A recovery mile this morning…
…and then Mum and Dad popped in again so that we could finish off the last few jobs in the bathrooms. Towel rings now installed! Dad has also taken our old laptops home with him for further Linux experimentation.
I’ve spent the afternoon getting on with admin (and daydreaming about further home improvements). Back to work tomorrow.
Today’s earworm playlist:
The Midnight – ‘Crystalline’
Justin Timberlake – ‘Can’t Stop The Feeling’
After my midweek run…
…Mum and Dad came round again, and Dad and I had another go at the old laptops. Putting Linux on them was a little more complicated than expected, so Dad is going to take them home and keep experimenting.
We did however manage to get a couple of things put up in the downstairs bathroom that I’d been meaning to do for two years. Every little helps!
We also had a lovely meal out with cousins Douglas and Freya at our favourite tapería in town. As such, I won’t be going to Slimming World weigh-in tomorrow – might make it to the Friday session but we’ll see! I need to digest a lot of tatties first 🙂
Today’s earworm playlist:
Vera van Heeringen – ‘Riverside House’
Jason Donovan – ‘Too Many Broken Hearts’
David Bowie – ‘Ashes To Ashes’
Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber – ‘I Don’t Care’
Animotion – ‘Obsession’
FM-84 and Ollie Wride – ‘Running In The Night’
And a bonus track that Geth was humming earlier:
Nena – ’99 Red Balloons’
After my Tuesday recovery mile…
…Mum and Dad arrived (it’s Dad’s birthday today). Dad and I then spent the afternoon experimenting with a couple of old laptops that Geth and I want to put Linux on, as Windows 7 is slow and less supported these days. It looks like we’ll be able to get that finished tomorrow hopefully!
We then went out to the Redhouse in Newcastle for Dad’s birthday meal out. I hadn’t been there for more than three years, since before I started Slimming World, because I have no idea how many syns are in one of their pies! Just have to estimate it this week… The pies are amazing though.
More house-sorting to do (and nice food to eat) tomorrow.
Today’s earworm playlist:
Bill Conti – ‘Gonna Fly Now’
Justin Timberlake – ‘Can’t Stop The Feeling’
The Midnight – ‘Collateral’
Back to the slow short runs this morning…
…and then I spent the afternoon doing housework and admin. Mum and Dad are visiting tomorrow so I’m looking forward to a nice time with them.
Next door’s cat is being especially persistent about trying to get into our house at the moment. I’m not sure if it’s because something smells particularly interesting in here or if his own humans are out more than usual!
Today’s earworm playlist:
Scandroid – ‘Aphelion’
Gunship – ‘Art3mis And Parzival’
Rihanna – ‘Diamonds’
FM-84 and Ollie Wride – ‘Running In The Night’
Ollie Wride – ‘Back To Life’
Rihanna and Drake – ‘What’s My Name?’
Short run today…
…and a bit of a disappointing result at Slimming World – only half a pound off despite working really hard for it this week 🙁 Still six pounds away from target range. I really had hoped to get there by the end of February but it’s looking unlikely now.
I’ve spent the afternoon working on house stuff and admin. Other than my counselling appointment, it’s looking like tomorrow will be similar.
Today’s earworm playlist:
The Midnight – ‘Jason’
The Midnight – ‘Collateral’
The Midnight – ‘Vampires’
Soft Cell – ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’
FM-84 and Ollie Wride – ‘Running In The Night’
Another short run today…
…and then I spent most of the afternoon tidying up, as I’ve let the house get into a bit of a state recently. I mentioned last week that I’m trying to do one small house job every day in the hope that I might have it in a decent state by the end of the year. I’ve not been hugely successful so far – especially at the weekends when I’m tired after running – but I will persevere. I know how much better I’m going to feel when things are sorted out and look nice.
I’ve got a bit of day job work scheduled for later in the week, but I don’t know exactly when it’s going to come in, so I expect that tomorrow will be another chance to get some more admin done.
Today’s earworm playlist:
Justin Timberlake – ‘Can’t Stop The Feeling’
REO Speedwagon – ‘Keep On Loving You’
Timecop1983 – ‘Tokyo’
Kuana Torres Kahele, James Ford Murphy and Napua Greig-Nakasone – ‘Someone To Lava’
Take That – ‘The Flood’
It’s nice to have ‘normal’ days again now Christmas is over. After my run this morning, I got a chunk of housework done, then a bit of day job work, then a couple of hours videogaming.
It’ll be another fairly busy day tomorrow, not least because ukulele class is starting again! I’m excited to see what songs we’ll be learning this term.
Today’s earworm playlist:
Koichi Sugiyama – ‘Unflinchable Courage’
Teletubbies – ‘Teletubbies Say Eh-Oh’
Japan – ‘I Second That Emotion’
Sidney Samson and Wizard Sleeve – ‘Riverside (Let’s Go)’
Robbie Williams – ‘Rudolph’
The Carpenters – ‘Close To You’
A busy day today. I went for my short run first thing this morning, then spent a few hours doing some day job work for a client. After that, the rest of the afternoon was taken up with putting away all the Christmas decorations. The house always looks a bit bare when they’re down, but it is giving me some impetus to get a few more pictures up on the walls soon.
Geth and I have sorted out our diaries for 2020 this evening (they’re ridiculously full already, which always seems to happen at the start of the year), and I’m about to have a go on RingFit Adventure, which is an exercise game for the Nintendo Switch.
A slightly quieter day tomorrow I hope!
Today’s earworm playlist:
Koichi Sugiyama – ‘Unflinchable Courage’
Starship – ‘We Built This City’
Bill Conti – ‘Gonna Fly Now’
So, on the 1st of January 2019, I wrote a post about all my resolutions for the year. Let’s see how those turned out…
Uh… not a good start to the list. I don’t think I got anything done in this area. It’s now a resolution for 2020, and apparently one that I need to prioritise.
I absolutely smashed this one, writing approximately 875,000 words in 2019.
I pitched my 2011 middle grade/young adult novel to twenty more agents, and none of them bit, though a couple did say they liked it. I also submitted poetry and short stories to a lot of magazines and competitions – again there was no success there. I just have to keep trying in 2020. I’ve already identified the novel project I’m going to be pitching this next year, and it should be in a submittable state by the spring.
Hahaha! Well, I’ve been slightly more successful than usual in not doing day job work at weekends, but only slightly. Writing and admin is another story – the to-do list just slips and slips and slips throughout the week and it’s never all done by Friday. I’m not really sure if this is something that can ever be changed.
I was pretty successful in this area! I only bought stuff I actually needed (well, maybe the Duran Duran t-shirts weren’t exactly necessary, but they’re very nice). I don’t even feel the need to go out to every single vintage fair anymore.
Done and dusted! Of course, circumstances conspired to ensure that I’ll be doing it a second time in 2020…
I was convinced that this one wouldn’t happen, but it did – eight times! I don’t even feel nervous about doing it anymore, which would have seemed totally impossible to me this time last year.
I got sober on the 5th of January 2019, and so I am very nearly at my one-year anniversary. While I’m very proud of myself for getting this far, I recognise that sobriety is a lifelong process, and so I can’t get complacent about it or think that the work is done. I’ll continue to utilise the great online and offline support communities that I’ve found, and to take more care of my own mental health.
Rather optimistically, I thought I’d be able to make a multi-instrumentalist of myself in 2019. I’ve only really had time for my ukulele, but I’m really pleased with how it’s gone. I’ve done three terms of classes at the Sage Gateshead, moving from the absolute beginner to the beginner to the intermediate class, and with the intermediate class I really feel that I’ve found my level. Looking forward to class starting again next week! I also love that I can just find tabs online and teach myself new songs.
This didn’t really happen until about September, but I have been able to get some decent videogaming time in during the last few months of the year. It’s something I love, and I have lots of new ones to play, so hopefully there’ll be even more of this in 2020!
The first unexpected thing I did this year was buying my car in May and properly getting back into driving again! I’d been meaning to buy a car for years, but I’d been hugely procrastinating about it because it seemed so complicated and I’d always been such a nervous driver before. Having a calmer temperament now that I’m sober has really helped with my driving, and I feel much more confident about it now that I’m getting so much practice in.
The second was starting to learn to code in the autumn. It had always been something I was interested in, due to my twin loves of retro stuff and videogames, but it was only this year that I finally got into it thanks to some of the ’80s Twitter accounts I follow discussing the Adventuron system (for creating illustrated ’80s-style text adventure games) in August. I was able to take part in a couple of game jams in the autumn and improve my game development skills, and I even wrote an Adventuron game for NaNoWriMo (or half of one, anyway – I’ll be finishing it in the first part of 2020, along with a few other games I have ideas for). I also started learning to program in BASIC in preparation for getting the BBC Micro up and running again. I have a lot more coding goals for the next year, but I’ll discuss those in detail in my New Year Resolutions 2020 post tomorrow!
Everything is ready for Christmas, finally! I am with my family and we have all just eaten a mountain of my sister-in-law Steff’s Christmas Eve lasagne. Driving is done, presents are under the tree, out of office email is on (after finishing one last bit of work for a client this afternoon).
Geth and I also visited Kieran and Lisa and their (very energetic) little girls this evening to exchange Christmas presents. We are now the owners of some extremely comfy cushions that will be going on our upstairs sofa once I’ve got it all tidied up. Sorting out the upstairs of the house is a very important job for 2020 (more on that later this week).
I hope everyone has a peaceful day tomorrow and that it will make all the Christmas rush worthwhile 🙂
Today’s earworm playlist:
Amy Soonyoung – ‘Christmas Time Is Here’
Ariana Grande – ‘Santa Tell Me’
Robbie Williams – ‘Happy Birthday Jesus Christ’
Traditional – ‘Still The Night’