Edited Highlights: The past 2 years…

Hi friends, I can’t believe it’s been nearly two years since I published a post here on The Alexcellent Life! I didn’t publish here for a few reasons, but I love this blog and I’ve missed it!

The Alexcellent Life is in the process of changing scope. Its new direction will become evident, but meanwhile I’ve been keen to get back to posting here, to capture and share the little snippets of life – for myself, but also because maybe you’ll relate to them too?

I just went back and read the last few posts – one was about it being the eighth anniversary of this blog in January 2021. That means I missed the 10th anniversary of my own blog in January this year. Well maybe it doesn’t count as 10 years because even though I have a few draft posts, none were published on this blog for two years. I may publish a few retrospectively in coming months.

So what have I been doing?

In Dec 2020 I started a short comms contract at an educational organisation. In July 2021 I jumped into a contract at the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) working on the advertising campaign for the Federal Election. Very interesting and I learnt a lot. We had to be “agile” and WFH during the Australia-wide lockdowns of the second half of 2021.

A visit to Sydney to see family and friends over Dec/January 21/22 was wracked with stress and anxiety over the new Omicron variant of Covid. Every time we went to the supermarket or Chemist Warehouse our phones pinged with a Covid contact warning triggering more anxiety about infecting my elderly relatives. Anxiety coupled with my weird summer skin flare-up made for an uncomfortable January.

Uncomfortable, but at least there were beaches! January in Sydney, 2022

Back in Canberra after Christmas leave, it was back to the office to ready ourselves and Australia for the upcoming Federal election.

I even got involved with vote counting due to so many of the Temporary Election Workforce staff being knocked down with Covid.

“I’m counting the vote two-three-four-five…”

One by one, the whole Comms team at the AEC fell to Omicron between January and June 2022. I was one of the last to fall, in the last week of my contract which I had to see out at home in iso via MS Teams.

Covid flush: no need for blush in the morning makeup routine.

Not long after my 7 days recovery my son and I went to the Southern Highlands with friends (one of my oldest friends from school days and her two sons) for a few days.

Cosy: cabin in the woods (we were watching a lot of *Stranger Things* last Winter)

…and went for some Stranger Things walks.

Back in Canberra I went for a meeting at a communications consultancy and 2 weeks later I started working there full time – not a contract – my first permanent job in years after several contract roles.

The first few months flew by as I hit the ground running in this small business as a senior comms strategist working for public sector clients.

Son and I had a break in Sydney over Christmas and New Year – without the same level of stress and anxiety as the previous year. Covid, while still around, didn’t seem as menacing: my mother and I had both had Covid in 2022, my mother succumbed the week before Xmas, but after getting on to the antivirals, she recovered well and fairly quickly thank goodness. And while my skin did flare up again this summer, it was nowhere near as bad as last summer.

Another mini-break January with the same friends we went to the Southern Highlands with last Winter, and a visit with another friend who was on a holiday on the NSW south coast. Then back to work in Canberra.

Have G&T, will travel! Made these in our Air B&B kitchen literally footsteps from the sand!

A bit further down the coast a few days later.

Meanwhile my son has been through Years 8 and 9 and I can’t believe he’s now in Year 10, the last year of high school in the ACT (in Years 11 and 12, students go to a senior college).