Sunday 12 June 2011
the end (of this blog at these)
Well this will be my last ever 'reforming procrastinator' blog. There is one very simple reason for this. I no longer procrastinate. I recently had a month's holiday, backpacking round Europe by train. This was something that I had always wanted to do and had finally managed to do it, hardly procrastinating huh??? I've realised that although I don't always have the time to do as much of my hobbies as much as I would like, I do spend some time doing them. I may not have a job that I love but when I'm outside of work I spend my time doing things I love; I see my friends and family, spend quality time with my husband (doing various activities), I knit, I love growing vegetables, I managed to teach myself enough Germany to get by in Germany for a week and I travel. I really have turned into one of life's do-ers or go-getters!! I think I originally started this blog because I felt that I had no goals, no purpose or no focus in my life. All that has changed. I now know what I want to do with my life and the career that I want. It might take me a while to get there but I know I have the determination to get there no matter how long it takes. I've learnt not to put pressure on myself and that 26 is not too old to make a decision and a career change. So now I am going to start a new blog about the road to a new career; the voluntary experience I need, applying and hopefully getting a place on a university course and the highs and lows of applying (and probably being rejected) for jobs. All whilst continuing my very full life. So long and wish me luck.
Saturday 1 January 2011
It's a New Year I'm moving onwards and upwards!!
It's no secret that 2010 was a very difficult year in my life. It was the year that I realised how much I had put off doing and also the year that I actually started experiencing grown up problems. So for New Year's Eve me and my husband decided to have a quiet evening in, eat cheese and antipasti and drink cava whilst watching the TV. (The theory being that if we were drunk we would be maudlin). So we both woke up early and refreshed and hangover free. Fantastic. Today really feels like a new start and I feel free of all the problems of last year. Exactly how a New Year should be.
So today is the first day of the rest of my life. I have decided not to make resolutions except I will try to get into shape (for the first time in 2 years since my under active thyroid started affecting me) and my new start will be a desire to learn more and see more and do more. So far today I have spent half an hour on the wii fit, I have decided on my present for my niece/nephew. It is the hanging pockets from the fall/winter 2010 Debbie Bliss magazine
(its the picture at the bottom of the page)
I think it's the perfect present whether for girl and boy and something that will keep forever.
I have also been working a little more on my university application (I'm applying for a Masters in Social Work course starting in September), I have two weeks left before the deadline so am just perfecting things now although I still have some work on my personal statement.
Finally and most exciting me and my husband have booked our flights to Prague on 21st April. We are going for a month trip around Europe visiting; Czech Republic, Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Poland, Belgium, France and Holland. This is the trip that has been postponed for years and so it feels amazing to have actually booked it! Roll on April.
I know it's only 17 hours into the new year but it feels very positive so far. I know with the birth of my first niece/nephew it will be an amazing one. Although the first few months will be waiting months whilst I'm waiting to find out if I get onto the course and waiting for our big trip. But at least I'll have the finishing of the kitchen (yep one year after buying our kitchen units the rest will be completed), knitting projects and learning German to keep me busy. For now Auf wiedersehen!
So today is the first day of the rest of my life. I have decided not to make resolutions except I will try to get into shape (for the first time in 2 years since my under active thyroid started affecting me) and my new start will be a desire to learn more and see more and do more. So far today I have spent half an hour on the wii fit, I have decided on my present for my niece/nephew. It is the hanging pockets from the fall/winter 2010 Debbie Bliss magazine
(its the picture at the bottom of the page)
I think it's the perfect present whether for girl and boy and something that will keep forever.
I have also been working a little more on my university application (I'm applying for a Masters in Social Work course starting in September), I have two weeks left before the deadline so am just perfecting things now although I still have some work on my personal statement.
Finally and most exciting me and my husband have booked our flights to Prague on 21st April. We are going for a month trip around Europe visiting; Czech Republic, Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Poland, Belgium, France and Holland. This is the trip that has been postponed for years and so it feels amazing to have actually booked it! Roll on April.
I know it's only 17 hours into the new year but it feels very positive so far. I know with the birth of my first niece/nephew it will be an amazing one. Although the first few months will be waiting months whilst I'm waiting to find out if I get onto the course and waiting for our big trip. But at least I'll have the finishing of the kitchen (yep one year after buying our kitchen units the rest will be completed), knitting projects and learning German to keep me busy. For now Auf wiedersehen!
Saturday 18 December 2010
It's A Wonderful Life
Saturday night all alone, the hubby is at work earning some extra pennies for our four week tour of Europe were planning for April. So I am putting my feet up will be FINALLY watching 'It's a Wonderful Life' after years of wanting to watch it. There's so many classic movies that I've never seen that everybody else has so I'm glad to be taking one off my list. Plus it'll put me in the festive mood. I bought festive chocolates today so I'm going to try to distract myself away from the chocolates by knitting! Film finishes at 11.30 then I'll go and pick up the hubby. Perfect timing!
Thursday 16 December 2010
2½ weeks till a new year begins..
...and boy am I going to be glad to see the back of this one. Not that I believe you have to wait until the new year to restart your life but after the year I've had it'll be nice to draw the line under it.
flooding, burglary and health issues
Yep those three reasons have made it overall a pretty rubbish year. The only positives I can take is that I learnt how little possessions mean to me. Doesn't mean that I'm not still gutted that the only place that I had my New York photos was on the stolen laptop. Still they can't steal memories.
Flooding destroyed my living room. Guess that taught me how sweet home is for me!
Health has been affected due to hypothyroidism
Now that I'm feeling better maybe the effects of that were a major part in my procrastinating ways?
The positives from this year
I like to leave things on a positive note so very briefly here's the good stuff to take from this year:
holidays; fun, enjoyable, new places and with New York - life changing
career; I have a new focus
health; I have a diagnosis for my problems
nights out; new friends, old friends, old acquaintances, enjoyed time with them all
volunteering; fun, new skills, good experience, feels good
family; closer than ever, appreciate them (particularly in a crisis!)
marriage; happy, close, supportive, loving
home; redecorated after flood though still need to finish that damn kitchen!
experiences; paul mccartney live=amazing, roller disco-ing, horse races, travelling alone, navigating london alone, camping. all fun, scary and new!
and finally at least I can say that my crisis management skills have developed!!
flooding, burglary and health issues
Yep those three reasons have made it overall a pretty rubbish year. The only positives I can take is that I learnt how little possessions mean to me. Doesn't mean that I'm not still gutted that the only place that I had my New York photos was on the stolen laptop. Still they can't steal memories.
Flooding destroyed my living room. Guess that taught me how sweet home is for me!
Health has been affected due to hypothyroidism
Now that I'm feeling better maybe the effects of that were a major part in my procrastinating ways?
The positives from this year
I like to leave things on a positive note so very briefly here's the good stuff to take from this year:
holidays; fun, enjoyable, new places and with New York - life changing
career; I have a new focus
health; I have a diagnosis for my problems
nights out; new friends, old friends, old acquaintances, enjoyed time with them all
volunteering; fun, new skills, good experience, feels good
family; closer than ever, appreciate them (particularly in a crisis!)
marriage; happy, close, supportive, loving
home; redecorated after flood though still need to finish that damn kitchen!
experiences; paul mccartney live=amazing, roller disco-ing, horse races, travelling alone, navigating london alone, camping. all fun, scary and new!
and finally at least I can say that my crisis management skills have developed!!
Friday 17 September 2010
the downside to being a reforming procrastinator
Yep that title is correct - the downside. There are obviously so many benefits; actually getting things done, feeling alive but for me there has been a downside. I have recently been diagnosed with underactive thyroid or hypothyroidism.
Hypothyroidism usually develops gradually. The symptoms are mild, and you may not even notice them at first. This is called subclinical hypothyroidism.
Hypothyroidism causes a general slowing down of your body's functions. Some of the symptoms include:
feeling tired and sleeping a lot
feeling the cold easily
dry and/or pale skin
coarse, thinning hair and brittle nails
sore muscles, slow movements and weakness
a hoarse or croaky voice
a change in facial expression
depression
problems with memory and concentration
weight gain
constipation
fertility problems and increased risk of miscarriage
heavy, irregular or prolonged menstrual periods
a slow heart rate
Reforming my procrastinating ways has helped ease some of these symptoms, I've been forcing myself to carry on seeing friends and going out so I think this has prevented me from being depressed. However, it has also made me extremely tired. Constantly forcing myself to keep going has made me become exhausted over time and for the last week I have had to take a week off work to recharge my batteries.
Before I was off work, I spoke to a thyroid specialist who advised me that it could take a year for me to be on the right dosage of medication to actually feel normal again. This news completely stopped me and has made me unable to force myself into work and to carry on with my life. I think the problem was that I am an eternal optimist (not usually described as a problem I know!) but because of this I have managed to plough through the hard times when I have been exhausted as long as I have some point in the future to focus on (as in a doctors or hospital appointment). I managed to carry on for a month or so focussing on this appointment with the specialist, optimistic that he would say something that would improve my situation. Faced with the fact that it might be a while until I felt better I really didn't know how to handle it.
I started the week feeling really miserable (probably a result of my crushed optimism) and crying sporadically for no reason. While relaxing I've thrown myself into things that I can do whilst resting such as my knitting and researching my family tree. These are projects I've been trying to do for a while so I'm glad to have had the time to concentrate on these projects albiet not in the best of circumstances.
After a week on sick leave I've finally managed to finish knitting my cardigan (just need to sew the buttons on), trace my family tree back to 1755, learnt the importance of slowing down once in a while and most importantly got my optimism back!
Hypothyroidism usually develops gradually. The symptoms are mild, and you may not even notice them at first. This is called subclinical hypothyroidism.
Hypothyroidism causes a general slowing down of your body's functions. Some of the symptoms include:
feeling tired and sleeping a lot
feeling the cold easily
dry and/or pale skin
coarse, thinning hair and brittle nails
sore muscles, slow movements and weakness
a hoarse or croaky voice
a change in facial expression
depression
problems with memory and concentration
weight gain
constipation
fertility problems and increased risk of miscarriage
heavy, irregular or prolonged menstrual periods
a slow heart rate
Reforming my procrastinating ways has helped ease some of these symptoms, I've been forcing myself to carry on seeing friends and going out so I think this has prevented me from being depressed. However, it has also made me extremely tired. Constantly forcing myself to keep going has made me become exhausted over time and for the last week I have had to take a week off work to recharge my batteries.
Before I was off work, I spoke to a thyroid specialist who advised me that it could take a year for me to be on the right dosage of medication to actually feel normal again. This news completely stopped me and has made me unable to force myself into work and to carry on with my life. I think the problem was that I am an eternal optimist (not usually described as a problem I know!) but because of this I have managed to plough through the hard times when I have been exhausted as long as I have some point in the future to focus on (as in a doctors or hospital appointment). I managed to carry on for a month or so focussing on this appointment with the specialist, optimistic that he would say something that would improve my situation. Faced with the fact that it might be a while until I felt better I really didn't know how to handle it.
I started the week feeling really miserable (probably a result of my crushed optimism) and crying sporadically for no reason. While relaxing I've thrown myself into things that I can do whilst resting such as my knitting and researching my family tree. These are projects I've been trying to do for a while so I'm glad to have had the time to concentrate on these projects albiet not in the best of circumstances.
After a week on sick leave I've finally managed to finish knitting my cardigan (just need to sew the buttons on), trace my family tree back to 1755, learnt the importance of slowing down once in a while and most importantly got my optimism back!
Tuesday 14 September 2010
3 months later
Well I haven't blogged for 4 months. Ironically my blog about procrastinating became something that I have procrastinated about the most. Three months is a long time so I'm not sure where to begin about what I have been doing.
The main event is having a flood, my bathroom tap was left on while I was at work and it flooded out my living room, destroying my laptop, tv and living room. Obviously, this took up a lot of my time and having no internet connection and no laptop is a big hurdle for blogging! The flood taught me a lot. I couldn't procrastinate with things like cleaning up a flood, dealing with the insurance company and keeping the rest of the house tidy. When it comes to housework I think I'm on the road to procrastinating recovery. It also taught me how unimportant possessions really are, when I discovered the damage to my house I realised within a couple of minutes that nothing was destroyed that couldn't be replaced. Amazingly this made me calm in the crisis. I like to think that it was my new outlook on life that made me feel so calm that day.
In May I spent an amazing weekend in London, I saw Paul McCartney at Hyde Park. Which is definitely a lifelong dream and something I can tick off my bucket list. I was wonderful, it reminded me of my childhood spent listening to my parents Beatles CD's and the hopes and inspirations their music used to give me. I guess seeing Paul McCartney rejuvinated me and reminded me of who I'd wanted to grow up to be as an adult. It inspired me to turn my life around.
With that in mind I returned home, absolutely on cloud nine unable to listen to anything but The Beatles and determined to FINALLY make a decision of what I wanted to do with my life career wise. I've decided that I want to become a social worker working with adults and the elderly. I have to do a two year postgraduate course to become qualified so to get onto the course I've started doing voluntary work with the elderly. I'm loving doing the voluntary work, it makes me feel so alive and excited to have a purpose. It also helps me to get through my mundane week in the office, knowing that I have a goal and eventually a job that I truely love to get to. Albiet in a few years time.
So having had my new laptop and internet connection for the last month, I've been so busy with voluntary work, whilst working full-time that my blog and twitter had to be put on the back burner. I'm guessing though as I'm not procrastinating as much as I used to and now that I have a goal and feel as if I'm really living my life again that I can be forgiven for that!?
The main event is having a flood, my bathroom tap was left on while I was at work and it flooded out my living room, destroying my laptop, tv and living room. Obviously, this took up a lot of my time and having no internet connection and no laptop is a big hurdle for blogging! The flood taught me a lot. I couldn't procrastinate with things like cleaning up a flood, dealing with the insurance company and keeping the rest of the house tidy. When it comes to housework I think I'm on the road to procrastinating recovery. It also taught me how unimportant possessions really are, when I discovered the damage to my house I realised within a couple of minutes that nothing was destroyed that couldn't be replaced. Amazingly this made me calm in the crisis. I like to think that it was my new outlook on life that made me feel so calm that day.
In May I spent an amazing weekend in London, I saw Paul McCartney at Hyde Park. Which is definitely a lifelong dream and something I can tick off my bucket list. I was wonderful, it reminded me of my childhood spent listening to my parents Beatles CD's and the hopes and inspirations their music used to give me. I guess seeing Paul McCartney rejuvinated me and reminded me of who I'd wanted to grow up to be as an adult. It inspired me to turn my life around.
With that in mind I returned home, absolutely on cloud nine unable to listen to anything but The Beatles and determined to FINALLY make a decision of what I wanted to do with my life career wise. I've decided that I want to become a social worker working with adults and the elderly. I have to do a two year postgraduate course to become qualified so to get onto the course I've started doing voluntary work with the elderly. I'm loving doing the voluntary work, it makes me feel so alive and excited to have a purpose. It also helps me to get through my mundane week in the office, knowing that I have a goal and eventually a job that I truely love to get to. Albiet in a few years time.
So having had my new laptop and internet connection for the last month, I've been so busy with voluntary work, whilst working full-time that my blog and twitter had to be put on the back burner. I'm guessing though as I'm not procrastinating as much as I used to and now that I have a goal and feel as if I'm really living my life again that I can be forgiven for that!?
Tuesday 4 May 2010
a very hectic but very happy week
The last week has been so busy I've felt so alive. I spent a night in Manchester with my husband and a couple of friends. We went to see the comedian Peter Kay and had a few drinks and lots of laughs. I spent two days at work wishing I wasn't there and then it was Bank Holiday weekend. On Saturday I finished work at 2pm and felt a little bit unhappy that I had the next couple of days completely planned out. There was so much I wanted to do around the house but was going to be away from it for two days.
Instead of canceling my plans or being miserable or putting off the jobs that I wanted to, I did something completely different. On Saturday I got in from work and started on sorting out the wardrobe in my bedroom (we've lived in our house nearly three years and haven't seen the back of the wardrobe since then - there was even an unpacked box at the back!) I spent a couple of hours sorting that out and felt so good about myself. That wardrobe is definitely one of the symbols of my procrastinating past and it is a job that I've wrote on countless lists but never crossed it off! It feels like such an achievement to have finally sorted it, especially as I did it after a days work on a weekend that was planned to be hectic. Usually I would have sat and watched the tv. It feels like a major step in the right direction.
Saturday night me and my husband cooked a Chinese together and had a lovely meal. On Sunday morning I picked up my best friend and we went for a spa day. We drove to the hotel, singing along to the radio all the way. We had a wonderful days relaxation in the spa and had a beautiful meal at the hotel, drinking wine and chatting. Monday morning we got up and drove home. I was at home for about half an hour before leaving again to go to a bbq for my brothers birthday. I was there all day and laughed lots with my family. All in all a very good weekend.
Today I've also got the day off work, fortunately I haven't had a hangover so I've caught up with housework, done lots of gardening, done my washing and have now got the afternoon to relax. I've felt so alive being so busy, like I'm truly living. Now I've got the day in the house though I've realised the importance of taking things slower as well not just full steam ahead all the time. Today's one of those slower days that rejuvenates you and makes you reflect on your busier days. It also makes me enjoy the simpler things in life.
I think I'm almost at the point of having the right balance. Being too busy can burn you out and taking things too slow means things never get done. I've realised that the key to being happy is striking the right balance between the two and that's what I intend to stick to from now on.
Instead of canceling my plans or being miserable or putting off the jobs that I wanted to, I did something completely different. On Saturday I got in from work and started on sorting out the wardrobe in my bedroom (we've lived in our house nearly three years and haven't seen the back of the wardrobe since then - there was even an unpacked box at the back!) I spent a couple of hours sorting that out and felt so good about myself. That wardrobe is definitely one of the symbols of my procrastinating past and it is a job that I've wrote on countless lists but never crossed it off! It feels like such an achievement to have finally sorted it, especially as I did it after a days work on a weekend that was planned to be hectic. Usually I would have sat and watched the tv. It feels like a major step in the right direction.
Saturday night me and my husband cooked a Chinese together and had a lovely meal. On Sunday morning I picked up my best friend and we went for a spa day. We drove to the hotel, singing along to the radio all the way. We had a wonderful days relaxation in the spa and had a beautiful meal at the hotel, drinking wine and chatting. Monday morning we got up and drove home. I was at home for about half an hour before leaving again to go to a bbq for my brothers birthday. I was there all day and laughed lots with my family. All in all a very good weekend.
Today I've also got the day off work, fortunately I haven't had a hangover so I've caught up with housework, done lots of gardening, done my washing and have now got the afternoon to relax. I've felt so alive being so busy, like I'm truly living. Now I've got the day in the house though I've realised the importance of taking things slower as well not just full steam ahead all the time. Today's one of those slower days that rejuvenates you and makes you reflect on your busier days. It also makes me enjoy the simpler things in life.
I think I'm almost at the point of having the right balance. Being too busy can burn you out and taking things too slow means things never get done. I've realised that the key to being happy is striking the right balance between the two and that's what I intend to stick to from now on.
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