The end is nigh...

There's no going back now. I got my contract through for my new job today. After a bit of discussion, it was signed and sent back. So this afternoon I handed my notice in. Three weeks on Friday I'll be leaving. Already people have said congratulations, but they're really going to miss me. That's really nice to hear. I'll miss some of them too. The atmosphere has been fab in our office, and I've never found that anywhere else. I hope we can keep in touch.
First I have two weeks of holiday to look forwards to - then only a week left of work! I'm so excited, but really crapping it too... I'm going into a team leader job. I have naff all leadership/managerial experience. All I have to go on is my new/old managers faith that he knows I'll be good at it. Hope I prove him right - I'd hate to be a disappointment.

In the meantime, my post wouldn't be complete without some mention of the opposite sex. Well this is no different. Yesterday I was up in the production warehouse making calculators. S came in, telling me that one of the lads from the factory downstairs had been asking about me! He liked what he saw and wanted to know my name/if I was single etc etc - so she'd come up to see if I wanted his nunber! A few playground tactics later, and we'd swapped numbers and spent the evening texting! He's actually really nice - and I'd seen him before and liked what I'd seen... We're meeting up on Friday for a drink and just have a chat! This never happens to me - I never get someone just coming up and asking me out. It's awesome! I'm completely putting it down to how much weight I've lost, and therefore look so much better, and carry myself better because I have some of my confidence back... I love it! Hopefully I'll get chance to update on the date before I jet off on Saturday. Can't wait for that either. Is my life actually going well for a change?! Good job I'm writing this on here - it's obviously a momentous occasion that needs documenting.

Here's to new jobs, new blokes and new happiness!!

Roses are red...

Well haven't I had an eventful day! I was at work, queitly minding my own business having yet another bowl of cabbage soup, and we get a delivery to reception. Imagine my suprise at having these presented to me!!

The card that came with it was a bit cryptic...


'Because what's worse than knowing you want something besides knowing you can never have it? - James Patterson, The Angel Experiment

I just wish I could xxx

PS. Not Phill'



Well, isn't this straight out of some romance novel! So it's someone who wants me, but thinks they can't have me, yet they want to make sure I know about them, without actually knowing knowing who they are.. I'm so flattered, yet highly confused!
I spent the rest of the afternoon with a daft grin, trying to answer loads of questions from everyone at work, and going through everyone I know that could possible send me something so wonderful! I hated the thought of not finding out. What if they didn't see the point in telling me if they think there's no chance of having me? That verse made me think it could be one of Mr Talls friends. Not being able to have me as you don't get with mates' ex's. My initial thought when I saw the flowers was Mr Tall. But the card and the deliberate point of writing that it wasn't him put that idea out my head. I had a feeling this was going to bug me for a while. And it did.

Back home I soon got an answer, of sorts. Eating dinner (yes, soup again!) I was checking my emails. One stood out more than a thousand suns...

The message simply read:

Glad you liked them
xxx

They know how happy I've been, so they must be someone I know on facebook. Ok, that doesn't narrow things down much, but it's a start. And now I have contact with them! So I replied - thanking them, and saying I wish I knew who they were...

I loved them, and I loved the gesture! Thank you - I've been grinning all day! I just wish I knew who you were though! x

Why is disclosing my identity so important?

Because I got the impression from your card that you feel you can't have me. If I knew who you are then I could understand why you think that. Maybe there's something I can do to change it... but I don't know how to, or even if it's possible if I don't know who you are...

Really wasn't expecting that reply... and I really don't know what to say to it. It really shocked me.

I actually think you do know who I am from that. 

Well what would be the harm in me knowing who you are? The worst that can happen is I agree that there's no chance that anything can happen. Surely it's worth that risk?

I honestly have no idea... I have some small suspicions, but that's all, and they're mainly based on ruling out other people...  

Besides, you can't go making such a beautiful gesture if you had no plans to ever tell me who you are... that'd just be incredibly mean! :) 

I'm scared of the worst outcome. Truth hurts sometimes and I've been hurt enough. There's a few things I wanted to add to this, but if I wrote it, you'd know.

As long as they made you smile, that's all I really care about. You have a cute smile.

I can understand that. One thing I've learnt is that you can't live your life based on fears from your past. Sure you need to learn from your mistakes, but if you stop taking risks, you'll miss out on so many things. I obviously can't force you to tell me who you are, and I can understand and respect your decision if you don't. I'd love you to give me a chance though...

I can't promise I can make everything wonderful and have a fairy tale ending, but I can promise I'll talk to you about whatever it is you feel is getting in the way, and I promise to be honest with you about where things stand. And I promise that if you're someone I already consider a friend, that that won't change.

They have made me smile, more than you could imagine. Partly due to the flowers themselves, but partly because for some unknown reason someone really sweet has thought about me enough to want to make such a gesture. That alone means so much.

x

That really choked me up! Wow.

The thing is, I actually have nothing to lose. Up until now, we haven't communicated in a long time, so it's like not I'm going to lose you from my life, because your not really in it now. Except in my thoughts. So I don't have a clue why I am so afraid of disclosing who I am. In a way I've already lost you...

This is probably going to give the game away quite a bit. I think your last message made me a bit fearless. 

Ah, right, ok... so it's not Mr Talls mate that I thought it could be. Seems to be someone from my past. Someone who's not in my life any more. That's a curve ball I wasn't expecting... I'm still no closer to narrowing down who this might be. In fact, I think it's actually made things worse!

I'm obviously rubbish at playing this game, as I'm still lost as to who you are!

If I'm not currently in your life at the moment, and you feel you've already 'lost' me, then you really don't have anything to lose... I can't stop speaking to you or seeing you if I don't do either of those things anyway!

You must want to tell me deep down. You wouldn't have gone to even more trouble of setting up an email and contacting me unless you really do plan on letting me in on your secret. Playing with me like this and not giving me any resolution just seems a little cruel...

My promises before still stand. You know where I am if you find some more courage.

x 


Then she told me. Yep, you read that right, she. Turns out it's a girl I've known for a while that's had a thing for me for most of that period! Well that was it, my head was spinning. I had no idea what to say, as I would never have guessed her in a million years. And naturally, I was expecting a guy!

After a few failed attempts at mashed sentances, I finally told her that although I wasn't totally against the idea, I did have a lot of reservations. For a start, that we didn't really know each other that well. Sure we'd known each other for a few years, and chatted a fair few times, but we'd only actually met in person once. I also mentioned that unlike her, I've never had a female relationship before (that one drunken fumble, although very enjoyable, doesn't really count) so I'd just be out of my depth completely with this new situation. Plus she lives about 71miles away, which makes getting to know each other difficult, let alone trying to meet up for 'dates' and whatever! I'm not entirely sure what to make of it all. I'm a little disappointed it wasn't a guy. More-so because it wasn't the guy I really wanted it to be. I'm still flattered, and the gesture still means a lot to me. I'm just not sure where to go with it now... 

Cabbage, cabbage, cabbage

I went shopping thursday night and bought all the ingredients from the shopping list for this diet, and set about cooking up my soup. It says to add celery and peppers, but as I don't like those, I just omitted them, so my soup ended up as veg stock with carrots, mushrooms, and of course, cabbage. I stuck a little cayenne pepper in it for some spice, and I was pleasently suprised at how nice it tasted! Maybe this won't be quite so bad as I thought!!

Day 1
I can have as much fruit and soup as I want today. Awesome.
Was looking forward to having my soup for lunch all morning. Until then, I snacked on half a pink grapefruit, and some red grapes. Lunch came and went, and the soup was just as nice re-heated. After that, I had the rest of my red grapes, and a pink lady apple. Dinner was much the same - leftover soup (damn, finished that whole pan already!) and another apple.
Suprisingly I don't actually feel hungry, although I could've swung for the ladies at work trying to decide whether to have fish & chips or Chinese for dinner tonight. Tempting as it was, I know this diet only lasts for 7 days. I can do that no problem. Bring on tomorrow!!

Day 2
So today is veg and soup day. No fruit allowed.
Breakfast was a difficult one - how can I have only veggies for brekkie? The thought of carrots didn't really appeal, so I had some saute mushrooms and tomatoes (although technically a fruit I know, but I couldn't eat just plain mushrooms, and the cherry toms were needing eaten). Lunch was a bit late, as I had no soup left, and when I finally got home with fresh veg and had the soup on, it was almost 4pm. This time I made it with the proper boillon rather than stock cubes. It was ok, but lacked a little of the veggie taste I had yesterday. Maybe I'll stick a stock cube in aswell for the remaining soup. I finally had my soup about 5ish, and I've just had my baked potato, as instructed. Damn that was good. Normally I love mash, but hate baked potato. Well, I don't hate baked potato, just the ridiculous amount of time it takes to bake them. Anyways, this one was well worth the wait. I've not had mash, or any type of potato in any form for a few months now. Yummy.


Day 3
Today is a mix of day 1 & 2. Fruit, veg, and soup.
Breakfast was half a grapefruit, some red grapes and a pink lady apple. I've decided that grapefruits are a pain to eat because of all the pithy bits in it. Still loving the grapes and apples though. Lunch was sauted mushrooms and leek. Wasn't as nice as I thought it would be, but hey it's only one day. Soup for dinner, along with some more grapes, and another apple later on. Still not feeling hungry doing this, or feel I'm having any cravings for anything. I did take a multi-vitamin this morning, just to make sure I had a top-up of anything I might be lacking. Almost half-way through already though!


Day 4
Nana-day - Up to 8 bananas and skim milk, and the soup of course. Well, I don't like skim milk, so I'm allowed to substitute it for non-fat plain yogurt instead. So brekkie was a couple of mashed bananas, with some low fat yogurt, cinamon and vanilla. Was really nice! Lunch and dinner was soup again, and pudding was the same as brekkie! Getting a little bored of the soup now, but it's still yummy. Looking forwards to my days of meat tomorrow!!


Day 5
Beef & toms. Up to 550g of beef and 6 tomotoes today. Along with the soup.
Totday didn't quite go as planned. From the moment I got to work everything started to go wrong, and my mood went downhill from the start. Feeling shit wasn't helping at all, and typical female hormones were making matters worse. I'd taken a couple of apples with me for breakfast/snacks, but I didn't want them. By dinner time I still wasn't hungry, so my soup (with added beef chunks this time) stayed in the fridge. When I finally got home I forced myself to eat some beef and tomato think I threw together with some lettuce. I finished it, but I didn't want it at all. Was supposed to go to Zumba, but couldn't face the thought of jumping and wiggling round for an hour. Will wiggle harder on Thursday to make up for it.

Day 6
Beef & Veg. As much beef/steak and veg I want, with some leafy greens.


Day 7
Today is brown rice and veg. This'll be interesting, as I can't cook rice unless it comes in a bag from Uncle Bens.

Lonliness, jobs and cabbage.

Ok, so not so much lonliness, just that kind of empty feeling of knowing I'm alone again. I'm mostly ok with it, but I'm quite eager to just get back out there and start the whole man-hunt again. All that's stopping me really is money. I don't want to start dating someone when I can't afford to get a round in, or go halvesies, or whatever. It's not fair, and it's not who I am. Maybe it's a bit soon after Mr Tall, but then I finished with him, and I tbh I've been ready to finish with him since I broke up with him the first time round in June... I've not heard from him at all, which I kind of expected. I just hope he's ok.

As for the job, well my old boss got back in touch about the position I turned down last month. Apparently they (he) want me so badly that he basically asked me what my price is to move (within sensible reason). So verbally, it's all agreed at the salary I wanted/needed. I've obviously not said anything to my current manager or anyone at work yet. I won't until I have a signed contract and have a definate starting date. There's some things I'm really going to miss, like the girls in my office. We get on so well and have such a good laugh, it'll be hard leaving that behind. But then there's other ladies in other offices I'll be glad to see the back of. In fact I won't be sad to leave the company. It's a really poorly managed place. Don't get me wrong, I know fuck all about running a company, but when management can't even communicate between themselves let alone the rest of the staff, and continually spend money on unecessary projects and not invest money into getting in new business, something seems wrong. I guess there's still a chance this new job could fall through, which would be shit, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I won't be starting until at lesat mid-September anyways, so a lot of time to sort things out yet.

One thing I have decided, is that I want to move no matter what happens with the job. I hate this house, I hate Huddersfield, and I really fucking hate the shouty bitch next door who is still having her night-time rants down the phone at 'Andy'. I'm sick of it. Anyways. I want to move to an apartment. A nice, modern, high-rise-type place. Somewhere over towards Wakefield/Leeds way if possible. I'll be in the perfect place for better jobs then. I need to discuss it with mummy dearest. As she still owns this house, I can't do anything without her agreeing to it. Just hope I can talk her round.

As there's only two weeks left until my holiday (holy-mother-of-all-things-holy is it really only two weeks?!??!) I've decided I need to up my weight-loss game. I should have lost another 2lbs since last Friday. Instead, I've put 1lb on. Not the intended direction. So, I've decided I will try the stupid cabbage soup diet. No, it's not starving yourself and eating nothing but plain cabbage soup. There's actually a whole load more fruit and veggies involved, and you can eat as much soup as you want, so you can't starve! Well it's only a week-long thing, and I do like cabbage, so why the hell not. I headed off to Aldi after work and piled my trolley full of greenery. God knows what people thought I was doing - starting up my own greengrocers or something. But it cost only half the price of my usual shop when I buy all kinds of things (all healthy mind you). Just have to get it on tonight, and tomorrow is Day One. Hopefully I can get the soup tasting nice, otherwise I might realise this is a really bad idea. But hey, I don't know unless I try, right!

Take Two

It's a saturday, and I'm at home instead of in Leeds with Mr Tall. Why? Well, I did go over there earlier, and I ended it. He didn't like it, and refused to accept it was what I really wanted, but I left with all my stuff, and I told him quite bluntly that we cannot be together. We may be able to be friends in the future, but for now, we need to be apart. Trying to be friends so soon is just going to be awkward and uncomfortable. So at least until I come back off holiday, we're not keeping in contact.

I think he thinks I'll change my mind, or realise after a week or so that I do actually miss him and want to get back together like last time. I won't. This really is it this time. I realised that last weekend when I found that I don't even want to kiss him any more, let alone get any more intimate... I just don't have those feelings for him. I thought I did at one point, then I didn't know, but thought it was just because I was holding back through fear of being hurt again. But now I know, I don't feel like that because he simply isn't the one for me. I'm sorry about that, but you don't know these things until you try.

So now I start a new chapter. Another single one, but it's a clean start. I've hiked my zumba classes up to three times a week now, I'm so determined to slim down. I have managed to nudge my plateau and hit a new low on the scales, which is awesome, but I'm still learning about food and calories and how they affect me, so I know the limits of what I can eat to lose more weight. I'm not being stupid about it and starving myself, and I'm not doing any stupid cabbage soup/smoothies/lemon juice diets. It's all just healthy stuff, but with counted calories. It must be working - a girl at work (who I don't really 'get on' with other than to exchange the odd pleasentries) asked me last week if I was losing weight, cos I looked slimmer! That make my week! Even though the scales arn't telling me what I want to hear all the time, I still feel good. I still haven't got the body I want, but I'm still happy with how things are going. Even if I don't hit my target for when I go on holiday, I'm not giving up, and I know that keeping on as I am now, I WILL hit my target eventually. Before Christmas would be good, but even just knowing I'm going in the right direction I'll be happy. It's a good feeling. I was getting so sick of looking in the mirror and despising the image in front of me. I still don't like it, but at least I know it's getting better.

Aside from that, I was offered a new job a while ago. My old boss came to me with an admin/team leader type position, that sounded amazing, but the salary & bonuses didn't cover the extra I'd be paying for the travel and parking. A lot of to-ing and fro-ing later, and I turned it down. They managed to hike the salary up a bit, but it still wasn't enough for me to be comfortable. So that was that. Until Friday....
I missed a call from my old bosses work colleague, who left a message to say that something had changed, and they think they may be able to offer me what I need now... I'll have to wait until Monday to find out, but it all may be back on again! I do like my current job, and I love working with K and J, and it's so nice being 5 mins from home, but I get so bored there. I have no challenges or job satisfaction. Moving into a team leader position would be a great opportunity and give me some responsibility, and it'd look great on my CV! So have to watch this space for more news on that.

Other than that, 3 weeks today and I'll be on my way to the airport!! I'm looking forwards to that more than you can imagine. So much so, that I even started throwing some stuff in a suitcase the other day...! I've never been so organised!!