Swan-tastic!

You know that image of the swan, all serenity on top but paddling madly beneath the surface? That's a pretty good analogy for my state of mind these days.

Next week my sister leaves for New Zealand for a year to eighteen months and though I wasn't dwelling on it consciously, it was really churning up my sub-conscious!
For the last four or five days all my dreams have been about travelling with MissAmused (sis) in obscure places and uncomfortable circumstances. I think the recurring theme of discomfort is clearly my mind bracing itself to missing her a whole heck of a lot.

I'm flying home in the morning - a prospect over which I would normally be 'cock-a-whoop', but this time I'm feeling so apathetic I can hardly bring myself to pack. Something I generally excel at and revel in.

There is a point to all this whining, I promise! What I have come to realise is that my discomfort is mostly due to the fact that MissAmused has never been this far from home for so long before. She is setting off on an exhilarating, terrifying and wonderful adventure and I can't be beside her to make sure everything is as perfect as can be. I am going to have to stand back, hand her over to the Lord and trust that he will shelter her even better than I could.

I said yesterday that I thought this Lent would be about discerning my path. Now I think it will be much more about handing my loved ones over to God. I reckon it's something I'll have to re-do on a daily basis.
Lots of rosary decades will be used up for this one!

Ash Wednesday

Best Friend and I went to Mass today for Ash Wednesday, and as I knelt and prayed after Communion I meditated on where the Lenten journey would take me this year.

I've learned over the past few years that when I truly surrender, it can take me to some rather wonderful and unexpected places. God does indeed work in mysterious ways.

This year the beginning of Lent finds me circling the same crossroads I've been contemplating for a few months now, namely: what path do I follow career wise? Do I go for TEFL teaching, an office job or pursue my business idea?

So this Lent will be seven weeks of 'Hush up and Listen!' as I try to discern God's will for my working life.

I'm rather looking forward to seeing where this pilgrimage will take me, and finally getting past the crossroads.

Spring is in the air

After the coldest winter in over fifty years, (boy do I pick my times to emigrate!) we're finally getting some signs of spring here in Bonny Scotland!

We are getting lovely blue patches of sky between rain showers, and I have actually been known to leave the house without a hat over the last week. The most satisfying for me was being able to hang a wash out on the line for the first time in five months. Which is great timing as Best Friend and I will be doing a stock take and laundering of baby clothes this week, getting another important job done before the immanent arrival.

I said in my first post that I intended learning German this year. This plan took a big step backwards last week when I showed up for class to discover it had been cancelled due to lack of interest. I was offered Creative Writing or Polish instead. I politely declined but inside I was whining: "No, no, no, you don't understand - I have a Swiss wedding to go to!"
So it's back to studying away myself on my online lessons and I will search my library - with a bit of luck I might get a Michel Thomas German course. That would be great because those things cost about eighty quid to buy.

Nothing to report on the job hunting front. It's a case of trusting God to move the mountain, but in the meantime I'll keep digging. While I was signing on last Thursday, I saw a pamphlet offering courses on setting up your own business. I can't imagine a worse time to start a business - I had planned to start one in October '08 before all hell broke loose, economically speaking. But while I'm on Jobseeker's Allowance I can do the course for free, and who am I to turn down a freebie?!
I duly made an appointment and I meet with the consultant tomorrow afternoon. I'll let you know how it goes.

Last Friday I did something else which I've been meaning to do for an age and a half, I went into the Edinburgh Volunteer Centre to see what I could give back to the community. I really want to do TEFL volunteering, for three quite selfish reasons:

1. It will look impressive on my CV and give me a valuable edge in the job market.
2. It will get me out of the house and doing something rewarding and productive, thereby saving my sanity.
3. Due to a bizarre string of colds in October, sweet things have been anathema to me since October 18th, therefore, this Lent I won't be able to do my usual 'Mortification of the Flesh' and give up my favourite foods. So I'm going to be creative and take up something instead.

I found and applied for three TEFL oriented, volunteering posts, so we'll see how that goes.

Now I'm off to put another wash on the line. Huzzah!

It takes a village...

They say it takes a village to raise a child and although I knew and heartily endorsed this statement already, yesterday I was given cause to believe it all over again!

Best Friend was at the hairdresser's for the important Pre-Natal hairdo: Baby's ETA is 7 weeks now. So I collected Best Friend's Boy from nursery and was looking forward to a productive afternoon of cooking dinner and doing a window treatment while BFB and his play date entertained each other rampaging around the rest of the ground floor.
Nothing I hadn't handled quite easily before. I got the korma started and then took down the bland Landlord's curtains and hung the nice Ikea ones. Added to that was the immense satisfaction from wielding hammer and nails - only to put up a picture hook, put fun all the same!

All was going swimmingly and those two plates were spinning nicely until BFB had some major regression in his potting training. Hosing down was required.
Twice.

So I discovered that a) Korma, though a deliciously mild curry, is also a very forgiving one, as it can take a little, 'carbon enrichment' and b) that one should never underestimate the importance of having someone to stir!

Happily for me that someone arrived in the shape of Playdate's Mum, who also brought news of a possible job.
I'll let you know how that pans out.

So it was with great relief that I began to read Henri De Lubac's 'The Splendour of the Church' this morning. I'm only half way into the first chapter but I can already tell that this book, like all the best theology books, is going to be intellectually taxing but ultimately rewarding.

At least this activity won't overwhelm my multi-tasking skills.

And introducing.....

Dear All,
how exactly should one begin a blog? Should I be witty, suave or sophisticated? Erudite or urbane?

Hmmm, witty I can do, but I'm not so sanguine about the rest.

So I will simply start at the beginning and hope I hit my stride fairly soon.

In October 2008 my dearest friend and I walked the last 300 miles of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela from St. Jean Pied de Port in France, over the Pyrenees and across Northern Spain.
It was without a doubt the best five weeks of my life and I learned so much about myself, my faith, life, the universe and everything, yada, yada, yada. Most delightfully, it also taught me that when I put my mind to it, I can accomplish just about anything.

This blog will chronicle the life and times of this accident pilgrim as I embark on my next pilgrimage - 'Grown Up Life'. I start the second decade of the millennium with quite a lot to explore:

• I'm in a new city - Edinburgh (well, I have lived here before, but with only four friends still residing here I'll have to rebuild my social life from the ground up!)
• I'm job hunting - with only the vaguest notion what job I want. Whatever I can get I suspect!
• I'm learning German to prepare me for a friend's wedding in Switzerland in September.
• Applying for a college place next September, we'll see how that skirmish with academia goes.
• Exploring the nooks and crannies of my beloved Catholic faith under the supervision of my Dominican spiritual director.
• And somewhere in the middle of all that, maybe, just maybe I'll get to do a little romancing as well!

All in all, I think I shall have lots to report and I really look forward to having you with me on the journey, to cheer me on, ask questions or give me directions when I get lost.