Posted: Wed 25 February, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2014/15, Cynicism, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Health, Sweary, Weigh Less, Weight Loss |
The last few days have been somewhat sore.
As I’ve said before, I’ve been doing more walking with the new office location etc. Despite that (or, in my cynicism, because of it) on Saturday my back wrenched. Simply bending over to pick up a pen, and pop, gone. Ow, Ow, Fucking Ow.
It’s not as bad as it could’ve been – but is still bloody sore. Oddly, a decent walk seems to help loosen things, but the first bit of that walk hurts like fuck.
And things could be worse. I could have a cold/cough, that wracks the spine every time it happens.
Oh yes, I’ve got that too. Thanks life, health, and general body stuff. You unutterable bastard.
Hopefully it’ll all wear off before too long. In the meantime, safe to say that I feel like shit.
In the meantime, this losing weight and getting healthy (or at least healthier) crap isn’t all it’s knocked up to be, I tell you.
Posted: Tue 17 February, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2014/15, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related |
As of today, I’ve started work in an office in central Milton Keynes. I’m still working the same contracts and so on, so it’s not a new employer or anything. It’s just a different environment, allowing me to separate work and home a bit.
While I can work from home (and have been for the last few months) I still find it’s easy to have days where I’m demotivated, and can’t really be bothered to get on with work stuff. It’s easy to be distracted, to never really get into “work mode”. In general I can get away with it, because the productive days outweigh the non-productive ones – but I don’t want that to be the case.
So I made some enquiries, and an office space had just become available in one of the buildings I’d emailed. It’s designed for start-up businesses – which I am/have – and is ideal for one or two people. Less than £200 a month (which is also a business expense anyway) including utilities and wifi/internet, right in the middle of Milton Keynes. Pretty much ideal.
I’ve got it for a minimum of three months – which takes me to just over the current end-date for contracts – and then a monthly-rolling renewal after that. If things go bad, one month’s notice and I’m done.
It’s another positive step, and one I hope will work out when it comes to balancing work and home life a bit better.
But it does make me feel a bit grown-up too, which is kind of odd, to say the least…
Posted: Fri 13 February, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2014/15, Bankruptcy, Business, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related |
Among other ongoing things, I finally got confirmation today that I’ve sorted a new account for my limited company, so I can start doing things properly come April.
There’s still a bundle of other things to sort out along the way – but it’s a major step forward.
It’s progress for me personally as well, because this account has needed credit-scoring to get it started, and it’s still been accepted. That’s definitely A Good Thing, and bodes well for the future.
Posted: Fri 9 January, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2014/15, D4D™, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Health, Work-related |
This first complete week of the year has been both good and bad.
Up until yesterday, it didn’t feel all that great, particularly with the dose of Ick I’ve had for most of the week. I hadn’t got done a lot of the work I wanted to complete, and there was a bundle of organisational stuff that still needed doing this month. Which was all fairly bad, and not exactly contributing to the “start as I mean to go on” intentions I’d begun the week with.
Then yesterday I started sorting out the organisation stuff – chasing up a couple of things that’d been annoying me and hanging over the Christmas break – with positive results, as well as sorting out things like the car’s MOT, and a couple of other bits that needed doing.
There’s also been a dollop of good news today that means life is going to be chaotic – but profitable – over the next three months. I’ll write more about that over the weekend, I think, but it’s all good.
So while the first bit of the week was shit, it’s ended on a pretty good note. So all told, I’m currently pretty optimistic for 2015…
Posted: Sun 4 January, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2014/15, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Health, Thoughts, Weigh Less, Weight Loss |
Back in December I got a number of blood tests as part of the whole “keeping track of things” when it comes to my health. It’s not hypochondria – my family history has a number of fun things including heart issues, diabetes and malfunctioning thyroid glands, so it’s worth getting checked every so often.
Annoyingly, the only information I had about the results was an insanely basic “don’t worry, your heart stuff’s OK” auto-letter from the GP. Nothing about the other figures which were of more interest and/or relevance.
I had made an appointment for last Monday to find out more. Also annoying, as it was something like three weeks between blood-results and appointment, but I figure that if there’s anything important they’d have let me know sooner. And then I forgot the bloody appointment, and the phone’s “reminder” went off an hour after the appointment.
So on Friday I popped in to the GP surgery – they do an ‘open surgery’ a couple of times a week – and got to see a GP.
As it turns out, the figures are actually fine, which I’m pleased about.
My cholesterol level is 4, my blood-sugar 4.5. These are, apparently, great – and the cholesterol level has dropped significantly over the last year. Apparently my thyroid/thyroxin level is fine – although I do find that GPs don’t tend to explain any of this shit in ways that mean anyone can look at other information. I’ve got the actual figure, but I failed to get the reference values, so I don’t have any further information about where my figures sit in the general scale of things.
Apparently though, there is currently only a 4% chance of my developing heart-related issues in the next ten years. Now obviously I’m aware that Fate, Destiny and the Gods are capricious bastards at the best of times, but as these things go, I can live with that 4% chance.
Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m resting on those figures, or assuming that all’s good so I don’t have to worry. I’m still working on improving my health and so on, and intend to keep on doing so. But at least I’m starting from an OK position for the time being.
Posted: Thu 1 January, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2014/15, 2015/16, Business, Creativity, D4D™, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Photography, Resolutions, Sociable, Thoughts, Travel, Weigh Less, Work-related, Write More, Writing |
As regular readers know, I don’t really do New Year’s Resolutions. It’s partly my knee-jerk response to the whole “Everyone else is doing it” ethos, which means I won’t. But also New Year is just an arbitrary day for making plans – and I tend to do it from birthday to birthday, for no better reason than that it’s an easy day to remember as a start/finish date.
Anyway, with that said I do have plans for 2015. Sometimes plans work better on a calendar year instead of birthday-to-birthday – although there’s also a couple of ideas and plans this time that would also work better to a fiscal year, April to March. But for the sake of argument I’ll stick (for now) to my usual resolution/plan structure, while also acknowledging the whole 2015 thing.
What I won’t do is go into reams of details – I know what I want to do, and I’ve got most of it written down in to-do lists and the like – but it can all be summed up in four key points, which can be summarised as:
- Create More – includes writing, photography, and web-based work/business plans
- Do More – includes activities, day trips, longer weekends, and perhaps even a holiday or two.
- Save More – working to rebuild finances, build up some backup savings, and restore the credit score.
- Weigh Less – the goal is to lose another two stone in 2015, which is what I also lost in 2014. So it’s feasible.
And that’s “it”. Obviously there’s details, sub-plans and sub-goals in there as well, but they’re the key points. They’ll do me for now.
I’m hoping that 2015 will continue in the positive direction that started in the last quarter of 2014. I’m quite sure there’ll be some hiccoughs and roadbumps along the way – that’s realism rather than cynicism, my life is never a truly smooth process – but with any luck at all it’ll be a positive year, and lots will get done.
And if not, if things go wrong, then I’ll just do what I can, and keep on in the same way as I had to with 2014.
But I do hope that 2015 is positive and constructive. That’s the intention, at least. But we’ll see.
Posted: Thu 1 January, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2014/15, Cynicism, D4D™ |
Well blimey, here we are in 2015. The thirteenth year for D4D™, which is quite a surprise.
There’s a lot of stuff going on, some new bits, new projects (and some continuations of existing projects) but there’ll also be a lot more of the same old shite here as well.
Happy New Year, and all that regular rot.