"...Cause you had a bad day...da da da da....you sing a sad song....da da da da da round,,,," Oh Powter where are you now?

People talk too much and I am definitely included in that number. Why though? So many times I say silly things or make passing comments and a few seconds later...oh shit. Then I keep my mouth shut, pretend it never happened and hope life carries on with one less slip-up. I guess sometimes we don't think. Other times we need to let off steam. And other times we need to know that other people agree with us.

And then there is the flip side...when we don't talk enough. When we would rather lose sleep over something than share the load with somebody. Why do we do that? So many nights I go to bed worried or irritated or upset but the next morning I pretend it's not there and carry on with my meaningless tasks. It's probably because by the time morning comes, it no longer seems like such a big deal. Or I assume people here won't understand. Or I am too proud.

So here is an official apology to anyone who has had to suffer alongside me in the negative repercussions of my big mouth. And for the positive repercussions, you're welcome. And also an apology to those who have ever had to experience the effects of my grumpy, un-caffinated, selfish side.

I have definitely blogged about Extreme Makeover:Home Edition before, but dam that show is designed for people exactly like me. I try being cinical about it but I still end up leaking in a corner over it. Everytime I leave the sofa with puffy eyes and the sniffles. I don't like to think of myself as a conformist but sometimes, that's just what I am. I like home makeovers, backstreet boys and those little white shoe's everyone wears. I own them in 3 colors now.

And on the note of conformity, below is my super awesome beer garden appropriate summer playlist. Make a CD of these songs, play them out your car window with your aviators on and you may as well be in a car commercial. Unless you drive a car whose squeaky brakes are louder than your stereo. Then you should look into fixing that instead of making silly mix CDs.

Sondre Lerche-Let my love open the door

NKOTB-Dirty Dancing

All American Rejects-Move Along

Savage Garden-I want you

Sugarcult-Memory

Gym Class Heroes-Cupids Chokehold

Bare Naked Ladies-One Week

Sheryl Crow-Soak up the Sun

Third Eye Blind-Semi Charmed Life

The Beatles-Here comes the Sun

Beach Boys-Get Around/Wouldn't it be Nice

The Elms-Hey Hey

DJ Sammy-Why

Wynonna Judd-Burning Love

Boy Least likely to-Be gentle with me

Fresh Prince-Summertime

Phantom Planet-Always on my mind

Noisettes-Stop the Rhythm

There are of course many others, Wyclef Jean, Usher 8701 and NKOTB are always at close hand but these are awesome. I'm off to watch the race for a bit before me and the boys hit up some movie goodness with the sexy Seth Rogen.

There is a tv show here called Secret Millionaire. It was brought to my attention at a sermon given by a lady who went to a missionary college in Scotland, without money or any material possessions for 6years. Left her family and everything she owned at the age of 47. Needless to say her sermon was centred around materialism.

In Secret Millionaire, millionaires volunteer to live in some of the most notorious cities of the UK. On Sunday, Mr Rob Lloyd volunteered to live in Belfast, living on the Shankhill Road on £95 a week. His volunteer act was catalyized by the the recent sectarian shootings that once again rocked area's like the Shankill. FYI Shankill is a protestant working-class road and the word, in irish, actually translates as 'Old Church'.

Jimmy Warnock was a famous boxer from the area, beating the world champion twice in his time and as a result, alot of the youth in the area use the local boxing hall regularly. I don't know if it is a great idea to have the young people of Belfast putting energy into a violent sport like boxing but Rob Lloyd took the time to find out, spending a majority of the hour long show getting to know the kids there. As a result of the show, Mr Secret Millionaire will for sure be rethinking his own life and helping out the youth programs in the Shankill but I think it is a great thing he did and I think it is something that we, as believers in God, should be doing regularly on a personal level. Sure some of these things have selfish motives, but that doesn't mean you won't find God there.

Instead of aspiring to be successful, comfortable, wealthy, ambitious, or whatver word you use to describe the results of that inner drive we have towards material things, we should be aspiring to relate to our brothers and sisters in area's like the Shankill, Glasgow, Birmingham, London, Manchester. And the most effective and loving way to do this, is to join them and get to know them as equals. Even just watching the show on TV made me rethink boxing as a sport and made me want to spend more time with the kids there. But maybe that is just me being gullable.

In a world plagued by a tumbling economy, where peeps who want to work can't find it and peeps who should be working don't bother, where values are corrupted and reality is distorted, it makes me happy that there are a few things I can still depend on....

Chocolate remains an affordable pleasure. We may not be able to travel so easily, but we sure can look at pics of the places we want to go with a big dirty bar of chocolate.

Humans will always re-adapt to new situations so whatevers going on, we can rest assured that we'll find a way to go along with it. According to anthrapologists.

Here's a cheesy one for all you romantics...my parents and my Jesus will always love me. Recession has nothing on the currency of love. (Can't believe I just said that).

Summer will always come around the same time every year and we can find joy in putting together our summer playlists to blast out the car with the windows down.

Next time, I'll let you know all about the playlists. Feel free to make suggestions. If you're suggestions makes the cut and is chosen for the final playlist, you win a prize!!

God invites me everyday to his table where He is serving a big Christmas Potluck dinner with all the trimmings. I accept his invitation every morning but all I'm offering these days are McDonalds happy meals. And I steal the toy before I get there.

I'm sorry. And I'm also sorry that I downloaded Eoghan Quiggs album...it's completely shameless.

So much to blog about but a strong dislike for peeps who post super long blog entries. To hypocritisize or to satisfy my need to talk about my own life. Ha....I just wasted 3 sentences on crap!

A few days ago I ran into an old friend who is now some manager of the currency exchange in a huge UK supermarket chain. We used to play 'house' in my old caravan and stand on each others doorsteps for hours after school pissing our parents off and talking about nothing. Now he is 6ft3" and wearing suits and flashing his nifty iphone. I was a little jealous of him, he'd made a fairly decent living for himself, engaged to be married, nice car and seemed so adult compared to me in my jeans and tshirt. Strange thing is he was jealous of me having travelled and lived away from home for so long. We are very rarely happy with our own lives, everyone else seems to have it sorted while we're a mess.

Yesterday we all hit up Tollymore forest park for a nice walk-about, some competitive sport and chips with ice-cream. We will probs never play danish longball again but it was a great day. 2years ago we did the same thing, a little before I graduated and went to Vancouver. It's a little nuts everything that had happened. There were some new additions which is always fun, new relationships and everyones relationship had changed on some level but we were all there. Most things change but some shit stays the same forever!

Today my BFF got engaged....to be friggin married!! It's been on it's way but my money was on the summer. I'm so incredibly happy for her, we have spent so many nights looking at rings and dresses and photography and venues so to actually do it for real will be amazing fun but I can't help taking stock of my own situation. She is out getting engaged and I'm sitting in my pjs doing my families ironing!!!

Think I'll go have a shower, clean up and go talk dates and details with Nikki :o)

Ok...if you know me and are lucky enough to see me all the time this is going to be boring. For the rest of you this is how things look....

I have a job starting in latter August. It's a great job running at After School Program at a great school and it pays good. I couldn't have asked for anything better. So now I am looking for work between now and then....cafe, shop, clerical stuff whatever. I thought that the hard part was over after I got the job at Wallace but I was actually wrong. It is just as difficult and just as frustrating finding a boring job. You're too qualified, too young, too old, you don't know the right people or your experience is too unspecific.

As a little social experiment, I chose not to include a minor detail on a few applications. It's not illegal to not mention that you have a degree right? You don't need a degree in Chemistry to serve coffee or answer the phone.

And on the off-chance that anybody living in Lisburn and knows of work going in Lisburn is reading this wonderfully boring post, hook a sista up.