Life got busy since the last time I blogged.
I only had 2 books published and now I have 5 with a 6th coming soon. Though I thought by now, I would have 8 out. Again life was busy…
My day job nearly killed (stress and anxiety), but I made it through an extremely stressful position and lay-offs. I’m on the other side now, having not only kept my job, but got a better position at my company. This position is more aligned with my career future (at least at this company, if I win the lotto or suddenly can become a full-time writer… well that’s different) and a better fit with my skills set. My supervisor is also amazing. While I have had good ones in the past, she will be in my top 5 for sure.
With the job stress, my health didn’t do well plus you may not know this (ha, ha) but we were in the middle of a pandemic. As I catch EVERYTHING, I had to be extra careful. I rarely left the house and like many, I wore my mask, washed my hands more often, and used gobs of hand sanitizer. But it wasn’t covid that got me, it was my fibromyalgia was flaring more than usual with the stress and anxiety. I didn’t mind the lock down for that reason. I worked from home, hid from the world as best I could, and just tried to keep my heart from exploding with the terror of waiting. “Would I have a job?” “How would I find another?”
The job I was doing at the time was a HUGE part of my stress as well. It was high visibility with poor directions given, poor knowledge transfer/training when I started the position and just all around I felt set up to fail (indirectly, I don’t think anyone intentional wanted me to fail, it was just a perfect storm of mishaps that lead to me… failing). I received my poorest performance review in my life!!! I take responsibility for my poor attitude, and I’m not normally one to “play victim”, but when we were doing the knowledge transfer to the new team, I learned more during that than the ENTIRE year I had been doing the job. It was then that I realized how much they hadn’t told me about the process and how things were done. So, again, I take full responsiblity for my piece but I’m not the only one that has blame here.
But onward and upward from that job. Again, I’m in a new position with new opportunities and I have already had a mid-year performance review that was night and day to my last one and more inline with historic performance. I have hope!
Then my home life is busy with my 3 grandsons (and my daughter/their mother) here it is always interesting and I spend a lot of time with them, and helping her with the boys. There are times I don’t even remember what I did that day, but I’m exhausted. Life with boys.
Speaking of boys, my two have big things going on. My oldest graduated college and is now teaching 5th grade. I’m so very proud of him. He sounds so happy with his career choice. As someone who did a year of college towards getting my teaching degree AND always thought she would be a teacher (oh that’s me), I am so glad he has made this decision.
My youngest moved to live with his dad and has now enlisted in the US Air Force. He’ll leave for basic in a few months. Having gone through US Navy boot camp myself, I know (at least basically) what he is about to go through. I’m proud of him and hope he has as wonderful of an experience as I did serving in the military, but as his mom, I’m also nervous, anxious, and worried.
My daughter is also working in a job that sounds perfect for her. She is a kennel tech at our vet’s office. It’s a great place and she loves the work. I just hope it leads her to a career that she can support herself and her boys.
So that’s my update. I’m going to try to keep up with blogging my journey and process of writing. My goal is still to write full-time and this is just a step in that process.
As always thanks for your support! And whatever it is you are reading, enjoy!