I'm still here

Just had a lot on my mind what with getting sorted in our home, unpackning, finding a job, starting work, adjusting to some sort of everyday routine...
I can't claim to have that last bit sorted even now, but I'm hoping things will settle down soon.

We've had visitors. My parents helped get our stuff down here and stayed a few days. Then my sister and brother-in-law came down on a brief holiday and at the same time D's parents visited as well, but they stayed with D's uncle. Then my friend from Iceland came to visit me. We've known each other online for the past four years but never met in person before, so it was really great to finally see her. Unfortunately this clashed some with me starting work, so we didn't get full days to enjoy each other's company, but her coming to see me was still a success.

I invited my crafting group over for coffee/tea and crafting night. I have to admit, I love to entertain, to have people over at my place. These women are great. I'm the youngster, of course, but they seem to forget that from time to time, or at least they don't make a big deal out of it.
A few nights later we had a small house warming party, this too was a great event even though quite a few of our friends were out of town or elsewhere engaged.

In September we've had our friend C living with us, she got an extension on her summer job but nowhere to stay, so we offered her our spare room and inflatable mattress. It's been great having her here, she's one of my closest friends these days and I feel we've become even closer during this time. Her boyfriend who lived and worked in Gothenburg got a new job and moved even further south and C will now go down to live with him. It will be very strange not having her around every day, but of course I want her to go live with her boyfriend and make herself at home in their new place. She's applying for jobs right and left, but nothing has turned up so far.

Speaking of work, I got a job three months ago now. I'm employed by a temping agency and working at a pharmaceutical company as certificate administrator. In short this means that I write and compile documents that get sent out to medical authorities in different countries when we apply for approval of our products. Then the same or slightly different paperwork get sent along when the products get shipped to customers worldwide. I love it! This job is so right for me. I get to be organised and detailed and I can systemize all I want. *grins* Now I'm waiting for the company to sort out the papers in order to take me over from the temping agency and hire me. The contract would be until June next year and after that noone knows as it depends on so many things. In any case, for me to be employed by the company instead of the temping agency means that I get a bunch of benefits and above all better pay, so I'm very anxious for them to get this done.

I also joined a choir nearby. The main reason why I wanted to join this particular choir was that they are doing Rutter's Gloria this semester. It's so much fun! It took some persuasion before I was in since it's already a rather large group, but I think it tipped over to my advantage that I had done Rutter before. At this stage it's a plus that the choir is close to home, even though the choir itself isn't exactly what I hoped for. I have to start somewhere and work from there and while trying to figure out this life of ours with everyday routines and all I may as well make it easy on myself. I'm happy to have found a choir anyway, I've missed singing and I feel rather out of practise, I must say.

Life keeps happening here and it seems that lately there's been rather a lot of it.

*smiles*

keah

Overdosing on nice, and how to make new friends

Recently we had a full weekend of social gatherings. I got to meet my husband's maternal uncle with family for the first time, quite fascinating seeing as we've been together for almost ten years now, but better late than never I suppose. I was a tad nervous as to what kind of people they would be, but not really worried that they wouldn't like me or anything like that. It developed into quite a pleasant afternoon, but it still took a bit of work to be my most polite and nicest self and be chatty and open, it always does, at least for me.

Directly after that we went on to dinner at D's paternal aunt's place where, apart from the aunt's son and his family, one of D's uncles and his wife were visiting. Without making any judgement on classes or social segments of society I will admit that the unwritten rules on behaviour are a lot more apparent here than I am used to. So the "nice and polite" continued for the rest of the evening. I was quite tired once we got home, and not just because it got rather late. I think I may have exhausted my shallow well of openness at the first visit and then having to keep up the work for another five hours was maybe a little much. I wouldn't be surprised if they noticed...

I don't know if all this is brought on by age difference or if it has something to do with expectations about looking good for family. Feel free to philosophize with me on this.

The evening before visiting all these relatives we were invited to a housewarming party that some friends were having. All partygoers there were around our own age, but apart from the hosting couple had I only met one guy before. Even though I normally would have felt the urge to hide behind D and not reach out to perfect strangers one bit, I ended up having a marvellous time and to top it all off pulled a stunt that I hope will pay off.
At the end of the evening when this certain couple was about to leave I literally jumped them asking for their phone number. A bit flustered I hurried to say that we had really enjoyed talking to them during the course of the evening and would like to stay in touch, and "how on earth do people make new friends these days anyway!?". They looked a bit surprised but then handed over a mobile phone for me to insert my own number for them to save. Later when D and I were on our way home I looked at my phone to see a message from this couple, giving us their number along with a thanks for the evening's company. It felt really good that I had asked them, it's not like I have anything to lose.

*is a tad smug*

Take care all!

keah