Ways to create work for yourself
Passive: do nothing for three years as native wattle trees grow under your wire fence. Wait until the trees are 10 feet tall and the trunk has grown around the wire to remove them.
Active: plant seedlings of a large shrub that grows to over 3 metres in height and diameter within 1 metre of said fence.
Rectifying these problems provided a nice opportunity to reflect on what a useful life skill it is to recognise potential problems when they first arise and fix them while doing so is still relatively easy. I couldn't think of an aspect of life to which this doesn't apply.
What else is going on?
Workwise, I never got a response from the guy at Extra Accounting Job 1 when I said I wanted to do things My Way rather than His Way, but last week I got an email from him asking if I was available for some further work in Jan/Feb. Had market conditions not changed rather dramatically since them, I'd have said "no" or "not unless we do it my way", but as things are the correct answer was obviously yes, yes I am. I'll go in with reduced expectations and disassociate myself from the final product! That time of the year is so hot that it'll be good to have some extra inside work to do.
Fannishly, I'm still working through all the old House episodes and am now most of the way through Season 3. I haven't tackled a fandom with this much canon for a long time. I didn't mind the Tritter arc as much as I was afraid I might - he's a drug addict, after all. I've had a foot problem which means I can't run, so instead I've been spending half an hour on the cross-trainer per episode and the rest of the time doing sit-ups and working out with free weights. I don't think using a cross-trainer is anywhere near as good cardiovascular exercise as running, but it seems to be keeping my shoulders and neck looser than normal. It seems strange to be simultaneously feeling extra-good physically and watching a lot more TV.
Alpaca-wise, we've had Sherry, our first cria from March last year, mated for the first time. Some people breed them at 12 months, which we felt was too early. When Minnie was re-mated in June, Sherry seemed very keen and went to her knees several times as the stud male, a big, older male from some distance away, was led in and out of the yards. We decided to wait a little longer and then use a younger, somewhat cheaper and nearby male for Sherry. She didn't want to sit for him at first and I felt bad - we should have sprung for the more expensive older man for her first time!!
If it turns out that she didn't get pregnant from that attempt, we're going to wait until next autumn to breed her again, since otherwise the cria will be born in the heat of summer.
Personally, I came out to my brother-in-law about slash. (And also about being bisexual, which is much less important to me.) We were discussing how difficult it is to buy presents for people, and I described the excellent system we use in the local slash group of being allocated one person per year to buy a Christmas present and a birthday present for, with a set amount to spend, and the person usually providing suggestions. He asked how it was that this friends group is so fixed and organised that this would be possible. I evaded answering because of the presence of my mother, who knows about slash but is uncomfortable discussing anything to do with sex, but sent him an email the next day saying, "The common bond of this friends group of mine is gay erotica / homoerotic subtext in media". We've since had a long email exchange in which he's honed in on the erotica element and my personal orientation, but not asked about the subtext in media part, which suits me as that's the bit I find embarrassing! No doubt it will come up in the future. I need to get some of my least embarrassing examples ready. Er, those would be...? Embarrassing or not, conversation is so much more interesting when people are honest, so it's all to the good. I should have done this before.
Active: plant seedlings of a large shrub that grows to over 3 metres in height and diameter within 1 metre of said fence.
Rectifying these problems provided a nice opportunity to reflect on what a useful life skill it is to recognise potential problems when they first arise and fix them while doing so is still relatively easy. I couldn't think of an aspect of life to which this doesn't apply.
What else is going on?
Workwise, I never got a response from the guy at Extra Accounting Job 1 when I said I wanted to do things My Way rather than His Way, but last week I got an email from him asking if I was available for some further work in Jan/Feb. Had market conditions not changed rather dramatically since them, I'd have said "no" or "not unless we do it my way", but as things are the correct answer was obviously yes, yes I am. I'll go in with reduced expectations and disassociate myself from the final product! That time of the year is so hot that it'll be good to have some extra inside work to do.
Fannishly, I'm still working through all the old House episodes and am now most of the way through Season 3. I haven't tackled a fandom with this much canon for a long time. I didn't mind the Tritter arc as much as I was afraid I might - he's a drug addict, after all. I've had a foot problem which means I can't run, so instead I've been spending half an hour on the cross-trainer per episode and the rest of the time doing sit-ups and working out with free weights. I don't think using a cross-trainer is anywhere near as good cardiovascular exercise as running, but it seems to be keeping my shoulders and neck looser than normal. It seems strange to be simultaneously feeling extra-good physically and watching a lot more TV.
Alpaca-wise, we've had Sherry, our first cria from March last year, mated for the first time. Some people breed them at 12 months, which we felt was too early. When Minnie was re-mated in June, Sherry seemed very keen and went to her knees several times as the stud male, a big, older male from some distance away, was led in and out of the yards. We decided to wait a little longer and then use a younger, somewhat cheaper and nearby male for Sherry. She didn't want to sit for him at first and I felt bad - we should have sprung for the more expensive older man for her first time!!
If it turns out that she didn't get pregnant from that attempt, we're going to wait until next autumn to breed her again, since otherwise the cria will be born in the heat of summer.
Personally, I came out to my brother-in-law about slash. (And also about being bisexual, which is much less important to me.) We were discussing how difficult it is to buy presents for people, and I described the excellent system we use in the local slash group of being allocated one person per year to buy a Christmas present and a birthday present for, with a set amount to spend, and the person usually providing suggestions. He asked how it was that this friends group is so fixed and organised that this would be possible. I evaded answering because of the presence of my mother, who knows about slash but is uncomfortable discussing anything to do with sex, but sent him an email the next day saying, "The common bond of this friends group of mine is gay erotica / homoerotic subtext in media". We've since had a long email exchange in which he's honed in on the erotica element and my personal orientation, but not asked about the subtext in media part, which suits me as that's the bit I find embarrassing! No doubt it will come up in the future. I need to get some of my least embarrassing examples ready. Er, those would be...? Embarrassing or not, conversation is so much more interesting when people are honest, so it's all to the good. I should have done this before.