No new hip but at least the rug is down and the shark is coming

I was supposed to get a new hip last week. Got a phone call while I was on the way there that too many staff had come down with COVID and all non-emergency operations had to be cancelled. Le big sigh. I got off the train and sat on the platform* for a while, txting people to share my frustration and, I must admit, letting a few tears fall. But at least I was now able to have breakfast so, silver linings and all that. 

It was particularly frustrating because I had worked late the previous two days, trying to get enough stuff finished to make it possible for my bosses to be able to cover my minimum four-week absence,** stayed up late to try and get my apartment in some kind of order and then gotten up really early on the day of the operation to do the washing-up, pack and get on the road in plenty of time. So I was tired. But I turned that into silver lining number two: when I got home, I ate, unpacked one more box of stuff lying around, went to sing with my local choir at a funeral and then spent the afternoon sleeping. 

I had so much stuff to organise in my apartment because I was planning on giving up the studio I rented a while back as an office/extra space*** but unexpectedly, through a friend-of-a-friend type situation, I was able to sublet it to a student who was just moving to start studying here. So, the desired result but at kind of short notice which mean a very busy weekend drawing up a contract for the sublet, trying to find the main contract to attach to it and then finishing the painting that I started......who knows......at least a year ago as well as move all the crap that I had moved over there back to my own place. A lot of it was just stuff needing to be sorted that had been thrown into big shopping bags and moved over there out of the way. I did actually give myself the space to move one or two at a time over the course of a week**** and sorted them a little bit immediately. I had some nice spare canvas organiser-type boxes and was trying to at least get all the smaller bits and pieces into them. I do still have quite a lot of stuff to go through more carefully and deal with but at least some of it has gone and the rest is sorted into relatively tidy-looking boxes and baskets. It was nice to find some items and realised that in the meantime, I have actually come up with a proper storage solution/place for that category of stuff. So often it feels like I'm making no progress at all but small little decisions or realisiations do end up gathering pace and resulting in actual improvements. I need to not lose track of that in the future. And I did get rid of three big bags of recycling and rubbish.

Best of all, for me, is the fact that the situation with the studio spurred me on to make some changes to the layout of furniture in my apartment that I have been thinking about for a good while. I bought a rug****** for under my dining table and had unrolled it in the studio to flatten out and air. And then it got rolled up and stashed in the bathroom there because I started painting last year. I do still have moths but, regardless, I brought it over and put it down in the place where I had moved the table to. I lived with that for a week but something wasn't quite right and so I used some of my newly-free time at the weekend to try something else. And what do you know, sometimes just turning a rug so that it's sideways instead of lengthways is just what you need to do. Bonus, now the chairs also actually fit on the rug. In fact, I think this is how I originally intended it to be and had just forgotten.*******

Just a quick photo that I took to send to my sister and a friend to show what it looked like in the new set-up. I skillfully didn't include the row of boxes on either side of that open floor space that still need to be dealt with but even with that, loads of floor space. 

I also finally bit the bullet and ordered myself a Shark cordless upright hoover (ok, a vacuum cleaner, but where I'm from, we always call all vacuum cleaners hoovers). The cheap Aldi version I got a couple of years ago gave up the ghost last week but even though it wasn't great, it was definitely easier to use, which meant more frequent hoovering. I expect great things from myself with an even better tool in my hands. Which increases the chances of me doing yoga and stretching exercises more frequently. It's kind of disheartening to get down on the mat, turn your head to the side, and be distracted by dust bunnies gathering closer and closer. 

I am choosing to think of this past week as one step back but two steps forward.

* Which is to say, I sat on a bench on the platform. Maybe when I do eventually get a new hip, sitting on the platform might not seem quite so impossible. 

** I still feel a bit like I haven't caught up since I had COVID in March and was off for two weeks. Three weeks holidays June/July, some random sick days, then a week off sick in August with a bad cold, followed by two weeks of doing the bare minimum because I was still not quite rid of the cold, followed by a week's holiday in September (went to visit my sister in France for her 50th birthday and it was lovely) and a couple more sick days and time off for doctor and hospital pre-op appointments. So, yeah, not my most productive summer ever.

*** Except for one regular monthly job, my sidegig of translation work has all but dried up and I haven't had the energy to go looking for more. So I have been paying the extra rent but not actually cutting back on any other expenses to make up for it. Debt is building up again. 

**** Still didn't want to finish the painting and this was as good a way of procrastinating as any.*****

***** Asterisking and foot-noting are fun. :-)

****** I just looked it up. NOVEMBER 2020. How ridiculous is it that I bought something I wanted to use, loved when I got it, and then left it unused and unloved for almost two years!!!!!!!

******* TWO. YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!

Plans for the weekend

The week has flown by, another week full of activity. I discussed this a bit with my counsellor this morning and she's going to work on it with me over the next few months. I'm handling everything pretty well at the moment but the overwhelm never feels very far away and I'd really like to try and work on learning to catch it and pull back on doing so many things before it goes too far and I'm back to not being able to do much of anything at all. Having said that, I'm pretty sure I'm going to try going back to choir when the winter semester kicks off in a few weeks. 

Random photo of an interesting plant, Lithops gesinae or stone plant. That's not just a little orange flower growing in a stone, the whole thing is the plant.

 

This weekend I have some translating to do - about eight hours worth and I'd like to get most, if not all, of it done so that I don't need to worry about it on Monday after my first yoga session. I also want to finish painting the office, which I started a few weeks ago and have gone back to ignoring since. I've done the bulk of the hard work so I really need to get back and finish it. The corners and edges are finished up as high as I can reach myself so I just need to get on the ladder, fill in the foot or two above that and then get the roller out. 

And from a TOMM point of view, Saturday will have to be my Thursday. I realised yesterday that I am not going to have time on Thursday evenings to do anything at home since tai chi doesn't finish until after nine and I don't get home until about ten past ten. That's already a good hour and a bit past my preferred bedtime and there is realistically very little chance I am ever going to feel like doing housework at that stage of the evening. Clearly, finding a half-an-hour every weekday evening for TOMM if I am also out every weekday evening is going to be challenging. I may need to sit down with a pen and paper and figure out exactly how I want to tackle it. It's mostly feeling like moving it, or at least most of it, to mornings before work will be the better option. That worked befores. Except on days I overslept. Some more ruminating is needed, methinks.

I painted! But this getting fit thing takes up a lot of time

Well, I'm halfway through week 5 of the optifast program. Weightloss is going well and I'm not particularly suffering from pangs of hunger at all. Just every now and again when I haven't planned properly or something strange happens, usually with public transport. Like yesterday when I switched to wait for my tram - I had just missed one but the next was due in 12 minutes. And then none actually turned up for more than 40 minutes. Very unusual for here but it meant that I was more than an hour later getting home than planned. But it is definitely good to have a small amount of delayed gratification when it comes to hunger. Reminds me that I don't have to stop at the closest takeaway or restaurant or shop to get something to eat just because I'm starting to feel hunger. My well-nourished first world self could probably survive just fine with nothing to eat for a few days and can certainly manage an hour or two if things don't go to plan. That doesn't mean I won't try to avoid those situations, but it's a good reminder to try and keep in my head.

Leaves are hard to paint

I still don't much care for the sports therapist we're working with. At the moment he is solely focused on us measuring our heart rate and learning to recognise when we're entering the exercise zone* - whereas I am delighted and proud every time I actually do any kind of movement. Because compared to six months ago, when I was just starting to go swimming/aquajogging again and after one not-very-successful attempt was instructed to not try to do more than five minutes at a time to start with, the fact that I have built up to nearly an hour makes me feel pretty good about myself. Also, I bought the cheapest fitness watch I could find (€20) and it's ridiculously bad at measuring my pulse and I am really resenting having to buy another one (€40) for something I am not the least bit interested in having to use.

At the moment, I am doing one session of rehab sport per week (45 mins) on Wednesday mornings before work. Then on Wednesday evenings there's the hour of sport that is part of the optifast program - so far that has been walking. On Thursday evenings after work I've been doing aquajogging, which I really do love so much. Because of COVID restrictions the classes are only half-an-hour long but I try to get there as early as possible so that I can swim up and down for five or ten minutes before we start and try and sneak in another five minutes when we're finished, too. Being the last out of the pool after aquajogging means that the changing rooms are less crowded by the time I get there. 

I've signed up to start an online yoga course offered by work starting at the end of September. The in person class was on Wednesdays, so no use to me. And when talking about different sports with the optifast group, I was reminded of tai chi, which I did years ago and really liked. I vaguely remember looking for a class when I moved here and finding nothing. When I googled again recently, there are in fact three different tai chi schools here. How did I miss that? Anyway, I was thinking perhaps it would be too much but then a couple of days later they listed a beginners course starting this week and taking place on Thursday but later, so that it would be easy to get to after aquajogging. And today I signed up. Hopefully the next three weeks, with that double commitment on Thursdays won't take too much out of me. After that aquajogging is over and when it starts up again in October, it will be indoor and I have signed up for the Friday sessions.

Anyone keeping count? I think that should give me a better spread because at the moment, by the time Friday comes around I am tired and have no interest in doing any sport, or honestly, moving at all. 

Current timetable

• Monday: nothing
  
• Tuesday: nothing
  
• Wednesday: rehab sport (morning), optifast (evening)
  
• Thursday: aquajogging (evening, after work), tai chi (evening, after aquajogging)
  
• Friday: local choir for one hour every two weeks
  
• Saturday: nothing (but I try to tell myself I'll do some time on the exercise bike - so far this has happened once)
  
• Sunday: nothing
  

Future timetable (from end September/mid-October)

• Monday: yoga (online, evenings)
  
• Tuesday: nothing (kind of wanting to start going back to uni choir, which would be 2.5 hours on Tuesday evenings)
  
• Wednesday: rehab sport (morning), optifast (evening)
  
• Thursday: tai chi (evening)
  
• Friday: aquajogging (evening, after work), local choir for one hour every two weeks (later evening)
  
• Saturday: nothing (but I try to tell myself I'll do some time on the exercise bike - so far this has happened once)
  
• Sunday: nothing

This was supposed to be a sunset reflected in water

So, yeah, that feels like a lot. Especially considering the fact that I haven't been able to persuade myself to do much of anything outside work for the past couple of years. So far, I'm holding up ok though. 

I even went to a watercolours workshop last Friday. It was so much fun and although I'm not very good, it was enough fun and interesting enough that I'll keep trying things out at home, I think.

It got waaay better once we layered trees and stuff on it. Let's ignore the tree whose shadow is twice as wide as the actual tree. LOL

I can see myself getting as obsessed with making tiny thin brushstrokes as a good friend of mine who paints is. The one you see on this picture was done by the teacher using the exact same paintbrush as me. 

Anyway, not quite prizewinning, but definitely good enough to hang on the fridge.

I have booked a cleaning lady to come and do a deep clean on my apartment, which hasn't been getting more than a lick and a promise for several months now. My back was just too sore and I couldn't find my way out of the hole I was in. By now, I've caught up on all the washing up, caught up on the washing, and have gotten a bit more decluttering done. The plan is for her to clean the entire place and that should leave me feeling more capable of getting back to trying to TOMM every week day. 

I don't think this level of activity is genuinely sustainable in the long-run, but I have promised myself that I will really put a lot of effort into losing weight and, more importantly, gaining health and fittness this year. We'll see how things pan out over the next few months.

 

 

 

*There are technical terms for the different zones and formulas for working out your own range for each of them but I'm too lazy now to go and look at my notebook.

More soups and stews

My efforts to keep cooking and eating healthily continue and I haven’t had a bad episode of backsliding yet. I’m not eating perfectly, could definitely do with cutting some more chocolate out but I have plenty of days now where the only chocolate (or sweets of any kind) that I eat is one or two squares of dark chocolate. Compared to days of yore, where I could easily down five or ten bars, this is a huge improvement. I did allow myself a “cheat day” last Friday (it was a very carb-heavy day) – it was good to do it because it staved off the beginnings of feeling cravings but half a cheat-day would have done, to be honest. 

I signed up for aqua jogging through the local community college, classes are held in my local swimming pool and I paid €56.80 for eight weeks. The first class was last Saturday and I really enjoyed it. Above all because I was able to do it! In November, I also signed up for a local gym so that I’d be able to compensate a bit for not cycling to and from work a couple of times a week. I went once and then we had a couple of weeks of good weather so I was cycling to and from work anyway. Then I hurt my back and wasn’t allowed to do any sport, including cycling. Then I got a cold. And then it was already halfway through December and, well, let’s just say I’ve ended up being one of those people who starts using the gym in January. Sigh. My plan is to go on Monday evenings after work and I did that last week. I thought maybe Wednesdays might be a good day to add as my second day but that didn’t work out last week. And then I checked my calendar and saw that not only do I have an extra choir rehearsal today (Monday), I also have an appointment with my dietician on Wednesday after work. I may bring my swimsuit with me as the dietician has a room in the physio practice that is attached to the local swimming pool (benefits of small-town living) and then I could go swimming for a while after my appointment. I may just bring my stuff with me and then see how I’m feeling on the day. Somehow at the moment the more “outs” I give myself from having to do something, the more likely I am to do it. I even ended up going to the gym yesterday afternoon, to make up for missing this evening. Although that was partially a procrastination effort, too, as I just couldn’t get in the mood to cook yesterday.

I even, despite my boast of healthy cooking and eating, got myself a “doner box” (doner kebab meat and chips with the garlicky sauce) on the way home from the gym, more procrastination. My sister rang just as I was finishing eating that and while I was on the phone to her I started gathering the stuff I needed to make what I had planned so that when we were finished talking, I could just start chopping veg immediately. So, this week I made a pumpkin soup and a lentil and chicken stew. The pumpkin soup is a bit watery looking but that happens to me with pumpkin soup a lot and will be fine, I’m sure. I used a smallish Hokkaido pumpkin (625g) and a medium size onion (125g) with a spoonful of coconut oil (thinking it might give a bit of the flavour of pumpkin curry made with coconut milk without actually using an entire tin of coconut milk). 750g of veg which will give me four portions of soup – according to Australian guidelines (there’s a discussion over at MMM on getting your full five a day of veg and two of fruit that was started by an Australian, hence the Australian guidelines) that about 10 servings of veg, or 2.5 servings per portion. 

For lunch today I had the last portion of beetroot soup from last week – had the last few portions of that with feta crumbled over the top so that I had some protein in the meal. Soooo good. And for dinner this evening, I brought a portion of the lentil stew I made yesterday. It is really good, even if I do say so myself and so I’m going to make a note here of what I put in it so that I can hopefully reproduce it in future. 

I used 300g (dry weight) of lentils, 400g of chicken breast chopped into small pieces, 250g carrots (2 chopped, 1 grated), 100g onion, 170g mushrooms (a small tin that I chopped into smaller bits – still don’t like mushrooms but it’s a cheap way of adding veg), 2 cloves of garlic (all I had left), a tin of tomatoes (240g drained weight) and 500g passata. I used olive oil to sauté the onions and chicken and added just enough water to cover everything (then cooked with the lid off to allow it to thicken somewhat). For spices, I used 3 generous spoonfuls of smoked paprika, 3 of cumin, 1 of turmeric, and 1 of coriander, with about half a teaspoon of salt and half of pepper. But the main thing is the smoked paprika, which gives such a lovely flavour. It’s very good with the chicken. The whole thing gives me 1,260g of veg and I reckon I’m going to get about six portions out of it, which will be 2.8 servings of veg per portion. I’m interested to see what my dietician thinks of it though – I feel like there’s way too much in it between the lentils and the chicken but I think I kept to the recommended portion sizes alright. 

The sample plans she gave me are great in a way as they are built around combining elements from three building blocks: veg, carbs, and protein. If you’re leaving out carbs then you can choose two proteins. Not eating enough protein, or not eating protein with every meal (better for keeping your digestive system on an even keel throughout the day) is still a bit of an issue for me but I’m sure I’ll get there eventually. Where I’m currently trying to find my way is because eating lots of one-pot meals in winter is not as straightforward as choosing something from each section for each meal as the stuff is all combined in advance for several meals. So, I’m bringing details of what I’ve been making to my appointment to see what she thinks. For now, I have 11 portions of food in the fridge (still have two of last week’s veg soup), which means that even for a ridiculously busy week like this week, there are no excuses for not eating properly. And I’ll be doing my best to keep up with washing the various Tupperware containers every evening, even if I’m home late, because more than anything else, keeping on top of the washing-up is very important if I’m going to keep actually going into the kitchen to cook!

P.S. Had two cute, random photos to share but blogger is not cooperating so it's just another wall of text this evening. :)

Holiday goals changed to doing nothing

Well, I made it to Halle and even managed to only miss one rehearsal. Although I have to admit that although I was at the Friday rehearsal my voice was not always quite as present. It was another great weekend and I really enjoyed the performance on Saturday night.

As always, it was fantastic to meet up with old friends as well as meeting new ones. This time round we even made the effort to participate in one of the non-singing activities, dragged ourselves out of bed early one morning and went off to see the State Museum of Prehistory. The few hours we spent there were not enough to do more than scratch the surface of what this amazing musuem has to offer. I'd highly recommend it if you are ever in Halle and will definitely be going back there.

Since the Happy Birthday Handel weekend coincided with Karneval this year, we even got to enjoy the parade on Monday before we had to leave. When I got back I was tired but happy, always the best way to come home from some time away, I think.

This year we also discovered the Irish pub in Halle, called Nante's (Nante is the nickname of the guy who owns it). We had a great night out there - they let us borrow one of their guitars and we started a really fun singalong session.

I now have the rest of the week off as I needed to use up some holiday time. I had planned to spend the time sorting out my balcony. The tiles badly need to be cleaned and then I wanted to buy some stones, soil and compost and get my pots filled and ready for planting a few things. If I got very adventurous I thought I might manage to finish painting my CD shelf. And maybe one or two other things as well. But instead of all that, I think I'm switching to just doing nothing at all. Well, that's about as much as I've done the last two days and it feels about the right speed so I'm just going with it. But even doing nothing I've still gotten one or two things done. Today, for example, I took out the documentation for the bank I opened up an investment account with and then never got around to actually setting up properly. I knew that had dragged on a bit and so when searching for tax-related stuff recently I had put anything I found dealing with that account into one place.

It took me several phone calls and resetting passwords etc. but today I finally got it set up. And I added in a current account as well as the investment account. This bank, ING-DIBA, does not have any charges associated with its current account. I've been happy with my current bank up to now but there are two reasons I've decided to bite the bullet and change. The first is that the selection of ATMs near me for my bank or any of its partner branches is really poor. The second is that I fell foul of their lodgement limit again this month. I thought it was 1,100 per month but it seems it's 1,200. I need to go back and check the last time this happened - I think they may have increased that amount and I didn't notice. At any rate, I was about 30 euro short of that last month, which means that I need to pay the 9.90 monthly charges. The current account, you see, is only free if you lodge at least 1,200 per month. This is the second or third time since I left my more-highly-paid job that this has happened. Since ING-DIBA doesn't attach those kind of conditions to their free current account, and offers free withdrawals from all ATMs, regardless of which bank, it just makes sense to switch. Even if I am kind of dreading having to trawl through everything to make sure I notify all of the places that I have direct debits set up with. In the meantime, I set up a savings plan to start investing in my first ETF fund. I'm excited. It's several years since reading something on Fiona's blog led me to Mr. Money Mustache and although my 50 euro a month savings might take quite a while to build up to anything substantial, it's a start. Or it will be, from the middle of April and then every month after that.

Tomorrow, I have to attend an organising meeting for the March for Science before running off to my choir rehearsal. And then all of a sudden it'll be Friday again and the weekend will be here. So, I'm not going to put myself under pressure to achieve anything else other than chilling out and trying to get rid of the rest of this cough. Yep, I'm still actually sick and totally fed up with coughing and sneezing. So a goal of doing nothing for the next few days is entirely appropriate!

New month, spending for October, and NaNoWriMo

Although Halloween is becoming more and more known here (I even saw a few kids out trick or treating here last night), it's not a holiday. In Ireland, they changed things around a few years ago so that the bank holiday is always on a Monday, so this year was one of the few where the bank holiday was actually on 31st October. Over here, however, 1st November is a bank holiday so actually, it makes it perfect for having a quiet start to a month, and a chance to line up anything you want to get done over the month.

For me that means a couple of things. First of all, I'd like to say thank you to those who commented on my "knees" post and for the words of encouragement. I really am trying to not let it set me back and to continue on with some of what I wanted to achieve regardless, so a good start to a new month is coming at a very good time. I took a week off work last week and was in Dusseldorf for a few days. I had an appointment at the dentist and, since I have had lots of dentist issues in the past I at least wanted to go back to the really good one I had finally found one last time. Looks like I will need some work done, however, and spending 80 euro to get to and from every dentist appointment is not very sensible. But I think I am going to stick with him for now. This is one of those situations where at the moment making the decision to spend money is the better choice for now.

During the week I sometimes had that old familiar feeling of "oh no, don't want to have to go back to work", but surprisingly by the time Saturday rolled around I was actually feeling alright, even almost eager to get back to work. That feeling was very unfamiliar. Knowing that my second day back was going to be a bank holiday was just the icing on the cake.

So, I came back home on Saturday and have actually started getting a few things done. First of all, I started laying out a bullet journal (see video above for what it's about). I've been thinking about this since I first heard about it a few months ago and I finally managed to get a pretty good idea in my head of how I could make it work for me. I knew I had a nice, pretty notebook somewhere and it didn't take me long to find it. Extra advantage of having had to look for it is that I sorted through some stuff that I haven't paid much attention to since I moved and it was good to get that a bit sorted (still a lot to do, but at least I know what's where now). So, I've started that. I will stick with my small diary for the daily stuff and the rest of it will go into the big notebook. I wrote a key to the various symbols I will be using in the front of it. I did a FranklinCovey What Matters Most (time management) course years ago in my first real job and I still use some elements of that, amended slightly over time I'm sure. I really wanted to try and incorporate those things that I do already and use stuff that I have been using for years, so I'm not using all of the elements described in the video. I also dug out a box of crayons, coloured pencils, and markers and decorated the front page of my bullet journal. I will not be one of those people who develops their journal into a work of art but I do want to make sure to incorporate colour into it, as I know that is a very useful tool for remembering stuff. And occassionally doing something like drawing should hopefully encourage my creativity in general.

As well as spending time setting up my bullet journal, I started to tackle one more moving box, which is one full of small bits and pieces that I have kind of been dreading. I'm doing just a bit every day and have already dumped a huge amount of paper into the recycling. I know I have kept some things other would have thrown away but I am very happy with the progress I'm making on it.

The other creative outlet I want to try and force myself to do a bit, to see what comes of it, is writing. It is, after all, National Novel Writing Month. While I am not going to try and write a novel this month, I did actually start writing something last month and even managed to more or less get a vague outline for it down on paper. So I am setting myself the challenge of writing 500 words a day. The discipline is more what I'm after really, I suppose. And 500 words is not a lot, really. This blog post is already up to, let me check, 859.Which is probably more than enough for now.

I'll finish up with a summary of my spending. While I did track this pretty well this month, I didn't make a note of everything on the last day and a half in Dusseldorf and I kept forgetting to ask for receipts. Partly that is because I'm getting more and more out of the habit of shopping, which is not a bad thing. I'm fairly sure I remember everything, although I may have been a few cents off on a couple of items. As always, the amount I spent seems to exceed the amount I actually spent, i.e. the individual amounts I tracked add up to way more than the amounts on my bank and credit card statment. I'm going to just go with my spreadsheet having an error in the calculations somewhere. November's spreadsheet is waiting to go and there is already a difference of 5 euro. I know where it's coming from but it's taken account of in one of the formulas so shouldn't show up as a difference, which is why I'm sure that it's my formulas that are throwing up the differences. I'm going to continue just tracking daily spending, as that is currently what's important, and I'll worry about rejigging my spreadsheet again in a few months.

See here for a lengthy explanation post of some of the workings of my budget spreadsheet. Here's how the totals look for October.

Banking section (euro/% of salary/% of total income):

1. Rent 590 / 60% / 25%
2. Private pension/investments 50 / 5% / 2%
3. Various charities 65 / 7% / 3%
4. Transfer to Irish account 485 / 49% / 20%
5. Basic income supporter 6 / 1% / 0%
6. Annual expenses (incl. holiday savings) 0 / 0% / 0%
7. Transport 39.40 / 4% / 2%
8. Other house related 0
9. Dental insurance 36.80 / 4% / 2%
10. Visa (my old Irish credit card) 0
11. Phone/internet 32.05 / 3% / 1%
12. Mastercard 600 / 61% / 25% (used this a lot in September while waiting on payment of an invoice)
13. Misc. (food etc.) - cash 145 / 15% / 6%
14. Misc. (food etc.) - debit card 94.20 / 10% / 4%
15. Bills (not including phone) - 40.00 / 4% / 2%
16. Tax account 0 / 0% / 0%
17. Bank charges 0
18. One-off out 124.56 / 13% / 5% (this includes 49 euro also paid to mastercard, which for strange reasons I had to record here. I left just over 100 euro unpaid, just in case I ran into problems later in the month but should be able to clear it this month)
19. One-off in 1,409.00 (mostly translation work income with a couple of small refunds)

Cash section (euro / % of salary / % of total income) - this should equal the totals for mastercard, cash and debit card above. It never has yet. I did also withdraw 120 euro from my Bank of Ireland account - I knew it was ambitious to transfer 485 at the beginning of the month but still feel like this was less than if I had tried to not spend it from my German account, planning to transfer what was left at the end of the month.

1. Transport 49.30 / 5% / 2%
2. Food - necessities 251.94 / 25% / 11%
3. Food - luxuries 186.48 / 19% / 8% (this should be higher, I think I miscategorised a lot as necessities - I was away and eating out a good bit this month)
4. Canteen food 56.00 / 6% / 2%
5. Toiletries 0.67 / 0% / 0%
6. Gifts (incl. postage, card and wrapping) 61.27 / 6% / 3%
7. Clothes 68.99 / 7% / 3% (new shoes for winter, a couple of long sleeve t-shirts and a hoody, as well as a couple of pairs of slippers which will be xmas presents)
8. House/garden 83.57 / 8% / 3%
9. Medical 21.39 / 2% / 1%
10. Other 401.55 / 41% / 17% (however, this includes 276.76, which is the balance carried over on the MC from last month so now that amount is essentially counted twice. However, as the plan is to never carry over a balance, I'm not going to worry about changing that. Other expensive things happening this month were website renewals and travel insurance).

So there you have it. Some might think it pointless to have totals that don't reconcile but for now it's enough for me and, most importantly, I tracked daily spending mostly accurately every single day.

Moving slowly but doing something every day

I have to keep reminding myself that I made the decision before I actually moved that I was going to take my time unpacking. Even if it took me months, I reasoned, this was my chance to do things properly and not repeat some of the mistakes I made moving into the last place eight years ago. My new place may be smaller but it is nicer in many ways and in the spirit of new beginnings, I felt the frustration living with boxes for a potentially long time would be worth it in the end.

At the moment, more or less two weeks in, I'm started to feel that frustration a bit and so I'm glad I said it so often to so many people. I know in the end, it'll be worth it. And except for perhaps one or two days, I really have been doing a little bit every day. The kitchen was first up and the bedroom isn't too bad either. The main living room is not usuable but I'm going to clear a couple of things this afternoon so that at least I will have set up the table. For now, I've been using a stool at the nice wide window sill in my bedroom, or eating from a plate on my knee while sitting on my bed or, a couple of times, on a stool on the balcony. I do still have to find one or two boxes of kitchen stuff. Despite my attempts to move the boxes straight into the kitchen as they were arriving, it's so small that I quickly ran out of space. And typically, it's one of the boxes that was packed close to the end that is, presumably, right at the bottom of the pile. Which means I'm missing my big knives and my salad spinner. Sigh. I haven't really cooked a lot (it's far too hot for that) yet so I can manage with just the few small knives but I'm really missing my salad spinner. Tea towels just don't work as well (at least not when I'm doing it).

Speaking of teatowels - I washed this great potato storage unit this morning. I used to keep potatoes in the top and onions in the middle and the bottom mostly stood empty. So now I'll keep potatoes in the bottom, onions in the middle and have put tea towels and dishcloths in the top. Apron and tea cosy are resting on top, still have to find a final place for them. I will evenutally, I think, put this up on a shelf so that I have the entire counter as a workspace.

One of the reasons it's taking so long is that I am determined to properly clean every piece of furniture before using it again. There is nothing that doens't need it and there was no point in doing it just before the stuff got loaded on a moving truck. So, last weekend I got the big set of drawers that used to sit in the living room done. They are now in my bedroom and serving as my main clothes storage, with everything folded vertically à la Marie Kondo. 


I had started doing this a while ago but had just the shelves in my old wardrobe to store stuff on and it wasn't ideal. Now, I've just about managed to get all of my vest tops, t-shirts and long-sleeve t-shirts into one drawer and I'm delighted. I even got rid of a couple of things, reasoning that using that big drawer as a limiting influence on my clothes would be a good thing. So, in future, I only get to buy new things if something old goes, because otherwise it won't fit. One other drawer has trousers (except work trousers, which will hang in the wardrobe), swimwear and nightclothes. And a third has jumpers, cardigans and fleeces. All sorted and my first bag of donations went off to the clothes bank yesterday.

During the past week then, I got my green shelves/cupboard done. That involved a bit more work, as the back had never really been attached properly (I bought it second-hand) since I got it. So I also spent some time hammering those tiny little nails into the back. For now, I've unpacked the books that used to be on the small bookshelves in the sitting room (mostly TBR stuff and then the WoT and Harry Potter books) and designated the lower cupboard as storage for blankets and sleeping bags. Towels are on the smaller shelf for now, as are table cloths and napkins. And shoes are going into the middle storage portion, which I used to keep records in and really couldn't handle the weight. Trying to figure out the best use of everything, as I'm changing the uses of several pieces of furniture. It's occupying a good bit of my thinking but it's another thing I think will be worth it in the end. And almost every day, I get a box or two sorted and unpacked. 

I've made a couple of new purchases for the kitchen. A kettle and toaster, courtesty of Aldi. And a nice new insert for my cutlery drawer. I'm kind of getting a kick out of having brought a bit of colour into my kitchen and it feels like I will take much better care of these things than I did of the last, which were all bought just because they were the cheapest I could find in a hurry. It's only now, smiling at my red kettle every morning, that I realise just how much I disliked the stainless steel one I had. 

And after contemplating throwing out the breadbin that had been languishing unused and hidden under a pile of stuff on top of the fridge in my old place, I'm glad I brought it with me. I've borrowed my sister's trick of finding space for it by simply putting it under the toaster. Fits perfectly and uses what would otherwise be dead space. Very nice to have somewhere to keep the bread again instead of it getting in the way all the time.

So, all in all, although I am getting a bit sick of looking at boxes, I'm happy with what I have gotten done and it's proving to me that I really am on the right track to be taking my time and doing things properly. And although I need to be very careful with money now, a few careful purchases are just putting the finishing touches on my pleasure at living here.

Sure who wouldn't smile at this lovely burst of colour every time they opened the drawer to get a spoon?

I have too much stuff

It feels like I may never be finished packing but the movers are coming tomorrow morning at eight so I have to be finished before then. I suspect I may be having another late night tonight. I'm nearly at a stage where I have one room (the bedroom) completely finished, which means I can start shifting boxes in there. That moves those boxes out of the way of the few cupboards in the sitting room that aren't quite finished yet. And then it's the bit I've been dreading, the large built in, stuffed to the gills, cupboards in the hallway. If I don't quite have the kitchen packed up it's not the end of the world as I'd be able to finish it in the morning while the movers start on everything else. Since I'm on the 4th floor and there's no lift, they'll be taking a while to get everything down. But the hall cupboards are right beside the front door so they absolutely must be emptied before they start.

I went through most of my jars at the weekend. Any of those which were just empty jars of bought foodstuffs (friends used to donate them to me, it all got a bit out of hand) have been deposited in the bottle bank. I've only kept the ones I actually bought - the glass is defintely tougher and, to be honest, most of what I want to do involves actually processing the jars in a water bath so they need to be proper canning jars. I do still have quite a lot of chutney and jams but since I didn't make any at all last year, and very little the year before, anything I do have is a few years old at this stage. Much as it pains me to do it, I'm trying to be at least a little bit ruthless and keep telling myself "new beginnings, new beginnings, new beginnings". So, I've decided to dump the contents of anything left and just bring the cleaned jars. That's work, of course, but a friend is coming over this evening to help so I think I'll set her to that task. People have been very good about offering to help but I find it very difficult to let people be at my stuff and so much has to be sorted first that it's hard to find things where I can just say "pack that, please". My poor sister was over for a few days visit, planned long before I ever knew I'd be moving so she didn't exactly have a relaxing holiday. I'm so glad she was here though, I'm not sure I'd have been able to do it without her and I'm very certain I'd be far closer to being a complete basket case if she hadn't kept me going the last few days. She left yesterday so now I just need to get finished. And when I'm in Ireland in two weeks I'll return the favour, as she'll be moving house then. No rest for the wicked...

I'm off...

It took a while but in the last few weeks all of a sudden I started getting invitations to interviews. Had six lined up over the course of two weeks! And then the first one was the charm - I was invited to a second interview a week later and it turned out they didn't so much want to interview me as they just wanted to offer me the job. Contingent on me spending a couple of hours there that afternoon just to make sure that I was happy and comfortable with the person I'll be mostly working under. Because, hold on to your hats, I've found somewhere to work where they attach great importance to the chemistry between people being good! I wasn't sure that existed in Germany! Hang on, that's worth more than one exclamation point I think!!!!!

So, now it's all go. The sensible thing to do would have been to wait and go to all my other interviews this week but I was very enthusiastic about this job after the first interview - the place, the tasks, the people and the type of graduate program I'll be supporting (sustainabililty-related! - I'm not going to name it though as it's quite specific and I like to cling to the notion that I'm still not completely identifiable from this blog. Quaint, some people might call that.)

I did go for one interview at my local university before I got this offer and haven't heard back yet but to be honest, I wasn't 100% certain about the professor I would have been working for. He seemed nice but also seemed like he could easily wear more than one face and I've learned to be careful about people like that. At any rate, I'm thrilled with the job I've gotten and only one other that I was called for interview for was similarly interesting and that would have involved either a long commute or a move to a town that's not particularly attractive. I cancelled that interview and instead, I will shortly be moving to this lovely place....

This is obviously one of the nicest views and there are parts of the town that are just as grey and horrible as any town but look...hills!

So even though the job I've gotten is only a part-time job (20 hours a week, increasing to 30 hours a week next year if they get funding) and is restricted to two years (so I have two years to try and wangle things to get a permanent position - something not at all easy to do in the public sector), it feels so right that I am going for it. I've already put out feelers to a recruitment agency in the area and am feeling very positive at the moment. That changes hourly though. At the moment I'm feeling pretty good because I had an unexpected but very welcome request via the National Association of Translators on Saturday which led to a nice bit of work on Monday and yesterday. Tough job but I think I did alright. Am just waiting for some feedback from the agency now and hoping that they were satisfied with it. It was a job just the other side of my comfort zone but when I got down to it it wasn't too bad, I think. Would be great to have made another contact that might lead to work every now and again.

Another aspect of working for the public service means that things can take a while. They would like me to start as soon as possible but it will probably take at least four weeks for the contract to go through all of the various departments and councils it has to go through. Still, starting mid-May or the beginning of June is very, very short notice in Germany. Bear in mind that if I hadn't already left my job and was just handing in my notice now, I wouldn't be free to start work anywhere else until the end of September and even if I would have been able to negotiate an earlier release from my contract, it would have been at least a few months.

The entire country seems to be predicated on a three-month cycle though, which means that although I did the sensible thing and left my job first (although that might work against me when I'm trying to find a new place to live and can't show income slips from an employer for the last few months), everything else now has to be worked on pronto. I've been trawling the websites looking for an apartment and have managed to arrange two appointments for Friday. Really hoping one of those is suitable and works out. I have to give three months notice on my place here, which means paying rent here until July. I'm really hoping that if I can find someone to take my place one, they'll let me out of my lease earlier. Need to phone now and find out. And organise to move. And cancel a million and one other things. I started making a list and it already covers one and a half A4 pages. Some things are just a change of address but some are things that have to be cancelled. Most are three-month cancellation policies but may have exceptions if you're leaving the state (which I will be) so I have a whole lot of paperwork ahead of me.

I may end up not blogging much at all over the next couple of months or I may end up blogging multiple times a day. It really could go either way. I'm excited and so happy to be feeling this level of enthusiasm for something though. Heidelberg here I come!

Time to move on

A new month and time to get my act together and just get on with things. I've spent a good part of the morning on the phone. With the social welfare office to check whether the money I received yesterday (unemployment money for February) already took into account the side-job earnings for January, information I sent them two weeks ago. Of course it doesn't. With the health insurance people who sent me the information on what they have submitted to the tax office on my behalf, as it didn't seem to add up. Turns out the amount I was refunded as part of the bonus program last year was almost exactly the same as the amount I was refunded just last month for the extra payment I made in December. Glad I phoned to clear it up though. And then with the agency which has given me most of the translation work I've done so far. There's another big project coming up and since there doesn't seem to be a rush on it, there's a possibility I might get the entire thing myself and not end up sharing it with two others. That would obviously be fantastic. It's a lot of work though so I really do need to get myself organised. I have another client who has sent me the first section of their masters thesis to proofread, too.

So far, my four months of not working have not been very structured. In November, I crashed out a bit, exhausted after finishing work (especially the nearly 150 hours I worked in my final two weeks) but with other commitments to still take care off. It was a double concert month for choir (two of our best concerts ever, I have to admit) so that was rehearsal plus weekend rehearsal plus the weekend of the concerts itself. I finished the translations for the memory/Alzheimers videos, which included meeting with a German friend a few times to double-check some of the German. And I had a couple of other, paid, translation jobs, as well. Not to mention the back and forth with the tax office to get my tax number sorted and the health insurance place.

In December, the first time I actually had a few days with nothing at all to do, I spent three and a half days in bed. And boy, did I need it. I didn't sleep overly much, mostly read or just lay there thinking but I desperately needed a time of as little sensory input as possible. Then followed my birthday weekend, with a lovely visit from one of my best friends. And all of a sudden, a big translation project, which took up a lot of time over the next few weeks, as well as trying to get a handle on the housework and prepare for christmas. My week in Ireland for that was a much-needed break, which felt very strange considering I had just spent the last two months unemployed.

In January, it finally seemed like I would be able start getting myself properly organised. I had another fairly big translation, as well as some smaller ones. Got stuff mostly sorted with the social welfare office. Ramped up my efforts to find a new job. Got back on track a bit with meal plans and cooking proper food.

And I'm not really sure what happened to February. I'm constantly astonished at how quickly the month goes by, even though it's only two or three days shorter than every other month. I did get some things done but it was by no means a powerhouse month.

February did end with a brilliant weekend though. My annual trip to Halle to sing the Happy Birthday Handel performance of Messiah. It was a bit quieter this year, with the most of the late nights ending at eleven or twelve rather than two or three. I was kind of glad the others were doing that, though, as it suited me very well to sleep well and then not be dragging through the next day's rehearsal. As always, I spent the weekend hanging around with my men - a group of retired guys from an Irish choir. I knew one of them in college and then we met again at this event in 2011. It wasn't until the second time I was there, in 2013, that I really got to know the others but now I love spending time with them and I think at this stage they expect me to be with them. It's really nice.

One of my cousins was there, too, and I brought her out for lunch on one of the days. We spent a couple of hours catching up, something we're always saying we'll do but that we never seem to get around to. She's ten years older than me and my mum lived with them when she first moved up to Dublin, so I have to admit to feeling a bit emotional at some of the things she talked about. But it's nice to hear things, too. Now I know, for example, that my mum was the only one of her family to go to secondary school (she was exceptionally bright, apparently. I think as a kid I just always assumed that everyone's parents were clever and then after she died, I didn't really think about it at all). And that when we were younger, she said to my cousin that the one thing she hoped was that when we were older, she and us would be friends, the way her older sisters were with their kids. And that apparently, I am named after a film star. My cousin wasn't certain if it was an actor or a character but it's interesting to know that.

But now it's March and I can't just drift any longer (much as I would love to. I even bought a lottery ticket last week so maybe when I check that later I'll have won a fortune and drifting will actually be a legitimate lifestyle choice for me). So, today, bad start really, I'm taking it easy. I took care of those phone calls earlier and have filled out the form for the social welfare place on my February income. That's that. I'm going to catch up now on some emails and blogs, perhaps watch a small amount of telly and then I'm going to a friend's house. She has been having an extraordinarily difficult time of things and asked me to come and see her. I assume that will end up being the afternoon and a part of the evening, too. Tomorrow morning I want to get up and go for a walk as soon as I do. No hanging around, no lazing (or at least, no lazing until later in the day). Really, I want to start doing that every morning, although I might alternate going for a walk with half-an-hour of stretching exercises for the first week or two. We'll see how it goes.

In the spirit of starting over and moving on, I've also updated my savings totals in the sidebar. I've been lax about keeping that up-to-date and I want and need to start being more meticulous about it. In addition to the accounts listed there, I'm going to use the end of my paper chain to start a small savings fund for something fun. I got to the end of my savings goal with that in one fell swoop at the end, so I never ended up tearing off the last few rings. There are 12 rings left. If I take each one to represent 20 euro, then I have 240 euro to do something with. Perhaps even a cheap weekend away to one of the places on my places to go list. Now that I've (at least partially) sorted my job situation, it's important to start actually living the life I want!