marsden_online (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
marsden_online) wrote2019-09-08 01:29 pm
marsden_online) wrote2019-09-08 01:29 pm
Entry tags:
Another overdue life update
April, December, September - only managing these big updates every 8 months is suboptimal.
Medical The ankle excision which was about to happen as of December went smoothly and has healed as fully as could be hoped. Flu season this year hit hard with multiple colds going through work one of which basically knocked me out at just the same time as Dad was on his last legs :( D. is just recovered from a nasty dry cough which basically incapacitated her for four going on five weeks and caused several plans to be abandoned.
Hall The week before my father died the Hall was struck by arson. The damage was significant and the site has basically been locked down by council decree, effectively ending our association with it. Something like this was inevitable but that doesn't mean it hasn't been hard on our group. I may have been too busy to grieve properly yet - the tarnished silver lining being one fewer part-time-job-equivalent I have had to deal with for the last couple of months, but there has been plenty else taking up my time. I am now down to effectively 3 part time jobs in terms of full-life workload ... more below.
Parties With the unit complete we were able to resume hosting parties in August both Mad Gary's Hat Sale as a tester and then the 48 Hour party. The configuration is significantly different; dancefloor and some social space in the garage; additional social spaces in the unit lounge, main house lounge and quiet/crash space in the spare bedroom. It seemed to work fairly well and the 48 was a success. Two bathrooms and kitchens eased a lot of logistical issues, especially as we ended up going large on preparing/providing dinner for the Saturday night. I have not yet had time and energy to process the photos from either of these two parties ...
Gaming It's now been probably two years since I was at SAGA beyond 'con events. We did finish the Broken Kingdoms game with an epic boss battle and I am satisfied with how that game reached it's conclusion. A new game with D. as GM and myself as a player for once is in the works to start in October; we have both been feeling the lack.
Other social ummm ..... We have guest-cat at for a week. The relationship between her and Gytha is more fractious than usual, but strategically closing doors is dealing with that.
Last Friday evening we dragged ourselves out to a friend's leaving-for-another-city party and ended up spending most of the evening in a hot tub, which did wonders for D's back (recently identified as having developed a spnt of arthritis).
Work and work-like activities I am managing to clock 25 hours at my job most weeks but my head often hasn't been with it. My body clock seems locked in a midnight-to-10am sleep cycle and after job (usually staring after midday and working until 6/7/8pm) and household chores this leaves precious little time and energy to achieve anything else in the day, especially during the darker months.
I am hoping that as the days get longer again I will be able to achieve more by tackling outdoors tasks in the evenings.
As mentioned losing the Hall has freed up my weekends significantly but I am so far behind on things which need to be done that I haven't even cleaned up my own back yard after the builders to the point where I am comfortable that I can run a lawn mower over it without hitting a chunk of rock or concrete. We are 3 months behind on getting ceremony invitations written up and delivered; I'm managing the spoons for a couple a day and the end is in sight.
With assistance we did before parties happened get a wooden slat path dug and laid out to the unit to replace the potentially ankle-breaking pallet walkway which I had placed as a temporary anti-mud measure.
The big cleanout stalled halfway through the kitchen. Fortunately cleaning up after the 48 seems like it might have kick-started my enthusiasm again - it's just finding the time to spend two hours here cleaning, two hours there sorting things ...
I have been waking with most of my muscles shoulder-to-toe aching; this clears up once I am out of bed and moving which you would think would provide added incentive to get going but no; and the tightness/pseudo-pain in my chest which tells me that I am feeling equally unhappy mentally and emotionally, which leads on to...
Mental health / financial I am almost completely failing at mental and emotional self care at the moment. This is tied up with both the complete lack of discretionary time outlined above (I have discretion about what tasks I tackle, but there are too many for me choose /not/ to be doing something except when I absolutely grind to a halt) and the fact that we are bleeding money at the rate of several hundred dollars per month. The rate is slowly coming down as expected - well no, I expected to be at break even point except for ceremony expenses by now - but actually living the experience that I know many of my friends are all too familiar with of having your monthly budget blown out by a single big unplanned expense (eg having to replace the toilet cistern) and your weekly budget blown out by a single unplanned minor expense is taking a larger toll than I expected. I know I need to make behavioural changes to sort some of this out - for example we are too quick to by vegetables at the supermarket instead of one of the nearby vegetable shops, and potatoes in particular we should always be buying on the larger bags; but again /when/ I can do this is an issue.
One thing that really irritates is how much of the expense is health-related-insurance to make sure I can continue to pay my debt in the case of losing my job or my ability to work.
Although I still feel it was the only decision I could have reasonably made, I hear my brain gremlins seriously questioning if the unit was the best option compared to selling and moving. I do now know I should have approached the project from a different perspective which would have significantly changed the way I went about finding a builder and would probably have made the whole process simpler and cheaper; but that's hindsight and experience for you.
Relationship milestones D. & I passed 2 years at the beginning of the month, making this my single longest lasting relationship :) I bought her some nice fabric and we went out for dinner at Strawberry Fare.
It hasn't been all smooth sailing but we are committed and have so far managed to communicate and work through the issues when friction has developed. Sometimes that has meant understanding and accepting things about the other which we would rather were a little different rather than resolving or eliminating the issue.
Medical The ankle excision which was about to happen as of December went smoothly and has healed as fully as could be hoped. Flu season this year hit hard with multiple colds going through work one of which basically knocked me out at just the same time as Dad was on his last legs :( D. is just recovered from a nasty dry cough which basically incapacitated her for four going on five weeks and caused several plans to be abandoned.
Hall The week before my father died the Hall was struck by arson. The damage was significant and the site has basically been locked down by council decree, effectively ending our association with it. Something like this was inevitable but that doesn't mean it hasn't been hard on our group. I may have been too busy to grieve properly yet - the tarnished silver lining being one fewer part-time-job-equivalent I have had to deal with for the last couple of months, but there has been plenty else taking up my time. I am now down to effectively 3 part time jobs in terms of full-life workload ... more below.
Parties With the unit complete we were able to resume hosting parties in August both Mad Gary's Hat Sale as a tester and then the 48 Hour party. The configuration is significantly different; dancefloor and some social space in the garage; additional social spaces in the unit lounge, main house lounge and quiet/crash space in the spare bedroom. It seemed to work fairly well and the 48 was a success. Two bathrooms and kitchens eased a lot of logistical issues, especially as we ended up going large on preparing/providing dinner for the Saturday night. I have not yet had time and energy to process the photos from either of these two parties ...
Gaming It's now been probably two years since I was at SAGA beyond 'con events. We did finish the Broken Kingdoms game with an epic boss battle and I am satisfied with how that game reached it's conclusion. A new game with D. as GM and myself as a player for once is in the works to start in October; we have both been feeling the lack.
Other social ummm ..... We have guest-cat at for a week. The relationship between her and Gytha is more fractious than usual, but strategically closing doors is dealing with that.
Last Friday evening we dragged ourselves out to a friend's leaving-for-another-city party and ended up spending most of the evening in a hot tub, which did wonders for D's back (recently identified as having developed a spnt of arthritis).
Work and work-like activities I am managing to clock 25 hours at my job most weeks but my head often hasn't been with it. My body clock seems locked in a midnight-to-10am sleep cycle and after job (usually staring after midday and working until 6/7/8pm) and household chores this leaves precious little time and energy to achieve anything else in the day, especially during the darker months.
I am hoping that as the days get longer again I will be able to achieve more by tackling outdoors tasks in the evenings.
As mentioned losing the Hall has freed up my weekends significantly but I am so far behind on things which need to be done that I haven't even cleaned up my own back yard after the builders to the point where I am comfortable that I can run a lawn mower over it without hitting a chunk of rock or concrete. We are 3 months behind on getting ceremony invitations written up and delivered; I'm managing the spoons for a couple a day and the end is in sight.
With assistance we did before parties happened get a wooden slat path dug and laid out to the unit to replace the potentially ankle-breaking pallet walkway which I had placed as a temporary anti-mud measure.
The big cleanout stalled halfway through the kitchen. Fortunately cleaning up after the 48 seems like it might have kick-started my enthusiasm again - it's just finding the time to spend two hours here cleaning, two hours there sorting things ...
I have been waking with most of my muscles shoulder-to-toe aching; this clears up once I am out of bed and moving which you would think would provide added incentive to get going but no; and the tightness/pseudo-pain in my chest which tells me that I am feeling equally unhappy mentally and emotionally, which leads on to...
Mental health / financial I am almost completely failing at mental and emotional self care at the moment. This is tied up with both the complete lack of discretionary time outlined above (I have discretion about what tasks I tackle, but there are too many for me choose /not/ to be doing something except when I absolutely grind to a halt) and the fact that we are bleeding money at the rate of several hundred dollars per month. The rate is slowly coming down as expected - well no, I expected to be at break even point except for ceremony expenses by now - but actually living the experience that I know many of my friends are all too familiar with of having your monthly budget blown out by a single big unplanned expense (eg having to replace the toilet cistern) and your weekly budget blown out by a single unplanned minor expense is taking a larger toll than I expected. I know I need to make behavioural changes to sort some of this out - for example we are too quick to by vegetables at the supermarket instead of one of the nearby vegetable shops, and potatoes in particular we should always be buying on the larger bags; but again /when/ I can do this is an issue.
One thing that really irritates is how much of the expense is health-related-insurance to make sure I can continue to pay my debt in the case of losing my job or my ability to work.
Although I still feel it was the only decision I could have reasonably made, I hear my brain gremlins seriously questioning if the unit was the best option compared to selling and moving. I do now know I should have approached the project from a different perspective which would have significantly changed the way I went about finding a builder and would probably have made the whole process simpler and cheaper; but that's hindsight and experience for you.
Relationship milestones D. & I passed 2 years at the beginning of the month, making this my single longest lasting relationship :) I bought her some nice fabric and we went out for dinner at Strawberry Fare.
It hasn't been all smooth sailing but we are committed and have so far managed to communicate and work through the issues when friction has developed. Sometimes that has meant understanding and accepting things about the other which we would rather were a little different rather than resolving or eliminating the issue.