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!!!!!!!!!!!

Thinking of starting to explore youtubing

The idea of starting to record videos for youtube has come to mind every now and again over the years. Partially as a potential side gig (earn money just for going on about my life? Why not!?!), partially from a sense of pushing myself out of my comfort zone. On the one hand, you look at some youtube channels and wonder how on earth something that boring became so common and beloved. Unboxings were the first time I remember thinking that. I mean, apart from hating that word, it's one thing if someone I follow happens to get something and opens it. That can be kind of fun and interesting. But there are channels out there dedicated to nothing else. I have to admit to finding cash envelope stuffing videos kind of mesmerising and I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who are as mystified by them as I am by unboxings. 

A recent stunning sunset

On the other hand, I do realise how much work goes on behind the scenes and honestly, I don't think I'm technically experienced or talented or interested enough to bother with all of that. So it would be the youtube equivalent of, well, this blog and its photos. Alright but not of the highest quality. That would irritate me while not actually inspiring me to invest the time and money into getting good equipment and learning how to do it all properly myself or paying someone else to do it for me. Although I have no interest in learning to do it all properly, and although I'm not even someone with particularly (or even any) high standards when it comes to photography or sound, I'm very likely give up immediately if everything isn't perfect.

 

 

Actually, this is another area where I'd be stepping way outside my comfort zone, which means it could in fact be good for me. Maybe. 

So between technical issues, potentially boring content, and the potential privay issues around putting your real self out there without the safety blanket of anonymity, I've never done anything about it. And of course there is also the fact that at some stage I learned that monetisation on youtube doesn't even start before something like one thousand subscribers and four thousand views. Even when I was posting regularly, this blog has rarely had more than about 50 views in any one day. 

The idea has reared its head again, though, to some extent because I'm working through some very tough issues in therapy at the moment, revolving in part around who/how I was as a child and teenager. The two threads have kind of come together in my head. On the one hand, if I could manage to get the word out and try to get my family to all subscribe to a youtube channel, I'd be well on the way to a good amount subscribers (just my siblings, their spouses and kids is already more than 25 people, if aunts and uncles and cousins started to get on board, the numbers really grow to the hundreds very quickly). More importantly, it might be a way to actually get in touch with some of that extended family that I haven't had contact with for years, and maybe be able to get some of them to share with them what I was like as a kid, thus answering at least some of my questions about my past.*

Anyway, it's all just ruminating for now. If anyone reads this and has any advice to offer one way or another, feel free to comment. And if I do decide to go ahead with it, let me know if you'd be interested in following. It would have to be completely separate from this blog, as it would be my online persona that is essentially my real life one (still not my real name but a real nickname that people who know me would recognise easily). I try to keep the two separate but since I'd be desperate for followers subscribers anyway 😁, I'd be willing to share with those of you I've had contact with over the years.

* I do realise most people, at least most people my age, would reach for fb for this but I can't stand that particular platform and only made it about two days becoming totally overwhelmed. Youtube seems like it could be a bit more like a blog in that it's slightly more in my control, with less input from others.

Almost a new quarter

It seems like every time I decide I'm going to start blogging regularly again, all that happens is a series of post, ever further apart, starting with something along the lines of "how can it already be [x amount of time] since the last time I posted. I was going to start journalling, thinking maybe putting an actual pen to actual paper might help me to sort out some of the swirl happening in my head. And then I remembered that that was part of what I first loved about blogging: that typing allowed me to get more of the swirl out of my head since I can type so much faster (and more accurately, not to mention legibly) than handwriting anything. There is definitely a lot of swirl happening in my head though, so time to do something about it. Perhaps I'll start wearing a beret and strolling around with a notebook and pencil to jot notes and ideas in. I'm not quite sure why a beret is essential to this activity but it feels like it is.

I got through January well enough. Didn't do as well with the 30-day Yoga with Adrienne challenge as I would have liked to but on the other hand, I did a whole lot more yoga in January than I have otherwise ever done. Food is starting to get a bit out of control although on the whole is also better in general than it has been for a long time. And I was really glad to have a freezer with quite a lot of batch-cooked food in it when this happened at the end of Feburary.

 

 

 

Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, January ended up kind of going off the rails because there was a shooting close to where I work. I wasn't immediately under threat in the sense that I had no gun pointing directly at me at any stage but I was close enough to see the shooter and be one of the people calling the police. Not an experience I care to repeat any time soon although I'm pleased enough with how calmly I reacted in the moment. 

 

At the start of February then, I was moving pretty slowly in general. I had texted a friend on the day of the shooting that I was definitely going to do TOMM that evening and the entire 30 minutes was going to be dedicated to clearing off the table. So, yeah, that didn't happen that day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It took me a couple of weeks to get back to doing anything much at all other than work and sleep but finally I did manage to make it look like this (after three evenings worth of work!) I even managed to keep it that way for several weeks. 

I was really happy to head off to Halle at the end of the month to once more participate in the Happy Birthday Handel performance of Messiah. A far smaller choir and smaller crowd this year, given the Corona restrictions still i place. Not that those restrictions (everyone testing everyday, masks on when not in seat, everybody vaccinated) helped much in the end because on the day I left I had a bit of a scratchy throat so while waiting for a train change, I decided to do another test just in case and that's the first positive one I got. The picture above is from day 10 after first testing positive and it was another three days before I managed to get a negative test. I had what they call a mild case but it still fairly knocked me out for two weeks. Fever the first four or five days, coughing and sneezing and blowing my nose a million times the entire time, and a week since I've been testing negative I'm still coughing. It's just not fun. And that's a mild case in someone who's vaccinated and boosted. Le big sigh. Ok, that's enough for now - I'm supposed to be working so I suppose I'll go and do a bit of that.

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.

Getting back to the simple life

I am having lots of thoughts and feelings at the moment around depression, accepting how severe my depression has actually been over the years and trying to come to terms with how much of my life it has absorbed and the feeling that I have wasted years and years while trying to be kind to myself and accept that it wasn't all my fault, dealing with depression absorbed most of my energy, etc., etc. I have been taking anti-depressants for about a year and a half now and am slowly getting to a point where it feels like I have some energy to spare for just life in general. Very much an ongoing journey and it's going to be a long one. As always, accepting something logically is easier than accepting it emotionally.

In terms of energy, I wouldn't describe myself as full of beans but I am making an effort and managing to get something done every day. Mind you, being on holidays from work helps.

All of this led to me yesterday doing something that I have thought about doing every summer for the last few years but never quite getting around to. I bought two large punnets of strawberries. From a local shop that grows a lot of their own stuff on a small farm on the outskirts of town. And this morning, I washed, hulled and sliced them, and put them into the dehydrator.

Dehydrator trays on scales, 1 punnet worth of strawberries, preserving notebook

I dragged out my preserving notebook to add it in and see, somewhat to my amazement, that the last entry was 2014. Wow. Looking at it logically though, I knew I hadn't done anything since I moved here, and that was 2016. And in the summer and autumn of 2015, I was working my notice at my corporate job, then starting my translating on the side business and trying to recover from years and years of overwork and stress. I'm pretty sure when I moved here I told myself it was ok to not do anything the first summer - I was only working part-time and money was tight, I was trying to settle in and all that. The next summer, I feel like I was determined to do at least some dehydrating but it never happened. I'll have to read back and see if I posted anything in 2018, because I am really not sure why I didn't do anything then, although thinking about it, I was pretty miserable in work and depressed. And then at the start of last summer, I had just switched to my new job, was loving it and starting to really enjoy life when my boss killed himself. It seems hard to believe that that was almost a year ago. I still miss him and think about him, well, not quite every day but on many of them.  Strawberries were his favourite fruit, and remembering the conversation we had when he told me that is probably something that will always come to mind when strawberry season arrives.

When I look back and view it logically, there were almost always reasons why I wasn't getting around to doing some of the things that are important to me in terms of the simple life that I was searching for when I started this blog. It is very hard to accept that it wasn't all just me being lazy or worthless. I'm working on it. Today, at least, it felt good to switch on the dehydrator, and now the smell of strawberries is filling the room. Getting started is always the hardest part and that's done now. So here's to living the simple life I want.

Back from holidays and changed some targets

I've had such a lovely time the last couple of weeks. First up was a day visiting a friend in nearby Stuttgart, including hanging out with her grandkids, which earned me the name of "the funny lady" (die lustige Frau) from her four-year-old granddaughter (she couldn't remember my name and wanted to know if I'd be coming back to visit again, I think). That makes me smile when I think of it.

Random sculpture in Halle

 

 

Then it was back home to pack for my annual visit to Halle to sing Messiah for the Happy Birthday Handel event. Once again, it was a long weekend that was fun and laughter and singing and friends from just about the second I arrived and until we all headed off to the train station together on the Monday afternoon.

After that, my friends flew home to Ireland while I went on to Leipzig for the day and then Dresden the following day until the end of the week. It was really interesting to see Dresden but I was surprised somehow that I loved Leipzig so much more than Dresden. I will definitely have to go back and spend more time in Leipzig.







I felt so comfortable walking around there, just like I'd found one of those places that makes me feel at home straightaway. The monument you can see in the background of this photo is called the Monument to the Battle of the Nations and it pulled my eye toward it immediately. Definitely want to go back and see that up close. I was amused to realise after staring at it for about quarter of an hour that it actually was that particular monument, as my friend had kept telling me about this monument in Leipzig that he found amazing and it turned out to be exactly this one. I have to say, I completely agree with him. Even from a distance, it was fascinating.

From the panorama tower in Leipzig

Panthers, Semper Oper, Dresden

I arrived back late on Friday night and then got up to head off to aquajogging yesterday morning, with a quick stop at the supermarket on the way home. Otherwise, I have not gotten up to much this weekend. Did one load of washing before I ran out of underwear completely and I've kept on top of the washing up, even actually giving my Brita jug a really good scrubbing, which it hasn't had for, well, lets just call it several months since it's had anything but a bit of a half-hearted swipe.

I am not looking forward to going back to work, though and have faced up to the fact that I really am not enjoying it. So, among other things I did this holiday, I applied for a new job. It was only advertised internally, which is usually a sign that they actually have someone internal in mind for the job, but we'll see what happens. I think it could be a good fit. Even if I don't get it though, I'll keep an eye out and need to move this to a bit more of a proactive issue now.



Coming home was at least a bit of a chance to catch up on my finances though and I've just updated my savings targets on the sidebar. Annual savings are down to almost nothing again and will be completely depleted next month after paying an insurance bill. Can't wait for a few months then to build that up again but that is what it's there for, after all. I have also upped the total target for my emergency fund and my investments, so that my percentages have fallen even though the totals are slowly increasing. But for a couple of reasons, I decided that €5,000 is an amount that I feel better with for my emergency fund than €2,000. For one, it's pretty close to six months worth of expenses - well, it's five months of barebones expenses anyway, which feels close. And for another, it is approximately how much I would need if I wanted to move. So even though moving would not be an emergency, it feels like having that much put away no matter what just gives me options, which kind of takes the pressure off a bit. So, I'm aiming to continue adding at least €50 per month to that account but also going to try and add as much as possible of any translation income I get in the coming months.

Notes on a Sunday

Haven't the wherewithal to write a particularly cogent post today but had things I wanted to write about so perhaps a few notes will just do for now. Don't let the perfect (ha!) get in the way of the good and all that.

• Blogger is letting me post pictures again so I've added the two random ones I wanted to add ot my last post to this one. 
• I've never paid a huge amount of attention to the stats on this blog but used to look every once in a while (or every day for a while and then not at all for ages) and noticed that one search term that seem to lead people here a lot was "how not to get overwhelmed" - except they mostly landed on this post, in which I talk about how overwhelmed I am. I have thoughts about this and it's one of those things I have wanted to write about for years, ever since I noticed it. Maybe one day.
• Went to the doctor on Friday and got a referal note to go and see a psychologist again and even spent a half an hour searching for one in my area and sent one an email to see if they have a free spot. I'm very all over the place at the moment, possibly with some delayed shock from a minor car accident I had in December and had a bit of a breakdown the week before last related to that so I just need to go and get help. Feeling very alone, especially because my brother, when I have phoned him over the last few weeks, has not been answering. I know he finds January tough and is extremely busy at the momeny, especially helping a friend whose husband had to go into hospital but I have seen that he has been on social media so I'm not too worried about him. Just a bit hurt because this time around I needed to talk to him and he hasn't phoned back. But I haven't actually sent him any messages saying I need to talk either. Not sure why but just couldn't manage to type any messages. At any rate, I hope the doctor I contacted has a place free soon.
• In the meantime, I'm trying to keep going with all the stuff that I know is helpful and that I need to do.

Light dusting of snow near work

• Went to third aquajogging session yesterday - I am really enjoying it. I did a full hour on the bike at the gym on Friday evening, too, and then walked home (it's about 25-30 minutes to walk at my speed). I had two heavy bags with me though and between that and the aquajogging yesterday, I was really feeling it in my arms yesterday - especially my lower arms. 
• Yesterday I made cabbage soup using a recipe from a Jane Grigson book I bought a few years ago on the strength of a recommendation from a blog I read. A book I have only glanced at before. But a recipe for cabbage soup that consisted of cabbage, onions, apples, garlic and ginger seemed like a good idea. It's nice, although more watery/liquidy than I was expecting. 
• Read about Zuckerberg deciding to integrate Whatsapp and Instagram into FB - not impressed. I suppose I'll replace insta with more blogging again. And I've now installed telegram, too - now to just get everyone I know to do the same so we can telegram instead of whatsapping.

 

• I took the pork that I bought last July and never got around to using out of the freezer yesterday and even mixed up the spice mix so that I could give it a few hours with the rub before putting it into the slow cooker today. As soon as I got up this morning I checked and it had finally defrosted so I did the spice rub immediately. 
• Also made "fake" tomato ketchup last night to use as the basis of the braising sauce for the pork today. By fake I mean that I mostly used my recipe for tomato ketchup but used a tin of tomatoes rather than fresh and not bothering with the whole sieving and reducing aspect. This comes from my first adventures in pulled pork where I used up jars of runny tomato ketchup I had made and it was so good, I was disappointed when I had no more of those jars left.
• Got the pulled pork into the slow cooker about two hours ago. Instead of making another soup, which I had bought other veg for, I just decided to add that veg to the pulled pork. So I sauteed two leeks, three onions, five cloves of garlic and a kohlrabi. Put most of that into the bottom of the slow cooker but held back a couple of spoonfuls to use in my breakfast (which I ended up not actually eating until about  half-three - it has just been that kind of day). Added the meat with it's lovely spice rub. Made up the brasing sauce using about a litre of water, a couple of spoonfuls of veg stock powder, two teaspoons of honey, a big glub of white wine vinegar (the last of the bottlw) and the ketchup I prepared last night. 
• Brought washing down to the cellar to get it into the machine. Someone got there before me so I came back upstairs and when I went back down I brought down the rubbish and the recycling. That's a win. I've even put a new bag into the bin already. Going to go down to collect my washing now and it just occurred to me that I never emptied the bins in the bathroom and sitting room. So I'll do that and feel like I'm one step closer to a clean home. 
• Breakfast was leek/onion/garlic/kohlrabi mix with the chopped up leaves of the kohlrabi, the last slice of ham and last two slices of cheese, all scrambled with two eggs and eaten along with a slice of toast. It was very tasty, even if I do say so myself.
• I even did most of the washing-up while the eggs were cooking.
• My two-euro coin to use in the lockers at the swimming pool is stored in the little case I have for my business cards. Forgot about that yesterday until I was nearly ready to leave the pool and was trying to think of where I could store my coin so that I wouldn't have to ask them for change every single week.

Found dolphins on my ukulele!

• I cleared off the top of the chest of drawers in the sitting room to put the slow cooker on top off. It has been a landing ground for junk ever since I moved here. I put away the things that do already have a place to live and the rest is in a big shopping bag. Need to start doing small amounts of sorting every day. I put clear off writing desk and file stuff from table on my to-do list for January and haven't done either of those things yet. Although I have cleared up the table a bit and tided up the non-paper stuff that had gathered. 
• I bought a special flat-plug extension lead to plug the slow cooker into. Most of the sockets in this place have ended up behind pieces of furniture so I was glad I thought to check if such a thing as a flat-plug exists. Now I won't have to have multiple pieces of furniture with a two or three inch gap to the wall. Need to get one or two more for other spots but this was definitely a purchase that sparks joy!

Incredible

Can I get away with "incredible" as my word beginning with "i"? As in, isn't it incredible that it has taken me more than six months to come up with a post for "i"? And in fact, you could add more incredible to the feeling I have right at this moment because I am simply waiting to go to choir in an hour and am not rushing around to try and get something done beforehand. No translations to finish or errands to run. It's actually a bit of a strange feeling. Uncommon for me these days. But nice. Nice enough that I will for now forget about the fact that if I was actually at home, I would have loads of things to do.

The past few months have been ridiculously busy and I have not necessarily been coping well. Last Friday (well, Friday the week before last), however, I sent off the last translation of what felt like a continuous stream of jobs since the middle of August. Apart from a few single days, I was basically translating more or less all the time that I wasn't in work and on the days I didn't have to (or wasn't able to) do anything, I mostly just stayed in bed or lay on the couch reading or, mostly, watching Netflix. Even though I've thought about writing something here again, and even though I really wanted to, I just couldn't seem to find the wherewithal to actually form sentences. Not even for the kind of stream of consciousness post that I have used so often in the past to get me through tougher times. It feels nice that sitting here this evening the thought just popped into my head that I could maybe write a blogpost. Maybe soon I'll even start to feel able for catching up on reading some blogs, as well.

So, apart from too much work, it feels like not much has been going on. I did start a telephone therapy/coaching service (provided by my health insurance place - sort of intended as an interim measure for people waiting for appointments with psychologists or for those like me, who just want a bit of extra help for a while). The first guy I had was pretty awful, to be honest, so before the third appointment, I told him I didn't want to continue working with him. Luckily, the second person I was assigned has been much nicer to deal with and far more supportive in the way that I need and that actually does offer me support.

I started seeing a dietician in February but, to be perfectly honest, this is still a real struggle. I lost about 6 kilos but there was a certain amount of staying the same, gaining a bit, losing again. And now, over the last couple of extremely busy, stressful months, I regained all of the original weightloss and then some. And spent far more money than I could really afford on silly amounts of takeaway, crisps and chocolate. Part of the weightgain, I have to say, is because I've been having massive hormonal issues - seriously, my weight can now fluctuate by up to 4 kilos in the course of two days. However, even though I don't yet have more "good" days than "bad" ones, I have not given up. And I can see the change in my eating habits and how I am thinking about food, even if I still have plenty of days of falling into old behaviours and even if I haven't actually lost a lot of weight since I started nine months ago. It kind of feels like I'm getting close to a critical mass of new behaviours and to reaching the point where I can actually feel like I may be able to actually start consistently losing weight. Knowing that every day I am eating good, healthy food makes it easier to cope with the hormonal weight fluctuations, too. A kind of a "not my fault" thing. I have another appointment with the doctor in December and I will see how I'm coping by then. The progesterone I'm taking is tending to make me fairly emotional, too. Although I've gotten able to recognise the (to me) unnatural fury and/or weepiness, I'm undecided about whether I'm prepared to put up with it. But I don't really want to try any of the other options available either. That's going to me a bit of a wait and see situation for at least another year, I think. Anyway, for now, I'm trying to concentrate on eating good, healthy food. I'm just about saladed out after the summer and looking forward to lots of soups and stews and casseroles in the coming months. Time to break out the slow cooker again!

Life is a bit of a slog

Really trying hard to keep going these days. Not getting a lot done but everything little thing take so much mental effort it's like a huge achievement when something does actually happen.

Last weekend got a big black bag (black bags are actually blue over here, but I still call them black bags) and went out to the balcony and dumped all of the dead plants into it. At the end of July last year I had access to a car so I took a detour on the way home and bought soil, compost and stones as well as a few small pots of herbs with plans to fill up all of my big pots, pot on the herbs and maybe plant some bulbs for the spring. And the herbs have been on the balcony dying ever since. Well, I kept them alive for maybe three months. Actually, the parsley still hasn't died, so all is not lost. And the soil and compost have been lying on the living room floor. So, the dead herbs from the balcony, as well as the two amarylis that I got for birthday and xmas presents from work and left outside once they started to die off, went into the bag. And I cleaned up the mess that the sap from the amarylis made when it was knocked over and then we had minus temperatures for a while. I moved the bags of soil and compost outside, which has helped with the little tiny fly problem I've been having, and hopefully, since they had a few days of freezing weather now, too, any remaining fly-offspring have been taken care of, too. Such a simple thing to just drag those bags outside but it honestly took me a couple of months of being really annoyed at those little flies to just do it.

Since I had the industrial strength cleaner (leftover from when I moved) out to take care of the frozen sap on the balcony, I also tried it out on the sap that leaked all over the inside windowsill last year when most of my aloe vera plants died. It was absolutely rock solid and nothing I had tried had worked and it had, quite honestly, added a good bit to my feeling bad over and over and worrying what my landlord would say when he found out. But the industrial strength cleaner, while terrible for the environment, actually managed to do the trick (after leaving it to soak for half-an-hour). So that was one more thing achieved. Today I took the approximately one minute I needed to turn around the butcher's block-style rack I have so that I can easily pull it in and out from under the tiny counter, giving me a bit of space to actually work with. Something that it occured to me might be a good idea probably a year ago. But at least it's done now.

Just about an hour ago, I actually took that black bag, added all the current rubbish to it, and brought it down to the big bin downstairs. Today I have also done a wash, which is now hanging to dry. On Thursday I brought the patchwork blanket downstairs and washed it (I told my brother at the start of February I was going to send it to him - that's how long it has taken me to get up the energy to do that task). Today I've made carrot and orange soup, with five portions waiting to go into the fridge for lunches next week. I ate the final portion of pasta bake that I made last weekend and the final portion (well, ok, two portions but they were small so it's now one very big portion) of the soup I made last week is heating up for me to eat for dinner soon. I've made egg muffins to have for breakfasts again. Last week was the second week I did this and I totally burnt them so I was really careful this week. I'm using six eggs and having three muffins every day for breakfast (Monday to Thursday). This week I added a small onion, half a small leek (both chopped very finely) and a very small carrot (grated) with just a bit of salt and pepper as seasoning. 

I have my second appointment with the dietician next week and am a bit nervous. I have not, to be perfectly honest, been following her plan very much. But I have, especially in the last two weeks, started to mostly eat "from scratch" food, even if it that has often meant bread and a slice of meat or cheese. I have lost some weight, although not a huge amount but it is just taking me a long time to get my head in the game and I really want to take as long as it takes. There is just no point in forcing myself to eat a certain way without changing my behaviour from deep within. One thing I have been relatively successful with was her advice to leave 4-5 hours between meals and not eat anything during that time. I have done this at least between breakfast and lunch on most days and between lunch and finishing work on slightly fewer but still most days. Evenings are most difficult at the moment. And weekends are a bit tricky, too. I haven't yet started to keep a proper food diary. I really need to work on increasing the amount of fruit and veg I eat. I have definitely not kept to the treats twice a week idea and am still eating some kind of chocolate every day. But generally just once a day and a drastically lower amount of rubbish then, too. It might shock some that that's a reduction but there you have it.

The health insurance company has approved a year-long program for me, which means (I think, need to double-check when I see her next week) monthly half-hour appointments with the dietician and eight activity appointments (I think to be able to try out different exercise classes to find one I like). They cover the bulk of the cost and I have to pay €273 for the year (in three instalments of €170, €58 and €45). I think realistically I'll need two to three years to lose the weight I need to lose but every day I do something that aims towards that goal, well, at the moment every instance of doing something feels like an achievement. One day at a time sometimes has to be one hour at a time and sometimes it feels like all of my strength is going into simply not giving up and actually trying again, with very little leftover to actually make any progress. But as long as I can still do even that much, I'll keep trying.

Loneliness

My mind keeps circling around the topic of loneliness the last few days. Trying to figure out if that's the main thing that's wrong with my life. I know moving back to Ireland would not be the right decision for me for a multitude of reasons but have actually starting thinking about what it would be like. But although I would be closer to some of my best friends and to most of my family, I don't think it would fix everything else. Wherever you go, there you are.

One of my best friends flew over to Germany just after my birthday and we met up in Hamburg. The weather was atrocious but we had a lovely time. At one stage, we ended up having a conversation about friends and I realised I'd had this conversation with her before a couple of times because I've been trying to articulate something about friendship that was bothering me and that I couldn't quite get a handle on. Partly that came from making more of an effort, when I lived in Dusseldorf, to get out and socialise. To make friends. The thing is, however, I've never really been much of a one for what I'll call the pub life. Heading into your local, seeing who's there, always finding someone to chat to, etc. Dusseldorf was the first time I'd ever really had that and it was kind of nice. But I find it difficult to be friends on that more superficial level. Not that these people (or I) were any less sincere just because we didn't know each other well but just because that was the nature of the friendship. Little or no contact outside the pub so of course it's not the same as being friends with someone you met in school thirty years ago and have shared so much of your life with since.

People say that it's more difficult to make friends when you're older and there is a certain amount of truth in that. I think some of my oldest friends are people I probably wouldn't end up becoming good friends with if we met today. We're just really different people but because of decades of shared experiences and having gotten to know one another before we even knew what kind of people we were, it works. In one way making friends now that I'm older is easier, as I have learned how to swallow my shyness, most of the time, and strike up some kind of small talk if the occasion calls for it. But because I have mostly, during my life, had fewer but very close friendships, I seem to generally think that all friendships should be like that. So the more superficial kind of friendship is something I've really struggled with.

It's made even more difficult by the fact that it's not at all difficult with some people. Especially men, I have to say. I think perhaps it's because I will often follow the lead, no matter who I've met. So those who are very matter-of-fact about things, I can better react in the same way. There's no attempt to make things more than they are. While with others, it seems like if you get along well, they automatically assume you're going to be the best of friends forever. And that, I think, is something that I'm just less inclined to do these days. I'd rather just let things develop organically, or not. So much of what I've experienced just seems so forced. Perhaps I'm just very lucky to have so many really good friends and should have more sympathy for people who seem to feel a lack in that respect. Perhaps it's just the particular situation and people I met in Dusseldorf. But I have to admit that I felt more relief than anything that when I decided to move, I'd be leaving it all behind me. I didn't find it at all difficult and, to be honest, have missed very little of it.*

At any rate, while trying to articulate some of this yet again to my friend in Hamburg I was talkng about one particular woman. She is a lovely person and while we became quite good friends over the eight years I lived there, I've always sort of struggled with it, especially since having left. Even before I moved but after I'd left work, it had started to become a bit, well, onerous. Since we weren't seeing each other in work, it required more effort to meet up. I remember commenting to her once a while after we met about how funny ex-pat life is and how you end up spending time with people just because they're from the same country whereas at home, you'd never really end up spending time with the same people, because you're just so different/don't have anything in common. She got a bit offended at the implication that she and I didn't have anything in common, even though I had been speaking in generalities. Gaaaggh, I feel like I'm tying myself up in knots again to try and explain it. The same was happening in Hamburg until my friend quite bluntly said, "you mean you just don't want it [to be friends with her]". My immediate reaction was "no, no" but even with a couple of seconds I had to admit that she had absolutely hit the nail on the head. No matter how nice that woman is, I'm just really not that interetsed in being very close friends with her. For me, it was a friendship of time and place and it should now just fizzle out to an occasional meeting if we happen to be in each other's area but not be the big effort that I have felt obliged to make. So, I'm working on it and trying to figure out this astounding new idea that I don't have to be best of friends with everybody who's nice and that it's perfectly ok for me to be "superficial" with some people, even if they want more.

I had other things I wanted to braindump about loneliness but it seems like I needed to get all of that off my chest first. Loneliness is a funny thing and I'm not sure why I'm feeling it so acutely at the moment. Because I am close to my family, I do have lots of good friends, I even have a man to enjoy spending time with (although that's only a few times a year as we live in different countries, with phone calls in between, but it suits us and doesn't stop either or us from seeing other people as well; I'm so glad polyamory has become a bit more openly talked about in recent years, if I didn't even know it was a thing, I think I'd have tied myself up in knots about this otherwise) and I have hobbies which give me plenty of social contact, too. But when I was sitting in my armchair yesterday afternoon, almost physically aching with loneliness, none of them were who I needed. I scrolled through my phone contacts twice and just couldn't raise the enthusiasm to call anyone (although I did delete a few of those "pub friends" and that felt good). It's tempting to say that I just want a boyfriend/husband and that does play a big role. While I'm very happy with the relationship I do have, I would like to have someone around every day to share the little things with. Mind you, I don't think I could stand having housemates again, I do mean having someone around that I was in a relationship with. And the fact that I'm realistically never going to have children now plays a role as well. Even the fact that I could adopt if I really wanted a child but will probably never feel the joy of being pregnant and feeling a child growing inside me plays a role. But I sort of feel like all of that just doesn't quite get to the bottom of it either. So it's back to hoping that winter will pass soon and that that will make things feel better again for a while.

* "It" being the pub life and the circle of ex-pat friends related to that. On the other hand, I also became friends with a large circle of people from choir and I really miss that circle. A few became very good friends and we are still in touch and the others I see once or twice a year when I go back up to attend a concert and it's lovely. But the "pub" circle? Don't miss any of them at all and am even still relieved that I don't have to make the effort anymore.

Short and sweet

That's the way it has to go for the next little while, as I want to get back to blogging regularly but something is holding me back. So I'm going to attempt to post at least a few times a week but maybe not more than a couple of sentences. No excuses that time is too short.

Time will be short but that's because I said yes to a huge translation job that I really should have turned down. Getting it done would mean at least two or three hours a day plus all weekend and it is now threee o'clock on Saturday. Since I got the job (on Wednesday) I have spent just about two hours actually working on it. The excuse that I may be coming down with a cold is maybe good enough for having slept in so late this morning. And even for the fact that after waking up at eleven and reading for less than an hour, I took a nap for an hour. But I did actually get up and dressed then, all ready to pop out to pick up a parcel that I wasn't here to take in yesterday. But there is no good reason for me to be still sitting here two hours later.

My mood in general these days is pretty much one of self-loathing and it's hard to tell sometimes whether that's making me self-sabotage just so I can hate myself more, or if I'm just floundering because I feel so useless. Elaine from MFin3 posted a TED talk about procrastination a last week, which I've just watched. I've actually read the Wait but Why post on procrastination before but it was interesting to be reminded and also to hear the bit at the end about procrastination with and without deadlines. The shop I have to collect my package from closes at four o'clock on a Saturday so I'll definitely need to leave here very soon if I want to get my package at all. Short deadlines are definitely easier for me to react to than long ones. It's spreading the work of translating 70 pages out over the next ten days that's hard. If I had 10 to do tomorrow, I'd just do it. Makes no sense. My brain is just so messed up sometimes.

So it looks like I have a new job

Looks like Sundays are becoming my day for posting something. I'd like to get back to more regular and possibly even more interesting posting sometime but for now perhaps I'll just do a Sunday (or weekend) post to at least keep things going.

The week ended up being a bit of a whirlwind and my first day off on Tuesday ended up fulfilling absolutely no potential for relaxation. Started with an email from the organisation I won the two-year contract with containing the actual agreement (which took a while to read since it referenced lots of various paragraphs from the Civil Code and I'm the kind of person who will go looking up stuff like that), as well as the next job they have for me. Unfortunately it was a huge job and it would have been really touch and go for me to actually get it done in the time they wanted it done. Felt very bad about having to say that I would only do half, even though I know they do have a second translator on hand for just that kind of situation. But much as it would have done my budget an awful lot of good to take the whole thing on it would have meant translating for about four hours every single day for the entire month. On top of the day job, that just didn't seem sustainable. I'd have attempted it if they were really stuck but not just saying yes immediately was the sensible thing to do. Now I just need to get over my own feelings of inadequacy and fear of having disappointed or upset them (no indication of that from them whatsoever, these are entirely my own feelings/projections!). Not helped by finding out later that day that the final part of the stuff I was working on for them last week hadn't been delivered by the author on time and so they wouldn't be sending it to me for translation. So silly of me to feel like this was in any way a reflection of dissatisfaction with me or my work and yet there is always that niggly little voice in my head. Definitely something I need to work on.

Considering the phone call I received just an hour or two after having turned down half of the new translation work, however, it seems like it really was the right decision. Because that call was from the person I interviewed who I thought was not going to offer me the job as she wanted a native German speaker. Turns out that she decided that it'd be worth a try. She had spoken to my current boss and they had agreed that I could continue working for him for the time being but reducing my hours to 50% (20hrs/wk), and she would offer me a permanent position for the other 50% of my time. If, after a few months, it was working out, then I'd switch to full-time permanent working for her. If it didn't seem to be working out then we'd just say no harm, no foul and go our separate ways. However, as I would have a permanent (half-time) position going our separate ways would mean she would ensure that I moved to a different permanent position somewhere else in the university. I don't think I can get across how amazing this offer was - permanent admin positions in the educational sector here are like gold dust! So, all in all, Tuesday was not the most relaxing day one could wish for.

Wednesday started out ok and then in the afternoon came the call from my new boss, apologising profusely that she hadn't taken one section of one law into account and therefore I wouldn't be able to get a permanent contract for part-time with her. You can't mix and match and since my other contract is temporary, that's where the catch is. If she were to give me a permanent contract, my other contract would automatically also become permanent. But since the financing for my current job specifically prohibits a permanent position, that would cause a world of trouble for everyone. It's all good really, though. We'll extend my current temporary contract to cover 100% and then split the hours 50:50 between the two departments. After we know if it's working out or not, then we'll talk about switching to full-time permanent for her. So now it's partly just a matter of trust and partly a matter of just accepting that even if it doesn't work out in the new place (and even if, in that case, she decided not to help out with a move to somewhere else permanent), I won't be any worse off than I am now. And actually, I would have the advantage of having made lots of new contacts, probably among many of the higher-ups in the university, which is always useful. So, yeah, it looks like I have a new job and even sooner than I thought as it looks like they'll be able to get things sorted quickly on the paperwork side, since it's now just an extension of my current contract, rather than a new one. The next two weeks are going to be busy trying to get as much as possible done in my current job so that cutting back to 50% (from 75%) won't have too much of an impact.

For today though, I'm going to try and have a nice relaxing day, where I don't feel bad because I'm not doing any of the hundred things I should be doing at home. I did hoover on Thursday. And cleaned the bathroom and did one wash. On Friday, I brought an old office chair and a bag of rubber floor-mat yokes to the recycling/second-hard warehouse and the approx. two square feet of space that has cleared in my sitting room is fantastic. Yesterday I tackled the washing up that had built up while I was working that big job last Sunday and Monday and since then. I did the last of it this morning, along with the dishes from a lovely dinner last night. I've spent the morning reading bits and pieces on the internet while listening to a golden oldies-type show on the radio and now it's time to get up and have some lunch. And then this afternoon I'm actually going to go into town and go to the cinema. For the first time since moving here fifteen months ago. It's time.

A not-so-relaxing Sunday

In addition to the big annual report translation job I have going on at the moment, another client came back to me about a potential job that came up in June. It was dragged out and dragged out and then finally, last Wednesday, they came back and wanted some portions of that job done. As my client is actually also completely snowed under at the moment, he asked me to do the tricky part of figuring out how big a job the new reduced volume work is (he will pay me for my time on this but as I still had everything on file from the query in June, it didn't take too long - being a hoarder of files pays off on occasion). And then on Thursday afternoon came back to say it was a go but of course it is super-urgent. I managed to finish off what I had for the other job on Thursday evening after work and there is just one more piece of that to come but I'm not expecting it until Tuesday. Which is probably good as this new stuff needs to be done for Monday.

I had already explained that I have lots of holiday time left and could take time off to do this stuff if needed but I really wasn't expecting them to come back and say they wanted it in less than a week. I had even already asked me boss if I could take off Tuesday to Friday next week, just so that I'd be well-prepared. Oh well. I have to work on Monday because we have several things that need to be sorted out so I'll try and go in early and then head straight to the library with my laptop to hopefully finish off the translation by the end of the day (hooray for only working part-time, if I'm in by eight, I can leave at two, which gives me a good run of translating in the afternoon).

I am currently sitting in the library and about half-finished the biggest section of what I'm doing. I did a little bit on Friday after work and choir (had to sing at a funeral in the afternoon and then had rehearsal for singing at a golden wedding anniversary mass in the evening - should have snuck in a couple of hours of translation between those two but it's back up to 30 degrees every day here so I just collapsed on the couch instead). Yesterday, I did absolutely nothing. Not good when I have an estimated 18 hours worth of translation left to do. Really not sure what was wrong with me. It was probably a good thing I had to get up to go and sing at that anniversary mass, as I might have just stayed in bed all day otherwise. I stopped at a local shop to buy some lettuce and tomatoes on the way home from that. Even though it's not a great shop, it was on the way and the thought of walking the extra 500m to the good supermarket was just too much. I got lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries and a few plums in the end. At least it was all German and the tomatoes and strawberries were local even. After spending an hour or two after getting home literally just lying down sweating, I read for another while and then did actually get up and make myself some dinner. I washed the lettuce (if I don't wash a lettuce on the day I buy it there is a very high chance I'll just end up throwing it out and I'm trying not to do that anymore), washed and hulled the strawberries and washed the plums. I also washed and chopped the tomatoes. They weren't great quality and would have gone mushy very quickly. So, at least I had everything ready to just throw stuff together this morning to bring enough food for the day with me. And I did have a nice dinner with a big salad as an appetiser.

I've been in the library since about 11 (five hours now) and have gotten about 3.5 hours work done. That's pretty average for me, I can only concentrate for so long before I need to take a break and just read something else. And I took a short lunchbreak, too. It's amazing how knowing you can only keep your place for 30 minutes without actually sitting in it becomes an incentive to take very efficient breaks. I've actually been making excellent progress with this translation and there has been some duplication, which always speeds things up. I actually feel like I might get as much as I wanted to get done this weekend finished today (would really like to get the 10 o'clock tram home).

While all of this translation busy-ness is going on, I also got a call on Thursday afternoon asking me to come in for a second interview for a position I thought I had been ruled out for. It's a permanent full-time position in a different part of the university. More like classical secretarial work than the more project-management-oriented stuff I am currently doing. So that's one plus. Permanent is a definite plus. Full-time I'm a bit torn on. The salary increase couldn't do any harm (about 1,700 instead of the 1,350 I currently get net for 75% hours), but I do love not having to work full days. Even adjusting to 30 hours instead of 20 was difficult to do after nine months of 50%. So there's that. And the reason I thought I had been ruled out is because it's a two-person office and the other secretary is also a non-native German speaker and the boss said at the end of the interview that she really needed a native speaker who would be able to correct grammar etc. in correspondence. So I was very surprised to be called back.

The second interview was with a different woman who the boss had asked to talk to me so that she could get a second opinion. She kind of pushed me a little bit (which I don't always respond well to - so although I didn't show it in the meeting, I felt it and still am feeling it) on whether or not I would commit to improving the flaws in my German (grammar) within, say, a year. While I have nothing against learning more and am even prepared to put work into improving, after thirty years of learning it, I think there are limits to how much can be achieved. Especially to satisfy someone else's definition of good enough. I'm torn. And yet there's not much point thinking about it unless I actually get offered the job. And on top of all that, since they're not willing to split the job (job-sharing is technically on offer for all positions at the university but they don't feel it's realistically feasible for this one - I had kind of semi-hoped the person who was leaving might entertain the idea of doing 50% and me doing the other 50%), I would definitely have to leave my current job, which I do really love, even if it's not as quite as secretarial as I enjoy. It feels like a big risk - I nearly hope I don't get offered the job, to be honest, anything to not actually have to make a decision that's not clear-cut!

Sunday

This evening, late enough at just after nine o'clock, I ate some salad as a starter. Just the small amount of oakleaf lettuce I had left in the fridge with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar as a dressing. Then I had some pasta with a sauce made up of just about everything else in the fridge that needed to be used up. Two small courgettes, three leeks, and some tomatoes, along with a onion and garlic and a tub of cream cheese with wild garlic. I ate half and half is now waiting in Tupperware in the fridge to serve as lunch tomorrow. Actually, I didn't use up all of the courgette, leek, onion and garlic mix as there was too much to fit into the pan. So, after I'd make the sauce for the pasta, I quickly cleaned the pan and filled it up again with the rest of that stuff. I'll be away for a day or two and when I get back, I'll be able to use that to rustle up a very quick dinner. So, at least I've gotten something productive done today.

I'm not doing well at the moment, kind of having a bit of a crisis of confidence, feel like I've had a headache for three or four weeks, am stressing about money, not sleeping very well, and to be honest feel like I'm slipping into a bit of a depressive episode. Feelings of depression are not at all helped by starting to hear mention of suicide prevention day from different sides. Although it doesn't fall on the same date every year, it's always around the same time and suicide prevention day four years ago is the day my sister killed herself. It somehow rubs salt in the wound to be hearing about it for weeks leading up to the day.

And at the same time I have occasional moments of almost pure joy when I'm doing something and realise how different my life is now than it was two years ago. Whether it's walking down the street and catching a glimpse of a gorgeous building or the hills in the background, or doing something for work and realising I don't feel like what I'm doing is a soul-crushing waste of time, or even just stepping outside onto my balcony to take a deep breath of fresh air.

I wonder if I could just get rid of this headache, would things feel better. It's definitely a stress headache, bordering on migraine and it started halfway through the summer school I organised and attended a few weeks ago. So I wasn't terribly surprised. But I just haven't been able to take time to let it clear up as work has been so busy (I have taken two separate days off in the last three weeks but my boss has been away so it has been really busy, with a couple of tasks to take care of that don't occur very often and are just that bit more difficult). Anyway, I have another day off this week and am going to try to extend it to two days. Maybe that'll help. 

It's already August

Which means it's quite a while since I last posted. For a while I just had nothing to say and then I felt like I had too much to get down. Just today three separate topics crossed my mind that I want to write about. Just smallish things so since I didn't just make a quick note immediately, I've now forgotten all of them. Posting something every day is probably asking a bit too much but I'm going to try writing at least a little bit every day for the next while, even if it's just writing down the name of a topic that I might like to put some more thought into and write about in the future.

I've now been here over a year and am also coming to the end of an extremely busy time in work, with a really busy time in translating just starting. I did the annual report for an NGO last year and this year they had a tender process for translation work for the next two years and invited me to submit a bid. I spent far more mental energy on the whole thing than I should have but it involved finding a native speaker to do the English to German translations as well as an English native speaker to proofread the stuff I translate. It all worked out in the end though and I ended up winning the job. It means a fair amount of work more or less guaranteed for the next two years, starting with the annual report again. Maybe I'll finally manage to get an emergency fund in place.

For my day-job, I have two interviews coming up. I am currently working at 75% (i.e. 30 hours/week) and my contract, which is non-renewable, runs until the end of May 2018. Basically a decision needs to be made whether or not the graduate program I am working for will continue beyond the intial phase. Financing from the state has been secured to allow all of the students currently enrolled to finish up the three-year program, i.e. up to 2019. However, because of the nature of the financing, the admin position can only be filled using the type of non-renewable 2-year contract I am on. So, if a decision is made to continue the program either as is or in a slightly different form, financing has to be found. This shouldn't be too much of an issue according to the professor who is our coordinator. However, he is approaching retirement age (in the next four or five years) so the issue of having someone continue on fighting for and coordinating the program at the higher level is a serious consideration, too. So, as of the last meeting we had where we discussed it, I wasn't left feeling terribly confident that the program will actually continue. And, perhaps more to the point, it didn't sound like if it does continue, the new arrangements will be in place before my contract runs out. With different financing, you see, the program would essentially become a project, and projects can have admin people on fixed-term but renewable contracts.

As it happens, there have been a spate of ads for other admin positions so I have applied for two and will probably apply for another couple next week. One in particular sounded really interesting and it's a full-time permanent position to boot. In the university sector that is practically unheard of for admin positions. As all jobs are always eligible for job-sharing arrangements I applied saying that I would be looking for 25%-50%. Honestly though, if I get a good feeling and am still interested during and after the interview I think I will tell them that I'd also consider full-time. I'm a bit nervous of that but it's probably the sensible thing to do. I have been so lucky with the people I now work with that I am a bit scared to potentially give that up. But I may have to give it up next year anyway. The other thing making me nervous is actually the full-time aspect. I'm more attracted now to the idea of having two 50% positions because at least there is a certain amount of freedom then if one isn't working out. You're just a little bit less trapped then, when it comes to finances.

The other interview is for another professor in the same institute I work at (different building though, our institute is spread out over four buidlings as it's made up of two faculties that merged a few years ago). It's also a temporary position but a project-based one that has a three-year contract and, if the project were to be extended, the possibilty of renewing the contract. It's a 50% position so either I'd share it with someone else and just do half of it (so 25% of a full-time, to bring me up to 75% in total), or I'd have to cut back my hours at my current position. That position is really moving even further away from classic secretarial work though, so it's a tough one. Technically these are all admin/secretarial positions but this one in particular is definitely moving much further in the direction of project management than I really like. But since classic secretarial work seems to be dying out anyway, that's something I need to take into consideration.

So, all in all, I don't much like the uncertainty of my current position but I'm kind of nervous to change anything about it, too. Hitting the one-year mark has definitely led to lots of reflection though and one thing is for sure, I am really glad that I left my old job and my old city. Those two things were definitely good choices for me.

Momentum

I've been wondering the last couple of days why it is I find it so difficult to keep up momentum on doing anything. All in all, the year has started off alright and slowly but surely I've been keeping up with and implementing some things that I really want to do. Normally, those small successes reinforce the desire to keep doing them, since feeling good feels, well, good. And yet I struggled somewhat at the weekend, yesterday was a mixed bag of just doing things and struggling. Today feels like it has been an exhausting struggle and even the fact that I've just had some of my homemade chicken and vegetable soup for dinner isn't feeling like any kind of a success at all.

I'm going to head to bed shortly and maybe read a few pages of something before sleeping. Perhaps tomorrow will be better. On the surface, there isn't much actually wrong. I'm beginning to suspect that I've just reached a place where dealing with the next level of issues is possible and so things are coming to the fore in my mind, even if they're still mostly in my sub-conscious and even if otherwise life is pretty good. I've been buying frozen fruit and making a smoothie to bring to work every day. This has meant that I've eaten almost no sweet things at work at all. That is huge for me. And I've been eating a lot of soup as well. So my intake of fruit and veg is way up and if most of it is in liquid form, that's actually suiting me at the moment. I almost feel like my digestive system has recovered from the excesses of December. Next week I'm going to start a few weeks of the blood-sugar diet and I'm looking forward to it and hoping I'll feel as good doing it as I did last year.

I even got some walking in over the weekend. The women's march in Heidelberg might have been a slow walk through town but it did mean that when it was over, I had to walk right back to the other side of town again. And I actually walked a bit further and crossed the bridge towards the tramstop before the very busy one in the centre of town. Then on Sunday it was back into town and a brisk walk to the church where my choir was singing. I didn't sing with them this time but went in to help out on the door and listen afterwards. Then I helped with dismantling the stage and rearranging chairs again and walked back down the town. I actually used my app that time and was surprised to see that it's just over 1km from that church to the centre - it feels like longer. Heidelberg, like many valley towns, always feels very long and getting anywhere seems to involve walking along the very long main street (or one of the parallel streets, which I have been trying to do recently in an effort to avoid crowds and get to know the town a bit better). The main street is 1.8km long in total, so it's not the shortest street I've ever know by any means. I just looked that up to be able to put a figure on it and will believe what Wikipedia says. Also interesting to note that the street was first built in 1220 (not quite as long as today thought) and although it has seen some changes, it still follows the same path. I've only ever known it in its current incarnation as a pedestrian zone (which it became in 1978). It's hard to believe it used to have cars and two-way tramlines on it all the time.

So, I've walked a bit. And my knees are only starting to hurt a little bit so I think if I go easy for the rest of the week, maybe I'll be able to go for a longer walk at the weekend. And I'm eating pretty well. I'm even studying a bit, as I started a five-week online course. And yet...things just feel like a struggle. The unrelenting, unremitting task that is life just keeps on going and that is just how I seem to feel at the moment. Here's hoping it won't take too long before life doesn't feel like so much of a task again. At this stage, I'd settle for this stupid coldsore going away. I think that may be what's bothering me more than anything really!

Another recipe attempt and some brain unloading

Recipe first. This involves the pork fillet that I bought at the beginning of December and have had in the freezer. Inspired by Two and a Half Men's recent post and feeling like there's a good joke about how their loin was bigger than mine but not finding it, I decided to try to do something with it. I don't have a meat thermometer though and wasn't going to be able to use that method of timing the cooking. So I read through a couple of books, thinking I might do it in the slow cooker but rejected that in favour of amalgamating a few things from a few different places, memory included. And I've added meat thermometer to the list of things I need to buy.

So, I've lined a dish with some tinfoil, oiled it with a small amount of olive oil and put a good layer of sliced apples on the bottom (two fairly big Boskoop apples). I chopped and fried and onion in some butter and sprinkled that on top of the apple, adding five cloves of garlic that I roasted yesterday but didn't finish eating with the rest of the veg. Waste not, want not. Then I poured some olive oil into one of my little yellow bowls (probably about a tablespoon, maybe a bit less) and added herbes de provence, probably about the same amount. I rubbed that all over the pork and laid the pork on top of the apples, onion and garlic. I poured about a mugful of water over the apples and then wrapped the tinfoil loosely over the whole lot. Well, tightly sealed but not tightly packed, if you know what I mean. It has been in the oven at 190C for twenty minutes and I think I'll check it in ten minutes or so.

Since the oven was on anyway, I also roasted 200g of unblanched almonds for ten minutes. I bought a kilo of almonds months ago to try making almond butter and have slowly but surely been eating them but never actually making almond butter. Really want to try it out once and for all. Not least because it's one of the ingredients in these genious ginger cakes and they sound delicious.

Otherwise, I just really wanted to post something. I miss blogging (I first of all wrote writing there but that's not entirely accurate) and amn't sure why I've been so sporadic in doing it recently. I don't quite feel up to any kind of every-day-challenge but I want to try and make a bit of an effort to do things I enjoy more.

I had a very lazy break over the holidays and have done exactly the same this weekend, including on the bank holiday on Friday. It's a bit funny really. It's not the kind of lazy lying around that is just being lazy. I really feel like I need it to unwind. Even though it seems like there are probably better, more active ways to unwind. When I finished work just over a year ago I spent weeks not doing much  and wouldn't have done anything at all except that I had to (sorting out stuff with social welfare, tax office, and doing translation work that came in). It was March before I really started to feel like I was getting over work and starting to actually do something every day, like going for long walks and really looking for a new job. It almost feels like I found a job too soon now. I could have used another four or five months I think. Recovering from overwork and chronic overstress takes a long time. And having to go through an extremely stressful time like I had during the move just took so much out of me. If I hadn't had those few months inbetween, I don't think I would've managed it.

It was my guest from hell in July that really threw me for a loop and, since that visit was unfortunately timed for just before a really busy period in my new job, it took me a few months to get over it, even as I tried to really, consciously, fight it and not just let myself be dragged back down into a hole of depression. It's hard to explain really. I suppose the analogy of a piece of elastic fits to a certain extent. After years and years of being stretched too far, I just can't bounce back to where I was before. And I have less stretch in me now, too. My head is, for the most part, however, pretty clear. It's not quite the same overwhelming, grey cover on my brain feeling of depression - so I'm hopeful that I really have made strides forward and am now getting to a stage of needing to just look after myself a bit, cherish myself a bit and allow myself the time and space to realise and accept that in between depression, long-term overwork and stress, and being able to lead a more normal life, there's a whole lot of space and I can't just go from one to the other. I have to keep focusing on the amazing and positive changes I have made in my life in the past year and keep moving in that direction. Even if I'm not there yet, I'm much closer than I used to be so even though it feels like I'm letting time just slip past me, I need to be kind to myself and give myself this time that I obviously still so desperately need.