Just because.

There is no real purpose to this post, other than the fact that I need a major brain clear out.

I feel like I've coped really well after losing Mum, but with stuff at work, Daughter going away to Uni and other stuff it's all getting a little bit much.  Not helped by Daughter being ill while away on holiday! I'm ashamed to admit that I did the typical parental overreaction thing and was looking up flights so I could be with her, but a few phonecalls and lots of text messages and Euros later she's got meds and is already starting to feel better.

One thing I'm not ashamed to admit is how much I'm dreading her going to Uni.  I am super excited for her, I'm just going to miss her loads.  The fact that I am stuck in a housing situation which I hate, but cannot change just yet isn't helping.  Thanks to Mum I have a fantastic deposit sitting in the bank, I'm just not in a position to get even a small mortgage just yet and it's so frustrating.  I am in serious need of my own space, and my patience is rapidly wearing thin.

The fact that I effectively demoted myself at work has done a lot to improve my mental well being.  The pressures and expectations were simply getting too much and I could feel myself heading towards that all too familiar downward spiral.  The cut in pay is barely noticeable due to weekend working enhancements, and I know for a fact that it was easily one of the best decisions I have ever made.  The best thing about it is I have become something of a Girl Friday for our Senior Manager.  He is constantly snowed under with meetings, figures and reports-and he now comes to me for help.  He knows how much I enjoy fiddling around with excel spreadsheets, and I've written some pretty swanky reports on our computer system to make compiling figures easier and so even those things are way beyond the job description, they are now, effectively mine to do.  As it all to relates to how well we are performing and how much money we make I feel I make much more of an impact now.  And the recognition and thanks I get from both my Managers and also the General Manager for the whole trust certainly helps inflate my ego!

In family stuff, my Brother recently made he decision to change his surname to that of his Fathers.  When my mum and dad got married, dad legally adopted my brother so he had his name, but my Dad hasn't been a part of his life for years.  I guess now that Mum has gone my Brother felt he could take his natural dads name again, without fear of upsetting her, or disrespecting her.  It's weird but it kinda feel like my family just got a little smaller.  I know he's still my brother, but the only reason we had different surnames before was because I had been married-now it's like the Wells' Family never existed! There's other family stuff too which is still just too 'unreal' in my head to even try to make sense of here, so that will have to wait for another time.

Well, mission successful.  Getting it down in black and white has helped-and talking about the work thing here has made me realise even more how fantastic a decision that was.

Until the next impending meltdown...........