Phew, good to be home.

Today was a tough one.  It started off with me driving to the doctors office for my immigration medical exam.
This examination consisted of my getting jabbed with 3 shots (tetnus, tb and something else) and having a vial of blood drawn.  During this whole process I had to lay down as I almost passed out.  I am such a wuss.  I swear I was tougher than this when I was a kid.  Don't know what happened to me.
I was there for almost 3 hours, most of it waiting.  What was quite nice though, was after  I had been there for 1.5 hours, they brought me a snack.

Well after 3 hours of that I got back into my car, and headed to work.  It was one of those days, where I wish I hadn't of bothered.  It was hectic and we are at a point on our project where everything, and I mean everything is getting micro managed.  It's driving me insane.  I am quite capable of managing my own work.  But now, its every 15 mins, someone is stopping by my cubicle to ask "are you done with ???? yet", and more frequently than not my answer is no, not yet.  I am working on it.  Thing is, I have so many of these tasks to complete, and there's just not enough hours in the day to get them done.  Hence the 70+ hour work weeks.

It makes me tired and sad.  Thanks for letting me whine, I am feeling rather sorry for myself today.

I spy

I was out on our deck this evening and looked over into our neighbour's yard, and look who was watching me

Friends

My nana had this poem embroidered and hung in her living room:

Make new friends,
but keep the old.
One is silver,
the other is gold.

I used to like it as a child, and now as an adult I am drawn to it even more.

Throughout my adult life I have moved around a lot and have had many opportunities to make new friends.  I've never been very good at keeping in touch with people though.  I have a tendency to disappear, then pop back out of the blue.
The friends that I have had most of my life are luckily for me very forgiving and when we get back in touch in many ways it's like we've never been apart.  Some life things may have changed, but somehow we seem like the same high school friends.

I have done the same thing to many of my blogging friends, and this post is dedicated to you.  Thank you for taking me back.  It's been a fun week reading through your blogs and catching up.

Monday Musings

Some weeks I love Mondays, other weeks not so much.
So far this Monday has been a little rough.  I came into work with a plan.  It's now 1pm and I haven't done much of what I had planned to do.  It's one of those days where everyone seems to have a question for me.
As soon as I get heads down, someone pops by with a "quick question", they leave then 3 more people come along.  I almost feel like I should start blocking time out on my calendar for visiting hours, or a consult period.
It's nice to feel wanted, but it feels like I spend more time helping other people with their work, than I spend doing my own work.  No wonder my typical work week ends up being about 70 hours.

Oh well.  I look around and have to be thankful that I even have a job.  Many of my friends are unemployed and are finding it really tough to get a job.

Discoveries

I keep trying to find something to write about but I write a few lines and end up finding myself wanting to write about something else.  But I can't quite find it.  It's like when a word gets stuck on the tip of your tongue.  When you know its within your grasp.  You know the feeling of it, but just can't quite find it.  Then a few minutes, hours or sometimes even days later, there it is.  Popping up out of the blue.

Well that "popping up" hasn't quite happened for me yet, so in the mean time its just my ramblings.

While browsing the internet earlier today I came across the photo below:

Cerro Torre - Argentina (I've Reached the End of the World)

from the blog at http://www.stuckincustoms.com

I don't know how much this was touched up post production, but I love the image.  It's like something from another world.  I've seen several images today from parts of our planet that look like they are from a fantasy land. Our planet is such an amazing place with so many surprises.  I've had a hunger to get back to travelling lately and these photos are increasing my appetite. 

I need to figure out where to go to first once I am able to get some time off work.  If you could go anywhere in the world tomorrow where would you go?

On this day

On this day twenty years ago, my life changed for the better.  On this day twenty years ago my brother was born.  It was the happiest day of my life.  I'd always wanted a brother.  When he entered the world I was 12 years old.
My mum went into the hospital 2 days prior with contractions, labor had begun.  I went to stay with a neighbour.  Finally I recieved a phone call.  My brother had entered the world.  I ran down the street to my house, met my dad and headed to the hospital.
My brother and I have been close ever since that day.  There may be many miles between us, but not a day goes by where I don't think about him.

Sorry I can't be there in the UK to share his birthday with him.  But Happy Birthday brother of mine.

Sepia Saturday

The village shown in the photo above is Shotely Bridge in Northern England.  Although these buildings are still standing today, Shotley Bridge has grown over even just the past view years. Mostly with residential buildings, the center remains similar today as it was then.  This is the village where I spent most of my childhood.  Growing up the buildings in the right of this photo were a video store, grocery store and news agent.  Now, the building on the right are part of a restaurant.
On the left was a Heritage Center, now I can't even recall what is there.  I spent several saturday afternoon in the Heritage Center learning about my neighbourhood, looking at old photos such as this one.
The photo below is pretty much what is looked like when I lived here (around 1990).

I must admit that I never really saw as much hussle and bussle in modern day Shotley Bridge as there was in the first photo.  There was rarely anyone on the street, other than me and my buddies when I was growing up.

It was a great place to be a child though, we used to spend a lot of time playing down by the river (which is down the road in the back right of the photo).  On hot summer days we used to play in the river.  Good times :)

Shotley Bridge roots began around the 17th century as some German Swordmakers settled here.  Down by the river you can still find some large rocks with holes in them that were used in the sword making process.

    SEPIA SATURDAY is a weekly meme which encourages bloggers to publish and share old images and photographs. All that is required is for contributors to post an old image (it doesn't have to be in sepia) and provide a few words in explanation. If you could provide a link back to the Sepia Saturday Blog and visit as many of the other contributors as you can, it would also be appreciated. There is no weekly theme, as such, but some people like to use the archive image published with the weekly call as a kind of theme. There is no requirement to adopt such an approach : the choice of image is entirely up to you. Once you have published your Sepia Saturday post, add a link to that post to the Linky List published each week and leave a comment to let everyone know you are joining in.

Gracefully

I always thought I'd grow old gracefully.  I thought I would great the wrinkles and grey hairs with dignity.  After all they add character.  They are evidence of my expressions.

I loved my Nana's wrinkles.  The way her forehead rippled when she laughed.  There was one particular day that I remember.  It was not long before she passed on.  We were out in the car with my mum, taking a day trip out to the country.  I was drinking a can of lemonade Tango.  My Nana looked over and requested to have some.  I of course shared willingly, but let her now that it was a bit sour. Nana didn't care about that, so she took the can, took a swig, then all of a sudden her whole face wrinkled up.  I became aware of more wrinkles than I 'd ever seen on her before.  I started to giggle.  Then she also started to laugh, and her face again changed.
At that point in time I had nothing against wrinkles.

Now, time to fast forward 16 years later.  Well I woke up the day after my wedding day, and woe and behold, yes my first wrinkles. I can't decide if its wedding planning that did it to me, or if you just get them when you become a wife.  Maybe its an unwritten part of the vows.

"I vow to obtain wrinkles.  I, (insert bride's name) take you, (insert grooms's name), for my lawful husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward,  for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, until death do us part. "

I have one, that is becoming like the Grand Canyon on my forehead.  It took a while to realise what had caused it.  It's not a frown line, its not a smile line.   But then, with some work, I figured out what it is from.  My husband is about 6ft 7, I am 5ft 3, I spend a lot of time looking up towards him.  Sometimes I don't tilt my head, and yep, that's where the wrinkles are from.  They are actually from my husband.

I am trying to accept them, its more tolerance than acceptance right now, as I know they are here to stay, and before long there will even be more wrinkles moving in.  I just thought/hoped they would come later.  There is really very little graceful about wrinkles.

Once upon a time

There was a young lass who began a blog.  She did so as she knew she had words she wanted to share, and she knew there was at least one other person out there who would be interested in reading them.
However, as time went by, she found herself drifting away from her blog.  Much of this was due to the increased work load that she had.  Long days in the office left little time for her to express herself on her blog.
Eventually her posts became infrequent until she slowly left the blogging world behind.

Well, today, she has returned.  She has made a decision to make time, and get back to writing.  Many wonderful things have happened in this lasses life over the past couple of years, and she's happy to finally be back to share her song of happiness.