Well wasn’t April 2023 a busy month? I had not one but two milestones this month, celebrated an anniversary, got stuck in the mud, checked out some live music and finally finished my box set!
April 2023 started on a rock at a rocking concert..
Didn’t bring a chair to the Red Hot Summer Tour? Not a problem, I found a nearby rock! And so I sat there on said rock with a can of Canadian Club watching awesome acts like Bo’Ness, Ian Moss and Troy Cassar Daley (a seriously good pairing that one btw, boy can they play!) and Mark Seymour from the Hunters and collectors do his thing. I’ve been a big H+C fan from way back (I used to rock a tape of their Cut album on my uber cool yellow Sony Walkman growing up) and the last time I saw him in action was yonks ago (where he was plagued by guitar string issues) so awesome to see him rock out on stage again, even with his voice a bit rough from yelling at the footy the night before.
Next time though I’m bringing a comfy camping chair, more friends (the rock was a terrible conversationalist) and plenty of snacks to eat because I really wasn’t up for paying twenty bucks for a souvlaki from one of the vans.
And then days later I found another rock to rest on..
I’m referring to the camping trip over at Mitta Mitta with my best mate and his amazing family. And since we’re camping rookies (well mostly) there certainly was a lot to learn on this mini getaway. I got my first experience of proper 4 wheel driving (and how to get out of hairy situations when the conditions go to hell), ate like royalty, slept very little and helped play Tetris with too much stuff and not enough room in a Mitsubishi Lancer. By the time the next camping opportunity rolls around, I’m hoping I’ll have the Mazda 6 Wagon I’m keen on (yes I’m narrowing the list of cars I want to by right down) to make getting stuff there so much easier. But mud and cold aside, it’s nice to step out of your comfort zone once in a while and try on those things you haven’t done for a while. And it certainly makes you appreciate your own bed when you get home at the end of it.
April 2023 – It was double anniversary month!
April 2023 not only marked my wedding anniversary (happy 11 years baby, I tried to find you something made of steel for the occasion..) but the other anniversary I had no idea was coming, 15 years where I work. Yeah in the past 15 years I’ve worked on quite a few radio stations but all under the same banner and so it came as a bit of a surprise that it’d been a decade and a half since I walked in and decided to give breakfast radio a red hot go.
And now it’s what I’m doing for a living again, breakfast radio, coming full circle from where I started. It’s been a fun ride so far and I have no idea what happens next but it should be in interesting story none the less. (The pic at the top of this post is some of those random 15 years. How good is Facebook when you need to find historic photos? :P)
I also ended up with a little bonus to mark the occasion so the plans of building my own work area are underway. The desktop itself seems to be hard to track away and I’m opting for pvc pipe over metal framework for the shelving and storage but so far so good!
April 2023 – The other milestone
15 years at work and thanks to getting the box set out there, the highest month of book sales I’ve ever ever had. A couple of people bought it, a couple read it through Amazon KDP – all in all it definitely contributed to the success of the sales month.
Yes I know I make more money per month just working a couple of hours on a Sunday and in comparison to other authors, they probably make than it in a few hours. But it’s a new high for me, it’s motivation to keep on going, to keep on writing and I’m loving it so thank you if you checked it out!
(And if you haven’t, here it is!)
And in other news..
Not every month can be full of wins, you’ve got to take the good with the bad:
-Decent bills like car rego, life in general, time away and various memberships meant the savings barely grew and the debt barely shrank across April 2023, but at least they didn’t get any worse. I did manage to reduce my credit card limit by $500 so that’s a win (as well as clearing out some of my shares that just seemed to be dying by the day.) Here’s to a big month of getting back on track hopefully!
-Workouts across the month went okayish given the holidays and social celebrating. After four months down, I’m close to 50% of my workout target for the year so that’s pleasing although there’s been a few workouts where I’ve really struggled to push through them. Like writing months, not all work out times are going to be killer!
Thankfully Fitocracy came back online this month which meant I could keep using the app to record workouts. I know I could do the workout and then work out the points later, but I enjoy see how I go across a session, so welcome back helpful app!
-It was a bit quieter round here visitor wise, especially March after we hit over 100 visitors across the month. In April 2023 the stats show we didn’t get half of that so time to dip into the think tank and create some more killer content! (After the next workout though!)
-Let’s not talk about Supercoach this month hey? If you read this blog then you already know how much a train wreck that’s been so far..
-And I found my car full of coolant…in the back of it. Yes life lesson learned, make sure your put the cap on coolant bottles on correctly. The bottle emptied most of its contents into the spare wheel well – wasn’t that a lot of fun to not only clean but also dry out? The sooner I get a car that doesn’t require me carrying around spare coolant just in case the better.
Right then, onto the next month!