The month that hit like a brick

These are the areas of my life that are important to me, or that I’m working on. Each month I review where I’m at and check in. This month hit me like a brick to the side of the head. You know that meme of the dog in a room on fire saying “This is fine”? That’s me right now.

Reading

Three finishes this month. One less than I’d hoped for, but more than I feared, given it was kind of a crazy month. This month I decided that I’m going to focus on finishing the many series that I have started and not finished over the years. I worked out that there’s 10 series I need to finish, so I’m going to try and prioritise these books over others. I won’t read them exclusively, but when I finish a book I’ll try to choose one of them. It will depend what format they are in, and what genre they are. I can only read so many fantasy novels at once!

FINISHED

• 2666 by Roberto Bolano. I’m glad I stuck around to the end of this one. I’m not a dnf-er in general, it takes a lot for me to give up on a book, but I considered it in book 4 of this one. I’m glad I stayed though, I really enjoyed it overall. I love the way all the stories link up and intertwine and come together. The idea that you could read the 5 parts in any order is kind of mind-bending to me, I love that kind of thing in books. My only criticism is that book 4 was too much. It was depressing and went on and on relentlessly. But I also see how that’s kind of the point.

• Letting Ana Go. I have no idea when this book ended up on my hold list at the library, but it popped up so I read it. It wasn’t on my TBR spreadsheet so it’s a bit of a mystery. It was a thumbs down for me though. I should have realised when the blurb said “in the vein of Go Ask Alice”. I read Go Ask Alice when I was a young teen and it had a pretty big impact on me. I found out years later that it wasn’t an actual diary, but anti-drug propaganda and felt a little betrayed. But I guess at the time my critical reading skills weren’t developed enough to realise of course it wasn’t written by an actual teenager. Within the first couple of pages of Go Ask Ana I realised it was the same thing. It was definitely not written by a teenager. I should have stopped right away, but anorexia is a topic I can’t look away from. Probably from my own brush with eating disorders. I read the whole stupid thing. It was awful. It oversimplified eating disorders, how and why they happen, and the recovery from them. And then used shock tactics at the end. I wish I hadn’t wasted my time.

• Rebel Girl by Kathleen Hanna. I put this on my hold list when the book came out not too long ago but didn’t expect to get a copy so soon. I, of course, was familiar with Kathleen Hanna already, but I really enjoyed learning more about her. I’m envious of people to whom activism comes so easily. I read this as an audiobook and the narration was a little OTT sometimes, but only on a few occasions did it overpower the actual telling of the story.

IN PROGRESS

• The Path of Daggers by Robert Jordan. Almost done, I’m at 90% now.

• The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. I don’t think I read any of this one this month. I also found out that the library doesn’t have the rest of this series, and the last book is still to be released. So I might put this series aside, despite my new resolution to finish the series I”m currently working on.

• Morning Star. This is part three of the Red Rising series. I really liked part 1, then part 2 was also good when I read it many many years later. It’s been a couple of years since then, so I had to check Wikipedia for a recap all the twists and turns. Starting part 3 I kind of felt a bit meh. The whole thing seemed a little too contrived and based on unexpected betrayals. You can only take so many unexpected betrayals before you start to expect them and can’t connect with any characters because there’s no point. I’m starting to get pulled in though, about a third of the way in. So I’ll keep at it.

• The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I know I’m a couple of decades behind the eight ball on this one, but I’m glad I’m reading it. Initially, I cringed when I saw it was another diary style read, coming right on the heels of the horrific Letting Ana Go that I’d just finished. But it’s growing on me.

• The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli. I decided to switch back to non-fiction reads for running again so started this one. It’s only short, about 4 hours or so, so provided I keep up some kind of decent running schedule, it should be done quickly. I’ve only listened to it for one run so far, but I’m enjoying it a lot.

Health

No more illness this month, but still not back into a regular exercise habit. I only managed 5 runs, two of them were on the final weekend of the month, but they were all 5k, even if there was more walking involved than I’d like.

My diet has not been great. I think I’m starting to slowly gain some weight again because of this, combined with inconsistent exercise. I’m focusing on getting more protein, and eating vegetables at least once a day. I’m pretty consistent about having a salad for lunch, so it’s more about not overeating at dinner time and following up with snacks. I installed MyFitnessPal again, but haven’t been using it yet. It can be a helpful tool for me, but I usually get frustrated with it when there’s food that I can’t scan.

Next month I want to try and get a lot of running in. My early morning starts are ending, and I have time off work towards the end of the month, so I won’t really have any excuse to not run in the mornings. I want to make it my standard morning that I get up, run and then start my day.

Writing

The only writing I did this month was a 1200 short for my writing group. It was done 2 days before the deadline in a single session with no going back to edit.

Business

So my husband’s business pretty much overshadowed everything this month. We’ve been in discussions with lawyers about international copyright laws and it’s a huge mental drain knowing that the outcome of this discussion will determine whether the business can continue operating as is, or if 90% of the income will disappear. It’s hard, but it’s something we always knew might happen given that copyright laws vary from country to country and Americans seem to think that their law should be followed by everyone else.

Also, my husband’s laptop has broken, which he needs to work, so he hasn’t been able to make progress on projects and it’s causing him a lot of stress right now.

As for my own business, things kind of took a backseat to everything else. My Etsy stats have dropped again, so I think the bump I got from updating my listings was just temporary. But it shows me it’s something I need to work on regularly. I didn’t get any sales this month at all. I just haven’t had energy to work on it this month, everything has been going into writing job apps.

I submitted my pattern to the zine. It’s not due until August, but I’m glad it’s out of the way so I don’t have to stress about it.

I set up a Facebook page and Business Suite so I can schedule social media posts. I haven’t actually done that yet, but now I can plan posts ahead of time and set up a calendar so that I post more regularly. I’m planning to get stuck into this in the week we’re stuck in an AirBnB.

Finances

We took another hit here, finding out that we have to leave our apartment a week before we thought. I looked into changing our flights, but it was going to cost a little more (plus introduce a 22 hour layover) than it would to just book an AirBnB for the week. I’m kind of glad that it means I get a week off before we land in NZ and I have to work. I’m not glad that it’s costing us, but I can’t really change that so I’m going to just try and make the most of it by working on the business and writing, as well as applying for jobs and rentals if we still need to secure those.

The broken laptop has also eaten into our money. It’s at the repair centre now, but we don’t know how long it will take or how much it will cost to get fixed, if it can get fixed. In the meantime Steve can use my laptop for basic editing work, but I still need something to work on while I’m at school so I can keep applying for jobs so we ended up buying a refurbished surface.

Work

Work was busy, but not stressful for the month. I had a lot of classes, but I didn’t have to plan many of them so it was just time, rather than effort. I had my final day at one of my schools. They gave me a gift which was very kind of them. I’m looking forward to fewer classes now so that I can focus on job apps. I have about 8 days of leave to use next month as well which I need to pack and clean and get ready to leave. I’m looking forward to the end of this job. Not because of the job itself, I think I’ve just moved on mentally already and it feels like it’s dragging on now.

I’m not looking forward to going back to a ‘normal’ job. I’m going to miss all the free time I had here for writing and reading stuff on the internet and using the extra time for business stuff. It’s going to be an adjustment going back, that’s if I can even find a job.

The Big Move

A month and one week until the move. It feels like it’s come up so quickly. There’s been so much ‘it’s too early to start’ and now we’re a month out and everything has to be done.

I don’t have a job yet. We don’t have somewhere to live yet. These are my main concerns for the time being.

I have a job interview on Friday which I’m desperately trying to not get any hopes up for. I’m applying for just about any job I can find and it might be hurting me application, because I’ve rewritten my cover letter so many times I don’t know if it even makes sense anymore.

I’ve only just started contacting real estate agents, and they are some of the least helpful people I have ever encountered. Some of them we contacted months ago explaining our situation, and now that we are applying they respond with ‘oh no, we can’t arrange a virtual viewing, do you have someone here who can view it on your behalf?’. No, Karen, we don’t. We explained our situation previously and you were all smiles and willing to help then. But now it’s time to actually do that and it’s all too hard for you.

There’s just been so many curve balls this last month and each one is chipping away at my armour a little more. This morning I woke up feeling like one more hit to my shields and I might just lose it at someone. I’m trying very hard to take deep breaths and work through everything. I think July is going to be a real test of my fortitude.