Good Bye & Good Riddance

I for one am happy to see the back of 2008. It has been a difficult year in this household & I've had enough.

In January I had an appraisal at work. I had exceeded my sales target by 214% so expected a pat on the back but instead got a total b*llocking for something very minor indeed. I nearly walked out there and then. I started looking for another job.

In February DD went skiing in Austria with her school & hurt her knee. She couldn't play football or swim for ages but went back to swimming. She's only just recovered from her injury nearly a year later. She has stopped the football.

At the same time as this Blue was in & out of the vets. I waited for DD to get home before we had her put to sleep She was 7 years old.

Not long after that we got Oscar & things started to get back to normal, albeit with a puppy.

In May I got really sick. So sick that I had to put both dogs into kennels for 10 days.

Fast forward to July. I handed my notice in after enduring bullying for over 4 years & had found a job locally. I took two weeks unpaid holiday in between jobs to cover part of DD's summer holiday. At the beginning of this time I had a nasty experience. I didn't mention it here as the police were involved. A police caution was issued and that's that.

Then 10 days later I got ill again

So I was in between jobs with a 2 week sick note due to the stomach surgery. I couldn't afford to be off work for 4 weeks (2 already taken as holiday) so started my new job a week later than originally planned and one week after surgery. I was in pain but didn't need to walk far or lift so managed with lots of pain killers.

6 weeks into my new job and it was announced that the company was to be sold. I was furious as I had left a job where I had been for over 4 years and now had no security so I started looking for another job. It went down hill from there.

Once the sale went through we had a 'pure survival meeting' and were basically told that if sales didn't pick up we'd all be out. Plus I was in an 'internal room' without any daylight and found that very hard. My line manager was now the site manager and turned into a little Hitler shouting at everyone including me.

The new company name was p8rnographic and I had a problem with it. I was finding the whole situation VERY stressful and with DH's support resigned at the beginning of December.

Then DH got sick and a few days after he came home from hospital we had to say Good Bye to Pam.

Yesterday just two days left of 2008 I had to take Annie to the vets as she was passing blood. She is still there as she has severe von Willebrands Disease. Today the news was better & hopefully she'll be home soon.

The good news is that apart from everything that happened above we're all ok. My weight loss has reached over 4 stone and I want to reach my target weight in 2009. I feel like a new woman and am running regularly with Oscar.

So in 2009 I'm hoping that we won't lose any pets. That none of us will get seriously ill & that I get sorted with a job soon. I have an exciting opportunity that will hopefully mean that the latter is sorted but I won't know for a few months.

I also intend to lots of knitting mainly for me