That is one of the many reasons I decided to leave that job. My last day is Wednesday, and BOY am I excited. This company really is crumbling, and even though I quit 7 weeks ago, after only a few other people quit, now I’m one of the only ones left after everyone else quit in the meantime. I wish I hadn’t agreed to stick around this long (the boss realised how badly she needed me and asked me to stay). Every day it gets harder and harder to get out of bed and face this place. Back on the day I quit, Boss Lady decided I was to blame for all her problems. I’d had a really terrible and stressful two weeks before that, having a lot of pressure put on me while the other web designer was away, so I just snapped when she began to tear into me. Normally at times like that I would retreat, but by then I was just fed up. I stuck up for myself, and showed a side of myself I haven’t let out in a long time. I don’t regret it, but I wouldn’t be hasty in doing it again.

So I have a holiday coming up in July. Much needed. But also needed is a source of income, so it’s straight to Centrelink for me. That’s okay.

So anyway, many things have happened these past months, the most obvious of which for those that see me would be my tragically rapid weight gain. Good god, I need to get this sorted. Office work is really taking its toll. Not to mention the weekly pizza they feed us here, and the many places to buy junk food on the way to the train station. This job is poison in my life. I thought it would be great. There aren’t any food places really close to here except for a liquor shop, I was going to walk to and from Central every day, which is a 25-30 minute walk each way. I was going to be active on the weekend. I was going to keep my life in order with a set routine that included Wii Fit and the Biggest Loser Wii game.

What happened to all that?

Let’s analyse.

• The liquor shop nearby has soft drinks, and it has chocolate bars. When I’m really hungry, they seem like a great idea.
• The weather got colder, it started to rain more, so I started catching trams and buses from Central. Especially since the MyMulti travel passes came in, I’ve been getting buses.
• I’ve been so tired constantly of late that the thought of playing a physically active video game is one of the least appealing things when I’m at home.
• I’m a comfort eater, and work in general (the volume of work combined with having to travel 5 hours a day) has been stressful. Stressful to the point where I have had a recurring apthous ulcer in my mouth since April. I have never had an apthous ulcer (aka canker sore) before.
• Since I get home so late, I either buy my dinner or just eat the most convenient thing at home, which is often something bad for me.

So, as you can see, I don’t have a lot going my way in terms of weight loss. So I hope to turn things around when my holiday starts, at least in terms of activity and physical exertion.

So, hopefully I will get the chance to update you on the goals I’ve achieved since my last post, but I can’t right now, so see you later.

Also on Skippy’s blog was a reference to 101 things in 1001 days, a long-term goals project focusing on doing a set list of things in the ensuing 1001 days precisely. For me, the end date is going to be Friday, 5 October 2012 (calculated using this tool). That’s shortly before the Mayan apocalypse, right?

Anyway, I have finished my list and here it is! I’ll be ticking them off as I go. Currently uncompleted goals are bold.

1. Get a full-time job that I don’t hate
2. Read the Hitchhiker’s Guide series
3. Make one new local offline friend
4. Quit Woolworths (in conjunction with #1)
5. If I can’t buy a house yet, at least save up $10,000+
6. Get down to 85kg or lighter, and keep it that way
7. Get the matching tattoos my sister and I have been planning since we were in England
8. Actually edit a NaNoWriMo novel
9. Try to get novel published
10. Hold the “plank” exercise for 60 seconds or more
11. Go to the gym twice in one day
12. Go to the gym every day from Monday-Saturday (it’s closed Sundays) for at least one week
13. See a psychiatrist about my anxiety
14. Have my gonadectomy
15. Release the first issue of Ather & Earth
16. Visit New Zealand
17. Go on a road trip
18. Go to the beach and go in the water (you’d think this would be an easy one, considering I live right by a beach… but I just never go)
19. Get up early enough to watch the sun rise over the lake
20. Pay off my Barter Card balance and close my account
21. Learn to use a Javascript library
22. Own a smart phone, preferably a Google one
23. Visit the Blue Mountains
24. Find out if I’m allergic to any food
25. Have a shift at Woolworths where I do not want to scream in frustration
26. Go one day without coffee
27. Go two days without using a computer or video game of any kind
28. Go one month where I work on Ather & Earth every single day.
29. Go a month without buying anything made of chocolate or chocolate flavoured or containing chocolate
30. Settle into a smooth weekly routine
31. Drink 2 litres of water in one day
32. Earn over $40k in one year
33. Radically change my hair
34. Spend a night out without having a panic attack
35. Cook a gourmet meal on my own
36. Connect my computer to my TV to become a Media Centre
37. Buy better wheels for my rollerskates
38. Quit playing Bejeweled
39. Visit 24 hour K-Mart between 1am and 4am, just ’cause
40. Visit Jamberoo Action Park
41. Buy a DSLR camera
42. Move to a bigger house
43. Be complimented on my home by a visitor
44. Drink a large Boost Juice
45. Catch and eat a fish
46. Get a perfect score on Rhythm Kung Fu (Advanced) in Wii Fit Plus
47. Refrain from eating anything sugary on Christmas Day
48. Buy that Beatles collection on the USB flash drive in the green apple
49. Make delicious cocktails at home
50. Roast green coffee beans in a popcorn maker
51. Watch all Tom Baker Doctor Who episodes
52. Buy a block of chocolate and eat it over the space of a week rather than all at once
53. Win something. Anything.
54. Finish at least the first draft of at least two novels
55. Get my car’s headlights fixed
56. Build a new shoe rack
57. Learn how to use the washer-dryer properly
58. Go one month without seeing an insect or arachnid in the house
59. Go on a waterslide
60. Get a kitten
61. Meet three people in person that I met online
62. Clean up my Gmail and keep up with all the emails instead of just looking at them all, sighing, and closing the tab
63. Visit Uluru
64. Get revenge on someone
65. Bake fresh bread
66. Go to bed at 9:30pm
67. Spend a full day exclusively in bed except for using the bathroom
68. Make a really horribly designed website for fun
69. Live in the Greater Wollongong area
70. Eat a taco
71. Brew stout beer
72. Make tiramisu
73. Find a cake wreck and submit it to Cake Wrecks
74. Make steak and stout pot pies
75. Consider myself a responsible adult
76. See Melbourne when it’s sunny
77. Finish Final Fantasy V
78. Feel financially secure
79. Skate backwards for three laps at the skating rink
80. Make scouse
81. Make Irish soda bread
82. Make soda bread ice cream
83. Go to Bowral
84. Borrow a book from the local library
85. Make real buttermilk pancakes topped with sliced strawberries and pure maple syrup
86. See the New Years fireworks in Sydney Harbour
87. Have a picnic on the grass
88. Wander the Haywards Bay home display village
89. Take my parents out to dinner
90. Learn how to take care of my car properly
91. Make a sand sculpture
92. Visit Caringbah Shopping Village for the first time since 2007
93. Eat at Outback Steakhouse
94. Buy a deck of Uno cards
95. Visit the Southern Gateway Centre
96. Walk on the Sea Cliff Bridge
97. Stay awake for 35 hours straight, and see if I start hallucinating
98. Get some new bedroom décor
99. Make an animated short
100. Eat at the Nan Tien Temple
101. Go hang-gliding

So, we brought our nephews back home with us, and they’ve been fairly good. They both have Nintendo DSes now, so they’re unusually quiet. I’m liking it! Anyway, I’m under the weather today. I might do a little bit of writing, but I just need to sleep off the overindulgence, I think. I’m going to really get stuck into my projects starting tomorrow. The kids will be going to our caravan in Gerroa (near Gerringong) so I will have some good quiet time, I think. I’ll be going to the van sometimes over the next couple of weeks, but we only live half an hour away, so it’s easy to come home to sleep, instead of being packed in the sardine can that is the caravan.

I didn’t get many interesting presents this year, sadly, nobody really did. See, every year for the past 3 or 4 years now we’ve been doing a “$5 Christmas”. The family agreed to spend exactly $5 on each person, no more and no less. It is getting harder each year to do, due to inflation. And it has seemed to eliminate giving and getting… well, good presents. The only people to get decent presents are the kids, because they do not have the $5 limit.

So, I don’t know, it’s left Christmas feeling kind of anticlimactic for the adults. In my opinion, anyway.

So I’m going to be going up to Sydney today and staying Xmas Eve at my eldest sister Kelly’s place, with my two nephews Jake and Luke, and new niece Meah. Since my nephews demand a lot of time, and I will probably spend a lot of time playing their Wii. I probably won’t get time to do much, if any, writing. Not that I did any yesterday. Holy crap.

So like, don’t expect an update on here for the next couple of days. If I do get a post in, it’ll be a miracle.

I certainly hope to finish the first draft of my novel in the next few days, if I can work on it.

So, I’ll see you round. I don’t expect many people to actually be reading this, though. I only am aware of three people that even are aware of this blog’s existence. If you are not one of those people, leave me a comment (though it may not get approved until after I’m back). Heh. Anyway, bye.

Natalie out.

Late November, I was blessed with a broken fifth metatarsal.

“Blessed?” you ask? Well, okay, so that’s a slight exaggeration. What I mean is that it gave me something of a “free pass” through the holiday period. For the first time in six years, I do not have to face the horrors of working in the service industry on Christmas Eve. Thank you, little bone, thank you so very much.

But wait! There’s more!

Being so inactive, though I’m sure it’s bad for my health, also allowed my creativity to flow, and it’s what caused so many project ideas to form. I was already working on my novel for NaNoWriMo, but most other things surfaced during my idle time.  It really pays to take a time out once in a while. I’ve finally figured out how my motivation works, or at least I think so.

Anyway, I think this has put things into perspective for me. I’ve had a great three weeks of crutch-wielding, arse-sitting and sounding like something out of a haunted house as I walk (clank, bonk, phwoosh, clank…), as Mum put it the other day.

It has also brought to the forefront other medical concerns that I have been putting off. Might talk about that in a future blog.