Six word Saturday (on Sunday!)

Unemployed and STILL 24 hours late!

Guilt and Guilty Pleasures

Well I am now entering my third week of voluntary unemployment. I seemed to have spent the first two weeks doing laundry, making a half hearted attempt at cleaning out the kitchen cupboards and preparing for interviews. I have come to the decision that I will not be applying for any more jobs for a little while to give me time to sort myself out and really think about what I want to do next. Trouble is I am constantly feeling guilty! I feel guilty because I am not working, unemployment is something I haven't experienced before, I have worked ever since I left school. Also, because I have always worked long hours and often had to travel away from home a lot, we employ a small amount of help. I have a lovely lady who comes in one day a week to clean, another pair of lovely ladies who come in once a week to tidy the garden (leaving me free to just to the interesting gardening at the weekend) and finally a great dog walker who comes in every afternoon to feed and walk our dogs to ensure they are not left alone for too long.

When we made the decision for me to give up my job, we also decided to keep everybody on, as if I go back to full time employment, it would be impossible to find such good helpers again. Trouble is, it is one thing coming home and finding the house has been vacuumed, or the garden swept, quite another thing actually being there while someone is doing your work for you! I have started hiding up in the office, or going out shopping to avoid having to feel so guilty.

On the other hand, not working definitely has its benefits. I have been able to do my piano practice regularly, I have got my guitar out and started hardening off my fingers again, started sorting out my paper crafting stuff and found my crochet hooks. I treated myself to two new crochet books and some lovely new yarn that I can't wait to get started on. I have time to blog. Have lunch with a friend on a weekday. See what my garden looks like in daylight. Guilty pleasures indeed, but I shall make the most of them while I can.

The National Forest Folk Festival

I have added some new featured artists links today, all from the National Forest Folk Festival. Lovely Husband and I went to the 2009 festival and these were our two favourite acts.   We had never seen the 100 Man Orchestra (all 3 of them) before and they were really talented, so I have included a link from a previous year too.   The Eliza Carthy Band were great as usual and I can't wait to see them again.   Embarrassingly, I discovered on a second viewing of the Eliza Carthy Band YouTube clip that I am seen very briefly walking straight past the camera - Oops!   Blue patterned top and a pony tail - see if you can spot me.

Turning over a new leaf

I really have been rubbish at blogging recently, but from today, I am turning over a new leaf.  I have got over the initial shock of unemployment and am starting to re-establish a more sensible sleeping pattern, which helps the old grey cells to function more efficiently.

I will attempt to 'Blog with Discipline' as do my blogging heroes, CBeth and Showmyface, and will try to be more creative, like my other twitter hero Lambsios.   I will be giving the blog a bit of an update and will re-launch Fit not Fat now that I have eaten all the chocolate my workmates gave me.   

I hope you will come along for the ride and encourage me to do more.

Thanks!

Long time no blog

The last few weeks have been very busy and no time for tweeting and blogging. However I shall be joining the ranks of the unemployed on Friday (by choice) and I am looking forward to some time off to catch up with my life in general. This blog post comes to you courtesy of my new mobile blogging app on my iPhone. This is my first attempt so I hope it works!

As I write this I am on a train speeding towards London where I will then catch another train, on which I will then immediately speed away from London again. I have to spend a couple of days in Southend partly for business and partly to have the opportunity to say goodbye to my colleagues at the Southend offices.

I shall send thus post now(while I have a signal) and keep my fingers crossed. Yay for mobile blogging!


-- Post From My iPhone

Return to Blighty

Well I am back from my travels.  We had a lovely relaxing break, lots of rest, good food and wine.  I will be blogging at more length soon. But first I have to catch up with my favourites!

Time to Blog

A rare commodity just recently has been having the time to sit and blog, but today, when I should have been working, my work laptop just refused to play ball and I find myself with time to put some extra washing in the machine, play on Twitter and update my blogs.   I have just posted a progress report on my subsidiary blog and realised just how tardy I have been in setting some of my goals in my motion.  I, for instance, have still not unpacked my new Wii Fit.   It is sitting in the bedroom glaring at me accusingly.   So perhaps today will be the day.

I must admit to being a little stressed of late.  I have found the most ridiculous little setbacks have made me mad, sad or bad out of all proportion to problem at hand.   I am looking forward to a holiday and some chill out time.   I have just deleted a whole paragraph of me whining about my backlog of chores, must do's, want to do's etc.,  when I realised that I am choosing to sit here and post a blog instead of getting on with some of them!

So I will keep this post short and go and actually get on with something.  Ta ta for now.