Sitting in the car waiting for my son to come out after his 4th shift at his first job ever, and I’m feeling a little anxious.He didn’t really want to go back to work today, not after Saturday’s shift when the grumpy manager kept telling him off. I’m hoping that either that same manager is not on night duty this week, or that he is in much a better mood and will cut him a little slack.
Guess we’ll see soon enough, 7 mins to go till the end of his shift. Fingers crossed we are back on track!!
So we have a new payroll system at work and it has got everyone all worked up while the kinks are ironed out. Today was the first pay run and it was surprise, surprise a disaster.
Some people did not get their leave entitlements, some people did not get the correct salary packaging, some people (me included) did not get paid at all.
This is what could only be described as an organisational nightmare.
The new system is suppose to make our lives easier, it is meant to be more user friendly and can be accessed remotely but at the moment there is a lot of skepticism around this new and troublesome system, let’s hope they can sort out the kinks sooner rather than later.
I have had this feeling of impending doom for quite a while now. No matter what I do I just can’t shake it. The weather here in Melbourne is cold and wet and miserable and it pretty much sums up everyones mood of late.
I have one friend grieving the sudden loss of her husband. One friend coming to terms with a terminally ill nephew and now the possiblity of fighting cancer herself.
My mother-in-law is unwell, my father-in-law is showing early signs of memory loss. Dexter is still not better, I took him out on a test walk yesterday and even though we only went around the block by the end of the walk he was limping.
Then today the icing on the cake was when one of our most difficult clients ever called this morning and created chaos in his usual arrogant and loathful manner.
This client is a pathological lier, he starts off all nice and friendly and the minute things dont go his way, he turns into this horrible bully who tries to intimidate and abuse with his vulgarity. The mere mention of his name is enough ruin our day. In the span of half an hour he called 7 times this morning.
I am hoping that the weather is what is causing this bad feeling and that once the sun is back warming us with its happy rays, this feeling of doom will dissolve.
I nearly died of embarrassment today!! At about 2pm I was putting some files away at work when when one of my colleagues approaches me and informs me that I have a massive split right up the middle of my pants. To make matters worse I was wearing black pants at work today with white underwear underneath!!
So all day long I have been walking around oblivious to the fact that I was flashing everyone my backside. Once the initial horror passed I assessed my options and quickly threw on my raincoat which I had thankfully brought in with me today. Boy was I glad to leave work today.
So what do you do when you suddenly lose all your documents everything you have written in the last year and bit gone, completely wiped away?
There are no words adequate enough to capture the anguish, nay the despair, that grips you at the realisation that all your work, all your words have been erased.
Yesterday all my documents all my articles, all my novels all my columns were deleted in error of course, by my husband whose IT knowledge is next to non existent. He thought that by clearing out everything in our iCloud account he was merely deleting data off his phone.
I went to bed half way through an article on the festival for the next edition of The Buzz only to wake up with nothing, nada, zip. At first I thought it was a glitch with my iPad but when the so called glitch didn’t seem to resolve itself after turning the iPad on and off I sought out professional help. Not only was that article gone but everything else was too.
The technical support guys at Apple are fantastic, anyone who has ever had to deal with them will testify to this I am sure. My files are still gone but the Apple tech guys are trying their best to get them back for me. In the meantime I’m trying to remain hopeful. Not an easy thing to do I assure you.
Today has been a total blur, from the moment I woke up this morning I have not stopped. In fact as I write this now I am sitting in my car waiting for my son to finish his basketball training session. Fortunately I had the good sense to bring coffee in my travel mug, and a half eaten block of chocolate that my kids had left in the pantry, along as company.
Mondays are busy enough as they are at work, but today we had two meetings added to the mix as well. Needless to say it felt like I accomplished nothing today. There wasn’t even time for lunch, that’s how flat out it was.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining. I knew well in advance that this week was going to be busy. I guess I just didn’t count on all little extras that have popped up like the two meetings today. I hadn’t factored in parent / teacher interviews, job hunting for my husband, and the upcoming festival which I am coordinating, that has quite frankly proven to be a lot harder than I had initially anticipated.
To make matter worse I seem to be fighting some sort of a bug, which has drained me of any excess energy, I might otherwise have had to draw on.
The soccer club my youngest son has just joined is in need of a coach and a team manager. Under other circumstances I would be the first to put up my hand (maybe not for the coach position as my knowledge of soccer is not very good), but the way things are I just can’t see myself being able to be of any assistance. We are new to the soccer world and as I don’t have an understanding yet of how much work would be involved, I cannot risk committing to something else that I may not be able to have the time or the energy to do justice. I feel bad that I cannot volunteer for the role but I have to be realistic.
It is not all doom and gloom. in fact far from it. My writing is back on track. Writers block seems to have lifted, and even if it is but a few minutes every night before bed, I have been able to consistently add to my latest novel.
My teenager who is inside training as I write, has done this 360 degree turn. The negativity that oozed from him the last few weeks seems to have lifted, and my sweet, cheeky, loving boy is back. Last night he even cooked us all dinner!!
Next week he leaves for camp – 7 days of survival at Mount Baw Baw- I am excited for him and at the same time a little nervous. Last year they went on a mini survival camp which he absolutely hated. It rained the whole time they were away. He came back cold, wet, and miserable. It took three days to recover from a two day camp. I am hoping the weather will be kinder this time around, and that the boys will have a great time and come back safe and sound.
I left work feeling like I needed a stiff drink. I now know that all I needed was a cup of coffee and a block or two or three of chocolate, and all is right in the world again. Never underestimate the power of chocolate.
Why does the week seem to drag and yet the weekend just flies? Wouldn’t it be great if we could somehow extend the weekend and in turn shorten the working week. Yes that would be ideal….
Image courtesy of google images
School holidays are almost over here in Melbourne, and most of my friends have already gone back to work. Every mother knows that the hardest part of going back to work over the summer holidays is trying to find somewhere to leave your children while you are at work.
Unfortunately there is no childcare service available for primary school aged children around this time of year. Some vacation care programs do exist, but you need to be extremely organised and have those booked in well before school ends in December. Even then the programs only operate from the 20th of January onwards.
I have found myself in this position many times over the years. Fortunately my parents live close by, and now that mum has retired, they are able to have the kids when I have to work. Some people are not that lucky though, so to help out we have been inviting kids over to our house to spend the day with my children. Today there was 6 kids in total and they all had a blast. It gave me the opportunity to do some editing on my novel which is always a bonus.
Fortunately the weather is no where near as hot as it was the week before, so the kids were able to play outside, and not just sit in front of the Xbox all day.
I went back to work today after a lovely 12 days off, and boy was it a shock to the system.
For starters I couldn’t get to sleep last night, the harder I tried the worse it was. Every time the cat moved or my husband rolled over I would wake up. I worried that I would miss the alarm, I kept hearing the cuckoo clock chime the hours, 12 cuckoos then 1 cuckoo, then 2 cuckoos and on it went, so that by the time the alarm clock finally went off at 6am I was wide awake, tired but awake.
Work was chaotic as always, seems like everyone had a toothache today. On the upside I’m only at work for this week and then I have another two and a bit weeks off, gotta love school holidays. So for tonight I’m off to bed early got to catch up on that sleep I missed last night. Good night everyone.
How hard could it possibly be to paint treated pine? Not hard at all one would think right? Well that’s wrong, depending on the cut of the timber painting can prove to be a very challenging experience!!
We are in the process of having our deck and pergola constructed, fortunately an old family friend who has recently started up his own home improvement company has undertaken this long time coming project for us and he has been really wonderful going through the whole process with us and trying his best to cater to all of our wishes.
We have had to make quite a few compromises I must say. The pitch roof I once wanted is now flat. The decking is treated pine not merbau. The rails are not quite as I imagined and the screen that I want running down the one side of the house will have to wait until next year when we can save up a bit more money. As a whole the deck is coming along really nicely, and it’s big, and new and within our budget, and we have been assured that it will be ready for Christmas when the whole family is coming for lunch so really we couldn’t be happier.
The only problem is we have hit a glitch with the painting. According to some people the wood needs to be primed before it can be painted, but according to our friend and deck builder, it does not. So far we have painted on three coats and the results are shocking. The wood appears to be sucking in the paint. Tonight my husband who is not a handy man by any stretch of the word, is out there after work (before even having his dinner) painting away. Has it made any difference? I don’t think so, but he does.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
5 minutes more please 