We almost forgot to take the tree down on Thursday night, so it was a mad frantic rush to do that and pack away all of the decorations. The tree and the wreath both went into the garden as it was too dark and too late to do anything with them.
A lot of the smaller ornaments were left in the box this year, as they have done since we started to get real trees. Some of them have hangers, most don’t. So we made the decision to chuck them all out and buy new for next year. If we need new. We have enough in red and gold (and the room where it goes is red and gold) and we have enough made of wood or straw, depending on what look we want. But it will be nice to have a different colour scheme to maybe choose in the future.
We settled down to binge-watch series 3 of Happy Valley only to discover that only episode 1 is currently available. I was sure I’d seen discussions about episode 3, but it seems that one hasn’t aired yet. Now we’re wondering where episode 2 went to.
Instead we watched the first two episodes of the latest Silent Witness. We’ve loved this series for a long time, but that love has been waning in recent years as it seems (a) they’re really struggling for credible storylines, and (b) Nikki does seem to poke her nose in where it wouldn’t usually be allowed. So we’re reconsidering.
Then we went to have a look for any new Grey’s Anatomy episodes, but it seems that this stopped at episode 6. The poet lost interest in that one for a few seasons when it turned into a soap opera. This latest series at least saw the characters back in theatres and performing medical procedures, but we can see this one going in a totally different direction without Meredith Grey, if they keep on with it.
Did I mention I think we watch too much television?
Pomodoro 1
On Friday, when I got to my desk, I started my first pomodoro off on the phone straight away. I’ve been doing this on my watch for a few days, but it seems to be draining the battery, and as the main person who rings me on my mobile was actually sitting in the office with his back to me, I didn’t think I’d need to keep the phone free. I started it straight away because switching on the laptop and loading everything up does take time, and it’s time it would usually take if I went into a proper office and worked in the regular manner.
The first thing I did was log a support ticket with WordPress regarding my Jetpack auto-share (previously publicize), as I’ve noticed recently that I’m apparently allowed only so many more shares or I have to upgrade. I’ve checked the documentation and as far as I can see it’s the re-share that’s extra and not the auto-share. So I’ve logged a ticket to see if this is a thing.
Then I quickly whizzed through the daily competitions. But I finished the pomodoro 10 minutes early to go and make us a drink because the poet was on a video call and I had to get the earphones for me to watch the latest motivational Monday videos. I emptied the top tier of the dishwasher while the water boiled and even managed to drink some of my tea actually during my 10-minute short break.
Pomodoro 2
The poet was still in his video meeting so I plugged in the earphones and watched today’s batch. It was a bit maudlin this time, reminding writers that death happens and they need to leave clear instructions on where to find everything. It was a bit longer than usual and took up most of the pomodoro. I also checked in on my WordPress/Jetpack ticket. One user gave me a different link to follow where I could log a ticket for Jetpack support.
I started to type up the next few scenes of Catch the Rainbow, but I was distracted by having to move the family’s homes from a real-life place that I used while I was writing the initial story to the made-up village that will be in the centre of this story and the first prequel to it, Hattie’s Hotshots (which takes place in the 1950s).
The bleeper went off for the second short break, so I went to make us both another cup of tea and this time we had biscuits. (He was on another video meeting by now.)
Pomodoro 3
The third pomodoro kicked off with more of Catch the Rainbow. Plus, I kept nipping over the WordPress help forum. Replies do come through via email but I don’t keep email open as it’s a distraction. Then I forgot about that and carried on with Catch the Rainbow. I wrote Scenes 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3, and added 1,077 words to the project, bringing the running total to 5,409 words.
I compiled today’s work to Word, calling it Catch the Rainbow Scene 6, and did my weekly backup of all critical data so far. I checked my Jetpack ticket, but there hadn’t be any response yet.
Pomodoro 4
As we’d not long had tea and biscuits, we weren’t ready for something to eat yet, so I continued on to the next pomodoro, during which I did a meal plan for next week and a shopping list. I got a shake on with the client edit and by the end of this pomodoro we were ready for something to eat.
The poet’s boss told him to finish early, as it’s Friday, so he put on his headphones and started to play with songs. He was feeling much better today and resisted going back to bed a few times, but he still had that throat and I still had the snot monster, so we talked about maybe going out for a walk on Sunday if we both feel up to it. So that was taken into account when writing both the meal plan and the shopping list.
Pomodoro 5
After a shortened dinner break (hey, if it’s all done within 30 minutes, I’m not going to hang around twiddling my thumbs when there’s still work to be done), it was back to work for me. I carried on with the editing work while I still had good light to work by, had a quick look at the latest kickstarter campaign I mentioned last week, and then finally hauled out my date work folder and started to mooch around at that. As I did so, I jotted down a few notes about my process doing this.
Pomodoro 6
Realising the time, I looked to this coming week and updated the diary, and Pomodoro 6 became ‘shopping’ and ‘dog’s twilight trot’.
Today
Jobs for today:
- more date work (ADMIN)
- daily competitions (FAFF)
- online workshop (PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT)
- tomorrow’s blog post (ADMIN)
- Catch the Rainbow (EDITING)
- proofread Project Management for Writers: Gate 2 (NON FICTION BOOK)
It took me two days to take down and pack things away.
Ah, but we only have one tree. You decorate considerably more than we do. And don’t you have 2 trees too?