Digest 20250202

I am exhausted this weekend so I’ll make this a quick update. Last week was a frustrating one at work where every task I had to do kept getting blocked, so I just felt like I had achieved nothing by Friday! It’s just been a blah week, and then also our new car got delayed because of the storms so our original plans were derailed. Plus I’ve probably pushed myself a bit hard on the exercise considering I am still menstruating, I’ve still got to work out what the balance there needs to be.

I’ve spent most of the afternoon trying to recharge and mindlessly playing videogames. Sometimes I just need that!

Walking challenges

On our walk to Modor I’m currently at Tom Bombadil’s house (also cut out the movies?) at 101 miles. The main news here is it feels like competition within the group is heating up after the first month, and especially within this household because Fiance has realised that the true hack for easy steps is the under-desk treadmill while gaming! This means he keeps stealing my treadmill from my office whenever I’m out the house and then I need his help to carry it back upstairs for me which I’m finding quite annoying! But really I’m glad this is making him move more because aside from cycling to work twice a week (if the weather permitted) he was just as sedentary as me (maybe more so!). This little challenge has so far been good for the both of us!

In my Star Trek challenge, I’m 50% of the way at 81.35km so far, and I have 34% of the time I have myself left so I’m smashing it so far!

I’ve also done three runs in the last week with the Garmin Coach – now I worked out how to start them correctly! I’m doing Coach Jeff’s beginners 5K and so far it’s fine. I don’t totally understand how I’m meant to run to improve my cadence for the cadence drills but I’ll watch some more YouTube videos! It’s hard to do without running faster, which I’m not fit enough for. I feel good about completing them anyway, and it’s not been too tough. Today was my longer run (only 1.8km because I’m a baby beginner!) but I took it pretty easy because I was already tired from my period and the 2 hours long 13,000-step I walk I did yesterday with a friend! The important thing is that I just got out there and did something, even if I did walk more than half of it!

I also completed all 3 of my dumbbell workouts. Towards the end of the week I was getting very tired and feeling weaker but I still did them, I just didn’t push myself too hard. After doing these for a month, and the extra walking, I am feeling stronger already!

Last week was also the first week I’ve passed the weekly intensity minutes goal! I’ve done 204 minutes out of the recommended 150, and I feel really good about that! I keep looking at the app and seeing all the lovely data in there showing the effort I’ve been putting in.

What else?

• It is the end of the month so I’ll write my usual Reading Round-up post at some point this week for a reading update. I’ll just say for now that I turned a corner with Alias Grace and am now loving it! I’m also enjoying on audio The Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll (well “enjoying” may not be the exact right word, I think I’m going to have to speed up to get through some hard to listen to sections).
• Severance season 2 continues to be WOW! It’s only episode 3 and we got there already!
• I continue to think a lot about what reading for escapism means to me, and I have most of a blog post draft for when I have the mental energy to complete it.
• I’ve also been thinking about Atomic Habits a bit again, I may write a follow-up to my review of that with what I think I’ve learned in the couple of years since I read and reviewed that, and why that book still bothered me so much.
• There are The Sims and The Sims 2 Legacy Editions out on Steam now and we got them over the weekend. I loaded up the original Sims for a bit and got hit in the face with the sweet sweet nostalgia. I can’t decide if I want to get back into The Sims or The Sims 2 first!
• I also got Two Point Campus in the sale, I love Two Point Hospital so looking forward to having a twist on that to play. I’ve only got through the tutorial level so far.
• Now I feel like I got into a good rhythm with movement and exercise I want to try to focus on diet more in February, which means getting more organised with meal prep particularly since I’m losing an hour in the evenings to workouts I need something quick to eat that is nutritious and satisfying.
• I bought myself a second-hand copy of Stumpwork Flowers by Sachiko Morimoto which has arrived and is a lovely book. I’m excited to try my hand at that, I just need to get some wire! For some reason I got a lot of mini vases this Christmas (4, why!) so I’d like to try to make some 3D flowers to display in those! I also have a half-baked idea to make my own headband for the wedding, to match the embroidery on my dress, but I think that’s highly unrealistic and probably won’t happen!

That’ll do for this week, I hope you’ve had a good last week and weekend!