Tag Archives: work

Feb17

For all the nosy blog readers – a life of BK update!

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For all the nosy blog readers – a life of BK update!

And by nosy, I mean curious and wondering just like I am about the bloggers whose blogs I follow! ;)

Tee hee.

Well, first of all. The builders. A few people have been asking why we have builders (having read some tweets or facebook statuses which have occurred – like when one of them came and started banging, I assume to demolish something at 7.15 a.m. when it was still pitch dark; or the day off I had where they were drilling all day long and I wished I’d been at work instead!). Actually our builders are pretty decent blokes, and we get on fine with them. They also think it’s funny that I teach sex ed classes in high schools and when they found that out would point to some of the younger guys and say ‘You need to tell him about all that stuff, aye, he needs those lessons. He needs some of your pregnancy counselling too!‘

They also tried to wind me up (after I pulled them up about the 7.15 a.m. start!) saying they were coming on a Saturday morning to get a delivery of cement at 5 a.m.

They just laughed when I raised my eyebrows and said ‘Aye right!‘ (which is a Scots sarcastic version of ‘Oh no you won’t!’ or ‘I don’t believe you’). Anyway, we’re almost a month in and this is the view from my old bedroom:

I’m now in the other attic bedroom (which used to be for my brothers). The room my brothers now stay in has our freezer, tumble dryer, and a shower door, sink and toilet waiting to be installed at some point during the build. The contents of our dining room and hall are in my old room, and our fridges are in the hall.

Confused? Me too.

I got a fringe. Already it’s doing strange things. I have a ‘cow’s lick’ which means my hair does part very well and curls on one side.

Work is crazy busy at the moment. At the beginning of the week I was feeling more stressed than I have done for a very long time. I wasn’t sleeping, I was waking up feeling panicked and I felt completely on edge 100% of the time. Despite having loads to do, I took the whole of yesterday off (having done my hours for the week) and feel much better for it. I’m also considering creating some kind of ‘Don’t drink and have sex‘ campaign for next Christmas. Seriously, alcohol really does up the chances of contraception failure.

Powerpoint was awesome. My new earphones worked a treat. I kept having to push my right ear back in so it wouldn’t fall out and get tangled in my hair though. I was most amused when I got tagged in this photo from the event…caught in the act! I also got asked to join the worship team at my new church this past weekend. It was very different from I was used to, and knew hardly any of the songs so it made it a bit challenging, but the folks in the band were really friendly. I’m finally getting to know people a bit better now, and it’s a lot more like my church in Aberdeen apart from Sunday services are very different from what I’m used to.

With Valentine’s Day having been this week, we’d been working on a fundraising project with the Guides called ‘Bake A Little Love‘ to raise funds for Scottish Love in Action. Our Guides have spent the last month making Valentine’s Cards, making yoghurt pots into baskets filled with chocolates and decorating jars to fill with sweets, decorating biscuits and us leaders made some Valentine cupcakes. We had a few stalls after the morning service at our local church (where we meet) and raised £100 in an hour. Amazing! We pretty much sold out all our stalls!

I can’t remember if I mentioned before but on 16th January, I received my application form to join the GirlGuiding Association as an official member so I can start my leadership training to become a qualified Guider. Thought that was quite funny given what the blog post I had written on that day. :)

I had a few social things planned this week and one by one they seemed to go to pot as people got sick. However, I’m glad that one social event was able to happen as my lovely friend Ruth was up in the beautiful burgh and so we had a wee tweet up with our friend Lynn. After a meal, we went to the Dome (a very posh venue in Edinburgh) for a drink, I tried to take a pic of us all on Lynn’s phone and this was the result:

Not showing the best of my photography skills there, but oh well. We had a lovely night catching up. The only sad thing was that we didn’t spot any celebrities this time. It is hard to top meeting Alf though.

And so there we have it. Attempt number 3 at going to see The Descendants shall be made next week. I also really want to see the Muppets Movie. I think sadly I’ve missed my chance to see J.Edgar.

I’m also happy that NCIS has FINALLY made a return to Channel 5, wondering where The Mentalist has gone (it was on for 4 weeks, and then disappeared) and while waiting for those bought the first season of White Collar on DVD after a recommendation by my friend Anthony. I’m now waiting for season 2 to make it on to DVD here (sigh).

So that my bloggy friends is what has been going on in the life of the brunette koala. :)

What has been going on in your life?

Feb7

All about anger

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All about anger

So these last few weeks I’ve been reading all about Anger.

Anger is an emotion I’m very familiar with. I’m pretty good at borderline passive-aggressive/aggressive anger. I say borderline because it comes with all the qualities of passive aggressive anger (rebelling, deliberately doing things to annoy said person I’m angry at without actually saying I’m angry at them) but usually comes with much stomping, ranting and ‘grrr-ing’. And swearing.

A few years ago now, when I was invited to lunch by a couple from the church I had just started attending (Hi John & Esther!) they introduced to me to the NOOMA DVDs. A new one had just come out that they’d bought and we all watched it after lunch called Store. I felt pretty convicted watching it. It showed a guy and his passive aggressive rage with all the irritating things that happened during his supermarket shop. I could relate. At the end though he does something constructive with his anger.

A couple of weeks later I entered my local 24 hr Tesco. I felt the rage. But I remembered the DVD. This was the result.

Last night, while doing a training session on Anger, we watched the DVD with our trainees (and yes, I fully confessed about my own supermarket rage incident).

I’ve learned a lot about anger over the last few weeks. What it does in our bodies chemically. Thinking about what we’ve been taught directly or indirectly about anger as children, and how that affects us today as adults. How destructive suppressing anger can be. And how we can express our anger constructively.

In our recovery programme, we talk about positive anger, and suggest a formula of expressing it…

‘When you did ….. it made me feel ….. ‘

This week I read about an extra part, which I think is really important.

‘When you did …. it made me feel …. and what I would like is …‘

The reason I think it’s important is that even when we manage to pinpoint the cause of the anger – the action rather than the person and tell them how it made us feel, that’s all well and good. But we’re not mind readers to know how to prevent the bad feelings from rising again.

Unless we work out what the alternative action should be.

Now what I need to do is put ‘assertive communication’ into practice, to express my anger positively and constructively.

In the meantime, I’m off to read about Grief.

:)

 

Jan24

The train is getting ready to leave the station

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The train is getting ready to leave the station

When I went back to work yesterday, it felt like going back for the first time in a new year. I think because my first few weeks have been so bitty, and really it’s all been very weird with the anticipation of funeral and building work.

Sunday I went back to church for the first time in about 2 months. In the afternoon, my Mum thought I looked ill (is this what church services do to me?!) so spent the afternoon snoozing and watching Without A Trace. Muffins and smoothie were made and I felt ready for the new week.

My alarm clock was the sound of a skip and builders arriving and knocking down the conservatory. Building work has indeed begun!

It has to be said that the difference drinking water, back on my fruit smoothies and back in the gym with my friend each week is huge! I feel so much better for it, and I’m pretty sure the days slowly getting longer is helping a lot too. It’s also nice to be in work with the knowledge that (God willing) I’m there every week for a while so I can get some momentum back into my work and planning. I feel like things are moving forward…it’s like I’ve been sitting on a train that isn’t moving out of the station for the last 4 years, and now…the train maybe finally leaving to reach it’s destination!

Here’s hoping anyway. :)

Meanwhile, I’ve learned that NCIS: Los Angeles is my American TV Drama of choice during periods of grief or high family drama. My life is so boring compared to the undercover special ops team in LA who get shot at about 50 times a week fighting terrorists all the time. And I doubt I’ll ever have a life so ornate or colourful as Henrietta Lange‘s… (I do love Hetty…!)

 

Nov30

#Nov30

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#Nov30

Usually today I’d be waxing lyrical about St Andrew’s Day. Not today. Today, something more prominent…the biggest industrial action we’ve seen in a great many years.

Whether you agree with striking or not – I don’t want to debate strike action today. I understand why people thought it was wrong for people to strike because of its affect on the community. I also understand why people did strike too. It’s not a decision people make lightly.

What I do think is our current government have treated your average public sector employee like CRAP. Yes, we’re in a recession. Yes, we need to try and deal with our deficit. But why exactly, are we picking on the public sector to do that?

It makes me really angry.

As a Christian, I try to have grace on people, but boy do David Cameron, George Osborne & Michael Gove test my ability to be gracious.

Here’s what makes me angry.

The average public sector wage is £28,000 apparently. But this of course takes all the ‘big kahunas’ at the top of the food chain. Some of them are to blame for the mess they’ve made of public sector services, and have been paid off to leave. The people who were doing a great job but been made redundant because of job cuts – not so lucky. 1/3 of the public sector earn below £21,000.

I’m in agreement with the retirement age increasing. We’re living longer, and it makes sense to do this.

I’m not agreement with making people pay more into their pension funds, work longer and get less than was agreed at the time when they entered into the Public Sector workforce.

A local Edinburgh councillor told me the ‘Pensions’ the public sector get are better than those in the Private Sector. Well, maybe they are – I think that’s very difficult to compare the whole of the public sector with the whole of the private sector. I will say that it’s likely that on average, those in Private Sector get paid much better than those in the Public Sector, and consequently should have more extra to contribute to their pension fund. Also the Public Sector workers don’t get ‘bonuses’. I’d also like to know where the good pensions are. I know a recently retired policeman and a recently retired doctor – both are having to do part-time jobs because their pension is not enough to live on.

I’m sick of the description of the public sector being a ‘burden on the taxpayer‘. Ok then. Let’s see how we all do if your house goes on fire and there’s no fire brigade to risk their life to rescue you and your property. No paramedics to call out when you have an accident or heart attack or your kid stops breathing because of an asthma attack or seizure. No nurses. No doctors. No physiotherapists. No teachers to educate your children while you work to pay the bills. No Community Education workers to engage young people into becoming a credit to their communities, or helping people become more literate or supporting them into becoming productive citizens. No social workers to help children and adults with learning disabilities or the elderly or helping find families for children in care. No one to help you get planning permission for your house. No one protecting the culture, treasures or buildings of your town or city. No one to help your kid cross busy roads safely on their way to and from school.

Do you know how much I earned when I worked as a Community Education Worker back in 2006/7? Approximately £16,500 per year. To run a community centre, manage 23 staff, develop a youth work programme and attend numerous community council and other community group and multi-partnership forum meetings. Even when I was ‘off work’ I had to respond to calls at 9 p.m. at night if something happened at one of the many youth groups we ran, or the street team work we did. A university degree was an essential requirement of that job.

I would have earned more, working less hours and needing only basic high school level qualifications if I’d been a Checkout assistant in Tesco or Sainsbury’s.

I also paid all my taxes. And contributed to my pension fund (because it comes out of my monthly salary just like it would in the private sector).

And I served the community.

I might add the a good chunk of the people I worked with were women and single parents. In fact, women account for 73% of the public sector workforce. And we already know that women on average earn a lot less than men.

What really angers me is that the public sector already had taken a hit, with lots of job cuts and budget cuts – and yet somehow they are expected to meet lots of government targets. Why should it be targeted again?

Meanwhile, the big bankers are getting crazy bonuses they don’t pay tax on despite the fact their employees further down the food chain are being made redundant. Sorry, if business is doing so badly you have to make people redundant, that is not a time to give yourself a bonus.

And if you’re in debt to the government, how is it you can earn a big chunk of money without paying tax on it?

How about the huge number of entrepreneurs and small business who avoid paying tax on earnings by getting people to pay them in cash?

Or the very rich who avoid paying tax and stamp duty on their mansions by putting their money into off-shore accounts?

From what I can tell, George Osborne is bringing back socio-economic class divide. He is making the poorer even more poorer, and letting the rich stay richer. And every week I have people coming into my centre for counselling because they need to terminate their pregnancy – not because they don’t want to be a parent, because they know they cannot afford to not work, but they can’t afford childcare so they can work. My friend who is a qualified nursery nurse only earned £50 a month by the time she paid for childcare for one child and commuting costs.

It kinda makes me want to go camp out in St Andrew’s Square. Or maybe down in Westminster…

For more posts/articles on the strike:

Making Memories blog  (Rebecca is an NHS nurse)

Polly Toynbee’s commentary on George Osborne’s Autumn Statement in Guardian

BBC News interview with Niamh Sweeney (a teacher)

BBC Article about Public v Private Sector pensions

Hilary Salt on why she is supporting the strike

Dominic Lawson’s comments on the strike action in the Independent

Nov29

Two kinds of Christmassy angels…

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Two kinds of Christmassy angels…

Because I know the mascots in our centre our much beloved by some of my regular readers, know that they’ve taken their throne at the top of the teeny Christmas tree in the office. Next to the golden angel that I felt led to buy yesterday.

Two things to notice.

1. For some reason the gold angel looks pregnant, which we thought was kinda funny (you couldn’t tell this in the box)

2. I love the way they are kinda watching over us in the office. :) (FYI – the bookcase the golden angel is on top of is about 6ft in height).

Nov26

London town adventures.

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London town adventures.

Priscilla advert I snapped whilst rushing to catch a train on the underground...

I had 1.5 days in London before heading up to Northampton for my work conference.

After checking out our apartment and saying farewell to Ruth at Paddington Station, I headed to North London where my host (and lift to the conference) works. I was super thankful that Paddington had a Body Shop, since I discovered a malteser moment in my toiletry packing. I’d managed to pack 2 travel bottles of conditioner instead of 1 shampoo 1 conditioner, and I’d also somehow left out my shower wash. The one I’d bought specifically in Boots the weekend before.

Way to go BK. 

My second malteser moment of the day was not quite catching the directions I’d been given. Scoffing at the idea of a bus when it was a 15 minute walk from the tube station, I marched on with my suitcase and wee rucksack. To realise after walking for 15 minutes that something wasn’t quite right. That something was I’d walked up the wrong street. A phone call to my host, and I had to walk back on myself and find the right road (thankfully parallel to the one I was on). 15 min walk became 30 mins.

And my jeans rubbed a nasty cut into my heel in the process.

Go me.

Third malteser moment came when I ended up having to work in their pregnancy centre, and realised while on the phone to an organisation leaving a message that I didn’t know the number of the centre to tell them the number to call back on.

Thank you God for wi-fi and google search.

Fourth malteser moment came when I tried to help a guy who had come in with his friend (neither spoke English) and because I tried to keep them from seeing another client in the building brought them into the office so I could use google translate to try and aid communication. One of them took the opportunity to steal my host’s iPhone which happened to be sitting out on the other desk.

I hope the police catch them.

And I’m thankful that my host had insurance and a datalock on her phone so it wasn’t too much of a disaster.

Still. Not cool.

On Friday I had the morning and early afternoon free, so I headed in to Central London on a honeybush tea mission. Only to arrive at the Twinings store to find said tea out of stock.

Are you freaking kidding me?!

I headed to Regent Street, where I went to Hamley’s in search of gifts. I spent way too long in the Sylvanian Family section (I was amused later to find my friend Nicola had written this post).

I wish people still bought me toys for Christmas.

And then I headed to South Kensington, where my London travel guide (a lil bit out of date now) told me I could find a branch of the Hummingbird Bakery. I’d never tried their cupcakes, but I’ve always liked their icing recipes, plus I wanted to buy some cakes for my host, her husband and son to say thank you for letting me stay (and sorry her phone got stolen on my watch).

Cakes looked yummy, but awkward to get a call from the police as I left the bakery…!

As I headed back East on the tube, I got a text from my friend Lisa, who told me she was on her lunch break and available to meet up. Annoyingly I had to wait to get up the stairs of Liverpool Street station to be able to get reception to find out where to meet her. Thankfully she was only 2 tube stops away, so I headed to St Paul’s to meet her for a drink (and food for me!) at Cafe Rouge.

Definitely the best part of my Friday. Miss you Lisa!!

It was also interesting to see the Occupy London camp. My first impression is that it is in a much more awkward location that the Edinburgh one, and louder. But more on that another day.

And then it was time to head back to North London again to pack up the car and head North.

I didn’t get lost. I did however have to stand on the tube the whole way and there was a delay at a station = lots more people able to get on our train = squashed and sweaty brunettekoala. Lovely.

We took our cupcakes, and wouldn’t you know we decided to stop at a service station on the M1 for a wee cup of tea and our cupcakes. When we came out 20 mins later there were huge tailbacks because a couple of miles up the road there had been an accident. We knew had it not been for our cupcake stop, we very easily could have been in the accident ourselves.

Clearly Hummingbird cupcakes have protective powers.

We pulled into the car park right next to my Scottish colleagues – my national partner in crime, Elizabeth, my local partner in crime, Sarah and one of the Dundee centre trustees. Greetings and hugs all around, and off we pondered to check in and get our name badges.

How’s that for perfect timing?

:)

Nov22

Work hard, Play hard, Rest hard

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Work hard, Play hard, Rest hard

I think this picture of my new friend Sneaky (he’s the cat in the picture) is a good one for this post. Cats know the art of playing hard and resting hard (I’m not sure if cats work mind you).

I have now returned from my trip South of the border, having left East London yesterday afternoon and arrived back home just after 10 p.m. last night. I even survived having to use the toilet on the train (I really detest having to use toilets on planes and trains).

Chatting and catching up with folks at our conference in Northampton at the weekend, one of the HQ team asked me ‘Laura Anne is there anything you don’t do?‘

I guess to the folks looking in from the outside of my life, I must seem like a pretty busy person. I mean I co-manage a pregnancy resource centre part-time with my friend Sarah. I blog and tweet and facebook. I volunteer with a national charity that supports a network of pregnancy resource centres as well as running a national helpline. I volunteer with the Girlguiding Association at a local Guide unit. I am part of a local church congregation. I volunteer my time (and my vocal chords) with Powerpoint. I have a ton of friends who I try to keep up with as much as I can. My family make great material for soap operas which makes for an interesting life…

Yep, there is a lot in my life. Occasionally it can overwhelm me.

But the thing is, I have learned to do nothing more than what I am called to do. I have learned the art of saying ‘No’ – even when I’d love to do it.

They key to this is working hard to get the job done, to spend time enjoying life outside of work – whether it’s spending time in the pub with friends, going to a Zumba class or stalking soap stars, and to spend time resting.

Resting for me usually means not setting an alarm, staying in my pyjamas or ‘scaffs’ while my work & play clothes are washing in the machine and chilling out watching my favourite american TV dramas, comedy shows and eating well that day.

Sometimes in the busyness of life I can end up missing a chance to go to supermarket or sleeping in and not having time to make a proper breakfast before I rush out to get the bus to work or get home so late I end up popping a pizza in the oven or rather than making a healthier meal.

That’s why I’m strict on having a sabbath day each week. A day that rights the wrongs that happen along the way. A day that refreshes and replenishes my body, mind and soul. A day of no pressure. A day that is just for me, so that for the other 6 days I have more of myself to give to others.

Resting means I can actually get more done.

So that’s the mantra – work hard, play hard, rest hard. :)

Jun29

Summer Recipes

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Summer Recipes

My blog readers have been awesome in helping my charity raise funds by producing recipe booklets! We started with the Chocolate Recipe book, and then last Christmas we had the Winter Recipe book. (I had to doctor the cover as I can’t name the charity I work for on my blog…!!)

This time (while it’s summer) I’m looking for your Summer recipes! It could be drinks, snacks, mains, desserts…

It is helpful if you have measurements (even if they are estimates like ’1 handful’) so other people can use the recipe more easily. We always put who gave us the recipe and the town they are from. It’s always fun for people to see how far these recipes have come from.

You can send your summer recipe, your name, location & if you like a sentence or 2 about your recipe send it via e-mail. I use Microsoft Word 2004 (so please no .docx files, as I won’t be able to read them).

If you would like a copy of the recipe book when it is done, please send me your address also! (We usually sell copies for £3). And if you would like to be kept up to date with the work of our charity, let me know and I can give you details on how you can do that! :)

Jun23

Do you laugh or do you cry?

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Do you laugh or do you cry?

Today has been a…challenging…day.

I had a meeting about advertising today which went on longer, and consequently I was running out to get lunch close to 2 p.m. and desperate for the loo.

Dumping said lunch on my desk I ran to the toilet.

And now I shall refer to the text I sent Sarah after she asked me to explain ‘How did the centre bathroom get flooded?’ where I refer to myself in the third person.

“Laurie needs to pee. She enters the bathroom and notices the tap running. She goes to turn it off and top part of the tap falls off. Water spouts up in the air creating an unwanted water fountain. Laurie tries to get tap back on all the while crossing her legs as water feature not helping need to pee situation…”

Eventually, after I managed to get in touch with our Landlord and the bathroom floor was swimming with water (despite my efforts to try and catch some of the water in a bucket as gravity overcame the shooting up effect splashing everywhere) I succeeded in putting the tap together again. By this time I was rather damp.

A man came by looked at it (& briefly recreated the water fountain)  and declared that ‘The tap was broken and needs replacing’

No kidding.

Let’s add on to that the fact that I now have to write an e-mail of complaint to Google Ads (another long story), my car seems to be leaking water into the passenger seat floor every time it’s been raining heavily and I came home to find a bill for almost £500 in my mail pile…I wish I’d never written what I posted yesterday.

Sigh.

No Selah today.

But apparently the story of the tap turned fountain made Sarah chuckle…glad to be of entertainment once again…!! :)

Jun3

A brief moment of summer

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A brief moment of summer

There’s a reason that my high school peers believed that in the year 2012 I would be ‘giving out love and sunshine’. Because that is what I love.

So for that reason, I changed my plans to crank up some overtime hours travelling for 40 mins by bus to spend an afternoon in our North facing dark cold office and decided to make this my office for the day:

It’s almost 24 C (74 F) outside. 

You’ll know by following my twitter feed if nothing else, how rare this is in Scotland. And after over a month of cold wintery dreich days, I’m taking advantage. Because it might be grey, dreich and drizzling again tomorrow.