How my BB saved my bacon…

Being a mom to a new born is hard work.  The sleep deprivation you experience is special.  And not in a shiny way.  It can actually make you a little bit crazy. 

I remember thinking in those first few early days that this caring for a baby thing wasn’t quite as hard as I had thought it would be.  Those were the days (four days exactly) when Kade actually thought it was a good idea to sleep during the day and the night… Then he hit his “lets be awake for much of the day” stride and I was thrown into the tornado full blast.  Add to that the fact that he was a hungry little chap and at one stage was cluster feeding every 45 minutes for 7 days… Lets just suffice it to say that I was a blathering, red eyed wreck.

He was still everything I’d ever wanted, but I knew things were bad when I started hearing him cry in the calls of the hadeda’s and when I did manage to sleep I would dream I had misplaced him or would jump up half gevrek to check if I had actually put him back in his cot.  I’d often hear him crying in my dreams and shoot out of bed only for Cliff to gently tell me he was actually sleeping and that I needed to get back into bed…

It was at this time that my BlackBerry saved my bacon.  My lifeline to twitter and News24 it kept me sane while I was feeding at 00h00, 02h00 and 04h00 in the morning when all I wanted to do was freefall over the edge of wakefulness with my child still sucking merrily away at my chest.  I have never felt so connected with my American twitter pals – for once we were awake at the same time and I knew what was going on in their lives when it happened not a day or two later.  They gave me awesome breastfeeding advice and tips and kept me sane for the most part…  Iwas on the pulse of the news – in fact I would get despondant when News24 didnt’ refresh as often as I was feeding…

For most people their BlackBerry’s are their smart phones.  Their lifeline to work and email and their communication tool.  But for me, my BlackBerry is more than that.  It’s my friend that literally saved my bacon on more than one occassion…

If I could give any new mom one piece of advice, it would be this… Always ensure your BlackBerry is charged, use it to keep you connected to people in the real world outside of the eat, burp, change nappy, poop, sleep cycle of your new life. 

You never know, your smart phone could save your bacon!

Amazing Grace!

Life has certainly been very interesting the last three weeks.  It’s no secret my place of employment was not ideal.  That after four months of unpaid maternity leave I was not very keen to go back there, but I did becasue the reality is that we are not in the position at this stage to be a one income household.

I went back with a heavy heart, not entirely just because i was leaving Kade at home.  Because I just didn’t love working there anymore.  I was tired of the unethical behaviour.  Of the backstabbing, the lying, the cheating of our clients, the bullish behaviour of our directors.  But while I was back, I did my job.  I fought as hard as I could for my staff, I took control of my division again and got it back on track.   But if I’m honest, I was merely going through the motions.  I was just getting a job done.  I was demotivated and not interested.  And the more my bosses revealed their true nature to me, the more disinterested I became.

I became blase about my job.  And three weeks ago, I made a mistake.  I sent an email to the wrong person.  That email was not supposed to be seen by the person who got it.  It caused an upraor amongst my bosses and my client.  I was told that I was going to be taken to a disciplinary enquiry and was most likely going to be dismissed.  Unless “I did the right thing”.  I was told that I needed to to be hirable again and that a dismissal would make that challenging.  Again, those words “do the right thing”.

I resigned.  With no job lined up and no savings in the bank.  I resigned. 

Anyone else would have felt a surge of panic, but I felt calm and controlled.  I had in me the peace that surpasses human understanding.  I just knew that everything was going to be ok.  That I had nothing to worry about.  That God HAD this.

The next day I told my team that I had resigned that that I was leaving in 2 days time.  They were really upset and couldn’t understand what was going on.  That same day, Cliff logged onto a career website and sent me an advert for what sounded like a great job.  That same day, a girl Iworked with gave me details for her employment agency that she’d been dealing with who had a job that they were looking to place for.  That same day I logged onto a different career website and matched my resume with a job.  All three the same job.

I saw the agent on a Friday.  The following Wednesday I went for my first interview.  The next Friday I went for my second interview, and today I signed my contract of employment.

Everything so amazingling lined up and perfectly slotted into place.

That peace that I felt in my heart?  That was God telling me He had something better for me.  I will start my new job on the 01.03.2012 – I get to spend some more quality time with my boy (getting to see him crawl for the first time FORWARDS was amazing!), I get to have a bit of a holiday and soon I start my great new job earning a substantial amount more than I was at my old job.

God is so good – all the while He was working in the background, laying the path to my new career.

What amazing grace!

Valentines Day

It’s that day of the year – the day when it’s a great day to have shares in red roses, chocolate fairies skip gleefully around their chocolate factories cos sales sky rocket and everyone (except Cupid grinches) walk around with stars in their eyes and glitter filled hearts shooting out their butts hoping for that romantic display of love to come their way…

I’ve never been much of a Valentines day kind of person myself.  I am generally “bah humbugish” about it all.  A bit of a Cupid grinch if you will.  I don’t believe that one should have to have a special day of the year dedicated to showing people that you love them.  I believe that love is actually all around and that one should show those you love that you love them and how much you love them at every opportunity you can, cos lets face it, life is just too damn short to not grab every moment you can for love… 

Also Valentines day can put a HUGE dent in ones pockets.  Have you seen how expensive chocolate becomes at this time of year?  And don’t get me started on the 200% margin on red roses…

That said I woke up this morning with some pretty serious glitter hearts shooting  out my butt.  Cos you know what?  I am surrounded with LOVE. 

My awesome (well most of the time anyway, sometimes he can be a pain in the butt) husband, my gorgeous son, my hairy hounds, my amazing family, my kind and generous friends… My life is filled with love.  And whilst I take stock daily to be thankful for the ulitmate blessing of love that I have in my life, today I’ve decided that a few shooting glitter hearts and stars in my eyes might not be such a bad thing after all…

So dear friends in the computer, whether you buy into it or not, here’s me glitter hearts and all wishing you all the most amazing Valentines Day yet…

Cos lets face it.  Life without love? Just ain’t no life at all.