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I don't know if you've ever seen the thing online that says I'm not an early bird or a night owl, I'm more of a permanently exhausted pigeon. Well that's me right there. Usually I'm kind of at my best around mid day but after that it all starts to slide.   As you may well be aware, this is the week I started working as a social care worker. It's an exciting but big change for me and I have definitely noticed this week that I am far more exhausted than usual. I know that it's not because the job is more taxing. So far it's been lovely and it feels far more relaxed than where I was based as a health care assistant. I think for me the exhaustion is probably all a mental thing. I'm still figuring out what it means to be a social care worker and I think my brain is in overdrive as I try to work out on a day to day basis whst extra tasks should I be taking on in my role. The other thing for me is that I have noticed, upon reflection, that I ...

So after four years in college and several more years of doing other jobs, I have finally landed my first social care job. For anyone confused because they thought I was already working as a social care worker then allow me a moment to clarify. I have been working as a health care assistant over two years now and then last March I was successful at making my way on to the social care panel ( in the residential facility in which I work). Being on a panel means you will be offered this coveted position at some point in time but you will be waiting. Then in July I got a call offering me a position in a community house and after I weighed everything up I decided to accept. That's when I went back to waiting until two weeks ago when I got word that we had the green light and an opening date. It came around much sooner than I thought and today I finally signed a contract for a permanent social care position. So it's official and they can't take it back now. They are stuck wit...

Even as I type this I know there will a few people who are judging the socks off me for looking for dates in the online arena and the vast majority of them will be smugly dating/married to someone already so them I say shame on you but also read on because you're bound to find parts of this entertaining. I have been single for about two months now which is mad because in some ways I feel as though I have been single forever but it feels very new and fresh at the same time. I had dipped my toe into online dating at other stages of my life with mixed results and a few weeks after my break up I decided it would be worth another shot. It was probably way too soon for me to even be looking but I wanted something to take the sting of out of the break up. I knew even then that I had walked out of a relationship I wouldn't be going back to so I wanted to prepare myself for the reality of dating someone else and also work out how to flirt again as I was seriously out of practice .It...

So I've been living in Kilkenny just under a month now but it's really starting to grow on me. I wasn't exactly a stranger to kilkenny before I moved here so it's fair to say I wasn't immune to its charms but since moving down I've fallen a bit in love with the city.  Now my social life has not exactly been hopping since I got here. I have friends in work and people I make small talk with in the gym but I haven't exactly been out on the town. Don't get me wrong I'm perfectly okay with this.  I'm still really enjoying exploring the city. There are corners I haven't seen and lesser known gems soon to be discovered. I think this particularly exciting for me because after 11 years I found Waterford had lost its lustre for me. I felt as though it had given me everything it had to offer and I wanted so much more.  I felt stuck and hemmed in but here I am embarking on a whole new adventure.  I started off exploring the city streets and soaki...

Ever since I moved to Kilkenny I have noticed that I have a bit of a problem. Admittedly there are worse concerns than mine and this is hardly likely to spark major concern among my friends and family. The problem is this. I seem to have forgotten how to sit still , to do nothing, to relax.  I'm not sure why this is. I have a mountain of books dying to be read, half decent internet and a bed so comfy it begs to be napped on but I  just can't seem to stop going long enough to do any of these things. I will say my new fitbit isn't exactly helping the cause. I'm enjoying watching it record my levels of activity and it prompts me to take more steps than I ever did before.  In work I am constantly moving and once home Im usually too exhausted to do much of anything. I'm falling asleep before I have really had the chance to unwind.  Then my days off come around and you must be thinking surely I will have a lie in, snuggle beneath the covers and read my book but ...

I have always been impatient to get my hands on new gadgets but usually im fairly sensible with my money so I don't go around buying them all the time. When my phone was due an upgrade I wanted the new model immediately and I even contemplated paying silly money to make that happen but common sense prevailed and I got my shiny new phone that little bit later through my contract. I had a similar moment when I moved back in with my parents. I was so desperate to get online that I contemplated spending  €80 on a mobile dongle but the madness passed and I found a corner of their sunroom where I could get online and all was good with the world. The latest whim to overtake me was the desire to own a fitbit. Fitbits have been around for a good while and I have wanted to own one but not been able to justify the cost for quite some time. I have been gradually getting fitter and also using an app on my phone to track my steps but it's not the most accurate as I don't have my phon...

It seems lately I am all about making big changes or perhaps its a coincidence that it's all happening so close together. Just two months ago I was living in Waterford, unhappily ensconced in a long term relationship and driving up to Kilkenny every day bemoaning my commute. I think change was always on the horizon but I was busy burying my head in the sand and telling myself I would work it out later.  Obviously I am sure you all know by now (unless you have the misfortune to have stumbled upon my blog for the first time just to read this post) that my relationship came to an end and I already had a plan in my place before I had even fully picked up the pieces. Possibly the only benefit of having anxiety. So here I am two months on and actually I am doing pretty good. I am finding that living alone is suiting me and I am really glad I managed to find a space of my own away from the hustle and bustle of the city. I like living near the city but I also need to be able ...

(Skinny Bitches not pictured) You know how women often refer to other women in scathing tones. It's a thing, we have all done it. Usually I would use the term Skinny Bitch for anyone fitting into the clothes I hadn't a hope of getting into. For a long time I really wanted to be one of those mysterious women, the ones who don't worry about muffin top or having to do that extremely sexy dance to get their tights to slither their way back up over their belly. Especially when I was eating all the bad foods and preferring stretchy pants that I wore to work over my jeans that felt like they were personally attacking me whenever I sat down. Now I will admit it has taken me quite some time for my mindset to change but I have gradually come around to a new way of thinking. After I was a skinny bitch before and I didn't actually reap any benefits because it was only as I slithered into my size 8 jeans I realised the issue wasn't with my size after all. I had fina...

If are not aware I am now single then clearly this is your first visit to my blog. Welcome, you will find no fashion tips here. Being single obviously has a lot of sides to it. In most ways I am better off especially because the relationship I was in was not happy for either of us so there was no real benefit to hanging on in there. The other thing would be the side benefits I am now 80-90% less anxious than I was over the last few months and the other one would be that the break up gave me the much needed kick up the ass to tackle my crap diet and make me return to the gym. In most ways I am finding life to have improved aside from the gap left from sharing your life with someone but that's not what this post is about. The one thing I have become very aware of in the last few weeks in my aloneness. In a lot of ways this is a really good thing. It gives my little introvert battery all the space it needs to recharge. Obviously I have friends and family so its not like I have ...

Getting your hair cut after a break up is supposed to be one of those quintessential steps that every woman goes through. I dont know why and I am saying that as a woman who has quite recently gone through a break up and now gotten a dramatic hair cut. Well given the fact that I have had some sort of bob in my hair on and off over the last 33 years, its not all that dramatic. (exhibit a, much younger me) I will admit I wasn't really waiting until I felt it was time to take this step. It's not as though I had to get through the crying and adjusting to single life before I could chop off loads of my hair in a fuck you type gesture, not at all. Now I have diligently gone through all the other break up steps by the book. I cried so much during the first few weeks and ate so much junk that I termed the recycling bag (which I filled with various wrappers in this time ) the recycling bag of shame. It did not help that its transparency made my gluttony  all the more ob...

So today I am feeling pretty good. It could all the endorphins from my gym class this morning or it could be the lovely coffee I grabbed on the way home but I am not going to question it and I will just enjoy my little happy wave while it lasts. So as most of you know I set myself a mission to sort myself out post break up. Especially when I looked at my little round face and was horrified, not just by my appearance ( nothing good happens to you when you eat all your feelings) but just how I was living my life in the aftermath of Stephen. I was giving myself permission to treat myself terribly because I felt sad and lonely (only natural post break up) and I decided to stop doing that and to reclaim my life. I am almost a month off sugar and bread which I haven't done for years and I feel so much better without them. I find that sugar just makes my anxiety spike plus it does nothing for my candida. I am not even craving it anymore, my mum ate murphy's ice-cream in my prese...

I know it feels as though I have been talking about this forever but I have finally moved to Kilkenny. Yes its official I am living in my own place just outside the city and I love it. It's been an adjustment mentally for sure but not at all in a bad way. I think the thing is living in my parents place felt like a temporary arrangement. I know obviously it was temporary because it wasn't like I was going to stay there forever and I am pretty sure we would have had words after another month or so if it looked like I wasn't making plans to leave. It felt like in a weird way as though I could go back to Waterford at any time and that myself and Stephen were on a break. The kind of break where you remove all your possessions from the apartment you cohabited in and cut all contact. Not that I was harbouring hopes of getting back with him but at the same time I was scared that once I moved to kilkenny it would hit home hard and the cryfest 2017 would restart. Here's th...