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Thursday, January 17, 2008

What I've Been Doing

Not blogging, obviously. Although I've still been visiting other blogs, and occasionally commenting.

My part holiday came to an end, and as of this week I am working fulltime again. I am also trying to keep my goals for the year in mind, so here are a few things I've been doing:

1) Walking. I started off the year a bit erratically, but I'm having fewer and fewer days when I don't exercise. Last Friday I went for a particularly long walk, as I reached the top of the track seemingly almost effortlessly, and decided to leave the track to wander across the hills (allowed, as it is a public park even though it is also farmed). And then I came across a barbed wire fence. I figured I could cross it right by the post where it was a little lower, but I got stuck half way across. And I didn't want to rip my good trousers. Eventually after fruitlessly trying to unhook them, I decided that the best way would be to take them off. Once they were down around my thighs, I had enough slack to unhook myself, and I finished climbing over, did up my trousers and turned round to find a mob of curious sheep staring right at me...

2) Transcribing testaments from the 1600's, including those of my 7x great-grandparents. I was about to start writing the first section of the family history - but I've had images of these documents for quite a while, and only partially succeeded in deciphering them. Finding a full transcription of one of them in privately deposited papers in the Stirling Archives, I thought it would help with the others. Think archaic handwriting, archaic language, messy crammed up handwriting, ink blots, and show through from the other side of the paper.

I've also been practising my Photoshop skills by trying to clean up the images in Photoshop to make them more legible.

3) Sweating. It's been hot. Up to 34 degrees (in the nineties, for those of you using Fahrenheit still). No doubt our Australian cousins think that's quite cool, but it is hot for New Zealand, and we don't have air conditioning.

4) Trying to gather information and fill in complicated bureaucratic forms with details of my income so that my son can get a student allowance. It is means tested on parental income for students under 25, and they go on the last tax year. Since our income has dropped since then, we have to have it reassessed.
S. also has to give details of his income. He put "zero" and now they want proof of his zero income, eg a letter from an employer!!

5) Putting all my holiday photos (the ones I had printed, anyway) into an album. And then I found I'd missed one out, so I moved them all so that they would be in the correct order. And then I found three more I had missed out.... yes, I moved them all again! I'm a bit anal sometimes, can you tell?

So, now I should stop blogging and get back to the form filling...

5 comments:

Crafty Green Poet said...

oh gosh, the story about the barbed wire fence made me smile in recognition.... Good job it was only sheep...!

Good luck with the form filling!

Susan Helene Gottfried said...

Hi, Catherine! Michele sent me today -- that story of the barbed-wire fence is a doozy. Good for you for the creative problem solving!

I'm sure the sheep didn't mind.

I hope you soon find another good story like that on your walks.

MsT said...

Thanks for the update on your goals - I have been pursuing one with focus, but I think neglecting the others. I will do a reassessment at the end of the month and see where I am then. Thanks for the inspiration and the laughs with the trouser/sheep story, lol. Hello from Michele's!

Anonymous said...

The sheep story made me giggle. I'm glad it was a four legged creature staring and not a human. Great problem solving! :) Hello from Michele's.

Anne said...

Hi, Michele sent me. I loved the sheep story, had to read it out loud to my daughter.

I saved the Traveling post to comment on later if I should happen to fall after you again at M&G.