Today started like all the others this week with being at my desk before 6am to crack on with work.
I had two objectives today – finish off my presentation for the workshop I was delivering and send some nutrition work to a client and by hook or by crook I was going to make sure I did both!!
And I did, the email for the nutrition work was sent around 5.55pm!!
Someone asked me how many hours I’d work this week and once I totted up the hours it came out at around 63!! I know that’s more than most and not my usual week but sometimes I know I’ve got to dig deep and just get the work done.
Another glorious day here in the UK today so on the stroke of 6pm, I down tools and poured myself a glass of wine and sat in the garden for a while! My garden is a wild mess again but tonight I didn’t care and just sat down in the middle of it and enjoyed the warm sunshine on my face and I have to admit there were tears, maybe of tiredness I don’t know but once they started it was hard to stop them…
A quiet weekend is planned as I’m not sure I’m fit for anything else!!
Today has been a day of working on spreadsheets, either at home for my own business or at the uni planning for next academic year!
Like the rest of the days this week, I was at my desk early doors to get some work done before I head to campus, I’m currently planning a workshop for tomorrow and even though I know what I’m want to say and deliver I feel like my brain is shutting down a little bit today due to over stimulation and work! I’ll get it all done on time and will deliver a great session for my client.
Sometimes things just don’t come that easily for me and take me longer to do than I estimate, need to remember to charge more than what I do if I know this is going to happen, that’s not taking the piss out of the clients it’s just charging my worth – this is something I’ve got better at over the last 12 months I think and not afraid to put my prices up.
I try not to wish the days away but I am counting down the hours until 5pm tomorrow when I can switch off from work as this week has been a jam-packed week of uni work and client work, some of this is just the nature of what I do and some is because I slacked off a bit last week when my friend visited so now paying the price for that.
It’s been a scorcher of a day here in the UK today, not that I’ve seen much of the sunshine and tomorrow is going to be even hotter apparently! Us Brits go mad when it’s hot as our weather is quite unpredictable so we aren’t always guaranteed sunshine in the summer months! Thankfully, I think I’ll be able to catch some rays at some point in the day as by Saturday it’s going to be cool again! Typical for the weekend!
My head is hurting so it’s bedtime for me now and I’ll soon be asleep ready to go again tomorrow.
I’m really not sure where today has gone! Up at 5.20am, for once Sophiecat didn’t wake me up at 4am so was woken by my alarm, made a coffee and was at my desk by 5.40am and did 90 minutes work before heading to the uni for the day.
Our campus is beautiful at the moment, all the flowers are in bloom and the gardener is working their socks off to make sure everything is watered and weeded. The weather was also glorious unfortunately I spent most of the day inside at my desk doing more planning for the new academic year.
After work I headed to the lake for a swim, I did 1km – a mixture of front crawl and breaststroke! Hadn’t planned to do that much but it was just so lovely being in the water that I didn’t want to get out!
Got home, and had some cheese on toast as need to go food shopping again and it was the quickest thing I could think to cook! Don’t have it very often but it’s so comforting and delicious. Then it was back to my desk to do a bit more work before bed.
Another early start for me as I wanted to get a few things done before a board meeting I had this morning.
I sit on a couple of boards as a small business representative so that their voice is heard, today was all about employment and skills, this is an area I’ve always had an interest in as I’m a believer in lifelong learning and love sharing my knowledge with others too!
I voluntarily give my time to this board with the hope that I can give back to the community I live in and help raise my profile as a businesswoman. I do get imposter syndrome when I’m at these meetings sometimes as everyone else seems so much more successful or knowledgeable but then I say some things and others agree with me so I realise I deserve a seat at the table.
After the meeting which ran on slightly, I made a quick dash to my physio appointment where they worked on my knee for nearly 90 minutes using a number of techniques hopefully I can get back to the gym next week with some light work to slowly build it up again.
Then it was time to do some desk work for a few hours before heading over to a friend’s house who is doing a short university course and asked for my help with their assignment brief and how to do structure their written work, I have to pinch myself that I’m being asked for help like this as I’ve said before if someone years ago had told me I would be a university lecturer I wouldn’t have believed them for one second but I am and I can use this new-found knowledge to help others.
I think I’ve had too much coffee today as it’s 22:11 and I’m still wide awake, it’s late for me, I am hoping that by the time I finish writing this and do my normal bedtime routine I will be more sleepy!!
Another early start today thanks to my Sophiecat alarm call! However, today I made use of it and made my uni colleagues some chocolate brownies while I did some work before I headed to campus.
Our manager had arranged an all-day meeting for us to all to get together to kick off our next phase of planning for the next academic year. It’s probably the first time we’ve been in a room together for months so felt good to have some proper conversations about different things and how we can work cleverer and more efficient.
We did a fuddle for lunch which is where everyone brings in a dish and you all share it. I made a greek salad and the chocolate brownies which turned out ok seeing as I was half asleep when making them. I know the recipe by heart and is pretty foolproof!
Due to my workload this week I’m topping my uni days with other work to ensure I get it all done, I’m already tired and it’s only Monday! Am focusing on just getting through this week, still no gym so that helps but really want to start moving my body more, I’ve got my physio tomorrow so fingers crossed I can slowly ease myself back into it.
Still got stuff playing on my mind constantly at the moment and feel like I’m dropping some balls and constantly trying to catch my tail, I honestly don’t know when I’ll get a chance to take a breath, look up and seeing where I’m going…
I was thanking my past self this morning as I woke up hangover free so glad that I drank a shed load of water last night when I got home :0)!
I was booked into the 9am swim this morning as my friend needed some help in their garden so wanted to get the swim done before I headed to their house, the lake is getting busier each week as the water/weather warms up and more and more people are embracing open water swimming, it’s so lovely to see people in the water and loving it. As I was on my own I swam at my own pace and chatted to myself for the entire swim, working things through in my head! I did 3 laps, one of which was a full front crawl lap without stopping, which got my heart racing a bit. And then I just floated on my back for a bit, just taking in the fresh air, once I was dry I got a drink and sat in the sunshine for a bit thinking about my life.
Last week the venue I go to posted on social media that they were offering Stand-Up Paddleboarding lessons in June and July, as I’m planning on doing some SUP when I visit my friend in Scotland in August I decided I would pay to attend a lesson. This has come out of the wellbeing pot I’ve saved in Monzo (my main banking provider). What Monzo allows you to do is create pots where you can squirrel away money for different things like holidays/bills/presents etc. I also use an app called If This, Then That (IFTTT) which links with Monzo and my Fitbit so every time I hit my 10,000 daily steps target on my Fitbit IFTTT triggers Monzo to move £2.50 from my current account into my wellbeing pot and then I use this pot to buy things I want around wellbeing/exercise. This is also the way I’ve managed to create some savings this year by doing other challenges in IFTTT and Monzo like the penny a day challenge, where on day one of the year it puts 1p in a post, day two 2p, day three 3p and so on for the whole year finishing up on 31st Dec with £3.65!
If you do this the whole year without withdrawing the money you will save £667.95 and yes it does get a little bit expensive near the end of the year but a great way to save money! I’m doing the reverse one where the money goes down each day rather than up, so today’s saving was £2.03 as felt this might be easier as December can be an expensive month.
Once I finished with my friend, I quickly popped to the shops to get some groceries and then home to do some work! Had planned to do more work today as I’ve got quite a few pressing deadlines this week but ran out of steam by about 6pm! So gave up and had some food and a bit of telly!
This week is a bit of a crazy one with Mon-Wed being 12-hour days to get all that I need to be done in the timeframe I’ve got to work with around my uni days! I will make sure I deliver all that I need to deliver for my clients on time even if it means a few early mornings and late nights as it will be worth it in the end.
On that note, it’s time for me to go to bed and start the week as I mean to go on!
These 4am wakes up are killing me, really not sure how to get Sophiecat to lay in later!!
Anyway, after feeding her then I went back to bed until 6am! Got up and my aim was to get the 7.47am bus into the uni to do some marking so that I was ready for the open day at 10.45am, however, I ran out of time getting ready and felt I was rushing for no real reason as realise that I could do my marking at home and then get the 10.07am bus and still be on campus for the time I needed to be there for.
The bus into town was full! I opted to stand for the short journey rather than fit my way to a seat, this was about 10 minutes so not long at all.
When I got to the campus it was buzzing with lots of students and the parents being shown around etc. I had to give a half-hour talk about my subject area and then go into what we call the market place which is where you sit and wait for students to come to you to ask you questions. It was lovely to chat to students and parents alike selling the benefits of coming to our uni. These open days are also an opportunity for us to network with the other colleagues from different subject areas and departments.
Finished the day at 3pm and headed to the pub for drinks with a friend who was also working the open day, a few pints, some pizza and many laughs were had and a taxi home by 7pm!!
Overall a lovely day really, despite “working”, now to bed before a busy day tomorrow doing a few different things.
This will be my 316th post which means it’s less than 50 days until I reach my 45th birthday, the transformations has kind of gone out the window in some sense at the moment with not being able to exercise fully, I will want to make some progress so won’t stop until the end but didn’t think I’d be in this place right now, but I guess that’s half the point of tracking these things as we never know what the future holds so I guess I just need to roll with the punches as they say!
Another pretty unproductive day workwise! My friend and I had a lazy morning chatting and chilling until they left after lunch.
I feel a bit jaded today as had some wine last night and stayed up quite late, all in all, meant I didn’t sleep well.
Once my friend left I did try to do some work but couldn’t really focus on stuff so guess the to-do list has just got a lot longer for the coming week as I’ve got quite a bit to do and not a lot of time with the uni work and a few meetings booked in.
Finally got my car back tonight, yay!! Fingers crossed it is now totally fixed and nothing else will go wrong with it in the coming months, however, I set the ball rolling to get a new lease car very soon, I’m planning on going fully electric which is quite exciting.
An earlyish night tonight will hopefully help me have a productive day tomorrow, I’m at the uni for most of the day as I’m covering the open day for our subject area. I’m getting the bus into the town as going for some food after the open day finishes with a friend which will be lovely!
A slower start today as it was a home working day today! Well apart from the 4am Sophiecat wake up.
A friend planned to visit today, so I spent the morning cleaning the house, didn’t have too much to do but wanted to get it done.
A friend arrived mid-afternoon and we have been catching up ever since, so lovely to see them and feel lucky they made the journey to see me.
The car is now fixed but won’t get it back until tomorrow as the garage didn’t have a driver to come and pick me up to bring me back to the garage to drive my car home.
I got confirmation that my probation period at the uni has been signed off, so I’m glad that’s in the bag, won’t take my foot off the gas though as I want to positively impact the uni and the students I lecture.
Moving the food upstairs for Sophiecat all of one night so back to the 4am wake ups and it’s tough, I do try to go back to sleep but after she’s eaten she just sits by my head and meows until I get up, not even sure what she wants! As soon as I’m up she then goes to sleep on the bed…ARGH!!
Anyway, back at the uni today and we were timetable planning which is like a massive puzzle to solve as we all have our specific subject areas, allocated teaching hours based on the number of days we work as well as all having specific teaching days and it all has to fit together and when you change one thing it could mess up 3 or 4 other things so can be quite complex to work out. I’ve been helping my manager do this as it’s something I get my head around easily and spot clashes and errors.
I was also prepping for our student open day on Saturday which I’m attending so the day has gone pretty quickly. I was lucky enough today that my colleagues picked me up and dropped me home so I didn’t have to get the bus.
The garage called to say that the car isn’t likely to be with me until Friday so a couple more days at home now until it’s fixed! I don’t mind really as I’ve got lots to do, it’s just annoying really (1st world problems)!
Still juggling stuff in my head with what’s happening at the moment – need to find a way to get it out my head so that I can sort through it and work out a plan, just don’t feel like I ever stop long enough to do this, I know I’ll find a way, I always do!!
Lincolnshiregirl 