next up, posters

In contrast to the last two Friday nights, I did not celebrate the end of this week with a couple of glasses of wine. This meant that I was fully awake at 5:05am (even before the kitties began clammouring for breakfast) ready to attack the day.

I fed kitties, caught up on happenings on the InformationSuperhighway, had coffee in bed and ran 3km all before 6:30am.

Don has the first round of the club championships (jolf) today, so he was also up and out pretty early. I think at this point we have given up any pretense of not embracing our inner old people. I am now one of those old ladies who declaim, “you’re wasting the day away” if you lie in until, like, 7:30am.

Anyway, my intention for this weekend is to GT(F)D [get things … done]. Not because I feel like I have to, but because I really want to. So I am motivating myself with my motivational shirt:

But you know, worn ironically.

I have lots of little admin, pottering and tidying tasks on the agenda.

xxxxxxxxxx

I was really pleased with the run this morning. Fastest time in a while – especially considering the 30 seconds or so I wasted stealing (from a footpath plant) this bit of ivy (much more difficult to detach from the plant than I anticipated):


spider plant cutting (also stolen from a footpath plant) was a prop from one of Bessie’s design assessments

I have signed up for the balmain fun run to give me a small running goal. I’ve entered the 5km. I think I could probably do the 10km, but it is just asking for injury at this point! Especially as I’ve only been doing sporadic 3kms for the past, well, year.

No pressure though.

xxxxxxxxxx

Remember my excellent glasses mending kit? Joe/Frank has another pair in need of repair. I have spent a good hour of my GT(F)D time trying to track the set down. As I am usually disgustingly organised in terms of where I put things, this is not a little frustrating.

Also frustrating is trying to make an online medicare claim for my pathology test on the evil spot (not the cheapest thing in the world at $199.75). To make the claim I have to log in to the mygov website, which like all things government makes a simple process a torturous kafkaesque experience. First, you drag out your assigned a random 8 digit user ID, then log in with your very complex password, then you answer two of your five secret question combinations, then you enter the 9 digit secret code which has just been sent to your mobile. Then you enter your item numbers, to find out that you cannot claim these online and have to go into a branch.

This morning is rapidly turning into GN(F)D.

2015 projects progress: october

Yikes! Less than two months of the year remain. October seemed a really, really long month. I started pretty well but then allowed myself to get a bit side-tracked toward the end.

On with the reckoning: TL;DR version – of 12 projects: 4 achieved; 5 (very) partially achieved; 3 not achieved.

Hey, a smidge bit better than last month. My partiallies are a fair bit more on the achieved side of the equation. This is the problem with bundling a lot of sub-tasks under the project headings.

Next month for sure.

  • war on sloth
  • – running at least 3x per week / daily exercise – core + glutes (even 5 minutes is better than nothing).
    NOT ACHIEVED: Not one little bit! I was getting a little better with this until I had my spot removed and was out of commission for a bit. I kind of lost momentum after that. Things are looking better in November so far.

  • war on graffiti
  • – never let the graffiti on the front of ThePalace(OfLove) remain unpainted for more than 24 hours. Always photograph, always report.
    ACHIEVED: i think it really helped that the neighbour on the corner attacked her major graffiti problem – we’re presenting a united, sparkling facade to the world.

  • war on duopolies
  • – minimise shopping at Coles / Woolies and their associated companies.
    – support small, independent businesses
    ACHIEVED!: 311 DAYS!!!! However, I need to get some printing done for an SML project in November and it looks like the only place that can do it at any sort of reasonable price is officeworks – a Coles company.

  • war on clutter
  • – get rid of everything we don’t need or want or things we have been holding on to for stupid reasons
    NOT ACHIEVED: Even more stuff. Is there yet another decluttering frenzy in my future? I suspect so.

  • war on chub
  • – continue with amazingly successful 5:2 diet
    – no booze (except for holidays)
    PARTIALLY ACHIEVED: 5:2 swimmingly. Hit the booze in October. I didn’t drink that much, but I really felt it. And the impact on my mood was tremendous – and not in a good way. It’s back to no drinking again for me. I need these little reminders that I really can’t do it any more. And I certainly can’t moderate – being one of those all-or-nothing type people, I can’t moderate anything.

  • war on unnecessary spending
  • – don’t buy anything that is not absolutely essential – none of this fudging with the definition of essential.
    – take lunch to work at least 4 days per week
    NOT ACHIEVED: I spent quite a lot of money this month. I would not be at all surprised if November was equally as bad. And December … let’s call this one a fail (defeatist attitude, much?)
    I’m not sure I can snatch the taking-lunch-to-work project from the jaws of defeat in the last two months of the year. I’ll give it a crack.

  • war on the uncreative
  • (apologies for the lame project title, alternative suggestions welcome!)
    – make one thing per month
    – blog at least every second day
    – take at least one photo every day
    PARTIALLY ACHIEVED: This was going really well (re-framed as projectlettes) until the spot removal (and the wine on the weekends) threw me. Starting the baby hat pulled me over the line into partially.

  • war on blandness
  • – read good books | watch good films and television (at least once a week)
    – eat good new things (two per month?)
    – listen to one improving podcast per week
    – avoid reading the increasingly dreadful smh.com.au
    PARTIALLY ACHIEVED:
    – A couple of new 5:2 recipes from the 5:2 recipes website – which will definitely join the regular rotation.
    – No, not really very many podcasts worth speaking of.
    – Yes, no smh for TEN whole months. Can’t you just feel my smugness?
    – Sort of: wrapped up Mr Robot (I think this was in October – the perils of doing this a week into November). I’m still unpacking how I felt about it all. I think worth watching if you like that kind of nerdy dystopian(ish) thing.
    – Lots of reading! Though probably not improving reading.
    * In true stubborn fashion I finally finished Martin Edwards: the golden age of murder.
    * First up was Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen: The Rabbit Back Literature Society. Can’t say I was a huge fan of this. I suspect I’m missing a whole lot of Finnish context. Heather and I bought this at the same time. He finished it way before I did because I was persisting with the golden age. Discussing it afterward we found we were both a bit “ummm … what exactly was that?”
    * Moved onto Michael Connelly: Nine Dragons (Harry Bosch). I got this ages ago as a kindle deal for $0.98 cents. I’ve been recommended the series by a couple of people and had mostly enjoyed the tv series (it had All The Tropes! some quite terrible acting in parts). But I really didn’t feel the love for the book.
    * Next up was E C Bentley: Trent’s Last Case This was one of the many books I made a note of from Golden Age of Murder. It was very of its time and quite silly. I was particularly pleased by the concept of having to explain rear-view mirrors and finger-prints to the layman. Truly the past is another country.
    * And started the delightful and also silly Patricia Wentworth: Miss Silver series. I’m now on book 9 (feat. german-spy-imposter-heiress-back-from-the-dead!). CA$7.84 for 32 novels is probably one of the best bargains ever.

  • war on the shoddy / shonky in ThePalace(OfLove)
  • – have the leaks fixed
    – finish the last bits of the paintering
    – get quotes for balcony sliding door | shutters | conservatory
    REVISED JULY: We have an action plan for the rest of the year. It is quite comprehensive and will be somewhat costly.
    PARTIALLY ACHIEVED:
    replace grout on upstairs balcony (hopefully to prevent leaks into Bessie’s room)
    – paint exterior walls on upstairs balcony*
    repair (walls and ceiling) and paint Bessie’s room (though we are leaving the ceiling for a bit, wanting to ensure the leaks are quite fixed)
    install shelves in Bessie’s room
    – paint ceilings on our floor (to cover leak stains)
    have air conditioners serviced replace air-conditioners
    draft-proof front door and door to garage
    – paint leak stains on Giant Wall
    – coat rack for garage
    – paint interior doors
    – line Joe/Frank’s curtains
    – (yikes!)
    Pretty good result, I think:
    – Great job on the balcony by megasealed – so far has held up to some heavy rain (yay!)
    – Painted Bessie’s room – it looks brilliant. We’ve not repaired the ceiling – leaving it as is for a while to monitor the leaking. That is all the rooms painted save the garage (no plans to paint that).
    – And we installed the shelves which also are brilliant.
    – Don has prepped the ceilings with stain stuff (the technical term). We’ll get to finishing that and the big wall in November.
    – We’re going to see how long we can last without the two non-functioning air-conditioners (mainly because it is not an inexpensive undertaking and we hadn’t really budgeted for it). We’ve lived up until we moved here without them. This could be a bad thing as we might get desperate in the middle of summer when they will be double the cost.

  • war on our genX slackerness
  • – get our finances in order
    – get our estate planning in order
    ACHIEVED!: Chugging along. Rather annoyed that the bank raised the variable rate on our mortgage – and that we found out via the media. Still no communication from the bank about this. I suspect this is common, customers not being terribly high on the priorities list.

  • war on the career (see genX slackerness)
  • – ramp up the professionalism in dress, grooming and manner.
    – just knuckle down and do this advanced manageressing course. FIVE times a week.
    – take this “I am expecting big things from you in the next six months” seriously and action accordingly.
    PARTIALLY ACHIEVED: Polished and glowing.
    See now, the advanced manageressing people have been in contact and are trying to tempt me with promises of extensions and such. I’m really conflicted. It would be a lot of work in very little time. On the other hand, I would feel probably pretty pleased at the end of it all.

  • war on poor self-esteem
  • – just stop entirely reading the social media accounts of those who make me feel inadequate (of course, this is not you dear reader)
    ACHIEVED!: Yep – despite my claims of being cured I have been tempted a few times. I think this really has to do with the state of my brain at any given time. If I’m feeling low I seem to gravitate toward doing this – because, yeah, I really need to be feeling worse.