Like irritating ants

It doesn't matter where you travel to, life has a habit of following you. You can escape momentarily, but sooner or later, it will find you...

Since I got back home two weeks ago, I have been catching up on life. What a multitude of jobs there are to be done, regardless of where I am. They itch and irritate like ants inside clothing- scratch as I might, they can never all be brushed away, and the multitude soon enough find me when I move.

There was a bit of a backlog because of the break, and it was also time to move on some house maintenance, on our rental house in Cairns and our own home in Smithfield. Then there were the usual bills, and messes that are the result of lost and late mail. There were insurance policies to renew and to change, and new ones to investigate. The bags full of goodies from Australia had to be emptied and sorted into their new homes. Rent spreadsheets had to be updated, body corporate matters voted on, and one tenancy wrapped up and a new one started. Some upcoming leisure moments had to be organised too, like our wedding anniversary weekend which we will spend at a lovely, quiet spa hotel in the mountains at Bukit Tinggi, and this Saturday, which we will spend with my parents who will be in Port Klang for the second stop of their round-the-world cruise on the Dawn Princess. The list I was using was on a piece of paper, because the app in my phone just wasn't allowing me to see the whole enormous picture. The list was terrifying, but I think at last it has been tamed. You know you've made progress on a list when it's time to transfer the unfinished jobs onto a fresh page and discard the tatty mess of crossed-out achievements. It feels good.

The last two weeks I have formulated a new life-timetable for myself, but I haven't as yet been very successful in sticking to it. This is mainly the fault of life as summarised above. Next week, however, I hope to have more success with my new life arrangement. I plan to go with The Inventor two days a week to work with him in the lab. My forte is not lab work or scientific knowledge, but hopefully I can free up more of his time to work on these, while I handle office and managerial tasks. I have also been toying with the idea of doing some further study, because there are some areas that I can see I would be able to help in managing the project but don't feel I have sufficient knowledge to do so adequately. Instead of formal study, however, I have decided on some self-led study, spending the time in advancing my knowledge in areas I feel would be useful. The first area I've started to explore is Project Management and Quantitative Business Analysis, and then I'd like to look at business finance and some economics. I know what you're thinking, and I, too, am wondering if I have just gone a little crazy. But I'm enjoying it, and I love the pursuit of knowledge.

So, that's all from me for now! Back to life!