Who is The Chrome Gnome? Let's get to know each other!

I've been saying throughout 2022 and 2023 that I wanted to write this blog and it's taken me until August 2023 to actually do it. Why you ask? Well, putting yourself out there is kind of a scary, and despite my positive, outgoing personality, I am actually quite a private person. So here goes....

I'm Sharon, I am a Mum of one daughter, who is now 28 and back in 2014 I also took on the role of Mum to my daughter's best friend, who has just turned 30. I was born in November 1973, right in the middle of Princess Anne's wedding ceremony (which my Mum never let me forget because she missed it!) I also share a birthday with our King. 2023 is the last year of my 40's and in November I will turn 50.

I am a Grandma, my daughter gave birth to her daughter last year in 2022 and my 'adopted' daughter has two little girls who are 5 and 7, who also call me Grandma. I will write more in another post later on about why I chose to be a Grandma opposed to a Nan/Nanny.

I consider myself to be quite an ordinary person, middle-of-the-road. I was a B grade student in school, I didn't go to college or University, instead I sat my last exam on a Friday in 1990 and started full-time work on the Monday. I came out of school with 8 GCSE's, 2 x B, 2 x C and 4 x D Grades. The two B grades were for English Language and English Literature which leads me very nicely to this Blog...

I remembered something in the early hours of Sunday morning, something I had forgotten from a very long time ago. I was 11, it was the school summer holiday's and I had just finished Junior School and was about to embark on my journey into Senior School. My Mum worked part-time in the evenings as an Office Cleaner for our local newspaper editorial office. I used to accompany her several evenings a week and as such I used to get talking to a lot of the writers and journalists. That Summer holiday, I made a newspaper. I had a scrap book made from green sugar paper and on plain white paper I wrote my articles, drew my pictures, cut them out, laid and stuck them down to form my newspaper of 16 pages. That Summer I decided that I wanted to be a writer.

Then I started Senior school, several months later my Dad had his first Angina attack at the age of 52, my parents were constantly arguing, or worse, not talking at all (I hated the frosty silence) and then it transpired that my Mum was 'in love' with the Editor of our local paper and she was going to leave my Dad. I forgot that I wanted to be a writer, or maybe I decided I didn't want to be associated with the man who was responsible for splitting my family up. I honestly don't know, but what I do know is that I wish I had not forgotten because I feel like I was born to write (I will delve more into this in later posts). Now that I have remembered, it has spurred me on to get stuck into this blog!

I don't know if you do this, but I find myself thinking back a lot lately. I don't know if it's where my daughter is now a Mum herself and where I am giving her advice, that I am constantly thinking back to when I was a new Mum myself and then I catch myself thinking back to my own childhood and how I was parented and how different things were back then. I think it started before my daughter gave birth though, probably after losing my parents in 2018 and 2020, I just kind of find myself going on trips down memory lane. The one thing though I am pleased about, I have no regrets. I am happy with all of my decisions that I have made up until now, because I feel that those decisions and those paths have shaped who I am today. And I am happy with who I am as a person! Of course, there is always room for improvement and that is what I am focusing on as I move towards at lightening speed my Half A Century !!

I was born in Essex where I lived my whole life, then I emigrated to Turkey with my daughter in 2009, returning back to Essex in 2014. Then last year in 2022 I relocated to Scotland for work. My 5 years in Turkey is a whole different post and I will come back to that later. I have never been married and I am proud to still be a Miss. I am currently single and have been for the past 7 years after I ended a two year relationship in 2016 because I just wasn't happy, this has been my choice and probably largely down to the fact that I was diagnosed as Peri-Menopausal in 2017 at the age of 43. This was an incredibly confusing time for me and I totally lost myself, I wasn't me, not at all. I was a shadow of myself and I hated it !! Hell, I had never even heard of Peri-menopause prior to being told I was in it ! Of course I knew about The Menopause, that was something that happened when you were in your fifties, your cycle would get messed up, eventually your periods would stop and there would be mood swings, hot flushes and night sweats.

My diagnosis might have been in March 2017 but I believe it started back in October 2015, a month before I turned 42 and this is the main reason why I wanted to start writing this blog because there was literally no information out there. My 40's were meant to be spectacular, I had so many plans, so much I was hoping to do and in truth, I lost more than half of my 40's to Peri-menopause. If I had known that this was a possibility of happening, if I had known what signs to look out for, then I may have dealt with things differently and maybe I would have coped better. So I would like to share my journey with you all. For those of you who like me are still on this journey, maybe we can share our stories and the ways we found to cope and by doing so we can help and support those who maybe about to embark on this rollercoaster, because KNOWLEDGE is POWER!

Our 40's should be amazing and our 50's should be fabulous, let's do this together !!

Along the way, I will also share life stories, memories and because it is all about the future, my plans and dreams for my 50's, because trust me when I say, this life is for living and I fully intend on Living it to the absolute MAX !!