambitious
Muffins? Chocolate!
One of your wish list items? Dog
Where you grew up? Sussex
The last thing you did? Blogged
What are you wearing? Trousers
Favorite Gadget? Dunno
Your pets? Cat
Your computer? Laptop!!!
Your mood? Settled
Missing someone? Nope
Your car? Silver
Something you’re not wearing? Socks
Favorite store? Borders
Like someone? Mandy
Your favorite color? Purple
When was the last time you laughed? Today
Last time you cried? Nana

And I don't think that I will tag anyone with this one either, but if you fancy doing it - give it a go and let me know that you've done it so that I can be nosy and see what you said!!

My job!

About twenty days ago I was in a bloggy funk with no forthcoming inspiration, so I asked for some questions and Katie obliged! I can only say that I am very sorry for leaving it so long to answer!! She asked me what my job was to do with and how I ended up in that particular career. Well, Katie, you have been waiting patiently for my answer and you need wait no longer!

My recent six word memoir was "books, books, books, here, there, everywhere!" and this is so very appropriate for both my personal life and my career. Appropriate for my personal life because I am rarely to be found without a book in my hand and every surface in my house usually has a book on it!

It's also appropriate for my career because I am a dyed-in-the-wool Librarian (without obligatory bun or cardigan!!) and I am surrounded by books at work too! I am actually what is known as a Special Librarian because I focus on a very particular type of library, by which is usually meant that I am anything but a public librarian! (I don't think that I could put up with children running around the library all day long!)

I should point out that "Special Librarian" really covers those that do not work in academic or public libraries, instead it is a category that tries to cover business, hospital, and legal libraries. Anyway, my specific catch-all title has undergone many changes over the last few decades or so! We were originally Medical Librarians, with variants such as Nursing Librarians, but today most of us are Healthcare Librarians so as not to discriminate against any doctor, nurse, physiotherapist, psychologist, etc, etc, that may wish to use the library.

Naturally we all have very different job titles, I started off as Senior Library Assistant when I was freshly sprung from University just over ten years ago and now I am pleased (horrified?!) to say that I am now Head Librarian, albeit in a different hospital library to where I started ten years ago!

Why did I decide to become a librarian? It's a mix of reasons really, the first one being that the Library and Information Studies degree on offer at Loughborough University seemed to be the right one for me - up until that point I don't think that I had really given Librarianship much point. Plus, it was a vocational degree rather than any old subject which I reasoned would give me a headstart on those who would try to say that I couldn't do a job because I am deaf (huh!). In addition to which it seemed to make sense...I enjoy books so much, why shouldn't I work with them? I am not even one to get all squeamish at the sight of the surgical and trauma books as they actually quite fascinating!

So there you have it - which is why my six word memoir is books, books, books, here, there, everywhere!

NaComLeavMo is over!

Well, NaComLeavMo is now over - it actually finished yesterday and although I missed a few days (especially towards the end because it was getting a bit tedious!) I am pleased to say that I managed to average nearly 10 comments per day, so it is really no wonder that I was getting a bit fed up with it!

I also managed to leave comments on over 50% of the blogs listed on that NaComLeavMo list and have definitely added what feels like a few million more blogs to my bloglines account! The whole idea has now evolved into a one week per month deal that we can all drop in and out of according to what's going on in our lives, so we wont feel quite so intimidated by how many comments we have to leave!

What happens now is that at the beginning of each month we can sign up at the original blog and then from the 21st - 28th of that month we begin a frenzy of commenting!! Having said though, I am definitely more of a commenter than I was before I did NaComLeavMo and definitely appreciate all the comments that I have received! Thanks to everybody who visited!

Password protected posts

I can't quite get my head around password protected posts. All blogs can be set up to be accessible by chosen people only if that's what you want to do, but the Wordpress platform takes this further as it offers the option to password protect individual posts!

Blogger doesn't have this facility, although I could set up my blog only for those with a Google account or even selected people with Google accounts, but this is different to individually protected posts, more of which below....

I totally understand that there are some things that perhaps you don't want certain people to read, but what I can't quite grasp is that if those people are regular readers of your blog and want to read your protected post and ask you for the password you will have to deny them. Which would strongly suggest to that individual that you've been talking about them, or perhaps merely about a subject that they violently disagree with! (although I think that most people would be inclined to jump to the conclusion that you are talking about them - we are all paranoid in that way!!)

Anyway, my point is that this seems to be the equivalent of whispering behind cupped hands and wouldn't this be more hurtful? I am very much in two minds about this as I feel that you should be able to say what you want (to a point) without having to censor your thoughts, but at the same time we still need to show the courtesey that we would normally show in every day life, or if you are quite up front and open about your thoughts and feelings in real life then you should be the same on your blog!

I am very conscious that my family and friends read this blog and so I try not to say things that could be inflammatory or upsetting, and I know that if I want to vent about certain issues (whether about work, family, life or whatever!) then I will have to find another forum or medium where I can do so. The other alternative is to be scrupulously honest and then have to deal with the consequences and as this blog names names I don't feel that this is the right place to be so honest that it's painful! Of course, that's not to say that I lie on this blog! :-)

So....what do you think? What is your opinion of password protected posts? Do you see them as a life-saver where you know who has access to the protected post and can therefore say exactly what you want? Or do you see them as being contrary to the ethos of blogging? I would love to know what you think, particularly as I don't quite get it myself!!

Bowling!

I had an invitation to join the girls from work and go bowling on Saturday! This wasn't just any old bowling centre though, this was the "Skytanker" arcade at the American air force base about half an hour away.

The trouble was that this meant giving names and car registrations a few days ahead and making sure that we turned up with photo identification (like a passport or driving licence) and then showing said identification to a guy with a serious looking gun!! All this before we can knock down a few pins!

Anyway, I managed to get onto the base without too much hassle and then proceeded to be either quite hopeless or quite good with my bowling as I just don't seem to have a medium setting when it comes to aiming that ten pound ball!! Unfortunately I didn't win the honorary trophy - a skittle that lives in the office next door and has all the last winning names on it from the last two years (it's becoming an annual event!), but neither did I win the wooden spoon! ;-)

The other funny thing about going bowling on an American base is that you can pay for your food in sterling, but you'll get dollars and cents back!! I now have about 15 cents floating about my purse at the moment and I really must take them out before I give them to someone and have them think that I am trying to fiddle them!!

It was good fun though, I really must go bowling more often!

Phoebe Cat

Phoebe is this week's subject for Show and Tell! She is a lovely fluffy silverish cat as you can see from the photograph.

I regret to say that she is a rescue cat, her previous owners moved house and left her behind! Fortunately she was found by the Cat Protection Society who found her a 'foster' home, got her fed properly and made sure that she was all clean (not to mention spayed!) and then I came along and chose her.

I can actually remember how it all happened (mind you, it was only about two and a half years ago!), I had finally decided that I wanted a cat and thought that it would be best to get one from the Cat Protection Society and so I found their website and registered my interest in having a cat. Did you know that you have to have a visit from the society to see whether you are a suitable cat owner? Needless to say, I passed the test and they recommended that I get an older cat rather than a kitten as I at work most days.

As much as I would have liked a kitten, I agreed that it would be best for me and the cat if the cat were a bit older. Then I picked Phoebe from the pictures on the website and spent most of Christmas worrying that someone would pick her or that her previous owners would try and reclaim her.

Two and half years later, I am not entirely sure who's the boss of this relationship!! She sits in front of the computer when I am trying to type, she paws at me in the wee hours of the morning demanding an early breakfast, she turns her nose up at her food sometimes and I have to restrain myself from putting down a fresh lot!

It is quite lovely to come home to a cat that is belly-up on the hall running expecting a tummy rub, lovely to have a cat that will curl up in your lap even though you're just about to get up and do something else! She's my little Phoebe and I love her to bits!! (even if one of my brothers calls her Feeble!)

Heartbreak

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance

Knowing this, we are aware that there will be times when our hearts hurt and break. Each of us has experienced that heart break in one form or another. Thinking back on your life, what makes your heart break, and why?

And that is this week's question from Christian Women Online and like many of the previous ones, I have to stop and think about what I want to say. Not because I have had my heart broken so many times that I can't choose, because that hasn't happened and I do count myself fortunate in that respect. What it does mean though is that I have to dig a bit further back into my own history to try and think of something that makes (or made) my heart break.

Of course, there are the little upsets that every one has, such being let down by a friend; or the more painful events like the death of a grandparent, but while those events did upset me and cause me to cry or be a bit morose for a while, I can't say that they broke my heart because those are simply life's hard knocks and you learn a bit about yourself each time they happen and generally they make you a better person for it.

However, I don't think that I have ever had the breaking down sobbing kind of hurt that this question seems to be asking about. Not unless you consider the time that my parents left me at my boarding school for the very first time at the age of about 12 - I seem to remember that I was very busy at first being shown around and unpacking and stuff like that I didn't have time to think about it, but I also remember that it didn't take long for me to realise that I wasn't going to see my family for a couple of weeks and that this would be my life for the next six or seven years.

Oh dearie me, I was devastated, but I soon made friends and settled in to the daily life of school. All though out my school life I didn't like the end of school holidays and I would get grumpy and twitchy and want to drag out the leaving home for as long as possible. It is a memory that I can accept these days because that school was the best place for me at the time as it catered to deaf children and so I got the best education possible and so I can't really say my heart was broken, but I still didn't like going back to school! ;-)

It has taken me a long time to accept any kind of goodbyes with equanimity as I expect that subconsciously I associated them with going back to school. I am glad to say that I am fine with it now, in fact, I recall telling Mum off a few months back for leaving too quickly because she thought that I still didn't like goodbyes - well, she knows that I have gotten over all of that now; so much so that I don't even mind if Dad comes up to the car to wave me off - this was one of my trigger points as Dad would always seem to be more emotional about the whole thing, which set me off of course!!

If it's almost Thursday...

...it must a Random Thought Bubble!

• Believe it or not, I had to rescue another bird this week! Phoebe had nothing to do with it this time around! I arrived at my evening job to find that a chaffinch had got itself stuck in the skylight of one of the study rooms!! It was perched at the top of the skylight 'tube' and was just not prepared to come down and leave the room by the door like any proper bird would! In the end Wendy and I tied two brooms together and persuaded it down to our level, where I caught it, and got pecked twice for my troubles, and released it to it's frantic partner outside!



• Still no laptop although I will be paying for it tomorrow and hopefully getting it by the beginning of July. Why no laptop yet? Well, one of the current offers on the laptop that I want is for free bluetooth headphones (worth £30) which I am sure are very nice indeed, but seeing as I have a little hearing problem - headphones are no good to me, so I got on to Dell and see if they'd negotiate a bit and they did! I will be sorting out the final details tomorrow!



• It looks as though I have a canal holiday to look forward to some time this summer! I have always fancied a holiday where we travel on a narrowboat for a week, opening and closing locks, stopping at the pub for lunch, and mooring overnight where the cows live! Mum, Dad, Matt and I will be travelling together (not forgetting Mum and Dad's dog), so it's a good job that we get on well as those narrowboats are the ultimate in minuscule living! Mum and I are already looking forward to it and will be doing some research and planning so that we know where the best places are!

Fallen

It is not often that I am moved to tears by a simple public spectacle.

Today, police cars stopped traffic as a procession of five black cars made their way through the village - each hearse carrying the coffin of a fallen soldier, each coffin drapped in the Union Jack.

The bodies of two 20 year olds, two 19 year olds and one 29 year old were flown back home today.

If I'd lived anywhere else but near that Air Force Base, I would never have seen that procession, if I had been five minutes earlier, I would have wondered why there were police cars all over the place, if I had been five minutes later, I would have wondered why traffic was a bit heavy.

I wish I'd never seen it and yet we should all see it so that we can remind ourselves of what is happening, that young men and women are putting their lives at risk whilst carrying out their job.

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them"

Dad

Seeing as it's Show and Tell Sunday and it's Father's Day, I pick my Dad for Show and Tell (and I get the feeling that I wont be the only one!)

So, here he is, reading a map - which he loves to do. We were in Devon on holiday last year and this picture was taken on the patio outside the holiday home, I don't quite know where everyone else was but this must have been a quiet moment as it was quite a full house - Mum, Dad, Matt, myself, Andy, Marielle and their two children, plus the dog!

There is so much I could tell you about my Dad I don't know where to begin! If there is one thing that I will forever connect with my Dad it is Trains! (with a capital T!) He is not an anoraky trainspotter, but he did use to work for British Rail and so knows everything there is to know about trains. He also likes the little model trains that are so perfect in every detail that he loves to show you just how perfect they are - at which we all roll our eyes and groan because we've either heard it before or know that once he gets started he's not going to stop!

Despite that, we still buy him books on trains and models for his eventual railway, we tease him about his mania for trains and wonder whether he will ever rebuild the garage so that he can create the perfect railway set-up in the loft!

If there is another thing that I know about my Dad, it is that he loves us all and encourages us all to be what we want to be. Again, we roll our eyes a bit when he tells us how proud of us he is, but we know that he says so because he loves us and he can't quite believe that he has four graduates in the family! And now that he has two grandchildren, I love to see the way he plays with them, he makes chocolate chip cookies with Tom, and Emily likes to snuggle up to Grandpop when she's feeling a bit tired.

Happy Father's Day Dad!

P.S. Other Show and Tells can be found here!

Forgiveness

What is one of your favorite attributes of God, and why?

This is the first directly religious question that has been posed on the Christian Women Online blog - Internet Cafe Devotions - and I feel slightly uncomfortable about answering it.

Why? Because I still have that hang-up from school where it was quite distinctly uncool to be seen as anything even vaguely religious, whether that be Christian, Muslim, Jewish or whatever else there is. So, I still feel reluctant to be quite so open about talking about my own Christianity unless I am with people of similar beliefs and as there are so many of you out there that have such wide ranging beliefs and convictions I still don't quite want to stand out quite so obviously!

This is not a Faith Blog, it is a Me Blog and is about my thoughts and happenings, which includes being more accepting about who I am and what I think, do and believe, which is how I can admit that I don't really want to talk about this because it makes me uncomfortable. But that's okay because I know that God will forgive me; and that is the attribute that I think makes God God because He knows what I am like (even though I am working on it!) and yet He still forgives me!

If you want to read how other people have answered the question, just click on the link above for Internet Cafe Devotions and scroll down a bit!

Another Random Thought Bubble

Hmmm, my last Random Thought Bubble (hereafter known as RTB!) was on a Thursday too - it looks as though Thursdays are going to be my tricky days as they are too far away from last weekend and too close to the next for me to have done anything interesting!!

• This Thursday is actually an extra-special Thursday because I am not working tomorrow, so today is actually Friday aka The Start of the Weekend! I would not normally have the day off tomorrow, but my car is going in for a timing-belt change and it was just too much hassle to sort out travel to work (how on earth do people commute by bus every day - it takes tooo long!) so I decided to have a long weekend and take the day off - yay! Of course, I have no car so I can't go anywhere useful or nice, but I can enjoy some me-time at home!



• I am shortly buying myself a new laptop!! Woohoo - cause for extreme excitement! Did you realise just how difficult it is to choose a laptop? All those combinations and prices and colours and and and...well, it really fried my brain! I looked at umpteen reviews online and lurked on various forums to see what I could find and I think that I shall be getting myself a Dell Inspiron 1525 (the red one of course!). It's about time too - my desktop computer is really rather old and although it boots up rather nicely, when it comes to having more than two (or even one!) application running the whole thing just grinds to a horrible crawl; I decided that it really was the end last weekend when I found myself reading a book while I was waiting for the next webpage to load!!



• Some people are just amazing - see the New York Times for the incredible story of an architect who left a treasure hunt in his clients' new home. Where do people like this get the imagination (not to mention time) to do things like this! The photographs attached to the article are also impressive and show the fine detail accorded to this fantastic treasure hunt, do go and have a look.



• Did I tell you that I had to rescue a bird the other day!? It seems that my cat is a bit of a hunter! I woke up and started to go downstairs for breakfast when I realised that Phoebe was being particularly attentive to the underneath of the table at the end of the bed. I just assumed that it was a spider and went to have a look, instead there was a little bird sitting there all a-quiver (with a couple of missing feathers!). So I grabbed Phoebe and shut her in the lounge downstairs before getting a tea towel, moving the clothes and table and all the other bits in my bedroom, wrapping the bird up and then carrying it outside (after remembering to put my dressing gown on!) and leaving it underneath a nearby bush. When I went to work about an hour later, it had gone, so I hope that it had recovered from the trauma and had flown off (I certainly can't bear to think that another cat had it instead!) There are certainly much easier ways to start the morning!

And that's it for this particular RTB! I am almost certain that I will have more next week!

Advice

If you could go back in time to a pivotal point in your young life and give yourself one word/sentence of advice, and know that you would accept the advice, what would it be?

That is this week's question from Cafe Devotions (see side bar for button for more questions and other people's answers) and this is one that took a bit of pondering, which does make sense as it wouldn't be worth doing something like this if it didn't make me think!

My first thought was that this question was about regret and wishing that you could go back to that moment in your life when you could change something and as I feel that regret is a wasted emotion I didn't quite know where to begin with this question. I have to point out here that although that is what I feel, I do still have the odd regret here and there as I am only human, but I do believe that you have to live your life as it is rather than bewail the fact that you didn't (or did) do something a few years ago.

So, I had to think a bit harder for this one and have decided that this is about a lesson that took rather longer to learn than expected! And boy, do I have a lesson that took longer to learn than it should have done!

I used to stutter (or stammer if you prefer!), in fact, I still do when I am extremely tired or nervous. But as I grow older and more confident in myself, it doesn't matter that I stutter and so the stuttering actually lessens. You see, this "affliction" is vicious because the more one thinks about it the worse it gets, the more one tenses ahead of a trigger word the worse it gets.

As a teenager, this was painful and I would avoid certain situations if it meant that I didn't have to say anything (more to a group of people than to close friends I mean). I would think of different words in place in the one that I really wanted to say - fortunately it usually worked and I never let it get quite as far as saying "the thing with four legs that goes under the table", but it got close!! I can say that with a smile on my face now and a slight, wry shake of my head, but as a teenager, it really was agony.

Then, I don't quite know when or how it happened, but I decided that it wasn't going to bother me any longer. There was no magic moment or sudden realisation, but I suppose that it occurred to me over a few years (through university and my first few years at work) that it didn't matter any more, if people couldn't wait to hear what I had to say then that was their problem. And as such, the tension built up in my speaking has virtually disappeared and so I rarely stutter these days.

Today this means that I can speak in front of about 100 students, I still shake in my boots and get all nervous and occasionally get all tangled up in my words, but.....it no longer bothers me as I have something to say and you're going to listen!!

So, if I could go back to my teenage self and give myself one word of advice then it would be about this particular issue. What would I say though? Well, this is another matter as what teenager is going to listen to an adult on the subject of something that causes personal terror!

Well, I think that it would have to be "trust in yourself and let it go" as I needed to learn to trust myself that I would say what I needed to say and that it really doesn't matter. It was a hard lesson to learn, but I believe that I am there now.

Showing and Telling

I am a bit late with Show and Tell this week as I didn't want to post on Sunday when I already had a Sunday post in place! (I have enough trouble finding things to say throughout the week that I didn't want to post twice in one day!!!)

See this photo?

It represents the millions of elastic bands that we seem to get through in the library. We must have made up a goodly number of those rubber band balls (they bounce very well too!) in the last few years. And before you start wondering, no we don't now have a collection of rubber band balls!! Every now and then when they get too big for their holding place, we pass them to the postwoman so that she can use them again.

The postwoman is the person that keeps giving us these elastic bands all wrapped around our daily post of little envelopes, new journals, old journals, book parcels from other libraries and other bits and pieces. So, we do at least recycle the bands, but it does make me wonder...how many rubber bands can an organisation get through, not to mention paperclips, post-it notes, staples and, of course, paper!? We do our best in the library, but it does seem that the paperless office, much touted about a decade or so ago, is just never going to happen - we like paper too much!

Six word memoir

I've been tagged by VA Blondie! The Six Word Memoir is a bloggie meme that is quite popular at the moment, although that might have something to do with NaComLeavMo and people wanting to leave a comment without merely saying something inane!!

This meme is quite self explanatory - your memoir in six words!! But hang on a minute - I'm too young to have a memoir, I am certainly no Katie Price who thinks that she has churn out a memoir every two years!! ;-)

Anyway, there are the usual rules of course, which I hereby list!

• Write your own six word memoir (naturally!)
• Post it to your blog, with a visual representation if you would like
• Link to the person that tagged you, as well as the original post that started this all off
• Tag five more blogs
• Don't forget to leave comments in those blogs letting them know that they have been tagged!

So, my six word memoir is.....

Books, Books, Books, Here, There, Everywhere!

Which sums up quite nicely both my voracious reading habit and my professional life - both of which are likely to continue at least until I retire from work, but then I'll still have my head stuck in a book!!

And so, I tag.....

A Very Open Book
Masha
Jason and Samantha's Journey
The Whole of Her Sermon
A Slice of Life

I challenge the five of you to come up with a six word memoir!

Competitions!

I cannot believe it, I am in shock, and very happy!! Why? Because I have found an American blogger that will ship giveaways all over the world!! If you have UPS or USPS in your country then she will deliver!! Which makes such a change from all those giveaways that I see that say that you must have a U.S. or Canadian address in order to be eligible.

I do understand that shipping can be very expensive, particularly if you have very large or awkward items in your giveaway, but sometimes it feels that no-one else gets a chance!! Whine whine whine (shut up girl!!) I have to admit that not every blogger is like this, indeed, I have just won a set of notecards from Who Can Find a Wife of Valor and I am so very pleased about that, but that doesn't mean that I still can't have a whinge!!

Anyway, back to the point - My Wooden Spoon is hosting a series of giveaways for the next few weeks and I am going to ensure that I do my bit to win!! This week the giveaway contains muffin tins, tea towels, a voucher for a handi-vac and of course - a wooden spoon!!

Random Thought Bubble

If you ever see another post from me that says "Random Thought Bubble" it means that am presently out of inspiration and am just chatting about what ever appears to be in my mind at the moment!

You see, I have indeed run out of inspiration at the moment and when I saw Alison's post about Random Thought Bubbles, I asked if I could steal the idea! Fortunately Alison very kindly said yes and so here I am with my own Random Thought Bubble that may appear with surprising regularity!!

• First up - it's Thursday, which of course means that tomorrow is Friday - heralding the start of the weekend!! I am always so tired by the end of the week that weekends are really something to look forward to. But then that's my own silly fault for having two jobs that means that I leave the house at 8am and don't get back until 10:30pm three days of the week. I have my normal day job and then an evening job, which I originally took so that I could pay back a small loan. Nearly two years later, I have had the garden landscaped (all 5 square metres of it!!) and had a three week trip to Australia, but the loan is still outstanding!! Ha ha, I don't mind it so much cos my salary has recently gone up a bit, so I can cope with that. However, at the end of July I will be finishing this evening job as I am fed up of being tired and want my evenings back!!
  
  
• Secondly, I am really enjoying NaComLeavMo (see bright orange button on my side bar!) and am leaving comments all over the place, not to mention adding lots of bright shiny blogs to my feedreader. It is fabulous seeing all those blogs out there and thinking of what to say in the comments. When I originally signed up for NaComLeavMo it escaped my notice that many of the blogs involved in this bloggie extravaganza are all about the very personal anguish of infertility. As a single woman with no present inclination (or wherewithal!) to have children, I am humbled by those women, and handful of men, that share their intimate (not THAT intimate) stories with us regarding repeated IVF attempts, miscarriages, pregnancy, adoption and all of the angst that comes with it.
  
  
• Finally, what is it about people who moan and whinge about a problem and then sit there as though they expect you do something about it!? I am all for a whinge-fest, in fact I quite enjoy them sometimes, but then I would attempt to do something about it rather than start whining all over again a few weeks later when nothing has happened - of course nothing has happened - you haven't done anything about it!!!

Anyway, those are my random thoughts this evening during an inspirationless day, so I am actually quite pleased that I have been able to offer up a fair amount of perfect rubbish for you all to read!!!

One last thing - I may need more inspiration next week - so do you have any questions for me, anything you'd like to know? Feel free to ask anything you like although I reserve the right to ignore any I don't like!!

First impressions

I was just wondering what to blog about today when I read Bold.Blue.Adventure and got some inspiration! At the bottom of the a post about first impressions she said "so how about you? Any good stories about first impressions either online or in person?".

Normally my first instinct would be to put something in the comments of that post, but I as I thought that this was too good an opportunity I am going to write about it myself!! (How else am I going to get some inspiration!?)

We all know just how important first impressions can be, in fact I try very hard not to dislike someone just because of a first impression as I could be wrong! Although sometimes I just know that I am never going to like someone! (For instance, there is a male cleaner where I work and he just....ewgh...gets all my hackles up and I know that this is not going to change!).

Sometimes however, you get to find out what other people's first impression of you was! Fortunately, despite the first impression, Mandy is now one of my closest friends even though I don't see much of her these days as I have moved about two hundred miles away! Anyway, I don't know how the conversation came about but she said that her first impression of me was of someone who blew hot and cold - friendly one day and stand-offish the next.

Of course, you have to know me to understand why as Mandy found out - when she found out the reason she said it was like a light bulb went on in her head! The reason that I appear friendly one day and snooty the next is because I am deaf - if Mandy was speaking to me and I could see her then I would be all friendly and chatty like I usually am, but if Mandy was talking to me while my attention was on something else then I would appear to ignore her because I hadn't realised that she was talking to me! This often happened if there was a large group conversation going on and I was trying to make sure that I knew what was going on!

If you didn't know that I was deaf then I can quite understand how that impression could be made, and it horrifies me to think that I appear rude sometimes!! These days when I am giving presentations to large groups I tend to state up front that I am deaf and make a bit of a joke about ignoring people! Having said that, I am not about to introduce myself as "Hi, my name is Sam and I am deaf" because being deaf is not something that everybody needs to know, particularly if I am never likely to meet them again!

But sometimes, I have to be more upfront than usual - just this afternoon there was someone in the ladies loo brushing her hair (probably for an interview or something) and as I was washing my hands, she said something. So, I did what I normally do and said pardon and made sure that I was looking at her, but as she was brushing her hair it was a bit awkward, so I said straight out that I was deaf and then we had a short conversation about the horrible rain that we've been having! Now, I am never likely to meet this woman again, but it was one of those situations where I had to say something or look like the bitch from hell!!

As you can see, this is waaaay too long a comment to inflict on the Bold.Blue.Adventure blog! But do go and have a look at where it all started and I do plan to leave a comment on that blog telling her to come and have a look-see!

Sword Dancing

Are you British? Sword Dancing in the UK needs your help! If you are not British do read this post in order to marvel at the close-mindedness of the British Government! (although you wont be able to help by signing the petition as only Brits can sign!)

Annnnyway - the issue is that the Government are about to introduce a Violent Crimes Reduction Bill which, amongst other things, will prohibit the sale or use of swords. I have no argument with the Bill itself as we have a problem with violent crime and need to do something about it. However, because Sword Dancing is not currently recognised as a historical re-enactment or sporting activity this means that those dancers are not exempt from the above bill with regard the use and purchase of swords.

Traditional folklore dance are forms of art that have great historical and cultural significance, indeed, dancers have used sticks and swords as props since the 1700s and probably since before then! I may not be a dancer myself but I have seen these dances and they are quite elegant, particularly the Scottish ones that I am thinking of - all kilts aswirl and pipes playing!

If you are one of those that feels that we are losing too many of our traditions as it is, please do sign the online petition to include sword dancing as an exemption to the Bill. And do let people know about this so that they too can sign the petition before the closing date of the 25th June 2008.

Flowers

It's show and tell time again!


These are the flowers that are indirectly responsible for a trip to Australia!! What I mean by that is that my cousin, Sarah, got married to Phil in March of this year, and I was invited to the wedding!

Now, it is a loooong way from the United Kingdom to Australia, but this was the perfect opportunity to go to Australia for the first time (hopefully not the only time) and see what it is like! I had a great time having a mini-summer in the middle of spring and visiting four different areas of Australia.

I went to Sydney, Adelaide (where the wedding was), Melbourne and the Whitsunday Islands and despite the searing heat of Adelaide and Melbourne I had a great time - suprisingly Sydney and the Whitsunday Islands weren't nearly so hot; or rather that should be that Adelaide in particular was suffering an incredible heatwave.

Those flowers will always be a reminder of that amazing trip, this is one wedding anniversary that I am unlikely to forget! If are you interested in reading more about my trip, you can read about the stopover in Singapore, my time in Sydney and in the sunshine, the post before I flew to Adelaide and the HEAT, and not forgetting a little bit about the wedding before visiting Melbourne and sending one final message from Australia and, on getting home, uploading a measly few photos to my blog!!! (Hmmm, I clearly blogged more than I thought whilst I was away!)