On the up

Just thought i'd pop in to say that things are looking much better all round. I am starting to enjoy the new job although we are still in the training phase so that could change! And DH has found another position too, which is even better really.

So i'm feeling positive. Which is nice, because it's been a shocking few weeks.

that's all I have to say, really!

New things to learn

So I went to Bendigo, and it wasn't all it was supposed to be.
I did learn a few great things about myself, and my dreams, which I must blog at some point.

I am here today just to remind people that I am still alive and still kicking, even though I'm pretty much vacant.

I started another job on Monday night and the learning curve is going to be ludicrously steep for the next four weeks. Throw the existing job on top of that, plus all the hours I am trying to get on top of that too, and you will begin to build up a picture in your minds of what is going on in mine.

I am not feeling brilliant about everything right now and every time someone says something at the new job about sadness or generosity or unhappiness or ... anything really.. I am finding myself fighting off tears.

I really do hope that's more about my current state of mind and lack of sleep than anything to do with the job itself, because I'm going to really struggle if it's the job. I NEED this job. I NEED to do well in it. Without it my family cannot afford to eat right now. So yeah. NO MORE CRYING OVER STUFF... Mmmmok???

What a week it's been

Interviews and applications for both of us, and so much work still left to do!
Had a second interview for a spot today, I'm feeling somewhat ambivalent about how I went for some reason. I wonder if it's because one of the interviewers was a man this time? I don't know. I react differently to men, so perhaps that was it.

All told it's been a ludicrously hectic few weeks. The worst, so to speak, is yet to come. I've got only two days now before I leave for Bendigo and although I am very excited, I'm also insanely nervous and mildy panicing about my abilities to get everything finished in time.

Thankfully i have managed to hook up the laser printer to the desktop so I can now print out my brochures. As long as the toner cartridges hold out, at least.

Speaking of which - I must go and do that right now.

ups and downs

Last night I had an entire blog post written in my head. It was a pretty negative one, with lots of focus on the negative stuff that has been going on here lately.

This morning I can only remember fleeting bits of it. This is a GOOD THING - it certainly shows what a decent nights sleep can acheive on one's state of mind.

So far today I have knitted up a lot of wool for felting later on this afternoon, and turning into slippers of some kind even later on than that. I have taken reciept of a HUGE delivery of fleecey goodness, which all needs to be bagged up into the right size receptacles, and priced and tagged and barcoded accordingly.

I have been confirmed for another job interview this time on Wednesday, which is OK. I wish these things weren't all the way in town though. Seems like such a long way to go from here.

You see, DH was the proud??? owner of an unexpected redundancy at work last week. As he was employed on a casual basis, it has left us in the lurch with no money for the next few weeks. So we have both been madly applying for jobs to try and get ourselves out of trouble.

Of course, Bendigo is still going ahead. I have put too much work and spent too much money in that direction to make missing it even worth a look in. The order that arrived today is evidence of that - I have to pay that bill yet. So we are going to sell out in Bendigo and come home happy little campers.

DH has a job interview Wednesday too. This is a good thing also. I am pleased that after being summarily dumped from the company he has worked for for the last 22 years, he seems to be reasonably content to get straight into applying for new opportunities rather than wallowing in misery.

I was very miserable last night but I am putting that behind me today and just getting on with stuff, damn it. So yeah, that's it

Thinking about simple living...

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere not that long ago, an argument by someone on the web, pushing for the rich/poor type of world economy that we have now. Pushing perhaps for a more feudal system.

Why? Because their argument was based on human intelligence requiring TIME. They were pretty much saying that if it wasn't for the inception of a system where some people are brow-beaten into doing the menial labour of washing/growing food/cooking/childrearing/building etc, then we would NEVER have developed the technological things we have today - simply because with an "every man supplies his own needs' type philosophy, there isn't enough TIME in the day to get over the humps of providing and have time to think and dream and create new ideas and get them to fruition.

Now, I'm an avid reader of fantasy, as anyone who knows me will be able to confirm. I love it. I love my books. I love reading about kings and queens - but more-so, about the little everyday people who leave their rutabaga patches and go on awesome life journeys to discover skills they never thought they had and change their entire existence.

That is fantasy however. For every single human being who wants to uproot themselves from wherever they are and go on a life-changing journey there are costs, and sometimes, the costs are too high.

So I ask you this - are the costs of our modern-day conveniences, the ease at which I can disseminate this very blog post out to the world, while a machine does my washing and another machine cooks my dinner and other people teach my children and somewhere, someone is growing the food I'm going to eat tomorrow, - are those costs WORTH the price? The price happens to people in other countries that I don't have to see. I never have to notice how they slave away every single day to produce the rice I'm eating for dinner tonight. I never have to see the tiny fingers that get horribly disfigured in the factories that make the clothes I'm wearing.

And I will never ever see the generations of people who have had nothing of their own for thousands of years because they were too busy with life to do the 'thinking' that provided us with all the benefits to start with.

Is all this cost worth it? We may have intellectually made more gadgets than we can think of uses for, but have we completely missed the point? All those people who lived in the fields doing back-breaking manual labour all day every day whilst being paid practically nothing in physical terms - they are the price we have paid to be where we are today.

I wonder what they thought. I wonder what their reward was. They lived. They pushed on regardless. And sometimes when I sit outside after doing some achey work of my own, something raw and earth connected, like washing fleeces by hand (none-the-less with the aid of hot water on tap, not having to cart it from a well miles away and boil it to get hot over a fire...) I think that whoever it was that said all that stuff was wrong.

Because it's when our hands are occupied with the manual labour of everyday tasks, when we are busy creating something from the raw materials we have, THAT'S when our brains are free to wander and think and create ideas. It's like there's a switch in there that turns on the imagination while our other side of the brain is busy working on what our hands are doing.

I wonder if there's research somewhere about how many of history's amazing discoveries were actually attributed to upperclass people when in fact it was the gardener toiling away in the potato patch with his hoe whose imagination leapt from there into the horse-drawn plow.

today's excitement

So I havent' blogged in a while. Been very very busy madly crafting for the May fair, and also working as many shifts as possible to cover the other expenses.
Today being Friday is the LOOOOOOONG shift day. So I came home to some aching aching feet and a need to do something relaxing, like, well, sleep!

But! There were parcels and parcels galore at my house. Much excitement! Some of it I knew was coming, like the cellophane bags I ordered to pack product into. And the wool I ordered to knit up into felted elf slippers. And.... another thing. But that will be in a moment.

I also got a very very suprise package. The posted date on it was the 3rd of December, LAST YEAR. It took a while to get here! Must've gotten lost in the mail.

Anyhow, it was a birthday present from my Mum inTassie. It had a fabulous hand-dyed felt needle-book, and an awesome preserving book. Very exciting indeed!

The other package that I knew was coming but is still very exciting was my new spinning wheel. I finally bought myself an Ashford Double-treadle Joy. It's the portable, fold up spinning wheel and it's just PERFECT. I set it up very quickly (it's very easy to do!) and have been playing already. I'm very very happy with it. My current wheel needs to be treadled rather fast to keep moving and it's difficult for me to spin on because i'm not really practised enough to go that fast. This one is easy as pie to treadle slowly yet keep itself going. So i've spun up a quarter of a jumbo bobbin full and am hoping to do more later on tonight. I know I should really be making things for May, but I think after a 10 hour shift at work I can have some time off, yeah??

good, I thought so LOL

Conspiracy theories

So I'm sitting here listening to the TV. It's making this odd noise - becomes more and more noticeable as the volume gets lower. It's like a subsonic very fast-paced drumming, thumping along underneath everything, a deep sound that gets into my bones and irritates the heck out of me.

It's a sound I've never heard before from our TV.

The thing that has changed is that our TV is now running through a digital set-top box kindly donated by the IL's. I have no clue why a digital box would make this noise come through the speakers when it never did before. When the TV runs on analog, you can't hear it. And when you are listening/watching DVD's, you can't hear it.

So me being me, I'm listening to this thumping and wondering why it's the newest technology that's causing the weirdness. I start to wonder what else they are transmitting along this digital signal. What are they thumping along through that multitude of new digital signals that this magic little box is picking up.

Anyone else out there into conspiracy theory fiction? Coz I've got an inkling of a novel idea....