Who knows where the time goes...

What a busy day! And yet, what have I done? Not a lot that's obvious, it seems. Online teaching really is extremely time-consuming, I find, and a lot of my morning was 'lost' writing messages for students, answering their questions and generally faffing around with the discussion system. And this was after I'd taken a friend to catch a train, thrown the laundry into the washing machine, filled the dishwasher and switched it on, tidied away the breakfast things, fallen over the dogs (twice), had morning tea with a friend who's just back from holiday and came to say hello...

After the online tutoring, it was off to the building site to see whether the rubbish had been removed. It was in the process of going when I arrived, so I had to run (literally) to the bank so I could pay the man who was moving it. After that, I got to peer up the chimney to see how it's constructed and how we can install a log burner safely, and then I needed to call the kitchen suppliers to make sure that we didn't need to tell them about any problems with the merchandise immediately (no time to open up the packages and check them at the moment).

The afternoon was spent looking for gift-wrapping possibilities for the forthcoming holiday festivities as well as grabbing a cup of tea and a sandwich. After much searching of the nearby villages, I found what I was looking for (some hours later), returned to the building site to see that a lot of progress has been made today, went to the local tiny supermarket to get provisions, came home and... did some more online teaching.

I haven't stopped at all today, except for my tea and sandwich. I definitely couldn't have done this twelve months ago; I had no ability to concentrate and a very poor memory as a result of anaemia (I still hadn't been diagnosed either with anaemia or with cancer at this point last year!) And, of course, I was sleeping most of the time. Now, I don't seem to be able to do enough to fill my time - and, today, I found myself being pleasant and smiling at people when they spoke to me! Goodness me, the glass will move from half full to overflowing in no time... And I've learned that feeling positive is an upward spiral...