Well, the last few weeks have gone by in a blur! The vast majority of my time has been taken up by work. I alluded to a restructure in a recent post, and to give a little more detail, I was told in February (2 weeks after we returned from Melbourne) that the company I work for was looking at outsourcing our department. Now, to be fair, we thought a restructure was about to happen (and some of us hoped for it) because of recent changes in the company, but no one quite expected this.The whole affair has been handled quite horrifically, with no communication, time frames being pushed out by months and various other things. Just before leaving for the Gold Coast in May, we were told that the decision had been made to not outsource, but a restructure would absolutely happen. From May until August, we were kept in the dark about what was going on, and in August they announced the new structure. During these months I was also told first that I was now permanent in my seconded role, then a month later than HR wouldn't sign it off for 'reasons they couldn't disclose' and I was back to being seconded.
So the announcement came; the whole thing was a colour coded jumble, but essentially if you were in a red box, you were safe. I luckily had a red box in both my previous and seconded position which meant that I still had a job, just which one was the question! Then they threw the biggest curveball for me, which was that my old manager (I've talked about her a few times, but think micro managing, passive agressive maniac and you get the point) would be the acting manager for my old role, rather than Paul (think best manager ever) who had been my boss when I was seconded out. This made it more important to me than ever that I work my butt off to get a permanent position in my current team.
6 weeks ago my boss told me that unfortunately under the new structure, I would have to go through the full job application process in order to keep my role (which is what I was expecting so it wasn't a surprise). 4 weeks ago, the role was advertised, so these last 4 weeks have seen me putting all my concentration into writing one heck of a CV and application, interviews etc. etc. I'm now glad to say that I've been offered the job permanently! So after 9 months of worrying whether I'd have a job, I finally can stop worrying!
2 weeks ago, we did a big shuffle around our building and we've been shifted down to a terribly depressing area, so I've been keenly finding ways to make my 'concrete cubical' (I've never worked in a cubical before, always open plan) less grey. 2 peace lillies and some photos of broadbeach later, and I'm starting to get somewhere.
Anyway, on to the happy stuff. I've not done any sewing since the boxers, but I have made a lot of progress on the sewing room. Tomorrow I'm getting a 2m skip delivered to clear out all the stuff which can't be kept, sold or recycled, so by Monday I'm expecting to be done with the clearing out phase! Yipee!!
I had my second round of torture (photorejuvenation) which while still painful, does seem to be working. I have at least 3 more sessions to go! I'm loving the Dr hauschka products now that I'm using them properly, and have also switched to Jane Iredale mineral makeup, which is also making a difference.
I've also managed to get some baking done, although I was forced into it a little by the fact we had a bake off! I made a Hawaiian Macadamia cake which took out second place (to an unbaked apricot slice, which I have to say was yummy). The picture above shows the yummy crumbly remains of the cake! I tried a slightly different recipe for my cream cheese icing, and I'll be honest, it was no so nice, so next time I'm going with my infamous white chocolate cream cheese icing. Also, I'm going to replace the vegetable oil with coconut oil, and pump up the spices, as the recommended amount just wasn't enough. I actually made two cakes, one for home (because I'd never tried the recipe) and one for work. I had a really strange experience with the baking, with the first cake taking 20 mins less than the recommended baking time, and the second cake taking 5 minutes more, so there's some tweaking to be done with this recipe for sure!
Lastly for today, I'm getting a breadmaker soon (just waiting for it to be delivered to the store). I love making my own bread, but sometimes I don't have the time to do it by hand; for the last 4 years I've been wanting a breadmaker so I can cheat everynow and then and so I'm very excited to be getting one!
