How to be a winner and loser at the same time (19.22)

Good and bad news this week.

Let’s start with this week’s bad news:

I lost a friend.

Not a real friend, but someone whose voice I have listened to intently over the last two years. Someone whose relaxing tone helped me feel calm and focussed; someone who made me laugh; someone who helped me calm my mind and get to sleep.

Yes, this week, Niall Breslin announced he was ending the Wake Up/Wind Down podcasts.

Without warning.

Admittedly it was Wednesday before I knew. I had busy mornings on Monday and Tuesday and didn’t make the time for my usual “quiet time before work” meditation. It was Wednesday, when I got to the train station late, but early for the next train, and I had 10 minutes to sit quietly and listen. I started with Monday’s podcast, and when he said, “this will be the final week…” I very nearly shouted “WHAT?!” But that kind of announcement coming without warning was not conducive to a calm start to the day.

I am really going to miss listening to him, and I’m going to struggle to find someone else who does a morning ‘settle’ meditation that isn’t a Californian “imagine you’re a flower” type. At least Bressie keeps it real, Bressie talks about things being shite and fecked. And some days you want someone who knows life isn’t all oceans and flowers.

We didn’t win pub quiz this week.

Admittedly we didn’t expect to. But it was still disappointing to come 4^th out of 6 after being last week’s champions. We struggled with the famous faces, we struggled with the general questions and the cryptic film titles were a disaster. We also encountered some heated disagreement within the team over the shape of a stop sign – Octagonal or Hexagonal. We really need to improve our team communication.

Have we reached the end with jigsaw puzzles?

Husband and I completed a jigsaw this week, and while there was some degree of satisfaction in completing it, I didn’t feel the sense of fun or achievement I used to feel with puzzles. It was almost a feeling of resentment. We still have a bundle of puzzles to get through, so I’m hoping this is just a blip; a general feeling of tiredness or exhaustion this week. But at the same time, the thought of opening up another box and starting another puzzle gives me a small sense of dread. And I don’t know why.

My new job is still a struggle.

I’m two months in now, and while I have moments of feeling I know some things, and that I am getting things done, when the end of the day comes around, and if I’m working from home, my step counter tells me I have done 500 steps (if I’m lucky), and I realise I’ve been stuck in my chair almost all day, staring at my screen, and I still didn’t get done all the things I needed to get done that day, and I know that tomorrow new things will come my way and the things I didn’t get done yesterday or the day before may not get done either… I keep thinking of that quote from Alice in Wonderland:

“My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that.”

I don’t have the energy or internal resources to run twice as fast as that.

This week’s good news

I have an interview for a  job.

Yes, I know I already had an interview and started a new job this year, so what the hell is going on I hear you ask? My new team has a new position; similar to what I do now, dealing with a different region, but one level higher. Opportunities like this are rare and to be jumped on, even if it means I may not get to use all the work I’ve put in to learning about the small towns of Kyrgyz Republic over the past months. The interview isn’t for a few weeks yet, but I’ll let you know how it goes.

Ukraine won Eurovision.

Yes, that was a positive gesture of support for Ukraine, but at the same time, I feel sorry for the UK entry who came 2nd. It was the strongest UK entry in years and (so shoot me for saying this) a better song than the one from Ukraine. But at the same time, it was a wonderful gesture of solidarity and I hope that next year we will see Eurovision hosted in a peaceful Ukraine.

There were a lot of rubbish songs in Eurovision this year. (But maybe we say that every year?) In our household voting we struggled to find 10 songs to allocate points to for our internal vote. Songs sounded like they had ripped off other more famous songs, or left you feeling flat, like the chorus was missing, or were just plain creepy (take Greece’s entry, “Die Together”). And the songs that were interesting or different (France’s entry) did not do well.

Husband discovered Olio

Having been told about the Olio app by a friend of ours, and realising you can use it to get rid of things and not just food (it’s major purpose), he has been busy listing all the stuff we’ve been meaning to get rid of, all the things we don’t use… Like the breadmaker our neighbour gave us when she moved. Like the sewing machine that hates me. Like those jigsaws we’ve done but couldn’t sell on ebay. This week his plan is to go through the stuff in the loft and start listing things to give away.

I’m also fully expecting him to find some kind of random food giveaway on the app and produce it for dinner one night this week.