I wondered if I'd get sick of it...

As I made a brief mention of a few weeks ago, Tom and I have got engaged. Naturally this period leads into planning our wedding. I noted to my mum a day of two into my engagement, "everyone seems to be keen to give me advice, even before I've actually asked..." Her reply was, "they will."

And so, a few weeks later, Tom and I took our birthday weekend off from anything wedding-related because we'd grown sick of it. I can't wait to be married, but the whole planning of a huge event (with no money) and lots of people was starting to drive us mad.

Things we have not yet decided on: venue, date, church, time of day, budget (currently at zero) etc etc.
Things we have decided on: bridesmaids, best man, grooms men, theme.

This is not it.

If I weren't a Christian I would probably pressed more for eloping to somewhere like Gretna Green before now. But I want to be married before God as I believe this is the way to do it. Everything else is just extra decoration as far as I'm concerned, and great as having it will be, I don't want the main point of things lost in a whirl of flowers and name places and cake issues.

I'm sure once things are a bit more in place I'll be having more fun.

Is my birthday

So I'm going to try and have some fun (something I have been lacking of late).

Fun is currently consisting of going to Pets At Home and Sainsbury's but hey, at least it gets me out of the house :)

I'M SO EXCITED

Because...

I'm getting married!!!

Tom asked me to marry him a few nights ago (he was meant to wait for my birthday in a few weeks but couldn't!) and we haven't stopped bouncing off of the walls!

Attempting to plan things on a budget of approximately £0 is both hard and easy - hard because we need to have a serious think about what we each want, where to have everything, who to have there, etc, and easy because we have no money so everything will have to be done very creatively.

Surprisingly this all feels so right. I'm usually the princess of doubt, and I'm not saying there haven't been any negative thoughts slipping in there once in a while, but I am actually so, so happy!

And now back to thinking about dresses...

Hello Money, Goodbye Money

This past month has been the first in a long time that I've had disposable income and been able to (carefully) buy things not considered essential to my longevity. Though those luxuries include lunch because we never have much to take in that I actually want to eat. But one example is I finally, for the first time, got some flowers from Tom!

They looked a bit like this.

But I'm considering some options that may leave me back in a similar position of being broke in the future. Hmm. This economy has been a bloody hard one to be living through with there being very little for households like ours to be falling back on if things go wrong. At the end of the day, the rent needs to be paid so the landlord can pay his mortgage so the bank don't take his house off of him. It's a strange kind of position to be in; we are surrounded by objects of various wealth that such a huge amount of the world just doesn't have (eg the sofa) but we're always about a month's loss away from no food. 

Now logic would say if that were the case then why not just sell all the big expensive things so you can get by? Good point. But our home revolves somewhat around this sofa; its function aides us in so many tasks we don't even realise until it is not there. When we first got our old flat we didn't have a sofa. It was annoying and caused more backache than you'd imagine - floors are hard. So the way we have our lives, our functioning lives, requires having some things not everyone in the world has.

This is not a thing to be guilty about as it fulfils such a practical use. What I would argue is extravagance is wasting a lot of money on a sofa when you can get an equal one at less cost. Some people in our society get into this strange habit of filling rooms - having a place they live in which has more rooms than they need, so they decided to furnish them with the hope of... what? They don't want to use them, because they have other rooms which they use for the same thing. It's just to fill the space.

When we got our flat, the second bedroom was a blessing because we could put all our excess stuff there: spare lizard tanks (in case of quarantine or a new addition) a dining table (redundant by the sofa) and as storage for new things like the mountain bike.

And the next chapter was us reducing stuff down because the room changed its use, but again for a practical reason. Personally nothing screams EXCESS like having rooms you don't use but keep pristine because, hell, you can.

Anyway, one thing I'm trying to do with my money is to use it on appropriate things: we don't have the space for me to just buy cool crap. You can't get around our living room without an airer attacking you (good thing it's weighted down by the never-ending amount of washing on it). So now I may be using money more to do things - takeaways, trips, drinks, feed pets. I want it to be my tool, not master.

Nearly End of April

Jo has been living with us for a month now and it's going extremely well for all of us. Despite my initial reservations of having another person living with us, everyone has settled in nicely and we seem to have worked a routine around most things (such as mornings). She tidies and cleans without being asked, too!

One big practical thing we had to was clear out the spare room and find a place for all the stuff we'd shoved in there over the year and a bit. This prompted a large clear out of that room, our bedroom, and some of the stuff from the living room. I absolutely hate doing stuff like this because it's one of those jobs that turns out to take AGES and it dawns on you after about an hour that this job is bigger than you had anticipated. So I rearranged all the drawers and wardrobe space in our room, found a load of stuff to throw away and things to take to the charity shop, and somehow Jo's room became a lovely, neat bedroom.

The mountain bike is now in our bedroom though, much to my irritation.

It's also been a stressful period in regards to work for some of us (Tom's job is going from strength to strength, lucky boy!) as Jo's team are a bit low on numbers and as we do pretty much the same job but in different places, I know some of how she's feeling. But hopefully things will start to work themselves out more with each of us and employment, though there's no news on the horizon for change.

One thing I am looking forward to in the near future is my sister's wedding in June. It seems most things are in place though as I'm not around her much of the time I have no idea how much planning and setting they have actually done. I know that some people create massively complex days for themselves, and some people have simple days without much fuss. I think there's will be a combination of the two as Michelle is very creative with whatever brief you give her. It's so weird to think my little sister is 1) getting married, and 2) getting married before me! But she's eclipsed me in most areas of life by now at the grand old age of 21 so as a big sister I'm used to it...!

Another thing this month threw at us was the Spring Cold. I succumbed to it first, with a sore throat, achy chest, coughing, sneezing... and ended up having a day sick from work as I just felt rubbish. About a week later Tom finally got it too and now Jo's feeling it creeping on her. I'm getting the blame for this one which in turn I point to my workmate maliciously giving it to me (that's how colds work, right?)

And a final news item: Tom's stepdad Shaun ran the London Marathon last weekend, and made a time of approx 3 hours 30 mins - staggeringly fast! He was raising money for Sense; a charity helping people who are deaf/ blind. His JustGiving page is still up and running (pun not intended) so please visit and donate accordingly: http://www.justgiving.com/shaun-goulding

Brief Update

Our internets have been slow recently (prob in part due to now having a third person using it) so not had as much opportunity to be on here. I'll write more soon.

Today's adventure was to the zoo!!! Bristol Zoo Gardens to be precise. Not been there before but it was much fun :) Now unwinding (and possibly rewinding) with a chilled out night in with Asti.

Relationships are tricky...

In life we have so many different relationships with people that it can get confusing and difficult at times.

The obvious relationships, such as family or partners are often clear-cut boundaries where the mere existence or an agreement shapes it and makes it official. But when things aren't as clear, it gets confusing.

As Christians we try to maintain a relationship with God. It is arguably the easiest and hardest thing to do because on the one hand, God is accessible any time and anywhere. We are called to pray as often as possible about everything; nothing is too small or impossible. But on the other, human hand, we are lazy creatures. It can be difficult to motivate yourself if things aren't going too well or we don't see the results we are after as we want them.

But that's where faith comes into it. We are told that God will hear us, even when we cannot see or hear Him, and that His timing is not always our timing. We want things NOW all the time, but God's plan will be done as He decides. We just need faith to believe He will not leave us and we need patience.

But with people things aren't always simple. We need to be patient without knowing that the other person has things in control because they too are only human. Sometimes things can be too hard in the situation and we make mistakes and hurt people. Sometimes we are hurt without it being our fault.

We then need patience with life to know that things will, in time, get better. But sadly there is no quick way of speeding that up. It's not a lesson learned easily but a time to pass.

New arrival...

Our friend Jo has officially moved into our flat! Should be an interesting move as it's the first time since uni that I've lived with someone else other than Tom, and the first time he's ever had a housemate. Also having a third way of splitting the rent and bills will be real help for us.

Diary and internet

Just musing after Tom found an old notebook of mine with mostly "socialist rants" written in it...! Got me thinking that a few years ago, if you wanted to write down your thoughts you would maybe keep a journal/ diary and only share what you wanted with people.

Now with the internet and social media/ blogging any idiot can write and stupid thing and publish it for everyone to see without thinking about it.

Yeah I know the implications on myself here...

But without the ability to make split-second decisions about whether to say exactly what you think, or publish something riddled with spelling and grammar mistakes, we wouldn't be able to feel superior in our abilities. I mean two things: 1) our ability to communicate in English (or whichever language); and 2) our ability to consider some thought before we hit the 'Publish' button and risk showing everyone how wise/ stupid we are.

That's it; no superior message this evening!

For a laugh, consider having a look at http://failbook.failblog.org and collegehumour.com...

Stop Giving Me Choices?

There a great song by a band called the Hoosiers (what are they up to these days?) called Choices; the chorus is essentially the line "Stop giving me choices" repeated. This morning the confusion of choice is making me frown and ponder and suchlike.

I may potentially have some choices ahead of me but no matter how much you wait and think about the moment you get the options, it's never as simple as you'd hoped.

In my case suddenly there are several potential things in the mix which have all happened at once and now I'm having to make quick decisions and put things into place and get out of my comfort zone. It's a strange part of life that even in situations we get into that we may not be happy about, there is a certain amount of reliability and routine about them which we get used to. So, when we are faced with a sudden jolt of actual, real choice of having to stop doing things one way and go with another and very different one, it can be difficult. As goes the old cliché "better the devil you know". Or should you follow the philosophy of taking a chance of making something better?

I guess the logical thing to do is to seriously consider and list all the pros and cons of a situation to clearly establish whether the move works in certain ways of your life. At least then you can actually look at the points and not just mull over them internally.

Making a decision you regret is a horrible thing to live with, but at the same time you really cannot know how the situation is until you go into it. Unfortunately there is no 'reset' function in life and you have to deal with the consequences whichever way you choose to go. 

Just before I began to write this a painfully simple thought came to me: pray. How obvious is that? I know whichever decision I make will be the way I go (whether 'right' or 'wrong') and it will all work out eventually and God will guide me home. There have been some routes in my life I wish had not been taken but they are part of the bigger tangle of my journey, and regardless of how they went I have gained something from them - even if it is just the confirmation that I would never want to be in that situation again!

Some come to mind more clearly than others...