Oh no :(

Last week I did something I still can't quite get my head around... I managed to delete all of my camera photos off of my phone.  Surprisingly, this is extremely easy to do on an android phone and although you might think I would be angry or upset, I was neither.  I was numb, I had absolutely nothing going on in my head at that moment.  Thankfully, on plugging it into a desktop there was an option called "Import all photos and videos" so I promptly did this and I think it found them.  I do have to sort through all 4,300 files it managed to find though!  I do need to learn to use less haste and more speed sometimes, but this was a step too far.  I could have lost tons of precious photos and videos of my son saying things he no longer says.  An example of this was when he was 14 months and he first said "ma-ma" but the way he said it was almost like he was proud to say it and it was long and drawn out and the sweetest thing ever... a mere 2 months later he was calling me "mummy" and "mum".  So sad.  There is also the cute way he says teapot ("peatot")  but that's for another time.   

I am so precious about backing photos and videos up (we have a copy on the desktop and a copy on two different hard drives) but I definitely don't upload phone photos enough.  The last time I had uploaded before this incident was the end of June.  Any mother of a toddler knows how much they can change in that small space of time.  There is of course another lifeline, the fact I am an ardent user of Whatsapp and that they save all media you send out as standard.  I am so happy that I sent so many photos to family members as at least those were a fall back if I couldn't retrieve anything else. 

That aside, I have been trying to keep myself busy and my mind ticking over as I try and decide what it is I want from my working life.  I appreciate I am a mother now first and foremost but this has always been a difficult subject to address for me.  People know what they want to do with their lives, some people don't care as long as they're challenged/learning/interacting with people and so on, I do not.  I know I want to be challenged in a role, I also know what my strengths and weaknesses are and what interests me.  What I cannot seem to do is translate any of those into a career.  Like any person who is bored in a job, I have job hopped hoping my next move would be my last move and I would be happy.  This is still not the case.  From speaking to other people I have had a range of suggestions but they are all complete changes of field for me.   To be honest, these suggestions were options I had definitely considered but had ruled out as I don't have the experience and starting from the lower echelons and working my way up like I would have done a decade ago is not financially viable for me with a family.  They also bring up another range of questions - would the grass be greener if I were able to find a way into these areas of work? How would I sell myself without the experience for someone to give me the opportunity? Would I be able to have a work/life balance?  

I have mentioned previously that I am studying with Shaw Academy.  To date I have completed the foundation in Graphic Design, foundation in Photography and am currently in the process of studying for a certificate in Child Nutrition (purely out of interest) and a certificate in Career Development (you can see where I'm going with this obviously). I'm hoping that maybe this course will help me adapt my CV to be able to show my skills are transferable - so many recruiters are lazy and/or short-sighted so I need my CV to be as appealing as possible to draw them in.  Only time will tell if people will be interested in recruiting me or not but one thing is for sure, I need to be using my adult brain while I still have one.  Although my job-hopping may look unreliable, if I just had the opportunity to do something I loved I could easily prove I have loyalty, I just need to be given the chance to grow and develop and to feel part of the team. 

~AB~