griffinkate @griffinkate@sunbeam.city

I've been keeping most of my furniture and other possessions in a storage unit, but now I'm planning to move it all into my new house. Today I gave notice to the storage unit and they asked what my reason was, "as we may be able to help".

I wonder if this means that threatening to leave a storage unit will get you a better deal on the price? Anyone in the UK tried this?

Aaaaand I've just hired the one removal firm that *didn't* ask me what size van I think I need.

It's a small local company and I think they just have one van, to be honest. Fine by me!

Boomer culture is when you want to share a funny video with friends and family, but you somehow end up emailing them an MP4 file instead of sharing a YouTube link.

#MastoCats You wanted some fresh air. But I want to explore.

Today I'm getting quotes for moving my stuff out of storage. I have quite an accurate idea of the total volume of my possessions, because I know the volume of the storage unit they're in and how full it is.

I have been unpleasantly surprised to realise that removal firms don't seem to be able to use this information to work out the size of the van(s) needed or how many people are needed for the job. 🤦‍♀️

I sorta kinda follow a productivity system called GTD, so most weeks I go through my list of Projects.

But there are always certain things on the list that give me feelings I can only describe as "icky". Maybe I feel guilty because they've been on the list too long...or I'm confused/undecided about what the next step actually is, even though GTD is big on identifying clear steps...or they have some other negative associations...or I doubt my ability/willingness to do them for some reason. These items always stay on the list way longer than other tasks, getting transferred from weekly list to weekly list as the icky feeling grows.

This week I decided to take all these tasks from their original categories and give them their own category called ICKY. I'm hoping that if I stop downplaying the difficulty of these tasks, I'll actually be more ready to do them.

No idea whether or not this will work, but I'll report back.

On Friday I went on a training course and made a couple of new friends. One of them added me on Facebook and I accepted her request.

Then I saw the request again so I distractedly clicked Accept again.

Turns out it was a totally different request and some random woman from my mum's old Zumba class has a very similar first name and surname to my new friend.

She has "Before" and "After" pics on her profile to advertise her (presumably Zumba-fuelled) weight-loss journey.

But I spent an embarrassingly long time looking at them, trying to work out how losing weight also aged her and changed her from black to white. 🤦‍♀️

Sunday sun worship

I've just come across a new French word: "clopinettes". It's in the context of low wages and Google Translate says that to be paid clopinettes is basically to be paid peanuts.

I understand the idiom, but what does the word actually mean?

As part of a whole weird Veganuary-themed range, I saw "fishless tuna" in Aldi today.

So you presumably get to open a tin of something that stinks to high heaven and make all your family/colleagues/housemates gag, but without the pesky beneficial effects of fish oils.

Aaarggh! So it seems my mum planned a surprise for my dad later in the year without telling me. Tonight I accidentally mentioned the possibility of the surprise thing happening, as a joke/hypothetical. I would NEVER HAVE DONE THIS IF I'D KNOWN IT WAS AN ACTUAL THING THAT IS HAPPENING AND SUPPOSED TO BE A SECRET.

My mum could have laughed it off but instead she was upset I spoiled the surprise. Which meant I learnt about the secret I'm supposed to be keeping alongside the person I'm supposed to be keeping it from.🤦‍♀️

I thought she was joking herself at first, but she killed all plausible deniability by making it clear she's genuinely pissed off. Which was his second clue. 🤦‍♀️ 🤦‍♀️

I was still confused so later I got her alone and asked her in a whisper what the deal was and she replied so loudly that he heard from another room.🤦‍♀️ 🤦‍♀️ 🤦‍♀️

I am stressed out about spoiling the surprise but angry about how she took my teaspoon-sized hole and dug it into a giant trench!

I'm ghostwriting a piece about business. It's for a website I haven't written for before, so I've been reading the guidelines carefully.

"All references to specific products, brands, companies or services will be cut."

So I have to write my entire article about a growing trend in the manufacturing world without giving ANY actual examples of real businesses setting/following this trend?

This would be OK if the rest of the guidelines weren't banging on about being relevant and concise and being sure to address the "latest developments in the field".

HOW CAN I WRITE ABOUT DEVELOPMENTS WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO NAME ANY OF THE ORGANISATIONS INVOLVED IN THESE DEVELOPMENTS?

Just found a note on my calendar, written just over a year ago, that basically says: "Hopefully by now you will have managed X, which means you should cancel Y by date
Z. But if you haven't managed it: try not to feel bad, just let Y auto-renew for another year."

Past-Me, thank you for your compassion towards Present-Me.

So, the UK financial regulator tried to simplify the way banks charge people for overdrafts and make it fairer. No more daily fees, no more punitive fees for unarranged overdrafts. Just one clearly advertised interest rate for all overdrafts. The changes happen in April.

BUT, because banks are bastards, they are almost all planning to set that rate at around 40%. If your account spends most of its time overdrawn, this will really affect you.

The Money Saving Expert blog has a guide to who's announced which rate and also info about possible options for switching bank and getting a bit of respite that way. If you're permanently overdrawn, it's really worth doing something before April.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/compare-best-bank-accounts/#overdraftlist