OK

My last post was a bit pooky.  Don't like being a whinger, but sometimes life is a bit tough and the depression thing gets the better of me.

So I've been trying to focus on the good stuff.  This mostly means the garden.  So here is the house when I moved in:

And here is the house now:

It's only been two years.

Yep, it was greener then.  But the trees are doing very nicely.  Do love the plants.

I have a mad tomato bush producing madly in the back yard and will have to dry some of the fruit.  Lucky me to have dried tomatoes all year.

Otherwise - another job interview tomorrow.  Hope it works out.  It sounds interesting.

Entropy

Sometimes life gets a bit to be a bit difficult to deal with.  I have no physical disabilities, but I struggle with depression.

Been having a bit of a hard time lately,  given my financial and job situation.

Some years ago, I found a very good friend hanging.  He'd left himself where he knew I would find him.

His death meant, for a number of reasons, that I lost all of my savings.  It wasn't much money in the scale of things, but it's made my life a bit more difficult than it might have been as we had shared investments without proper documentation.  There's a lesson learned!

At the moment, I'm really struggling financially and can't see a way out.

I'm trying to remind myself that I can do stuff.

And here's a complete switch.  I thought about doing some embroidery, but was prevented by this:

Yes.  It's a cat sitting in an embroidery hoop.  I'm sure she was trying to be helpful.

Then this happened:

Cilla checked out the fabulous quilt I was given for christmas.

So good of them to remind me of the good stuff.

So it doesn't really matter that the car is f*cked, the oven and stove are also out of commission and I have to go to work at the sweatshop tomorrow.

Tidals

Tidings?

Nothing much happening around here.  It's a perfect Devonport summer day, which means the temperature wont get above about 22 celcius.  Nice.

Much to my surprise, the factory owner decided to close the place down for the Christmas/New Year break, which means I have a holiday of about 11 days.  Wow.  This gives me time to finish my current project.

I'm making a mat out of plaited and coiled fabric.  Started out using strips of my old clothing and then remembered that I work in a clothing factory where there are many metres of off cuts from stuff we make.  There's one company that requires stuff made from 100% merino knit.  So now I'm using that to make the mat.  The only difficulty is that every time I start working on it, it ends up covered in cats.  Here's Cilla Black making herself comfortable.

The cat hasn't so much 'sat' on the mat as sprawled all over it.  Apparently cats are fond of wool.  Fortunately Dusty Springfield isn't quite so enamoured of the mat so I do sometimes get some work done.

Anyway, I'm spending my time gardening, cat caring and mat making.  How lovely and relaxing.

Twilight Zone

I've had a weird experience.  The job I was interviewed for last week is done and dusted.  Didn't get it.  That's OK.

However, the people who interviewed me told me they'd contacted all three of my referees.  I've since contacted them and they say they weren't contacted.  So who's telling the truth?

My referees are all people I've worked with for years and whom I trust.  I've been volunteering at the other place for about three months and thought I trusted the people there.  I just can't understand why anyone would lie about this.

Frankly, my money is on my marvellous referees.

I don't understand dishonesty.  I'd much rather hear the truth.

Second Hand Rose

Ah well.  I've come in second for yet another job.  Got to be truthful here, I probably couldn't have afforded to do it as it was only three days a week at a very low hourly rate.  They've pointed me in possibly more lucrative directions so I'll just have to do the old dusting oneself off, picking oneself up and starting all over again, again.

In the meantime, here are the girls having fun in our back yard and that of our neighbours.

Poseurs!

Puns

I'm a sucker for puns.  A man who has a repertoire of them has me ..  So here's my favourite from today...

Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him ... A super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis

Is Grumpy

I get paid $17 per hour.  I work 32 hours per week.  Work it out.  It's not much.

On Friday, I was interviewed for a job with Coles.  The person interviewing me looked a little embarrassed when she said the pay rate was $19 per hour.

Frankly, it's about time that I got my shite together and challenged my employer.  He's getting away with murder,. $17 per hour is criminal, and I'm one of the best paid people in the place.

So, do I challenge this and maybe get a better rate of pay?  Or do I challenge this and get everyone a better rate of pay?  Or do I just keep on taking the shit?