My Last 5 Years in a Nutshell

Welcome back to my blog, after what was a much longer hiatus than I intended – 5 years to be exact.

First of all let me address the elephant in the room: I am very aware that my last post was all about my blogging hiatus, why I took a break and how I hope to come back. That post was written in 2022 and I haven’t touched this blog since, oh the irony.

So, instead of writing more on what you already know, why I took a break and how I hope to come back, I thought I’d do something different and talk about what has happened in my life since I took a break. That might be more interesting – both to write, and for those of you who are reading this after not hearing from me for another three years.

So what has happened in my life since I took a break in August 2020?

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We bought our first house

Something I had worked so hard towards, saving for a deposit to buy our first house, was finally achieved. It was a dream for us for so long that I thought it was never going to happen, but we did it. 

We found a house that was the perfect location for us. It is far enough out of our town that it’s not too busy, or expensive, and the parking is free. The town we live in has very strict parking restrictions, and after living near the town centre for so long having to pay for parking permits, it was important that we could live somewhere we didn’t have to think about that. It is also not so far out that we couldn’t walk into town if we needed to, so it’s easy enough to have dinner and drinks without one of us needing to drive (which would be Will, because I don’t yet have a licence).

It also has a driveway, a low maintenance garden, three bedrooms, a toilet downstairs as well as upstairs bathroom, a utility room for the washing machine, and was ready to go without needing any decorating. It was the ‘baby bears porridge’ of houses. 

I may sound like I am trying to sell it to you right now, I promise I am not.

Having lived here nearly 4 years I can honestly say we made the right decision. This is the perfect house for us, and we are so lucky to have found it. It’ll be a very long time before we move out of it!

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We adopted a dog from Bosnia

Only a couple of weeks after moving into our new home I started looking for a rescue dog – assuming it would take a long time for us to find one and get approved. 

What actually happened was that we found a dog and got approved for him only about a month or two after moving. We moved into our house in April 2021 and Barney arrived in our lives in July 2021. I hadn’t intended it to be so fast, and I kind of blindsided Will with it, but neither of us would change it now. 

When Barney arrived he was so anxious that he completely shut down. He spent the first night with us hiding in one of our kitchen cupboards. The first few months of his life with us he spent going from the kitchen to the garden and back again, and was completely terrified of anything new outside of this. He didn’t like either of us being near him, so we spent a lot of time sitting and reading to him so he got used to our presence in a non-threatening way.

It has taken us a long old time to build trust with him, and work on counter conditioning with his anxiety, but he has come such a long way from the scared dog who constantly hid from us. He went from living in our kitchen, to living in our front room, to only being comfortable upstairs in our house, to now being happy to move around all rooms (upstairs and downstairs) as he pleases. The only place he doesn’t yet go is our garden, something scared him out there a long time ago and he’s never forgotten it. But watch this space because he is nearly there!

He’s a lovely, sweet and gentle boy. And while he will never be what you’d consider a ‘normal’ dog, we wouldn’t change him for the world. Our lives are better for having him.

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We got engaged, and married

Around the same time (yes everything happened in spring/summer 2021, it was a big year for us!) my now husband got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife. It was the easiest yes I have ever given. 

Along came all the wedding planning, and while it was a tiring and stressful process, I had a lot of support from amazing family and friends, and everything I ever dreamed of came together for the perfect wedding day. The weather even came through for us, a beautiful spring day!

One thing that was really important to me for my wedding day was to be able to create the decor myself, not just to save money but to make it more personal and special to us. Will’s dad made us the centre pieces, but everything else was made by me with the help of family and friends. 

It was exhausting, trying to do all of this around work, as it is very physical for the most part. I had to be careful not to burn out, so I could function enough to do it all. I am not sure I entirely got the balance right, but everything got done and it all looked amazing on the day. 

We have now been married nearly 2 years, and are loving every second of married life. It is also so nice to be able to reminisce about our day with our family and friends, as we have so many fond memories to look back on! 

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I got a new job, and then I got promoted

Around November 2021, yes more in 2021, I decided I needed a change. I wanted to try and pursue something that would give me more of a career, with clear progression. I loved the job I had, and it actually helped me a lot with getting into full time work properly, but I had grown tired of what I was doing. 

Essentially my job role was data entry, and there wasn’t much variance. There would potentially be a chance to be promoted but only if my manager left the company which I didn’t think would happen for a while, so I was stuck where I was for the foreseeable. 

I actually went in search of a role in HR, because I thought that was something I would be good at. Instead I ended up as a project coordinator for a company that helps to plan and execute medical market research. It is a really interesting job, as no two research projects are the same, and I got a chance to learn about all sorts of medical conditions and treatments I wasn’t previously aware of. 

It also makes me feel like I am making a difference – as we do a lot of research into helping improve treatments and outcomes for patients, which is really important. It’s nice to feel like I have a small role in that. 

It wasn’t long before the company I work for decided to make a change and restructure the teams, and a role as project manager became available. I figured it was a long shot, but I knew I would be good at the job and it was worth at least trying (I’d be no worse off if I wasn’t successful) – so I went for it and miraculously was selected for the promotion. 

I have now been a project manager for nearly two years and I absolutely love it. Not only do I get to liaise more directly with clients on projects and develop good working relationships with them, as well as ensure all the projects we run are successful, but I have a hand in training new people who come on board and helping them grow in their roles, which is something else I really love.

The irony is, this job doesn’t actually have any clear progression from here, again my manager would have to leave for there to be a role for me to progress to. But that doesn’t really bother me this time around. Unlike my previous role, every single project is different so there is no real monotony. I still love my job as much as I used to, and while I am not perfect I do feel for the most part that it is something I am good at. 

It has brought real meaning and purpose into my life, and for that I am grateful.

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I reduced my work hours

Despite how much I love the work I do, something I have had to slowly come to terms with is that working full time is not for me. 

I was finding that all of my precious limited energy was going on work, and as a result I was unable to have any kind of life outside it. If I did anything social, or particularly exerting, outside of my work hours I was crashing and breaking down. This was particularly evident during our busy periods when I was needing to take breaks and have sick days just to be able to recover, which was not fair to the rest of the team. 

I am very fortunate to have an employer that is understanding when it comes to chronic illness, and mental health, who were willing to work with me to find a solution. I could not be more grateful for that – there are so many people who don’t have that when they really need it. After many discussions with my manager we decided to reduce my hours down to 4 and a half days a week, with Wednesday afternoons off, to allow me to recharge mid week. 

This was a great start, but when our next busy period hit it became apparent that this wasn’t enough. I was still completely burnt out, and unable to do anything on the evenings or weekends without suffering for it. It was at that point that we decided to trial me working a 4 day week, to see how this impacted both me and the team I work with. 

I won’t lie, I didn’t expect it to have this much of an impact, but now with Mondays off and three day weekends every week, my life has become so much more manageable. I have enough time to rest, and have a bit more of a social life, and feel more on my game when it comes to work. It isn’t without its difficulties but it was definitely the right decision. I actually think that 4 day work weeks should be the norm, and will advocate that until I am out of breath, but for me it was the perfect solution. 

I’ve been doing this for about 6 months now, and have seen a real improvement. Which may well be why I feel ready to come back to writing after all this time!

And there you have it – my last 4-5 years summed up in a longer-than-I-planned nutshell. 

I may do longer blog posts one day on the individual points included in this post, but that is all I could manage for now without completely over-doing it.

Hopefully this will be the start of my official come-back to blogging, but life is so unpredictable so I make no promises! Just watch this space!