So, yesterday at 9am I realised it’s new year already, 2022. Before that I thought it’s the last day of previous year! How strange, isn’t it? Perhaps the new year parties are not such a big deal like they are in Poland, that’s why I was mistaken about the date.

I must say I do miss the atmosphere of the last day of the year in Poland. A couple of years ago, me, The Friend, and The Friend’s friend met in Kraków and we had a fantastic time. I was depressed at the time – that was the last new year before my employment tribunal claim and my first psychotic episode – but I managed to have a good fun.

I sometimes wonder how come I managed to get myself out of that misery and come back to a normal life where even relationship with The Boyfriend hasn’t been severely affected (obviously we had some arguments on the way, but not many at all). Perhaps I really am a lucky girl. If that’s true, however, I need to remind myself occasionally that luck shouldn’t be pushed.

Yesterday I set up an etsy store for my patterns but I found it really daunting – preparing a listing takes me more time than actually doing the pattern. Surely, it shouldn’t be like that? I created 6 listings and they’re not even described properly, I will update them when I feel like it but to be honest I doubt to have loads of sales from that. Etsy has so many items for sale that being discovered this way is very unlikely, but then, at least I have a shop there so I can now say I’m a digital artist. Well, I guess I could call myself digital artist even if I’m not selling my work, but it just doesn’t seem right to me – I guess that’s my autistic self trying to fit everything into the pattern that I already know.

I’m worried a bit about the resolution of my images. If it was higher I could create more effects, but then Redecor is a game, not a digital art tool and high resolution is not what most players look for while it would certainly eat more online data.

I managed to pay my service charges on time. I think I mentioned it here, how I am always late with this particular bill – all other bills are paid by direct debit but service charges are payable every three months only and it doesn’t make any sense to me that they can be paid by direct debit. They apparently can but my mind doesn’t want to accept it, and then when I get a bill, I never get to pay it on time.

During the last year I was getting the same bill twice. I guess it’s some kind of error in the council? But who knows, maybe it’s the council hinting me that I really do need to pay it. I guess, as I’m autistic and focused on patterns, a single event doesn’t make much sense to me (bill being sent once only) so I used to wait till I get a reminder. Since they come in pairs I somehow pay on time. It’s really strange, isn’t it? I knew that it has to be paid and yet I wasn’t paying it.

I think I’ll go to my bank and ask for direct debit to be set up for that too. I mean, I could probably do it myself online but I’d then end up worrying I set it up incorrectly, only because it’s not going to be paid monthly.

Oh, and did I say my DBS came back? Eventually! I’m going on training on the 11th. I can’t wait! I hope, after all this time when I was being left to my own devices I’ll be able to adjust to a work environment again.

I had this idea lately: I’m making effort to write about autism specific communication skills that I noticed my diagnostician using with me as I found them really effective, but I didn’t realise they could be used to take advantage of us! It is said that we, autistics, can be gullible and naive – well, I don’t think that applies to me, on most occasions (however, I need to mention here at some point the situation with a mortgage advisor who apllied for a mortgage for me behind my back) but who knows, if someone was using all the correct communication skills, possibly I’d be much easier to be deceived? It’s so difficult now to decide if I should talk about those techniques. But then, if I don’t, I could pretty much close my blog. Well, I don’t know, but at least I have some awareness of the issue.

That’s it for today, I suppose. Since I started creating patterns writing become more difficult. Hopefully with time I’ll adjust and I can do both. I really like having a blog.