Ramblings regarding my journey through the Cosmos…
This morning consisted of oversleeping and thus being woken up by my Uncle rapping on the door. Damn I’m not living that one down in a hurry!
So this morning’s exercise was fixing a fence that had a tree fall on it as a result of some of this week’s weather. This afternoon was an exercise in catching up on Survey’s and then planning a new Twelve Months Strategy for Shards of Arcadia. Heading to bed early tonight, still quite tired. Seems to be a common occurrence this week.
Well I’ve been very quiet online lately, but don’t take that for sitting in a bottomless pit of Depression. Take it more as a sign I’m busy.
I’ve been working hard on consolidation regular work back into my lifestyle, as it’s easy to fall out of the habit when you’ve been off work for a length of time. It doesn’t matter whether that’s due to holidays, long service leave, long illness or unemployment. Being away from that routine for those of us who fundamentally find it an imposition on what we’d rather be doing with our lives, is dangerous. It’s easy to become focussed on different “realities” and practise our days in ways that don’t easily fit that 9 to five routine.
There’s been a couple of “flat times” but been working out strategies for those days when they happen. I’ve also decided to really push the positivity train from now on, so it’s likely you will receive emails on occasion from me just because I think something is Cheering, Enlightening or just plain wonderful and can lend some positivity to the day of others as well. If you find these emails not to your taste just let me know and I’ll make sure you don’t keep getting them.
I’ve set up a dedicated Studio at home on a trial basis, moving my bedroom to the spare room. Visitors unfortunately will be relegated to the couch at this point in time (unless you are partial to sharing). The hope is that this will prompt more technical work with the camera and associated gear than sitting in front of the computer using software. It’s time to focus on some technique again, as well as becoming fluent with the equipment I don’t use on every occassion, but will be used more so from this point on. If I find that it’s not achieving positive results after six months, I’m most likely changing back.
The car is getting a service and I’ve put “hybrid” tyres on it to facilitate more confidence when going into the bush further now than I used to do. There were several times last year when I made the choice to not proceed some places believing the tyres I had unsuitable. Now that shouldn’t be an issue unless I fancy driving in swamps up Cape York with the Crocodiles!
Moving into October already, it’s hard to know where all the year has gone. However, it’s winding to a close in much better space than it started. Clearly events seem to be unfolding as close to my intended plan as I could have hoped. A good 2 month break from work, and now some part-time work about to start. All that is left is to achieve the right balance between work & required income. Hopefully those conditions will become clear soon.
The hope is that I can manage enough free time to be able to really apply myself to the photography business and create some solid foundations there and still be able to pay for the mortgage & cat food. If I can’t the Furbags may be unhappy to say the least!
I’ve still not yet got the online shop up yet, but I’m prioritising it this week, as I don’t really know how much time I will have after this coming week. I’ve updated the server and the Apache and WordPress installations in preparation for moving over to full SSL before putting the online store up. After consideration I didn’t want to proceed with going live with the production version until the SSL was in place and fully tested. Hopefully that will be sorted by Wednesday and stock will go in the store that day. All looking good, it should go live for the Weekend.
Clearly my Depression has been halted from worsening, and has certainly lessened to the point I’d say it’s improved to the best it’s been ever. I don’t want to say it’s cured, I don’t think I’m at that point, nor if I’ll ever be, but clearly I’m fully functional and been experiencing a significant amount of happiness over the last couple of months.
Awesomeness is…
This is a test play of the four player game to get the feel for it! Feel has an added dimension in this game because these pieces FEEL awesome!
You feel the HUGENESS and otherworldliness of each of H.P. Lovecraft’s Ancient Ones.
So as it stands, the Furbags and I have spent most of the weekend around home and keeping warm.
I took the opportunity to do a couple of things in the study I’ve been waiting for some “significant” reason to make the time to do. Rebuilt a lot of the virtual environments on VMware. I bought a copy of Fusion for the iMac, then decided I liked it so much I could make use of the “Pro” version. The additional features, at least a lot of them were worth having it seemed to me. I’ve been a supporter of Virtualbox for many years, and was quite happy with it most of the time, but every so often it’s bitten me in the arse in some way or another. The Server environment is still sitting on Virtualbox, but perhaps not for much longer. There’s need for some adjustments and that may just entail using VMware for the next incarnation.
As much as I’ve been a fan of Virtualbox with it’s consistency across platforms, even to the point of using it over HyperV in my work environment, things have started to creep in that have left me wondering whether it was time to look at other options. So far I don’t feel I’ve lost anything, and gained quite a bit.
Clearly Chemoux is catching birds too. She brought one in at about 06:00 that was the size of a mouse. Just like her “aunt” she likes to show off the hunting skills but not hand over the prey. Still bloody dark! How do they do it?
Well the week has passed and finished on fairly high notes.
Work has been extremely supportive and we’re shaping some new strategies to help me stay there at this stage. Yes it’s in their interests to do so, I’m a high performer when I’m there. Certainly from my point of view, the longer I can stay at this point the better off financially I can be working towards substituting Photography for my income.
The Bank approved my application so I’ve removed the burden of Credit Card Debt from my outgoings, and that will make a significant difference to my financial state within a few months. Just in time for winter, given that is my worst time of year from a bills perspective. I think I’ve developed the discipline over the last two years to make the most of this opportunity now. I have one expensive item on my list, a Nikon D810, but it will be waiting until I have the cash ready.
The Anxiety has virtually vanished overnight with the response from work, and coupling that with the change in finances, my general disposition is at the highest it’s been in years!
Just need to get some more Cat Food before the Furbags start eating me in my sleep!
Another tough week, but at least there’s been some positive action come out of it, if only because of an unexpected attack of anxiety as well. I don’t normally feel anxious as such. My Depression generally manifests without it. But this week I began to get caught up in a being in a maelstrom of Depression & Anxiety with seemingly no hope of escape.
However I managed to springboard off to another chat with the GP and up the Antidepressants for a period of time until things become manageable again. I’ve also organised to talk with the Bank about rejigging the mortgage to fortnightly payments and suck up the last of my credit cards into the mortgage to focus all my debt in one place with a much lower interest rate. That will make a huge difference to me by the end of this year. I’ve also hooked up with a new Psychologist since my last one has retired and I’ve been procrastinating about organising another one. Just need to get the workplace sorted out for the time being and try and settle in for the ride again.
However with all that good work done this week, I had a bit of an emotional spend. Of course I blame the cat Chemoux; I reckon she’s worse than Tigga, it must be the Kitten in her still. In the cat’s defence, all of them were reduced by 20% or more.
So really what’s happened now up to this point tonight is a spending spree consisting of the following: Descent ver. 2 plus a couple of expansions and additionally the unrelated Battle of the Five Armies. All of these from Games Paradise. However they didn’t have some of the expansions in stock. Then, a quick trip to Ozgameshop and picked up a conversion kit to convert the Descent Ver. 1 characters and monsters for play with Ver. 2. Then slipped over to Bookdepository, and picked up the expansions I couldn’t get at games paradise or ozgameshop. It’s concerning for me that book depository are now selling boardgames.
All in all a good shop, and I can’t actually remember the last boardgame I bought, it’s been a while. I’d say it must have been the final expansion for Arkham Horror being the Miskatonic Horror. This was an expansion for every previous expansion and the main game. I do love my Arkham Horror too.
Well no photography yesterday, but spent most of the day whipping Darriwell into shape. Whole block mown or whipper snipped; shrubbery trimmed, some tiling done in the bathroom, paths all swept, steps cleaned and some fresh weather stripping on the doors. Feeling much better now. Tough to find the motivation by myself, but I seconded Father to assist and managed to get done what would have taken me all weekend in about 8 hours. Not sure how the Furbags feel about it, but I’m sure they’ll find something beneficial out of it all. I have to say I feel much better about having it done now. Depression isn’t conducive to such work being achieved in a hurry.
Well ALL the Bookdepository orders have shipped, the Garmin Oregon 600t Handheld GPS arrived today and also the Impala Blue Cat Deterrents. So Chemoux is going to be pushing for the outside world now. Unfortunately I’ve not yet broached the subject of her arrival with Bob & Jan. No dodging it any longer I guess. Seems like a job for Friday!