Looking Back, looking forward...

Well, Christmas day was a quiet affair. I went to my parents for dinner and we all ate big dinners and imbibed some nice wine, crackers were pulled, gifts were opened and afternoon naps were taken by my parents while I regressed and watched Finding Nemo. I had some great gifts:

• A wonderful calendar of garden photos all the way from the Hollywood Hills, taken by Naomi herself of 'Here in the Hills'.
• A macro lens for my dSLR (does the Snoopy dance).
• A monopod for my camera :)
• Perfume
• The usual choccies
  
• Socks (thanks mum!)
• Aromatherapy paraphernalia (thanks CQ and D)
  

It is perhaps no surprise that two of my closest friends bought me aromatherapy and 'pampering' style gifts for Christmas. As you might know I have been feeling rather stressed the past few weeks, due to work, study and a family situation and lately I have not been feeling myself at all and I have not been well. I am feeling a little less stressed now which is good news.

January is named after the god 'Janus' who had two faces and could look forward to the new year and back on the old one. Quite frankly I will be glad to see the back of this year. It has pretty much been my Annus Horribles. For most of the year I have been dealing with my divorce which is now settled, though at times it has been very hard. It was the right thing to do but after 14 years of being together it was difficult to deal with. My mother became ill in April and was in and out of hospital many times which was worrying, but is thankfully doing much better now. I changed jobs in April due to my post in the organisation being cut. Luckily they found me another one but lately I have had to fend off sabotage of my projects from another team leader whilst also facing the potential cut of my post in further downsizing in the organisation (I am still waiting to hear the outcome). In the summer my family were affected by the flooding in the UK and then in September my niece was killed in an accident with a car. Since then my younger brother has launched a personal and abusive attack on me and I can't even imagine what I have done. It has been most upsetting and I have been very down at times with too many tears shed.

Of course it wasn't all awful. I did get to visit Vienna which was lovely and I did pass my last round of MBA exams which meant that I could proceed to the final project and I will hopefully graduate next May. I am sincerely optimistic that 2008 will be a kinder year. I have much healing to do still and will have difficulties to face on the work front and my studies to finish. I do not make New Year resolutions but, like Janus I do face the coming year with hope and the resolve to put 2007 behind me where it belongs. I wish all of you a prosperous New Year, filled with health, wealth and happiness, especially for those of you whom I know have also had difficlut times. I wish it for myself too.