sunday post

Sunday Post #4

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted at the @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead

Life
It has been a very busy – but very fun – week.

Wednesday, as I mentioned earlier, Li and I went to Exeter for the day. We went to the museum, Yo! Sushi, Waterstones, and Build-A-Bear.

Thursday I had my ADHD assessment – they said they had ‘no problems’ in diagnosing me and that some of my scores were ‘off the chart’.

I followed this up with a free taster massage at a place in town because my shoulder’s been aggravating me. It feels like there’s a huge knot and it’s resting on a nerve, making my fingers go tingly – definitely feels muscular. I went for the taster session because I’ve never had a massage before and I’m generally not a fan of people touching me, but I was in so much discomfort that I was willing to get it done. It was heavenly, I could move my neck and arm without things going crack, and I’ve already signed up for a full hours massage after payday.

Today is Li’s birthday, she’s streaming some Stardew this morning and we have a lazy afternoon planned.

Blogging
I have posted catch-up posts on Weekly Wednesday Blogging Challenge and Book Blogger Hop so I am now up to date on both of those – and hoping to stay on top of them, at least for a couple of weeks. I even managed a Stacking The Shelves yesterday.

This coming week I am aiming to stay on top of the Top Ten Tuesday, Weekly Wednesday, WWW Wednesday, and Book Blogger Hop. I also want to post some drive-by book reviews – I’ve read 25 books this year and have written nothing about any of them. I don’t know if I’ll do all 25, or just the 5 I finished in April.

Depending on how time-consuming work and study are, I would also really like to write a post about my thoughts on ‘classics’.

Cooking
I always cook more when I’m at Li’s and this week has been no exception! My meal plan runs Saturday through Thursday, so thinking back to last weekend:
Saturday – Sweet & sticky chicken noodles
Sunday – Honey & mustard sausage traybake
Monday – Cheesy tomato risotto
Tuesday – Mango chicken couscous

I really want to get my food blog back up and running again, so I can share recipes and ramble excitedly about food!

Reading
This week I have finished The Queen Of Nothing and Diddly Squat: A Year On The Farm.

I have also been reading From Memory to Written Record: England 1066 – 1307, The Hanging Tree, The Night Watch, and Skandar & The Unicorn Thief.

I’m about 85% through Skandar so should finish that this week and the next one is due out at the end of the month

Studying
I am now 87% of the way through my module which is a little bit terrifying! There are only 6 weeks left until my End of Module Assignment is due.

I’ve just finished a unit of work on Childhood in Ancient Rome which was actually really tough because there was a whole section on infanticide and exposing children.

Next week’s work is on mass entertainment in Roman life – gladiatorial shows, chariot races, and plays, and the social aspects of them: which social groups attended the shows, where they sat, and how they reacted to what they saw

My next assignment is due on the 27th of April and is 1300 words arguing either for or against the statement Ultimately it was wealth that determined social status in ancient Rome

Watching
Masterchef came back this week which makes me very happy. Star Trek: Picard continues to be fucking fantastic. It’s been a very disjointed week so there hasn’t been a whole lot of TV watched to be honest, other than a couple of Midsomer Murders while working.

Next week I’m hoping to catch up on a couple of shows – Carnival Row, Grace, School Spirits, Spencer Sisters, and A Town Called Malice. I’m 4 or 5 episodes behind on each so that shouldn’t take too long. There’s also the last Celebrity Bake Off and this week’s episodes of Race Across The World & Masterchef and the Picard finale!

sunday post

The Sunday Post: No spoons or fucks to be found

It has been a week y’all and I am completely done. I’m not planning on doing anything more strenuous today than walking between the kitchen and living room to get food/drinks etc.

So.

Monday at work I was dealing with the fallout of people not processing my Key Engineering Supplier invoices while I was doing Big Project Work. And it was one of those days where I processed… a LOT of invoices. One of the reasons I work slow and steady 90% of the time is that when the shit hits the fan like this, I have the oomph to post like 60 invoices in a day.

I also had a therapy appointment, we’re almost at the end of our sessions and we’re starting to work now on my Staying Well Plan. It’s not as scary as I thought it would to be coming to the end and not having Jeanett’s support which obviously is the entire POINT of therapy.

Tuesday I had a day off work because of a dentist appointment. I knew I had to have a filling and I knew I’d be no use to anyone after it was done. Except… it wasn’t just a filling. It was two fillings AND taking the first mould. I was not expecting that. I was very very glad the diazepam had kicked in before she took the mould because that was overwhelming and horrible. And my dentist was doing a new thing which REALLY helped. She’d be like ‘I need to do [XYZ] and it’s going to take me to the count of 10’, and then she would count out loud to 10. So there was this fixed end point to the current torture and then I could take a break. AND she lets me get up out of the chair and stim which is amazing!

Wednesday I continued plowing through invoices, but also had my introductory phonecall with my new tutor. She seems nice enough, specialises in Roman literature and we had a good chat about how she can support me with my ‘additional needs’, how best for her to communicate with me etc so that was really good.

And then yesterday I had my seasonal COVID booster jab. I was very very anxious about that. It’s at the local football ground and last year was… not good. The parking was very confusing, there was way too many people and I had a complete panic attack/meltdown which neither they or I knew how to handle.

This year I decided to walk – it was just over a mile – because that would ease the parking panic. Plus I sometimes find that walking, the repetitive motion of it, as long as my knees are behaving, is quite calming. So, headphones on and down the road I went. And there was no-one there. One person in front of me, two old people who were glaring at me behind me, and I was in and out in like 10 minutes.
I was actually really glad I walked in the end, I had so much adrenalin built up, and then it was almost anticlimatic so walking home again was a good use for that. Then I crashed, napped, and ordered myself a naughty KFC.

I get to do it all over again next week with my flu jab, so that’s going to be fun

Woke up this morning to the news that I won £89 on the Lottery last night. Treated myself to The Novel Companion which restocked in the week but I didn’t have the budget for. Very excited
I’d initially wanted next years Always Fully Booked planner but when I looked closer at the weekly planning pages, the layout wouldn’t work for the style of planning that’s currently working for me and it wasn’t worth getting just for the reading journal bits. So yes, I’m thrilled!

School also technically started again yesterday, but pretty much my only contribution to that was to tidy up my desk. It looks pretty awesome mind:


This week’s unit is mostly introductory work – information about the module, how the module is studied, links to the pronunciation guide and the study website. I’ve been chatting in the forums already and will probably spend a couple of hours on the intro stuff this afternoon.

Other than that, as long as I catch up on the dishes and read a chapter or so of A Brief History of Ancient Greece, then I’ll be happy.

Here’s to a better next week!

sunday post

Sunday Post: The Queue, lots of cooking, and finally finishing something

The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted at Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news, recap the past week on your blog, and showcase books and things received.

It has been quite a slow, but also sad week. I haven’t mentioned anything about the death of The Queen here before but the monarchy is a special interest of mine, and while part of me has been enjoying watching history in action (and discovering I know the words to the Proclamation!), I’ve also been mourning for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Part of me wishes I could have gone down to Westminster Hall to pay my respects, but while my agoraphobia is starting to ease, just seeing that many people in one place (and no one wearing a mask) is giving me the heebie-jeebies.

Then there’s The Queue. Yes, there’s an accessibility queue for those of us who are unable to stand in an 18+ hour queue (I sometimes struggle to stand long enough to do the dishes), it’s limited and available slots fill up quite quickly. I have, however, spent the last couple of days utterly fascinated by The Queue from a sociological perspective. I also think it’s one of the most British things we could do to honour our late Monarch, and personally find the number of people going to pay their respects to be incredibly moving.

It’s also been the 7th anniversary of my mum dying this week, so my emotions are all over the place.
For example, last night, I discovered the layout of a 2023 planner I wanted wasn’t going to work for me, and the level of sadness I experienced for that definitely felt out of proportion.

Other than that, I’ve been doing a lot of cooking again this week – which reminds me, I wanted to work on the layout for my cooking blog and properly figure out what I’m going to do with it.
Monday I made us Tomato & Courgette risotto
Tuesday was Crab & Lemon spaghetti with peas
Thursday was Slow Cooker Pork with cheesy mash
Last night we had tuna steak with a citrus rub and garlic butter crushed potatoes
I really love to cook!

I had some lovely Book Mail this week – I bought myself a paperback copy of Peter Ackroyd’s History Of England: Foundation when I realized I didn’t want to give the library their copy back. And I also got myself a signed hardback of Dan Jones’ Essex Boys – which was quite the dilemma, actually! I don’t usually like hardbacks, so I was planning on getting the kindle edition, then buying the paperback when it came out but then WH Smith had the signed hardbacks for £8.49

Speaking of books, I’ve actually managed to finish a handful of books, so there should be another round of mini-reviews coming this week. I’ve finished Anne Rice – Interview With The Vampire and Heidi Swain – Summer At Skylark Farm, and I’m on track to finish Mary Beard – Pompeii, Mira Grant – Chimera, Kate Kinsey – How To Be A Healthy & Happy Submissive AND Stephen Law – Philosophy next week!

I’ve also been listening to a lot of 80s/90s soft rock this week (forever my favourite genre) and I shall leave you with my song of the week which is Def Leppard – Photograph

sunday post

Thank you

I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who donated towards helping cover the cost of getting Eliot’s brakes and my teeth sorted. Not going to lie, I sat here and cried. The cost of his repairs is sorted and I have about a third of the cost of my dental treatment covered so the costs are not going to completely wipe out my savings and credit which is incredible to know.

Y’all are AMAZING, THANK YOU SO MUCH

Eliot booked in for new rear brake pads and disks on Friday morning. And I have dentist appointments booked in September, October and November to continue my treatment.

So yeah, it’s been a hell of a week with all that happening: Dentist, the start of my autism referral and being booked in for a screening appointment, I actually made it not only into Tesco but did a real, in-person shop for the first time in a couple of years, Eliot’s brakes crunching, money worries… I’m hoping for a quieter week coming up, so that I’ve got the mental energy to read, play games -do anything, if I’m being honest. My brain is all fuzzy static. This heatwave isn’t helping. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love these temperatures but it’s the humidity that is fucking killing me. It is currently 32c (89.6F) which is glorious but it’s also like 40% humidity. Today is supposed to be the last day and we’ve got thunderstorms forecast. I do love a good thunderstorm.

For a reading update I am currently:
76% of Anne Rice – Interview With The Vampire
71% of Mira Grant – Symbiont
18% of Peter Ackroyd – History Of England: Foundation

I am also planning on starting:
Natalie J Case – Thanátou
Kerry O Ferris – Stargazing
Matt Haig – The Dead Fathers Club

And, like I said, hoping for a much better week ahead!