Things that drive me bonkers

Not much really gets to me but there are some things that drive me nuts:

• Bullies - online and in real life. I can pretty much deal with online keyboard warriors as I have come to realise that for the most part that have no interest WHAT.SO.EVER in considering another point of view.    School bullies of around the age 12 and of the girl variety are driving me to distraction right now. What my daughter is facing I swear was not my reality at her age. And lastly - at work - oh the misery of that. Oh the rage I feel when I see someone else at the receiving end of it.
• Lack of accountabilty - if you screw it up say so. If you dont want to complete something own up to it. Dont just leave it and walk away in a non caring manner. Other people are not on this planet to clear up your half finished stuff.
• Bitchy women. Maybe they started off as those 12 year old girls being ridiculous and unpleasant at school, I dont know. They come in all forms and are everywhere. Be they the spiteful ex demanding unreasonable crippling child support even though they have married again and actually share the custody with their ex, or the work collegue clearly resentful of you. Women need to support each other more in success. Exes need to be more reasonable. Lets all be abit kinder to each other please.
• Manipulative people - dont try to manipulate me, its obvious what you are doing and certainly doesnt sit well. I will go above and beyond to help people but the moment I feel that I am being used I am gone. I am saddened but I am done.

And for things that make me happy:

• Online people helping each other on our local facebook page. When the power went out on Thanksgiving I saw many posts asking for advice on finishing half cooked turkeys. I saw lots of advice and many offers of assistance by people who still had power.
• Positive motivating individuals who get somewhere in their life and want to help you with advise on what worked for them. Love it.
• Good bosses - you know those ones that are sadly few and far between. The ones that you want to emulate. The ones that you will jump hoops for. The ones that exude that rare and wonderful personality of caring, motivating, teaching, successful manager. Yeah... I want to be her. Still working on it.

Happy Hump Day

What I love about February, and dont adore so much...

There is typically very little to love about February as I am by now tired of the following:

• Walking dogs around in the evening in the dark. I am tired of walking in the dark. There are no pretty December lights up, its just cold and dark and almost dangerous as footing becomes precarious very very suddenly as I nearly do the splits at full walking speed on ice (not pretty)
• That walk being in painfully cold windchill so my scarf becomes damp from my breathing and then feels horrible. It makes for an even less pleasant walk.
• The feeling that its been cold forever and its got MONTHS to go, ugh!

BUT, I do enjoy some of the small things:

• The fire crackling in the grate, especially at weekends when I love to fall asleep to it at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon for a quick cat nap.
• The pretty pink mornings when there is fresh snow on the ground. I love pink winter skies.
• The bright sunlight and blue skies, even though its so cold.
• Groundhog Day. Love it. Enough said.
• Planning vacations down south, so much fun in the planning of a trip. Less so in the paying for it...
• Working out in the evenings. I have zero interest in this once its warm outside so I make hay while the sun shines.
• Warm fluffy horses standing by hay bales, Ace smells so good.

made it, 1991's dreams to the here and now

Today I started taking a little trip down memory lane and came to this realization:

Back at the start of my working life in 1991, as a 17 year old junior in a little building and civil engineering firm, I made a big plan for my career. I wrote on a scrap of paper " I want to be the Financial Controller of British Airways" and stuck it with tape in front of me on the wall.
Back then, I had no idea what such a role would entail but it was my dream and a plan and I have always been a planner. It helped me through the years of night school that came.
In that job I wrote in the ledgers by hand and delivered hand written rent invoices to pensioners in their home. There was one computer in our accounts office of 3 of us that we shared and I made the tea for everyone at 3pm and answered the phones in reception every afternoon. I called the more senior people by their last names, as did everyone else - Mr Taylor, Mr Suttle, Mrs Taylor.... and I loved loved loved working there. I was taught by Mrs Taylor how to reconcile bank accounts, how to compose a letter correctly "Would you" rather than "can you" when asking for something to be done etc amongst other skills. I was treated well. I was happy. I was a dreamer.

Back then I would walk from my rented room up to be picked up each morning. I would daydream on this walk about living in Canada, always Canada. I dont even know why. 
My daydream always centred around picking mail out of a mailbox at the end of a pathway in front of a big house with a wrap around porch, in the snow. Back then I was consuming Bill  Bryson novels so maybe thats why this particular setup was in my mind.

When I got a car to drive we used to drive from Worthing to Steyning along a country lane. There was a house that I could barely see from the road but I could see the red late eighties VW Golf parked on the drive. Driving my 1982 Renault 5 past it, called Notty (after the plate NOT 149Y) I used to wish for that red golf.

Today as I drove into work I was renminiscing about these times in my life, I do this alot about my life in a happy manner, and I realized that I could check those boxes off.

FC job - I have held that role or a comparable one now since 2012. My current one is the best one though for happiness and responsibility.
Canada - yes we live here. We dont have a wrap around porch but we do indeed live here.
VW Golf - theres a grey one sat outside. Incidentally its the best car I have ever owned.

I feel so incredibly blessed to have lived every single aspect of my life so far.

grateful

Yay for January nearly coming to a close. Having said that,. I am so loving that this January I am not buried deep in snow and ice in NL for three weeks away from my family. I am not stressed to the max trying to get everything done, even though its an almost impossible ask and I am not dreading the next encounter with the manager I had come to avoid at all costs due to his brutal and damning emotional outbursts, regardless of how hard you worked and how much you *had* achieved (which was mostly ignored)

I dont often post such an honest outlook on my work life but I have to say that the above is the truth about 90% of the time in my last job.

Currently in my new role I am still learning how things work and I hate this stage of a new job BUT I am trying hard to actually enjoy it as I am hoping against hope that this will be the very last time I feel this way in a role. That this will be the very last time I am the new girl learning the ropes of an organization.
But also I learnt so much from that highly stressful role that I know that I am a more confident person in this role than I would have been had I never lived that last role. For that, it was 100% worth it.

And I feel that I can post this now, that I can actually say it out loud and commit it to a blog post but I am no longer suffering anxiety. It has slowly left me. I am no longer on meds either. Its been a few months now but I seem to be operating without meds and anxiety seems to have left my life. It didnt announce its departure, it didnt wave a banner, it quietly left just as it quietly arrived in the first place.
I feel so incredibly grateful.

Christmas 2016

Found me with a stinking cold verging on flu and therefore I wasnt fantastic company, did disgustingly little in the house, enjoyed dinner that I had no part of making ( I did clean up though ) and binge watched Greys Anatomy.

I cannot believe that its taken me so long to come to the Greys Anatomy table. Its an AWESOME show. I am now on episode 12 of season 2 and I adore it and could watch it all friggin day! (and I did do that, exactly that on the 27th December)

The girls enjoyed an American Girl Christmas. Its likely Chloes last one of these as shes coming up to 13 and I know that shes a collector of these dolls, rather than a "play with them" type.

Despite being sick I really enjoyed the break, the being at home, the chilling out completely that came with this.

Oreo cat has continued to get well on her antibiotics and is so funny,so sweet, so nutty and kitten like playing in the house. Shes like a little shadow too. Its so nice to see her sweet personality coming out.

The end of 2016

Its coming up to the time of year again where I look back at all last years NY resolutions fails and make some more. So I took a look back  here at the 2016 New years resolutions way back in January

OK so I was chilled back then in planning, except to stay fit and get the interior of the house painted.
Well... I continued on that fitness plan well into the summer and it served me well. Since then I have been not so great but I am aware all the time of what I am eating and now I have new healthy plans (coming up in this years NY resolutions posts)
The interior of the house also was painted but frankly I had little to do with it... it looks great though.
Saving for vacations didnt go that well, we seem to be completely unable to do this.

So for this year, as January 1st fast approaches.....

1. From hereon in (actually yesterday, December 28th) I am returning to the 21 day fix plan until my feet touch down in the State of Florida. I want to love my holiday photos, and fit into my shorts.
2. Grow in my new job, as a leader and technically. I am proud of my career so just improving myself cannot be a bad thing.
3. Continue my new foray into being less judgemental, critical and harsh. I have two sides of my personality ( I likely have more but these two stand out the most) where I am supportive, kind hearted and non judgemental. My other side is sarcastic, critical and sometimes cruel. That other side when it rears its ugly head leaves me feeling mortified. That character side needs to LEAVE.
4. Return to drawing. I used to be good at it. I wonder if I can still do it.
5. Improve my riding and enter all the shows this summer.
6. Keep being present in my family's life. I am enjoying being so present, this is a gift that I treasure.
7. Save money! (For Gods sake Natasha!)

Happy New Year and good bye fast leaving 2016. Its been a tough year for celebrity deaths but for me personally, I have no complaints.

A December pre Christmas update

I have been a little AWOL lately, so much good and some not so great going on that I have found it hard to write it up here, so anyway, heres an update.

The not so great
I have had a hard hard time getting over Misty. Its not my first rodeo in the losing animals dept but for some reason this hit hard. We still miss her and thats it really.

Riding for the season is pretty much over, the dark dark nights kick in at 5pm, its been freezing (minus 34 last Friday!) and ice is afoot everywhere.


The much good
I started a new job in October. I had some soul seaching moments about even attempting a job hunt initially as I liked the learning so much in my old one BUT and this is key, every time I said yes to them I said no to my family and my peace of mind. The requirement for working in my free time and the associated anxiety was only growing so I made the tough decision to call it a day. It was tough because I didnt relish being a new girl anywhere again and I was worried about making a bad choice.
BUT it was an easy decision really as I needed to be with my fast growing children more than spend all day at work, and all weekend, and (too often) all night.
It was a surprisingly fast turn-around on finding a new role (1 week) and after 4 weeks of notice period I started here in my new place. I am getting through the new girl yucky bit and finding my way. I adore the organization and the content of the job. My piece of mind and my free time are back. BIG Win!


We adopted a kitten that the girls named Oreo from a local rescue. Shes another "special needs" pet (we have three now, yay us) in that shes suffering still from Upper Respitory infection. So, she has a constant cold and yesterday added a sinus infection to her misery so now shes finally on antibiotics and I hope shes on the mend. If this carries on we will be buying shares in the vets!

Ace is doing well in his winter vacation. Hes fluffy and even the big minus temps we have been seeing dont seem to phase him in the slightest.

The whole house is a Christmas grotto (again). I am sure it was almost 5 minutes ago that it was last Christmas! We have three days left till the big day. We are almost ready.