Winding down

Every year we find ourselves lamenting how fast the year has passed. How it seemed liked yesterday that we ushered into the New Year. For me, I'm just glad we'll be in September in a couple of days. The past months has had its share of excitement, moments of anxiety and fear mixed with days of contentment, peace and thankfulness. Its like a whole multitude of different feelings all concocted together. It's hard to explain.

While coping with all that emotions not forgetting all that hormonal changes taking place, I had to make sure I continued giving my best at work. The last thing I wanted my colleagues to say was that I wasn't doing my job well just because of my pregnancy. It was the perfectionist in me at work - not always a good thing. I'm thankful that I pulled through. August and the months leading up to it was just crazy with a $24 million budget to defend for and a mega career fair to handle. At some point, with all that stress, I was so afraid I was going into preterm labour! I had to constantly remind myself of what my sister said - that some stress is OK for baby!

With the toughest months at work now behind me, I can finally breathe. I'm determined to take September easy preparing my hand-over to my colleague who'll be taking over my portfolio and generally just not freaking out over work. Our EDD is end October but with quite a fair bit of leave to clear, I'll be pretty much staying home for the entire month waiting for Baby J's appointed hour. By God's perfect timing, the management decided too that it was time for my next internal posting so I won't be coming back to my current division after I return from maternity leave. That helps a deal knowing that at least I don't have to spend my 4 months of maternity fretting over the mountain of work to catch up on when go back to work!

So as Baby J approaches 32 weeks in a couple of days, Mama too is starting to wind down at work. I'm so looking forward to my 4 months of leave and even more excited knowing that I'll be spending it with our precious little pumpkin!

By His Grace

By His Grace a photo by pz.sher on Flickr.

The past nine months at work has been nothing short of challenging. An entirely new job role on top of staff management stretched me beyond what was expected of my current grade.

By His strength and wisdom, I rose up to the challenge. In my weakness, God was glorified.

Not that I don't have to work hard anymore now that I received the recognition but I do hope to slow down a little this year. There's a season for everything and I'm just off to search for that new season.

Praise God!

Time Out

For the first time in the week, I got to knock off before the sun set yesterday. It was a rough week at work. I don't recall Januarys being this busy. What happen to 'people still on holiday mood' or the 'pre CNY mood aka no mood to work'? Started the week being told by the boss that I now have to take on a new sector - Finance. And as if Early Childhood and Finance aren't different enough sectors, the personality differences among my staff are now even more diverse. Help me God.

So to make up for a lousy week at work (and to make me feel better about having to work the next day, yes a Saturday - for the 3rd time this month), the sweet hubs brought me on some retail therapy. With CNY round the corner, no better reason than to be pampered with a new wardrobe. I'm loving the new line of clothes at Tangs - simple and structured design, no prints just great colours! Simple was the order after the day after splurging on my Shanghai Tang cheongsam last year. So I picked up a simple coral-coloured dress for the New Year and a sapphire-blue dress for work. The little sis gets a cute cheongsam blouse embellished with little buttons - perfect for the more casual 2nd day of the CNY. Of course, no CNY is complete without new shoes! Ditched the 4" this year for a humble 1" blue sandal - a perfect match to my coral dress! With the dresses in order, my CNY is finally on its way to coming together! Cookies collection next week - looking forward to my kueh bangkit!!

Another rough week awaits me ahead. I just need to get through next week where I have two very important meetings scheduled before I can take a breather at least to enjoy my CNY. I sometimes wish work was more forgiving - life would be alot better that way.

Hello LA!!

... 6 months later, I'm back again. This time to Anaheim specifically where's its Mickey overload. But we managed to take in some sights of LA over the weekend at the Farmer's Market which I visited 2 years ago and to Santa Monica Boulevard over our long lunch yesterday.

I'm here for work and just so that I don't end up spending a lonely birthday and wedding anniversary, the wonderful hubs decided to come along with me. He's more than happy to be sleeping in till 11am, lazing around with his SLR, hunting down In-and-Out burger joints and enjoying his can of beer while I'm at the NAEYC conference.

Its been really warm here in LA. This has got to be my warmest US trip ever! Its hitting 32degC everyday only dipping down to mid 10s in the evening. We're having a good time here taking it as part work, part holiday. I've never been a huge fan of this city though. I've been here 3 times in the past 2 years - all for work - and somehow haven't grown to love it much. The traffic is bad, the people ain't particularly friendly (even the cast members at Disney didn't make me feel I was in the happiest place on earth) and the food nothing to shout about. I much prefer San Francisco.

But its a good break for both of us nonetheless. The past few months at work has been challenging and we needed to get away albeit partially and I'm thankful all the same. It also helps that the conference is just across from my hotel so I can just pop back into the room during those 30 mins break - makes work a little more bearable!

So looking forward to the weekends! We'll be heading to Beverly Hills on my birthday and spending Sunday at Universal Studios before heading home on Monday - I'm missing my sambal blechan!

Enough is enough ....

Imagine slogging 11, 12 hours everyday in the office where there are no tea breaks and when lunch means eating out of a plastic box while cleaning up other people's crap work.

Now imagine your team mate, blatantly skiving, going for morning tea breaks, long lunches and shutting down his laptop at 3pm and disappearing for the rest of the afternoon.

I had enough and finally plucked up the courage to report this to my boss.

I've worked a good 8 years and have never told tales. This is a case gone too far.

Enough is enough.

High Risk

If the article from yesterday's edition of Mind You Body is anything to go by, I'm said to have 60% higher risk of suffering from heart disease if I continue working at this rate!

gwork

Imagine ....

• having your employer make a donation to a charity of your choice each time you choose to cycle to work
• enjoying free buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner and we're talking good food from pizzas to naans to a full salad bar, grills, chinese pork in 2 sauces, aglio olio. Odwalla juices and organic cookies
• having a pantry in every division of the company with free flow of cereal, coffee, smoothies, chips, M&Ms, candies
• getting 1 day of the work week off to do anything totally unrelated to your area of work - the gmail was invented as a result of this initiative!
• bringing your dogs to work
• having a workstation done up anyway you like it even if it means building an inflatable tent around it
• playing volleyball with your team at 11am in the morning on the sand pitch and hearing your boss say - 'they're having a meeting, its collaboration at work!'
• doing some stationary swimming over lunch - think small shallow pool and you're swimming against a strong current aka swimming on the spot!

Cool enough? You can start sending your resume to Google!