February notes

 

I was awake at stupid o'clock this morning and I've spent the morning, so far at least, on a number of things, including scrolling Twitter (I'm not even ON Twitter) to see how the arrests post-insurrection are going. One by one, they're getting there, and are now at 200 arrests. Plenty more to come, I imagine (I hope!). Following that is pointless, but somewhat fun.

Probably not the way any of us expected to start the new year, eh?

But I really do need to give up the mindless, time-killing scrolling. I moan about 'not having the time to ________', yet can somehow magic away two, three, four hours doing nothing of value like that. I know it's a carryover from last year when scrolling FB and Twitter were ... 'lifesavers' is a heck of a stretch, so 'sanity savers'? No, not even that. Useful distractions. That's probably the most accurate.

But now, being a year into this pandemic, understanding (more or less) what we need to do to stay as well as we can, and making such an enormous life change for myself, I have to start picking away at the things that no longer work to keep me well - mentally, physically, emotionally, etc. Being constantly on my phone is definitely one of them. My sister now logs off her electronics at 8pm each night and doesn't come back on until 8am. This is an easy thing to do for the most part. I can shut my phone off without too much of an issue. I can turn off my streaming at 8pm, but because I then read, and all of my reading is now via the Kindle app on my iPad, I can't completely shut down. But I can definitely limit phone usage and streaming on the iPad.

So. Done.

I've also rejigged my budget, paid a bit towards two credit cards and set up a payday payment on one of them, cancelled a direct debit I no longer need and adjusted another one, as well as transferring some money to Canada for my LOC payments. Oh, and once again I've taken a payment card off my Amazon account. Honestly. Am I going to read almost 1,000 books? 😂😝 Eventually, perhaps, but it's this little frittering away of 99p here, and 99p there that's part of the overall problem.

Also noted that one CC min payment has increased £27 (!!) from this month, the LOC has gone down a bit, but the others remain more or less steady. I'm generally pleased with the slow and steady progress but unhappy with how much I still owe overall. Quite ridiculous, really, but I can only make one payment at a time. I'll be 55 next year and able to cash out (what's left of) my RSP. I don't want to use it all to pay off debt which is why I want to focus this year on the steady downward push of that. I know some will end up going there, but I'd like that to be as little as possible.

At the moment I've got veggies boiling for a minestrone (should have been done LAST week when the veg was fresh, but the soup is a good use for soft veg), and will be making a cassoulet in the Instant Pot later on. I'm trying Toulouse sausages in that this week (garlic and parsley). Along with a couple of chicken kievs from the butcher, I'm set for meals for this week.

Overall, January was quite good. I passed my course with 80%, which is the minimum pass rate, but queried a point that I'd had deducted and wound up with 82% instead! Very pleased about that. So, now I'm registered for a group onboarding session on 22 Feb to go over the program that the company uses for editing/proofreading, get some questions answered, expectations, etc. After that, I can actually start taking on paid work. I start at 500 words and as my work is assessed, they will either move me up a level or say 'thanks, but no thanks'. I'm hoping it's the former, as I know I just need some practical work to make all the information make sense in my head.

One of my colleagues retired on 29 January. She's been with the company for about ten years, and I've worked with her for five. The young lady who replaced her started early in January and had three weeks' training with her, which went okay. There's a lot she doesn't know and she's slow (obviously), but it's absolutely fine. She'll get there. It means I'm doing more work, but work has tapered off slightly right now, so it's manageable between us, and we've made it through our first week without too much difficulty. She doesn't work at breakneck speed like my old colleague, which is great, as it means far fewer mistakes.

Last weekend was also the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. This is my first time doing it, and it only entailed one hour of birdwatching in your garden. I didn't see many, a few blue tits, but it was fun, and this morning I saw a long-tailed tit at the feeder! What a beauty!

ebird.org

He hung upside down at the feeder with one foot and nibbled at a seed he was holding in the other.

I also reconnected with a friend in Germany. We'd lost touch a few years ago, but a couple of weeks ago I got an email out of the blue from her! I'd been thinking of her and lamenting only the week before how sad it was that we'd lost touch. And just like magic, there she was! There were some serious health issues her end, but she's on the mend now, so that's very good news.

I did, however, lose my writing somehow. I've been working on and off (mostly off the past few months) on a book for about three years, and several weeks ago I went to review it and it was gone. Just vanished!! Along with all the notes and other bits and pieces I had with it. I keep it on a thumb drive and I'm absolutely confounded about where it would have gone, as that's literally the only stuff that's disappeared from it. I would not consciously remove it and delete it. I did a scan, but no luck. I've rescued some sections of it via my writing group and various emails I've sent with parts attached, but I have no record anywhere of my 13 pages of vignettes I had. Nuts. If I'm honest, I was kind of sick of looking at it and hadn't worked on it for months, so I think it was the Universe's way of saying 'FOR GOD'S SAKE STOP FAFFING ABOUT AND JUST GET ON WITH IT!!' 

So. Second draft it is (actually third, because somehow the first second draft disappeared too, sooooooo...).

Anyway, that's about it. I putter about at weekends, getting little bits and pieces done at the flat, tidying, dusting, sorting paperwork, catching up on TV shows. Yesterday I discovered some black spot mould and blistering paint in one of my windows, which I immediately told my landlady about. Yikes! She came right over to have a look. There's a bit of work that needs doing, as it means there's a bit of penetrating damp somewhere, but I felt a bit bad too, as the last time I called her over there was a potentially big leak over the bathtub! But she assured me I would never be wasting her time for things like this.

Hope you are all as well as can be in our strange times. We're looking at May for the 50+ vaccine (hooray!), but am unclear about the end of lockdown now: when we shut down in January it was until 16 Feb, then it was extended to end of March, then I'd heard it could be July, but yesterday I heard there was talk of potential tier-type openings for pubs and restaurants come April. SO WHO KNOWS?

Stay safe and well!