The last week has flown by! I’ve been feeling better after my sick days last week and motivated to get back on track with my fitness drive, but now I’m approaching my menstruation time so energy has nose dived and my mood is all over the place.
I haven’t had any real blogging time – or honestly mental capacity! – this weekend to either prepare more TTT posts for my queue or get into my Rouge analysis as I had hoped. But, I did get a few chores done and had a nice day with my family today!
Walking challenges
On the walk to Modor I am currently in Crickhollow, 74 miles in! I had no idea what this is but Fiancé explained it’s a section they cut from the movies where Frodo moves house as a cover for going on the adventure, to prevent nosy Hobbits in The Shire from discovering his real plans!
I also learned from googling it that it’s named after a real town in Wales!
If you missed it last week, I shared a post with a link to the Google Sheets we use for this challenge.
In my Star Trek: Dava v Law challenge I’m at 46km, 28% of my distance and well on track. I got a couple of new mission “postcards” and character cards for Tasha Yar and Beverly Crusher. They might be cheesy but I surprisingly do enjoy unlocking them! I’ve also passed the 20% milestone which means a tree has been planted (somehow) for my efforts.
Jog on
I did the first run for my Garmin coach plan this week, just a 9 minute benchmark run which was fine. However, at the time I didn’t know I had to select the workout on my watching a special way so it didn’t count against the plan in my app and I think I need to do it again! Frustrating but it was only 9 minutes so not a big deal.
I’ve been enjoying trying to see more of the fancy features on my Garmin Venu SQ. I’ve programmed in my strength workouts so it’ll buzz at me for each set and time my rests, I also am finding it only tracks my reps if I have good form which is helpful. It’s fiddly to operate though!
In the Garmin Connect app it shows the muscles that the exercises I selected will target, I really like this! I find it encouraging to be able to picture the effects on my body, and helps understand if I’m doing the exercises right.
Re-reading A Darker Shade of Magic
I’ve been rereading via audiobook A Darker Shade of Magic, I’m about 65% through and struggling a bit. Partly because I hate how the narrator does Lila’s voice (older male narrator so she sounds either like a whiny child or a “cockney fishwife” depending on the scene), but also because I first read this when I was around 24-25 and I think my taste has evolved! I’m finding it a little cringe at times with how cliche the characters are (and the amount of floppy fringes). Though again, the narrator does Lila (an already annoying character) no favours!
It may be bothering me more because I just DNF’d before this To Sleep In A Sea of Stars for being an empty collection of tropes (though A Darker Shade of Magic feels more interesting and original than that) and I’m more sensitive to this fault in books, and the idea of what it means to read “for escapism” – and what a “fun” book is – has been on my mind.
There may be a blog post coming on this topic!
Telly: The Traitors, Severance, The Great & DS9
The last few weeks have been all about series 3 of The Traitors UK, and now it’s over. In general this has been another entertaining season but it didn’t end in a satisfying way. The last second Seer mechanic backfired, and ended in the most predictable way with the most undeserving winners… I hate it when people win through luck and the failure of others (Charlotte was too aggressive and really fucked up, IMO!), when they have been clueless idiots the whole time.
Severance is back and I love it and it’s killing me. I neeeed to knooowww! It’s great to have something to get hyped for all week but those episodes go too fast! I love the new opening credits too, what clues are in there!
I am still really enjoying The Great, Nicolas Hoult is so funny in it. We also continue on with Star Trek: DS9 and I just love how you never know what kind of episode you’ll get – it could be fluff, it could be politics, it could be deeply harrowing. We are in Season 5 and it’s wild, recently we watched the one where they go back in time to a TOS episode (Trials and Trimble-actions – S5E6). Also, the one where Jadzia and Worf try to go on a romantic Risa vacation (plus Leeta, Bashir and Quark) but Worf has a hissy fit, joins a terrorist cult and ruins the vacation for 100,000 people (Let He Who Is Without Sin… – S5E7). Also the one we’re Quark and Odo almost die trying to hike up a mountain after crash landing (The Ascent – S5E9). It’s feeling like we’re overdue for O’Brien to have another psychologically traumatic episode.
What else?
- Hopefully we get the new car next weekend, if everything stays on track!
- I made a spatchcocked roast chicken last night for the first time in ages. It was delicious and it’s so satisfying to pick off the leftovers, and use the removed spine and cooked carcass to make stuck for my soup this week. It’s nice to feel like I get the most out of all the pieces! And they’re all so delicious.
- I started reading Alias Grace on Kindle and I have to stay I’m finding it tough to get into so far. But I will persevere!
- I finished Jessica Jones: Purple Daugher, started reading X-Men on Marvel Unlimited. I tried Uncanny X-Men #1 (1963) but it’s a little bit dated… fun but wow Jean is sexually harassed quite aggressively from her first panel! Ahhhh the 60s. Also, why does Iceman wear booties?! I think I’m skipping ahead to 1975’s Giant Sized X-Men!
- I added a Currently Reading widget to my side bar. Not sure why I never did this before (instead of only having it on my books homepage), but it’s there now! Seems to be working ok!
