Crises precipitate change.

Jeez, why do I only blog when things are a bit weird? Ach well...

WHy the title? Well, It's true. It's a song lyric as well, which sticks to something I'm comfortable with.

Things haven't been good recently. Most people won't have noticed this, because it's not something I've let on too much. But there's been a couple of pretty stressful moments, and they've had more of an impact than even I thought they would.

The first issue was my car, the wonderful Fifty Quid Toyota, being delivered a sad verdict when it went in for servicing and MOT. Too much work to do, and too little time and money to do it meant it was officially and End Of Life Vehicle, and time to get rid. A shame, because it was a great car. So, Pyro went looking for something within his budget, which frankly wasn't very much, and came out with a decent little motor. Or so he thought...

A seemingly endless sequence of electrical issue later indicated that it wasn't quite the bargain it could have been. The problems were small, but the stress was pretty immense - I've never had trouble with a car, and have always worked close enough to home that it wasn't a problem if a car wasn't running. But biking the 35 miles up the A1 isn't really an option. So, swear, try and fix, swear more, call out Green Flag, swear even more, take it to the garage etc etc...

In all the swearing, shouting and hemorraging money trying to sort it, I was getting more-and-more stressed, and something had to give - unfortunately that thing was my work. More unfortunately, but rightly so, I got slightly more than a slapped wrist for my poor performance. Disciplinary procedures are not fun for anyone, avoid at all costs.

Those are the crises. So now for the change...

I've looked long and hard at a few aspects of my life that needed a tweak or two, and holistically. It seems that a few problems are sequential. Vis:

I like to sleep in a little, so I don't usually have breakfast. Because of that I'm always starving by lunchtime, so I go to the shop on the business park and get a baguette, crisps, and a bar of chocolate. In the evening, I'm still hungry, so I have a huge portion of food for my evening meal.

This sequence is causing a few problems in itself:
1) I'm ALWAYS hungry. Except when I'm asleep.
2) I'm spending a ridiculous amount on food, so I'm always skint, except for at the start of the month.
3) I'm carrying a little more weight than I want to, because eating a lot then sleeping on it means I'm not burning it off.

So, how do those link to the car? Well, with having to splurge cash on the car, I can't afford to pay £4 a day just for lunch. Solution - make sarnies up of an evening and cut the crisps and chocolate. But a pack of sarnies isn't enough on its own if I haven't eaten breakfast. The solution to that one's obvious - get up 5 minutes earlier and have a bowl of cereal. So that's less at lunchtime, and then add to that eating dinner as soon as I get home, not waiting until 9 o'clock at night. The happy side-effect is losing a little weight. Only a little, nothing stunning as yet. But a start. And saving money has to be a bonus.

This blog post, I guess, is a way of marking a rough start point. I've only just started, and good intentions don't tend to get me too far. But we'll see....

Take it easy

Pyro

Comments

Ross Hendry said…
I hate unsolicited advice but I'm about to dole some out. If your place has a fridge and a microwave then taking in home-made food for lunch is a major winner. Nothing like curry and rice for lunch to set you up for the afternoon.

Apart from that, sorry to hear it's not going so great, you know you're always welcome up here if you want to escape for a bit.
August 25, 2009 at 1:05 PM
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