bookshoplaura

Somehow I've accidentally left myself stranded in Waterford without a real social circle to speak of and it's probably lucky that I rarely have money for socializing because I am not exactly inundated with opportunities to do so. I have become so self sufficient that I will often completely forget to keep in touch with friends. If it wasn't for Facebook I probably wouldn't know what half of them are up to and in a way social networking becomes a blessing and a curse. On one level it allows you to keep up with the lives of friends you aren't getting around to emailing but then what happens is you see on Facebook that they have started a new job or dating someone new and they went on holidays and you look through all 80 holiday snaps and feel like you've actually been caught up on their life. I find after this I'll often forget I haven't actually spoken to them. It makes you lazy     and then you remember that people usually just put the good stuff on...

Apparently this is a sign I'm getting old because I find teenagers incredibly annoying but I don't think that's the case because I distinctly remember feeling this way about them the very moment I stopped being one myself. Yes exactly on my twentieth birthday I sighed and said I surely wasn't half as annoying when I was teenager. Yes, I really was that world weary. If I am being completely honest (and it's my blog so I probably should) I'm fairly certain that I was just as annoying as teenagers today but I wasn't a complete idiot and now that I am working in a bookshop, specifically the section where teenagers get all their books or come to sprawl on our floor, I find myself accidentally eavesdropping and the snippets I hear do not bode well if these young people are to be our future. Today while attempting to soak up some sun on my lunch break I sat on the only bench outside that didn't have eight people sitting there or wasn't overrun with bird...

Clearly I have a problem in that I find food scares more than a little interesting. I can't help it. I've been cleaning up my diet and tackling my IBS headfirst so I can't help being fascinated by what's going into our food. I think the overall view is that if it has a nutrition label then chances are it's not all that good for you in varying degrees but If you're sticking to   fresh meat and vegetable you're still not guaranteed safety. So let's say you're not a in position to grow your own organic veg and slaughter your own chickens/cows etc. And let's face it, most of us aren't well then you have to brave the world and always be cautious of not buying a trolley full of chemicals, hidden in many delicious guises. The Monsanto group have been in the press a lot lately because they been advocating that genetically modified fruit and veg are just as nutritious as the non modified variety and have been happily peddling their wares to the n...

I'm not saying everything I've done and then regretted started with a glass of something but I probably wouldn't be far wrong.  If there's one way technology has not enhanced our lives it would be its capacity to allow us to do stupid things while drunk. Now I know I got my first mobile at 18 so I don't have much basis for comparison but I did drink before I turned 18 and I can say I didn't get myself into half as much trouble With only A house phone.  I think everyone knows the dreaded feeling because they texted or rang Someone they really really shouldn't have under the influence. I have woken far too many times hungover, waiting for the room to stop spinning as I half squint at my phone checking I did nothing stupid. Always a win to find nothing suspicious in  My call log. Unfortunately drunk Laura is after getting smarter( its probably for the best I don't allow her out much) and has known to delete the texts I might wake to regr...

I'm not having a good week with food, scratch that I'm not having a good life with food. I am spending far too much time thinking about it and I kept a log this month of where my money goes and quelle surprise aside from bills the majority goes on food. On an average week I do a full food shop, at least one health food shop and usually at least two other trips to the supermarket for things I've either forgotten or run out of and for a single girl who lives alone that's a whole lot of food. Lately I've been feeling like whaley the whale and in case you weren't sure it's not a good feeling. This stupid elimination diet actually has me eliminating so many things that I occasionally stray from the path of good eating and then pain for it with stomach pains and a stomach so bloated it's like I have my very own food baby (but it's cool because I rock that look). I have found that when your plan to lose weight isn't quite panning out then it might n...

I am very clumsy. This is a true story and I have many the bruise and the scar to show for the time I fell off one thing or banged into another and I'm talking about while sober and awake  ( let's take a moment to be glad I don't sleepwalk) It can mostly be put down to my poor coordination and my ability to space off at any given moment. Yes I will admit this is a dangerous combination so It's probably no surprise that at some times I feel as though I am more bruise than woman. When I was smaller ( and I meant twenty odd years ago) I occasionally dreaded the summer months because I hated falling with bare legs and I was permanently covered with cuts and bruises. Now I have gotten a little better but that's probably because I play a lot less tag and I Couldn't actually tell you when the last time I climbed a tree was.    In saying that, this morning I actually surpassed myself. I was at the gym doing a workout that included box jumps ( yes that's lite...

I've always been a voracious reader and was known to regularly frequent bookshops in search of my next book to read and to make endless wish lists of the books I really really want to read. In fact I spent an inordinate amount of time hanging out in the shop I now work In. Funnily enough the novelty of spending time there has worn off slightly now that I am getting paid to do so. Naturally there is more to my job than wafting around the place looking decorative but somedays it's quiet and there isn't much to do so we stand around making disparaging remarks about some of the trashier new books that have just come in. Most of these books are channeling E.L James' 50 shades of grey. Having suffered through her first book, in one of those cases where curiosity did not pay off, I do hope that the others in that vein are somewhat better written but I guess the truth is I will never know because that sort of thing isn't something I'd voluntarily Read. So most...

Increasingly it's becoming harder to tell When our summer has actually started seeing as it would seem our weather is drunk which is frankly the only plausible explanation for the near freezing temperatures we endured for most if may. That being said it seems to have brightened up and we've had a bit of sun . A whole two days and I know this is a fact because I saw a guy wearing no shirt in town today. It's official it's summer and here's some other signs to watch out for.  you'll know the summer has come when you spot people out in public in summer clothes regardless of whether or not we have the weather to warrant these fashion choices. It's like they said fuck it, I bought a pair of shorts and il be damned if I'm not going to wear them every opportunity I get.  Speaking of, Irish summer is the time when inappropriate dressing hits an all time high. During my college years I was guilty of not dressing for the weather when I went out in ...

It's one of those things. Some people know how to talk to kids while others flail Around helplessly either talking down to them or assuming that they are in fact miniature adults. Now I'm pretty okay with it, I'm no expert but I've enough experience around children to not bother trying to talk to a 10 year old about politics. To be fair, you are unlikely to catch me talking to anyone about politics but you know what I mean. In work today I had arranged for an Irish writer to come In and do a reading from his book to a group of fifth and sixth class boys. Most people would know that  Is 11 and 12 year olds and tailor things accordingly but this writer may not have encountered a child before or at least that's the impression I got from listening to the reading. The book he was promoting was loosely based on a ship that was torpedoed during the world war ( can't remember was World War One or two but that's okay because that's not essential to th...

I realized recently that I spend a stupid amount of time giving out about how permanently broke I am. I get paid on a Thursday and here I am on Monday evening with €5 to tide me over until I get paid again but it's not quite as bad as I'm making it seem.  I have somehow managed to forget that I actually survived on the dole (job seeker allowance) for those six months I went without work and yes I was pretty miserable but I still managed to eat and pay all my bills on time. Now I actually earn more money now but I also have more expenses like a higher rent, a car and the healthy food is a hell of a lot more expensive than the crap that I used to pass off as food plus I'm putting money into the credit union to cover me for bigger bills and so on.  I guess when you look at it like that it doesn't leave me hugely better off, except for the small matter of my sanity which I was on the verge of losing when I was out of work. The important thing to take away from this is ...

So I've been trying to train myself to cook and no, it's because I've mistakenly woken up with the mindset of a 1940's housewife. I want to learn to cook for me particularly now that I'm trying to expand my diet and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to find foods I can eat never mind am willing to eat. I can't eat most of the crap in processed foods even if they do come with the gluten free label and I refuse to do without treats completely, it's too damn depressing to even contemplate. I do like fruit a lot and I could eat strawberries and raspberries until they can no longer grow them to keep up with my demand ( or until I can no longer afford to support my habit, which let's face it will probably happen a lot sooner) but sometimes I want to eat cake. But trying to find a cake to eat when you can't have sugar or wheat or most artificial sweetners isn't exactly a joke. So here I am branching out and trying to find a way to bake thing...

I started drinking at 14 which seems young now but everyone was doing it so it wasn't really that big a deal and I didn't do it to give into peer pressure. In fact by that stage most of my friends had discovered alcohol at least a year before me. At 14 I was shy, actually shy doesn't quite cover it. I was socially inept, unable to make eye contact and known to turn crimson if I saw someone I liked and then one day I discovered alcohol. Said I'd see what all the fuss is about, It tasted vile but hey, presto I'd found instant confidence in a bottle and then I lived happily ever after. Oh no wait, I didn't. Sorry, my bad.  Every fiasco, every regret, and every Oh God I didn't ...... did I, started with a drink or two. And 16 years on I still haven't found an alcoholic beverage I like the taste of. I do however like the taste of drunk. The giggles, the easy confidence occasionally bordering on mild cockiness, the complete lack of self consciousness, the ...

I am a self professed day dreamer and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I have terrible concentration but not in an ADD sort of way. I just have a tendency to space off even when I'm doing something important and get totally lost in my own thoughts. This morning I was writing morning pages for the artists way (morning pages are two A4 pages where you write anything that comes into your head until the pages are full) and I kept finding myself looking out the window at nothing in particular while idling over other things I needed to do and then realizing once again I've lost five minutes. When I was in primary school I remember constantly being scolded for this kind of behavior and my report cards would always read that I was a good student, talkative and bright but with a tendency to daydream too much. I spent much of secondary school looking out the window wishing I was anywhere else and  unfortunately I don't seem to have grown out of it. So I think it's with me...

If you're very religious you might not enjoy this post, just saying. I was raised a catholic as were most Irish children and I never really questioned my religion even when I resented being dragged to mass. It almost went without saying that if you grew up in Ireland you were a catholic and to this day most schools still teach it as though it were the only religion with occasional exemptions given to non catholic children from these classes.  I did all the usual stuff, got baptized and made my holy communion and collected a load of money and bought a bike with it and whined about having to go to church because it was so incredibly boring. Now my dad did have a religious phase for a few years which thankfully wore off so that by the time I made my confirmation I was no longer being dragged to Sunday mass against my will. I haven't actually been to a mass that wasn't a wedding, funeral or christening since then and nor do I see myself becoming a frequent mass goer at a...

Does anyone else remember fancy papers? well in case you don't they were all the rage in the 1980's when I was a child, they were small decorated notepads that had different pictures on them and they were scented. I used to love to collect them and by the time I was seven I had built up quite a collection and a girl in my class, who was more popular than me, said I could come to her birthday party if I just gave her my entire collection so I did and then discovered her birthday was actually on the same day as mine and had already passed. So that is my earliest memory of being a people pleaser, it's also when I realized I was a sucker and You know I don't think I've ever really liked that girl since. Is 24 years too long to hold a grudge? maybe not when you consider that she never gave me back my fancy papers and I was too embarrassed to tell anyone. I've always felt overwhelmed by a desire to be liked by almost everyone I meet and honestly It's exhaustin...

There's a joke that's done the rounds about two friends and one says to the other do you remember summer last year and the other replies, oh yes I think it was on a Tuesday. Well the further into May we get the less funny and more accurate that joke seems. Were about half through the month and I'm sat at home with a heater on under a blanket, wearing the dressing gown that makes me look like a Russian mobster. Mind you it's not half as sexy as the garment above, must get me one of those, It would look superb over my woolen bikini.  I don't think I'm alone in being annoyed. It should not be this bloody cold in the middle of May, even by Irish standards. I left work today to lashing rain, icy cold rain and I got pretty soaked on my way home and clearly looked so miserable that an old lady felt obliged to stop and offer me a lift. Considering it takes me all of five minutes to get home from work that's pretty impressive rain. It just makes me glad I didn...

Sometimes I have to work on the front till in work and when it gets really quiet I occupy myself by scanning magazine covers and seeing if there's anything worth buying. Lately I find myself hovering around the health lifestyle magazines like healthy living and women's Health. Now logically I know almost all of the time magazines are a complete waste of money I don't have to spend in the first place but its like I have trouble acknowledging the fact that this also applies to healthy magazines. It's as though I'm thinking that because they are dealing with matters of Health and fitness they must be good for me. Drawn in by Its enticing cover I borrowed a copy of Women's health to read on my lunch ( working in a bookstore isn't all bad) and was almost immediately glad I hadn't bothered to pay actual cash money for it( as opposed to Monopoly money) as usual it was full of health advice that was either wrong or unhelpful. One article ac...

Recently I was telling a friend something I considered to be news when she stopped me, saying I know. I read it on your blog. That's when it hit me how incredibly honest I've been on it, I'd started to forget people actually read what I've been posting and instead I've just been writing whatever's in my head. This act of blogging whatever I feel like writing is both liberating and at the same time risky. Once I've put it out there into the World Wide Web then it's not going around my head driving me crazy and that can only be a good thing, right ? But then the other side of the coin is that being honest doesn't really serve to paint the most flattering portrait of myself. Here , I emerge as someone who is insecure and somewhat judgemental. Having given it some thought I am willing to own that because when it comes down to it, people are going to judge you anyway so why not be yourself. After all everyone else is taken. I think people fr...

Since I've lost weight I've been discovering that it's not the wonder solution to all my problems, even though I could have sworn it was back when I was fatter. You might be thinking, well thank you captain obvious, and if so you've mastered a level of objectivity I've been struggling with. This battle to get fitter and thinner is certainly an uphill one but the thing that no one tells you about proper weight loss is that losing that weight can often bring all the emotions, you had spent many years suppressing, up to the surface and if you're ever going to move forward then you'll need to deal with them. If you don't then the weight is gone but you'll probably feel the exact same and it's a shame to have a new improved body but barely be able to appreciate it. Now I do have moments of churlishness where I can't help thinking that even though melting chocolate and ice-cream and cream, (yes folks I bring you chocolatey ice cream) might have...

So I am told pretty frequently I should be less negative because If you expect the worst from life that's probably what you're going to get. Now naturally , as a pessimist, I don't really have time for this sort of positive thinking. I'm generally too busy setting myself up for the disappointments life is waiting to hand out. Today I was not having a good day, a little too much training and a run in with a hockey ball had left my back feeling bruised and me feeling a little emotional. And by a little emotional I mean it's lucky I can't eat wheat because the donuts at the till at m&s were starting to look pretty seductive. So I'm in town bemoaning the fact that I actually have to do stuff and I go park my car and walk to the first shop on my to do list but when I go to pay I realise I don't have my wallet. I had it while paying for parking so I return to the car and frantically turn it upside down looking for it. by now I'm already imagin...

So I was at the gym today trying to relieve the tightness in my shoulders by rolling on a hockey ball. My trainer told me to do it just in case you think this is some mad plan I cooked up all by myself. Anyway it was excruciatingly painful, that sort of pain that really seems like its your body telling you to stop what you're doing right now because it's not good but apparently that's what it's supposed to feel like. It seems to be a contradiction in terms that the best way to help tired muscles is to hurt them more but as they say no pain, no gain. And as I lay there making noises like a cat that's gotten it's tail caught in the door I couldn't help but think that wouldn't it be nicer if the way to help tired muscles was to lie under a blanket eating chocolate and sipping tea. Even as the thought formed I was all too aware that had I spent less of my twenties doing just that then perhaps I wouldn't have to put in quite so much work now to get in...