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 This is my first post in over a year. I think I had actually forgotten I even had a blog. At some point I felt I had covered all the good topics and with nothing new to offer then what is there to write about.  However in exactly thirty days I will be leaving my thirties forever, I am pretty sure that's how growing older works for everyone but still. I am still grasping with the fact that I am about to be forty. I mean I am told I don't look my age and I mostly definitely don't feel it and yet despite all this I find myself hurtling into a new decade. I am not entirely sure this is where I pictured my life at almost forty. Not that I ever spent that much time projecting myself that far ahead but I think on some level I thought I would have it figured out. I don't, not at all. I feel as though I am a much younger person impersonating a fully grown adult and some point someone in my life will have their aha moment and out me as an imposter.  I mean adulting is not always...

Snow is a funny thing. We as a nation (The Irish, that is) get terribly excited about its arrival but when it comes we could not be less prepared. It seems the idea of snow is much better than the reality. I on the otherhand was a bit more sceptical. I had previous run ins with snow that had not gone particularly well when living in Lausanne, Switzerland and in Edinburgh. I knew that snow while beautiful held its own pitfalls. Nothing like trekking home 3 hours in the snow (wearing penneys answer to the ugg boot) because all public transport had been cancelled that day(thanks Edinburgh). I couldn't yet afford proper weatherproof footwear (still waiting on my first paycheck at the time) and the fact that the only way I knew to get home was the bus route, left a sour taste in my mouth while other around me were getting excited about the promise of snow. I waited this snow storm they predicted with trepidation. Now I know the whole internet has been ablaze with our reaction to ...

I think we can all agree that as months go, January kind of sucks for pretty much everyone. It's cold and dark and everyone is poor from Christmas. December is often a month of fun and spending and overindulgence where as January is realising how much you have over indulged and facing up to bills and the prospect of resolutions you will probably never keep. I don't drink anymore so its fair to say every January is a dry January for me now. I don't have that to add to my misery and my junk food run only lasted 10 glorious days before I came to my senses and began my good old sugar detox but I haven't trained in three weeks and I have lost my motivation for pretty much everything so it's fair to say I am feeling the pinch of more than just my jeans. I am not a big fan of January and I know I am not alone here but I am not looking for solidarity. Somehow in some mix of poor timing I find myself paying for every car related thing this month. I have just put m...

Last night I was back in bed, a mere few hours after I'd woken up because I had worked a night shift Tuesday night which I was still buckled from and I had to be up at silly O'clock this morning for work. I was really tired but I had spent most of my day sleeping or trying to sleep so I was struggling a little. As I lay in bed despairing of how tired I was I had a sudden thought about how on my next birthday I would turn 36 and then just continuously get older. My hair needs to be dyed more often now (for grey coverage), I am starting to see traces of visible lines on my face and even though I am most definitely in the age bracket for anti aging creams, I have never ever bought one. I am single and childless (admittedly by choice) but I had chosen this moment to panic about the possibility that I might want and not have children in the future (you'd think at my age I would know if this was something I should be panicking about but nope). I am finding it is taking less ti...

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 ...

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 ...

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...

One of the hardest things about coming out of a long term relationship is working out what to do with yourself in their absence. Before my weekends would revolve around my boyfriend and if he was off we would make a big effort to go somewhere together. So I found myself with a long weekend looming ahead of me and no plans to speak of. I will admit I woke feeling sad friday morning and the temptation was there to stay in bed and have a one woman pity party. In fear of turning into an actual hermit post break up, I fought this urge and went and made some plans for myself. So in order to cheer myself up I took myself to Kilkenny for the day. It was initially supposed to be a house scouting mission but that got somewhat abandoned when i realised im not going to be able to afford my own place at current rental prices and really I can look into my house sharing options from the comfort of my phone. Suddenly my day had morphed into a 'treat yo self day/ date with myself and it turn...

I have now lived in the city for a long time and while I know ill be living in a city again soon , for now my living situation feels like a stark contrast. The thing is the last few years I have not just been living in Waterford city but living right in the heart of the city. When I worked in the book store I didn't have to drive to work. Obviously since I started working in Kilkenny walking to work was no longer an option. I was saved the trouble of paying for parking in town. The shops and restaurants and bars were only a few steps away from my door. The broadband was high speed and pretty much a given within city limits. These were all good things and some of them I will miss to a degree but not everything about city living was amazing. For starters living in The Glen I had to have a parking permit but while this offered me free parking for my car it did not guarantee me a space anywhere close to my apartment especially on bingo nights and it was even worse during any of the ...

This day a week ago my boyfriend of almost four years parted ways. In the briefest of conversations he went from being the person I tell everything to being someone I may never speak to again.  That's not to suggest the end of our relationship came as a shock to either of us. It lay lingering in the air unsaid and the magic relationship fairy seemed to be taking her sweet time waving her magic wand over all the cracks in the relationship so the words were said and once out there couldn't be taken back and just like that we weren't a couple any more. Breaking up is a much messier affair when you live together because while you are deciding what to do next, you also have to decide where to go next. This is one of those times where my anxiety actually helped me out. I had spent months worrying about this obsessively and the only thing that calmed me was planning what to do in a worst case scenario. When I  was faced with the reality of the end of us, I found myself prepare...

So after a lifetime  ( or 11 years) of living in Waterford city I find myself saying goodbye. I had been wanting to leave the city for a while, it had lost its allure for me but I didnt envision myself leaving quite like this. Rather than packing excitedly thinking of new possibilities, I find this move is tinged with sadness as it was prompted by the end of a relationship which had been the last anchor keeping me in Waterford. When I first moved to Waterford, it was for college and I spent four years living in student accommodation on the cork road. They were a great four years in rather shabby apartments and many lifelong friends were made. Much as I enjoyed my time in Waterford, I wasn't exactly heartbroken when a group of us moved to Edinburgh at the end of college to start some new adventures. A mere four months later I moved home for the sake of a relationship that clearly didnt work out and 6 months later when it all went up in flames, the sensible thing to do would have...

It's hard sometimes to be an introvert in this very extroverted world. People expect something more than introversion in social settings and it takes its tole. When I am getting ready for a night out I need a few hours to build myself up. Some quiet time at home or else the whole idea becomes a bit overwhelming. I am aware I am not the only one who feels this way but sometimes I can't help feeling we introverts are in the minority. I sometimes find depending on how my few days in work have gone that I might be totally unable to do anything vaguely sociable on at least one of my days off. This magnified by my propensity to take on the emotional baggage of those around me like some kind of pointless sponge and it leaves me carrying the stress and anxieties of those I have been in contact with long after I go home. As if that wasn't enough to drain me then couple with my stress eating sugar binge of late that never seems to end even though it often feels like I am o...

Right now my brain is like mush and I am stress eating to beat the band. If you are wondering what exactly has me in this state then sit yourself down and I will try and give you the short version. A few months ago I was offered a position on the social care panel at work. Not totally out of the blue given that I had applied for it and interviewed for it and the whole shebang. At the same time I was asked to a short course on management and I thought why not, future planner that I am. When I turned up at the course I realised it came with a QQI 6( the new fetac ) award and I thought great, that will look lovely on my CV. We got details of the assignments we would complete at the end but I decided not to worry about those because really it was ages away. After two days of the course we had 6 weeks of online learning and that was fine. I completed my learner record as I went along like a good little student. Then we had the last day (Mid April) and we went through the assignments in...

Today, at work training, someone who hadn't met me before expressed genuine surprise that I class myself as an introvert.This is not the first time this has happened but it got me thinking about the different personas I present to the world. In some settings I can come across confident and self assured but the people who see me here would scarcely recognise me out in the world. When I first started working in my current work place I was nervous. I often am in these settings and I overtalked, Too much talking about nothing in particular out of some need to fill all the silences with words. Then I relaxed as time passed and withdrew more into myself. I talked less and learned more. I eventually reached a point where my confidence in my own abilities and knowledge of the people we supported had grown enough that I started to stand my ground and share my opinions. This is where I am now. Sit me in a training room, a meeting or with any professional that we have to call upon and I ...

This may not be the most accurate blog post title I have ever put together but of all the things I regret in life I am certain a misleading blog post wont make the hitlist. Today has been an up and down kind of day. Due partially to my very overactive brain and the noisy things that woke me last night, I arrived in work on four hours sleep and barely functioning. This also meant everything hurt way more than it should have because no sleep means my poor battered muscles didn't get a chance to heal. Surely they will heal in the next day or so and I will not be cursed to crab walk down my stairs forevermore like some geriatric old woman masquerading as a thirty something. This kind of tiredness meant I was way more uncoordinated and maybe a tad emotional for the day so sorry about that work folks but it's really hard to cope as a zombie. Despite all this hardship, ( I jest) I muddled through the day as best I could managing to complete basic tasks plus a few extra activities ...

In the early hours of this morning my other half peeled himself from the bed and headed out the door with a suitcase in hand. As he faces into the prospect of a holiday on an island off Denmark, I have the apartment to myself and I am not sure how I feel about that. I do happen to be one of those people that actually likes spending some time by myself, after a while without it I start to crave my own company but it seems to me there is a difference in choosing it for yourself and having it thrust upon you. I have been dating my boyfriend now for almost three years, living together just over a year and during this time we have never spent this long (he gets back on Monday) apart. I think I am feeling a little sorry for myself because I only grabbed a few hours sleep last night and I find sleep deprivation always drags my mood down. I am sure once I adjust to the emptiness of our place I will probably start to enjoy pottering around in silence.  I remember before I moved in wi...

In less than 2 hours I will be back in work after a whole week off and 15 minutes after that I'll feel like I had never left. To say I am feeling unenthusiastic about the prospect would be understating it. I would like some more holidays please and thank you and this time I swear I will actually relax for some of it. I seem to have lost the ability to do nothing and now there's a very tired Laura who wishes that wasn't the case. The whole idea of my week off was that I had to move apartment and I knew looking at the state of my old place and the mountain of possessions I seem to have accumulated, despite my many moves over the last few years, that it would not be a one day job. Plus I'd already booked the weekend off to watch the wod warrior competition at the gym.  So it seemed I had a plan of sorts. Then I got it into my head that I didn't actually want to waste my week off just moving so I moved most of my stuff over the weekend and only had to spend...

I am currently sporting a rather impressive bruise which was acquired in a rather banal way and as it turns out this is not a new experience for me. I have begun to notice a pattern in my distinctly Lauraish mishaps that go beyond my usual being a klutz. Its somewhat amusing that considering I crossfit , using heavyish weights and swing from bars that its not from here my injuries stem but instead ordinary life activities that others complete unscathed. My most recent bruise was acquired just this weekend at my sisters house. I was minding my nieces all weekend and on Saturday we had arrived back from an outing to a cold dark house. We had gotten back later than planned and I was trying to do all the things at once. I had settled them inside and my next task was to light the fire, as I went to do so I realised it needed to be cleaned out so off I went outside with a torch in search of a bucket. I found it on the deck at the back of the house but because of the darkness I did not...

There was a time not too long ago when I had a lot more to write about but now my posts are less frequent. The reason for this is that I seem to have a lot less to say without paraphrasing older blog posts and hoping no one has read back that far. The truth of the matter is for now my life is mostly eat, work , sleep, repeat with the odd Crossfit class thrown in for variety. Even if I could write about work , it wouldnt make for the most exciting reading. I could always tell you about my attempts to get healthier but there's not a whole lot to say that I haven't written about on my many other failed attempts over the last few years. Thanks to the wonders of Facebook's on this day I have been been able to identify a pattern of where I am super enthusiastic about getting healthier/dropping a dress size/ having a flat stomach and then 'accidentally' eating sugar and undoing all my progress. It might be time to accept I will always be squidgy around the middle and the...

I remember my nieces a year or so back asking me in an incredulous tone how long it takes to learn to drive because for as long as they could remember I had L plates on my car. The answer in my case is four years. Admittedly I probably could have gotten my full licence sooner if I hadn't been so hesitant to do my test in the three years that have passed since my last attempt. I get very anxious during tests or Interviews and so do not perform particularly well at either. I will put that in my list of things I need to work on in the new year. In time since I have learned to drive I feel I have accomplished a lot and yet I will go out of my way to avoid having to parallel park because I feel like its always going to be my Achilles heel. At least I have come a long way from the days when I used to feel anxious about getting into my car and was likely to bunny hop across roundabouts in third gear. The problem with learning to drive is that the older you do the harder it is and...