New month, new post

It will almost certainly come as no surprise to anyone to learn that I'm feeling singularly overwhelmed, stressed, scared, whatever.

Crappy bits of administrative guff that really do need to be taken care of, but that just aren't being taken care of at all;

Crappy life situations that really do need to be dealt with, but that just aren't being dealt with at all;

[Interlude: can you see a pattern forming here?]

Crappy health and hygiene situations that really do need to be looked into, but that just aren't being looked into at all;

You get the picture.

My sweet little L is going through a spectacularly rough time. There are endless, endless arguments between her and her sister, her and D, her and both of them. She's refused to sleep at D's place since Tuesday and claims she "never wants to go back there". *sigh*

She very clearly needs help - help of a professional kind, I mean - but any mention of such a thing and she goes ballistic. So things just stay as they are. She has "behaviours" that aren't acceptable, she gets punished at school, she gets punished by D, she's at permanent war with C...

There's only with me that she seems to find some kind of tranquillity, except for the fact that she's a chronic insomniac and is frequently still awake at 1 am, even on school nights... Even when I try and make sure she's in bed by 9.30 pm...

I'm lost, struggling, trying to do my best and, as ever, pretty much failing.

The only highlight in this cloud of darkness is that I've booked a week's holiday for me and the girls in August in Naples. If the girls don't fight all the time, it should be quite a good holiday - there are lots of lovely things to visit, in Naples itself, plus Pompei and Herculaneum of course, plus Vesuvius, the Isle of Capri... I'm really looking forward to it, even though it's months and months away...

Other than that, my life is just a steady stream of same old, same old.

Debt, not enough work, crappy living habits when Y isn't here (as he isn't now - he flew to Latvia on 24 January and won't be back till the end of this month), stress, worry about the girls, worry in general, insomnia, bla, bla, bla.

I feel like a record that just gets played over and over again, no year being any noticeably different from any other, just mild degress of change in the level of terribleness.

pffff