Crazy Cat Lady Chapter 3 - A New Beginning

crazy_cat_lady

Hello :wave:
Another day survived - 7 more work get ups.
Didn't sleep well last night - woke up during the night with a headache which has resolutely hung on all day. Proper sickly migraine. I've held off the worst of it with migraleve but I am looking forward to a good night of sleep tonight (hopefully).
Went into work late this morning - I had the police coming round at 8am for a chat about my concerns around ex at the moment. He seems insistent that I am portraying him as some really horrible piece of work, but I am concerned about his behaviour when he's drunk. He is reckless, unpredictable and makes some really bad decisions. I'm not just worried about me and the kids, I am worried about him, and whether he's a risk to himself as well. I just cannot allow myself to take responsibility for him. The police were lovely, and offered lots of sensible and practical advice, and they went to his place and had a chat with him too. Apparently have advised him to get some help - not that I think for a second that he will. However, I have voiced my concerns at least.
Also spoke to the nurse at DS school. I feel so very proud. She says he is a kind and caring young man who is incredibly mature for his age and has excellent resilience. She says he is worried about some things, but nothing more than she would expect under the circumstances. She's going to see him again in a few weeks, because he asked if he could speak to her again. I'm really, really pleased he's ok and happy that he's got some skills he's going to need later in life
Then managed to get an almost full day of teaching in, with parents evening after school. All with the nigglings of a sickly migraine in the background. It feels like it's been a really long and eventful day - and I can't wait to get into bed and hopefully sleep well tonight.
Tomorrow will be another busy one - I have an appointment with my solicitor to finish filling in the financial forms ready for court. I have a massive long list of questions so I expect it'll cost me of course. Hopefully I'll feel a bit more certain about next steps after that. I've been given more time out of school to do that, so I reckon I'm going to have a bit of catching up to do over this weekend. I'm a bit too tired to think about it now if I'm being honest.

Honeysucklelou2

Those financial forms are bewildering! I'm reluctantly realising that I'll have to get help with the trickier parts of the form. Hope it all goes as well as possible at the solicitors tomorrow.

SpekySquarehead

Once again, your kids are an absolute credit to you. And like you've said before, it's reassuring to see that unlike his dad, he is willing to accept help.

Hope you're feeling better after a good nights rest.

crazy_cat_lady

Hello :hello:
Well in spite of less than 6 hours of sleep last night I woke up without the headache this morning and almost raring to go. Almost. The light mornings really make a difference to me in terms of actually being able to get up and get going. Got a solid couple of hours in at work before my solicitors appointment. That was long, and difficult, and I've had to bring the form back for more stuff that I need to add to it. It's a real pain in the bum - I'd hoped it would be signed and gone by today but I need to add my budget and complete my statements for the end of the form... boo hiss.
I feel quite worn out - 6 more work get ups. I'm starting to feel a bit swamped with the to-do list as well. I just can't seem to keep up. I cross one thing off the list and another half dozen arrive. Although it's going to be a few more hours, this form filling is important and the deadline is looming - however I think I need to leave this one until some point over the weekend.
Thank you for the compliment Speky - it means a lot to me. DS has made me a mothers day card at school today, with a cat on it He is a sweetie.
Right, I'm going to get on and do a bit of something useful before I get too tired.

foxgloves

Hi CCL, You do have a lot on. I'm on my coffee break (have been cleaning the house, not my favourite task, but better than ironing!) & am just popping on to say hi to a few diary people. Now, that job list which is feeling overwhelming...... I'm an avid list maker too. I actually start to feel quite insecure if I don't have a list, & this was the same when I was working managing a service, as well as when I'm at home post-redundancy. I don't know if you ever try the following, or whether you think it might work for you, but here goes....... Every so often, usually when I'm under a fair bit of stress, like when my Mum was dying last year, my long daily job lists just look overwhelming & instead of acting as a tool to keep be organised & prevent stress, they actually add to it. I think this is a numbers thing......we are normally stressed when we are juggling lots of different things at once - so more & more tasks get added to the list quicker than we can ever hope to tackle them & cross them off. When this happens, I temporarily switch to the '3 tasks only' list until I feel less anxious, then I revert back to my normal system, which does work for me the vast majority of the time.
You may have tried this already, but if not, you take a clean sheet of paper (don't keep that long list of beating yourself up unachievable number of tasks where you can see it) & write on it the 3 tasks which are currently the greatest priority. Now do one of them. You can now write another task on the list, but the idea is that you never have more than three on there at once, because seeing a long list of 27 jobs (& I bet your list is more like 57!!) & only 6 crossings out can become very demotivating. Especially (& CCL, I'm looking up the A1 straight at YOU, lol!) when you cross out 6, but add on another 193!
I also find this technique really helps me prioritise. Yes, there's not a lot of point ensuring you never write down any of your frog swallowing jobs on the list of three, of course they do need to go on there but if you realistically have half an hour of available time, then do three small tasks which are quick wins. When I'm doing this myself, I of course know in the back of my mind, that if I wrote out one big list, there'd be heaps of things on it, but I think the psychology of only selecting 3 initial ones, & only adding an extra one when one has been crossed off, does seem to help reduce my stress levels if I've got a lot on & feel I'm getting nowhere fast. I probably do this 3 or 4 time a year atm.
Are your cats enjoying the spring sunshine? Mine was nowhere to be seen today so I assumed he was having a lovely time out in the garden, enjoying some sun, then found him snuggled up in his bed right next to the radiator as though it was minus 5!!
F x

Honeysucklelou2

That's a really good strategy Foxgloves...will have to try that one myself!

crazy_cat_lady

Thanks for the advice foxgloves I've never tried a 3 job list but I'll certainly give it a go. The frog list is always separate anyway, and on the side of the fridge. It might make me a little more productive and a little less stressed. As long as I can get over the idea that I might forget something if I don't write it down :rotfl: A stressed brain doesn't remember much...
Another busy day at work - I was out first thing as ds was doing his class assembly at school and I arranged for my class to be covered so I could go and watch him. Only a couple of these events left to go before I lose my baby to the comp...
Got back to work, and the rest of the science team had sorted me out with a cake and a card, plus one of them had bought me a bottle of Seville Tanqueray gin. Absolutely amazing, and it's not even my birthday until Sunday. Just about got through the day without too much stress and have made it to the weekend. Came straight home from work with a little bit of work to do tomorrow but I have already sampled a little gin. And very lovely it is as well.
I'm quite tired so not planning on much tonight - the first load of washing for the weekend is in, dishes are washed and I am just catching up on here and with a bit of crochet. I'll be on properly tomorrow...

beanielou

Hurrah for gin :j :j

f0xh0les

Your posts kept me going while I was away. Thank you.

The three job list is a good one. You don't always remember the stuff you strike from the lists. I am manically tidying the house trying to find my spare car key dh has lost (he managed two and a half days of the school run before losing my key) and have just found a list from the start of the year. I have done so much since then, I had a happy 5 minutes striking through done jobs and it has made me quite happy this morning.

Keep on, what does not get done today will be done tomorrow, or the next day. We have more days left to us than things on the list, which means the odd day off to sit in the garden and watch a cat rolling about pretending to be a kitten is not a failure. It is just an opportunity grasped - I mean, it might rain tomorrow, the list will still be there, the cat on its back waving its legs in the air will not.

crazy_cat_lady

Hello :hello:
So lovely to see you back f0xh0les - I'm really sorry that you've had such a difficult 10 days away and hope that you're back on track at home very soon. I'm pleased my little ramblings provided some sort of break from the situation at least.
I confess to getting up with a little bit of a fuzzy head this morning but I really did enjoy my gin last night. It was a quiet night - ds stayed at his friend's house so just me and dd having a bit of a girlie night (and no, I didn't share my gin with her - she's only 14).
Saw my dad briefly this morning, for the first time in ages. He brought me a birthday card over which I've put on the mantelpiece for tomorrow. Was lovely to catch up with him for a bit. Then went to do a tutoring session, followed by a visit to bestie's house. Also very good for the soul. It had been a lovely day until the weather closed in at about 3pm and it suddenly turned into winter again and got really dark and rainy. And I had to do my shopping as I hadn't bothered myself with ordering online this week so trailed the kids off to Mr M with me. The idea was to buy some of their nice Market Street food for a bit of a treat dinner tonight as well as the weekly shop. It didn't take me long to remember why I don't shop there much - empty shelves and not much that I wanted from my list. If it had been online there would have been more than a dozen substitutions I reckon.
Anyway, I'm home and have indulged with one of their salad boxes and some chicken pakora, and have a luxurious piece of cheesecake waiting for me. I'm doing nothing work related tonight, just a bit of crochet and probably an early night if I'm honest. Tomorrow I'm tutoring again then heading off to my mam's for a couple of hours in the afternoon so I probably won't get any work done then either. A whole weekend off.
Have also started the 3 item list. It is already less stressful - thanks foxgloves