All change

My life has been completely turned upside down.

In April, my husband died. It was a massive shock and completely unexpected. He suffered a coronary thrombosis and died instantly.

Although we had been apart for a couple of years, we hadn't yet got divorced. This led to numerous problems arranging the funeral, since I was still listed as his next of kin. I had to write several letters giving his girlfriend of the time authority to arrange the funeral, etc.

My stepson, who'd been living with his dad and his dad's girlfriend and her child, came to live with me straight away. Although I'd been planning for him to come and live with me and working towards it, having it happen all of a sudden was a massive shock and adjustment, and cost a considerable amount of money in buying things for him, primarily furniture.

After three months being with me, my stepson's birth mum got in touch out of the blue. She hadn't been in contact for about 4 years, and my ex had told stepson that she had said she wasn't interested. However we now discovered that in fact, ex had not given her their new contact details when they moved house, and she had been trying to get in touch for a while, even travelling up and going to our old house and asking neighbours if they knew where ex had gone. She wasn't even aware that we'd split up.

I took stepson down to visit her for a couple of weeks, and he decided that he wanted to go and live down there with her for good. So that's what we did, packing up all his stuff and taking him down there. More travel! I've probably put 3000 miles on my car in the last three months, and I normally only do around 8000 a year...

So I've gone from relatively-carefree single 30-something, to single mother and widow, and back to single 30-something again in the space of 3 months.

It's all a bit of a shock to the system, and means my priorities are completely upside down. I'm going to have to rethink all my goals and plans. And I've no idea where I am with my loan. I've had a couple of late charges because everything's been so disorganised :(

I've also stopped working at my online job, I've had so little time. I'm still doing some work for them but not the main part of it. Although this cuts my incoming money, I've got plenty of time back that I can do overtime at my main job, and with the dollar/pound strength, I only have to put in 5 hours at my regular job per week to cover what it takes me 12-15hrs only to make. Plus it means I don't have to muck about with tax returns, etc.

In other news, I'm still seeing the fella that I started seeing back in March. He's been very very supportive over the last few months. He's currently living in a 1-bed flat in Derby, but we're talking about getting a place together when his lease expires in January. I know I said I'd never live with anyone again, but he's so easy-going, and he respects my need for "alone time". And he's not put off by the fact that my Mum comes as part of the package, so blimey, hehehe.

Well, this isn't good.

Yesterday I ticked off No.1 on my to do list, which was to reinstall the network and modem on my desktop, then get the case back together.

I managed to do this (after about 10 attempts, because Ticali's install procedure is pants), and was feeling dead chuffed with myself.

This morning, however, I rebooted the machine and after about an hour got a BSOD (blue screen of death.) And then on restarting, I could not connect to the internet, nor even access the network management program.

So I need to decide what to do with it. At this precise moment, opening the french "mock balcony" doors in my bedroom and hurling it into the street is sounding good. If it happens to coincidentally smash through the windscreen of the stupid chav who keeps burning his pimped-out 4x4 up and down the road, then that will be a bonus.

March To Do List

Reinstall network and internet to main PC and reassemble case.
Finish alphabetising books and listing on Amazon.
Resume listing comics.
Investigate ebooks/software listings.
Record LPs to MP3.
Start work on next creative project.

Fixed?

Well, I haven't updated for a while, primarily because I did decide to get a new laptop, through oyyy.co.uk, for which I got cashback on top of a good price anyway.

I've managed to ascertain the fault on my PC, which I'm pretty chuffed about, since a) it hasn't cost me anything and b) I didn't break it!

However this does mean that my desktop is currently off the network. I need to reinstall the network to it... must get that done this week!

There are a few tasks I've been putting off, and not getting as much done as normal, as I have met someone new. Which as everyone knows, is a total time suck, and a big part of the reason why I famously Don't Do Relationships. So this is a very casual thing, and will remain so.

That said, the energy and enthusiasm boost that goes with a new relationship (whether casual or serious) do tend to help one's everyday attitude, and I've certainly been doing well at work, scooping a 3% payrise, 3% cash bonus, and a new development plan to shadow my boss's boss. Win!

Photo credit: clix

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