Holiday goals changed to doing nothing

Well, I made it to Halle and even managed to only miss one rehearsal. Although I have to admit that although I was at the Friday rehearsal my voice was not always quite as present. It was another great weekend and I really enjoyed the performance on Saturday night.

As always, it was fantastic to meet up with old friends as well as meeting new ones. This time round we even made the effort to participate in one of the non-singing activities, dragged ourselves out of bed early one morning and went off to see the State Museum of Prehistory. The few hours we spent there were not enough to do more than scratch the surface of what this amazing musuem has to offer. I'd highly recommend it if you are ever in Halle and will definitely be going back there.

Since the Happy Birthday Handel weekend coincided with Karneval this year, we even got to enjoy the parade on Monday before we had to leave. When I got back I was tired but happy, always the best way to come home from some time away, I think.

This year we also discovered the Irish pub in Halle, called Nante's (Nante is the nickname of the guy who owns it). We had a great night out there - they let us borrow one of their guitars and we started a really fun singalong session.

I now have the rest of the week off as I needed to use up some holiday time. I had planned to spend the time sorting out my balcony. The tiles badly need to be cleaned and then I wanted to buy some stones, soil and compost and get my pots filled and ready for planting a few things. If I got very adventurous I thought I might manage to finish painting my CD shelf. And maybe one or two other things as well. But instead of all that, I think I'm switching to just doing nothing at all. Well, that's about as much as I've done the last two days and it feels about the right speed so I'm just going with it. But even doing nothing I've still gotten one or two things done. Today, for example, I took out the documentation for the bank I opened up an investment account with and then never got around to actually setting up properly. I knew that had dragged on a bit and so when searching for tax-related stuff recently I had put anything I found dealing with that account into one place.

It took me several phone calls and resetting passwords etc. but today I finally got it set up. And I added in a current account as well as the investment account. This bank, ING-DIBA, does not have any charges associated with its current account. I've been happy with my current bank up to now but there are two reasons I've decided to bite the bullet and change. The first is that the selection of ATMs near me for my bank or any of its partner branches is really poor. The second is that I fell foul of their lodgement limit again this month. I thought it was 1,100 per month but it seems it's 1,200. I need to go back and check the last time this happened - I think they may have increased that amount and I didn't notice. At any rate, I was about 30 euro short of that last month, which means that I need to pay the 9.90 monthly charges. The current account, you see, is only free if you lodge at least 1,200 per month. This is the second or third time since I left my more-highly-paid job that this has happened. Since ING-DIBA doesn't attach those kind of conditions to their free current account, and offers free withdrawals from all ATMs, regardless of which bank, it just makes sense to switch. Even if I am kind of dreading having to trawl through everything to make sure I notify all of the places that I have direct debits set up with. In the meantime, I set up a savings plan to start investing in my first ETF fund. I'm excited. It's several years since reading something on Fiona's blog led me to Mr. Money Mustache and although my 50 euro a month savings might take quite a while to build up to anything substantial, it's a start. Or it will be, from the middle of April and then every month after that.

Tomorrow, I have to attend an organising meeting for the March for Science before running off to my choir rehearsal. And then all of a sudden it'll be Friday again and the weekend will be here. So, I'm not going to put myself under pressure to achieve anything else other than chilling out and trying to get rid of the rest of this cough. Yep, I'm still actually sick and totally fed up with coughing and sneezing. So a goal of doing nothing for the next few days is entirely appropriate!

New month, spending for October, and NaNoWriMo

Although Halloween is becoming more and more known here (I even saw a few kids out trick or treating here last night), it's not a holiday. In Ireland, they changed things around a few years ago so that the bank holiday is always on a Monday, so this year was one of the few where the bank holiday was actually on 31st October. Over here, however, 1st November is a bank holiday so actually, it makes it perfect for having a quiet start to a month, and a chance to line up anything you want to get done over the month.

For me that means a couple of things. First of all, I'd like to say thank you to those who commented on my "knees" post and for the words of encouragement. I really am trying to not let it set me back and to continue on with some of what I wanted to achieve regardless, so a good start to a new month is coming at a very good time. I took a week off work last week and was in Dusseldorf for a few days. I had an appointment at the dentist and, since I have had lots of dentist issues in the past I at least wanted to go back to the really good one I had finally found one last time. Looks like I will need some work done, however, and spending 80 euro to get to and from every dentist appointment is not very sensible. But I think I am going to stick with him for now. This is one of those situations where at the moment making the decision to spend money is the better choice for now.

During the week I sometimes had that old familiar feeling of "oh no, don't want to have to go back to work", but surprisingly by the time Saturday rolled around I was actually feeling alright, even almost eager to get back to work. That feeling was very unfamiliar. Knowing that my second day back was going to be a bank holiday was just the icing on the cake.

So, I came back home on Saturday and have actually started getting a few things done. First of all, I started laying out a bullet journal (see video above for what it's about). I've been thinking about this since I first heard about it a few months ago and I finally managed to get a pretty good idea in my head of how I could make it work for me. I knew I had a nice, pretty notebook somewhere and it didn't take me long to find it. Extra advantage of having had to look for it is that I sorted through some stuff that I haven't paid much attention to since I moved and it was good to get that a bit sorted (still a lot to do, but at least I know what's where now). So, I've started that. I will stick with my small diary for the daily stuff and the rest of it will go into the big notebook. I wrote a key to the various symbols I will be using in the front of it. I did a FranklinCovey What Matters Most (time management) course years ago in my first real job and I still use some elements of that, amended slightly over time I'm sure. I really wanted to try and incorporate those things that I do already and use stuff that I have been using for years, so I'm not using all of the elements described in the video. I also dug out a box of crayons, coloured pencils, and markers and decorated the front page of my bullet journal. I will not be one of those people who develops their journal into a work of art but I do want to make sure to incorporate colour into it, as I know that is a very useful tool for remembering stuff. And occassionally doing something like drawing should hopefully encourage my creativity in general.

As well as spending time setting up my bullet journal, I started to tackle one more moving box, which is one full of small bits and pieces that I have kind of been dreading. I'm doing just a bit every day and have already dumped a huge amount of paper into the recycling. I know I have kept some things other would have thrown away but I am very happy with the progress I'm making on it.

The other creative outlet I want to try and force myself to do a bit, to see what comes of it, is writing. It is, after all, National Novel Writing Month. While I am not going to try and write a novel this month, I did actually start writing something last month and even managed to more or less get a vague outline for it down on paper. So I am setting myself the challenge of writing 500 words a day. The discipline is more what I'm after really, I suppose. And 500 words is not a lot, really. This blog post is already up to, let me check, 859.Which is probably more than enough for now.

I'll finish up with a summary of my spending. While I did track this pretty well this month, I didn't make a note of everything on the last day and a half in Dusseldorf and I kept forgetting to ask for receipts. Partly that is because I'm getting more and more out of the habit of shopping, which is not a bad thing. I'm fairly sure I remember everything, although I may have been a few cents off on a couple of items. As always, the amount I spent seems to exceed the amount I actually spent, i.e. the individual amounts I tracked add up to way more than the amounts on my bank and credit card statment. I'm going to just go with my spreadsheet having an error in the calculations somewhere. November's spreadsheet is waiting to go and there is already a difference of 5 euro. I know where it's coming from but it's taken account of in one of the formulas so shouldn't show up as a difference, which is why I'm sure that it's my formulas that are throwing up the differences. I'm going to continue just tracking daily spending, as that is currently what's important, and I'll worry about rejigging my spreadsheet again in a few months.

See here for a lengthy explanation post of some of the workings of my budget spreadsheet. Here's how the totals look for October.

Banking section (euro/% of salary/% of total income):

1. Rent 590 / 60% / 25%
2. Private pension/investments 50 / 5% / 2%
3. Various charities 65 / 7% / 3%
4. Transfer to Irish account 485 / 49% / 20%
5. Basic income supporter 6 / 1% / 0%
6. Annual expenses (incl. holiday savings) 0 / 0% / 0%
7. Transport 39.40 / 4% / 2%
8. Other house related 0
9. Dental insurance 36.80 / 4% / 2%
10. Visa (my old Irish credit card) 0
11. Phone/internet 32.05 / 3% / 1%
12. Mastercard 600 / 61% / 25% (used this a lot in September while waiting on payment of an invoice)
13. Misc. (food etc.) - cash 145 / 15% / 6%
14. Misc. (food etc.) - debit card 94.20 / 10% / 4%
15. Bills (not including phone) - 40.00 / 4% / 2%
16. Tax account 0 / 0% / 0%
17. Bank charges 0
18. One-off out 124.56 / 13% / 5% (this includes 49 euro also paid to mastercard, which for strange reasons I had to record here. I left just over 100 euro unpaid, just in case I ran into problems later in the month but should be able to clear it this month)
19. One-off in 1,409.00 (mostly translation work income with a couple of small refunds)

Cash section (euro / % of salary / % of total income) - this should equal the totals for mastercard, cash and debit card above. It never has yet. I did also withdraw 120 euro from my Bank of Ireland account - I knew it was ambitious to transfer 485 at the beginning of the month but still feel like this was less than if I had tried to not spend it from my German account, planning to transfer what was left at the end of the month.

1. Transport 49.30 / 5% / 2%
2. Food - necessities 251.94 / 25% / 11%
3. Food - luxuries 186.48 / 19% / 8% (this should be higher, I think I miscategorised a lot as necessities - I was away and eating out a good bit this month)
4. Canteen food 56.00 / 6% / 2%
5. Toiletries 0.67 / 0% / 0%
6. Gifts (incl. postage, card and wrapping) 61.27 / 6% / 3%
7. Clothes 68.99 / 7% / 3% (new shoes for winter, a couple of long sleeve t-shirts and a hoody, as well as a couple of pairs of slippers which will be xmas presents)
8. House/garden 83.57 / 8% / 3%
9. Medical 21.39 / 2% / 1%
10. Other 401.55 / 41% / 17% (however, this includes 276.76, which is the balance carried over on the MC from last month so now that amount is essentially counted twice. However, as the plan is to never carry over a balance, I'm not going to worry about changing that. Other expensive things happening this month were website renewals and travel insurance).

So there you have it. Some might think it pointless to have totals that don't reconcile but for now it's enough for me and, most importantly, I tracked daily spending mostly accurately every single day.

Moving slowly but doing something every day

I have to keep reminding myself that I made the decision before I actually moved that I was going to take my time unpacking. Even if it took me months, I reasoned, this was my chance to do things properly and not repeat some of the mistakes I made moving into the last place eight years ago. My new place may be smaller but it is nicer in many ways and in the spirit of new beginnings, I felt the frustration living with boxes for a potentially long time would be worth it in the end.

At the moment, more or less two weeks in, I'm started to feel that frustration a bit and so I'm glad I said it so often to so many people. I know in the end, it'll be worth it. And except for perhaps one or two days, I really have been doing a little bit every day. The kitchen was first up and the bedroom isn't too bad either. The main living room is not usuable but I'm going to clear a couple of things this afternoon so that at least I will have set up the table. For now, I've been using a stool at the nice wide window sill in my bedroom, or eating from a plate on my knee while sitting on my bed or, a couple of times, on a stool on the balcony. I do still have to find one or two boxes of kitchen stuff. Despite my attempts to move the boxes straight into the kitchen as they were arriving, it's so small that I quickly ran out of space. And typically, it's one of the boxes that was packed close to the end that is, presumably, right at the bottom of the pile. Which means I'm missing my big knives and my salad spinner. Sigh. I haven't really cooked a lot (it's far too hot for that) yet so I can manage with just the few small knives but I'm really missing my salad spinner. Tea towels just don't work as well (at least not when I'm doing it).

Speaking of teatowels - I washed this great potato storage unit this morning. I used to keep potatoes in the top and onions in the middle and the bottom mostly stood empty. So now I'll keep potatoes in the bottom, onions in the middle and have put tea towels and dishcloths in the top. Apron and tea cosy are resting on top, still have to find a final place for them. I will evenutally, I think, put this up on a shelf so that I have the entire counter as a workspace.

One of the reasons it's taking so long is that I am determined to properly clean every piece of furniture before using it again. There is nothing that doens't need it and there was no point in doing it just before the stuff got loaded on a moving truck. So, last weekend I got the big set of drawers that used to sit in the living room done. They are now in my bedroom and serving as my main clothes storage, with everything folded vertically à la Marie Kondo. 


I had started doing this a while ago but had just the shelves in my old wardrobe to store stuff on and it wasn't ideal. Now, I've just about managed to get all of my vest tops, t-shirts and long-sleeve t-shirts into one drawer and I'm delighted. I even got rid of a couple of things, reasoning that using that big drawer as a limiting influence on my clothes would be a good thing. So, in future, I only get to buy new things if something old goes, because otherwise it won't fit. One other drawer has trousers (except work trousers, which will hang in the wardrobe), swimwear and nightclothes. And a third has jumpers, cardigans and fleeces. All sorted and my first bag of donations went off to the clothes bank yesterday.

During the past week then, I got my green shelves/cupboard done. That involved a bit more work, as the back had never really been attached properly (I bought it second-hand) since I got it. So I also spent some time hammering those tiny little nails into the back. For now, I've unpacked the books that used to be on the small bookshelves in the sitting room (mostly TBR stuff and then the WoT and Harry Potter books) and designated the lower cupboard as storage for blankets and sleeping bags. Towels are on the smaller shelf for now, as are table cloths and napkins. And shoes are going into the middle storage portion, which I used to keep records in and really couldn't handle the weight. Trying to figure out the best use of everything, as I'm changing the uses of several pieces of furniture. It's occupying a good bit of my thinking but it's another thing I think will be worth it in the end. And almost every day, I get a box or two sorted and unpacked. 

I've made a couple of new purchases for the kitchen. A kettle and toaster, courtesty of Aldi. And a nice new insert for my cutlery drawer. I'm kind of getting a kick out of having brought a bit of colour into my kitchen and it feels like I will take much better care of these things than I did of the last, which were all bought just because they were the cheapest I could find in a hurry. It's only now, smiling at my red kettle every morning, that I realise just how much I disliked the stainless steel one I had. 

And after contemplating throwing out the breadbin that had been languishing unused and hidden under a pile of stuff on top of the fridge in my old place, I'm glad I brought it with me. I've borrowed my sister's trick of finding space for it by simply putting it under the toaster. Fits perfectly and uses what would otherwise be dead space. Very nice to have somewhere to keep the bread again instead of it getting in the way all the time.

So, all in all, although I am getting a bit sick of looking at boxes, I'm happy with what I have gotten done and it's proving to me that I really am on the right track to be taking my time and doing things properly. And although I need to be very careful with money now, a few careful purchases are just putting the finishing touches on my pleasure at living here.

Sure who wouldn't smile at this lovely burst of colour every time they opened the drawer to get a spoon?

I have too much stuff

It feels like I may never be finished packing but the movers are coming tomorrow morning at eight so I have to be finished before then. I suspect I may be having another late night tonight. I'm nearly at a stage where I have one room (the bedroom) completely finished, which means I can start shifting boxes in there. That moves those boxes out of the way of the few cupboards in the sitting room that aren't quite finished yet. And then it's the bit I've been dreading, the large built in, stuffed to the gills, cupboards in the hallway. If I don't quite have the kitchen packed up it's not the end of the world as I'd be able to finish it in the morning while the movers start on everything else. Since I'm on the 4th floor and there's no lift, they'll be taking a while to get everything down. But the hall cupboards are right beside the front door so they absolutely must be emptied before they start.

I went through most of my jars at the weekend. Any of those which were just empty jars of bought foodstuffs (friends used to donate them to me, it all got a bit out of hand) have been deposited in the bottle bank. I've only kept the ones I actually bought - the glass is defintely tougher and, to be honest, most of what I want to do involves actually processing the jars in a water bath so they need to be proper canning jars. I do still have quite a lot of chutney and jams but since I didn't make any at all last year, and very little the year before, anything I do have is a few years old at this stage. Much as it pains me to do it, I'm trying to be at least a little bit ruthless and keep telling myself "new beginnings, new beginnings, new beginnings". So, I've decided to dump the contents of anything left and just bring the cleaned jars. That's work, of course, but a friend is coming over this evening to help so I think I'll set her to that task. People have been very good about offering to help but I find it very difficult to let people be at my stuff and so much has to be sorted first that it's hard to find things where I can just say "pack that, please". My poor sister was over for a few days visit, planned long before I ever knew I'd be moving so she didn't exactly have a relaxing holiday. I'm so glad she was here though, I'm not sure I'd have been able to do it without her and I'm very certain I'd be far closer to being a complete basket case if she hadn't kept me going the last few days. She left yesterday so now I just need to get finished. And when I'm in Ireland in two weeks I'll return the favour, as she'll be moving house then. No rest for the wicked...

I'm off...

It took a while but in the last few weeks all of a sudden I started getting invitations to interviews. Had six lined up over the course of two weeks! And then the first one was the charm - I was invited to a second interview a week later and it turned out they didn't so much want to interview me as they just wanted to offer me the job. Contingent on me spending a couple of hours there that afternoon just to make sure that I was happy and comfortable with the person I'll be mostly working under. Because, hold on to your hats, I've found somewhere to work where they attach great importance to the chemistry between people being good! I wasn't sure that existed in Germany! Hang on, that's worth more than one exclamation point I think!!!!!

So, now it's all go. The sensible thing to do would have been to wait and go to all my other interviews this week but I was very enthusiastic about this job after the first interview - the place, the tasks, the people and the type of graduate program I'll be supporting (sustainabililty-related! - I'm not going to name it though as it's quite specific and I like to cling to the notion that I'm still not completely identifiable from this blog. Quaint, some people might call that.)

I did go for one interview at my local university before I got this offer and haven't heard back yet but to be honest, I wasn't 100% certain about the professor I would have been working for. He seemed nice but also seemed like he could easily wear more than one face and I've learned to be careful about people like that. At any rate, I'm thrilled with the job I've gotten and only one other that I was called for interview for was similarly interesting and that would have involved either a long commute or a move to a town that's not particularly attractive. I cancelled that interview and instead, I will shortly be moving to this lovely place....

This is obviously one of the nicest views and there are parts of the town that are just as grey and horrible as any town but look...hills!

So even though the job I've gotten is only a part-time job (20 hours a week, increasing to 30 hours a week next year if they get funding) and is restricted to two years (so I have two years to try and wangle things to get a permanent position - something not at all easy to do in the public sector), it feels so right that I am going for it. I've already put out feelers to a recruitment agency in the area and am feeling very positive at the moment. That changes hourly though. At the moment I'm feeling pretty good because I had an unexpected but very welcome request via the National Association of Translators on Saturday which led to a nice bit of work on Monday and yesterday. Tough job but I think I did alright. Am just waiting for some feedback from the agency now and hoping that they were satisfied with it. It was a job just the other side of my comfort zone but when I got down to it it wasn't too bad, I think. Would be great to have made another contact that might lead to work every now and again.

Another aspect of working for the public service means that things can take a while. They would like me to start as soon as possible but it will probably take at least four weeks for the contract to go through all of the various departments and councils it has to go through. Still, starting mid-May or the beginning of June is very, very short notice in Germany. Bear in mind that if I hadn't already left my job and was just handing in my notice now, I wouldn't be free to start work anywhere else until the end of September and even if I would have been able to negotiate an earlier release from my contract, it would have been at least a few months.

The entire country seems to be predicated on a three-month cycle though, which means that although I did the sensible thing and left my job first (although that might work against me when I'm trying to find a new place to live and can't show income slips from an employer for the last few months), everything else now has to be worked on pronto. I've been trawling the websites looking for an apartment and have managed to arrange two appointments for Friday. Really hoping one of those is suitable and works out. I have to give three months notice on my place here, which means paying rent here until July. I'm really hoping that if I can find someone to take my place one, they'll let me out of my lease earlier. Need to phone now and find out. And organise to move. And cancel a million and one other things. I started making a list and it already covers one and a half A4 pages. Some things are just a change of address but some are things that have to be cancelled. Most are three-month cancellation policies but may have exceptions if you're leaving the state (which I will be) so I have a whole lot of paperwork ahead of me.

I may end up not blogging much at all over the next couple of months or I may end up blogging multiple times a day. It really could go either way. I'm excited and so happy to be feeling this level of enthusiasm for something though. Heidelberg here I come!

Time to move on

A new month and time to get my act together and just get on with things. I've spent a good part of the morning on the phone. With the social welfare office to check whether the money I received yesterday (unemployment money for February) already took into account the side-job earnings for January, information I sent them two weeks ago. Of course it doesn't. With the health insurance people who sent me the information on what they have submitted to the tax office on my behalf, as it didn't seem to add up. Turns out the amount I was refunded as part of the bonus program last year was almost exactly the same as the amount I was refunded just last month for the extra payment I made in December. Glad I phoned to clear it up though. And then with the agency which has given me most of the translation work I've done so far. There's another big project coming up and since there doesn't seem to be a rush on it, there's a possibility I might get the entire thing myself and not end up sharing it with two others. That would obviously be fantastic. It's a lot of work though so I really do need to get myself organised. I have another client who has sent me the first section of their masters thesis to proofread, too.

So far, my four months of not working have not been very structured. In November, I crashed out a bit, exhausted after finishing work (especially the nearly 150 hours I worked in my final two weeks) but with other commitments to still take care off. It was a double concert month for choir (two of our best concerts ever, I have to admit) so that was rehearsal plus weekend rehearsal plus the weekend of the concerts itself. I finished the translations for the memory/Alzheimers videos, which included meeting with a German friend a few times to double-check some of the German. And I had a couple of other, paid, translation jobs, as well. Not to mention the back and forth with the tax office to get my tax number sorted and the health insurance place.

In December, the first time I actually had a few days with nothing at all to do, I spent three and a half days in bed. And boy, did I need it. I didn't sleep overly much, mostly read or just lay there thinking but I desperately needed a time of as little sensory input as possible. Then followed my birthday weekend, with a lovely visit from one of my best friends. And all of a sudden, a big translation project, which took up a lot of time over the next few weeks, as well as trying to get a handle on the housework and prepare for christmas. My week in Ireland for that was a much-needed break, which felt very strange considering I had just spent the last two months unemployed.

In January, it finally seemed like I would be able start getting myself properly organised. I had another fairly big translation, as well as some smaller ones. Got stuff mostly sorted with the social welfare office. Ramped up my efforts to find a new job. Got back on track a bit with meal plans and cooking proper food.

And I'm not really sure what happened to February. I'm constantly astonished at how quickly the month goes by, even though it's only two or three days shorter than every other month. I did get some things done but it was by no means a powerhouse month.

February did end with a brilliant weekend though. My annual trip to Halle to sing the Happy Birthday Handel performance of Messiah. It was a bit quieter this year, with the most of the late nights ending at eleven or twelve rather than two or three. I was kind of glad the others were doing that, though, as it suited me very well to sleep well and then not be dragging through the next day's rehearsal. As always, I spent the weekend hanging around with my men - a group of retired guys from an Irish choir. I knew one of them in college and then we met again at this event in 2011. It wasn't until the second time I was there, in 2013, that I really got to know the others but now I love spending time with them and I think at this stage they expect me to be with them. It's really nice.

One of my cousins was there, too, and I brought her out for lunch on one of the days. We spent a couple of hours catching up, something we're always saying we'll do but that we never seem to get around to. She's ten years older than me and my mum lived with them when she first moved up to Dublin, so I have to admit to feeling a bit emotional at some of the things she talked about. But it's nice to hear things, too. Now I know, for example, that my mum was the only one of her family to go to secondary school (she was exceptionally bright, apparently. I think as a kid I just always assumed that everyone's parents were clever and then after she died, I didn't really think about it at all). And that when we were younger, she said to my cousin that the one thing she hoped was that when we were older, she and us would be friends, the way her older sisters were with their kids. And that apparently, I am named after a film star. My cousin wasn't certain if it was an actor or a character but it's interesting to know that.

But now it's March and I can't just drift any longer (much as I would love to. I even bought a lottery ticket last week so maybe when I check that later I'll have won a fortune and drifting will actually be a legitimate lifestyle choice for me). So, today, bad start really, I'm taking it easy. I took care of those phone calls earlier and have filled out the form for the social welfare place on my February income. That's that. I'm going to catch up now on some emails and blogs, perhaps watch a small amount of telly and then I'm going to a friend's house. She has been having an extraordinarily difficult time of things and asked me to come and see her. I assume that will end up being the afternoon and a part of the evening, too. Tomorrow morning I want to get up and go for a walk as soon as I do. No hanging around, no lazing (or at least, no lazing until later in the day). Really, I want to start doing that every morning, although I might alternate going for a walk with half-an-hour of stretching exercises for the first week or two. We'll see how it goes.

In the spirit of starting over and moving on, I've also updated my savings totals in the sidebar. I've been lax about keeping that up-to-date and I want and need to start being more meticulous about it. In addition to the accounts listed there, I'm going to use the end of my paper chain to start a small savings fund for something fun. I got to the end of my savings goal with that in one fell swoop at the end, so I never ended up tearing off the last few rings. There are 12 rings left. If I take each one to represent 20 euro, then I have 240 euro to do something with. Perhaps even a cheap weekend away to one of the places on my places to go list. Now that I've (at least partially) sorted my job situation, it's important to start actually living the life I want!

Today I...

...was up and out on time to walk to my counselling session without having to rush (and arriving five minutes early) and didn't get too wet in the sleety rain
...remembered to bring my big backpack with me
...walked to the music shop after my session to pick up music for choir
...walked home from there and made myself some scrambled eggs for a late breakfast
...then remembered that I still had some sardines and onion left in the fridge, so I ate that as well to use it before it went off
...changed from jeans and nice jumper to tracksuit bottoms and slightly less nice but warmer jumper when I got home
...put away the clean dishes
...managed to catch up on reading some blogs while waiting for a phone call from the social welfare office
...remembered to take a multivitamin (no more colds for me this year!)
...exchanged emails with a friend who helped me out with something
...caught up on new episodes of The Good Wife and Madam Secretary
...had a phone call from a lovely, helpful woman from the social welfare office (amazing how much better the day is when you can a civil servant of that type on the other end of the line), which cleared up the last of the questions I had (including her volunteering some information which is probably going to work to my financial advantage)
...immediately set about filling out the rest of the forms they needed from me, photocopied and filed them straightaway, too
...typed up a quick cover letter and put the whole lot into an envelope
...also photocopied a form I needed to send back to my health insurance place to claim my €100 bonus for last year (you get this for doing a certain amount of things from a list, like having a smear test, getting a dental check-up, being a non-smoker, having a normal BMI, being a member of a sports club and so on)
...browned the mince to use for the cabbage roll stuffing
...changed back into "outdoors" clothes
...gathered empty bottles to return
...dropped one empty bottle into the bottle bank and brought the rest back to the supermarket to get the deposit back
...bought one bottle of beer so that the crate I have will be full again (it's from my leaving do from work, someone wandered off with a bottle so I needed another one to have a full crate to bring back for the deposit)
...stopped and bought stamps so I could post my letter to the health insurance place
...stopped at Woolworth and bought myself a hat since I had forgotten mine and temperatures have been hovering not much above zero all day
...managed to find a sale rack and buy a hat for €1
...got the tram to the social welfare office and dropped the forms off (official deadline to hand them in was today; because I had queries, I would have had a few days grace but I just wanted it done)
...walked home in a different direction - 3.81km and it took nearly 55 minutes but I did it. Gorgeous walking weather though, cold but not raining or sleeting anymore and beautiful colours in the sky as the sun slowly set
...had time to think while walking, enjoying the memory of a lovely message from someone special yesterday
...got home before it was dark
...changed back into "indoors" clothes
...collapsed on the couch and wrote this for my blog

All in all, not a bad day. Amazing to think all of that took up just over ten hours. I'm going to chill out now for a while and then perhaps actually get around to stuffing some cabbage leaves.

Making some progress

I've managed to get moving and get a few things done the last day or two. Not huge amounts but most of what I wanted to get done and a couple of other small things that just kind of worked out. For example, I've been carrying around a library book to return for more than a week. Kept forgetting or walking/travelling different directions that didn't pass by the library. Yesterday, on the way home, I was going to go to the main library at the train station but after another not terribly pleasant experience at a copy-shop (seems that sometime in the past few years a law may have been passed requiring all copyshop owners to be rude and unhelpful) I decided to just go straight home. Then I decided to stay on the tram for one extra stop to go to the bigger supermarket to get milk. And when I got off the tram it occurred to me that this stop was very close to my local library so I had a quick look at the opening times on my phone and had twenty minutes left till closing time. So that was great. Such a small thing to do, bringing a library book back, but it can take ages sometimes to just do it.

I've almost sorted out things with the social welfare office. I missed a call from them yesterday because I was in the bathroom and when I came running out I saw it was from a private number so didn't bother rushing anymore. I've been avoiding calls from a very persistent insurance agent and assumed it was him trying a new method. But found out today when I actually called in to the social welfare office that it was them. Although it did only ring once and not the "several times" the woman noted in my record. At least the person I spoke to was able to answer one question so there's only one outstanding query now and they will ring me back on that. And I will make sure to answer even private number calls!

I called my travel insurance place to get some confirmations that I need for my health insurance place and the tax office. I called my legal insurance place to enquire about a quote for professional liability insurance (the type the other persistent guy is trying to sell me) and found out that since I don't earn much I'm probably covered by my existing private policy. I've applied for almost all of the jobs the social welfare office has asked me to (ridiculous waste of time since none of the jobs are anything I'm interested in but you have to play along with them). My trip to the copyshop yesterday means I have 20 copies of all of my references and certificates ready to go so tomorrow or the next day I'll focus on sending out applications for some of the jobs that actually interest me. I can just print my CV and application letters at home but the big stack of references is done and ready to go. I also priced envelopes at several different places so that when I run out soon I'll know where to go for the best price (surprisingly it's not Woolworth). And stopped at the post office to buy stamps and make sure that if I were to use C5 envelopes instead of C4, it would cost the same in postage. Since I was walking to a copyshop a bit further away I just went to the post office on the way rather than my nearest one. And because I was slowing down just there, I realised I was very close to the opera shop and called in there to check that if I can't find my subscription tickets, they will re-issue them to me without any hassle.

I've phoned my veg box delivery place to amend my order to take account of the low carb diet I'm switching to and took the opportunity to ask them about jobs there. Might be something different to do and I'm definitey going to consider applying there for at least a part-time job. I've called my health insurance place to confirm that the social welfare has been covering my insurance since the beginning of December, which means that I'll get a refund of the premium I paid myself for December. And on Wednesday evening I cooked the red cabbage I had, which I've almost finished already. I'll heat the rest of it to have with some pork later this evening. When I was going out yesterday I remember to bring the empty bottles to the bottle bank and I brought the rubbish down after remembering to add the egg yolks to the bin. I made icing sugar last week and put the yolks in Tupperware in the fridge, intending to use them the next day but then not actually eating much that day and forgetting about them. I hate to throw food out but am very happy I remembered before they had been there too long - rotten eggs smell bad!


Yesterday I even got the washing done. And I dusted off the blanket box I use as a bedside locker and put away the bedclothes I washed last week. I really need to try and dust that blanket box every week. There is always soooo much dust where I live.

All in all a relatively productive couple of days. Nothing earth-shattering achieved but lots of little things. And every little thing achieved is just that bit much more less swirling in the back of my head. Now I'd better go off and find something good to do with the black radish I got in my box this week. Not to mention the four Chinese cabbages. I thought I'd ordered 1 but it turns out I'd ordered 1kg. I think I'll be searching for room in the freezer for a lot of that. Hope everyone has a nice weekend. Mine is going to be chockful of rugby. Never would have thought I'd become a genuine sports fan but it seems to have happened. It's weird but nice. 

Stocking up

Despite my longing to have a day where I sleep till I wake and then stay lazing in bed for another couple of hours or even the entire day, I did get up at a relatively reasonable hour this morning. Partly because I'd forgotten to turn off the alarm. Sigh. Anyway, I got up and then did go back to bed to read for a while but all the time, in the back of my head, was a little argument with myself going on about how I'd feel great if I'd just get up and do some cleaning and shopping versus how nice it would be to just laze. And at the same time planning out the order in which I'd need to do things if I did get up.

In the end I got up around quarter to eleven and immediately set to doing the hoovering. That also involved getting the recycling and the rubbish ready to go out the door, since underneath those bags seems to be one of those natural gathering places for crumbs. Once I had done that, I put a wash on, gathered a couple of Tupperware containers and was out the door.

Once I'd gotten rid of the rubbish and recycling the first stop had to be the market. I was paid yesterday so it's a new month with new money but I want to make sure that I stay in budget so had a list to stick to. And resisting temptation at the market is just as difficult as ever. I had some money left in my purse from "last" month and didn't want to spend anymore than that so I deliberately didn't go to the bank to get more cash. And, with a pain that was almost physical, I left behind all the gorgeous looking stuff that I really didn't need and managed to only buy one thing that wasn't on my list (as they didn't have one thing that was on the list, there was money for it). Then I popped over to the fair trade shop to get a couple of things there.

The lettuce is so fresh it's practically melt in your mouth, hmmm, can't wait for it

From the market:

• Big head of organic oak leaf lettuce - €1.60
• 2 organic courgettes (568g at €3/kg) - €1.70
• Organic tomatoes (1kg at €6/kg) - €6.00
• Organic chives - €1.50
• Sunflower oil - €2.90

That lot left me with a bit less than €2 in change in my purse so I called into Drogerie Markt and bought a packet of washing soda for 95c. The rest of that change went into my sealed pot and so everything else comes out of this month's money.

From the fair trade shop:

• Organic olive oil - €10.90
• Organic chocolate - €2.30 (big increase. I haven't bought this for a while but it used to be €2.00)
• Organic raw cacao powder - €4.80 (expensive for 250g but I want to try making some healthier sweet options, like these raw brownies from Deliciously Ella so hopefully this is a good investment)

Once I had gotten that expensive organic stuff out of the way, I wanted to get the most bang for my buck and that means heading to Aldi. I'm spoiled by having five supermarkets within a few minutes walk - Aldi and Edeka are the furthest away, being, oh, a good six minutes stroll around the corner. So, I did the sensible thing and stopped in home first, dumping my first bag of shopping in the hallway, tucked in beside the stairs. I love living in the kind of building where I can do that and leave something sitting for an hour or so and come back to find it exactly where I left it.

I had a list going into Aldi and a plan to not spend more than €20. In addition to the list, I also wanted to get one or two basics. If I do that every couple of weeks, I should be well stocked over the winter. My plan is to not need to spend any money on food during November or December, other than for my vegetable box delivery. And this is what I was able to get for €19.25 (yes, I did indeed traipse around Aldi adding up every single thing on the calculator on my phone).

There might have been one more banana in that bunch that didn't actually make it home with me - what a delicious breakfast though

From Aldi:

• Organic low-fat milk - 99c
• Flour - 32c
• Tin of tuna in water - 99c
• 1 jar green olives - 69c
• 1 jar black olives - 69c
• 1kg muesli - €1.49 (giving it a try as it was the same price as the Edeka one which I got last time and liked. This has a very similar ingredients list and was the only one with no sugar. There is a lot of dried fruit in it which will probably make it a bit too sweet to I'll add extra oats from time to time to lessen that a bit)
• 1 carton passata - 39c
• 1 tin whole tomatoes - 39c (costs 5c more to get the chopped ones, I can spend a fortune on organic and local foods but refuse to pay the extra to get chopped. Go figure.)
• 1 tin kidney beans - 45c
• 1 bunch organic, fair trade bananas - €1.20
• 1 large packet fish fingers - €1.49
• 2 small tubs of cream - 40c each
• 1 tub of low-fat yoghurt - 45c
• 1 tin sardines - 75c
• 1 block of gouda cheese (at €4.99/kg) - €1.96
• 1 block of parmesan (at €14.99/kg) - €2.88
• 1 tub quark - 45c
• 1 ball of organic mozzarella - 89c
• 2 packets of 8 small wraps - 99c each (it's hard enough to get wraps here, unless you want to get the expensive Old El Paso ones so I was pleased to see these "special" items this week)

And so I just had a quick trip into Edeka to buy some totally non-frugal, non-healthy treats. And see if they had any of the elderflower and raspberry yoghurt that I like. They didn't.

That packet of Sensations might not mange to make it through the day

From Edeka:

• Sensations Thai sweet chili crisps - €1.69
• Riffels salted crisps - €1.99
• Chips crackers - 99c
• Large bag maltesers - €2.22
• Chocolate raisins - €1.09

And half a loaf of bread from the bakery next door. I took €25 out of the bank on the way home, bought the bread (€1.59) and the rest is to do me for the week, including going to the quiz tomorrow evening. 

Of course, shopping is really the easy part. It's using the stuff up and letting nothing go to waste that's the real skill. To give myself the best chances of doing just that, some of the above was decanted into Tupperware immediately and stored in the freezer, fridge or storecupboard. Like so:

Salted crisps into the big white "Bellevue" Tupperware container. Gouda and parmesan cheese grated and into the freezer (popped the rind of the parmesan into the box, too, as I've read you can add that to soups/stews for a bit of extra flavour). The muesli went into a 1.7lt flip-top but since I still had some left over from the last time, it didn't quite fit. So the rest has gone into a small round one and I'll use that up first. The crackers have gone into a 600ml Hit-Parade (am probably going to have guests sometime this week so wanted to have something on hand just in case) and the maltesers and chocolate raisins into a 1lt Clarissa. That's in the fridge and, along with the nice fair trade chocolate, should be more than enough to satisfy any cravings for a couple of weeks. 

When all that was done, it was time for lunch and the lovely roasted sweet potatoes from yesterday that had been heating up were ready and waiting for me to dig in. And then, I have to admit, it was a bit of a struggle again to convince myself to put down the book and wash the floors. But I wanted to wash the floors before putting the second wash on so that I'd be able to wash the e-cloth, too. Took a while and I had almost convinced myself that hoovering had been enough. After all, I'd washed them last week and I do live alone, no messy kids or animals or anything and I do spend most of my days out so they wouldn't really need to be washed. Or do they? I took a picture to remind me in future when I'm having this argument with myself that washing the floors is a really, really good idea.

Okay. Hoovering is definitely not enough. This was the state of the water (and look at that cloth!) after washing the floors. 

Anyway, floors are done, bathroom has been cleaned, one wash is done and hung up to dry and the second is nearly finished. I do now have a few things to wash up (it never ends, does it?) and need to spend a bit of time cooking but apart from that, I'm calling the housework more or less done for this weekend. The basics are covered and I'm going back to my book.

Bits and pieces

I spent nearly two hours soaking in a cold bath yesterday evening and it was bliss. I didn't even read or anything, just dozed a little bit and felt the relief of cool seeping into my way to overheated body. And the temperatures cooled down enough to have the windows open and get a decent night's sleep, too. It has nearly reached 30 degrees again by now but I've gotten a few things done this morning before it got too hot.

I got one wash into the machine last night before going to bed and when a short summer storm (lasted about 10 minutes, rain and thunder and lightning and then it was gone) woke me at about six o'clock I had to get up to close over the window anyway and thought of it. So I just went ahead and hung up that washing and got the second lot into the machine. Glad now that I did because I wouldn't have felt like it later in the heat. Went back to bed after that and slept until nearly half-ten. A few nights of not great sleep catch up quickly. I got up then, hung up the second lot of washing to dry (half of the first lot was dry already) and then headed into the kitchen.

I've been cooking very little over the last couple of weeks so my veg delivery has been building up. And the fridge needed to be cleared out anyway, I knew there were two old jars of yoghurt sitting in the back that had been there for months so I had done part of it yesterday and wanted to do the rest today. I also wanted to make sure to wash the lettuce I got in my veg box last Thursday because otherwise I'd end up not using it at all. I ended up having to simply throw out one or two things that just were past saving. I hate doing that so will need to pull my socks up, so to speak, and just get better again at actually cooking and using up what I have.

I bought three punnets of strawberries yesterday (it's costing 2.50 for one, 6 for three at the moment) and was really looking forward to eating them over the weekend. I washed a large bowlful yesterday and sat down to enjoy them in the evening and was so disappointed. They just weren't terribly nice nor particularly sweet. Any strawberries I've had this year have been fabulous, which somehow made it even more disappointing. I sprinkled them with sugar and left them in the fridge overnight and will have them with some yoghurt today. And I'm going to just freeze the remainder I think. I can use them in smoothies then.

As for veg, once I'd gotten rid of most of what was past saving I have three kohlrabi, about half of a Chinese cabbage and half of another type of cabbage called Spitzkohl (like a pointy white cabbage), some young garlic and a few tomatoes. So I'm going to chop all of that now and saute it. I'll add in the rest of a jar of passata that I opened during the week and will use that during the week with some pasta. Might freeze half of it. Actually, I think I'll do the cabbage separately and freeze that. That'll work.

I also have a couple of aubergines, courgettes and some more tomatoes that I bought at the market yesterday. Will be using some of that in a sweet potato curry that I'm thinking of doing in the slow cooker. Have had two large sweet potatoes hanging around for the longest time and it's time to use them. The delicious curry I had at a Laotian restaurant last week reminded me how much I love it so might as well use what I have to make some, even if most of it goes into the freezer.

So, so far today has been fairly productive. I may treat myself to another cold bath when I'm finished in the kitchen.

Stiff and sore again

But this time it's because I was out dancing until five o'clock this morning. Wow, my knees are killing me now. Really need to get rid of this weight once and for all. That's the main goal for the next few months. I handed in my notice at work a few weeks ago so I do also need to look for a new job but somehow I'm not bothered about that and do trust that I'll get something in plenty of time (will probably be working until end of October, definitely until end of September). The reduction of stress simply by knowing I'll be out of there relatively soon is noticeable so I'm feeling good about being able to focus on other things for the next while.

I did have a lovely day yesterday. Slept till I woke, got up and went to the market (which I rarely do anymore since I get a vegetable box delivered now). Stopped and returned all my empty bottles to the supermarket on the way and brought the non-deposit ones to the recycle bins. Just bought one or two things at the market, treated myself to some turkey salami and strawberries and got the tomatoes and bread I wanted to bring to the gathering in the evening. Stopped by the optician to pick up my repaired glasses (lenses got scratched when they flew off my head after I flew off my bike) and get the new set slightly adjusted. My eyesight is back to where it was before, the half a dioptre my eyesight improved by before seems to have gone away again and I'm back to the prescription I had for years and years (-3.25 and -3.75 in case you're curious) so I got new lenses for my sunglasses, too. All covered by the insurance - the new lenses for the sunglasses and a new pair of ordinary glasses. Since it seemed like it might be handy to have two pairs of glasses to use I went ahead and paid for the replacement lenses for my old frames. So in total, I've paid 60 euro and now have three pairs of glasses (two ordinary and one sunglasses). Funnily, the new frames I chose (I make things easy on myself by only selecting from the frames that have no extra cost involved, no designer surcharges for me thank you very much) are almost exactly the same as my sunglasses, which I got a year ago. So I may have found the frames I'm most happy with, I think.

After the optician I was actually starting to feel a bit tired - silly really but there's a bit of hayfever happening at the moment again and my eyes are getting very tired very quickly. Also, I really missed my holiday afternoon naps during this past week back at work. But I sucked it up for just a little while longer and brought my bike to be repaired. Need to make sure the accident didn't knock anything out and at the same time they're going to move the front headlamp down so that the basket my sister sent me will actually clip into place. I brought the bike to a place I haven't been to before but a friend recommended it and it's just at the end of my road. My first impressions were really favourable. We'll see what kind of job they do when I pick it up next week. That was one thing I liked though: when he said he'd have it ready by Wednesday and I asked if it would be okay if I didn't pick it up until Saturday, he was fine with it. One of the other local places I've used in the past charges you storage fees if you don't pick your bike up on the day they tell you.

After all of that I did actually manage to get home, grab a quick bite of lunch and have an afternoon nap. I slept solidly for over an hour, so it seems I did need it. Once I got up I rushed around preparing the chickpea and tomato salad I was bringing with me and then heading off to the summer solstice ritual. It was really lovely this year. Mostly meditation, which I was able to really relax and enjoy because I was well-rested enough that I didn't feel like I was just going to fall asleep. All about looking back on the spring and what you achieved during that season and then opening your heart to summer and divining what your wishes for the coming season are. We also danced and sang (in case any of you wondering what kind of music we end up hearing, this was one of the first songs that had been chosen - feel good music all the way):

After that and after some more meditation we had a crafty activity. Each of us got an A4 size sheet of coloured paper and there were markers and pens to draw or write about what your wishes for the summer are. Once we had done that we did a kind of origami type folding of that sheet of paper and ended up with a little boat. The idea is that we each take our boat in the next week or so and set it sailing on a body of water (so most of us will end up at the Rhine) - sending your wishes out into the world as it were.

After some more singing and dancing:

we finished up the ritual part of the evening and got down to the other important ritual: dinner. Everybody brings something and we sit and eat and chat and laugh for an hour or so. After that was done at about ten o'clock, I headed into town, where the girls had been enjoying themselves at the "Long Table". They set up tables all along the promenade and there are various stalls where you can buy food and drink. It's good fun and it has been a while since everyone was out together so there were laughs aplenty and conversation flowed easily. At midnight, when they closed up, we adjourned to the Irish pub and although the music was really too loud one of the girls talked/terrified the DJ into playing good music, i.e. music we remember from when we were younger. So it was a bit of a 90's fest but we all spent hours on the dancefloor (well, it's not so much a dancefloor as a small section of the floor that the tables have been pushed back from). Great fun. Even when the music stopped because then we started to head out of the pub and realised one of the owners had arrived so we joined him and his girlfriend and went across the road to a cocktail bar. The rest of the staff joined us shortly afterwards. The music there, to be honest, was pretty bad and too loud but we still managed to keep ourselves amused for another couple of hours. And then I topped off the evening/morning by walking home, stopping on the way to sit by the river and read my book. All in all, not a bad day yesterday even if I am tired now and feeling like my knees night never be the same!