Best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

I have been planning for, and looking forward to a friend’s 40th birthday masquerade ball celebration for some months. I was going to have my dress made but couldn’t find the right material and then the dressmaker couldn’t do it in the time left. I HATE shopping for clothes and still can’t understand why all evening dresses are sleeveless (Courtney says it’s because they’d look disgusting with sleeves but I disagree) and think that this screenshot of the dress I wanted made is proof that some of us older, less than lean (read tuck shop lady arms) ladies, could still look lovely in something like this.

Anyway, I digress…
I finally found a dress and mask that were suitable and thought I was set until another spanner was thrown into the works.

Shift work is a social life killer. Did you know that?

We have a time bank system where you can work overtime to credit you with hours for time you want to take off but the problem is actually getting the overtime in the first place. Shift swaps with a very young workforce (as the service I work for is becoming saturated with) is almost impossible. So, I had planned to take the shift off on sick leave. I know some of you will say that it’s wrong to use sick leave if you aren’t sick but spare a thought for the burden of shift work and only knowing rosters 6 weeks in advance on people like me and the toll it takes on your mental health to never be able to commit to a social event (even my mum’s 80th birthday was a nightmare) that you really want to attend. Then you listen to all your friends recounting what a fabulous time they had and you are left out. I rarely ever do it so I figured this was a mental health day off for me.

Also, keep in mind that this is a fairly common practise where I work and we will often mention it to trusted colleagues so that they can put in for O/T if they know someone is going to be away. Unfortunately, one of my younger trusted colleagues didn’t realise that this was probably something that should be kept discreet and mentioned it to someone else. I don’t know the path from there but it has ended up that I am at risk of disciplinary action if I take the time off. The likelihood of a shift swap or timebank at this late stage is close to zip so, looks like I’ll miss out on yet another exciting event.

Luckily, I haven’t picked the dress up yet so I won’t be too much out of pocket.

My four days off this week have been spent looking at land and houses with Courtney. She has decided that it is time to enter the housing market if she ever has any hope of affording it. I really feel for the young ones of today. Housing in Australia, and particularly the capital cities is outrageously expensive. I’ve suffered with her as she became more and more frustrated at the ridiculous financial demands entering the market will cause. Still, she’s determined and she is focussed on her goal and I have no doubt she’ll get there.

We’ve also enjoyed the company of Bubba Jai for most of the weekend. He is such an entertaining little character, he makes my heart smile. Love him to bits.

Apart from a few glitches and frustrations, life has been motoring along pretty smoothly. I hope that it’s not the calm before the storm.

I’m at the point of considering entering the Australian Professional Photography Awards (APPAs) at the moment. I won a silver award last year but I haven’t been quite as focussed this year and don’t really think I have anything existing that would be worthy and wonder whether I have time to create something. Deadline is May 25th, so I’ll just have to wait and see.

Cheers

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