Yes, we WORK FROM HOME!

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

It occurred to me, after I posted Friday’s post, that I’d summed up the week without actually completing the week. I still had a whole day to go. And, as it turned out, I still had the weekend to go too.

However, on this occasion, that didn’t make any difference to the ticks and crosses, as I already knew I wouldn’t be able to do any of the stuff I hadn’t yet finished.

In future, Monday posts, then, will have the plan for the coming week as well as the summing up for the previous week. And Fridays will be… well, just more waffle, I suppose.

Fat club

The last thing I did on Thursday was go to fat club.

I joined fat club two weeks ago last Thursday. I wanted to join last week, because last week would have been two weeks post-op. But I couldn’t get to registration last week, and so I registered the week before.

The week before, though, I hadn’t eaten properly for a week. And so I was a bit lighter than I usually am. The following week, last week, I’d started to eat again but hadn’t started exercising yet. So I was heavier than I usually would be.

Last week, then, I weighed in at +2lb. But I didn’t beat myself up because I knew that last week should really have been Week 1 and I would have weighed that much anyway.

This week, I weighed in at -3lb. So on the one hand, I’d only actually lost 1lb since registering. But because of the circumstances, I’m calling it -3lb in one week. And so is our group leader. We just can’t change the statistics for if/when the first half-stone has gone.

In real life, I’ve actually lost 6½lb. That did go up to 7lb for a few days last week, but then it dropped down to 5½lb before going back up to 6½lb.

Before I went to fat club, I put my shoes on and weighed myself on our bathroom scales to compare the weight on those to the weight at group. And our scales show ½lb heavier. This is useful to know and should make a helpful tool.

Friday

I managed to get up earlier on Friday as I knew I had work to do before taking Holly to the vet. But even then I had stuff to do around the house before starting work.

Like putting washing through, emptying the dishwasher, feeding the birds, cleaning out the birdbath, emptying the bins.

I also had to call an insurance company and ask them to stop sending us correspondence for the people who lived here before us.

I’ve been returning a load to sender over the past year, but I suppose that with a pandemic offices aren’t manned and there are piles of this returned mail all over the place now.

Neighbours #1

I found out, via the mail, that our next-door neighbour is a Jehova’s Witness. They’ve apparently not been making doorstep calls since the pandemic began … and so they’ve resorted to sending post through the mail.

So our left-hand next-door neighbour (looking at the houses) wrote us a letter, by hand, stuck a stamp on it, took it to a letterbox, and posted it, rather than come and knock on the door…

Work

Here, then, is how the day went:

epublished Chapter 10 of Night Crawler on Medium
stripped Chapters 11 – 20 from main document and created individual chapters (Night Crawler)¹
epublished Chapter 9 of Diary of a Scaredy Cat on Medium
shared links for the Medium stories on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook
made the link for Night Crawler free to Facebook friends
stripped Chapters 11 – 20 from main document and created individual chapters (Diary of a Scaredy Cat)²
wrote today’s blog post (1,425 words)
republished Baggins Bottom Best Bits Books 1, 2 & 3 on Kindle Unlimited³
republished Baggins Bottom Best Bits Books 1, 2 & 3 in paperback
started to publish and epublish Baggins Bottom Best Bits Book 4

Words written today = 1,425

¹Night Crawler and Diary of a Scaredy Cat are both already complete books. One is a novel, the other is a writers’ guide. So I’m having to go in and strip out each chapter so that I have a separate entry for each Chapter section, and then format and proofread it.

²As above, but Diary of a Scaredy Cat also has an introduction, and so it’s a chapter behind Night Crawler.

³Yes, this was another shiny, sparkly thing that drew my attention. I’ve recently been catching up on Dean Wesley Smith, and he says that if you publish a book, leave it there. Forever. Unless you want to significantly change something, leave it there. And so I’m republishing some of my unpublished books…

Holly

Holly was much brighter Thursday evening, after her injections, and even ate all of her food. But she stayed downstairs for the night, only coming upstairs in the morning once she knew we’d stirred.

We took her to the vet, and he was very pleased with her because her temperature had come right down again to normal. She had another two injections, and we have tablets for the week – antibiotics (1 twice a day) and steroids (½ once a day).

I have to take her back again this coming Thursday at 11:10am. I doubt I’ll get much work done that day before I go, but I’ll certainly try.

Neighbours #2

The poet was working from home on Friday after his jaunt down south, and he had a Teams meeting as soon as we walked back in the door.

However, as soon as we walked back in the door, the poet dashed to his office for his meeting, and our next-door neighbour on the other side popped up on his ladder over the hedge.

“Is he there?” he said.
“He’s had to go straight to work,” I replied.
“But is he there?”
“Yes, but he’s gone into a meeting.”
“Can you tell him to come out here?”
“He’s gone into a meeting.”
“Yes, but can you tell him I want him, now?”
“No. He’s gone into a meeting.”
“But he’s there?”
“Yes, he’s in his office.”
“So can I speak to him?”
“No. He’s in a meeting.”
“What kind of a meeting?”
“A video conference. In his office.”
“Oh, so he’s working from home?”
“Er, yes …”
“Well, can you help me then?”
“Sorry, I’m working too. But I’ll give him your message.”
“Oh, do you work as well?”
“Yes.”
“Shall I wait?” [On top of this ladder…]
“No, you crack on. Do what you usually do. I’ll pass the message along.”
“Will you tell him?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, I’ll get on with what I usually do, then.”

🤬 It’s me, isn’t it? Honestly, it’s the same everywhere we go.

The weekend

I did end up working over the weekend. The poet thought he may go fishing on Saturday, but then he had his second Covid jab on Sunday.

I’ll add what I cleared at the weekend to tomorrow’s post.

This week

The 3rd instalment of the 4th ghostwriting gig and the bonus short story are due in this week. The main story is due in today, and the short story is due in by Wednesday.

It was all originally due in today, but as I took some extra time off around my operation, I actually have breathing space for both until Wednesday. But I would still like to get the main story done by the end of today.

When the ghostwriting client asked for my availability going forward, I asked if I could start #5 next Monday. This would give me a bit of a rest between projects as well as time to clear more of my own work. He was happy with that.

So this week is more about my writing – and Holly’s 3rd visit to the vet on Thursday.

Here, then, is the plan for the coming week. Some things have been carried across from last week: