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.