Tag: The Day Job

Bonus hours

Dee Leave a comment

A slightly out-of-pattern day today. First of all, I was up at six, which is extremely rare for me – I’m (a) a self-employed person who sets her own hours and (b) not a morning person. However, Geth had an early hospital appointment for a sleep-deprived EEG, meaning he’d had to stay awake all night, and so I was up and about early so that I could drive him to the hospital and back.

This meant that I didn’t go for my run until we got back…

…although the hospital appointment had been so early that I still managed to get out for the run about half an hour earlier than I did yesterday!

I’ve spent the rest of the day doing day job work and a bit of coding for a fun side project game. The plan is for the same again tomorrow… and then the new Paper Mario game will be showing up in the post, which is my weekend sorted 🙂

I’ve also got a hairdresser appointment tomorrow morning, for the first time since Christmas. It’ll all be very masked and sterile, but I’m so looking forward to having my lockdown hair sorted out!

Adventuron blank screen
A blank screen in the Adventuron editor, ready to code. I’ll see a few of these over the next few weeks as I have a lot of short, fun games planned for the rest of the summer.

Today’s earworm playlist:

Jennifer Lopez – ‘Louboutins’
Nobuo Uematsu – ‘Temple Of Chaos’
The Beatles – ‘Drive My Car’
Beach Boys – ‘Sloop John B’

Late days

Dee Leave a comment

Not my planned run today…

…so I just did a mile. Feeling very unmotivated at the moment, largely due to waking up late every morning. If I don’t get out for my planned longer runs until after half past ten then I can’t really get started with my day until early to mid-afternoon. However, I have to be up at seven tomorrow morning as I’m driving Geth to a hospital appointment, so hopefully that will jolt my sleeping pattern back to what it should be. We’ll see.

Other than my short run, I’ve just been getting on with day job work, admin and writing, as usual. The rest of the week will be a bit busier because of various appointments, but hopefully I’ll still manage to get a few things done.

realMyst: Masterpiece Edition
I finished realMyst: Masterpiece Edition on the Switch last night, just in time for the new Paper Mario game to arrive this weekend. The bonus Age is short, but a nice addition to the game.

Today’s earworm playlist:

Nobuo Uematsu – ‘Town’
Nobuo Uematsu – ‘Main Theme’
Dire Straits – ‘Walk Of Life’

Still not woken up

Dee Leave a comment

Another slow recovery mile…

…leading to another slow day. I’m still a lot more tired than usual. I got some day job work done today, and also a bit of my own writing, so I am getting stuff done – I’m just feeling really sluggish and out of it this week.

I’ve got a bit more admin to do this evening, but I’m hoping to get it finished soon so that I can explore the last bonus world in realMyst: Masterpiece Edition. I want to finish the game before my copy of the new Paper Mario game shows up at the weekend!

A slightly longer run tomorrow, and probably another day that feels like wading through treacle. We’ll see.

Pencil notes
Videogaming notes written with paper and pencil, like it’s the 20th century or something. I’d started off writing them on my phone, but then I had to draw some physical maps, and so it all got a bit retro.

Today’s earworm playlist:

Nobuo Uematsu – ‘Temple of Chaos’

Fried!

Dee Leave a comment

I ended up just doing a mile today…

…as I didn’t feel that well when I woke up. I had planned to do my delayed weekend long run today, but I think I’ll be trying to make up the mileage later in the week instead.

As such, I got my day job work out of the way first today, and then went for my short run in the afternoon. Since then, I’ve been catching up with admin, and am looking forward to playing some jam entry games tonight.

I’m still feeling a bit physically poorly and mentally fried, but I think that’s just because I’ve been so busy over the last few days and weeks. This week is just going to involve some quiet catching up with admin and housework, and a lot of playing of videogames rather than making them.

I’m still really pleased to have released my most recent game last night. You can play it here!

As a result, I’ve not got much planned for tomorrow!

The Cave of Hoarding
An updated graphic for my first jam game, The Cave of Hoarding. To celebrate the sequel coming out, I made some quick replacements for the shonky old original graphics. This pile of treasure sums up my feelings when I submit a game at the end of a jam!

Today’s earworm playlist:

Mott The Hoople – ‘All The Young Dudes’
Idina Menzel – ‘Into The Unknown’

All about that Friday evening!

Dee Leave a comment

Another warm mile this morning…

…because the storm hasn’t arrived here in Newcastle yet, even though it was supposed to this evening. I’m feeling a bit disappointed now! Hope we still get some impressive thunder and lightning by the time I go to bed (and preferably not in the middle of the night, thank you).

I spent the bulk of today getting my day job work finished for the week. All done now, so I can get back to my game over the weekend! Hoping I might get some actual playing of games done as well if I have time…

A non-parkrun three-miler to do first thing tomorrow though. That would be a good time for a storm not to be happening as well!

Stuff in the post
Today’s postal haul. I heard about the text adventure t-shirt on one of the text adventure Facebook groups and somehow managed to yoink the last one! I also completed my ‘seven of each running item for seven days’ shorts collection with the Tikiboo Run London shorts in yet another colourway 😀

Today’s earworm playlist:

Melanie C – ‘I Turn To You’
Queen – ‘Somebody To Love’
Michael Land, Peter McConnell and Clint Bajakian – ‘Atlantis’ Last Moments’

The weekend approaches

Dee Leave a comment

A very warm mile today…

…and then I spent most of the day doing day job work again. I’ve broken the back of it now and am hoping to finish early tomorrow so I can get back to my game creation!

Geth and I are semi-celebrating tonight, because his academic project bid is very nearly ready to send off (he just needs one last letter from a collaborating party). As we also both did well with our weight loss this week, we are treating ourselves to takeaway pizza as a bit of an early weekend treat. Waiting on it now and getting a bit impatient 😀

Another hopefully early start tomorrow before the storms arrive, and then I can settle in for the weekend…

Blue summer sky
The weather has been beautiful the last couple of days, but sadly I’ve been too busy to spend much time outside!

Today’s earworm playlist:

Carter USM – ‘And God Created Brixton’
Andy Taylor – ‘I Might Lie’
Carter USM – ‘Glam Rock Cops’
Duran Duran – ‘Hungry Like The Wolf’
Manami Kiyota – ‘Satorl Marsh’
The Weeknd – ‘Blinding Lights’

Hours in the day

Dee Leave a comment

A four-miler in the heat today…

…and then straight into work, as it’s been one of those ‘clients are like buses’ weeks with everybody sending projects at once! I’ve been keeping an eye on my hour-by-hour time management today and making notes, as I’ve been feeling a bit frustrated recently by busywork taking up more time than it deserves. Hoping to be able to streamline things a bit over the next few weeks, as I’ve got a lot of projects to be getting on with and I want them all finished by mid-July so that I can start getting some day-long videogaming sessions in! Might as well make the most of not going anywhere for summer holidays this year 🙂

Looking forward to an evening of graphics creation, and hoping for another earlyish start tomorrow so I can get another good chunk of work done.

Red diary
Geth’s new diary for academic year 2020-21 arrived today. He ordered it early so that we can start planning out CoronaYear 2: The Rescheduling. I LOVE the colour so much that I might be adding a red diary of my own to my Christmas list this year 😍

Today’s earworm playlist:

Melanie C and Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes – ‘Never Be The Same Again’
Yoko Shimomura – ‘Colony 9’
Daniel Bedingfield – ‘Gotta Get Thru This’

Project addiction

Dee Leave a comment

The usual mile today…

…which was fine with me, because I had a lot of things to get on with today!

The day job work is continuing to trickle back in, which is great. I’ve also got lots to do on the text adventure front as mentioned yesterday, and because I’ve obviously not got enough projects on the go at the moment, I decided to start revamping my business website today! This was a planned thing for this summer, because from August I’ll be updating my terms and conditions and putting my prices up for the first time in a few years. However, the website revamp is going to take me a few weeks, I expect, because between the running, work and game creation, I don’t have an awful lot of spare time right now!

I’ve not been at all successful at dragging myself out of bed early in recent weeks, but I really am going to try tomorrow as it’s meant to be quite hot and my four-mile run could end up being a bit miserable if I leave it too late.

Pixel garage
An in-progress scene from my latest game. For games with non-goblin settings, I always end up writing in a ton of cars for some reason, and then massively regretting it when it comes to doing the graphics. Drawing cars is tough!

Today’s earworm playlist:

Yoko Shimomura – ‘Colony 9’
Duran Duran – ‘Late Bar’

A slightly mixed-up Wednesday

Dee Leave a comment

I didn’t get out for a run until nearly mid-afternoon today…

…as I wanted to get some work finished first. By the time I went out, it was actually really warm and sunny, and I regretted wearing leggings instead of shorts! The sun has disappeared again now though. Hopefully it’ll make a reappearance before too long.

Looking forward to settling down with my game coding again tonight.

Prom night, 2002
That awkward moment when you realise that prom night was eighteen years ago this month. Still glad I went for a flamenco dress rather than something that would date in pictures. The same can’t be said for the Olympus camera (already eight years old at that point) and Nokia 3310 that you can see in my hands!

Today’s earworm playlist:

Heaven 17 – ‘Let Me Go’
Chas & Dave and The Matchroom Mob – ‘Snooker Loopy’*
GRL – ‘Ugly Heart’

*RIP Willie Thorne, you absolute legend 😢

Working girl

Dee Leave a comment

Managed to squeeze my mile in today…

…but it had to be quick, as I was very busy today with some day job work. I’m always grateful for day job work in the current circumstances though! There was a scary period early on in lockdown when nothing was coming in at all, and all the clients who’d been making enquiries pre-COVID seemed to have disappeared, and I was starting to panic a bit. Over the last couple of months, though, the trickle of work has become a bit steadier, which I’m really happy about. Hopefully academia in general has become a bit more settled down, and people will have written more stuff for me to edit over the summer.

Just getting on with some admin this evening. I’ve been sleeping late the last few days, so I need to set an alarm tomorrow – not for the crack of dawn or anything, but just an extra couple of hours tomorrow would be really helpful.

Misty path
Another moody shot from Sunday’s run.

Today’s earworm playlist:

Duran Duran – ‘Late Bar’
Duran Duran – ‘Hungry Like The Wolf’