I'm also fairly introverted about making new friends Sparrow, and I would happily let everything else take priority over getting out and making real human contact. I know I'm going to be facing this soon when we move. I've used the excuse here that I really don't have many people I can fit with (most women work, and if they don't they're usually dead rich or dead thick - that leaves maids and grandmothers whose English is poor, or expats of various nationalities who are all incurably snotty to locals). I won't have that excuse when I'm back in the UK. I can see I'm going to have to schedule activities which force me to make human contact, other than the cashier in my local supermarket, and my various doctors!!

Like any other job or profession those who are worth employing are those who are constantly trying to update their skills, improve their ways of doing things, and make everything work better. We're all clearly doing that. The problem for us is that our job is much more closely tied up with WHO we are, so finding our niche in our job is much the same as trying to find out who we are. So those of us who get too caught up in what we're doing and then realise they have lost vital parts of their identity somewhere along the line, will come to a point (maybe several times) where we need to re-evaluate ourselves and our approach to work.

Jenny... do you think that maybe it's time to schedule a 15min chat with DH about the number of external activities?? Maybe not... obviously with you being tied to the land there will be times when you are really busy and times when you are less busy. Maybe this is just a busier season. But if you feel like it's getting out of control there might be steps you can all take to get things back to a 'living' state instead of just 'surviving'!! I know the feeling... we're just surviving at the moment because we're in the process of moving everything from one continent to another - I can't expect everything to be routine, and it will take a while to establish new routines once we've moved. That's clearly an extreme example of a busy season. But it won't be repeated on a regular basis, so I can let it go. If I found myself getting too busy ALL the time I think I'd have to see where I could scale back a bit.

'Continuous improvement' - the watch words of me and my management consultant father!!

nuts - just sliced two fingertips taking foil off a yoghurt pot - difficult to type!! Occupational hazard I guess!!

Kerri.