Tag Archives: thoughtful

Happy Birthday, Dad.

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Bit of a serious post today. I feel a bit weird about writing this post, if I’m being completely honest with you. I haven’t posted about my Dad in what seems like forever, but I’m feeling a bit down about his birthday this year. I think it’s a realisation of a lot of things.

Today, my Dad would have been the ripe age of 54. He would’ve gone to work like any other day and not expected to be treated any differently. He wouldn’t have even wanted us to get him any presents – and wouldn’t have cared if we hadn’t bought him a card. We probably would’ve gone to TGI Friday’s (or Macaroni Grill, if it was still open!) this weekend to celebrate, each of us daring the other to tell the waitress it was his birthday, so they’d all sing to him, and ended up in the pub, with Dad calling to the ‘Engine room’ for his beer.

I do miss my Dad. I think about him all the time. I think about what he’d say about my job now and what words of advice he’d have for me to do better in everyday life. Well, everything apart from weight loss – that’s where I get my ‘heavy bones’ from. Everyday, I appreciate what he gave my family and me, and how he supported every one of us with where we wanted to go. And that’s not just Mum, brother and me, but our extended family too, from cousins to uncles and aunts. It says a lot when you talk about someone after they’ve gone, and I think there’s a story told either about Dad or one that he relayed to others at least once a week in the pub or on the phone to someone else, maybe even in one of Dad’s old offices.

Dad has been gone nearly two years. I can’t believe it’s been that long, because it feels like just yesterday when we were singing along to the Two and A Half Men theme tune in my parents’ living room or joking about what make up I had on my face. A lot has changed in two years. I have a different full time job and a different part time job – yes, I had both a full time job and part time job two years ago! My brother has seen many different girls (which Dad would’ve been slightly proud of!) and has nearly finished his degree. Mum has changed the house and the garden and the driveway… and my house and my driveway… We had no dogs and now, we have three. My Uncle is now divorced. My cousin finished college and got a job. We now have a second-cousin in Cambridge. And that’s all I can think of, off the top of my head!

The thing that hasn’t changed through this? He hasn’t been here to see it. I think that’s what I miss the most. Well, that and his advice. It’s difficult to speak to someone when they’re not there.

Two years ago today, I would’ve spent £20 on Marks and Spencers socks or a tie for my Dad’s birthday. For the second year running, today I will donate £50 to Cancer Research UK in his memory. And tonight, I will eat ham, egg and chips – my Dad’s favourite meal – washed down with a pint of cider with three ice cubes – I still don’t know why there should be three ice cubes, but he used to say ’not two, not four; just three’ – probably listen to some Rolling Stones, Oasis or Rod Stewart songs and I will remember the fond times I had with him for 22 years. It’s true when they say ‘gone but not forgotten’.

The Franno Budget 2011

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To continue my stream of awesomeness, I have been thinking about the Franno Budget 2011, and things that I need and things that I want. Bit of a boring, number crunching post, this one – apologies, but I am figuring out my life here!

Today, I have cancelled two subscriptions which are no longer of use to me, to coincide with the Franno Budget 2011. This includes my trashy magazine subscription, which is delivered weekly and sprawled around the house, still in its packaging since December time, and (regretfully) my Spotify Premium subscription.

Honestly, I am gutted at the latter, but I just don’t get a chance to go on Spotify as much as I used to. And I’m still on Spotify, just not the one without the adverts. By cancelling Spotify Premium, I am saving £9.99 a month. That could put a quarter of a tank of petrol in my car. BAM. The trashy magazine, believe it or not, cost £50 per year. That’s not a lot, really. But I am saving £50. This could go into my wardrobe fund or buy me a hair cut or something.

My London gym membership is finally cancelled. I had to give a month’s notice and pay one more month’s installment, but it’s gone. So that’s another £60 a month contributing towards Franno’s needs/wants, which brings me onto my defined categories. Firstly, the needs. Basically, these four things:

  1. Food – duh!
  2. Drink (Non-alcoholic. Sad face.)
  3. Petrol – to get to and from work
  4. Money for bills (electricity, water, phone, Sky (although, that’s probably a want…), Internet (again…), car insurance, car tax, paying Mum back for buying my car, credit card, WW membership, lottery tickets (what, they’re direct debited, so surely count as a bill?)…)

Wow, I have a lot of bills… Wants, well, they’re a little more tricky. There’s nothing that I really want right now, for example. But I may want to go to the pub for a drink later or I may pop into Boots and want that new shade of pink nail varnish, which looks exactly like the one I have at home. So I think I could probably divide my wants category up even further:

  1. Fashionable wants – the nail varnish, the new outfit for clubbing, etc.
  2. Sociable wants – the drink in the pub, the dinner with the best friend
  3. Homely wants – paint for the hallway, electrician wages for fixing the light switches
  4. Leisurely wants – buying a trashy novel, getting eyelash extensions, dying my hair blonde…

The list really and truly does go on. But just how much money should be spent on the wants? Now, with four weeks in a month and at £70 a week for the needs (which is basically food, drink and petrol, as my bill money is already transferred to another bank account), that’s a basic budget of £280.00. Not bad, eh? If I stick to it. I think I’ll try and stick to half of this for the wants. And do you know what? I think that’s rather generous of the Franno Budget 2011. Two weeks worth of budget for the things I don’t really need. Maybe this will change when I decide what it is I actually want!

So how should I implement this? It would be complete and utter rubbish if I actually took out the full £280.00 and kept it in my purse, only for me to spend it! I think the best way of doing this is to take out £70.00 at the beginning of the week and only keep £10 in my wallet at any one time. The change stays in the change bit – unless its pennies, in which case it goes in the unbreakable money box – and is therefore rolled over onto the next day. I suppose I could contribute the remainder of the unspent budget on wants, depending on if there are any!

I think for the next few months, at least, I should just put the rest of my salary as savings. I think it would be dumb not to. Especially as I have kinda depended on my savings for a while as a back up – it’s time to top it up again! And plus, you don’t know when you’re gonna have your car broken into or actually need it in case of an emergency.

::: Note for Jay :::

Sorry, this means I won’t be able to buy your drunken pizza any more, for I am on a strict budget. Plus, it’s not good for me to be tempted on my diet!

::: End Note for Jay :::

This time next year, Rodney, we’ll be millionaires!

Doubtful, but hopefully, I’ll be a little bit better off than right now! Do you know what? I’m slightly nervous. I’ve never really had to keep to a budget since I’ve had an allowance from my parents at the tender age of 15 and the full whack was used to make sure my phone had enough credit. How things have changed… I’ll keep you posted with how I’m doing as always :) Pay day tomorrow…

A bit of this, a bit of that…

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We had a pretty good weekend last weekend, considering the factors. On Friday, I started my tributes to Dad by wearing his hat that he wore to every Madness concert he went to – and believe me, it was a few as it was starting to become a Christmas time tradition!

On Saturday, we had a really good day. The sun was shining and it felt like we were wandering around the shops on holiday rather than in Covent Garden. The whole environment was buzzing – even more so when we went to the Mexican and drank several (very alcoholic!) Mojitos :)

Then it was time to go and see Jersey Boys. I think I was pleasantly surprised at the story and the songs that I didn’t have any idea that they wrote. Now I’m going through a whole Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons music fad. On Sunday, I even made the pub put on my Frankie Valli greatest hits that I’d bought after the show. The downer of Saturday was that the drinks were extremely costly when we were in the theatre – £54 for two rounds of drinks, a box of malteasers and two bottles of water! What on earth!

On Sunday, it was surprisingly happy and joyous. We had ham, egg and chips in the back garden of Mum’s house, because it was so sunny. Then, after the boys took the dogs for an extremely long walk, we went down the pub. I continued my tribute by drinking pear Magners with three ice cubes – not two, not four, but three.

It’s a considerably weird feeling, this whole year. It feels like it happened yesterday, but yet feels like it happened four or five years ago. I’m happy when I think of the memories, but sad with the realisation he’s no longer here. It just seems a whole bunch of contradictions of how I’m feeling. It’s hard to explain because you only ever lose your parents once and so you don’t know how you should feel. *shrugs* I don’t know, but I’m not going to dwell on it too much. I’m feeling how I am and there’s not much else I can do about it, is there?

A lot of people have noticed a change in my personality recently – that I’m a lot happier and relaxed. I think it’s the job. I did love the people in my job in the City, but now I guess I’m doing something I really and truly love and feel passionate about. I met up with some of my London friends on Thursday and had a really nice time, catching up and talking rubbish :) But they’re still talking about Internety things that I don’t get! Ha! I think I’ve mastered the whole “sitting and nodding” thing, whilst zoning out and thinking of girly things like shoes and nail varnish.

I think for me to become truly happy, I have to shed the weight. It still makes me increasingly self conscious and I suppose not as confident as 18 year old me was. So although the diet has been slacking (read: Mexican and ham, egg and chips!), I need to work a whole tonne harder to lose the three stone I have left to lose. And I will do it :)

I’m swimming tonight and I’m going to try and swim for a whole hour and a half – half of what I will be swimming a day in August! This whole swimming thing is a gradual process – I wish I could just bust out the 21 miles already! Makes me wish I didn’t give up swimming when I went to uni! Three tiny words. Bring. It. On. :)

I also need to budget this month and (probably) for the rest of the year! Last month, I kind of overspent, with buying pretty canvases and fixing my broken car window, and in the upcoming months, I have two new monthly outgoing: payment for my new car (thanks, Mum!) and car insurance, because I no longer live at home, and my brother and I no longer share a car. I figured that I could comfortably live on £100 a week. That’s more than £10 a day! In fact, screw it, I’ll live on £70 a week! I honestly just have to be good and not overspend. At all. Any money out of my £70 weekly budget that isn’t spent gets rolled over to the following week. And of course, any pennies go into our unbreakable money box, until we decide to break it :)

This week will be a good one :)

Don’t Look Back In Anger, I Heard You Say

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I’m having a bad Dad day today. I have no idea what has brought it on. It’s not as if it’s a birthday, an anniversary or whatever. Sometimes I think it’s just sitting here in the office on my own. You start thinking about stuff. You email Cancer Research UK lady who’s helping you with your fundraising. You tell her that last year, your family raised £32,000.00 for Cancer Research UK in memory of your Dad. And then you start reading the posts of the people who donated.

I really miss Dad. A lot. There’s not a day that goes by when I don’t think about him, for at least half my day. I look in the mirror and I have his eyes (minus the eye liner and mascara) and his chin. I hear songs on the radio that I know he would love, but he didn’t get a chance to hear. I see bloody West Ham winning and can hear his sarcastic remarks about how he was a jinx every time he went up there.

You probably relate to one of your parents more than the other, right? I think it’s only natural, really. Common interests and stuff. Looking back, after thinking I related more to Mum, I think I was wrong. I talk to Mum about artists who are now probably the most influential people of our generation, Mum doesn’t get it.

The worst thing is you don’t expect the people you love to just die. He didn’t know he was going to die that night. We didn’t know he was going to die that night. You get this idea in your head that the people you love are just going to exist forever. They don’t.

On the brighter side, this whole ordeal has made me into a stronger, better person. Someone he’d be really proud of. And what hurts even more is that he didn’t know me like this.

In August, I’m going to be swimming twenty one miles for Cancer Research UK in his memory. I don’t think I ever thought I’d say that. Even when I was a really good swimmer, I never ever thought I’d do something like that. It’s weird how things change when you go through losing someone you didn’t think you would lose.

I wish he was still here.

This week.

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This week has been a complete write off. I wish it wasn’t. Stupid illness. The doctor said it was probably a virus, so she hasn’t given me a big ass pill that I wanted to make me better. She has advised me to drink lots of fluids and rest a lot. The slow and boring way to get better.

I hate being home all day when I know I’m meant to be at work. I slept in til about 11 (see, doctor? Plenty of rest!) but I had a productive day yesterday, pottering about the house. I mounted my CD wall tiles (see picture), I had a go at nPower, I did some washing… I even unloaded the dishwasher in the hope that we’d load the dishwasher last night with our dirty plates. We didn’t.

And I just remembered I didn’t put the rubbish out for the rubbish men this morning. Rubbish.

I ordered new bed sheets as well. I’m becoming very housewifey. I’m trying to get our house in order in my own little way, kinda making it homely-er. Honestly, I could spend a fortune in Next home furnishings and I’m dying to go to Ikea. It’s terrible.

I’ve ordered pictures of me and Jay to be printed for the photo frame that I’ve bought. We have no photos in the house at the moment. We have a canvas of my old dogs as puppies, which was another of my projects – that will also be finished.

I’m going on a mission! I’m going to ask my cousin to come and finish of some of the (patchy) painting around my house. Jay and I weren’t really cut out to be painters. I need an electrician to sort out some of our light fixings. I need to get someone else to install a Sky eye thing onto the TV in our bedroom. Things that have just been hanging for too long really. Especially because we’ve been there for about a year and a half now.

I don’t really know what’s brought this all on. I think if Dad was still here, he’d be going mad that we hadn’t sorted more of it out than what we have done.

Alfred was surprisingly good yesterday. He must’ve known I was ill. He’s in his own little violin trio thing now, as the music band version of the Tamagotchi goes… I don’t know what it means, but he’s never hungry or unhappy, so I’m a good Tamagotchi player!

I’ve been at work today and I’ve had a really productive day here too. I’ve laminated all these NOPs and EAPs (lifeguards, you know what I’m talking about!) for all of our pools that we use. That’s the huge disadvantage about working with pools. Everything has to be laminated. I suppose it beats all the bloody shredding I had to do as a receptionist. And I see instant results, which is fairly rewarding. The rest of the time, it’s just waiting for emails to come in. There haven’t been any emails for about an hour now.

Oh, I took on an enrolment today as well. It’s probably the last of the term, because we’re on week three next week, so they’ve missed the vital bits in weeks one and two. So the next term is in May and it’s nearly time to start marketing out of my ears for that. I can’t believe how quickly this year seems to be going. Mind you, we are only just on the third month of the year, so it’s not going all that quickly. It’s not as if it’s August already or anything.

Speaking of August. Really ecstatically happy with the V Festival line up this year. We always get our tickets as Early Bird tickets, so I’ve not been on hold all day to try and get some. Down side? Not camping. But I think it’ll be okay. The weekend is kind of what you make of it. And we’ll probably just go back to our’s, have a shower and a good night’s sleep (and a few drinks!) and it’ll be really good. A grown up version of V Festival, perhaps.

Gutted that Rihanna is headlining as I have already bought tickets to see her in October. But I will be taking my Mum and it’ll be better than the hour set that she’ll have at V Festival. Concerts are better than festivals. I think so, anyways. But I will never give up my V Festival weekend!

Well, it’s not August. It’s March. So this weekend, what am I doing? I’m lifeguarding some baby swimming lessons on Saturday. I don’t know what I’m doing Saturday night now. My almighty plan for Sunday has now been ruined, due to being ill and not being prepared for what I was doing. I’m a bit gutted about that, but what can you do?

I know I won’t be going swimming. Stupid swimming pool, giving me a virus.

That’s all, folks!

Psychic Eve. A Review.

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I’ve been in two minds about publishing this post. On one hand, the psychic was just for me, it was for my peace of mind and it fulfilled it purpose. On the other hand, I want to record exactly how I’m feeling at this point of time, a reflection on what was said. So I think I’ll outline the basics of my half hour reading with the psychic.

So despite the delay in getting there, which started at 6pm (I got there at 7.30pm because I had to work), I actually had a good time at psychic eve and I will probably do it again in a few years time. I put my name down on the list and waited for my turn. The wait was two hours. Four diet cokes later, I was sitting in front of a lady, surrounded by candles.

My psychic was a lady called Ann Gard. You google her and nothing comes up, which is quite spooky – who doesn’t come up on google?! But the leaflet says she’s been on telly and an internationally renowned psychic, medium and clairvoyant. There were three psychics to choose from and I chose her, because I liked her red tablecloth. And I think she was the better of the three anyway, after comparing other readings from people in the pub that night.

She started by saying “You’ve had a reading before, haven’t you?” I replied, “Erm, no, but good start…” She kept complaining that she was dying for a fag, but was going to have one after she’d read my tarot cards. She put a cassette into a dictophone and pressed record. I doubt I’ll be able to hear anything on my cassette, as it was around 10pm when I was being ‘read’ and people were obviously drunker and louder. Plus, who has a cassette player anyway?

As my other psychic blog post says, I went in with an open mind, but as the time crept closer, I was increasingly hoping that Dad was going to come through.

Anyways! From the beginning. Work was fine, she said I find it challenging at times, but I’m really good at my job. She knew that I trained people (i.e. training parents to teach their babies to swim), but she said if I wanted to change jobs that I will be successful at that too. Hooray on the work front.

Relationships. She knew I was with someone, a Leo. She said I could marry him if I want to, and it’ll be in three or four years and she saw me having children. She said he was honest, and there’s nothing really negative about him (cue: Jay’s head inflating…). She said that my Mum likes him, and that he wrote a diary, that I might be interested in. I am yet to find out about said diary.

Financial. She said that with my savings, I will buy a house this year and I will probably buy it together with Jay.

Other. She saw a lot of travel this year (Dubai, Rome and Plymouth so far), particularly Ireland (where we have discussed travelling to for my Uncle’s 50th on Monday, so there’s no way that anyone could possibly know that!) and maybe Australia (my Australian family might be coming over at Christmas). She said there are three main events this year: a wedding, a flat warming and a birthday party. She said I have to socialise more and not necessarily always with Jay and she said that August will be my best month. Well, duh – V Festival! She even knew that I blogged and said that people enjoy what I write!

She asked me if I had any concerns over anyone in particular. I said my Mum and my brother. So she started with my Mum. Bear in mind, this is the first time that she’d mentioned my Dad at this point… and she said that Dad is always around Mum and she knows it. She then flickered to something else and said, “I see red hair”. The pub is quite dark, so I pointed out that I had red hair at the moment. She turned to me and said “He really likes your hair”. This is weird, because he always hated my hair. With passion. Psychic then went on to say she could see a money box and Dad saying “save what you earn”. Sounds like Dad :)

So then, she moved onto my brother. Well, well, well. She said my brother was a huge flirt. Yes. And a womaniser. Probs. I won’t tell you what she said about his future in case he reads it and tries to alter it. But let’s just say it’s pretty good.

Honestly, I can understand how some of it might be coincidental. I really do. But. Some of the things that she said really couldn’t be guessed. For example, my blogging. I doubt anyone in the pub reads, or even knows, I blog as a hobby. She hardly looked at me, as I speculated that I may give too much away. She looked mostly at the cards, analysing what they say. It was extremely interesting and it has fed my fascination even more so.

I wonder how you realise you’re psychic? Do you hear voices? Apparently, you inherit tarot cards. “They choose you”. But what if you have no interest  in psychic stuff and you inherit these cards? My psychic said that she ‘sees’ things. She could ‘see’ my Mum, looking at a silhouette of my Dad through a window. I don’t know. I’m just even more intrigued with it now! And I’ll probably use the same lady again in a couple of years. I’ll just make sure she has a fag break first.

Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind

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Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind is one of my fav films. If you haven’t seen it, you should.  I won’t spoil it, but the basic plot is as follows. Skip it if you like.

SPOILER: It’s about a guy called Joel (Jim Carrey) who falls in love with a girl called Clementine (Kate Winslet), but they have a really messy break up and she decides to get the memory of him erased. When he finds out she did this, he does it too, but realises half way through that he doesn’t want to erase the memory of her. END SPOILER.

The following is a quote by Alexander Pope, which was recited by Kirsten Dunst’s character during the film:

“How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each prayer accepted, and each wish resigned.”

And another by Friedrich Nietzche:

“Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders.”

I like this one better. I like quotes that make you think.