Oh that’s better!

A bit of everything, a bit of nothing: that's how I think I'd summarise this week! Both my husband and I are feeling much recovered from our colds, so although we're not yet quite at full power, we're definitely getting there.

So what's the everything? Well, I've cleared space and set up my workspace back in Teen's room while she's away as it's now too cold to be in my garden office. I've been back at work, catching up on the days missed last week, making arrangements for special events, liaising with all sorts of different parts of the organisation, and occasionally even managing to move a few emails out of my inbox! I dream of Inbox Zero while knowing I'll never attain it in this job. Before getting ill I'd spent the previous few weeks working very hard to get my inbox under control and had managed to bring it down from around 270 emails to below 30 and had kept it at that level for nearly two weeks. Then after 3 days off sick, came back to 120 unread emails. Ouch. I'm working hard on getting them down again though. I will not be beaten...

Other than work I've been reading at pretty much every opportunity - my reading log for the month is a separate post (published on 31 October) with brief reviews of the eight books I managed to finish in the month.

I'm working on a small cross stitch which will eventually count towards my craft badge. Teen is keen for me to finish this as soon as possible as I've agreed to knit her a shawl - but that's going to be part of my Advanced Crafter so will have to wait until I've finished the basic one! I have plans for the couple of remaining clauses so should be able to get there soon - but I've been saying that for months!

Oh, and I watched two films and wrote reviews for them, so that's actually finished off Film Critic... And watched another film towards Historian (more on that another time, I suspect!)

And baked a batch of biscuits - some for home, and some to bring in to work to share for a bit of cheer. We're definitely a food-enjoying team, and having discovered that Stork is vegan, I decided to do a batch of my cardamom biscuits, for something a bit different that everyone who's in today could eat. (And, as my line manager put it, there's so much yummy spice in them you can't taste that it's Stork, not butter! She's not wrong...)

Put like that, I suppose it sounds like quite a bit of everything. So what's the nothing? Well, nothing really feels completed. Only one badge was finished in October, more books are on the go, the cross stitch still isn't quite done, I haven't been for a Good Proper Walk...

Given that we're heading into the hardest couple of weeks of the year for me - the first 2-3 weeks of November are full of memories of my cancer diagnosis 4 years ago - I know I need to be kind to myself and focus on all the positives, the achievements, and the hope for the future. I know, maybe I should start the Mindfulness badge... :D