A little personal reflection

As I said here, lately I've been feeling really tired the most exhausted I have ever felt in my life. It's my own fault really. You see I think I was put on this earth to help people and, that, coupled with the fact that I dislike confrontation, means that I never say no. It's the same at home, work, whatever...and this is great for other people, but I find that it's making me stressed, tired and ill as it inevitably results in me taking on too much. The end result is that I get grouchy and stroppy and then start snapping at people because they've pushed my buttons. When I think deeper into this I realise that I haven't been entirely fair here because I'm sure many people wouldn't have pushed my buttons if they knew I was feeling very fragile at the moment. And they probably wouldn't have gone as far as pushing my buttons if I'd said "no" occasionally. In effect, I denied them the opportunity to deal with a person who as being completely honest and open.

So, now I know what needs to change it's just a case of "how". It's hard to change 34 years of being "me". And I need to make sure the "right" bits change LOL.

In other news, I've been on a training course at work all week. It's on "6 Sigma" which is basically business tools that you can use to strive for perfection in various things that you do. We use the tools a lot at work and I have some good ideas how I can use those tools to improve my blog or to increase the chances of getting things right first time. That will involve some planning though so it's a long term thing...definitely no extra work for now LOL.

So anyway, what's new with you?

Dear poor, neglected blog,
I'm so sorry for deserting you, I never intended to be gone so long, but with my graphics work taking up all of my time, I just never got chance to come here and give you some TLC. I promise I will be a better blogger from now on...
I've been thinking about what to do with this blog and I've decided that I'd like to use it more to talk about my thoughts and feelings and general day to day stuff, because sometimes I just need to "put things out there" or talk through them. I haven't decided yet whether I'll keep the blog public or make it private, but I'll review that later on. If it seems that my posts are getting a bit heavy or I'm getting the wrong kind of "commentage" then I may consider it. So that's it for now, I'll make a proper post later...

Tell Us Tuesday

Tell Us Tuesday is a meme run by Ashley at Everything happens for a Reason. I remember ages ago saying something along the lines of "yeah I'd definitely join in" but unfortunately I just never really got chance...sorry Ashley. Anyway if you like memes then check Ashley's out as it's a great way to have people get to know you better. To join in just go to Ashley's blog and see what today's question is and then go to your blog and write your post. Finally, go back to Ashley's blog and leave the link to your POST on Ashley's McLinky list.

Today's question is What is your job title?? what do you do on a daily basis work wise???

My job title is Materials Engineer...its basically a metallurgist role.

My day to day job involves things like looking at parts that have failed in service and figuring out WHY they broke. It's not a case of just saying "well it broke cos the blade fell off", we have to say what was it about the material or the manufacturing process (or the way the product was used by the consumer) that made that blade fall off. To do that I have a look at it under an electron microscope (as well as doing other tests) at really high magnification and once I've figured out what went wrong I have to write a report saying what went wrong and why.  That's about 80% of my work. The rest of my work includes things like research and development projects and things like that. Oh and I'm also responsible for supporting and training new people on the team such as graduate engineers, placement students, school kids on work experience and apprentices.

I'll call it quits there before you fall asleep.

Its very nearly Christmas....

...and I'm sooo excited already. I can't wait to be spending Christmas with my family...I don't see enough of them with them living so far away. My closest relatives (my parents) live about 120 miles away and my sister lives about 400 miles away so its really difficult to get everyone together, especially since dad still works full time and doesn't get Christmas off. Mum managed to get Christmas off this year, that must be twice now in the last 10 years...but she is semi-retired so I think its fair she started getting some Christmases off.

Anyway.....onto Christmas, we are going to this event tonight and it sounds really good. I'm so excited because I just LOVE our church choir. We went carol singing with them the other day and I just loved getting to know them better. Unfortunately I am a terrible singer so I have zero chance of EVER making it into the choir *sigh*. I'm looking forward to this Christmas party though :)

We have no tree or decs up yet....anyone else still not got theirs up? I love Christmas but just can't be bothered to unpack that tree.

Its snowing outside again, for the third day running. And they talk about global warming, are they serious? I hadn't seen snow for 13 years before last year. Here's some nice pics of the snow at our house.

LIfe is crazy busy..just for a change

Well life has been crazy busy here in the lead up to Christmas. We finally have the Christmas shopping done, the tree is almost up...well we've dragged it out of the attic and are busy psyching ourselves up to decorate it LOL. And last night we even went carol singing...but I'm telling you there is no Christmas spirit in our neighbourhood....at all. BAH HUMBUG has nothing on where I live. We have a lot of old and unwell people in our town who haven't been able to get to church lately so we went to their houses and sung carols and spread some Christmas spirit. It was sooooo lovely to see their faces and how they loved every minute of it. It was truly very emotional and I am sooooo glad we went along (even if reluctantly at first). Then we went to some of the regular houses in the neighbourhood....the ones with no Christmas spirit. Gosh those people....I could feel them sucking the life out of us. We joined another bible study group to do this, so we got to make some new friends too. There's 1 lady in particular who I would really love to meet again....we just clicked....you know?

Well I'd better go, the day job is about to start for me, then onto the evening job and then onto the graphics job. Did I mention we have now lost our unemployment insurance payout because andy was a day late getting his papers signed? Long story and something that was out of our control so lets hope the appeal is upheld. So that's us having to pay the mortgage now. Just one more blow in a whole bunch of bad news that seems to be unstoppable lately. You know, we are very ready for some GOOD news after 12 months of worrying. I feel like I've aged about 10 years this year...no joke :(