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Time for reflection

Blink and it's Sunday evening again. Where did the week go, and more to the point where has this year gone? I was reflecting on 2014 yesterday. It's been a year of so much change. Starting with all that uncertainty of what might happen work wise, the stress of finding a new job, selecting the right job, balanced by the amazing opportunity to have 4 months of freedom from commuting, being in an office and being governed by a working week. I have so many highlights from that time - spending time in our new house, Glenn and I spending lots of time together, and in particular riding Mount Ventoux, being able to cycle and swim everyday, walking twice a day with Scoobs and of course being able to spend more time with Abi and Izzy. Also the creative challenge of planning our house, the satisfaction of making decisions and getting it all sorted, seeing it all completed within a year of moving in. Being able to do it in one go has resulted in a much better, more cohesive finish than we could ever have achieved doing it in stages. I guess the moral of that one is that often it is worth waiting until you can do the whole rather than just part....but we are not patient people so how lovely to have not had to wait! Then the craziness of a new job, new people and new ways of working. I'm happy to say that 4 months in I'm making a very positive impact and it's going really well. I've let go of the angst of 'is this the right job forever??' I'm just satisfied that it's the right job for now. There's so much I can contribute, as well as so much to learn, a good balance. I'm also managing to set pretty good boundaries around how I work and I make it home in time to see the girls 4 nights out of 5 most weeks - not bad all considering the job and the commute. Time will tell but if I think about how much uncertainty we had this time last year, we couldn't really have asked to have made so much progress,
to be so settled, so happy, in such a short time.

One of my big learnings out of the front end of this year was that downtime is not just nice, it's needed. Once upon a time I struggled to just mooch around at the weekends, getting wound up if I'd not got out on my bike or to the gym. Now that's still good but it's not the defining factor of my weekend. Today Izzy trooped into our room at 7.30am (second day in a row she's been first up - very unusual), then trooped out again to go downstairs to watch something on her ipad (very Izzy!). I got up and walked Scooby and then we hung out in the house doing a bit of drawing and painting, chatting on the phone to mum, all very low key but perfect to recharge. I've learnt to be kinder to myself. If you fill every moment time goes even faster, so allowing things to slow down at the weekend has multiple benefits. Time wasted is not always wasted time. Glad it's only taken me 41 years to understand this...

The big excitement this week is Abi's birthday. We went to bed on Thursday to find she'd written out daily post it notes and stuck them onto her bed so she can take one off each day until we get to the magic moment. Back to each person's personal perception of time. When you're nearly eight a week feels like a lifetime. 30+ years later and it passes in a flash. As Roald Dhal (currently the girls favourite author) wrote in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: "We have so much time and so little to do. Strike that, reverse it."

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