A change is as good as a holiday, they say.

The last week has been extremely stressful. My mom had her second knee replacement operation - with a specially crafted prosthesis made from a 3D scan in Switzerland. Complicated surgery but she came through remarkably well. Friday was especially stressful - between Thursday and Friday I spent more than 2 hours trying to get authorisation for her to move a day early from the hospital to a step down facility. One would think the medical aid would love to save a few rands?

In any event I have also been working myself up about the load shedding situation. I almost lost it at posts about "Lovely things to do with your family during load shedding" because I simply reached the point of no return in anger over the situation. You see, it turned out that our municipality was the only big city not to implement rotational load shedding. I will not go into the fact that some areas (notably Waterkloof with all the embassies) do not even appear on the load shedding schedule . This resulted in us, some weeks having no power between 6-8 every single week night. With us getting home close to 7 o clock for 3 of those nights I just got too much. It was a daily struggle and huge stress for me to feed my family properly. I got such respect for those who do not have the luxury of electricity every day. Never mind trying to check homework and with A heading into her first exams to get some studying done at night.

On Friday though, I reached a turning point. Well things did mostly. At last we got authorisation and I moved my mom to the step down facility. Just after that we got the press release that Tshwane will at last implement rotational load shedding. That is after I was part of a Twitter pest campaign with our Mayor before his State of the City address on Thursday. (BTW we are still awaiting the new schedule for today......lets hope they keep their promise). I really felt as if a huge weight was lifted from me. (edited - new one was published and delight! No 6-8:30 pm in sight!)

When I parked at my hairdresser for my 4:30 appointment I had my mind made up. Off with the long hair. I wanted something short, she suggested a bob at the jawline. I left it in her capable hands. Honestly I left there a new person. I love the way I look - and more important I love the way I feel. I placed a photo on Facebook mostly to thank my hairdresser (I tagged her in it) and to get her more business in the school community - she has only been in Pretoria for a bit more than a year and am busy building her salon clientele. Wow, huge reaction. Up to this morning 52 unique comments - all positive and 136 likes. I do not think I have ever had so much reaction to any post in Facebook. And although this does not make me like it more than I did, there is some happy in that. And Hunter loves it. Without a doubt I look younger and more professional.

The point I guess is that today I feel a lot different than I did Friday morning. For a lot of reasons - including a simple haircut.