What I've learnt so far ...

It’s been 8 months now since I moved to Canada from Ireland and it’s been a bit of an emotional roller-coaster to be honest. At times I’ve felt lonely, frustrated, confused and close to tears but there’s been some good times too and I’ve also learnt a lot about myself that I wouldn’t of had the opportunity to realize at home.

So in this blog I’d like to share with you some of what I’ve learnt so far.

Meeting new people…

At the beginning what I missed most at Ireland was not having my family and friends around me. I missed the people that knew me best and who I could be myself around.

But being in a new place has forced me out of my comfort zones and I’ve met some new people. With that comes the knowledge that people who meet me now are seeing me with fresh eyes, they don’t know the me  from ten years ago they see me as who I am now. There reaction to me has helped me  to look at myself in a new light and see how I’ve grow into an intelligent and mature person with a great career, and in turn focus more on the present moment rather than the past.

Old friends…

Some old friends had come to visit me from Ireland since I’ve moved here. We knew our time together was limited so we tried to fill as much in together as we could. After they left I understood better why we’ve been friends for so long and just how much I enjoy their company. I know now actually why they are my friends and how lucky I am to have such good friends and appreciate them so much more.

Counting your blessings..

The reason why I came to Canada was to find work. I was unemployed in Ireland for over a year during a bad recession and for the first time in 10 years found it next to impossible to get a job.  At the time it felt like the worst thing in the world and I felt like a total failure when I left Ireland to take a chance on starting a new life abroad.  8 months on however I feel so grateful and blessed now that I got the chance to come and work here. For every downside there is an upside, I’ve heard this so many times before but never realized the full meaning of this until now. I believe there really are blessings to be found during hard times if we wish to find them and I feel grateful for a whole lot more.

I'd love to hear what you feel blessed and grateful for. Looking forward to hearing all your comments. xx

My Princess life

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog!  

For my first blog entry I thought I’d write about the hot topic that has made the news all around Canada at the moment, the Royal wedding of Kate & William.

For someone who loves to dream and still believes in fairy-tales, this wedding has really caught my attention. It makes me imagine what it would really be like to be a modern day princess. From the age of about four being a princess meant to me that I could eat as much candy as possible, I got to stay up as late as I wanted and have a room full of whatever toys I wished. Very different I’m sure to what Kate’s life is going to be like!

I wonder now though what the life of a modern day princess would be like, for instance could Kate put her feet up on the couch in her castle, is she still allowed to read her favorite gossip magazines, have a duvet day if she wanted to, or have a girl’s night out downtown to unwind? Would she still have to put her own dishes into the dishwasher? I’m not so sure!

Writing this reminds me of an ex-boyfriend of my mine whose family lived in the closest thing I can think of to living in a castle. Their home was amazing and I believed it could not have been more perfect. The first time I was invited over to what I’ll call ‘Bell air Mansion’ I was in my element as at that time I’d only ever seen homes like that in books or on the television!  I use to walk the halls from the East to West Wing feeling like a princess, exclaiming  to my boyfriend about how lucky he was to have grown up  in a house like ‘Bell air Mansion’. I imagined him playing as a kid, with noisy games of hide and seek, family sing-songs on the baby grand piano with logs on the fire and grown-up proper dinner parties, the house of my dreams! 

 After time however, I soon realised that only a quarter of the rooms were actually used, I discovered they had two huge kitchens, one was left idle, the fire never got light, the piano never was played, no-one knew how to play it. Family dinners were quiet affairs where the family ate the best steak staring wordlessly at the huge Television screen.  The house of my dreams soon began to feel empty and lacked soul, I began to dread those outings to ‘Bell air Mansion’. My childhood home began to seem so much more appealing and it made me realise that it was actually me that was the lucky one...although our home was quarter of the size than ‘Bell air Mansion’, it was welcoming and full of life. There was always a conversation or something happening, it was vibrant, noisy and fun.

Our childhood homes were not the only differences between us. Holidays for him were about getting the right photo snaps to show his friends what fun ‘we’ were having. He felt uncomfortable sitting in a bar or a club that was not as upper class as what he was use to, I tried to explain that it’s about the company not the surroundings that make a good time’, unfortunately it fell on deaf ears. After two years living together the differences between us just became too much, my ex-boyfriend and I broke up and my fairy-tale dream was over, my Princess life was shattered. 

Looking back now I can see how breaking up was a lucky escape, we were just not compatible, not only were our backgrounds and upbringing different but so were our personalities.

Perhaps however it will be different for Kate & William. They have known each other for a long time, and although their upbringings and backgrounds are very different, they could have similar personalities. For Kate visits to the Royal family could be fun and relaxed with plenty of conversation and laughter. 

What are your thoughts about what life would be like for a modern day Princess? Looking forward to hearing them.