Chandeleah

I haven’t written on Chandeleah for a while because I didn’t have much to write about.

I didn’t want to write about how completely shit everything was (again, and again, and again) and sound like a broken record. Let’s just say that I was mere moments away from booking flights to go home, but I decided to give London one last shot.

And then things got good, really good – and I wanted to write a post about that.

I had it all planned out in my mind. I was going to write a post where I talked about the symbolism of my coathanger quirk.

It kinda went like this…

“Up until now, our life in London has been a shambles. Kind of like the coathangers we have been using…

…but then I FINALLY, FINALLY got a job. I’ll admit I wasn’t over the moon about it to begin with – office manager for an events company – but as the weeks went on, I started to love it. The people were fabulous, the office space was fabulous (and in SUCH a great location) and while the job wasn’t that challenging at the moment – I could see how it would evolve and become something right up my alley. Jase even said to me on Wednesday… ‘are you starting to like London?’ …because I was beginning to enjoy myself again and my smile was returning.

We went shopping! You don’t know the true satisfaction of shopping for new clothes when you haven’t been able to for over 18 months. This might be TMI, but when we replaced all our underwear and socks that were riddled with holes it truly was the best feeling ever. I bought pretty things instead of practical things – a scarf, a necklace, a clip for my hair. Jase got jeans and shoes and a new jacket to wear. We smiled and laughed and hung our new things in our wardrobes.

We started to look into trips. We booked a train to Edinburgh and planned other weekends away within the UK. I had researched Prague, Copenhagen, Barcelona and Rome – and was waiting for payday to pull the trigger and lock them in. We chatted with friends about planning a ski trip, and sailing Croatia.

I booked tickets to things. I snagged Florence and the Machine tickets, and booked to see some West End shows. I wanted to fill our calendar with fun things that we could finally afford to do, after all this time of surviving, but not really LIVING in London.

On Thursday I bought new coathangers. I decided that for the 10quid, I wanted that order back in our life. It was a frivilous spend – but it meant so much to me”.

The crash came not even 24 hours later, when my company folded and I was made redundant.

After 136 days, 19 weeks, 3,264 hours, 195,840 minutes or 11,750,400 seconds and 19 FULL ON job interviews I had finally landed a great job – only to be out of it 4 weeks later.

This time around I am giving London a lot less of my time and energy. If I don’t land something in a few weeks, I’ll be booking that plane ticket. I refuse to hit rock bottom again and again and again in this city, its not worth it.

In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy the world out of my new coathangers!

My OCD tendencies I tend to refer to as quirks… but the older I get, the more strange little things I seem to obsess about. A few that I have noticed recently include:

- when hanging clothes on the line with pegs, the two pegs being used have to be the same colour

- my coathangers all need to be black plastic, and the same type. I can’t handle having wire and wood and random shop plastic ones (currently learning to overcome this insane quirk as buying new coathangers is an unnecessary cost right now)

- when I know I have some white clothes needing to be washed, I will suddenly wear white socks & underwear JUST to fill up the load

…I am sure there are more, but those are ones I am fixating on right now.

Do you have any quirks, tendencies or obsessions?

… the girl who put feathers in her hair to remind her she was free

… the girl who raised her arms up to the sun in moments of bliss

… the girl who climbed mountains and did yoga and snowboarded and felt at peace

I miss that girl.

We have drawn a line in the sand. Made a plan. Set a deadline.

If, by October 31, the current situation has not changed, then we are OUT. Back home to our beloved NZ, or on to Aus.

Right now, I have been unemployed for 103 days. Thats 3 months and 12 days, or 1/4 of the year. It’s getting rather boring. I’m not going to go into details as to the bazillion interviews/rejections I have been getting – it’s disheartening enough as it is!

After many talks and many thoughts, we have decided to give London 3 more months. We haven’t really got a year to throw away living on the bones of our bums (we did that in Canada, and LOVED IT then…). London was about getting our teeth stuck into some juicy work, and travelling away the weekends. Right now – neither is happening.

Having a plan and a deadline feels good. And now…I fully expect London to turn around and give us our hopes, dreams and a future to make us want to stay!

Yesterday was my birthday – I turned 28. That’s officially “late twenties” as opposed to “mid twenties”. I’m not quite sure where the time is going.

As Jase and I sat in an overpriced, underwhelming Chinese restaurant last night (I had wanted Japanese, but they said they were fully booked despite a multitude of empty tables – sigh) we talked about where we are in life right now. Is this what I expected from my 28th birthday? No. Definitely not. But am I ok with it? I’m pretty sure I am.

Right now, with no job, hardly making ends meet and only (just!) having got a more permanent roof over our heads – this is far from where I envisaged I would be at 28. There was no lavish party, or presents, or big celebrations – but instead I was happy to appreciate the small things, and glad that I DID appreciate the small things – rather than long for those extravagant, lavish presents & parties of my early twenties.

Yesterday started off with sun streaming in our bedroom windows (London! Thank you!), coffee in bed and my parents singing like loons on Skype. I did some yoga in the sun, before heading to my friend’s place for a lovely lunch. Dry July was forgotten (as was job hunting) for a day, and we enjoyed a delish salad and bubbles, followed by cucpcakes and chocolates.

Back home, and a present from my family had arrived – a Kindle! So excited!I opened cards from home and popped them on my shelf to gaze at. I checked facebook & twitter & instagram and felt warm with the love and wonderful messages from friends around the globe. I loved how they came in waves – NZ, Australia, England, USA, Canada – as the countries woke up. I’m so lucky to know so many wonderful people.

Rain started falling, but that was ok – I had seen some sun so I was happy! Natalie came over with a beautiful Orchid to brighten up our room (in my favourite colour!), and then Jase and I headed out for our dinner. We talked and drank red wine, and then headed home to finish off a cupcake and blow out an imaginary candle.  Happy Birthday to me, and welcome to the world of 28!

As I alluded to in my Rants & Raves – something very exciting has been going on behind the scenes.

With all this spare time on my hands (you can only job hunt for so many hours each day before you go cross-eyed) I decided to put it to good use on something I have been wanting to do for ages…. which was to start my own health, fitness and wellbeing focused blog.

As most of my dear readers know, I’m a bit of a fitness fanatic, and will give anything a go at least once! I have my own weight loss struggles and a constant thirst for knowledge around these topics. Hence… Naturally, Leah was born.

Chandeleah will still continue (I need to have a place to air my ranty pants right?!) with all my general babble and travel posts – but for all things health, fitness, and wellness related then do check out Naturally, Leah and update your RSS readers!

I hope you will join me on this exciting journey!

xx Leah

This week’s rants:

- WTF London, this is meant to be summer, yet all we seem to get is grey grey grey/torrential rain/grey grey grey. This is my second shitty summer in a row (yeah, Vancouver, I’m looking at you) and I am feeling very Vitamin D deficient. ugh.

- Supermarkets close at 5pm on Sundays here. Seriously? SERIOUSLY?! Sunday should be the ONE day of the week that I don’t think about cooking until I am hungry. Ditto with the not opening until 11amish – all I wanted to do a few Sunday’s ago was cook our visiting friends some brunch. 4 closed Supermarkets later I had probably the most expensive bacon & eggs from a tiny dairy shop. Ugh.

- We finally moved! Hoooray! What’s the rant? Well it appears the shower in this new flat is nothing better than a cold dribble. This morning I washed my hair with a cup. I am a water person, I’m a Cancerian and Jase is a Pices – we NEED water. Showers matter A LOT. The realisation that this shower situation is not a long term solution (this is NOT an option for Winter) brings out an awful groan – it ultimately means more flat hunting & more moving. ugh.

- Blisters. Two days of interviews in heels left me with the biggest ugliest blisters – I was crippled for the rest of the week. Jandals are great – except when its raining, London. RAINING.

- The “laser show” that was the opening of The Shard. We stayed up and headed to the roof of the apartment building. I saw one, possibly two laser beams. Underwhelming, unfortunately.

- Job. Need one. Stat.

This week’s raves:

- WE MOVED! And it was the easiest move ever! Zipcar was perfect, we piled all our stuff in and away we went. It was so nice to make our bed and unpack – we have lived out of our suitcases since Feb 25th. Insane. I have a wardrobe and clothes hung up! I have books on a shelf! I have space to lay out my yoga mat and handstand against the wall (seriously, our room is big!).

- We are now living in a really nice area, supermarket & tube stations at one end of the road, overground station at the other end of the road….AND, best thing ever, 10 minutes walk from my bestie Natalie! It still blows my mind that I can text her every day (and we are finally in the same timezone)…now I can just wander down the road for a coffee with her!

- Nike Training Club live event on Saturday - AMAZEBALLS. Stay tuned.

- Jobs. Things could be looking up (don’t want to jinx it!).

- Uber exciting bloggy projects, coming to a blog near you…

- Oh, and it’s my birthday this week too ;)

How’s your week been?

Yesterday I woke up a wee bit fuzzy. Last night I had been out with a long long lost friend and the drinks had flowed – possibly a bit too much. While I wasn’t hungover, I just felt blah.

I’ve found that since arriving in London my incidental drinking has increased 10-fold. The culture here is very much about drinks – whether it be a pint at the pub or a cider in the park. While I barely ever get drunk these days – the occasions of having “just one or two” have started to become more and more common – and I’d like to squash that before it becomes the norm.

I’d also like to do my best to avoid the phenomenon known as the “Heathrow Injection” – the immediate 5-15kg average weight gain that you are rumoured to suffer from as soon as you land in London.

I say “I barely ever get drunk” and I know you may roll your eyes. Sure sure. The truth is – I can count on one hand how many times I have been drunk in the last year.

Three.

That’s it.

How do I know? Because each time I have indulged in more than a couple – the effects have been OFF the Richter scale. To give you an idea – each time, I have still been uncontrollably vomiting (bile) past 5pm the next day (sorry, TMI!). It’s not normal, it’s not right – and while I haven’t had any tests done or seen a doctor – my personal conclusion is that my body is no longer processing and breaking down alcohol. Those three times it wasn’t like I got silly – once I was camping with my family (although some of you have partied with my parents and know they can keep up with the best of them!) and once I only spent $40 at the bar. How drunk can you really get on $40? Exactly. I blamed it on wine (maybe it was the additives?) until the same thing happened on a night of vodka & soda waters – so it’s not specific to the type of alcohol.

Ultimately, those three time left me with one thought: The extreme hangovers are JUST. NOT. WORTH. IT. So instead, I stick to one or two and I’m learning to have fun nights out while being the sober one.

I had noticed people posting about Dry July on twitter and facebook, and while I lay with my fuzzy tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth yesterday morning I decided that I was going to be joining in too*.

The official Dry July campaign is running in Australia and New Zealand with the aim to raise funds for those living with cancer. While I’m not an official participant, I have decided to donate to a couple of people I know who are drying out too.

Today is July 1 (Happy Canada Day!) and the sunny Sunday evening is calling for a beer or a cider on the roof to say goodbye to the weekend. However it’s the start of my Dry July so I’m enjoying a sparkling water with a slice of lemon instead. Much better!

Are you doing Dry July? Do you suffer from extreme hangovers? How much is the ‘normal’ amount you drink in a week?

* one small exception. It’s my birthday in a couple of weeks, so I might allow a glass of wine to celebrate. Only IF I feel like it, who knows – I might not!

How was your sweaty session today? Mine was….sweat drippingly good!