Sunday night chit-chat and sealed pot challenge

I've started to feel a bit creaky by now after all my unusual activity yesterday. Gardening makes it presence felt. I thought it was going to be my knees that hurt the most but it's actually the backs of my legs that seem to be complaining the most. Oh well, it'll all be good for me in the end. I made sure to walk up all the stairs I came across when I was out today instead of taking the escalator in an attempt to gently stretch everything from time to time.

I really, seriously, absolutely must get my photos from my holiday last December sorted properly and up onto picasa or flickr so that I can share them with people I know and who, for the most part, have by now stopped asking to see them. Here's one of my favourites - a very young giraffe at Toronga Zoo in Sydney (you can see one of the adults just behind the fence pole, just to give you a sense of proportion)

What are you:
Reading
Nearly finished The Princess Bride. Have also picked up The Fast Diet - the official 5:2 diet. I'm not so much interested in actually fasting but some people's descriptions of what they were doing following this diet sounded awfully like what I've been doing this time round of trying to lose weight and eat healthily so I thought it would be interesting to at least read it and see what the science behind the idea says.

Listening to
Nothing much. Just the clock and an occasional car outside. I'm not long back from a concert where some friends were singing a Bach mass though - that was nice.

Watching
Going to watch an episode of Justified before bed, I think.

Cooking/baking
Not a thing. I have strawberries in the fridge that I bought on Wednesday and I'm supposed to have sliced them for the dehydrator today but I spent longer ironing than I thought and didn't get to them before leaving for the concert, which went on longer than I expected. And now I'm just too tired to think about it. Will try and rescue as many as possible tomorrow and perhaps puree them for a fruit leather.

Happy you accomplished this week
Had a very busy week so just getting through it was good. Had my annual review in work (and am now on the less formal "Du" terms with my boss). Went back to Biogarten and worked yesterday for a few hours and have told them I'll be aiming to be there every second week. Did the ironing. Filed all of my tax stuff away only three weeks after actually submitting my returns - I think that's a record.

Looking forward to next week
A week where I don't have something planned every day after work. Just choir on Wednesday and my first German lesson on Friday. Interested to see how that turns out. And then on Saturday, since it's the first of the month, I'll be heading to the chemist to step up on the scales and see whether just cutting out most snacking has been enough to get me started on a good weight loss followed by heading to get my second set of photos taken.

Thankful for today
A nice place to live in and a warm comfy bed waiting for me.

Bonus question: what was your very first real job
Well, I never did a huge amount of  babysitting. My first job was working for my dad in his garage (complete with mini-supermarket) - I started that the summer I was 12 (a year later than normal as my mum had died the year before so I ended up having to stay at home with my younger brother and sister). Worked most days during the summer and then every day after school for a couple of hours. Got away from it by claiming compulsory summer jobs abroad when I started college (it was only actually compulsory after second year) so that at least I had the summers off. First summer I worked as an ice-cream seller in a small village in the Bavarian Alps, then the second I had an internship at the Deutsche Post headquarters. During the college year I still worked in the garage every day though. I loved working outside on the forecourt the most but rarely got the chance since my dad seemed to think I was one of the best in the shop. Sigh. Too bloody polite and friendly for my own good. Anyway, I did learn a huge amount about business from working for my dad - family businesses can be like that. I know when I was doing my business classes in college I found that a lot of it was the kind of common sense that I'd learned in the garage anyway (like the day I had an argument with my accounting teacher because he wanted to use the pure mathematical answer, complete with fraction and I was of the opinion that since we were doing calculations on logistics and stock, you just wouldn't have a fraction, 'cos, you know, who orders 0.357 of a unit of something?).

If you fancy joining in with Sunday night chit-chat, post away and head over to Half-Dozen Daily to link up.

And finally...
Sealed pot challenge update
Not a lot gone into the pot this week but I did empty my purse of coins twice so at least something went in. I'd love to have a nearly no-spend week this week but we'll have to see how that goes. My goal has gone from one thing (something from etsy) to another (a freezer) and back again to nearly where I started but it's fixed now. In fact, despite still being in debt last month I just went ahead and booked myself flights to Dublin for a long weekend around the time of my birthday at the beginning of December, as well as a hotel for the three nights. I'm not planning on telling anyone I'll be there (except my brother) and will just be having a few chill-out days entirely for me. There are things I always want to do when I'm back and I never get to because I'm running around trying to visit everyone while I can so I'm going to stay strict with myself on not telling anyone. If all goes to plan, I will have no debt commitments left by the end of November and I have always planned to allow myself to spend as much as I please of my salary, even if it's the whole thing, for the first two months following debt-free. I've already bought myself a ticket for a lunchtime concert at the National Concert Hall the day I arrive, plan to book a flotation session, possibly get my hair done, have several lovely meals out and visit the National Crafts and Design Fair at the RDS. And so that's what my sealed pot money will be for: buying myself something gorgeous at that fair.