Working For Free Now Are We?

As you may know I've been unemployed for a while now and last week had an interview for a place that seemed to go pretty well. I even had a voice mail from the guy who interviewed me today just to say he hadn't forgotten about me and that he hoped to call me later to offer me something if I was still interested. Great I though! However, instead I had a call from the Job Centre asking if I would be interested in doing a work trial for this company, basically working for free for anything up to 3 weeks so they could see if they liked me.

Hold The Phone! Working for free, this is what it's come down to now?

All I can say is congrats to the companies out there doing this. You get to check out the workers, see if you like them and give them a job if at the end if you do, a win win situation on their part. Or alternatively if you need a couple of weeks filing done, get one of the jobless in to sort it out and them part ways saying that they are just not suitable, filing problem solved along the way.

So what did I say to this job centre person who is after all only doing her job. I said yes of course! These are hard times and it seems I am willing to do a little for free, although it maybe more fool me in the end.

Worry Be Gone

I've decided I worry too much, therefore I'm going to do something about this and not worry at all. It is such a waste of time and energy to worry as 9 times out of 10 the results will be the same whether you worry yourself to death or not.

There was a brilliant quote in the film 'The Wedding Crashers' that I saw recently and it went something like this - We have no way of knowing what the future holds for us, all we can do is act based on what we know now. It's going to be fine, your whole life is going to be fine.

I'm sure that's not word for word right but I just love the sentiment behind it, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy :-)

Easter Bonnets

I had a brilliant time yesterday making some Easter Bonnets with my Mum! A surprisingly good time actually as I wasn't expecting it to be as much fun as it was. The bonnets were for my great Aunt and her friend who wear them each year for their Church's Easter coffee morning, there is a prize of an Easter Egg for the winner!

We made the bonnets last year as well but didn't win (I'm not sure what the winner's looked like as I don't actually go to these events), but I do think we have a good chance this year.

I will attach a pic, let me know what you think!

Terrible Lethargy

The lethargy has descended upon me lately. It's a terrible thing that sucks the energy out of you and I suppose it comes from me being unemployed for so long now. To be honest I'm surprised it's taken this long, I would have thought it would have got a firm grip on me long before now. It's rooted in doing application after application with minimal results I think.

My brother was home for the weekend this week and worryingly he said that not only had the NHS (where he works) put a freeze on all new jobs for outside applicants, but that some agencies will put your CV aside if they see more than 6 months worth of gap in employment on it.

I thought this recession was coming to an end!?

Anyway in order to combat the lethargy I am now going to attempt to get up each morning and take the dogs out for a walk. I figure this will get me refreshed and moving for the day and hopefully should help keep me fit etc as well in the process. A win win situation I'm hoping.

Today was the first day of this new regime and it's gone well, it was loving being out early with the dogs (well dog today, the other one wouldn't move from her basket, she is feeling the lethargy like me I think) but I'm sure it helped that the sun was shinning and it was a joy to be out.

Fingers crossed things go as well tomorrow. xx

Old Friends & Irritation

Does anyone have those friends or family members who irritate the heck out of them?

I don't know whether it's me but I have some people that literally even the first sound of their voice irritates me. For example I have a friend from uni (and I call him a friend because he really should be, we have never had an argument or anything like that), we have known each other for years now and I can't think how we have kept in touch so long.

I met Alex in my second year of uni through a mutual friend. We wern't in the same year or on the same course and as it was a drunken night out I didn't think much about him and went on my merry way but somehow, through this mutual friend we kept cropping up in the same places, as you do. Now I forget how he got my mobile number, but as I say there were alot of drunken nights at uni so this doesn't surprise me and technology being what it is now he also got on my msn and facebook and so everafter we have been in some sort of contact.

I can't bring myself to block him on msn or delete him from facebook etc because technically he has done nothing wrong but the fact remains that I can't remember the last time someone has irritated me so much. Without fail he will talk to me as soon as he logs onto msn and texts me randomly as well. For my part I try to keep contact to a minimum, for his sake as much as mine, I really don't want to be unkind to him but I just can't help being snappy or short. It's like something takes over and he rubs me up the wrong way completely!

Plenty Of Fish

Over the past month or so I have been a member of the plenty of fish website, this basically is a dating website but unlike most of the other's it's completely free.

I got into this via a friend who last year split up with her husband and joined so that she could meet new guys. I have been undecided about it for a long time, even though so many people meet over the net these days I just can't help but feel slightly seedy about it.

Anyway despite my reservations I gave it a whirl, but here we are a month on and I'm still feeling seedy about it. Today I have 'hidden my profile' for now at least. There do seem to be some nice guys on there but I just don't think it's the way for me to meet people, each to their own and all that.

Part of the problem might be that I couldn't help but put nice pic's of me up. Now I wasn't trying to gip anyone and all the pics were recent and really were me but I just couldn't help thinking what if I didn't really look like that in everyday life, lol I might sound nuts but I'm sure I look very different from one pic to the next.

Anyway unless I have a change of heart I'm staying off there. One good thing about it though is that it has shown me the sheer amount of guys out there looking for dates! Not ugly, desperate guys either, good looking, nice, normal people by the looks of things.

So onwards and upwards and lets see if we can find these guys in real life!

Marian Keyes - The Brightest Star In The Sky

This year my Dad decided to buy us presents for Christmas. Now the way I have wrote that makes it seem like he never get's us anything but actually we have alot from our parents, it's just that Mum does all the choosing and I'm not sure that Dad knows what he has for us until he sees us open things on Christmas Day. But this year he went out and bought a book each for me, my bro and my sis. Mine was Marian Keyes - The Brightest Star In The Sky.

What a book! I'm not usually a fan of people choosing books for me unless I give them a specific author but I have to say Dad came up trumps with this one. Bear in mind I'm only half way through but what I do know is that it's written from the perspective of an outside being, not human, more like celestial (exact nature hasn't been revealed to us yet). This being floats around 66 Star Street, an old house that has been converted into flats and observes the residents that now live there.

Each seperate story is gripping, there are 4 stories and each night I can't wait to read a little more about each person. The book is obviously counting down to something as well, each chapter is called Day 56, then Day 55 etc so I await with interest whatever it's counting down too!