The Week in Review #14

It was a short week. Maybe I should rephrase that. It was a short working week. We had an extended Easter break at work, so I returned on Wednesday and still felt like I worked a full week. I've had way too many late nights and consequently not enough sleep. Yes, it has taken its toll. Just call me The Grumpus! Lol. All in all, it was a good week. Here's a recap:

• The weather has been utterly pantsola of late. The week I was bed-ridden with the 'flu, there was blue sky and blazing sunshine that was unable to enjoy and I had to block out just so I could sleep. Typically, a bank holiday weekend arrives and what happens? Rain and never-ending grey sky. I just couldn't get motivated. The utter dullness of the atmosphere made me want to crawl straight back into bed and stay there. On Sunday, the sun magically appeared at about 5pm and brought my motivation with it. I ended up vacuuming the entire house! Shocking, I know. See what a bit of sunshine can do??!
  
  
• I actually got around to putting some stuff for sale on eBay and made quite a few pennies. However, my original plan of selling stuff and putting the profits towards a holiday seemed to fade as my eBay fever grew. I ended up buying about as much stuff as I'd sold and sort of defeated the object of selling stuff. But at least now I have some stuff I actually want, rather than having unwanted things taking up unneccessary space. Or so I tell myself.

• I cut my ex out of my life. I don't want to explain the details here, but a couple of events that occurred over the weekend made it crystal clear that having him in my life is just not healthy. For either of us. It was sad and quite difficult, but to be honest, it has been a huge relief. I've felt guilty, anxious and a little upset, but I know that's just a temporary part of the grieving process. I know deep down it is absolutely the right thing for us both and I am not going to take any further responsibility for dealing with his difficulty in accepting that. I've done all I can and he's just not my problem any more. *Sigh*
  
  
• My poor work colleague was off work on Wednesday with terrible unidentifiable pelvic pains. She'd been to A&E over the weekend because of them. When she came in looking rather pale and in pain on Thursday, I suggested she might want to go back home. I received messages from her mum on Thursday evening and Friday morning saying she's been admitted to hospital and might have to have an operation. The poor love. I'm worried about her. I do hope she's ok. :o(
  
  
• This week I realised that sometimes, you should lower others' expectations of you or your abilities, for your own sanity if nothing else.
  
  
• I shared some information with my Boy that I had been dreading to. It was an awkward conversation, but the awkwardness was brief and it was a relief to get things of my chest. I think we're closer as a result. Sometimes the truth hurts, but the truth will set you free. His understanding and mature reaction to what I had to say is one of the many reasons I love and respect him.
  
  
• On the way home from work on Wednesday, I walked right past the singer James Morrison at Victoria station. He was walking towards me with a companion and looked completely unassuming, so no-one really noticed him. I recognised him immediately and he caught me looking at him, so I smiled and he smiled back. I texted Lolly: "I just totally walked past and smiled at James Morrison at Victoria station! The end." 30 seconds later, she texted back: "Er...I'm at Victoria station. I didn't see him!" Laughing, we tracked each other down and ended up going for a quick drink at Starbucks (she took pity on my broke ass and treated me). We had reduced each other to hysteria within 5 minutes and were laughing uncontrollably in the way only we do. We had a good old natter and I was home in time for The Apprentice. Paula Jones was fired. I was very disappointed about that, she didn't deserve to go. Especially because she has such fantastic hair, lol. (This pic does not do it justice.)
  
  
• Thursday evening, I went for dinner with Bigger Sis and had a fantastic time. We let off lots of steam, she gave me lots of fantastic advice as usual, and I learnt a little bit more about what makes her tick. It's a weird but quite nice adjustment now I'm getting older and can talk to her more on a level. We had great fun, great food (Turkish, if you're interested, lol), great conversation and fresh mint tea to end it all (I drank it, she ate all the leaves once I'd finished, lol).
  
  
• I made some progress with getting the recognition for my months of working above and beyond my job's responsibilities. Not massive progress, but I've made some enquiries with the necessary people, made use of the sound advice Bigger Sis gave me and have good support from my manager. But what will become of it its yet to be seen. But at least the ball is rolling.
  
  
• I had a surprisingly quiet week at work. There is always lots to be getting on with and I was still busy in many ways, but for now it seems people are still in Easter holiday mode. It makes a change to not feel the panic of impending deadlines, at least temporarily. It's also nice not having an over-abundance of emails to deal with, while being interrupted every half an hour by a phone call or a student at the counter. Watch out, next week will probably have me back in manic mode. Can't wait. Hmm.
  
  
• On the way home to the rents' on Friday, I got caught in the rain. I'm not a fan of umbrellas, but I wore my hooded coat and assured myself that would be sufficient. I had not anticipated having to wait 30 minutes for a bus at a bus-stop without a shelter, in increasingly heavy rain, while cars whizzed past spraying up water from the increasingly wet road. I started to get the shivers and was sodden and miserable by the time the bus arrived. I had to stop myself shouting "FINALLY!" at the driver when it finally arrived. I arrived home with my coat soaked through to my clothes underneath, but was greeted by my Dad with a hot cup of tea waiting on the table. Between that and a quick chat with my Boy, the grumpiness had subsided in about 15 minutes.
  
  
• I stayed up later than I should for the third night in a row. I ended up talking for a good while with my Mum on Friday night, as we did the previous Friday. I love talking to my Mum. Sometimes I don't really think about it, but I really do appreciate that we can have a good old conversation about things. I could probably have done with an early night, but I wouldn't trade these conversations for anything.
  

'Twas not a bad week really. I really need to blog more often, instead of having random bursts of writing energy and coming up with an essay once a week or fortnight. I've been on an unintentional blog hiatus lately. I just haven't found the time or energy and my Google reader currently has 299 unread items. Eek. Granted, many of those items are daily photography blogs that won't take much reading, but if I put it off any longer, I'll need to take a week off work just to catch up! So take this as my apology for not keeping up with y'all and what's going on with you (even though half the bloggers I follow don't even know about it. I'm a lurker mostly, lol).

I'm hoping you all had a good week, one way or the other. It's the weekend! Hurrah! Yippee! Woo hoo! Any other exclamations that you might fancy! Hope you have fun, whatever you get up to.