Small Steps

I've actually dragged myself out to our tiny front garden and I hacked back a stand of nettles. I've been watching too many of those self-sufficiency YouTube videos and I kept thinking 'there's good eating on these'. I pulled out a huge heap of them which I'm going to stuff into bags to take to the tip once they've wilted a little and reduced the chances of getting stung. I took a few hits as it is and I'm now very grateful for lavender oil and I smell like an old lady's handbag. But look at this - doesn't it look good enough to eat?

While I was battling the nettles, I cleared some space by Gladys, and I found some campers on her leaves.

The two tiny snails looked incredibly cute. 

I'm having to cut Gladys back as she's hanging over the garden and we can't get around easily. And I need to get the worst of the rubbish cleared in the next couple of days as DH has rented a strimmer for the weekend. And when DH gets a gadget, he goes for it with gusto. I expect the garden to be strimmed within an inch of its life. I'm seriously grateful and I want to make things easy for him. 

It's really noisy out with all the fireworks. I was originally considering popping into Aldi because if I go to the right one then they stock Thursday's deals late on Wednesday night and I can get a first pick of the good stuff. This week includes candles and I'm running short of candles, apart from the cute owls. However I don't always feel comfortable going out on Bonfire Night. Accidents can happen and while I'm pretty sure that I'll be safe, if I can stay in, I will.

Speaking of candles, I got a coupon from Tesco for 10% off candles in this week's batch. I did my usual trick of going through and clicking on all the ones that I fancy, knowing that I'll go back and weed out the ones that aren't actually that good at second glance. When the discount came in at over £13, I went back and pruned the list severely. It's not like 10% is a good discount. There will be better sales at other times, often with 20% off or more, or I could call in at HomeSense who have an extremely good discount candle shelf. It's the over-stocks and end of line candles and they're often from extremely high-end ranges. Not to mention it will encourage me to leave the house.

I feel quite good about today. There weren't any major triumphs, but I did a few very small, insignificant steps that were more than I have done recently and that to me is a win. 

Writing stuff - I posted a little bit on chat about why I wasn't writing a Novel in November here. For years, November has been a novel writing month and it's never worked for me, so I decided firmly that I was going to spend November tidying up some loose ends, editing pieces that I should have submitted years ago and generally getting my act together. I wrote the piece last weekend with a view to posting it today (as I said, I'm trying to get my act together), and then I dipped into Royal Road, where some of my unfinished stuff is languishing, and they're doing a Writathon. All (hah!) I need to do is write 55,555 by the 5th of December. Do you have any idea how hard it was for me not to sign up? I was jotting down notes about what I could write and how I could juggle it with other goals and what sort of milestones I'd need to hit - and I shouldn't do it at all! There is a non zero chance that I'll sign up before 15th November (when you are required to have written 25,000 words to stay in the Writathon), and if I do, I'll be ready to beat myself over my head with my own keyboard! I'll share how it's going. 

And I realised that my contribution to Connections E-magazine was overdue so I've been rattling along with that as well. 

Hugs and good health to all.