Inception

Today I had a day off. I decided that I needed to get some rest after dreaming about work and descending into Inception style daydreams while working at the store. I'm pretty sure they don't want me going nuts whilst explaining iCloud for the 57th time in a day.

Whilst I find it easier to recognise when I'm doing too much it can often be illness that slows you down or makes you stop and take stock. Generally speaking we have a knack of pushing at work, in training and in our social life. It is not often that we sit back and chill in order to balance our lives.

So following a couple of chores this morning I spent an hour down at the beach. It isn't summer yet, but the water is a "refreshing" temperature and clears the head for the day. I have to admit I still think I am going to get bitten by a shark every time I swim in the sea. This is not because surfers and swimmers are bitten every year, because they are still a tiny percentage when compared to all the people that go into the ocean. But it is more to do with watching Jaws as child. It is ludicrous, but the best way to overcome these thoughts is to jump in. I just don't go in at sunrise, sunset or when any fish are jumping about ;)

Catherine has been suffering with headaches recently as a result of overdoing it. She has suffered through them for the last 15 years or more, often silently and just gets on with life. I don't know how she produces such great work with headaches that last a week though, I am a wet fish when I get a headache. Naturally I am the person that tells her to relax, sit and take it easy. After years of experience doing this myself I know that it is the best thing to balance out all the running about and worrying. Obviously I appreciate it isn't as easy for her as she is a super organised worrier, but that's why we work so well as a team. I am the sloth; relaxed, patient and slow to move. She is the squirrel; rushing about, smart and organising everything for the future (I was going to say collecting nuts, but that may have been misconstrued). At the end of the day we bring out the best in each other and balance out the worst. 

With Catherine not been feeling great recently it has made me think about what I am doing. I don't want her suffering and I know that if I am around more I can get her to chill out. Mainly this is achieved by doing the washing up and cleaning so there is very little at home she can do but sit and relax. Unfortunately whilst I have been working lots of hours I haven't been on top of these chores and so C has added them to her already manic schedule. "No more!" I cry. I am now limiting myself to 48 hour weeks, so that I have time off to support the little one (Catherine, not a secret baby FYI), whilst still earning enough to live and save in this incredibly expensive place we call home.

I have stopped writing on my "run sloth run" blog for the time being as I am not running. The marathon season is over as it is too hot to run a good road race and the road events are over until next year now. This means that I have returned to the gym to do some weights and get strong for the wedding in January. As I mentioned before I am supposed to carry C across the threshold after we are married. I fear that this could be dangerous in my current state of "runner fitness" and even more so after a few Jaeger bombs, which I believe may be consumed after speeches have been made. I'm happy to say I've thrown myself back into the weights (all be it gradually) and am currently unable to fully extend my right arm after yesterday's session. I consider this an example of how I have neglected strength training over the last few- ahem - months. No matter though as I will be visiting the gym 4-5 times a week to gradually ease back into Olympic lifting and some more serious training. I'll let you know how I go when I am able to type more than a sentence.

Until then, 

Tom :)

Keeping my marbles

Today is the middle of my week. Having started on Sunday I finish next Friday, with a day off before I get stuck in again. The great thing about working a lot is that you don't really know what day it is and lose control of fairly simple brain functions. For example today I didn't know what day it was, I just knew I had work to get on with. Having finished earlier than expect I had a productive but enjoyable afternoon off. I am now typing this post from the comfort of my local cafe, with a lovely flat white in hand. However on ordering a coffee and sandwich I had a brain blip. When my sarnie arrived it looked to be different to what I had looked at and ordered, but my brain struggled to remember if I had actually ordered what I had looked at or just imagined that I had. Food at Sorelle is always delicious, so I was more than happy with what lay before me, even if my brain was thinking of something else as I ate it.

I've had a few people ask me why I am working two jobs. For those that work in retail you will know the answer to that question immediately. For those that don't let me enlighten you. The pay is average. To be fair it is better where I am than other companies, but it's not a lot when you live in the Eastern Suburbs. After I've paid rent and bills I probably have approximately $150 left per week. From that I will have to take $20-30 for transport, so I'm left with around $120. From this I can easily take $30 a week for my coffee habit (hey nobody is perfect), so I have $90 left to choose what to do with. As I am trying to pay off debts and save for a wedding I can effectively write off at least $50. So all said and done I have $40 to spend on social activities. So after this long arse summary you can appreciate why I need to work an extra two days a week. It's all about the money baby!

I got back to strength training in the gym this week and boy am I feeling it! Well actually today I am fine, but after the first session I knew I was back. I'm keeping things stupidly simple and working on the foundations of core, mobility and flexibility without going nuts on the weights. I want to look after my body a little better now that I am in my 30s and have run 8 marathons. Gradually you realise that you aren't superhuman and that your body needs proper rest and rehab after these big events. Sadly my strength is abysmal, so I am starting back at square one. However I have 3 months in which to get strong for the wedding, apparently I am supposed to carry Catherine across the threshold. At this moment in time she would be better equipped to carry me over the threshold!

Talking about work reminded me that I have just started doing workshops in store. After shadowing two I took my first one on Monday. The funny thing was that I was told it would be an iPhone workshop, perfect for starting off easily. However when it came to setting up for the hour I discovered it was actually a Mac session. Not a problem I thought, they are only beginners. The final hurdle though in this experience was that the new operating system had arrived the day before and was not installed on my lesson MacBook. Aghhhh! Having only got it the night before my knowledge was limited. Never fear though, the Tom talk machine kicked in and I proceeded to teach the session on what I knew, coupled with some learning on the fly in order to teach my attendees. I knew all my bullshit practice would come in handy one day! Thankfully everyone found the lesson informative and enjoyable and my workshop boss was impressed, high fives for me! I will now be part of the regular workshop schedule going  forward, so I hope to only get better from here.

Alright. Enough jabbering, I am off to get ready for a picnic with C at the Domain in the city. It's been awhile since we've done anything social, so here's hoping the weather remains sunny.

Until next time,

T :)

Back to normality

The marathon is over and the season has finished for another year. Not that I've let that interfere with work over the last month (I was a lazy sloth), so the title of this post could be misleading.

Normality over the last four weeks has meant working 6 or 7 days a week, but I am not yet convinced that this is the version of "normal" that I want to repeat. Having failed at getting my sub 3:30 marathon at the weekend it did make me think whether working constantly is worth it. The downsides  of working a lot are fairly obvious; I am tired and grumpy most days (yes more than usual), I have less energy to train and I can't do my house husband duties to the usual standard. The upsides are that I have more money to put towards debt payment/saving, I am making a positive use of my days off in the week and I am less melancholic as I have less time to think.

Fortunately I have had some time to think over the weekend and reflect on the last few weeks. My diagnosis of my current work life balance was this, I work a lot and have no life. So as a direct result I am now going to reduce the extra hours I work outside of Apple and take some time off. In doing this I can still earn extra money towards the "debt problem" (or dp for short), without the downsides of grumpiness, fatigue and possible illness. Also with the extra time afforded by removing a day of work I can focus on the wp (writing problem), which has not had as much time afforded it of late. Character development for the book has come on well, but it needs daily treatment to progress and any thing more than a snails pace.

All in all I am feeling quite chipper post marathon. Apple work is going very well and I have a couple of quarterly goals to achieve. Catherine is enjoying work and hopefully with the new plan I will still be "chipper" when my days off come round, so that we enjoy some time together. More importantly there is not long until the wedding, so I have started writing my speech. I hope it to be a tear jerker (with the help of some onion spray) and a solid reminder as to why I should not be allowed a microphone or free reign to speak.

T :)

Relatively speaking

This morning I checked Facebook to see what was going on around the World. I know that Catherine dislikes the amount of time I spend on my phone (yes I am working on this), but I like to know what my friends are up to and how they are doing.

One of my friends from Salisbury posted this link about the size of the Universe and it pretty much blew my mind.  True perspective

This got me thinking, but in a really simple way, on a really basic level. The thought was "shit, we are small and insignificant!" If we are small and insignificant, so are our worries and stresses. When we think and worry about things in life they consume us, they take over our creativity and attack our passion. When I looked through the pictures in the link above I was amazed and at the same time felt relieved. I have always worried about what I am making of my life and how significant it can be. But it doesn't really matter, what matters is that I try to do as much as I can with life, experience as much as possible and make many mistakes. From these mistakes I will learn and develop, I will enrich my life and those around me and have fun doing so. After all, this worrying has made me a grumpy old man, not the happy, funny youngster I used to be.

With all the work I have been doing of late I have started to bring this mentality to work at Apple. I have been having fun and diving into new experiences as though I was a youngster. I love going to work and I love the carpentry work I do with Steve on my off days. At the same time it makes me appreciate the time I have with Catherine and make it fun and enjoyable for both of us.

With work taking over most of my time I haven't been writing much, so the blog posts have been a little more infrequent and the book writing has slowed a little. A great book I have been reading, which has inspired my own writing is Graeme Simsion's "The Rosie Project". It combines a dry sense of humour (mainly due to the main character's condition), with a romance and a great undercurrent life lesson. As I started reading the book again for the second time I discovered that he has just release the follow up, "The Rosie Effect", which I will be moving onto shortly. I just need to get the Melbourne marathon out of the way this weekend, so I can get back to reading and writing more.

I'll let you know how I get on,

Tom :)

Friday at last!

Where did that week go? It only seems like yesterday that I wasn't tapping out my last blog post. I am happy that the week has ended and specifically that I am at the end of another 11 days straight working. I don't know how many hours I am doing at the moment, nor do I care to know, but knowing I have a day off tomorrow is golden!

As you will probably remember I started a new budget recently and have been saving every week. I have reached my meagre $1000 emergency fund and gone past that. Unfortunately I have a tax bill to pay, so that money will be going towards that. This will put me back to zero and I'll have to start again saving for that $1000, before I can start paying off the real debts.

I was following my $50 a week budget quite well, but over the last week I have to admit I've slipped. It takes a good amount of self control not to "reward" yourself with a coffee or two when you are working everyday of the week. It is also hard not to spend money on an evening with friends when you work hard to earn your money. However despite this I am still doing a lot better at managing my funds (if only they were wealthy) and I know that I will make good progress towards paying off my debts over the next few months.

I learnt many things this year, but the most important has been over the last month or so. Nothing in life is free. (Actually I learnt this lesson years ago from my Dad. When I tried to say that something was actually free, he would reply that it wasn't, we just weren't aware of how we were paying for it.) If I want to get out of debt, save for a holiday or buy something I have to earn it. Yes I could get a credit card, but I've been there and done that and that's why I'm in this situation. Working 6/7 days a week may not be ideal, but I am paying for the free ride I took on credit in my twenties. I had a great time with it, but now I have to do the hard work that I have never really done to pay it back.

Being gifted anything is no way to learn value and I have learnt value in the hardest way, by making the worst mistakes. Fortunately I am realising that I can change and I am enforcing that upon myself. I have been lucky to have a supportive family, but there are many that don't have that gift and that is my constant motivation. I have been young and foolish and that is all fun. But it doesn't help when you grow up and realise that although life is short, it's not that short that you can get away from your debts.

So once again I sound like a grumpy old man. Well that is ok, I accept that part of my character and I'm cool with that. It does have benefits as it helps me see reason, be practical and balance my laid back, don't give a shit attitude. Also all this work has been great for my mood as I haven't had time to be melancholy. So whilst I dig myself slowly out of a big debt hole I am powering my positive side in the knowledge that one day I will be debt free. Then I'll truly be able to relax.