Staying on track to be MF and ready to support my daughter at 18

ElmoR

Whooosh, another week or more gone :eek: They fly by so quickly at the moment.
Had a work trip to Belgium this week which went well and included some time for a 2 hour walk exploring the city. Very enjoyable walk. Had to watch my food intake which put a slight dampener on things. There were chocolates, waffles, pancakes...but I stayed strong (mostly). :A
Then it was DD's birthday yesterday :j. It involved an amazing victoria sponge cake and there was no way that I was missing out on that. She had some friends round for tea and I think they enjoyed themselves (judging from all the teenage girl cackling).

So, despite the Belgian chocolate, beer and birthday cake, I did make it back into my target range at Slimming Universe and my fiver was not flying out of my purse :j


Phew!!


One more high stress week at work to come, but then hopefully the funding bid I've been preparing will be submitted and I can catch up on the rest of the things that have been placed in a circling pattern while I concentrated on this. The last 20 years or so I had a successful research career funded from EU funds. I'm having to turn my funding applications around and back to UK funding streams, which I always found to be very hard to obtain what with the monopolies/cliques that seem to exist. Plus, the UK government does not fund much in the environmental science sector. This next year or so will be very telling for me career-wise...:mad: Fingers crossed with this bid...



ElmoR x

Cheery_Daff

Glad DD had a nice birthday:j

Fingers crossed with your funding bid. I've got one in myself that I should hear about this month. Hope I get it - not looking forward to having to go through that again so soon :rotfl:

ElmoR

Ouch. Unexpected bill arrived. We knew there might be some to pay for legal stuff last summer, but not this much. Least they waited til after the 5 week January money drought to invoice us. Nothing left but to raid the holiday pot savings and cough it up. It feels frustrating because I scrimp and save small amounts each week with the batch lunches etc and then a big invoice lands, that couldn't be avoided, and makes it all seem a bit pointless. :mad:

Feeling much better on a day to day basis now that the funding bid has been submitted. It really was overshadowing me for weeks. There was a bit of urgent catch up to do, with colleagues jumping up and down wanting immediate attention, but it had all calmed down by Thursday finally I want to make a more concerted effort to keep a better work life balance this year, but I don't actually have a plan or rules that can help me do that, other than the vague feeling that it's really what I want?!

The Union actions are stepping up in our sector too and I feel torn because I do many of the 'voluntary' roles that are the glue that holds day to day workings together. I don't see how crippling the employers and impacting on our students is achieving anything. We haven't had strike action at our place because we voted against them locally, prioritising closer to home actions to counter the redundancies instead. Might be time to leave the Union again, I only rejoined in the past 6 months too, so that may be the shortest membership ever.

Sorry for the downer update this week
ElmoR x

Kat78MFW

Sorry to hear that things are stressful with work. Well done for getting the funding bid submitted. I am lucky to only work part-time (although I did 31 hours this week so that was a shock to the system!) but I find that trying to fit in a little bit of exercise each day gives me a better work-life balance. I often only manage something very short each day like a 10-15 minute walk at lunchtime so that I actually step away from my desk and take a break from work instead of eating while I keep working. Or a 10-15 minute yoga YouTube video in the evening to clear my head of any work stress and get a better night's sleep.

Kat78MFW

Ouch. Unexpected bill arrived. We knew there might be some to pay for legal stuff last summer, but not this much. Least they waited til after the 5 week January money drought to invoice us. Nothing left but to raid the holiday pot savings and cough it up. It feels frustrating because I scrimp and save small amounts each week with the batch lunches etc and then a big invoice lands, that couldn't be avoided, and makes it all seem a bit pointless.

Not pointless at all! All that scrimping and saving each week has meant that you have savings available to pay unexpected large invoices without having to get into debt. You are doing brilliantly :T:T

ElmoR

Thanks for the encouragement and positive perspective Kat I shall make an effort to take a lunch break and do a walk around campus, see a bit of greenery each day next week. Will report back to keep me accountable.
The past week was hectic, another work trip, hosting a visitor with various hospitality etc. All pleasant and good experiences, but they do bump up the stress levels. Rounded the week off with a day of outreach activities at the local Art Gallery too, which is also high stress but does feel very rewarding by the end. :beer:
Finances-wise things are in flux. I have opened the dam and money is haemorrhaging, but it is for our epic family holiday after the GCSEs. Made sure travel insurance is in place because it seems like all sorts of risks are now commonplace. Used the furry rodent website and got the 2 for 1 cinema/meal membership too. We do a few cinema trips a year so that will make a small saving. :T

Otherwise, ticking along...
ElmoR x

ElmoR

It's been a couple of weeks, up and down, mostly down. Thankfully finishing with an up.

More upsetting news at work with redundancies now imminent and while I don't think it will impact on my own job just now, it will do so for close colleagues around me and I feel for them. The work environment is unpleasant and the colleagues who do naughty/inefficient stuff are going unchecked. It winds me up and I would love to be able to ignore it all. I complained about one thing and ended up being threatened with a grievance because of the way I brought it up.

Had a health scare but in the end it turned into a heart warming experience of super efficient NHS. I went from a GP appointment to a specialist appointment in two days and a diagnosis that's far less scary than what it could have been. A lump that just appeared turned out to probably be a benign thing, though they will monitor it for a couple of months to be sure, and it will cause problems when dentures are required (hopefully not for a couple of decades yet!). Amazing service from our local NHS though, thank you NHS!!

That scare hammered home the relative importance of life:work balance, which is not as if I needed it after last years hospital stay. We have our flights and hotel booked (and paid for!) for the epic holiday to Hawaii in the summer. We are going to stay in the same hotel we were at a decade ago, so it will be part of the trip down memory lane. I worked at the Uni there on several sabbaticals and my DD went to preschool locally, she remembers a lot from that era.  My daughter also now has her first adult passport (with the old EU cover, yay!!). Will do the ESTAs next...

It's started to rain here and the winds are picking up...Dennis is arriving. At work today for Open Day event, hope visitors can make it through the weather.

Have a good weekend all,

ElmoR x

Kat78MFW

Sorry to hear about your health scare and work redundancies. Your holiday plans sound amazing - lovely to be going back somewhere that you all have fab memories of.

Hope Storm Dennis didn't deter too many people from your Open Day. 

ElmoR

Thanks Kat, numbers attending were low but those who did visit seemed keen.

The work environment continues to be steeped in negativity and doom. This week I was able to disengage myself from it a lot better, which seems to be the key to better mental health. I set myself a short list of 'most important things' MITs (and those had to be things that would strengthen my CV) each day and went in with the sole purpose of getting them done and then going home. Anything else achieved was a bonus and I purposefully avoided being drawn into any issues/debates/non-mandatory meetings. It's just remembering to stick to that strategy that will be the hard part, but maybe I can make it a behaviour change type thing like taking packed lunches etc. I also spent some time on Friday afternoon having a huge clear out from some of my office drawers, lots of paper recycling. It felt good to do something that was almost getting ready to leave that job, even if it won't be for another 2 to 6 years yet I will do a bit of office clearing out every Friday now, and get it down to a minimalist environment, so that on the day I pull the pin, I can simply walk out and into the horizon with a small box of bits and bobs.

Funny old week for money. Extra came in on the one hand, thanks to some extra external work, but then it flew out of the other hand for my DDs prom dress. Funny because the two amounts were near equal. She does look amazing in her dress though, very sparkly and not MSE at all. I did have her try on a neighbour's daughters' collection of dresses, as well as scour the tinternet for used or cheap ones, but we ended up in the same dress shop her friends had all been to. I tried! For our generation it was jeans and a disco. Had to pay the remainder for DDs birthday present driving week too. Despite the dress and driving course expense, I was still able to make a large chunky OP for this month, long may it continue...

Lovely relaxing weekend ahead. Will do the usual batch cooking and make some slimming compatible banana/choc ice cream to snack on during the weekday evenings...still within my target range, but only just.

Have a great weekend all.

ElmoR xx

South_coast

Loving the imagery of you striding away from your workplace with your box of bits and the wind in your hair, while it explodes in a big fireball behind you 😀