Pity Party & Sabotage

I’m now on day 8 of Belles 100 Day Challenge. I feel amazing but it’s not been all plain sailing.

Friday* nights are hard for me without booze.  Crazy Cat Boy and I traditionally kick off the shoes and zone out with a bottle (who’m I kidding – two bottles), watch crap TV and chat.  The first bottle is gone before dinner giving us a nice buzz and the right air of irresponsibility to crack on with the second, regardless of what Saturday is supposed to look like.

Last Friday I sulked, watered the garden and generally mooched around the house doing random tasks before slinking off to watch TV in a separate room all by myself and have a bit of a pity party… you see Saturday was my birthday and all week CCB had been making references to nice bottles of champagne with me correcting him about my “challenge”.  I think this is the first birthday I’ve done completely sober. I felt sorry for myself but I made it through.

I know CCB loves me but he’s also very good at subconsciously trying to sabotage me.  Saturday he pulled out the verjuice to cook dinner with but then went to the shop and came back with a bottle of white to cook with instead.  Now this was no ordinary we’ll chuck it in the slow cooked lamb wine, it was very nice, local drop that we quite enjoy.  The recipe only calls for 1/2 a cup and once he’d put it back in the fridge (that’s right, he bought a COLD  bottle to “cook” with!  Yeah right.) I deliberately hid it in the very back of the fridge (it’s on the bottom shelf if you are looking for it  😉  ) so it would be out of my line of sight.  That does help me, often if I cant see something I’ll forget it’s there.  I know he was disappointed that I didn’t crack and have a glass, but I’m feeling so much better for it.

I know that I can do this 100 days but I’m sure there’ll be a few more pity parties along the way.

 

*I’m telling myself only 11 more Fridays to go, counting them down helps right???!!

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Challenge Accepted!

One of my fav TV characters of all times is Barney Stinson from HIMYM (How I Met Your Mother), his catch cry of “Challenge Accepted” always makes me smile, usually because it was attached to something that was never meant to be a challenge.

Well for the next 100 days “Challenge Accepted”* is going to be my catch cry as I take on Belles 100 Day Challenge – no booze until August 1st this year.

Crazy Cat Boy is concerned that this means “no drinking on your birthday” and I’m ok with that.  The next three months possibly could be make or break with me and what I do in my professional life for the next eight years that I plan on being full time.  I need all the focus and energy that I can muster up to make these next moves, and wine needs to be off the table to get me there.  I’ll check in with my progress regularly and I know I can get there, as of today it’s a 97 day challenge as I’ve already done 3 sober days.

What will be the challenge you accept?

*Ironically Barney usually uttered those words in a bar, beer in hand!

Apparently I’m Irrelevant…

I was informed very politely and diplomatically, but apparently at the ripe old age of 47 with close to 20 years’ experience in my field I’ve become irrelevant.  Nice hey?

All because I don’t have one skill set – data analysis… I don’t have it because my organisation doesn’t do it, pure and simple.

So, who told me this?  A recruitment consultant.  Yep, I finally got off my arse and did something about the fact that I’m becoming unhappy to go along with my increasing frustration at work.

Apparently, I don’t fit in a box, something that I’m kind of proud of truth be told.  10 years ago you had to be a marketing generalist here in Australia but over the last 5 years that has shifted and specialisation, especially in the data and analytics field has become the norm.  Apparently I’d be the “outsider” if they put me in a room with other candidates.

This is one guys opinion, I hold another entirely.  Opportunity abounds in my city, hell, the world should be my oyster.  Now I need to implement some different strategies to land myself that new job…

• Demonstrate my understanding of data driven ROI’s
• Undertake training
• Learn the actual skill set in my existing role, hard to do but achievable
• Find an agency that doesn’t want to put me in a box

I knew moving on after 10 years wouldn’t be easy and my age could possibly be against me as well.  In fact the words “decade” and “ten” were used extensively in my meeting with this guy, and not by me.

Hell, I’ll tell you how age paranoid I was shall I?  I decided that I needed to hide my old, white, veiny legs, so in the lead up to the face to face meeting I began putting that gradual build up leg tan on.  It smells horrible and here’s the kicker where you learn from my experience, still won’t cover those blue veins ladies and gentlemen!  LOL

I also had the worst haircut of my life the day before to seem “on trend”, not to mention the new clothes.

I’ll keep you updated on how a washed up middle aged crazy cat lady goes in her search to write a new chapter!