Confessions of a New Husband

I’ve always reckoned that if you can survive Monday, the rest of the week’s a doddle. It’s like some sort of psychological barrier I think – the first day of the week, the first hurdle etc etc. As Christmas and New Year has come and gone, I’m now counting my weeks in terms of how long it is to payday.

My parents got me one of those Something A Day calendars, like a Word A Day, Joke A Day, etc, only this year, it’s completely random web sites. Today, I’m being directed to Sleeveface Pool. It’s a gallery of those photos where body parts are covered up with photographs of other people’s body parts, only this time with record sleeves. The tag for the calendar is “Why use your own face when David Bowie’s is so much more interesting?” Too much time on their hands? I think so.

Speaking of which, a colleague at work today has lent me Twilight, so me and Chantelle can see what the Edward and sparkly vampire fuss is all about. He’s not all that good looking. Granted, I’m no Colin Firth – I’m not even Colin Farrell – but still, what’s the attraction? Answers on a postcard please to FREEPOST I Don’t Care =D

Fancy making some extra money? I do. That’s why I use Top CashBack whenever I go internet shopping – each retailer on this site pays you a % or set fee every time you use the retailer’s site to buy stuff. Yes, that’s right. I’m shamelessly plugging Top CashBack so I can make money – every person I refer nets me £1 when they sign up and make £5 themselves, and so if you refer your friends you can make money too! I’ve made about £50 so far with a big help from Christmas shopping so please, clicky clicky my linky linky and make some money…erm, money!

Too much time on my hands? Yes indeed!

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Happy Christmas and New Year to you all! Hope everything went well over the festive season and that you’re enjoying a brand new year.

For me, this is a bit of a landmark. It’s mine and Chantelle’s first Christmas and New Year as Mr and Mrs, it’s my first Christmas and New Year away from home, and as I look back on what has been a pretty good year for me, I now look forward with a hint of excitement to see what 2010 is going to bring.

2009 was a pretty good year – obviously the highlight for me was getting married! The week before the wedding could have been a thousand times better and a million times less stressful, but I guess we can look back on it now and laugh. Well, maybe not laugh. More like cry. But still. The wedding day was great! Apart from the chicken kievs. It’s not so much that they weren’t all that nice. They just weren’t all that cooked.

That aside, it was a wonderful day. The ceremony was great, I nearly burst into tears when Chantelle appeared in the chapel, the candy buffet was loved by everyone, the photos were taken by two uber photographers in the form of Dom and a very pregnant Jo, Chantelle looked amazing, and everyone said how much they enjoyed it.

Earlier in the year, another highlight was moving into a house with Chantelle, and being away from home for the first time. Well, being away wasn’t the highlight as such (sorry Mum!!!), but being with Chantelle each and every day from moving in was certainly a great experience – look at my old Vox blog for a detailed journal of my first adventure away from home. By the way, if anyone has any tips on how to create some sort of archive on WordPress for other blog sites so everything’s stored here, that would be good!

So right now I’m thinking about goals, aspirations and such for 2010 – New Year’s Resolutions, if you will. Unfortunately, I suck at keeping resolutions, so if I look at them as goals and achievements, then maybe this year I can win

The first obvious thing for me is careers - now I’ve hit 25, I’m married and looking to the future and stuff, I’m now seriously considering what I want to put into and get out of my working life. Last year I was sort of toying with the idea of joining the Police, and over the last few months I’m seriously considering it. I’ve always wanted to do something useful involving helping people and making use of personal qualities.

I’ve been working for Comet since 2007, a job which was initially supposed to be a stop gap until I decided what I wanted to do with myself. Granted, I’ve progressed through the ranks and done pretty well for myself, getting through a few “levels” and looking after a few small teams as I’ve gone along, but this year I want to make myself more useful.

I also want to find more ways of being a better husband – I’m not saying I’m rubbish or anything!! But I want to make more of an impact in our married and individual lives by offering more of me. I’ve started by reading Men Are From Mars… which I would heartily recommend everyone read!! Without straying too much from the manly rugged figure that I do my utmost to cut……oh screw it, “gaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy” right?? It’s a great book and offers some pretty insightful views on men and women and the relationships between them.

My next “big thing” is to try and be more healthy – let’s just say Christmas was certainly a joyous time for eating! Chantelle mentioned Wii Fit a few days ago, and after reading about it and watching videos on YouTube, it looks good and now I want one too.

So, this year’s “goals” are…

• Start a career
• Do what I can to be a better husband
• Get healthier and more active

I guess I should really add “keep this blog more up to date” – once again I started with good intentions, and once again regular blogging has fallen flat on its face!

Until next year………….Shaun

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2009, 2010, career, Chantelle, chicken kievs, Christmas, Comet, diet, goals, healthy, husband, marriage, Men Are From Mars Women Are From Venus, Mr and Mrs Collier, New Year, Police, Vox, wedding, Wii Fit

Sometimes you just need a day to unwind, do nothing, forget about everything and just veg out for the day.

That’s pretty much what we did all of yesterday. Both of woke up feeling a bit rubbish and sorry for ourselves, so after sleeping some more and then waking up feeling even worse, we dragged ourselves out of bed, then dragged ourselves to the sofa. Where we spent pretty much the entire day.

I wandered outside for a while to get some air and visit the library. The library is closed on Sundays. I found that out yesterday. So I headed back and rejoined Chantelle on the sofa. She spent most of the day playing Final Fantasy X, I spent most of the day on the internet. I revamped my MySpace profile, did some more work on this site, and generally loitered around the web for the day.

Right now, she’s back playing Final Fantasy. On Facebook, I asked people to tell me something interesting, and it turned into a small comment war about my birthday, the PS3, some woman a colleague spoke to at work today about a food processor, and flan.

I found out last night that our wedding photos are done, so me and Chantelle are going to visit Dom and Jo’s sometime to pick them up and have a looksee. No doubt Chantelle will put the best photos on Facebook, and I’ll try and figure out a way of posting them here!

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I love Sundays. Apart from maybe this particular Sunday. This one was OK. Except for when I woke up, I felt a bit icky. Well, more like dizzy and disorientated. Chantelle insisted I stay home and wallow whilst she was at church, but all attempts to sleep were confounded due to the rain pounding against the bedroom window.

But hey, the wallowing is over, and all is well again.

Chantelle made some bacon/ham/cheese/onion pasties today – a proper stuff your face yummyfest if there ever was one. My wife is just a culinary genius. It’s almost like she just has to stand and look at the ingredients and they just organise themselves into heavenly goodies! Check out a few of her drool-inducing creations here…

We watched the second Work and the Glory film…it’s based on the novels about the Latter Day Saint movement, and how it affects the lives of a fictional family growing up in the mid west around Joseph Smith and his family. I’m always amazed when I see or read about the pioneers who just gathered their belongings and journeyed across America, often risking life and limb and losing loved ones, to follow their religion. I guess in some way it makes me appreciate the fact that if I want to learn about something or catch up on a lesson or talk I’ve missed, I can just grab a book or go on to the web, without having to journey hundreds of miles across the country.

Tomorrow, Chantelle starts her new role as a Sales Team Leader at Comet, as part of their “Next Generation” programme which puts colleagues through training and preparation for being a Team Leader over the Christmas period, with a chance of staying in the role once the peak season is over. It sucks a little that I won’t see her much during the day – we met through work after she joined Comet and came on to the same department as me!! – but I’m proud of what she’s done over these few months preparing for this, and I know she’ll do a great job leading the team she’ll be working for. Plus she gets a nice pay rise for being a Team Leader, so she’ll be bringing in a few extra pennies over Christmas

Ahh Christmas. I haven’t even started to think about planning or shopping for Christmas this year. We’re hoping to spend a day at each of our parents’ houses this year, but apart from that neither of us have anything planned or sorted. Unless by some miracle Chantelle has organised everything and bought all her presents and is hiding them somewhere even I can’t find them..!

I’m sure I thought of so much more to say over the course of last night and this morning – I know it started with the desire to learn to dance, but right now my head is blank. I should really start writing stuff down. Like a journal. Ha. That fell flat on its face, just like my previous blog. I often wrote paragraph after paragraph when I was regularly updating my written journal, but I really should start doing that again. It seems that me and journals/blogs have commitment problems. I wonder if they have therapy for that sort of thing?

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I’d really like to learn to dance. No. Seriously. Like ballroom dancing or that crazy stuff they did in the 30’s and 40’s to swing music. My parents are into WWII era music – in fact, anything wartime related – so they have all the swing and big band music for their own enjoyment and when they put on re-enactment displays. I love listening to music like that admire the passion and energy that goes into the dancing people do along with the music.

But enough of my little geeky aspirations to be “cultured”. Chantelle’s made pasties.

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Well it’s been a loooong time since I last made any sort of blogging effort, so I’ve decided to revitalise the shaunpcollier.co.uk domain name I bought last year - just because I could!! – and make a better go of keeping a reasonably up to date blog! Here I’ll do my best to  keep you up to date on what’s going on in my world…………so, I’ll start where I can, and try and expand on stuff in later posts – I really hope I can keep it as updated and thorough as possible……….

I’m 24, married and Mormon, living in a funky little riverside flat in Hull city centre. I live with my uber-wife, Chantelle, work in the Comet call centre in the city, and as described above, I’m pretty useless at blogging. But, I’ll try and pick my brains, organise my thoughts and tell you what’s happening in as organised a way as possible……

I’ve just spent the last twenty minutes or so trying to track down a half-decent WordPress  theme – I can be very picky sometimes – and I reckon this sort of look and layout suits me pretty well…..at least it has Chantelle’s approval..! I had a faff around with WordPress when I first bought this web site, but got annoyed/bored/fed up and left it alone, but upon seeing Chantelle’s funky and revamped web site I figured it was time to have another go, so tah dah! I’m not bored yet, and as proof here’s my first post!

“Confessions of a New Husband” will hopefully be a place to catch up on what’s going on with me, work, church, marriage, family, friends, and any other stuff I feel to be worthy of comment here – don’t be a stranger…I’ll try not to be!

Shaun

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