A mixed week

After a disastrous start last week with the hot chocolate incident, as described in my previous blog, I did think things were going to get better.  The next night saw me continuing on my cross stitch, only to find that some of the confetti stitches in Natalie's leg had been done in the wrong colour, thanks to my dyslexia reading the numbers around the wrong way.  However, after unpicking the stitches out and re-stitching I have now seen more progress and have almost finished her legs.  This progress has been even more remarkable as the kids have been off school for the week due to half-term holidays and the usual comments of being bored and don't know what to do have been in abundance......they soon found things to do when I asked if they wanted to do some housework to keep them occupied so I could continue stitching. 

This week also involved tidying out my sewing box, due to my brother staying here from London and wanting buttons sewn on two of his jackets.  Inside I found a stash of cross stitching kits that I had brought years ago with the intentions of doing.   At the minute I have one UFO (intended for Father's Day a few years ago too) on the go of 3 Labradors, however I find it difficult to work on two projects at the same time, part of me wants to get as much done of the photo but the other part of me says this one won't take as long and get out of the way.    





On the job hunting front, I did get an email from a job vacancy I had applied for to say that I was on the shortlist. Considering the amount of qualified social workers who have lost jobs over here in England due to budget cuts I did not think I would get that far.  However, the local authority emailed me later on this week with bad news....it appears the job is no longer being advertised so its back to the drawing board.  So I am now contacting various agencies and uploading my CV onto sites in the hope that I can pursue a career in social work with children and young people. 

To enhance my future career prospects I attended the first day of a two day course entitled Young people, alcohol and substance misuse, what should I do?  which was really interesting and full of information and am looking forward to attending the next part of the course on the 28th February.  This is the area I would like to specialise in with young people, ensuring they are aware of the risks they take both legally and health wise.  With the recent tragic death of Whitney Houston this course also highlighted that we shouldn't judge people taking substances as we never know their own insecurities or past events such as learnt behaviour from parents, domestic violence etc that has led them to become dependent or even down to peer pressure to fit in with others they socialise with.

Hopefully the more courses I can attend, both in my fostering and Newly Qualified Social Worker perspective will reap the benefits in the long run.    The downside will be less time on my cross stitch.  Time to relearn those time management skills we were lectured on at uni so I can achieve both .