wagwaan?: UK Scrappers Mardi Gras cybercrop...

Well, I missed it! I loved the first cybercrop I did, way back in October 2003, but UKS has grown so much it's HUGE and quite hard to keep up now. I did sign up for it this time, but when the crunch came I wasn't in the mood. Plus with a house full of teenage girls, tell me how I'm supposed to get anywhere near the computer?? Well, that was just today, and I was doing a class from the cybercrop so I let them get on with designing invites for their 16th birthdays (not for months yet) and chatting on MSN. The class I did I uploaded here. I realise the frame should be behind the picture, not in front, and I kinda did my own thing, but I liked the quote, so I did it with a recent piccie of Claire.

I really DO feel the urge to create, but my life right now is about penny pinching and going to interviews and hoping the new job is going to come off, so I have no energy left for anything else. It seems incredible that we have got so poor in the past year or so. There is no room for any kind of extra. Just the bare minimum and the rest goes on bills. My income has gone down over the years, as every time we get a pay rise at the hospital, my benefits (housing benefit & child tax credit) go down. Well, they get adjusted every year, but never seem to go up as much as they could! I am not used to this. From the day I started work at 20 I was earning good money. I paid for everything during my marriage, and even cleared our debts after our separation. Since then, I have been raising a daughter alone and on one salary, and two redundancies have taken their toll. People say "I'm so broke" and I've been guilty of that in the past. No, THIS is broke. This counting the pennies from week to week, desperate for the benefit cheque to come through on time and not get lost in the post. No holidays. No chocolate in the house. No going to the cinema. No going up to London on outings. Nothing! Wondering where the money for the next pair of DD's shoes or a replacement pair of school trousers is coming from. No wonder I've lost a stone!! I don't like blogging about it, because I would like to be all upbeat and crazy and fun.... but I think I need to journal it, so that I never forget. When I get that new job, I will be able to pay off my debts AND have money for extras, and I never ever want to take one single penny for granted ever again. Fingers crossed I get some news this week. Well, some news from the job I really want, cos PrivatSea are desperate to see me again, and that is fantastic, but I really really want the other one. Typical!

Otherwise, the latest Sunday night ritual (now DD and I don't have our weekend morning ritual of watching the Gilmore Girls cos we're waiting for the new season to come on TV) is one that Wayne and I have: we watch the Everybody Hates Chris double bill at 8pm on Five, and during the ads Wayne phones me and we giggle about the storylines or the 80s music... that's if he's not here watching it with me! The kid that plays Chris (Rock) as a kid is brilliant, the plot is always funny and the music takes you right back to your teens (Wayne) or your twenties (me)!! Long may it continue :)