Changes on the horizon

I have my fingers crossed that life will be changing shortly. Our Area Manager has been discussing the possibility of creating a Deputy Manager post at out store, which will mean one of our Assistant Managers will be promoted, meaning an AM post becoming empty. Neil, one of our current AM's asked me if I was interested so I said I was and he's passed my name on to the Area mnager. Another good thing is Pets at Home only employ AM's from current staff, so I just have to cross my fingers that no-one from another store fancies it.

If I do get promoted it will likely mean going back to full time hours, which means something has to give - which will be the piccies. I may well give them up, at least temporarily if this doesn't happen. I am finding it hard to fit everything in and it would be nice to come in from work and do what I want, rather than draw other people's pets. As I have been so busy with them, it's become a bit tedious over the last few months, so some time spent drawing what i want would be good. The more I think about it, the more it seems a good idea....

Just means I have to control my finances better - as the piccies are a valuable source of extra income.

The OU stuff needs more time too though and I do feel that is very important - possibly another future changing thing at a later date. I've submitted two assesements, both at the last minute and I'm about a week behind on the study, so less time drawing means more time studying. I'm enjoying the study and not finding the science concepts too difficult but still struggling on the Maths.

My budget hasn't been going well at all - it's only February and i've already failed. This month I must try harder, though it's going to be tough due to the state I got in last month!!

Not enough hours in the day

Oh my god, my life is manic! I do like being busy but at the moment it is a little too busy. I went ahead and signed up for an Open University course, S104: Exploring Science. It's only just started, the first book is on Global warming which is reasonably interesting but I was nearly floored at the first hurdle by Maths. I had to buy a Scientific calculator which was fine until I had to use it. I was there working out the mean average of a list of temperatures and it kept giving me the answers in fractions! Arrrgh. Eventually, after reading the instructions about 5 times and pressing all the buttons I found one that changed fractions to decimal places so that's ok now. I have also had to re-learn 'significant figures', 'units with prefixes' and 'numbers to the power of 10'. I haven't done any of this since GCSE's which I did the exams for 10 years ago this Summer. And realising that made me feel ancient as well. Oh, woe is me, lol.

I also have been working all day 3 out of 5 days at work for the last few weeks when my standard hours are only 2 out of 5. I could say no to the extras but I know what will happen - I'll say no, then when I do need the money they won't give me any extras. Normally this would be ok, but the pet portraits have gone mental and I am now booked up till the end of March which is unheard of for me in January.

All of this plus card-making, shopping, eating, cooking, dog walking, playing with & cleaning out rats and sleeping are keeping me very busy. When I'm very busy I write lists. I love lists. Well, actually, I love crossing items off of lists. I find I feel less panicky about getting everything done if I write a list then cross off what i've done - I then feel like I'm getting somewhere. I've not got to the writing lists stage yet though, so I'm still just about in control.