With the poet testing positive for Covid on Thursday evening, first job Friday morning was moving a couple of dental appointments around.
I was supposed to be in yesterday afternoon for an amputation extraction, then back in again at the end of the month for a filling. We usually take each other for an extraction or a filling, but we can both also drive ourselves if it’s only a filling. With him needing to stay indoors for 5 days after testing positive, that meant he wouldn’t be able to take me for my extraction, and nor would he feel like it either, to be hones.
So I swapped the extraction and the filling around, just in case I had to take myself. If the poet’s feeling a bit better, he can take me and stay in the car. If I tested positive in the meantime, yesterday’s appointment will have been cancelled altogether, and you guys won’t know anything about it until tomorrow.
A filling is likely to take up less of the day than an extraction would (I’m such a drama queen when it comes to all things dental), so the next thing I did was bring some work forward to the sudden gap I found myself with on Monday afternoon.
Today’s post was supposed to be Tuesday’s post, and I started to write it as Monday’s blog post. Then I remembered I had a publication day on Monday. So I put this one to one side and worked on that one instead. It’s been a while since I published a story, more than 2 months. But, all being well, there will be a new one every week between now and the end of September.
My next job was weekly finances. I’m trying to get on top of these so I’m not doing my tax return in a mad rush in the last few days before the deadline. At the moment I’m working on 2024-2025, but I should also be working on 2025-2026 as I go along. I’m getting there with everything else. Maybe I’ll get there with this too.
I seem to have disappeared down a rabbit hole after then, as I have no recollection whatsoever of what happened next. I know I was sat at my desk for much of the day as the poet was in and out of bed and I was doing things he’d normally do when he’s working at home.
I’m sure I fed the birds and I made us something to eat throughout the day, and I think I set up a couple of daily jobs that will eventually bring in passive income. I’d sooner not do these time-consuming jobs that have very little return, but the idea is to do them instead of twiddling my thumbs or playing games. Not that I do either of those things very much, but when I do…
It’s like I think I could be knitting or sewing or something while we watch the telly. I know I can’t read when we’re watching something, and I can have earphones in if the poet’s watching something I’m not. But when I’m watching telly, I feel like I could be doing something else with my hands, and that’s usually playing games.
Well now, I’m playing games for gift cards again and I’ve started to do surveys again. Just little things I can do in front of the telly. That kind of thing. Or as a segue between one block of job time and another if I, say, finish a job a few minutes early and I’ve already done everything else I can do.
On Saturday, before I went out to do the shopping on my own, I thought it wise to do a Covid test on myself first. I was negative, which meant I could run any errands while the poet stayed home and drifted between bed and the telly. He really was very poorly, poor thing, and with his asthma, it always settles badly on his chest.
By Sunday I was feeling a bit green around the gills myself and I was starting to come down with a bit of a cold. Son #2 brought grand-doggy #1 round in the afternoon to keep us company for the week, while they did some essential decorating work at home.
The poet and I had a small session in the kitchen. We made a lemon & blueberry cheesecake and some frozen raspberry and pistachio yogurt bark, both Slimming World recipes, while a joint of beef sat in the slow cooker.
I had a really rough afternoon and evening, and I was up in the night being ill. By Monday morning, I was testing raving positive and I was in bed when Son #2 brought some extra food around for the dog.
I stayed in bed for 2 whole days in the end (we had to cancel the dentist completely), and a bit of a third. Then I was up and pottering about and doing a bit here and a bit there. The poet was still recovering, but we looked after each other and the dog as best we could.
The poet did another test yesterday, which was his sixth day, but he was still testing positive. We must have picked up a particularly nasty one for it to affect us for this long.
So, the barricades are still up and we’re hoping one of us is at least negative on Saturday so we can get food in. We have milk delivered, though. We have quite a lot in. The butcher will deliver to us if necessary. And, of course, we can cook. Both of us can cook. So we won’t starve.
I had to revise the work schedule, but it was a lot easier since I blocked single jobs together until they’re done. I allowed myself 2 whole weeks for every long project, to see how that works, fitting the odd short story and the regular admin jobs in small pockets in between.
This week the focus is on Words Worth Reading: Issue 4, which is supposed to be out before the end of July, and I might still make it. But if it needs to go into August, then it will. I’ve lost 4 working days this week and I have client edits to juggle as well. I can’t afford to be a diva over my own work until my client tray is empty, and it’ll be whatever it will be. I don’t have to kill myself any more for anyone, and I haven’t had to do that for a long time.
In what’s left of today, I’m stitching the last of Catch the Rainbow together and doing a quick edit, as Part 1 of that will be appearing in the bookazine. In a half-hour pocket of time in between the 2-hour blocks, I’m revising The Ace of Pentacles, which will also go in the bookazine.
I won’t have a publication out on Monday, but I’m hoping the next one, the bookazine, will be out on Thursday. One thing I do still have to squeeze in somewhere is the weekly publishing schedule, as the next book is due out on Monday 4 August, and it’s a Wordsworth Flash Fiction. Yes, the files are all there, ready and waiting, and the stories have already been edited and polished before going in the bookazine.
But I have to find time to do the uploads to Draft2Digital and Google Play Books and, if it’s something D2D and Amazon don’t like doing together, KDP.
I hope you both feel better soon.
Thank you!