Finally some good news!

Yep apart from the fact I'm still poorly! Bad chest and throat, loads of pain from all this coughing and now man flu take 2 to boot!!

I only went and got the job! Yahoo, hooray, bluddy marvellous, we aren’t going to starve come January when I'm made redundant! Yippee!  Plus it is a job I so want, albeit a bit far from home.  I did it for six months around this time last year and I loved it, it was fab.  Made me remember why I wanted to work in housing in the first place.

 

Although I can’t remember ever actually wanting to work in housing, and I am still not really sure what I want to do when I grow up!  I left school wanting to be a vet, hated college and only finished 2 of my A Levels and was desperate to leave education and go to work!  I worked lots of part time jobs for a while, in a pub, in a chip shop, and then finally landed myself a full time job in telesales – whoopee!  Now don’t get me wrong, I met some lovely friends, some I am still friends with now, but I was rubbish at telesales and got sacked!

Needing a new start after what was turning out to be a bad year, heart breaking time with an ex; which ended in him cheating on me, my grandad was diagnosed with cancer, sacked from my job because I was rubbish at sales and left not knowing what to do. Well I grabbed Kat and dragged her to Chichester uni with me (I missed applying, I missed clearing, hell I didn't even have the right qualifications - but I was obviously good at selling something!) and got me a place on a degree course, Social Studies. I worked (sometimes) hard for 3 years, met some very beautiful and lovely people and graduated.

Still had no idea what I wanted to do when I grew up, just knew I needed a job! I met Barney in my second year go uni after taking a trip to Oz and I was very luckily able to give up my part time work in my last few months of uni with Barney supporting me, I knew I needed an income. I ended up working in a place my cousin works for a year or so in the facilities dept, which helped pay for our wedding, but for some reason I was determined I wanted to be an estate agent!

Next stop, a recruitment evening for an estate agents in Fareham, which nothing came of. So I took it upon myself to write to all of the local estate agents in the yellow pages and ask for a job. I did get quite a few interviews and settled on Fox and Sons in Fareham as a negotiator, sadly I forgot I was rubbish at selling! So I moved to branch administrator and loved it. Sadly sales was part of the job and I hated sales, but loved doing the 'sales chasing' and getting involved with the solicitors, so a new idea was born! Again I hit the yellow pages and wrote to all the local solicitors to ask for any vacant positions in conveyancing.

This time I was less successful, I only managed 2 interviews and I got a job at Coffin Mew, Fareham; working in the New Business Team in conveyancing. Lots of moving around the office, shuffling teams, promotion, saved from redundancy a few times, but in the end I got the chop.  Home not knowing what to do with myself and needing a job quite desperately, I managed to land myself an interview in a residential Lettings office as their administrator.  Only problem.... It was in Bognor, a 50 mile round trip from home.

Lettings.... I loved it! It is so for me. No sales pressure, busy often panic stricken environment, every day is different, it was brilliant. Had the wage not been so low and the office so far away, I think I probably would still be there now. But, itchy feet I get, and the need to work closer to home became apparent and I started looking around again. It was then that the job in my current company came up as a receptionist, more than the basic wage I was on in Bognor and being such a big company, scope to progress further hopefully!

I loved reception, I worked there for 9 months, until a position came up in Customer Services, which was again more money and I was sadly seduced by the pay packet and accepted a permanent position there. Don't get me wrong, some people love customer services, I did for a few months, but the call centre type strict environment is not for my nature and it was only going to be a matter of time before I was desperate to move on.

Miraculously a 6 month secondment in lettings came up, which it was able to apply for. Now when I first applied for a job at this company I was torn between two positions, one in reception and one in lettings; I only applied for reception as I was convinced that the only way in was to start at the bottom, so now I was shown this opportunity I wanted it more than ever.  It just comes back to what I always knew, I love lettings! I enjoyed working for the company again, enjoyed going to work and had such fun working against deadlines and juggling everything and loved every day being different. Sadly that 6 months came to an end and I landed back with a bump in customer services.

Well we've had a few changes since then and I am being made redundant. I don't feel sad about it in the slightest and am ready for the new challenges and know it will give me the push I need to find another job rather than languishing around doing something I don't like.  I recently got short listed for a job with the police in the control room answering 999 calls, but after spending a day doing assessments and an interview, I just didn't make the grade; which did knock my confidence somewhat. But a job in my current company came up in the lettings team!  

I applied, studied hard for the interview and was yesterday offered a full time permanent position in the team. I am so chuffed, so pleased and so looking forward to it! Just waiting for a start date and the new chapter begins!

TTFN, Sammy xxx

P.s sorry for the chapter and verse, have always had loads to say!!

P.p.s I lost 2lb this week at WW!!!

Yaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy all round xx

I'm a sickly child....

Well I've been quite quiet of late, and for that please accept my apologies! September has been quite rubbish health wise and I've pretty much been ill for most of it!

It started with a nasty virus that wiped me off my feet completely. Swiftly followed by a water infection, which of course led to a kidney infection - and then man flu set in :0( it's been crap, I've not wanted to do anything other than sit around and feel sorry for myself.

It's been a tough month all round for lots of reasons, and adding work and ill health to that has made for a very grumpy Mrs. B.  But it can only get better surely, October and Autumn are just around the corner and maybe Christnas (shhhhh.... I keep being told off for mentioning it!!) 

So time to buck up those ideas and get back to it. Lots planned, lots of exciting things to look forward to and lots of finger crossing too please. I won't say too much but I'm certainly hoping for something brand new along the career line!

Ttfn, Sammy xx

It's a sad day.

So much bad news this week, but today it really is a sad day. 

They say death comes in three's, I'm bored and fed up of death now altogether and I wish that it didn't come at all.  Grief is shit and it never goes away.

That sums up my day today. Sorry to depress you all.

Thinking of everyone living with their bad news, their unbearable heartache and the turmoil of grief that is going on.  My heart goes out to each and every one of you.  Sending you all much love xx

Here's some poetry I've found about grief from reading another blog recently.  Who knows if it will help anyone, but I certainly understand the sentiments all the same. xx

______________________________________________________________

The ball in the bucket

Grief is like a ball in a bucket. To begin with it fills every space, and there is no room for anything else. But over time the bucket grows. It becomes a room, then a floor, then a whole house. The ball never gets any smaller, but your life grows and you have more space to move around your ball. With time there are days when you may not see the ball at all. Other days you open a door in your life and it trips you up. Some days it corners you. But with time you have more space to move the ball out of the way. Other people believe that the ball grows smaller and smaller and eventually vanishes. That is not the case. It will always be the same size.

_____________________________________________________________

Hold me close and go away
Please visit me and please don’t stay
Talk to me but please don’t speak
I need you NOW – come back next week.

Emotions muddled, needs unknown
To be with others or on my own?
To scream out loud? To rant and shout?
Or hide away and push you out?

I smile at you – “She’s not that bad”
I shout at you – “She’s going mad”
I speak to you – “What do I say?”
I show my tears – “Quick, walk away”

It’s not catching, the grief I feel
I can’t pretend that it’s not real
I carry on as best I know
But this pain inside just won’t go.

So true friends, please, accept the lot
I shout, I cry, I lose the plot
I don’t know what I need today
So hold me close and go away.

Exercise is the answer!

Well Zumba.... Let me tell you.... I LOVED it! 

I have the grace of a baby elephant, the co-ordination of a 3 legged giraffe and I am as stiff as a post with no flexibility at all!  But I gave it a go and I loved it.  I dragged my two friends along with me and they loved it too.  The instructor is very lovely, talked us through it all at the beginning, we managed to remember the main principles - breathe, smile, keep moving even if you don't know the steps and have fun - and that we did.

Lots of people knew what they were doing, had the routines down and were quite confident looking, but Donna the instructor, kept us all on our toes and working hard.  We had options for jumping around like a crazy person, or keeping it lower for us new beginners - we of course did a mixture of both!  I loved that Donna rotated the rows of people, so no hiding at the back for anyone!.  After every song, the front row moved to the back and the back rows closer to the front, so you got your spot at the front - which for me is quite important, I'm as blind as a bat!

We were all knackered afterwards, certainly a good work out all round and I was at home, showered, eaten and in bed by 10pm - something that never happens!

If you do fancy it, do check out Donna's web page with all her local classes listed on here....
http://donnaarcher.zumba.com/

After Zumba, I was inspired to pick up some more exercise, so went along to aqua aerobics on Thursday with a friend.  We used to do aqua every Thursday without fail, so thought I knew what I was letting myself in for and knew I would whole heartedly enjoy it.  Well I couldn't have been more wrong!  No actual aerobic exercise as such, no warm up, lots of work trying to keep an extremely bouyant float under the water for an hour and doing some pushing and pulling motions, a 45 second stretch and cool down at the end and a very unhappy Mrs B.  Four days later and all the muscles in my back, neck and shoulders are still killing me, I feel like I have done myself a real mischief.  It certainly wasn't worth the £6.20 I paid for it and I will not be going again.  I much rather wished I'd done a second Zumba session instead, and is certainly what I might do this week, and it is cheaper as well!

Well weigh in was Saturday and I'm 4.5lb down woo hoo! So Weight Watchers does work when you actually do it, and I do think the exercise definitely helped!  So World watch out.... I'm going back to Zumba tonight!

TTFN.... Sammy xx

Sad news....

So this week I've been rubbish!  Went to WW on Saturday to help Donna out at her new meeting.  If anyone is wanting to join WW and need an early Saturday morning meeting, 9.15am in Hilsea/North End, I can thoroughly recommend!  It is quite a new meeting and quite small at the moment, but very friendly none the less.  It is in St Francis Church Hall, Northern Parade – do let me know if you need more details, I will be happy to help.  I think it’s a brilliant time to get weighed, out of the way and done and dusted including the meeting and home by 10.30am ready to get on with the weekend.

 

Anyways, I digress… I didn’t weigh on Saturday at the meeting I was helping out at, as I had full intentions to go on the Sunday and then went out and got VERY drunk!  Mr B came along too and was just as much of a bad influence, but I did have a lovely weekend with two of my favourite favourite ladies, J & H.  We did a Chimichanga dinner Friday night and then the little pub in Westbourne for a wineSaturday night, along with a few others.  I did sneakily have wine on both nights and this ended in emergency Maccy D’s for breakfast Sunday morning, a lay in till gone 1pm, a pub roast dinner, a bacon roll, some crisps, chocolate and skittles, I even tried a cider as a hair of the dog…. I can confirm that this all just leads to feeling very bad for yourself from eating so much and actually eating more rubbish!  Not looking forward to weigh in this week as it has long continued along the week…

 

Well after all this, it has finally dawned on me, my lovely friend H is leaving us.  She is moving to pastures new, she has a brilliant opportunity in the land of vajazzles and sadly she isn’t going to be around the corner for a cuppa anymore.  Rubbish :0(  We’ve had H’s leaving do (I got much more drunk than anticipated!) I've packed her up a hamper of boring essentials for her new lovely flat, I've found homes for a few things I no longer have use for (in H’s flat) and I am going to miss her terribly :0(  Even more rubbish!

 

I am very pleased for H, we worked together a while back and did a spot of Mini adventuring with car sharing to our place of work and have had a few good drunken nights out and around, including my very first music festival a few years back!  It will certainly be strange not to have H round the corner or for her to be able to pop over to chez Barcroft for a spot of a la carte Mexican or pizza, but I can’t wait to go and visit the land of tango tan (J and I are off on a road trip and to visit the infamous Sugar Hut aren’t we J?!?!) and we’ll see her again at a half term not so far away.  It will be lovely for H being closer to her lion than she is now, but we will all miss her terribly.

 

So that’s it, I'm off to eat chocolate and drink wine in commiseration…. :0(

 

TTFN xx

New ink...

Well life has had its ups and downs this week and I've not been tracking as I should!  Work is incredibly stressful at the moment so it is making my ibs unbearable at times.  So when I can eat I'm stuffing my face and when I can’t I'm miserable and feeling poorly – not conducive to good weight loss.  Although I saw this chart the other day and thought it was a very true reflection – of my weight loss at least!!

 

 

In other news…. In time honoured tradition I popped along to Portsmouth tattoo convention on Sunday, I went last year too and I must admit it is a favourite day out! All that tattoo noise and smell, although makes my tummy flip, its more of excitement than anything else.  I do think as I get older, I do enjoy the pain more.  But that wouldn’t be a strange thing, considering I come from a family who enjoy the pain of a tattoo, my mum included; although she quite likes being waxed too ha!

 

This year was a bit different, Mr B was in Germany for a stag do so he didn’t come along with us.  Although he wasn’t there I'm sure he’ll make up for the ink he didn’t have ha!  I have a new little tattoo, I have finally been branded Mrs. B forever.  I have been wanting this done for ages, but couldn’t work out where to have it, so have had it on the outside of my wrist, on the opposite side of my butterfly and I love it!  Again with the first one on my wrist, it is taking a little while to get used to seeing it everyday, but it is fab.

I had it done by a lovely lady called Christine, from Dino's, a lovely family run business in Weston Super Mare, do go check them out, they are on Facebook and Instagram too! 

http://www.dinostattooistltd.co.uk/ 

 

 

So now on to planning what to have next….

 

I'll keep you posted! xx

Birthday!

So yesterday was my one year blogging anniversary!  Who’dve thunk it eh.  A whole year of rambling on, sharing with all you lovely people the jumbled mess in my brain!  Well thank you all for listening/reading, its been emotional!

My very first post was around the Race for life 2012, and as it is a year on, we have indeed just completed the Race for Life 2013.  There was 4 of us this year, my cousin Theresa, and my other cousins daughters; Megan and Caylie.  We walked the 5k course, it took us just a smidge under an hour, which in 30 degree heat and hardly any shade I think was quite an achievement!  

We managed to raise £205 in total, £175 online - £65 of that was from the Mad Hatters Tea Party fund, and £30 cash that has been handed to me.  I certainly think that is something to be proud of!

Cancer is something that is very real, very close to all of us and something we have all experienced the effects of.  Ideally of course we’d like it eradicated or a cure all together, but the best we can hope for at the moment is that the treatments just keep getting better and better and more of our loved ones will be here to see more of the future. 

Our family has been very affected by cancer sadly, last year we lost two lovely ladies to the horrible cancer.  They were diagnosed within days of each other in March, and died within weeks of each other in May; so it is certainly a cause that is very close to our hearts.  

There are of course good news stories with cancer.  My grandad, although sadly no longer with us, when he first had cancer in 2002; they were able to treat this and we had another wonderful 5 more years with him before he passed.  And we have lots of survivors to be thankful for.

So this research for cancer, the breakthroughs they have made, the treatments they have devised are so important to all of us to help beat this awful disease.  I am sure the money we have raised will make a difference somewhere in the system to help families like ours to keep their loved ones for longer.

Soaking my feet in cold water after the race!!

So on this note, thank you to all who have sponsored us, thank you to all who have helped us to raise money and thank you to all who have helped raise money after my birthday as well.  Well done you all!

Running total so far….

Cancer research £245 (including tea party donations paid into other pages/our fundraising page/tea party donations to our page)

British Heart Foundation £62.50

Womb Cancer research £50.00

Rowans Hospice £50.00

Happy blogging birthday to me!

TTFN, Sammy xx