We’re already nearly halfway through January 2025! So far, it has been a busy but productive start to the new year and with so many things I have going on this year I’ve decided to try a new (old) thing on the blog and post personal updates a bit more regularly. This blog is littered with failed attempts at doing this, so who the fuck knows how long this attempt will last this time, so enjoy it while it lasts (and maybe click the heart at the bottom if you do!).
I reckon this time I won’t try to impose any strict format on myself, and just let this blog post be whatever flows out of my brain on the day.
2025 is set to be a busy one, but I also really want to try to keep my little mantra —MAKE IT EASY— in mind and try to enjoy everything this year instead of getting horribly stressed and anxious!
2025 agenda so far:
- Hopefully (finally) getting the long-delayed new bathroom installed. Fingers crossed for the end of Feb!
- Planning to buy a new (to us) electric car.
- Going on a group trip to Venice.
- Getting married in Scotland!
- Get fitter and stronger.
- Feeling good about myself!
- Continuing to push back on my anxiety (maybe finding a social club/group…)
- Continuing replanting our garden, after I put so much work into clearing it last year!
Back to life, back to reality
Oh how I enjoyed the 12 days I had off for Christmas! I love those floaty in-between days where time feels meaningless, it doesn’t matter what day of the week it is and I can chill out and enjoy finishing off the chocolates and biscuits we’ve been gifted!
But that’s over now.
I’ve been back at work since 2nd Jan, so last week was the first full working week. I am very proud of myself though for prioritising movement, it’s so easy for me to get caught up in work and forget to move during working hours. I mentioned my New Fitness Plan recently and the walking challenges I’ve signed up for have so far been a great motivation to use my under-desk treadmill!
Between indoor walking and walks outside I’ve been managing about 6,000 steps a day on average (it’s very difficult to get more than that working from home!), and I’ve already completed my first Conqueror virtual challenge. I made it to virtual Athens, guys! 26 miles tracked!
And they already sent me my medal! It arrived very quickly, and I’m so thrilled that it is just as nice as it looks in the photos.
It’s real metal with lovely designs on the front and back! It is very solid and satisfying to hold. There is even a little coin that pops out from behind the shield!
The medal is great but I was mostly excited to finish this “marathon” so I could start my first Star Trek challenge! I decided to go for the Data vs. Lore one because I love the look of the medal, and I love Data. I’m not sure what to expect from this, I’ve not got very far yet but I understand it should just walk through the story of the episode with some little character tidbits.
The “Walk to Mordor” challenge my fiancé set up in Google Sheets with his friends is also going well. It’s motivating him which helps motivate me! We’ve been going on walks together more often, including some lovely wintery Sunday morning strolls around our local park. In that challenge, I’ve done 35(ish) miles and gotten as far as the Hobbit’s encounter with the Black Rider!
It is interesting to see in spreadsheet the big difference in steps between those of us who work from home and those who don’t!
🏋🏻♀️ Dumb bells
My new fitness plan also includes following a strength training programme, kinda.
In the past, my good intentions were always snuffed out by my lack of planning. I’d get to my exercise mat and just not know what I should be doing or how to do it! This time I found online a basic home dumbbell workout and printed it off to stick on my walls for reference. I was spending too much time getting confused with the vast amounts of fitness Content out there and decided to just fucking pick one, I went with this. No idea if it is any good (that blog screams basic influencer monetisation Content) but it’s something to give me structure for now!
I also took the time to make a YouTube playlist of trainers demonstrating the various exercises. So now everything is there in the room ready to go, nice and easy and I can’t make excuses to myself!
Though I will say, it’s bloody hard to find videos demonstrating at-home dumbbell exercises that don’t require a fricking workout bench! Even adding “no bench” to the keywords doesn’t help.
Anyway, so far so good! I did all three days of the first week in the plan. I did most of it with pathetic 1.5 KG weights because I wanted to focus on form first, I’ll up it a bit this week now I’ve got the idea. Writing my reps and weight onto the chart on the wall made me feel like a proper exercise person, and it’s nice to see it when I walk past that room with it visible from the doorway!
I did almost cripple myself by Friday from the goblet squats and step-ups, honestly, I could barely sit up out of a chair at one point! I was worried about going into the office (for my hybrid day) with my burning thighs! I was concerned I’d not be able to stand up to get off the bus in time, but I managed it!
I have not started my running “coach” programme with my Garmin fitness tracker yet, partly due to the aforementioned very sore legs, but also the weather has been very cold and icy this week and I’m afraid of the slippy pavements! Hopefully, it’ll thaw out a bit this week.
Cars
In other news, we spent this Saturday test-driving EVs! We looked at the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and the Cupra Born. This was quite the anxiety win for me because both times the salesperson came with us and I am such a nervous driver! I’m used to my little Fiesta with its manual gear shift! Thankfully I had driven automatic once before in Canada, when we had the RAV 4, but that also involved driving on the wrong side of the road so this was easier in comparison!
We saw the Ioniq 5 first and I do think it’s a testament to how safe that car made me feel that I did not freak out when, after swapping drivers, the salesman had me pull out a layby on a dual carriageway and immediately cross 3 lanes of traffic… on a busy Saturday morning!
We both loved the Ioniq 5. We had been most excited about the Cupra Born so it was an oddly deflating experience when we saw that and didn’t fall for it as we’d expected. The Born is a great car but the design is very much “boy racer” with racing back seats and very dark interiors, it didn’t feel like me. It was fun to drive, with lots of torque, but it didn’t excite me like the Ioniq did.
This is very annoying because the Ioniq is a lot more money and also a fucking massive car. It’s so big (you can comfortably fit our whole Fiesta inside of it)! I worry too big since we live in the UK and roads and parking spots are not designed for such wide cars. My fiance likened the Ioniq 5 to feeling like you’re driving the Enterprise, which makes the Born more like Deep Space 9′s Defiant!
We’re going to think about it and see what kind of deals are around on preowned ones.
📺 Telly: Silo, The Traitors, DS9, The Great
Speaking of Star Trek, I am still loving rewatching Deep Space 9! Worf has now arrived with adds a new element of fun, I really enjoy his dynamic with everyone and how much he hates being on DS9!
I have tried to get into Apple TV’s Silo, but I have to say on the whole I have not loved it. If you read my book blog you know I love the books, and I re-read them all last year. The TV adaption makes many changes and some rather heavy-handed additions that I don’t think are for the better, and sort of kills the early mystery of the books. There were times when I found the first season compelling (Rebecca Ferguson is a fantastic Juliette) but overall the pacing is a bit rough, and then holy shit is season two boring! I don’t know what went wrong between season one and season two but it’s become deathly dull. I got through five and a half episodes of it and nothing was happening, I’ve decided to call it quits!
The Traitors is back in the UK and IT IS SO GOOD. I can’t talk about it without spoilers but I am loving it. It’s making me shout at the TV just as much as the previous two series did! This is just fantastic television, it gets me so hyped with every episode and the memes are so much fun (God love Linda!).
This morning – since abandoning ship with Silo – I started watching The Great on a friend’s recommendation, and it’s pretty fun. I got through two episodes and enjoyed its irreverent tone. It reminds me a lot of My Lady Jane (RIP) in tone and it’s a very loose approach to historical accuracy! (No magic though!)
What else…?
- I’ve been testing some new hairy styles and starting to explore tutorials on YouTube! I attempted a french braid today which went ok but it’s too loose and most of it has fallen out by the end of the day. From research I think I didn’t make it tight enough and next time I need to keep my hands closer to my scalp… Somehow.
- I finally started reading Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh, after having it on every TBR list forever. It’s so fucking weird and I love it.
- We’ve been playing a new co-op boardgame called Sky Team which I really like! You work as co-pilots to land a plane!
- I’ve been audiobook-ing To Sleep In A Sea of Stars by Christopher Pasolini which honestly I only picked because Jennifer Hale narrates it – aka FemShep from Mass Effect! She’s doing an amazing job and I love hearing Shephard’s voice again. Also the story is pretty cool so far.
- On my new PC (that my lovely fiancé bought me for Christmas) I’ve been intermittently playing the computer game version of Calico, one of my favourite board games! You place and pattern match tiles to make a quilt for cats to sleep on, and the cats all around the screen and you can stroke them. It’s very cute!
The virtual challenge looks really fun! 1.5kg for dumbbells are not pathetic, we all have to start somewhere. Thanks for sharing these updates, I appreciated reading it. 🙂
Thanks Winnie!
I don’t suppose your fiance would be interested in sharing the route and distances for his walk to mordor challenge? It could be a fun way to motivate myself in going for regular walks too. Also, if you’re counting steps and not just distance, do you wear a step tracker and then just estimate how many steps you take in a certain distance?
For youtube, check out fitbymik. I’ve got a stack of her playlists saved for when I’m ready to start. Unfortunately I came down with Covid for the first time just after I had bought the mat and dumbbells and found all these workouts.
I asked him and he said I can share his Google sheet so I’ll figure out how to do that this week and throw up a post.
I am not a LOTR fan so the nuance is all lost on me, but I guess the route the Frodo took was 1000 miles. Fiancé worked out some “stops” along the way so we can chart progress.
We are doing steps (that was preferred in the group) but he has a formula to convert to distance. I wear a fitness tracker and count my total daily steps for this.
I will have a look at that YouTube channel, thanks!
Thanks. I’ll keep my eye out for the spreadsheet. I want to get my bike serviced this year, so maybe I’ll do a combination of walking and cycling to mordor 🙂
I just posted, the link is in there to a copy of the spreadsheet. Hopefully it works!