This Week I…..

Morning! How are you all today?

Honestly this weeks been a bit of a weird one for me. I’ve been quite stressed. I have a tendency when stressed to convince myself I am ABSOLUTELY FINE. But then my body betrays me and I get things like palpitations and random stress rashes and physical symptoms and then I go “Ooooh, I should probably take a day off and spend it in front of the TV watching a Poirot box set”

So, yeah, that’s probably the plan for today. I might even wear a onesie while I do it.

Anyway, this week I….

Started a new job

This is probably a large part of my stress this week! Regular readers will know that Mr Chick was made redundant at the end of August and that our hope is that neither of us will need to return to corporate jobs but can both enjoy the stress freedom of self-employment. (Shameless Etsy shop plug! Great Christmas gifts!)

I thought working as a Virtual Assistant might be a good way to supplement my income. I already have a few clients that I do assorted social media, cheap websites, writing and web design tasks for, finding some more of those seemed like a great idea. So, I passed all the interviews and tests, and am now signed up as a Virtual Assistant with Time Etc.

If you’d like to hire me you get an hour free if you sign up with Time Etc to try it out and you can sign up here! Or if you think being a Virtual Assistant sounds like your dream job and you want in on the act then you can apply here!

The mystery of the disappearing text messages

This is the first of 2 mysteries this week. I placed an order online and they were offering free Collect+ delivery, or £3.99 to get it sent to my house. Seeing as my closest Collect+ point is about a minutes walk from my house this seemed like an excellent deal.

On Wednesday morning I was walking home from the Gym and my phone buzzed. I looked, and on the lock screen were 2 text messages telling me my parcels were at my local corner shop. How handy, I thought. I will pop in and collect them on my way home.

As I walked into the shop I checked my phone to get the collection codes and the text messages had DISAPPEARED. There were my parcels, I could see them, but I wasn’t allowed to take them away because 2 text messages that I swear I hadn’t deleted had just mysteriously disappeared. I still have text messages on my phone reminding me to pick up parcels from 2012. Routinely deleting texts is not something I do.

The nice man in the corner shop then spent 20 minutes on hold in a queue to talk to Collect+ who then gave him another number that I needed to ring to get my collection codes.

You’ll be delighted to know that there is a happy ending to the story and I finally got my hands on my parcels. I hope to never have to spend that long in my corner shop again.

Changed my duvet cover

Normally I wouldn’t think changing my duvet cover was worthy of a heading all of its own, but this is a NEW duvet cover. In fact, it was in one of the parcels in the mystery of the disappearing text messages. Many of our decent duvet covers are very, very old. They are missing buttons and poppers and we were seriously in need of a new one. Preferably a more winter appropriate one than the sailor pin ups we bought from George at Asda last Summer. We also needed new sheets because the new mattress we got last year fits our Ikea bed frame perfectly, but does not fit our old King Size sheets, which means that for a whole year we’ve actually only had one sheet that fits the bed properly and all the rest ping off the corners.

Duvets and sheets aren’t really that exciting a thing to spend money on. Not when there are shoes out there calling my name, but last week I was asked to try out the WozNow sale aggregator service and it seemed a perfect opportunity to find a bargain and also have someone else pay for my new duvet and sheets.

So I ordered this tartan set from Very.co.uk, reduced to £17.50. It’s seasonally appropriate, but not Christmassy, because it’s NOT DECEMBER YET PEOPLE. TAKE THE CHRISTMAS TREES DOWN UNTIL NEXT WEEKEND.

The Mystery of the Missing Tortilla Chips

This is the second of this weeks mysteries, and evidence that I am not having much luck with deliveries.

I ordered my shopping from Sainsburys to be delivered Thursday night. On that shopping order was a packet of Tortilla Chips. We wanted to make nachos on Friday night. Simple enough. I mark everything as no substitutions when I do internet shopping as frankly I don’t trust them not to just swap everything for something more expensive.

The shopping arrived on time, early in fact. In it there were no Tortilla Chips. There was, however, a multi pack of Hula Hoops.

I checked my order, in case I had mysteriously ordered Hula Hoops instead, but it definitely said Tortilla Chips. Then I checked the receipt. That also said Tortilla Chips.

Which means that sometime between putting my shopping through the till and it being delivered to my house, someone swapped my Tortilla Chips for a multi pack of BBQ Beef Hula Hoops.

Why?

Found out I was a little middle class

The last exciting thing that happened this week was that thanks to this comprehensive list in the Indy100 I discovered I am “A little Middle Class”.

Frankly I was astonished. I went to a Grammar School, I live in Norwich and I occasionally shop at Boden. I thought that landed me about as solidly in the Middle Class category as was humanly possible, but actually I am only a little middle class because I don’t own a Mulberry handbag or a Dyson and I had to Google what a Smart TV is (I actually think I do have one of those but I don’t use it to do anything smart as I have BT Vision set top box which does smart things, does that count?).

How was your week?