One hundred and thirty-seven. 137. That is how many days have passed since my last update. Before finding that out if I had to guess I would’ve said it had been six or seven weeks. In reality it’s just shy of twenty weeks. In that time I gave up on intermittent fasting, couch to 5k and have spent excessive amounts of time playing Football Manager 21, followed by FIFA 21, and more recently Orcs Must Die 3. Those may sound bad but they are massively overshadowed by the good:
- I have continued my daily Spanish lessons and I’m now on 225 consecutive days.
- I sought out, began and finished a 6-week therapy course which helped immensely with some issues I’ve been having including stress, anxiety, self-esteem and putting too much pressure on myself – and feel immensely better for it.
- Had numerous discussions with my partner (mostly productive, only one or two that got heated) that resulted in an agreement for me to stay out of work for the time being to concentrate on college, which leads to the next point…
- Passed my college course! I’m still awaiting official confirmation from the moderators but my tutors have told me my assignment has enough to at least pass, that I passed my exam (that I’m so pleased I felt confident during thanks to my revision) and all my practical work was at a good level.
- My partner and I have come up with a two-year plan for what we will both do regarding work and the end result will be us getting a mortgage and buying our own home – possibly in a beautiful town around an hour away that we both love. For my work I have to complete 3 short college courses; the first I’m already on to week 4 of 10 and the other two are 12-week courses that start in September and January. I have already spoke to the tutors about my intent to sign up at the first available opportunity.
- We’ve started our own business!! All the credit must go to my partner as she came up with the idea and has put so much work into it. At the beginning of March we officially launched and business has been consistently steady-to-good. We have gradually chipped away at our initial investment, before having to buy more stock and materials, and today we are due to buy more stock but should still be in profit meaning everything we sell from here on out should be pure profit.
- Lesser achievements include the fact somehow I am within a pound or two of my lowest weight for a while, I’m having my first day back in the gym today (despite paying for the whole month around 30 days ago) and I’m almost 50 days in to growing a beard – I know that may not be an achievement but it has been a long arduous 50 days just to see if facial hair suits me or not.
I’m sure there is more, both good and bad, but for now I feel that is a more than adequate list. Also I would like to try and save a few things to talk about as I intend to (again) post regularly on here. I guess that is another positive to note that is a little more relevant to the site – I am back at the computer typing away for nothing but my own enjoyment.
Also continuing the literary theme I have just finished listening (I know, not the same as actually reading but it means I can do other things while enjoying a book – usually driving) to Bobby Adair’s brilliant series Slow Burn. I have listened to all 55 hours of the first 9 books and thoroughly enjoyed every minute. Luckily for me just as I finished book 9 I got a notification that book 10 had been released (as the audiobook is not yet available I will be going old school with book ten and actually reading it). I even commented on a post by Mr Adair on Facebook and received a reply! While it was only a few words it made my day and he encouraged me to keep at it with the writing.
While, admittedly, my knowledge of authors is severely lacking I had never heard of Bobby Adair before but I’ve had a glance at his back catalogue and he has dozens of books available – it just shows me how hard he has had to work and how consistently he has had to write to get to a point where he is reaching people like me that have never heard of him.
This may seem daunting but it inspired me massively. I’m fully aware that I’ll find it difficult to write alongside trying to run a business, doing my college courses and trying to find work in a slightly different field than I have previously worked but there is no way that all successful authors out there were in ideal, or even comfortable, circumstances that allowed them to write consistently so I have no excuse. My ideal world would be me at home all day to write while my business reaches some sort of semi-automated level (most likely through staff) but that’s not likely for a while and I am under no illusion that I’m not returning back to full time work shortly. A comfortable situation for me to write would be me working in a job I am at least fairly content with and can run on autopilot when needed with my home life being fairly straight forward and relaxed. It will be a new job, as mentioned, so content and comfortable will take time, and with a 7-year-old and 1 year old there is no way my home life is going to be straight forward and relaxed for a while.
I will write when I can and try to find the balance to make it a regular thing. If I can find the time to kill orcs on a game then I can find time to put words to paper. And those are words I fully expect to be held to.
Until next time.