Let Your Blog Shine: The Hardest Part of Growing Up

The hardest parts of growing up are…

• Voting – at the beginning of May we had a General Election, because of the way it fell we had to make like four decisions all at the same time. There was a local referendum with regards to the Police Commissioner wanting to raise the council tax contribution for the police force, the mayoral vote, the two local councillors and then our MP vote too. I had a rough idea of who I wanted to vote for.
• Paying Bills – After tithing our bit, paying bills comes next. When I was 16, I was grown up enough to have a part time job but I was still in full time education so I could keep my own earnings. When I was 17, again grown up enough for the job, still in full time education but my pay went on driving lessons and adventures. At 18 it turned to petrol for adventures and sometimes I wasn’t very good at planning for it. On at least two occasions I am pretty sure that my Mum or Dad had to come and rescue me because I misjudged how much full was in the tank once the little orange light came on. Once I had a full time job and was living with Chris, I tried to set up my bills to all go out pretty much as soon as I’d been paid so that I didn’t frittle away the rest of my pay cheque on things I didn’t need when bills had to be paid. Following the Police Commissioner’s Referendum and the vote being a no, we got a substituted council tax bill so it took off what we’d already paid against the charge for the whole year and recalculated what we have to pay over the rest of the year. It’s nicer to know that we have extra pennies in our pockets in a way but how much will we be affected by not having the extra officers that the raise was supposed to cover (see what I mean growing up is hard!)
• Going to Work – When I was in my late teens I was on a radio quiz show and when asked about what I wanted to do when I “grew up” I commented that as long as I was with Chris then I didn’t mind. Okay so that was a bit twee and probably a little puke inducing but to a certain degree it was true. When we got married I was a temp then I was unemployed for a bit. Those days were pretty hard because I had very little motivation to get out of bed. I then had my first proper full time grown up job. I lasted about four months and then for one or another reason I left. The next job started as a temp job and I ended up staying for like five years, in the end I left because of various things but a massive part of it was, it was making me ill. I was so stressed about it and it wasn’t helping me. You can read all about it here and then all about my next job search here. I found a temp job working in a residential home, then I ended up at my most recent job and then I went on Maternity Leave and became self employed rather than go back to work. Some days it’s really hard work but I enjoy being my own boss and being able to spend time with Jaxon rather than put him in daycare or with a childminder.
• Meal Planning – Somedays takeaway is so much easier. Even frozen pizza and garlic bread is easy. But some days I get excited about what I can create. I see food pictures appear on Instagram like Lucy‘s homemade sausage and egg muffin (like the fast food chain one but homemade oh yeah!) and the cogs start whirring and I come up with ideas of what I can make. Then again sometimes it’s like the other day when I stood in front of the pantry, grabbed a tin of beans and chucked them in with the sort of spag bol sauce. It was really yummy and extra filling because of the baked beans. Genius – why hadn’t it crossed my mind before.
• Friendships – Okay so just hold onto this trail of thoughts while I explain. So when you’re at school, you’re in this sort of bubble, yes there are the school rules but then there’s the internal scholastic politics too. Who’s the Queen Bee? Who’s the dork (in our case it was a group nicknamed Science Club)? Who are the band geeks? etc etc. But when you leave school and university there is no longer that. Finding and being you in theory at least should be so much easier and yet some days I wish I was still at school and where being me was kind of hard lol. The whole odd socks thing sort of happened by accident. I started wearing them rather than pairing my socks because it was too much effort to find the matching ones and before I knew it, it had stuck. There’s a lady at church who every time I see her she asks to see my socks to make sure that they are still odd. I love colour and this is part of why I’d like to dye my hair like this, this or this. But the chances are very small – firstly I can’t do it myself and secondly my normal hairdresser would probably have a fit if I asked her to dye my hair any of the above colours lol.