It Made Me Who I Am Today

A few days back I posted as a task for another blog about my first job.  It started me thinking about the work I have done over the years.  After my string of first jobs (you'll understand if you read the blog) I went to work for a very fancy chartered accountant in Surfers Paradise.  I liked it at first, well I liked it because I needed the money to live.  I'd moved out of home and moved to the coast on my own.  Yep all of 15 years old, finished year 10 at school and I am sharing a house with two life savers (life guards) at Broadbeach on the Gold Coast and I was having the time of my life.  (Oh don't you miss Patrick already) I admit it I am a Dirty Dancing fan ok!! Nobody puts Baby in a corner, how I wished someone would say that about me oh well. Anyway I was living it up on the coast and working at this accountants office.  It was a nice place to work, but everyone was older than me and I guess the job ran its course.  The office was expanding and they wanted someone to do shorthand which I didn't and someone to really commit to at least another 2 years of staying with them and I really didn't know if I wanted to type up tax returns and answer phones for that long.  So I left.  I applied for a few office positions, but really I wanted a change oh the weariness of having slaved day in and day out over a hot typewriter for what maybe 2 years.  My goodness!  Anyway I decided I wanted to try a few other things.  I worked at the Celebrity Room at the Broadbeach International Hotel as a waitress/hostess.  The Celebrity Room was a huge success at the time and the show that was performed there to a full house every night was Le Girls.  Except they weren't girls, they were all men dressed as women with the big feather hats and slinky sequinned dresses and the false eyelashes, you get the picture.  Well I thought it was incredibly exciting to be working there and I loved it for a while anyway.  I also packed shelves at the grocery store at night, really good money back then and I worked at a juice bar which sold all these supposedly really healthy juices with minerals and supplements added.  I was really just marking time until I knew what I really wanted to do.  Anyway I really enjoyed the hotel work and eventually answered an add for a position in Toowoomba.  They would give me a meal a day, accommodation and training, sounded good to me.  I packed up my worldly belongings and made the 2 hour drive up the Range to the Crown Hotel.  Now when I got here I found out that the outfits you wore in the bar were see through. Yep surprised ya hey.  If you knew me now you would not ever in your wildest dreams think that I would ever strut my stuff with my tiny bits showing.  We wore these dresses with no bra and black undies.  My goodness I cringe just thinking about it.  But hey I was all of 19 and had the body of a little skinny minny and well after getting around in bikinis everyday for the last 3 years on the coast, it really didn't seem such a bad thing.  I can't believe it now.  My goodness oh well.  I met Adrian working there so some good did come out of it.  Actually we worked heaps of hours and I got fantastic money and I planned to meet some girlfriends in the UK so my motivation was really just to work all I could and take off.  Funny hey 30 years later and I'm still here.  I did little modelling stints through this time as well and I had fun.  I loved working, Iloved bing busy and meeting all the people who came in, as you can imagine there were some real characters.  Now if my twins ever wanted to work in a bar and wear see through dresses I would have a fit, thank goodness we change.

I spotted this beautiful Apricot Rose on Sunday at the champion garden, how beautiful, I felt like I needed to add something beautiful after my soul baring. And last night I made a yummy Warm Lamb Salad with Fetta and Mint Yoghurt dressing and all the lettuce I grew.  I am so proud.

This was lovely, we grilled the lamb on the George Foreman barbecue the girls bought Adrian for Fathers Day and dressed it with the fresh picked lettuce and the lime, mint and yoghurt dressing.  A big hot crunchy smashed spud on the side and we were a happy group.  Actually I've been thinking.  It's funny isn't it we do things in the past that we might not do now in our wildest dreams, we make choices based on what we know and what we are happy with at the time.  Those choices whether good or bad then shape us and make us who we will become, or who we are now.  I am a great mum, I still make wrong decisions sometimes, wanting to make life easy for my girls, but I am fair and I love them.  I am a good wife, faithful, trustworthy and I love my husband with all my heart.  I am a true and faithful friend, kind, thoughtful and loving.  I am a pretty good daughter, though my patience is not what it should be.  I am creative, I am becoming adventurous, give me time I'm trying ok.  I am a really hard worker, always early and always last to leave.  I am a thinker, talker, helper, giver, I think I'm funny, heck I am hilarious sometimes really I am.  I am all these things and yet I can still think about the job in the bar and cringe.  But that time helped make me who I am today, so it can't all be bad.  I think the trick is to learn, grow and move forward.

And don't forget if you want to be in the Pay It Forward group (see yesterdays post) leave a post and I might pick you.  It's going to be fun I promise.