My irritability keeps me alive and kicking…
– Magazine, Song from under the Floorboards

 

Sometimes when you’re having a bad day, you have a good day. I have often noted that I seem to do better when I have a small inconvenience or minor annoyance to overcome. Case in point – I quite appreciate having a small cold when I’ve got a job interview. It somehow stops me stressing as much. Maybe it makes me live more “in the moment”.

This happened today. I was tired from being up late-ish with my toddler, then I couldn’t sleep because of monkey-mind worrying about money and how to save it, planning a potential trip to Australia, work stuff etcetera. This morning I woke with a scratchy throat after weird dreams.

So you know what? I gave myself permission just get on with it and I was actually really efficient. I dropped the kids at kindergarten and daycare, I went to Migros supermarket to spend obscene amounts of money because it was the Farmmania Jokertag and I wanted to get one for each kid (for the non-Swiss residents: Migros is the national supermarket, which has an annual game of figurines to collect. You get a ‘lucky dip’ packet containing a figurine when you spend a certain amount and on special days they have an extra-special “Joker” figurine that you have to spend even MORe to get. This year the game is farm-themed and today’s Joker was a crappy plastic tractor, but I digress). Anyway, I was home by 9.30am, ready to help Himself start building his website. But he didn’t really need me so I took myself off up to our newly created attic writing space for a couple of hours.

And managed to do some decent plotting, as well as writing a few thousand words on my novel. Oh, did I mention I’m writing a novel? Early days… early days. Mustn’t say too much.

Anyway, then I came back downstairs, paid some bills and we went to lunch. Had a good chat that somewhat allayed my fears about the possibly impending Australia trip (also early days, no more can be said yet!)

Then we went along to the local optician to get my new specs sorted. This is something that’s been hanging over my head for AAAGGEEES. I bought new frames online a while back and since then I have literally stood outside the optician at least three times hesitating… only to decide “nup, can’t face this today” so it was kind of major to cross this threshold. And then, wouldn’tcha know it, the optician RUINED my old glasses. OK so they were on the way out, but she did some funky cleaning thing to the lenses and they’re all peeling and fucked up now! OK so they were already a bit fuzzy, due to being pretty scratched and losing their UV coating or whatever, plus of course I’ve given birth in them – almost twice (I remembered to take them off the second time. Top tip: one does not need to see to give birth!) Anyway, I almost cried when she wrecked them (then did the Swiss thing of saying “it’s not my fault, it’s just something that happened” – yeah but on your watch, lady!). But I managed to turn it around by getting a free express service for the new ones by calling her out. I mean, I didn’t ask her to use her funky cleaning machine on my old faithfuls and they really are wrecked now. Annnyway, so expect a new-look Claire from tomorrow.

Then, because I had to wear my weird “other” glasses (an ill-advised purchase when I was trying to look like Kathleen Robertson in Boss) and I had a story to tell about why I was wearing them, it actually sparked a pretty decent convo in German with the Hort Frau – another win!

Plus, in the midst of all this, I somehow managed to change our internet package to one that’s almost half the price per month (er… let’s hope I don’t experience a crazy slowdown when I go to publish this blog and end up kicking myself). Something that’s been on my to-do list officially for about 2 months. Unofficially for about two years.

Anyway, so the takeaway is – sometimes if you’re feeling a bit crap, it can unexpectedly result in a sweet spot where you give no fucks and just crack on with stuff. I’m sure a psychologist could give a more scientific explanation of this phenomenon, but I’m just chuffed to have kicked some goals today.

And now I’ve written a blog post too. Tchüss !