I ain't dead. honest.. I'm just too busy to blog. yes I know that's heresy but honestly - I'm fighting a battle to get someone hired to help me out. No one does what I do and my manager wants me to gather evidence for my heavy workload.
In other words, another job to do on top of what I already do. It's only me providing admin for a project that has exploded to several times its original size and the processes required are more complex and paperwork per person has tripled.
My manager wants me to keep a note of my overtime (like the 7pm I stayed until and the 6pm regulars) but frankly I don't WANT to do overtime. It's not that I have a gorgeous landlord to rush home to (ok, it's partly that) I also have a degree to do dammit! I used to be two weeks ahead of my OU schedule and now I'm one week behind. I get home so upset and so frazzled I have to decompress and once I have, it's bedtime.
I had a week off work last week (cycling holiday, will tell more when I have the time) and to be honest the stress of being back with the backlog is actually no worse than the day to day firefighting I've been doing for months anyway, but that might be because I'm not looking at mroe work than I can take, so I haven't even read my emails yet, as I have plenty of other things to do already without loading even more into my lap.
That week of cycling was topped off with two days at home doing nothing but cooking and OU (and a bit of cleaning but not more than I felt like) and it was WONDERFUL. I cooked for nearly 4 hours yesterday. and I don't mean I spent 30 minutes preparing something and then put it in the oven for 3.5 hours, I mean I was chopping, dicing, grating, blending, boiling, frying, washing up, chopping, blending, soaking, washing, boiling, slicing, measuring, chopping, stirring, grilling, washing up, blending, stirring, frying for three hours. I didn't sit down until I'd put the rice on right at the end. I made about five different curry pastes, two for two types of steamed fish, one for grilled chicken, two beef curries, a cucumber dish, a chilli dip, a soy sauce dip, deep fried prawns in batter, prawn crackers and plain, yes PLAIN rice because I couldn't face any more chopping of ginger, slicing of chillies or grating of nutmeg. The cooking was stressful at times but in an entirely manageable way, unlike my office job.
When we'd finished, Gorgeous Landlord asked a bit gingerly: "it's not a special anniversary or anything, is it?" panicking that I'd gone to huge effort and he might be walking into a trap.
no, the celebration is being away from work that's dragging me down and having the freedom to create in the kitchen.
Strawberries with blueberries and whipped cream to finish.
I wish I could quit my job.
