It has been a busy few months with Jury Service, Christmas, New Year and a few other changes in life.
Jury Service was interesting, I had a not too taxing case that involved no blood and guts and it was very interesting to see how the justice system works in the real world.
The kids decided to rack up a hefty phone bill by calling 118 118 numerous times so we ended up having no internet access for a while until I could get reconnected with a different phone company, this actually turned out very good and something I should have done a long time ago and it has saved me £30+ per month, silver lining and all that, so the kids are now forgiven.
Christmas and New year was really nice this year, very low stress levels and lots of fun, deciding to keep presents to a minimum cost and only buying second hand made for one of the best Christmas build up decisions we have made as a family, the kids picked all their own presents over a few months by choosing things from the charity shop, they loved this idea and loved their gifts and I loved the low pressure of having to find money I didn't have to appease the 'I want monster'...The money was better spent on the pantomime we go to every year and a trip to see Santa and the only thing that we bought new where the items for the hamper that we gifted an elderly neighbour.
We have ditched Facebook pretty much completely, I log on to the group I admin every now and again to update the things we currently have going on in there, which are a couple of trips I have arranged. I find Facebook far too stressful and offensive, the amount of racism floating about is incredible, it has never been as bad as it is now, the climate for anyone not of the white persuasion is pretty unpleasant at the moment on facebook so I have decided the best way to deal with it is to block it out, there are some pretty unpleasant and awful people on facebook, everywhere you look on there it's racism this and racism that, it's not an emotionally safe place to be hanging out if you are not of the white persuasion at the moment, so we have ditched the facebook and the god awful people on there, and to be fair I have not missed it.
Work has been pretty awesome this Xmas, I was dreading having to do Jury Service smack bang in the middle of my busy season but it worked out good, I seamlessly managed to run them both with ease, gaining my best sales of the year, outstripping last years takings by triple the amount, with very little stress. I made a few changes in the sourcing of my stock and it appears to have paid off, along with a few other operational changes which have clearly worked, I am very pleased with the outcome.
The kids have come on leaps and bounds, Oliver is doing amazingly well with his reading and understanding of English and Olivia is smashing her maths. They have joined a new boxing Gym and continue with Badgers and Hockey, they started attending an Art Club once a month run by Oldham Council which they both love. I have given them my desktop so that they can work online using IXL for maths and English and Khan Academy for random things, coding and lots of other random things they missed out on when they both broke their own laptops, they are both definitely glad to be back online and have understood that you look after technology and don't throw it around as it is costly to replace.
So life is pretty mundane and uneventful at the moment, it's all good on the western front!..
