I'm not Dead (or look, I can totally do it when no one is looking)

Well it's been a while, hasn't it? Apologies, I've been in a funky place the last month or so. I've been finding it hard to spread myself to cover even my basic needs since I started at my new job. Oh yeah, I'm employed now. Woohoo!

Despite my sometimes negative feelings about my job, I am grateful that in these hard times I have finally found somewhere that actually wants me. Plus... I have an interview this coming Friday for a similar position (basically a lab technician role) but at a university, rather than sixth form college like my current job. I've got fingers, toes, eyes and everything else crossed that I get the university job. The pay is much better and it'll look better on my CV than working in a school environment, more industrial.

Also, I've taken my first steps towards self-sufficiency and homesteading (in a way). A week ago today I planted a few seeds (lettuce, beetroot, tomato and spring onions) in milk cartons in my kitchen window to see if I could get anything to grow. Turns out I can, sort of. Check out my lettuces and single beetroot seedling:

Beetroot

Lettuce

I think I'm going to have to thin out the lettuce soon, though I'm not exactly sure when or how so I'll be looking that up later today. Any advice is welcome.

So that's a quick update to say I'm not dead and I am in fact moving forward in life, albeit extremely slowly. Maybe that's the best I can hope for at the moment. I may fail at basic housekeeping, or doing anything beyond going to work, coming home and checking on the plants, but I am now working and I have taken the first steps to some degree of food independence. Those are exciting things to be celebrated. Those are two fewer problems than I had a month ago. For all my wallowing in depression when I am too tired to do anything much when I get home, I have achieved two very important steps and I must recognise that.

Hope you are all well and sticking to any resolutions or plans you made for yourself, even if, like me, they are taking a slightly different shape than you had intended originally.

Here, Have My Job (or how my not being employed will benefit the world)

Just a quick post today to share a point I read on Early Retirement Extreme, a blog about gaining financial independence. Part of what worried me about the idea of homesteading was the thought that I'd not be contributing to society. A point was made on ERE that, especially at the moment, with unemployment so high, removing one's self from the work force actually reduces competition for jobs, so in that sense it's good. This really helped resolve my issue, because I realise I can still be a valuable and productive member of society even if not employed. I can run my own business, volunteer, develop some useful hobbies, focus on the homestead. By not being formally employed, I'd be giving my job to someone else. If I was then running my own business, I could maybe even employ someone else. That's two extra people employed than before!

My gift to someone else.

Also I want to say thank you to all the new readers and followers. Actually I'd like to thank the older ones too.I didn't realise until I had a flick through this blogs stats the other day but there have actually been quite a few folks coming by, including in the first month a lot from Romania and now from Russia apparently. Interesting and hello. Special thanks to Stephen and Phelan for sending people this way.

Howdy, Stranger (or good lord it's been a while since I posted, luckily no one is around to notice)

Feel free to skip this post, it's just one of those 'oh god sorry I haven't written' posts, which are stupid and I ought to have known better!

Well hello there. Long time. Come in, have a cup of tea and a biscuit. We should catch up.

OK, here's the breakdown of my life recently:
- look for jobs
- find job charity fundraising on the streets for what would be reasonable pay except that the travel is unpaid and takes up between 3-5 hours each day
- receive miracle phone call from employment agency giving me a few weeks on placement as a science technician in a school
- receive invitations to interview for positions as healthcare assistant in hospital operatingwards (amazingly exciting and appropriate for my life) and also for research technician at university (not as exciting and useful as healthcare assistant job, but would be enjoyable enough and pays 5k extra)
- Oh, also receive interview for job at McDonald's. Begrudgingly accept interview invitation because I will secretly enjoy being a part of the cause of the global health crisis that is OBESITY! Dun dun dun.

Right anyway, so that's that. I apologise to you and to myself for not working harder to stick to the schedule I had set out for myself and to write the posts I actually want to. Life is a lot more settled now, so I'm going to spend the rest of this evening actually doing some writing. Next post soon!

Upping Roots (or moving 200 miles is hard without a moving van)

So although I didn't say officially anything about posting regularly, or specifically on Sundays, that was what I was hoping to do. That got buggered up already because I'm in the middle of moving back to Manchester, where I graduated from university a couple of months ago, from London, where my parents live. Oh well.

I graduated from university in June and had originally hoped to start working at a bar that said they would give me a call as soon as all their student staff left for summer. I guess their student staff decided they'd rather work all summer than go home and be fed and housed by their parents. Long story short, I didn't find a job in time to be able to stay so I had to move back in with my parents until I could find a job and move back to Manchester, where I planned to live with my wholesome Irish boyfriend.

Anyway, I found a job, in London, which will cover rent and all that lark so WIB and I went on an intense flat hunt and found one... with a nice size kitchen counter under a south facing window, perfect for growing things indoors. Plus, as an additional sign this was the flat for us, there was a house plant there that had been abandoned by the former tenant. We adopted him and named him Charlie.

So that's what I've been up to the last week, which is why there's no post on the ethics of homesteading, I've been too busy moving and enjoying the comfort of a bedroom with no bed as it hasn't been delivered yet. Oh, and to top it all off I can't afford a moving van to move all the stuff in my parents' shed up to the flat yet, so it's going to be in stages as I travel to and from London each week for work.*

Oh aaaand I've found a florist that also randomly stocks small chilli plants. Let the indoor suburban homesteading commence.

*I realise it's mad to be commuting to work two hundred miles from where you live each week, but I'm just going to chalk it up to the same spirit (read insanity) that makes me want to homestead. I'm still going to have to stay at my folks place a few nights a week until I find work up North, but at least it's a step in the right direction.