New Year? What's New?

Well apart from the date? What else is new? I figure it will take more than the 24 hour change from one year to the next to make a significant difference in my life right now. I'm still settling into the newness that is my life at the moment with working and living in Leicester, I resisted the urge to make any New Year resolutions.

Change is good, but change takes getting used to and the process of that is sometimes not so good.

In the 2 weeks before Christmas, Tunji was in Nigeria so I played single-mum for a bit. It meant getting the train mid-week from Leicester at the end of the working day to get home for 6:30pm, playing with Kitan for a couple of hours before he went to bed, then catching the train out back to Leicester for 7am to get into work by 9am. I had to do that twice and this is apart from driving home on Friday and returning to Leicester Monday mornings. It was hard!

By the time it was Christmas, and Tunji was back, we just wanted to spend time together with our son for Christmas - none of the usual full house with my sisters, cousins and their families and friends, none of the usual Secret Santa present buying we do and no visiting of friends.

We did decorate the house with Kitan, we had a fully loaded Christmas tree with presents underneath, we had lights inside and outside the house and we had decorations from the ceiling and along the walls. We did it for the baby but it was nice actually, it made me smile anytime I walked back in through the door. Thank God for Tesco shopping online... my initial experiences with them years ago were horrible but now, they provide a stellar service and they saved the day for my Christmas shopping. I only had to pop in to pick up the duck we were having, everything else was delivered. Since I've been in Leicester, I use them every forthnight and so far so great!

After a nice, long, relaxing Christmas break, I was dreading returning to Leicester... the thought was giving me nightmares. I did not want to go back, bottom line, but I could not see anyway out of it.

I often act by how I feel rather than what is the right thing to do and it was a real test of the strength of my character to feel like not going but go anyway. I was proud of myself.

I got in on the 3rd of Jan, driving straight into work and as I suspected, no one had their act together and we faffed around the whole day. It was impossible for me to fall asleep that night as I had not been there for almost 2 weeks, the bed felt strange. I finally fell asleep at 2:30am and of course over slept the next morning, waking up at 9:10am - I'm supposed to be at work by 9am!! I finally got into work at 9:50am only to find out that the senior manager, Fran, had decided to have a 9am - 10am meeting with all the trainers and ofcourse I missed it. Oh well! That night, again, sleeping was a problem and I fell asleep at 2am. I got into work that Friday morning on time but I knew it was crucial I adjusted quickly to being back in Leicester because not only was I too tired for work during the day, I was too tired for the drive back to London that afternoon... but I drove anyway. Thank God for His mercies!

I was grumpy the first weekend back... biting everyone's head off. I guess I was back to my snatched moments at home and wanted to blame everyone for it but myself. A job opportunity then presented itself, doing something totally different, working for the church... but I'm not 100% sure it'll be the right move for me. For the moment they are prepared to wait until the end of my current contract and I can only see the benefits - flexible hours, more time lunching with friends and at home with Kitan, Spiritual growth, working 5 mins from home with the occassional international travel. It is also giving me an option - whether or not I take it - it means there is something at the end of the road after Leicester. I have options!