New Job

I got the job that I wanted, I start on January 1st (officially).

I am really excited.  I have been pretty much doing this job for the past couple of years in addition to my regular role.  But, now I get to do that full time, and leave the other role behind.  They are backfilling my previous role with 6 people. 

Which is crazy, if I think that I have essentially been doing the job of 7 people for the past 2 years.  It's no wonder I was working such long hours.

I am looking forward to being able to use a different part of my brain, and do more planning strategy as oppose to the reactive execution I have been doing lately. 

Habits v's Goals.

I have been wearing glasses for the past 18 months, and just made the move to contacts.  In 18 months I have formed a habit of pushing my glasses back up my nose.  I am more aware of that right now, as I keep doing it without having any glasses to push up my nose.

Obviously it took less than 18 months to form the habit, but I am curious how long it will take to break it.

Supposedly it takes 21 days to form  a new habit/break a habit.  I wonder if this will follow suit.

With it coming up to the end of the year, New Years round the corner, I have one goal for 2013.  That goal is to make sure I give myself some work/life balance. I have spent the past 3 years working a crazy schedule, and put my personal life pretty much on hold.

Going forward I want to continue to work hard, but ensure that I leave some time for my own mental and physical health.  I have weight to lose and friends to see.   I really do have some amazing friends though.  They have been patient with me over the past few years, and have been flexible with their schedules, so that when I did have some down time we were able to get together.  Now its my turn to make sure I can do the same for them..

Regardless of new years resolutions, what things in your life are you looking to change?

'Tis the Season

Its that time of year again, for parties, eating, drinking, spending time with family and friends. It always comes with mixed feelings, as I am grateful for the friends I have here, but always miss my family, who are so far away.  I have met lots of new people over the past couple of months, and am feeling that my surrogate family is expanding.  I am very fortunate to have so many wonderful people in my life.  Both those that I know in person, and those that I have met through the virtual world.

I lived in the US for almost 8 years now (It will become 8 on Jan 5th).  My first Christmas here was spent alone, in my small apartment in downtown Portland.  I remember being unable to reach my parents by phone, as they were on vacation in South Africa, and sometime in the evening the power went out, so I was all alone in the dark.  It was quite possibly the worst Christmas I've ever had. 

Since then I have invited friends over to my house every Christmas day, and have had anything from 2 people to close to 20 stop by.  It makes Christmas feel like Christmas to me, if I am able to open up my home, cook for people and share the day.

I could of course go back to the UK for Christmas, but now I have made my own tradition here.  It might not be a conventional Christmas spent with family, but my friends out here in the PNW have become my family.  I still get so excited about Christmas day that I wake up around 4am (as you can imagine, my husband is not really impressed by that).  I try and stay queit as I make my way downstairs and start to prepare the turkey and trimmings.

Then around 8am, when I can stand it no more, I go back upstairs to wake up the husband.  He cooks a wonderful breakfast, and we have memosa's, eat then beginning the gifting process.  Presents are pulled from under the tree and placed in the relevant piles (myself, hubby and of course the cats :) ).  We make our way through, topping up the memosa's as we go.  Then its time for me to get back in the kitchen.  By now the Christmas music is blasting.

As our friends start to show up, the party begins, with food and drink to spare, we have a merry time, drinking, talking, dancing, drinking, dancing, drinking sleeping.

Other than Christmas day it's self, my favourite holiday moment, is decorating the house.  I have boxes and boxes of Christmas decorations, and put up several trees.  I love going through the ornament boxes and finding all those memories. Ornaments that my mum and I bought when I was going through a rough patch in life, and my mum was there to support me.  Items from my childhood, decorations off the family tree from 30 years ago.  We were recently able to add to the collection, ornaments from Ryan's childhood, there are homemade ornaments in there, one's that move, and ones from his grandma. 

As bittersweet as Christmas can be, it is certainly a time when you remember loved ones, it's a wonderful occassion to be surrounded by family/friends.

Forgiveness

Does forgiveness have a larger affect if it is given by someone to another, or if a person is able to forgive themselves for their own mistakes or misgivings?
Does it mean more to offer forgiveness than to receive it?

I know that I personally find it much easier to forgive others than I do to forgive myself.

It's possible for me to find more examples of this as work. It's as I hold myself to a different set of expectations than I do those around me. I seem to be able to accept that other people are human, and therefore mistakes are inevitable. Yet when I get something wrong myself, I will beat myself up about it for days, weeks, sometimes even longer, even if other people forgive me or reassure me

There are a couple of people in my life who find it exceedingly difficult to forgive themselves for anything. Causing themselves grief for years. Long after the people involved in the incident have moved on from it, and in many cases even forgotten about it.

I can still remember things from my childhood that I did. Such as when I yelled out that I hated my parents. I was probably no more than 4, and really upset at the time. I have no recollection if what had happened leading up to the outburst, but I remember with a sickening feeling the words I shouted out. I don't think I'll ever let it go. There are many other things, that I will not go into here, as I still feel ashamed of them. Some at the time were reckless and fun, but people got hurt. I don't let these things consume me, but if and when I do, for some of those things I still feel guilt. Others are just a memory.

I have a belief that mistakes, bad decisions and moments of impulsiveness will occur, and that it is better in the long term to forgive oneself and learn from the mistake than to carry the guilt. Forgive but maybe not always forget.

I bring up the not always forgetting, for two reasons.  1. Because repetition of the same mistakes is really not a good course of action.  2. I was in an unhealthy relationship for a period of time, and had I forgiven and forgotten everything that person did to me, I'd most likely still be in that horrendous situation.  There came a point, that although I could still forgive, I knew I had to get out, otherwise I would only be able to hold myself accountable for what would of/could of happened to me.

"Forgiveness isn't something we do for others. We do it so we can get well and move on." 
(source unknown)

Mornings

There is something to be said for what sleep can do, and the feeling a person gets when they wake up at the beginning of the morning.

There is always that moment of possibility. Of course sometimes it can last longer than others.
Last night it took me a long time to fall asleep, I had a lot of thoughts in my head. Finally I drifted off, then woke up this morning feeling calm and relaxed. The fact that I've only had 3 hours of sleep hasn't yet sunk in, and I am hoping I make it through the day before the inevitable wave of tiredness hits me.

My work schedule over the past couple of years has been insane. I worked an average work week of 70 hours, pretty much worked 7 days a week, put in a few 20+ hour days in the office, but no matter how stressed or tired I was, there was always, that moment, sometimes fleeting where I would wake up and feel calm. I have come to treasure those moments, and try my best to make them linger as long as possible.

Purpose?

I have met some new people lately, and had some recent conversations which have sent my mind traveling back to my past, and got me thinking about my perspective now v's back then.
There have been a couple of major events in my life which sent me on a certain course. There's also been some smaller things which I experienced which may have either tweaked my course, or perhaps altered my perceptions.

I admit now that I have no idea where this is going, but I was laying here, feeling somewhat awkward and felt the need to write. I am sure to most this wont make much sense. It doesn't help matters that I am writing this on my iPhone and we all know by now how apple likes to autocorrect. Doing my best to catch those as I go, by certain I will miss some.
Anyway, I had a recent conversation with someone regarding the way I was feeling a long time ago. About the struggles I was having in my early 20's trying to determine what the point of life was. Not just my life but life in general. The human race as a whole to be honest. I couldn't figure it out, the thought consumed me. At some point I realized that there was only so much I could do regarding a larger purpose. And rather than beat myself up, I realized that I could make a difference to those around me. If I could walk down the street on the way to work and smile at someone, it may make a difference to their day. If at work I could make a small improvement it could make a difference to someone. If I could appreciate the small things in life, it would make a difference to me.

I still now, almost 10 years later believe the same thing. Is it because I convinced myself that this was right, or did I just accept that it was OK?

I find myself revisiting it. Wondering and speculating.

For some their purpose in life is their kids, or earning enough money to pay the bills, or by the car they want. I've never set my goals that way. I've always felt that we, as part of the earth have a responsibility to ourselves, each other and the environment around us. As such, I get pained when I see or hear of people/events that damage those around them. It makes no sense to me.

I was going to write surely we all have the same goal which is to be happy and live life fully, but then I realized that's not the case. That's just my goal. Certainly I share it with some. Several people in my life have the same goal. Others not so much. And although I had in my mind that fulfillment of those goals would lead to happiness I realized that also is not the case.

Lazy weekends, a thing of the past?

I don't know what it is about my weekends of late, but they seem to fly by so quickly.  Jam packed with all sorts of things, leaving little time for those lazy Saturdays or lazy Sundays.

This weekend was spent with my friends girls, meeting up with my cousin from the UK, who is over here visiting a gentleman fellow.  Catching up with my husband who I hadn't seen for a week.  Working on the house, shopping for the house, visiting with a friend, and goodness knows what else.

Now its a little after 5pm, and I am finally sitting down, with a cup of tea and pondering what the week is going to bring.  I should really check my work email, but I feel so content and happy that I don't want to spoil it.  It will all still be there tomorrow after all.

So, these days, although my weekends are full and busy, I can't help but notice, by the time Sunday evening comes around, I feel relaxed and content.   I don't feel the need to have a lazy day.

Now, I am making Shepard's pie, and will soon be sitting down to dinner.  Next on the list, its time for me to start reading up on my garden.  So many things out there, that I have no idea how to take care of, and I need to start soon, otherwise everything will be dead.

Back Again

Well, I am back after almost 20 days of busyness.  I've spent the past few weeks moving house.  Husband and I just bought a house, its the first time we've bought, we both been renting up until now.  It is such a different feeling to be living in a place that is really ours.  We are really enjoying it.

Last night we ended up at Home Depot at 8pm, to buy stuff for garden maintenance.  Lawn rake and broom is all for now.  I was embarrassed by the amount of leaves on our lawn compared to our neighbours, so something had to be done.

This morning I was up early raking the leaves, and sweeping the drive way.  My cat Henry was out keeping me company.  To my neighbours I may have looked like a witch, broom in hand, and black cat rubbing up against my legs.

I left my house behind in the care of my husband for this week. I am staying at a friends house while she is in Germany, I will be looking after her children playing "Auntie Caroline".  This should be interesting :)

New home - hopefully

So, we had good news today.
Hubby and I put in an offer on a house a few weeks ago.
The offer was accepted, and we have been waiting for the appraisal to come through.
Well, it came through today, and it came back looking good, so we are good to go.  Closing will hopefully be next week.
We are first time buyers, so it's all quite exciting but scary.

 The past few weeks have been a bit stressful  I am hoping when it closes it will be a bit calmer.

I don't want to let myself get too excited about it until we have the keys, but it's sort of hard not too.  I can't help but think about the things I want to do to it.

It has such a nice garden, and I've already started reading up on how I need to take care of it.  I've never had a garden to take care of.  I am sure I'll be able to provide some interesting stories of my mess ups,  over the next few weeks, months etc.

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.

Beep Beep

What do you know... I passed my driving test today!

Red Shoes

I am thinking that you may have been wondering what happened to that girl Caroline, who used to write to this little space in the blog world. She hasn’t been around in a few months.
If you thought that I had forgotten about my blog, you would be a little right, but not completely. Truth is the past few months have been a little unsettled. Been as my blog is called song of happiness I didn’t really want to post a bunch of miserable posts. So I saved you from that

I am hoping that things are now settling down some, although I am not feeling very settled as yet, but I don’t intend to bore you with those details.

Instead, I am going to try and think of something else to write about. Maybe one of my public transportation stories.

As you may know I don’t drive (yet – but I have been working on that lately), so I take public transportation to work. It seems I am one of those people that people like to talk to. This morning I was wearing my favourite red shoes. There was a couple of us waiting for the bus, including one lady with a white cane. She checked with me the bus number before we climbed on board and we ended up sitting next to each other.

Now, I learnt something here, as I thought people with white canes were blind, but turns out that is not the case, as she commented on my red shoes - so clearly she could see, although maybe not quite so well. My shoes happened to be the same red as her skirt. Well, by this point she’d heard me talk enough to pick up on my accent, so the discussion began.

She had been to England a long time ago, and had fallen in love with it. We got to talking about where in England I was from, and I was impressed that just by me saying I was from the North East, she was able to rattle off counties in that area, and name landmarks, although she’d never actually got that far north.

Needless to say this was quite a different experience to some of the others I’ve had since moving here, where when asked where I am from and I say England, they think I mean New England…

Caromie is back in town,

I took a break from my blog for a while. Truth is I have been working quite a bit the past few months, and just didn't have much time to write. Seems things are quieting down a little now, and getting back to "normal". So here I am, back for a while at least.

Its not just that I haven't been writing, I haven't even been reading other peoples blogs much lately. The most I have been able to manage is the odd tweet every now and again. But at least that let people know I was still living.

Life is good at the moment, I still have a job, for now at least, my bf and I managed to patch things up and are getting along really well, we are not living together at the moment, and I am sure that helps. We both need a decent amount of space/time to ourselves. Living together we weren't able to find that balance. Of course, we can't go living in separate places forever, although we have spoken about it. Maybe we could buy two houses in the same street, or even next door to each other... it could be the secret to our success. Seriously though, we are taking things slowly and having a lot of fun.

2009, seems to be the year for weddings. I think we have heard about 5 in the past two months which take places over the next 12 months or so. 4 in the mid west, and 1 back in the UK. I haven't even been to a wedding since I was 16, and now 5 in a year... With some luck these weddings will give me something to write about. I mean every wedding has a story right..?

Apology (of sorts)

I have been neglecting my poor blog this past month.  There’s been multiple reasons for this.  My life has had a lot of changes lately, and I’ve been taking some time to let the dust settle and get back into my groove.  The past couple of weeks I’ve had the opportunity to meet up with some friends that I haven’t seen in a couple of years.  These meetings have really opened my eyes to how much I’ve “grown” over the last two/three years.  3 years ago I had no self-esteem, there were long periods of time were I even hated myself.  Such a different person from who I am now.  I surrounded myself with people who were not really good for me.  We were all struggling together, but rather than trying to give each other emotional support we beat each other down more.

I have always been a relatively strong person, I just didn’t know it.  I’ve had depression for a large chunk of my life, I first became aware of it when I was 12.  I’ve never taken any medication to combat this but instead I realized that we do have some control over our emotions, we can influence the way that we react and deal with the things that life throws at us.

These days I am happy with my life and the path that I have chosen to take, even with the recent changes in it.  I am extremely happy that I moved to Portland, as it is now home to me, and has really helped me to finally feel somewhat settled.  Before moving here, I was looking for something new every year, be it my job, the country I lived in or any number of things.

I will be back to this blog soon, in the meantime check back occasionally, I’ll be posting here and there.

The room where I write

I have been lost for things to write on my blog lately. Partly due to the fact that I just began a writing class and it would seem I have an internal quota on the number of words I can write in a day or week. Kind of like the theory that women need to speak 'x' number of words within a day to be 'happy'. I am pretty confident it was a man that came up with that theory... but whatever.

So in the lack of things to write about, you get to see one of my writing class assignments... its not supposed to be good... its free writing...

The room where I write

It’s always dark in this room. I have no ceiling lights, just lamps spread out around the room, which give off a warm yellow glow. I like to light candles this time of year as they make the room seem warmer, and add to the glow of the artificial light. My white couches are starting to look really sad, they need new cushions, or to be restuffed. They’ve been used a lot over the past 8 years. I got them from a friend when I first moved into my own apartment. One of them even has a petrol stain on the cover from one of my moves when it was dropped in a puddle. They are well used, but unfortunately not well loved.

The TV takes up far too much of the room, left over from a broken relationship. I’d wanted a flat screen, but he won out in the discussion, no I have a ridiculous TV eating up the space of my room. The carpet is a mess, my cats leave fluff all over it as they run around playing tag, jumping over each other and anything else that gets in the way.

I am feeling quite lousy today. I had my hair dyed a couple of shades more red on Friday, and I love it. I therefore bought some new shampoo, so that the colour might last a little longer, and guess what... the sensitive little flower that I am, is allergic to it. I felt all cute with my new hair... and now... now my face and neck is all blotchy and itchy.

Due to the fact that I already have other allergies, my medication is not sufficient to cover it all and I am sneezing and coughing a lot again. Needless to say I am feeling a little sorry for myself, in fact so much so that after lunch I am probably going to head home as I have left my inhaler there anyway. Stupid allergies. I don't know when I became so sensitive to stuff. Its Dove too, so you'd think it would be more gentle... I guess not.

Well, that does mean that I may actually be able to decorate the bra today... I'll post pictures when I do.

Fumbling is Bad

So most of this past weekend was spent with the wbf. Friday night we went out and had a scrumptious dinner with some friends. Saturday, we spent the day being lazy and watching college football. The wbf is a college football junkie. Me, well not so much, for one thing it doesn’t count as football to me. But been as I love him, I am trying to get more into it, and he is also encouraging me to do so. One way that I am getting into it is through the ESPN College Pick’em thingie. I did pretty good last week, but this week not so much, I think I may start to actually have to read a little bit about the teams. I did however watch more of the games with him this weekend than I have done for a while.

This may have been because I was too tired to be doing much of anything else, but we won’t be telling the wbf that, as far as he knows, I just wanted to watch it …

I actually had fun watching the games, which might actually be the strangest thing of all. We watched the Ohio State game, and I actually learnt some things, I already knew that fumbling is bad, but now I know a little bit more about being down… knees and elbows…and footballs, I did say a little bit… I also learnt where brutus stands throughout most of the game, so was able to spot him a couple of times before the wbf did (that is how he keeps me interested, we play spot the mascot)

Well between now and next Saturday I am going to try to learn some more.

A few of my favourite things.

Today is the wbf’s birthday. I find it quite amusing that his birthday falls on a full moon. Perhaps he’ll turn into a werewolf or something. Now that would give me something to write about – should I survive it of course. Actually, I don’t think it would surprise me all that much, he does appear to be quite grumpy as I would imagine a werewolf would be sometimes.

Well, anyway, as its his birthday today, the two of us celebrated last night. He has to work late today. I baked him some scrummy chocolate chip cookies (his favourite), made dinner, hung some balloons up around the apartment and got us a bottle of champagne to share. We then watched a silly movie – Kenucky Fried Movie. He was adamant that I wouldn’t like it, as he is with all of his “favourite” movies. We he was wrong, I thought it was actually quite funny – although perhaps the champagne helped. Well anyway, I think I made a break through last night. I realized that perhaps he doesn’t want me to like his “favourite” movies, perhaps that somehow taints them. Sort of like when you find out your parents like your “favourite” band, or “favourite” shirt, somehow it’s no longer your “favourite”, in fact somehow you never listen to that band, or wear that shirt again.

Ah Choo

I am quite happy today. I finally got my new laptop battery, so I am back being friends with my laptop, at least I will be once I re image it. And then I hope to be back to my normal rate of blogging.

I've been off work today. I have really bad allergies, in fact over the past year, the only time I have not had allergy symptoms was during July and August. So today I went back to the docs, to try and figure something out. So now I am off Zyrtec and now taking Allegra. I've been using Zyrtec since I was about 10. So I am curious if Allegra is any different. I also have a couple of lovely nasal sprays to check out. One which is only an antihistamine the other has steroids, but also is supposed to help my eyes. Going to try the antihistamine one first, hopefully it works.

You wouldn't believe how many tissues I have been going through. I have been known to go through a whole large box in a day. I have to get the lotion ones otherwise my nose is super sore.

I am going to be so happy if this works. If not, I am going to try the shots. I am not really a huge fan of shots, and its quite a time commitment to be begin with, but I am willing to give everything a shot (no pun intended).

So that pretty much has been the excitement of the day. Fun life I have isn't it.

So tomorrow I am back at work, sneezing or no sneezing.

This Love

Due to my laptop frustrations I have been less motivated to write. But here I am, again with very little clue what to write. It might have been an idea for me to write down some ideas on paper even when I was not inclined to be typing, but since when did I do what was useful.

Also, since getting back with the wbf, my mind has been quite busy. Things are going really well, and I think we can make it work. It is hard however to put July behind me. I know in order to make this relationship work (which I really want to do), I have to move on from the heartbreak he caused me in July. It is of course easier said than done. But talk through it, and when I start to have some doubts, he listens and reassures me.

We'll see what the future brings, right now, I am just trying to enjoy each day and not worry too much what the future may bring.

I am a hopeless romantic, and I know I won't be giving up on it any time soon. He makes me a very happy lady (most of the time). I also know that things worth having are worth working for.b